Currently Watching: July 2009

Meteor - NBC mini-series about an Earth killing asteroid where everyone is horrible, even Marla Sokoloff's character who is the hero of the story turns to a killer, justifiably of course. A complete opposite of the ABC kiler asteriod mini-series Impact where everyone helped each other.

Tonight's conclusion should determine if Earth is worth saving, I'd vote no but Sokoloff is the only thing worth saving.

True Blood - Vampire, shape shifters, religious nuts, mind readers, and something ancient lurking in the deep south. My Buffy withdrawal has been quenched.

Weeds - Never saw the first season and still love these episodes. Funny show.

Nurse Jackie - Edie Falco is a great actress but I still can't feel for Jackie.

Royal Pains - Still funny, it is like MacGyver got a medical degree.

Movies
Eagle Eye -Shia LaBeouf being himself while recreating Enemy of the State by Wil Smith.
Made of Honor - Funny romantic comedy, no surprises.
Immortal - A mixture of 98% CGI and 2% real actors where humans, aliens, and Gods mess with each other in the future. Freaky, would be great if it weren't for all the bad graphics.
Margot at the Wedding - A truly evil sister comes to a wedding and spreads her evil.
Pineapple Express - Action adventure pot comedy. Dumb, not a judgment but the category.
Naked Fear - Joe Montegna must of desperately needed a paycheck.
El Cuerno de la Abundancia - Cuban families try to inherit a large fortune, chaos ensues.


Deaths- Round 2?
Walter Cronkite before my time but a gold standard of news anchors.
Frank McCourt brilliant writer and former NYC school teacher.

EWTWORD

Part of the Eternal Word Television Network, Channel #59

A Roman Catholic channel with no commercials and nothing but religious programming for all ages.

Into Great Silence
A documentary film about what a group of monks do for six months while cloistered. The style is unique with no narration, only natural light, no score, and MTV video like editing. It is compelling enough but it does leave you wanting more details.


Posted on a Sunday.

truTV

Formerly Court TV, Channel #58

truTV was once Court TV a station dedicated to courtroom proceedings and talking about court cases. In New York City cameras are not allowed in the courtroom and because of this the station was never popular.

Actually it was so unpopular that for years it shared a channel with Playboy Television on channel #60. At 8pm or 9pm every night the station would switch from Court TV to Playboy(which was blocked for non-subscribers) and it did not always go smoothly. Playboy added a 1 minute buffer of the Playboy symbol but it usually took 2 minutes for the blocking software to come up and stop the nudity.

Every once in blue moon the software took 24 hours to work. Oh the good old days.

Back to truTV, tagline "Not Reality. Actuality."
A mix of crime-recreation shows, caught on video, and reality shows.

One program that sounds interesting is Man vs. Cartoon where people study cartoons and try to recreate the foolishness. Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner are up next.

Forensic Files is an older show that traces the steps police take when solving crimes. It is good but at times graphic.

APL

Animal Planet, Channel #57

Cuddly puppies during the Super Bowl, need I say more. Puppy Bowl!

Some great documentaries and real life series usually with emotional narration for us to ooh and aah over.

Meerkat Manor: Three Degrees of Separation
The lives of young Meerkats are tested when they spend time apart and some slowly starve to death.

Anything with Steve Irwin, animal cops, or bugs is worth watching.

Anything for kids is not.

SPIKE

SPIKE, Channel #56

Marketed as television for men by this they mean lots of sci-fi and crime show reruns. Original programming include clips of stuff caught on tape and wrestling.

On occasion I will watch a slew of CSI: Wherever or Star Trek: Whichever, even a few of those caught on video shows. Still there is nothing too exciting on this channel that hypes itself as the cutting edge of cable.

MTV2

Music Television 2, Channel #55

When MTV stopped playing videos they invented MTV2 to do nothing but play video.

Then of course MTV2 got rid of videos and does nothing but play low budget reality shows. By that I mean the ones where people eat nasty suff or hit each other until they bleed while laughing. Still these shows go from good old fashion crotch punching to MTV-over-hyped setups. Where all the fun and spontaneity is taken out and everyone gathers to prank each other.

Aside from some repeated episode of Jackass or Pimp My Ride the entire station is a dead zone.

BET

Black Entertainment Television, Channel #54

Again one of those stations, like The Disney Channel I can spend years not watching. A typical channel full of reruns, reality, and a few originals. Focus is on the American black community not much on Caribbeans, Africans, or anyone else.

On a rare occasion when I'm really in the need for a standard sitcom I would watch The Parkers on this channel. Aside from that nothing else is worth sitting through.

MTV

Music Television, Channel #53

Once they had music often bad music but still music. Today they entire 24 hours is reality shows.

Another big problem is that a large percentage of shows they announce is often replaced with something else at the last minute.

The one show I can watch without gagging is Run's House. Former rapper Rev. Run has a big family and they want to be stars. They are also very religious and loving. Like everyone who has a camera pointed at them the family puts on a bit of a show but something are just genuine. When Justine, the mom, lost her baby they kept filming and it was heartbreaking. When Jojo, the eldest son, got arrested for possession of weed you can see the pain he felt but the family worked through it.

Tonight is the season finale I will be watching.

VH1

Video Hits One, Channel #52

The softer side of music has changed into reality crap with retrospectives.

I Love the '80s was a ten part show dedicated to the distant past of the 80s. Since then the have even done I Love the 2000s. Now half their reality consists of remembering the recent past.

Still I do watch and record Jump Start a five hour collection of decent music videos.
I'd list my current favorite videos but I'm afraid it would look like a emotional teen girl's playlist.

E!

Entertainment Television, Channel #51

Where your brain goes to die.

Celebrity gossip with no accountability since they can always redo a show to edit the slander.

The only place to go for live red carpet coverage during awards season. I miss Joan Rivers.

Comedy Central

Comedy Central, Channel #50

Funny.
Stand-up comedians, dirty cartoons, and fake news shows what more can a sense of humor stand.

I watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report every night but I do have to say I enjoy when they go break. They can get overbearing after a while.

The Daily Show went from a simple fake entertainment news show to a political heavyweight. I don't care for politics since it is mostly a bunch of hypocritical-power-hungry-smart-mouths who occasionally do something great. Anyone who take politics serious is a moron and this show proves it. The lying and out right two-faced politicians outted on this show would ruin a career except their zombie like followers always make excuses for the behavior.

Case in point:
New York had a Democratic senate then a coop gave Republicans control then after another coop they became a 50/50 senate and refused to work for a month. Then our former Lt. Governor turned current Governor, after a prostitution scandal from the Governor elected, broke the deadlock by appointing a new Lt. Governor. The fear of a new Lt. Gov. made the turncoats reinstate Democratic control.
Honestly this whole thing would make a great sitcom.

Anchor show South Park barely shows any new episodes and less than half are funny but they did make the network what it is today.