Rome: Episode II

Rome: How Titus Pullo brought down the Republic.

The senate votes to make Caesar an enemy of the state and Mark Antony could not prevent it. Titus Pullo had a fight with some locals and one of them comes for revenge preventing Antony from vetoing the senate.

Lucius Vorenus returns home to find his girls grown up and a new baby. His 13 year old daughter wants to marry and claims the baby is hers. Towards the end we see that the baby is hungry and Niobi, Lucius's wife, breast-feeds the baby calling it her child.

A nice brain surgery scene was mixed in with more sex and violence, no graffiti.

TiVo Fall Preview

For those of you who don’t have TiVo they sent a small fall preview for FOX, UPN and the WB. It shows previews of each show in commercial form. I’ll give my impressions of each show and whether or not I will watch any of them. THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG POST.

First on FOX:
Reunion: Six relatively unknown actors play six friends whose life unfolds into death for one of them over twenty years. We see one of the rich kids let his friend takes the blame and go to jail. The investigator is Matthew St. Patrick, of Six Feet Under.
Verdict: I may watch but it seems kinda wandering & pointless.

The War at Home: Anita Barone and Michael Rapaport play parents of a sexy girl, weird middle son and a young cool trouble making boy. They seem to be a New York family with the typical white stereotypes. The funny moments were when the middle boy is accused of being gay when he isn’t and when the sexy girl bring homes a black boyfriend like her mother did years ago.
Verdict: Typical sitcom and narratives from dad I’ll watch the first episode.

Bones: David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel play FBI agnets who solve crimes, along with four others.
Verdict: I think this is the first failure, I’ll still watch the first episode.

Killer Instinct: Three detectives including Chi McBride solve San Francisco crimes.
Verdict: Crime show nothing special, may watch if nothing else is on.

Head Cases: A wacky legal show with Chris O’Donnell and Adam Goldberg, Goldberg is the wacky one.
Verdict: Seems funny I may watch if it doesn’t conflict with anything else.

Kitchen Confidential: A comedy in a restaurant with many familiar faces and from Darren Star, of Sex and the City fame.
Verdict: Looks funny and good I’ll watch it.

Next on the WB:
Supernatural: Two brothers witnessed something strange when they were kids and now they are adults and after their father goes missing after a “hunt” the brothers reunite to find him.
Verdict: The show looks great I can’t wait.

Twins: Melanie Griffith, Mark Linn-Baker, Sara Gilbert and Molly Stanton. An all-star cast that center around a plain twin versus a trampy twin. Baker and Gilbert are my favorites and Griffith and Stanton, of Passions, play perfect airheads.
Verdict: I also like it even if the sitcom is unoriginal.

Just Legal: Another lawyer show with Don Johnson and some kid. A comedy with heart from Jerry Bruckheimer.
Verdict: I won't watch it unless nothing else is on.

Related: Four hot chicks and one guy are rich and good looking. Jennifer Esposito and Callum Blue, of Dead Like Me, are the married couple. Oh yeah they live in NYC.
Verdict: A new Sex and the City clone, the youngest one is the most interesting, it looks decent I'll watch it if I remember.

Finally on UPN:
Everybody Hates Chris: 1982 Chris Rock's life growing up in Brooklyn.
Verdict: It's the most anticipated show and hopefully it will last, I will watch it.

Sex, Love & Secrets: Denise Richards in a drama about young horny people.
Verdict: Most likely the second failure, I won't watch it.

Veronica Mars: TiVo recapped last season in about a minute and showed nothing of the next.
Verdict: Great show I will watch it.

Top Model: Reality crap.
Verdict: I won't watch it and I hope no one else will, please don't tell me if you do.

Official Lost Update

From: Lost Island Insider

Greetings from the Writers' Room of Lost!

It was almost a year ago that over ten thousand future fans of Lost joined us on the shores of Waikiki Beach, O'ahu, for the Premiere of our two-hour pilot as part of the city's popular Sunset on the Beach series of screenings.

Today, we are proud to announce that Lost will once again return to Sunset on the Beach. On September 14th, at 6:30 PM, those of you lucky enough to live or travel to O'ahu will be able to watch the season premiere of Lost — entitled "Man of Science, Man of Faith" — projected against the glorious background of one of the world's most beautiful beaches!

Now, we know what you are thinking... "this is all very exciting, but what about those of us who neither live in nor will be traveling to O'ahu on that day?"

To show that, here at Lost, we are sensitive to your needs as well, we have decided to whet your appetite with the following exclusive teaser: a dialogue sample, taken completely at random, from Executive Producer and series co-creator Damon Lindelof's original script for the Lost season premiere...

...it's not quite a picnic on the lovely shores of Hawai'i, but we hope this tides you over until our Network Premiere on September 21st!

LOCKE

You're lighter. I can belay you down
and bring you back up just as easy.
Shaft may be narrower down there, too.

KATE

You left out the part where you just
wanna see if I'm gonna be eaten by
something.

And that's all we can show you for now!

Thanks for getting Lost with us!

Prison Break: Series Premiere

Prison Break: Pilot
We meet Michael Scofield at a tattoo parlor with an unseen masterpiece on his body. Next he’s at a bank trying to make an illegal withdrawal. He pleads no contest at the subsequent trial and gets sentenced to five years at Fox River State Penn. He’s in prison to help him and his brother escape.
His brother, Lincoln Burrows, is on death row because he allegedly killed the vice-president’s brother. There is a conspiracy afoot.
On his records we see he has Type I diabetes. We find out soon enough he really doesn't have it and needs an insulin blocker from the outside. He's just using the diabetes to gain access to the doctor's office for the escape.
In prison D.B. Cooper is rumored to be there and that will be Scofield’s money man. Scofield is a structural engineer and was double-secret-sub-contracted to overhaul the prison. His nephew is upset and gets caught with 2lbs of marijuana.
Robin Tunney plays a lawyer ex who goes back and forth with her faith in Burrows. A bishop who would not help the Secret Service gets shot in the head.
The big finale shows Scoflied’s tattoo a huge full upper body tattoo that depicts a demon fighting an angel. He reveals to his brother that the tattoo contains a hidden blueprint of the prison.

Prison Break: Allen
3 days in prison and Scofield is not anyone’s best friend. Scofield needs to get a screw loose and gets threatened. There is also a black vs. white riot about to happen.
Scofield’s cellmate is a Spanish guy who is insecure with his relationship with his new fiancée.
During the riot Scofield gets the screw back from an enemy and is mistakenly accused of killing another inmate. We see him use the screw to open up the toilet.
A group of mafia guys need a person in witness protection dead and Scofield knows where he is, but won’t tell unless the mafia guy helps him. The mafia guy then takes and threatens to cut off Scoflied’s toes, he still refuses to talk and we hear the chopping of the bolt cutters as we fade to black.

The show is interesting not extraordinary like 24 or Oz. I’ll keep on watching for now.

Rome: part I

Rome: Stolen Eagle
HBO’s new one-hour per episode mini-series.
The year is 52 B.C. Gaius Julius Caesar wins the conquering of Gaul and news that his daughter died in child birth of his friends baby. His army's gold standard is stolen, Caesar's cousin Mark Antony enlists two soldiers, Centurion Lucius Vorenus and Legionnaire Titus Pullo, to recover it.
Caesar's old friend Pompey Magnus worries that Caesar's popularity among the masses will bring his downfall. Caesar's niece, Atia, pimps out her daughter, Octavia. Atia also has a lucky 11-year-old son, Octavian.
The stolen eagle starts a war between Pompey and Caesar.

The battles are violent, the sex is graphic, so is the graffiti and they crucify a lot. There was also a blood bath, literally. They had divorce and had other modern things.

All in all not that bad.

Sci-Fi Sunday

The 4400: Mommy’s Bosses
They should’ve stopped at one season. Peter Coyote planned since ten weeks after the 4400 returned to our time. He found that all of the returnees had the ability to become telekinetics and more, so he drugged them to suppress their powers.
Isabelle played with her mommy’s head.
Tom and Diane saved the remaining 4400 with the crazy scientist’s help. The first saved was Shawn and it caused a domino effect of cures. 23 people died while the poisoning occurred.
Kyle is about to go to prison because the good agents turned in the bad ones. He goes to a cured Shawn and confesses the murder, Shawn then cures him of the device controlling him.
BUT I wonder the ball of light that came out of Kyle was that the bad thing or the real Kyle?
Diane was having dinner and kissing geeky-guy when Maia came in and said the war has just started.
Crazy scientist guy was injecting himself with something green and glowing.
Isabelle disappeared and showed up at Shawn’s place naked and all grown up.
As I said before Jordan Collier is alive and on the beach at the lake where they all first came back on a year ago.
Richard went to grab a cup of coffee and it moved to his hand on its own.

Remember Angel they outgrew Angel’s baby; it is what they do on soaps and Sci-Fi. Also like soaps Collier was never going to die, they never kill off main characters on bad soaps and bad Sci-Fi.

The Dead Zone: Saved
Johnny Smith had a chance to stop Armageddon but didn’t and made everything worse.
At least it’s over for this season; I will not be surprised if it doesn’t come back.

TV Guide Aug. 28-Sep. 3

Lost Exclusive on the cover with pictures of Yunjim Kim, Dominic Monaghan, Evangeline Lilly and Jorge Garcia. There is only a sneak preview DVD on the cover-stand version, us subscription folks get screwed. I will not pay $2.99 for a 2-second preview; someone will download it on the web. When they do inform me or I’ll inform you. Inside is a 7-page episode guide of the DVD along with a tiny spoiler.
The pilot cost a record $12 million dollars to make. Episode 4 “Walkabout” which reveals Locke paraplegia is nominated for an Outstanding Writing Emmy for a Drama. Brown sugar is used in all the heroin scenes. Sawyer and Kate are the first survivors to kiss and Sawyer is reading the book Watership Down. Episode 11 has Boone talking about “the red shirts” from Star Trek. Vincent the dog is played by a female Madison. Two scenes were cut from the Series finale involving Claire, Sayid and the plane’s pilot are on the DVD.
The free mini-CD allegedly contains deleted scenes, behind the scenes, a season 2 trailer, a Drive Shaft song and photos from the set.
I did not read the spoilers and don’t plan too, I hate spoilers.

Good things to read inside.

• A 4-page fall photo preview.
  
• That Brat Camp update I blogged a few posts ago.
  
• Maggie Grace of Lost has 3 pages to choose her Emmy outfit; she’s 21 and 5’9”.
  
• Matt Roush reviews Prison Break and likes it.
  
• A 6-page Peter Jennings tribute.
  
• The new Vegas set.
  
• Prison Break starts Monday and looks good.
  
• Rome starts Sunday and looks bad even though the spent $100 million on it.
  
• TV Land celebrates Labor day by becoming TV Landon with a 72-hour tribute to Michael Landon.
  

Here’s a summary of the book: Watership Down
The story is about a group of rabbits, who decide they must leave their warren when Fiver, a young buck rabbit among them, has a strange feeling that something bad is coming. His older brother Hazel leads a small group of rabbits out of the warren, in search of a new home. But when they do find a new place, they discover that they have no female rabbits, and they must find a way to bring some to their new warren.

Sci-Fi Friday

Stargate SG-1: Ex Deus Machina
On Earth a dead Jaffa turns up. Back on Jaffa world Teal’C is having problems rallying support. Dr. Jackson is investigating a disappearance. Carter is not single; hmmm could she be with Jack. Ba’al is alive and on Earth, Gerak violates our air space and captures and kills him, but there are many clones of him so we’ll see him again and again and again.

Stargate Atlantis: Instinct
Off on another strange planet the locals do their best American Werewolf in London impression. They have a Wraith on the loose and Team-Atlantis is hunting it. They track it to a cave and a man claims that the Wraith is his daughter. She was a child crash survivor but her adopted-father thinks it’s another Wraith killing town’s folk.
The Wraith are evolved alien-mosquitoes and a rural doctor has made a juice to make her not feed. The Atlantis people think they can make a serum to turn Wraiths into humans.
The serum was a dud and girl-Wraith has been feeding on people, she took the retro-virus to cure herself and instead turned more savage.
The girl-Wraith had to be killed but like any good werewolf story Sheppard was bitten and will transform.


Battlestar Galactica: Home
Adama is looking for the tomb of Athena. Sharon II has memories of Sharon I. When Adama has his reunion it is nice and sweet until he sees Sharon II and nearly kills her.
Baltar thinks he might be crazy and while reviewing his x-rays I believe he gives the other doctor the middle finger.
Sharon does the right thing and doesn’t kill Adama. At the tomb of Athena we see all 12 horoscopes even though there really are 13. But they have 13 colonies and Earth is the starting point. Everyone is back on track, working together and acting right.
Baltar overhears that Sharon II is pregnant and confirms he’s not crazy or has a chip in his head, so what is going on with him and his shadow.
In two weeks Lucy Lawless appears as a nosy reporter.

Firefly: Safe
Cow rustling is the theme and River is getting in the way. The preacher gets shot. Doc and River are kidnapped and River is found to be a witch. Everyone’s happy at the end.

Next week the will have a Stargate SG-1 viewers choice marathon so no new episodes. I guess they know college started and are giving us a break.

Double Wonderfalls

“Pink Flamingos” when it originally ran on Fox I must of seen this episode half a dozen times. It was the only one I saw. In hindsight this is also the turning point of the show. The first three episodes were straight forward and the animals did not interact, in this one and future episodes they changed there sayings and talked in fuller sentences. I prefer the first three episodes; these seemed forced but still funny.
Jaye starts off her day by running over her father while a pink flamingo tells her to “get off your ass”. At the hospital her dad is having the time of life. When Jaye does return to work her old high school rival is waiting and needs help. With some animal encouragement she agrees to help high-school girl plan a reunion. Black-friend is so upset she plans some revenge. High-school girl’s life is so miserable that black-friend decides not to take revenge but the animals tell Jaye to destroy her. Jaye does and give the High-school drama queen enough courage to start her life over.
They also start showing flash-forwards of other characters.
Jaye’s father finds a blood clot in his leg and Jaye is his hero.

Second episode “Crime Dog” Jaye is in prison for kidnapping and we go back in time to see what lead to this. In short Jaye tries to help her maid after getting her deported to Canada, French-Canada. Jaye learns her maids’ life has been a lie but loves her anyway. The whole family rallies to help the maid and Jaye. Her brother finds her talking to a cow creamer and tries to help. The crime dog is a poster in the police station that also talks to Jaye.

Patrick Swayze Is Alive

Patrick Swayze and Lisa Niemi were at the Borders Book Store on 10 Columbus Circle
New York, NY, yesterday Aug. 24, 2005.
Actor Patrick Swayze and director Lisa Niemi, his wife, discussed and signed the DVD, One Last Dance. In their only retail appearance to meet with fans, we got up close and personal with the famed entertainers and heard what it was like to bring a labor of love to DVD, One Last Dance.

At the signing Swayze was 30 minutes late but was real nice and apologetic about it. He Signed anything available including Dirty Dancing and Roadhouse DVDs. He gave a little background on the struggle he and his wife had making this film and getting it released. He was also anxious to see the upcoming 20th anniversary DVD for North and South. He also acknowledged his birthday that just pasted this August 18, he's 53.

Patrick Swayzes mother was choreographer Patsy Swayze. His education included the Harkness Ballet School, the Joffrey Ballet School, and San Jacinto College. He first performed as a dancer in Disney on Parade. He and his met when she was 15 and a student of his mother's. They been married since June 12, 1975. He also


The DVD info...
One Last Dance (2003)

When a New York dance company's brilliant artistic director dies, three former stars of the company are brought back in hopes of saving the company by resurrecting a dance piece that was created for them years ago, but never performed - the very dance that ended all their careers in a heartbreaking way. Given one last chance to discover a dream they lost, the three dancers battle against time and damaged relationships, finding they must first face themselves before they can face the dance.


Inside this doubled signed DVD was th DVD, of course and a one page insert showing the movies chapters and a few pics, and a insert for a for you to buy a subscription to Dance Spirit magazine for $10.00 a year.

I've yet to see the movie so no review for you.

iPod-CD Shop-Hacking Sort of?

I saw this on the news and it basically says come to this store and burn our CDs then bring them back as many times as you can. Without getting a dirty look from the person behind the register. I don't know if this is new but it sure is interesting. You only get 70% back.


Is it worth it?
Here's the link to his different store location in New Jersey.

TechStyles: Buy, Burn and Return.
Local Music Store Has New Policy For The Digital World.

Brett Larson
Reporting

(CBS) NEW YORK If you want a song now you point, click and download it. You'll get your song, but are you missing out on something? Independent music store owner Gary Scottie says yes.

“Back in the old days, at the hay day of the Beatles you would get a Beatles album, beautiful package, inside you have glossy pictures of the Beatles, foldout posters.”

“I feel like we are losing music as an art form that is collectible. I can see people are putting files on their computer and listening to it in portable format. But we are losing a collectible format that can be past down to generation to generation. I'm concerned.”

So his solution? A more liberal return policy: the idea is simple, you find a CD you like, you buy it (even if you think you like it). Take the CD home, maybe load it up on your iPod. If you want, you can take the CD back for store credit to maybe buy another CD and keep your music collection growing.

“If you want to bring it back we will give you 70% back in store credit. We can put it on a gift card so you can use it anytime you would like or you can use it now.”

His store already sells iPod accessories since many of his customers already have iPod's and although his return policy is a unique concept, customers are definitely interested.

“A lot of people are using it. People understand the policy; they don't really believe that we will give them their money back. So once they get used to it they get comfortable.”

But Gary also has a hidden motive in his liberal return policy, getting people exposed to the art form of music, something he doesn't think you can do downloading one song at a time.

“Downloading a song for $.99 is great if its a one hit wonder kind of thing but explore artist. This is an art form. We would like people to explore new music, hold their CD's and find new songs.” Gary told us.

And as for the future of music, it's not going anywhere any time soon, but what about the compact disc? Gary feels something new may come along to replace the CD, though it likely has a few good years left.

Thank you Brett Larson for the fine report now find this in NYC, for a one-to-one return.