Halloween: Coming Soon

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love scary movies especially on TV at 3:00 AM and during a storm. Everytime there is an unexplained noise in my apartment I turn off the lights and go to investigate, but nothing no monsters, no adventures through a mysterious portal only a damn mouse trying to crawl under the door.

But first regular TV.

South Park: Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow
Cartman and Stan break a damn and the Katrina jokes come flooding in. Nothing over the top and offensive except the constant Jew gold references. This tenth season opener was better then recent years but lost some of its punch.

Drawn Together: The One Wherein There's A Big Twist Part 2
After last seasons very offensive and sexual season these animated roommates took off in a helicopter that was about to crash. When we rejoin them they do crash in the style of Lost and lose two roommates.
Their new roommate is a Strawberry Shortcake Nazi and she is the least offensive thing in the episode. While all the dead characters come back Strawberry gets eaten.
This show is funnier then south Park and more offensive I love it. Everyone is back on this cartoon reality show and getting ready to disgust the masses.

Gilmore Girls: Welcome To the Doll House
Rory is still wondering and getting dumber by the second. While this episode is just a bridge for next week big birthday celebration it was still funny and smart, especially compared to the two previous shows I just reviewed.
The main plot in this episode was the Birkin, a Hermes bag that sells from $10,000 to $64,000( at a recent New York City auction of a black crocodile version). Everyone around Rory gets the meaning of the bag except for the twit herself. It's like an engagement ring.

Smallville: Aqua
Aquaman, AC, or Alan Ritchson whatever he calls himself makes an appearance trying to stop the further evilness of Lex.
One cool part was having Lois coming out the water like Pheobe Cates in her now famous Fastimes scene.
The other cool part was the little in joke at the end...
AC:"Maybe we should start a Junior Lifeguard Association or something."
Clark:"I don't think I'm ready for the JLA yet."

More Quick Updates

Surface: Episode 5
Laura last week tagged a monster and now she is tracking it but if she track it so can the government. The beast is moving fast inland and up river into a populated area.
Miles and Phil lost their pet and must track it before animal control and everyone else find out what is going on. They track it to a supermarket and hijinks ensue. They never catch it but little Nimrod finds his way back to Miles bed.
Rich less crazy but still obsessed calls Laura and goes to meet her. His craziness makes her nervous. They go to take pictures of the monster with a crowd of people who think they are seeing a whale but all evidence is deleted by the monsters electric pulse.
Rich is arrested while Cirko takes Laura into the fold.

Great show, getting better.

Lost:...And Found
This was a nice episode, taking place 4 days after opening the hatch. Sun lost her wedding ring and we see the flashback of how she met her husband. We also see the back-of-the-plane-survivors working together to cross the island safely to meet our favorite survivors.
We also see 12 barefoot people, one dragging a teddy bear, all white...maybe The Others.

ER: Wake Up
John Leguizamo takes over Sherry Stringfields abandoned position as the new doctor that will shake up the ER. He's quick and efficient very into modern toys.
There was a public service announcement with Laura Innes, Linda Cardellini and Maura Tierney talking about breast cancer and some tacky scarf on today's episode.

TV Guide: Oct. 17-23

On the cover of this new large format TV Guide is Ty Pennington with a sledge hammer under the title, TV Guide’s Extreme Makeover. On page one we have Ian Birch, Editor-in-Chief, delivering a message to the readers. He basically says since we have mostly one-hour shows and thousands of channels they must focus on what’s hip instead of what’s on your TV. The cover story is about how TV Guide teamed up with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s two-hour special on 10/16. They offered up 10,000 TV Guide for a secret project on the show. In case you don’t watch the show the project was a wallpaper of TV Guides for a kids’ camp.

Good and new things inside this issue:

• A HOTList, 21 shows in 7 days, 3 per day, recommendation such as Lost and Charmed.
• BREAKING News, Bruce Willis on That ‘70s Show, Vaughn is back on Alias, the FCC on Family Guy, we meet basement guy on Desperate Housewives, Ron Livingston on House, and The 4400 is back next summer.
• There not recasting Walt on Lost because he didn’t grow much. CSI is the most watched show.
• Kevin James and his Filipina-supermodel wife had a child Sept.30.
• Lost questions & answers: The Dharma film was spliced by a previous resident and the missing scenes lead to something. Walt said “Push the button. Don’t push the button, bad.”. Although that encounter was a dream it means something for the 108 countdown. Desmond will be back. Time is never mentioned on the show, THEY NEVER SAID THE PLANE CRASHED IN 2004, NO ELECTIONS OR HISTORY IS EVER MENTIONED. In November we find out how all the Rutherfords are related. The two Helens of Locke are explained.
• Matt Roush likes My Name Is Earl.
• Veronica Cartwright’s history as a scream queen.
• Alfre Woodard interview.
• An A-Z guide to Desperate Housewives.
• Photo Booth: cool pics and cool trivia for each person.
• Radar a shopping guide for the crap on TV shows.
• Tyler James Williams interview.
• Kari Wuhrer was fired from General Hospital and Passions is going anime.
• The grid and listings section is replaced with This Week featuring recaps of top shows, a movie guide with only four or three star movies. A daytime guide, a prime time guide and highlights for each day and then a late night guide all in 39 glossy pages.
• They added the game SUDUKO to the crossword puzzle in the back.

Finally Judgment: The format is okay, I never used the grid since I got TiVo so no big loss, the per day highlights may become useful. The focus on only popular shows is somewhat disconcerting. The articles are better and long enough to be interesting. Also I didn’t lose this issue as I usually do with the small versions. I give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Quick Updates/Mid-Term Madness

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
The last couple of episodes, one was titled 911, had the two main officers in Emmy getting roles. One had Mariska Hargitay leaving her date behind to help a kidnapped girl get rescued somewhere in the Tri-State area only to lose her phone connection and finding her buried alive.
The other has Christopher Meloni once again losing control and breaking the rules to help a friend, we also learn why he is so on edge when he visits a therapist.
This show gets better and better without all that undeserved hype ER is getting, frankly ER is getting worse.

Freddie: Rich Man, Poor Girl
Wow, this show is annoying, Freddie Prinze Jr. star as a chef whose female-family lives with him in an upscale apartment. He is single and dating with his best friend played by Brian Austin Green.
The worst part is the grandmother who refuses to speak English, while I've met people like her I still hate it.
This is not the pilot episode they changed things up and the pilot will be the second episode, thats never a good sign.

Lost: Everbody Hates Hugo
Finally the day after opening the hatch. It was a great episode dealing with Hurley's insecurities. We also see the other survivors of Flight 815 and we meet Rose's husband. There was a cute little dream sequence having Jin speaking English and a milk container that has a picture of Walt on the side under the missing sign.

Ghost Whisperer: Mended Hearts
The show is getting slightly better, today we saw a ghost creepily laughing at her, as if a storyline is building.
The shows main problem is that they don't have continuity, the Asian family from episode 2 is not even mentioned since that one.

Wonderfalls: Totem Mole
They try to explain why Jaye talks to the animals but she never finds out truly. She also gets to talk to a Native-American-Canadian Indian-Ghost/Spirit and we they show us more supernatural stuff.
They will have a marathon on LOGO starting Saturday at 9AM before the series finale next week. Wonderfalls Windfall

Surface & Other Good Shows

Surface: Episode 4
Miles little pet is now dog-gone hungry and all his friends know.
Rich has gone mad but takes a dip where he lost his brother and finally calms down, even after losing his job and his family for know. Although he everyone thinks he's crazy one of his weird drawings turns out to be something that really exists. So the question is how is he getting hints from his dead brother?
Laura is still struggling with money but she gets and old friend to try to tag on of the monsters. The find a pod of dead Humpback whales and she gets to GPS-tag one monster. They had a mini-marathon today on Sci-Fi, got to rewatch the first episode it is even better the second time around.

Grey's Anatomy: Make Me Lose Control
No abortion but a miscarriage, how convenient. This show is as close to a soap opera that a show can get. Grey's mother is admitted with a benign liver tumor and the whole hospital finds out how far she has fallen from her top doc position.

Gilmore Girls: We've Got Magic To Do
Those evil Huntzbergers are at Rory's party and once again Rory is wussing out, again. Grandma Gilmore is suspicious of Rory's activities. Grandma ripped into Mrs. Huntzberger after finding out the truth, it's a shame they didn't get into a smackdown.

TV Guide: Oct. 9-16 Goodbye?

The final small-size edition a true collectors edition and they milk it for all it's worth with 9 different covers. The cover I got has Reba McEntire and Lucille Ball in a two-page cover in identical poses. The other covers are..

1. Greg Gumbel & Dan Marino as Philip Michael Thomas & Don Johnson
2. The guys from Scrubs as the guys from M*A*S*H
3. John Cryer & Charlie Sheen as Tony Randall & Jack Klugman
4. Regis & Kelly as I dream of Jeannie stars
5. Reba McEntire as Lucille Ball
6. Conan O'Brian as Bob Smith
7. Jennifer Love Hewitt as Sally Fields
8. Homer Simpson as Fred Flintstone
9. The cast of The Bernie Mac Show as the cast of Good Times.

A 53-page article accompanies the front cover that is titled Then & Now, they've been publishing in small size for 53 years.

Some Then & Now highlights:

• Matt Roush learn to read and criticize with TV Guide.
• TV Guide as a collectable, the first national issue was April 3, 1953 with Lucille Ball & her baby is $2,000, the most valuable is the January 23, 1953 pre-national only for New York issue with Marilyn Monroe at $3,000. Rouger Hornberger a collector has 4,439 issues missing only 28.
• Interviews with all the cover stars of this issue.
• Fred and Barney were smokers.
• Quotes and pictures from every decade starting in the 50's.
• Cheers was to be set in a hotel.

Other Things inside:

• TV Guide Emmy after party picks.
• Wilmer Valderrama bumped into half a dozen exes at the party.
• Jorge Garcia lost some weight.Josh Hollway showed off his wife.
• Is Vaughn really dead?
• Kirsten Johnson, John Stamos and John Leguizamo will all be on ER, hmmmm, I see a "John" theme. Also about 50 charcters have left ER the most recent were Sara Gilbert and Sherry "I-need-a-break" Stringfield.
• Matt Roush likes Just Legal which was just caneclled.
• It's an 8-day issue
• To keep your TV Guides safe they are pushing a protective TV Guide Jacket for $2.95 each.

Well goodbye small TV Guide with your outdated listings that were never right it's been fun can't wait to see when your big issue fails.

Quick Updates

Prison break won't be back fo three weeks, same with most FOX shows.

Lost: Orientation
Still in the same day, we meet Locke's ex played by Katey Sagal.
We find The Hanso Foundation and Dharma Initiative....cough....Alias....cough.
Books we see were The Turn of the Screw by Henry James and The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien.
James' novel is a ghost/bargaining with the devil story. O'Brien's novel is about murder/bikes/an undergound chamber power by the imagination.

Invasion: Watershed
Still crap and now has a Lost type opening.

Smallville: Mortal
There was a funny FEMA joke and once again Mr. Kent gets thrown against a wall, he has a head of steel.

Wonderfalls: Lying Pig and Cocktail Bunny
Two damn funny linking episodes with a stalker and lots of loving between all the charcters and a monkey statue saying "save him from her".
LOGO has only one more episode scheduled and there are two left they will not show the last episode for some reason.

Related: Moving Out, Moving In, Moving On
Four hot New York women have life changing problems and are hot. Not edgy, a cross between Gilmor Girls and Sex and The City.

Surface: Episode 3

"Surface," 8 p.m. EDT Monday, NBC the best of rest.

After watching Threshold, Night Stalker, Invasion and Supernatural I realized they all suck compared to Surface. The show started out at a undersea vent. A small team of scientist go to investigate a newly found deep hole. The little sub is attacked and the government steps in and find a big bite on the sub. The one person in the sub is single mom/scientist Laura Daughtery, Lake Bell, 26, she has been fired and blacklisted and took a job as a waitress to pay bills but continues to investigate the mystery.

Miles is a teenage boy who with a friend found an egg, brought it home and hatched a little monster. The creature only eats live food and has electrical properties. The creature named Nimrod is all seeking heat.

Richard Connelly a part time diver lost his brother while diving. His brother speared the monster and it dragged him into the blue deep. Richard is now hearing visions of his brother in bodies of water.

Dr. Aleksander Cirko, played by Rade Serbedzijais, 59, the government genius who has possession of a dead monster and is blocking the truth from the public. He tries to laser the dead monster open and has a tough time doing it and one colleague is badly injured. The colleague is splashed with the creatures blood and is miraculously cured.
There are bigger problems, all over the world volcanic activity increases and after sending a probe 35 miles down a volcano's tube we see a glimpse of the monster swimming in lava.

The show is great except for the computer effects, they need either puppets or a bigger budget.

What is truly great is they continue story lines like why can't a laser go through it's skin; answer it lives in the magma under the Earth. Also they show the monster and the effects all the volcanoes are having on Earth.

The scene where a boat gets sucked into a newly formed sinkhole was cheesy looking but a great concept.

It's a freaking lava monster! I hope they answer two questions I have:

1. What did the monster eat before it surfaced from under the Earth's crust?
2. Why was the mother getting $4.25 an hour when minimum wage is $5.15?

Welcome to Earth Kal-el

Nicolas Cage, 41, is a new father.
His wife, Alice Kim Cage, 21, gave birth Monday to a boy, Kal-el Coppola Cage, in New York City.
As people know Nicolas Cage was up for the role of Superman before balding set in and is obsessed with the Superman world. Alice Kim Cage is a one time assistant visual effects editor in the upcoming Thief Lord a crappy kids movie set to be released next year.

TV Guide: Oct. 2-8

On the cover is a face shot of Wentworth Miller with the title PRISON BREAK EXCLUSIVE! Fall’s Sexiest New Star Wentworth Miller Speaks. The article within is only 4 pages long and deals with Miller and his fame, he’s in a Mariah Carey video and on the pilot of Ghost Whisperer. Miller was born in London and raised here in Brooklyn, he also graduated Princeton with an English Literature degree and he’s 33 now. Sidenote: He is of African-American, Jamaican, English, German, French, Dutch, Syrian and Lebanese descents. According to IMDB.
He auditioned for Brett Ratner’s Superman and was called back for this. He doesn’t care for the fact that he lost his toes on the show and the next week he was fine. He won’t do nudity. In The Human Stain he played a bi-racial person and admits he never tried to “pass” in real life.

Good Things To Read Inside:

• More behind the scenes photos of top shows.
  
• Dean Cain is in talks to be Lois Lanes’ new beau.
  
• Julia Sweeney joins the writing staff of Desperate Housewives.
  
• Aquaman will be on Smallville.
  
• Matt Roush loves SVU.
  
• Meet the cast of Invasion, Alexis Dziena was in Broken Flowers a good movie.
  
• Alyson Hannigan talks TV, Buffy and new shows.
  
• Pasadena a show cancelled 4 years ago is on SoapNet, 13 episodes only.
  
• All the soaps from all the networks will participate in an AIDS event starting on All My Children on Oct. 6 and ending on Oct. 21 on The Bold and The Beautiful.

Catching Up On TV News

Wonderfalls: Lovesick Ass
A mail order Russian bride and her thirteen year old fiancée. In this damn funny episode the kid is clearly psychotic as he falls for Jaye and tries to kill Eric.
On another note my favorite Wonderfalls fan site is gone www.fan-sites.org/wonderfalls/ dammit.

Wonderfalls: Safety Canary
Jaye and Eric get closer but her history pulls them apart until she overcomes it and then his history shows up and start making out with him.
Mahandra and Aaron get closer and Sharon gets close with her girl as her girl gets it on with someone else.
I was kinda of distracted in this episode because of Kellie Waymire. Waymire played the fired zoo keeper looking for bird and human love. In real life she was an actress of many recent shows including Seinfeld, Six Feet Under, Enterprise and One Life to Live. She had a heart condition and died at the age of 36.
I've seen her for years and just noticed all these "In memory of Kellie Waymire" at the end of certain shows and the movie The Vest. I liked her alot she will be missed. http://www.kelliewaymire.com/
On November 13th, 2003, Kellie Suzanne Waymire tragically and unexpectedly passed away in her home in Venice, California of an undiagnosed cardiac arrhythmia (cardiac arrest), likely related to mitral valve prolapse, a condition she was diagnosed with as a teenager. A private funeral was held on November 23rd in West Milton, Ohio. A public memorial service will be held on December 8th at UCLA in California. The Kellie Waymire Scholarship Fund has been created in her memory at UCSD.
From the Kellie Waymire site.

Numb3rs: Better or Worse
Caught with this episode after seeing the first three of last season. It’s cool I love all the math and algorithms. This episode taught us that car alarms run on the same frequency they just use a pre-determined complex number to identify itself, also a simple set and algorithm randomizes the numbers to further protect thieves from scanning the numbers out of the air.
I really love math shows, I think they should bring Danica McKellar to the show, she a math genius.

Ghost Whisperer: The Crossing
I just want to say they did not follow up on last weeks dead family storyline and the kid in this episode who was dead was named Kenny. Oh my God they killed Kenny on a railroad track.