Mike's Bloggity Blog

>It was a long cold winter. Well actually here in Calgary it was nice and warm. But for my Tivo…for my Tivo it was a long cold winter. It was filled with crap like One Tree Hill and…well basically a lot of One Tree Hill.

But now it’s the Spring and with the writers strike a distant memory it’s time to welcome back our old favorites….finally.

The first shows back come back today (Monday) and they include: The Big Bang Theory (meh), Two and a Half Men (vomit, gag, puke) and HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (yeah, celebrations, dancing, parades)!!!!

I couldn’t be more excited that the cast and crew of HIMYM (what? you wanted me to type it all out again?) were able to put news shows together sooo quickly. And with a couple of weeks until the “Britney” episode now is the perfect time to watch one of the funniest and most creative shows on TV right now. And the best part? After it airs go for a walk during Two and a Half Men and then back for another new episode of The New Adventures of Old Christine which has gotten my highest “laugh-per-minutes” ratio for the entire season. Sorry 30 Rock and The Office.

Over the next couple of weeks you will be seeing a lot of the shows come back for a brand new batch of 4-6 episodes.

Here are the ones you can’t miss:
The Office (April 10th)
30 Rock (April 10th)
Scrubs (April 10th)
Samantha Who? (April 7th)
Grey’s Anatomy (April 24th)
Gossip Girl (April 21st)
Desperate Housewives-cause it’s kinda good again…kinda (April 13th)
Brothers & Sisters (April 20th)
My Name is Earl (April 3rd)
Lost (after this week’s last new episode it will be back on the 24th after Grey’s!)

A couple of favorites would be back until the fall though:
-Private Practice (but in the mean time they are shipping Addison back to Seattle Grace for an episode this season)
-Pushing Daisies
-Heroes
-fingers crossed….Friday Night Lights

And one won’t be back till 2009!
-24 (but will have a special 2 hour movie episode in the fall so we don’t forget about them)

So even though it snowed in Calgary today I know that Spring is just around the corner. Not that I’ll be outside enjoying it. Get ready TIVO it’s going to be a busy season.

In the mean time here is a nice video from the How I Met Your Mother cast about their favorite moments on the show:

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Finally LOST returns to TV on Thursday night and it couldn’t come sooner. There is absolutely nothing on TV and what do they TV god decide to do? They over compensate by giving the BEST show on TV during the middle of a long cold winter.

Thank goodness!

If you haven’t started watching LOST, I’m not going to try to convince you. There is no point. There is so much story in each episode it would be too complicated to try to catch you up. But what you should do is go rent/buy the DVDs and catch up. I mean really, what else are you going to watch.

The LOST team were able to film 8 episodes of the show before the strike hit, which means we have about 2 months to enjoy what we can. And enjoy we will. Who can forget the season finale that revealed that Jack and Kate eventually make it off the island in a mind blowing flash-forward!

And don’t be confused by the ads, tonight’s episode isn’t actually 2 hours. There is an hour episode that will try to catch you up which leads to the brand spanking new episode. Hence why they call it a “2 hour event”, not a “two hour episode!”

After LOST premieres at 10pm, stick around on ABC for the series premiere of Eli Stone. If you haven’t seen previews for this show. It looks like a quirky show that will easily fill the void left by great shows like 30 Rock, The Office and Pushing Daisies. From what I can tell he gets visions that will help him solve cases. But I could totally be wrong. However, at this point, kinda like Prom Night, I’ll take what I can get.

Last year, I was actually lucky enough to visit the LOST set! you can see those pics here!

You can also check out a preview of Eli Stone below:

>2007.

>So after working four straight 16 hour days, I am finally back home and more importantly back to the internet and my baby Macbook, who which is named Miguelito. Working that much kinda reminded me of what it would be like to be a surgeon, only instead of listening to Serius Radio all day and driving all over the province of Alberta (literally), surgeons actually save lives. No matter Meredith is so whinny eh?

So with the internet firmly back in my hands, I’m looking forward tomorrow to surfing Perez, catching up on work emails, surfing Perez, playing on Facebook and sleeping.

So far, here are the things I’ve missed:

-Pete Wentz has a sex tape? What? Doesn’t this kid cover anything up?
-The writers strike is still on. blerg.
-I have so much TV to catch up on. 4 hours of dirty sexy money, samantha who, private practice, 2 hours of pushing daisies, Grey’s Anatomy, 30 Rock, Scrubs, The Hills, The Hills Aftershow, Beauty and the Geek.
-I’m only 3 pages in on Perez Hilton, and I feel like I’ve been away for years.
-I’m so excited to also read (yes I read) the two new issues of Entertainment Weekly sitting on my kitchen table.
-I’m less excited to read my Visa bill. Also sitting on my kitchen table.
-I will be home for the first time in a year in less than a month. Won’t lie, kinda nervous.
-I’m also excited to buy the new One Republic album. Does anyone have it yet? It came out Tuesday and it’s only $9.99!!!
-Happy American Thanksgiving! (I am thankful for a new Friday Night Lights next week)
-I watched the Bachelor finale for the first time since University this week and I still love that he chose none of the girls. But I didn’t love it as much as I loved the Biggest Loser this week. Whoever cried gets 2000 Michael points.
-Anyone else see “Xander” on Criminal Minds this week? If he joins the cast, I’d be willing to ignore the facts that this show is the scariest thing on TV besides “Cavemen”
-6 movies are opening this weekend!!!! How is one to decide? I can’t decide between, The Mist (it’s getting great reviews…really!), Enchanted (shut it.), No Country for Old Men (the first real Oscar contender) and August Rush (Keri Russel? duh). Which will you choose?

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Right now TV is unbelievable, I mean really I cannot remember the last time so few new shows hadn’t been cancelled. We are almost two months and the only show that has been officially cancelled is Viva Laughline, while it doesn’t look like one of my guilty pleasures Nashville will be coming back any time soon.

So many of the new shows have already been picked up for the rest of the TV season or at the very least the networks have asked for extra scripts to see where the story is going. So far shows that are either safe or growing safer by the day include: Pushing Daisies, Back to You, Gossip Girl, Dirty Sexy Money, Chuck, Aliens in America, Carpoolers, Reaper, Big Bang Theory, K-Ville, Kitchen Nightmares and Samantha Who?

Some shows are still waiting for a little loving, they include perhaps the over hyped The Bionic Woman and suprsingly Cavemen seems to be sticking around although nothing is official.

So which of these new shows have so far been worth sticking around for?

Right now my must watch is Pushing Daisies. It is still fun and original. I think I also love tuning in to see where the writers are going to take the show with a fairly limiting premise. My question is this: How long will they be able to keep the Piemaker and Chuck apart? The audience will eventually need a little bit of a payoff (ross and rachel, jim and pam) but since these two characters can absolutely never touch, what kinda payoff our we waiting for?

My second favorite has to be Samantha Who. This show just kills me, I think right now it is getting the highest Laugh Out Loud ratio out of all the comedies on TV right now, sorry 30 Rock, but it’s close I promise!

Obviously the biggest guilty pleasure is still Gossip Girl. I like that I can turn my brain completely off and watch what is essentially Cruel Intentions: The TV show. While I do find it alarming how a show can promote such dangerous lifestyles for teenagers that mostly watching it, like I said, I like to turn my brain off and not worry about other peoples kids. The guilty pleasure category also includes Dirty Sexy Money and Kitchen Nightmares. I just wish Nightmares was more like it’s British version where Gorden doesn’t just come in and essentiall extreme makeovers their restaurants. It just seems all to easy!

I watched the first two eps of Back to You and haven’t checked back it again, sorry Kelsey, I’ll get back to ya.

I keep meaning to watch the CW’s Aliens in America. I’ve heard wonderful things but just haven’t gotten around to it, I hope I’m not missing anything to perfect, I don’t want another Friday Night Lights incident on my hands.

I’m still undecided on Private Practice. I honestly think the issue is that I know these actors too well and it’s hard for me to see them as these characters. But every episode is getting better than the last, but judging from where it started we still got a while to go. Also, would it kill Addison to make a little reference to Seattle Grace, I mean she did leave behind three different men including her ex-husband, who she left with on good terms no? Come on Addison, take a cue from Joey’s demise!

So what show should I be watching or should stop watching, thanks to my Tivo I’m pretty flexible!

>I’m going to make a statement. It might shock you, it might scare you. But it’s how I feel:

I am in love with the Fall TV season so far!
Later on this week, I’ll be talking about my favorite and least favorite of the season, but for now I want to give you some of the more exciting TV tidbits I’ve picked up!

-The awful, dreadful, embarrassing Viva Laughlin has already been canceled after two too many airings, not even Hugh Jackman could save this show that featured it stars singing over previously recorded songs in some sort of musical hybrid. Didn’t watch it? Don’t worry, even I only made it through the first 5 minutes. So why does this effect you? It effects you because it means we are getting The 12th season of The Amazing Race two months early when it starts November 4th! Can you believe it has been on for that long!?!?!

-Not only is Pushing Daisies one of my favorite new shows, it is one of my favorite shows period. So I was so happy today to read that it has been picked up for the a full 22 episodes (a full season order)! So while the ratings are anywhere close to Grey’s Anatomy, they are good enough to keep this flowering (get it?!) show around at least till the end of the season!

-My roommate and I are kinda addicted to The Biggest Loser and tonight was the most SHOCKING episode I have ever seen! Did you see it? One of the contestants actually gained +17 pounds in one week! It turns out it was because right before the weigh in he downed TWO gallons of Water in an effort to throw the competition! Not only was that crazy, it was dangerous! But it made for good television, so drink away.

-Funny story, my previous blog about Bo Bice popped up on his major fan site and someone on it called me a “condescending ass”. That’s a little aggressive don’t you think? I didn’t even really say anything bad about Bo!

UPDATE: Check out the new cast for The Amazing Race 12. While my favorite team this year is Perez Hilton inspired Kint & Vyxsin (no spelling errors there), my hard earned canadian dollars are on Rachel and TK

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After what seems like a lifetime Sarah Silverman and The Sarah Silverman Program make their triumphant season 2 premiere Thursday night on the Comedy network. Make sure you catch an encore episode from the first season at 11pm and then the new episode will start at 11:30pm. Phew what a night!

(Also, I’ve heard/read that 30 Rocks second episode of the season is one of the funniest things that TV has seen in a really long time. Check it out!)

Feel free to discuss how tonight’s Pushing Daisies has become your favorite new show in the Comments section.

I would also like to discuss Private Practice. I don’t know how many times I swore at the TV while watching it tonight. I thought Addison whining about the rain was annoying, I felt bad for Naomi and her cake problem. No, not because she is single, but because she came off as pathetic. And when I’m not annoyed I’ll tell you how disturbed I was by Cooper (the pediatrician) showing up to play dressup with the little girls. Ugh, this show makes me sad.

>Canada is great for many reasons. We have four complete seasons. Apparently Michael Moore likes our healthcare and I don’t care what you think, I love the loonie and twoonie. But with the new TV season in full steam I have a whole new reason to love my home and native land.

Since the canadian networks pretty much blow at creating their own shows (aside from Trailer Park Boys and Degrassi), the CTV, Global and City TV usually fill most of their schedules with American shows, the benefit? Sometimes the canadian networks can’t air the shows the same times as their american counterparts, so on the rare occasion us canucks get treated to shows earlier than we should.

This fall season we have two such occasions. CTV has some how secured the rights to air two of the seasons best new shows, Gossip Girl and Pushing Daisies a night before the Yankees.(In Gossip Girl’s case, by best I mean trashiest). The reason this makes me so excited is that after watching the Pilot for Pushing Daisies this weekend I can safely declare it is my FAVORITE NEW SHOW of the year. It is the perfect mix of Wonderfalls and Tim Burton’s Big Fish. The characters are so charming and the concept is so unique. Last week I mentioned this show because I thought a show this creative has no place on network TV, but it was also last Wednesdays highest rated 9pm show. So as long as that audiences sticks around, we should be ok. Will you watch it? Pretty please.

Having the shows air earlier also helps clear up my Wednesday schedule which already getting pretty full with Private Practice, Dirty Sexy Money, Back to You and Top Model.

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The TV season is barely a week old and I am already falling behind on my TV watching. As of right now I still have on my TIVO many of the those that I was so excited to start, yet there they sit unwatched. I some how need to find time to watch Chuck, Gossip Girl (2nd Season), Reaper, The Biggest Loser (2 hours!), Boston Legal (2 hours!), America’s Next Top Model, Kitchen Nighmares, My Name is Earl (1 hour!), Ghost Whisperer, Moonlight (Logan!), Las Vegas (2 hours) and last nights How I Met Your Mother.

Now to be honest, most of those shows I would never normally watch, but some of them had some interesting cliff hangers that I thought I would catch up on. Other ones I am saving for a raining…or snowy day. My worry is that over the next week 3 news shows will definitly be added to the list.
On Wednesday night we have the premiere of Pushing Daisies, an interesting show about a guy that can bring people back to life, the catch? They can’t touch him once he does. That causes all sorts of problems when he resurrects the love of his life. This show looks quirky and kinda fun, which means of course, it will last two episodes.

Then on Thursday we have the return of 30 Rock! I may have mentioned this show once or twice, but it is simply amazing. It did win the Emmy for Best Comedy afterall, and this weeks episode features Jerry Seinfeld! Come on, you have NO reason not to watch!

And then on Friday the 2nd season premiere of Friday Night Lights. I’m still trying to find the time to get through the first season, but from the first 9 episodes that I’ve seen, it’s freaking amazing and I hear it only gets better!

Now all I need is a blizzard with 2 meters of snow and I’ll be all set.

Want a preview of Seinfeld on 30 Rock? Your wish is this bald guys command.

>This week officially marks the beginning of the Fall TV Season (unless you count Are you Smarter than a 5th grader which started last week.) While surfing one of my favorite sites TV GUIDE, I found this convenient list of all the premiere dates. I’ve taken the liberty to bold the ones you should be watching and taken out the stations we don’t get here in Canada!

Sept. 11 (NBC) The Biggest Loser season premiere
Sept. 14 (FOX) Nashville series premiere (from the creators of Laguna Beach!)
Sept. 17 (FOX) Prison Break season premiere
Sept. 17 (FOX) K-Ville series premiere
Sept. 17 (NBC) Deal or No Deal season premiere
Sept. 18 (CW) Beauty and the Geek season premiere
Sept. 19 (CW) America’s Next Top Model season premiere
Sept. 19 (FOX) Back to You series premiere
Sept. 19 (FOX) ‘Til Death season premiere
Sept. 19 (FOX) Kitchen Nightmares series premiere
Sept. 19 (CBS) Kid Nation series premiere
Sept. 20 (CBS) Survivor: China season premiere
Sept. 23 (FOX) Simpsons, King of the Hill and Family Guy season premieres
Sept. 23 (CBS) 60 Minutes, Cold Case and Shark season premieres
Sept. 24 (ABC) The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars season premieres
Sept. 24 (NBC) Chuck and Journeyman series premieres
Sept. 24 (NBC) Heroes season premiere
Sept. 24 (CBS) How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men (vomit), Rules of Engagement and CSI: Miami season premieres
Sept. 24 (CBS) The Big Bang Theory series premiere
Sept. 25 (CW) Reaper series premiere
Sept. 25 (FOX) Bones and House season premieres
Sept. 25 (NBC) L&O: SVU season premiere
Sept. 25 (CBS) NCIS and The Unit season premieres; Cane series premiere
Sept. 26 (ABC) Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money series premieres
Sept. 26 (CW) Gossip Girl series premiere
Sept. 26 (CBS) Criminal Minds and CSI: NY season premieres
Sept. 26 (NBC) Deal or No Deal season premiere
Sept. 26 (NBC) Bionic Woman and Life series premieres
Sept. 27 (ABC) Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy season premieres; Big Shots series premiere
Sept. 27 (CW) Smallville season premiere
Sept. 27 (NBC) My Name Is Earl, The Office and ER season premieres
Sept. 27 (CBS) CSI and Without a Trace season premieres
Sept. 28 (NBC) Las Vegas season premiere
Sept. 28 (CBS) Ghost Whisperer and Numbers season premieres; Moonlight series premiere
Sept. 30 (FOX) American Dad season premiere
Sept. 30 (ABC) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Desperate Housewives and Brothers & Sisters season premieres
Oct. 1 (CW) Everybody Hates Chris, The Game and Girlfriends season premieres; Aliens in America series premiere
Oct. 2 (ABC) Cavemen and Carpoolers series premieres
Oct. 3 (ABC) Pushing Daisies series premiere
Oct. 4 (NBC) 30 Rock season premiere
Oct. 4 (CW) Supernatural season premiere
Oct. 5 (NBC) Friday Night Lights season premiere
Oct. 7 (CW) Life Is Wild series premiere
Oct. 7 (ABC) America’s Funniest Home Videos season premiere
Oct. 12 (ABC) Men in Trees season premiere; Women’s Murder Club series premiere
Oct. 15 (ABC) Samantha Who? series premiere
Oct. 18 (CBS) Viva Laughlin series premiere
Oct. 25 (NBC) Scrubs season premiere
Nov. 27 (ABC) Cashmere Mafia series premiere

Questions?