Here's the link the my initial review of the pilot I saw back in the summer. Re-watching Friday Night Lights last night, I must say it didn't lose any appeal and was just as good as I remembered, and still amazed at the quality of the filming and how they didn't glossify life in a small town (though the girls do seem a bit tarted up, but hey, I guess it's on NBC so they need to get an audience somehow).
Friday Night Lights premieres on NBC/Global at 8pm tonight. I could care less about football. This show made me care. One of the strongest new shows this year, both in style and content.
and... FINALLY... VERONICA MARS is BACK!!! One of my faves, now on The CW and FINALLY in Canada, on SUN TV at 9pm tonight. If it takes me one by one to force you down and watch this show and love it, I will (and have, and all you people I've forced to watch the DVD's. Was I wrong? NO. Of course not. Spread the word people!)
Sadly, these are the only photos that really remotely even turned out due to the no-flash rule. Will see what photos my friends got.
The second part of what was really a two part opener (or as they clearly mark, Chapter Two), we continue our introductions into our heroes from where we left off, and we finally include Greg Grunberg (above), who finally seems to have been able to find a job without the help of buddy JJ Abrams.
Greg plays Matt Parkman who is a cop that can hear the inner thoughts of the people around him, but unfortunately hears the voice of a little girl hidden in a house where the mother was murdered (in a way WAY too Saw like, and I'm not saying that in a good way). He finds the girl, but the doubts of the investigators around him of all his knowledge gets him arrested by Clea Duvall.
For a show about the nefarious world of heists, using fast cars, fast technologies and extremely intricately planned robberies, the title of the show and the title of the episodes (Ep. 2 was called Two, Ep. 3 was called Three... you get the picture) sure are a little boring.
I'm still intrigued by what Hope (Virginia Madsen) knows and what her whole story is, even though little has still been revealed except that she's in therapy and parole for some drug usage charge, and that she suspects, or knows all? something about Bobby's (Ray Liotta) second career as leader of a bunch of bandits. I'm still confused to how much she actually knows and if she's in on it, helping the feds or just discovering it now.
Annie's (Amy Smart) mistake for tazering the passerby from the pilot is slowly coming to haunt her, as is the frighteningly psychopathic Jeff's (Simon Baker, above, was he REALLY the same nice guy we loved from The Guardian? Really?) slaying of the two Hawaiian surfers. The death of Sean in the pilot is slowly starting to unravel as Macy wonders where he disappeared to, and his gambling debts come back to track him down.
I'm still wondering why the hell I'm watching a show about horrible people committing horrible acts (and unlike Prison Break where at least most of the people seemed to be written with an excuse to their actions, so far on Smith, none have except for the pursuit of money). Only Jonny Lee Miller's Tom seems a little repentant, and Franky G's Joe is somewhat caring to Sean's family (though what was with that makeout session?). The feds are on their tails but so far I'm not really sure who I should be rooting for, other than Virginia Madsen, although I can listen to Shohreh Aghdashloo (below) anytime speak anything.
We find out WHY Ted decides to tell his kids EVERYTHING about How he Met their Mother when Ted's parents (the father played by "Steven Keaton" Michael Gross) are invited to NY by Ted for their 30th anniversary. If Ted would overexplain everything, it was to compensate his parents for avoiding any explanation at all, including revealing that... surprise, they had been divorced for months, and separated for about 2 years.
Watching Barney out-suckup Robin to Ted's mother, Marshall and Lily deal with the aftermath of their separation while teasing each other sexually, and Robin wanting Ted's parents to love her filled out the side stories, always hilarious, somehow heartfelt.
All of this was basically a great way to finally explain the whole premise of the show, and to also throw in the loop that Ted and Robin might not truly be made for each other (since they reflected exactly the same thing Ted's parents were like).
Everwood, which climbed through my personal ratings from half decent show to watch to finally this year, taking the Best TV show spot of the year (toping Lost, Veronica Mars, The Office and others... see sidebar), is starting all over on ABC Family tonight at 6pm and every weeknight at 6pm.
This is one show that just got better and better throughout the seasons (minus the little hiccup of druggie boy in Season 2 and the Anne Heche love affair in Season 3) but trust me on this in that it is possibly the best family drama EVER (yes, above Once and Again) and NOT in a 7th Heaven horrible sachrine amoral way. It was real, charming, gritty yet comfortable.
I know many of you have said... it looks really cheesy and bad and traditional boring family drama. Yes, on the surface, but it is anything BUT. It has real issues and real consequences the people are not always doing good things but try to be good people, but they make mistakes and we watch the fallout. There's no easy solutions wrapped up over one episode (at least with the main characters) and resolutions make take a few episodes (or seasons) but it definitely became the most emotionally involved show on my roster, all done with humour and pathos.
In Canada, Vision TV on Saturdays at 8pm, Mondays at 8pm and 12 midnight.
Evil Dead The Musical opens tonight (Oct 2) at the New World Stages 340 West 50th Street in New York City. They have "Spatter Zone" tickets where you will have a "bloody" good time for $26, but if you check the myspace link on the website, there's a promotion that's an amazing deal so go check it out cause you will laugh your head off (pun intended).
How much do we love Mary?
Okay. So maybe I stereotyped the Bumpkins for stereotyping everyone else whereas they've seem to have become closest friends with Erwin and Godwin, Tom and Terry, and Lyn and Karlyn, or as stereotyped: the Asian brothers, the Gay boyfriends, and the Black Mama's. Also described as the backpack, though Erwin and Godwin finally lived up to their names and won this leg of the race (shockingly. I still think they're complete idiots but at least trying to be nice, if not a little californian bubbleheaded).
They race through Vietnam, make coal (Coalminer David: "This ain't real coal. Ours is hard. Theirs is mud.") and in the end, Duke and Lauren, the father lesbian daughter team, who were going to make coal but found themselves at the birdcage (is that a gay slight there?) making detour challenge and thus stayed, were last to arrive, despite Tom and Terry not fully reading the clue and jumping on motorbikes during a part of the trip and incurring a 30 minute time penalty.
Sep 30 2006
I’m here to tell you about the SYTYCD show from Buffalo NY, on yet another rainy night on their tour. I travelled all the way from another country to see the show (okay, so it’s only an 1.5 hour drive from Toronto but I still had to bring my passport) and that’s how much my friends and I LOVE this show. I will confess, I wasn’t that into the first season of SYTYCD. I liked the premise, I loved the dancing, but I sort of drifted off. I was initially going to write this season off too but I tuned into the top 20 and realised this year had an AMAZING cast of contestants who were ALL excellent (last year I can only remember Nick, this year, pretty much the whole top 10 cast plus a few others were my faves). There seemed to be a better chemistry with the entire group this year, and it shines through during the live show, as you can tell they are all just having a blast and getting along famously. (I do wonder if there IS any drama backstage but if there is, it sure doesn’t show on stage… and what’s the rumours with Natalie and Dimitri? Are they off or on? More on that later).
So since the previous correspondents on Dan's blog have done an excellent job already describing the show, I’ll just add in my few thoughts and things I noticed while grinning in a cheeseball smile during the entire show.
The Technologic number that opens the show really just sets the pace of the entire show and helps erase any misgivings that perhaps the show might have lost its lustre between the finale and the tour. I was trying to be objective but Travis really does grab my attention as he just seems to hit the beat just a little better than the others and is simply the best technical dancer (without being robotic), but still, everyone shines and is enjoyable to watch, including Dimitri, who sometimes seems to be trying to catch up to Brian Friedman’s choreography, but is entertaining nonetheless!
Each dancer has their solos spread throughout the show, and they are better than I remembered them on the show, and still great to watch. Allison, Travis, Ryan and Natalie’s were actually probably the best but during Benji’s who is always dependably good, my friend who was WooHooing the entire time, started to raise her pitch to a full out WAAAHHH as Benji ended his dance by stripping off his shirt into Dimitri territory, and then doing a quick muscle pose before running off the stage.
There were a few too many video montages (mostly taken directly from the show) but, sigh… I GUESS the dancers need some time to change, drink some water and take a breather between numbers… ALRIGHT… I’ll give them the few seconds to breathe. Generally though, the whole show flowed very well, with dance upon dance upon dance continuing throughout the night. I was just exhausted FOR THEM but you would never tell from the dancers faces since they seemed to be enjoying every minute of it.
Almost everyone confidently MC’ed, especially Benji who always seemed to be either on stage hosting, or dancing. No-longer Jailbait Ivan still seemed a little nervous talking, but that just added to his adorableness. Travis seemed to have lost his lispy thing (which I kinda liked actually) but seemed much more confident (without losing his aw-shucksness personality). Heidi seems to carry the family gene of hosting duties and was probably the best girl MC, but it was during Dimitri’s Top 20 introduction where it seems now in every city, somebody will yell out something, in Buffalo’s case, a girl in the back professing her love for Dimitri, still seemed to trip up Dimitri who tried to carry on his speech as normal but you could tell he was seriously trying to hold back joining the rest of the audience in laughter.
Sexyback is by far my favorite number from the show, now with the entire top 10 cast, and could have gone on forever if you were to ask me. Ivan seems to shine the most of the new dancers to the number, and Travis does really just steals the number.
In the second half of the show, Travis and Heidi performs their amazing Mia Michaels choreographed number to Calling You. Heidi seems to miss holding onto Travis’ leg while getting pulled out from underneath the bench, and their seemed to be a slight scramble to catch up, but it still got the first and largest of standing ovations.
Natalie and Dimitri didn’t kiss or makeout but had a some eye contact moments so if there are rumours of them being off, I’m not sure it’s true. Though Dimitri almost dropped Natalie on her head but she laughed it off apparently but I missed that while watching other dancers.
Jaymz only filled in once during the Disco medley (AMAZING) and Jessica showed up a bunch of times throughout the show during the group dances but I’m not sure if she was actually taking over anybody because usually she filled in for someone that would dance next, so it felt more like just giving that girl time to do a costume change.
Oh, because the good news? Donyelle must be better because she was in every group medley (unless she was dancing next) and didn’t seem to disappear as much as previous correspondents had noted during their shows. She was back in full form and back to the Donyelle we loved when she was partnered up with Benji!
I’d list all the best routines but basically any group routine was just crazy fun to watch, including the hip-hop krumping to Poison that leads into the Tranji Nerds routine. I actually liked the Ramalama number even more on stage (I might be the lone person that prefers it without the makeup as it allows us to see each of the dancers faces really trying to get into character and seeing who shines through (oh yeah, Allison and Natalie really do need to be on Broadway). Again, my problem with the group routines was just not knowing where and who to watch since everyone was just so good. The finale to Hairspray’s You Can’t Stop the Beat (one of the best songs in musical theatre history in a mediocre musical) was just sad only because we knew it was the final number and that it would be over.
My main criticism, at 2.5 hours, the show is STILL TOO SHORT!!! I WANT MORE!!! It was simply too good to stop. Thank goodness I’ll still have another chance to see it in Toronto in a month (and I have a feeling half the audience from Buffalo will be there too since more than half the license plates around the streets and parking lots of the theatre were from Ontario)! Didn't stick around to catch the dancers at the stage door since we still had to drive back and get through the borders but I still have a month to stake out the doors of the Hummingbird Centre in Toronto so I can fully stalk out Benji, Ivan, Natalie, Donyelle, Dimitri, Heidi, Travis, Ryan and Allison and Martha in a months time!
I'll hopefully have photos and maybe Video clips over the next few days but if not, check Dan''s duckyxdale blog for photos and links.
