Category Archives: NBC
‘The Blacklist’: Part Thrill, Part Intrigue
James Spader, everyone. James. Freaking. Spader.
Oh, I’m sorry. There was a show going on around him? It took me a bit to notice, but I must say that The Blacklist, NBC’s newest high-action drama, is pretty awesome, I went into it expecting to not be able to get through the pilot, as procedurals and I went our separate ways many years ago. Not so, it would seem.
In the opening minutes of The Blacklist, the notorious criminal Raymond “Red” Reddington, played by Spader (ohh, I will certainly get back to him), walks into FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and promptly gets himself arrested. He doesn’t struggle, even when he’s taken a secure warehouse and shoved into a glass jail cell. Who doesn’t love a villain in a glass cell? Answer: no one. But the kicker is that his one request is to speak with Elizabeth “Liz” Keen, a brand-spankin’ new agent who has no connection to him.
Conan Celebrates 20 Years In Late Night, We Look Back at ‘Late Night’
It’s hard to believe that Conan O’Brien has had a late night talk show for 20 years. Granted, he’s had three of them: Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, and Conan, but that’s still no easy feat. He could have gone the way of Pat Sajak and Chevy Chase a long time ago. Actually, that was expected of him. Very few critics foresaw Conan having a long career and many, as demonstrated in this review from Entertainment Weekly, were unnecessarily harsh. It didn’t help that they were fueled by NBC’s decision to renew Conan’s Late Night contract on a weekly basis.
In hindsight, it is hard to watch Conan’s first night as host of Late Night, especially knowing the terrible treatment he received. Even hardcore Conan fans have to admit, on his first night, he was very green. To be fair, Conan did acknowledge it in a funny way and immediately addressed the fact that everyone kept hounding him with some variation of “better be as good as Letterman.” Conan had potential and viewers were willing to give him a chance, even though his bosses only kept renewing his contract because they had nothing else to throw on the air.
‘Welcome to the Family’ is a Welcome Addition to the NBC Family
Now that summer has finally gone, fall is finally coming into high gear. What’s great about fall is the leaves start changing, the weather gets cooler, everyone becomes obsessed with pumpkin flavor and the new shows premiering this season. Airing October 3rd, NBC has a new comedy entitled Welcome to the Family, which can currently be watched on Hulu. This show is about how two families come together brought on by an unplanned pregnancy. Not only do these families collide, but there cultures do as well. Having a Caucasian family and a Latino family come together as one will certainly bring on the fireworks.
The Yoder family and the Hernandez family are at their children’s graduation. Dan, who is played by Glee’s Mike O’Malley, notices through his camera lens his daughter, Molly is texting at graduation. He points out to his wife, Caroline, that their daughter is texting in the middle of graduation. It’s sad to say how typical it is now; students are so use to relying on their phone that they can’t let them go. They need to be tweeting, updating their Facebook statuses or else they feel lost in the world. Not only wouldn’t they know what’s going on with everyone else, but it also kills time for them. Who wants to sit through the boring speeches when you’re just waiting for your diploma?
Molly’s boyfriend, Junior, is the valedictorian of his school and is Stanford bound. He begins to give a speech to his fellow classmates. As he continues to read the speech off his iPad, he notices a message from his girlfriend saying “I’m pregnant.” Everyone becomes confused as a long awkward silence lingers on in the gymnasium floor. So to break the awkward tension, Junior’s dad, Chuey Herndandez, is the first to stand and applaud his son for having a “short and sweet” speech.
Coming home from graduation, Molly just throws her graduation gown on the stairs and throws her diploma in the living room as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. She was happy to have skated by throughout her high school years. Her dad, Dan, says “Be careful with that, that’s our proof.” Molly doesn’t want to celebrate with her parents, so she decides to “bounce” and opts to spend time with her boyfriend. She asks her dad if he can return her cap and gown as if she doesn’t want to own up to her responsibility.
Molly’s parents are so happy that she graduated that they decided to make her room into a home gym. “She’s Arizona State’s problem now,” Dan says in glee. Clearly, he doesn’t know what’s about to come next.
‘The Million Second Quiz’: All Hype, No Substance
NBC is attempting to make game shows an event again, which isn’t going to happen with The Million Second Quiz. That’s because the show is boring. While Ryan Seacrest is likeable, he talks too much. To make matters worse, most of this chatter is about contestants that viewers only watching the hour in primetime will never get to see play the game or about how line jumpers became contestants. Clearly, NBC didn’t think through the fact that no one will be sitting at home watching the live stream for the remaining 23 hours a day.
When Ryan isn’t talking, the show is the lovechild of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Twenty One with NBC’s version of the Prize Patrol surprising line jumpers, who are contestants that have been playing from the comfort of their own home and now will be flown to New York City to play the game for money, thrown in for good measure. Like daytime Millionaire, every questions has four possible answers. The elements taken from Twenty One are the fact that two contestants answer the questions at the same time and the “doubler,” which is explained in the rules below.
Diagnosis: ‘Do No Harm’ Dead on Arrival
You may be familiar with the NBC series Do No Harm as the show that premiered to dismal ratings (the lowest in primetime history, in fact) and was mercilessly ridiculed through every form of social media imaginable. As I sat down to actually watch the pilot it was hard to force the negativity out of my mind and watch the show objectively, but I gave it my best effort and what I discovered was a show that maybe wasn’t deserving of such vehement hate. However, it was admittedly deeply flawed.
Dr. Jason Cole (Steven Pasquale) is a successful neurosurgeon who has spent the last five years keeping his evil alter-ego, Ian Price, dormant through self-medicating with a strong cocktail that puts him in a coma every night. Like volcanoes are apt to do, Ian eventually erupts and begins wreaking havoc on Cole’s life. I can appreciate a good Jekyll and Hyde story as much as the next person but what I can’t appreciate is a story that is basically implausible from the very beginning. The split personality is attributed to Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which is a real medical condition.
Celebrating Letterman’s 20 Years on CBS
Yesterday, August 29, marked David Letterman’s 20th year hosting the Late Show on CBS. While fans are probably a little disappointed that Dave didn’t give in and do a retrospective episode or primetime special (Neither one was ever going to happen. This is Letterman we’re talking about.), there’s no reason we can’t, with the help of YouTube, take a look back at Dave’s time on CBS.
First Episode
Dave may not have gotten The Tonight Show and NBC may have tried to sue him for using their intellectual property, but that didn’t stop Dave from bringing Larry “Bud” Melman, now using his real name, Calvert DeForest, to CBS. In fact, DeForest was the first person seen on the Late Show. Unfortunately, the clip below doesn’t have DeForest’s appearance on the first show, but it does have Ed Sullivan introducing Dave.
Streaming is the New Cable: Why TV Networks Should Be Afraid of Netflix
Nine nominations is not a fluke, it’s something to brag about. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honored House of Cards with nine nominations including Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (Kevin Spacey) and Outstanding Drama Series. Not too bad for a series that a majority of television viewers have never heard of.
How could this be? How could a show with such amazing talent, near perfect writing, and incredible pacing be overlooked? Surely this show is on a major network during a competing time slot; going against programs like Breaking Bad. The truth is, this show has no competition and doesn’t need a time slot. All one needs is a Netflix account and a device to stream it through. This allows them to have access to every episode of the first season of House of Cards and another fantastic show called Orange is the New Black.
The dangerous part of having access to full seasons of a program is a new addiction that comes with owning an account to Netflix or Hulu, most commonly known as “binge-watching”. Binge-watching occurs when you have total access to a program and you sit around all day and night until suddenly you realize hours have passed and you’ve watched 13 episodes of a show. Here in lies a problem that major networks like Fox and NBC are facing. There is no doubt the instant streaming has infiltrated every house hold and has changed they way people catch up on programming. There is no doubt that networks are using DVR and on-demand to their advantage, but what programs are left to record?
Sonny and Cher on ‘Late Night with Letterman’
On November 13, 1987, ten years after their divorce, Sonny and Cher appeared on Late Night with David Letterman. The duo stopped by for an interview and to sing their hit “I Got You Babe.”
During the interview, it is apparent that Sonny and Cher still care deeply for each other.
Top Dramas Coming Out This Fall
Mid-August is upon us. That means it is officially time to start preparing for the most wonderful time of the year. No not the holidays or the onset of school, but rather the fall season of Television. To say I’m excited for this season is an understatement, especially after last year, which which fell flat. This year however the networks have 57 new shows slated as of right now.
Basically, I should probably drop all my classes for the fall to make time… Or actually get DVR, dump my boyfriend, and start getting groceries delivered to my house to make time for all the awesomeness in store for this season. Thankfully, I have a couple weeks to decide my course of action. That being said, here are the dramas I’m most excited for this fall, in no particular order.
1. The 100 (CW)
The 100 follows a group of rebellious young adults, roughly 100 years after Nuclear Armageddon destroys the planet. These individuals are deemed expendable because of their crimes and as such are chosen to be part of an experiment to see if the Earth is once again safe for the human race to live on.
Why I’m excited: For one this show is buying into the post apocalyptic fad that is taking over now that vampires are starting to fade away. While this show ties into the trend, it doesn’t take too much influence from the Hunger Games. I also really enjoy that their lead, Clarke, is a female and seemingly strong from the previews. Aesthetically, the show is stunning and really well put together visually, which is also somewhat hysterical considering some of the radiation impacted animals, which are horrifying. It’s unique that the characters are all criminals in one way or another, which will bring a lot of interesting characters into the mix with strong personalities and story lines.
A-scare-ica: The Rise of Horror in American Television
I have a theory that nightmares are our brain’s way of saying “hey, your life could be worse,” which is why the horror genre is increasingly becoming popular in television. So what if you have crippling debt because of student loans. At least, you don’t have to kill your zombified friends and family. According to this CBC article, that’s why zombies are so popular.
There is no doubting that times are tough. When you find yourself in times of trouble, mother television comes on to make things all better. Since the dawn of primetime, TV has always been an escape from our daily lives. It’s why we never saw our favorite nuclear TV families broken apart by war. Instead of living vicariously through our favorite TV characters like we used to, we’re saying, “hey, my life could be worse”.
True Blood (HBO)
True Blood came out in the height of that whole Twilight fad that some of us don’t like mentioning being part of. I remember girls complaining that True Blood was a blatant rip off of the saga. Aside from having vampires, the protagonist happens to have telepathic abilities, just like a certain sparkly vampire. Except The Southern Vampire Mysteries that inspired the TV show came out before Stephanie Meyer dreamed up Twilight.
The difference between True Blood and any other vampire movie or TV show is that it dealt with current issues. Gay rights to be specific. This is made obvious by the “God hates Fangs” sign in the intro, which is a lovely jab at The Westboro Baptist Church. The show has continued to use vampires as an allegory for the LGBT community. You know, vampires are people too!
Despite airing in the summer, which is usually a death sentence, this show became insanely popular. So popular that HBO has been pushing out more and more TV shows ever since its 2008 debut. Since so many people took time out of their busy summer schedules of doing nothing, it showed that horror is something channels should strive toward.
Wait! What's A Dial? 