Cool TV Video of the Day: Jimmy Fallon’s Rom Bomb Video Vlog Blog
The Rom Bomb Video Vlog Blog is a fantastic parody of an out of touch person trying to sound hip, which in this case is Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. In the video, Jimmy Fallon shows off his ability to do great impressions.
Weekly TV Update: September 3
Seth MacFarlane
Why was Jersey Shore canceled? Entertainment Weekly has the lowdown.
Randy Jackson, who is American Idol‘s only original judge left, may have his role reduced to mentor.
After Utah’s NBC affiliate refused to air The New Normal, KUCW, the state’s CW affiliate, agreed to pick up the show.
FX orders 90 more episodes of Charlie Sheen’s Anger Management.
Seth MacFarlane will host the 38th season premiere of Saturday Night Live.
“The New Normal” Embraces Stereotypes
This review is not meant to incite a political debate. It is based solely on the quality of the show, not on the politics behind it.
Depending on your point of view, The New Normal is either novel or controversial, which is to be expected since the show features a surrogate mother having a gay couple’s child. However, novelty and controversy cannot carry a show that lacks quality. If the rest of the series is like the pilot, The New Normal will get old fast because the show embraces the stereotypes its creators, Ryan Murphy and Ali Adler, intend to dispel.
The New Normal‘s pilot episode opens with Bryan Collins making a video for his unborn child. A few seconds into the video, Bryan realizes he is getting ahead of himself, since no one knows how he came to the decision to have a child with his partner, David Murray. The majority of the pilot is spent providing the audience backstory through a flashback.
“Sullivan & Son”: Son Gets Taboo
Carol
While Sullivan & Son is at times slow-moving and may not hold viewers’ interests, Thursday’s episode certainly did not have that problem. There were some parts of the episode that were not overly relevant, but the rest of the show made up for it in a big way.
The opening minutes detailed Steve helping Hank organize his will. It wasn’t necessarily boring or horrible to watch, but it was the least funny story line of the episode. A running joke throughout the episode had Hank continue to tell Steve to take his daughter out of the will, only to ask him to put her back in after he did some rethinking. Hank had little else to offer for the rest of the episode. The real action began when Owen’s mom, Carol walked into the bar and said she was feeling hot. The other patrons assure her it is freezing. Mel then suggests Carole probably had a hot flash and that it could be the beginning of menopause. Carol tries to dismiss this and say that menopause is for old people. It is a very awkward moment for her when she realizes that she might be considered old.
Cool TV Video of the Day: Late Night with Conan O’Brien’s “You Have Wronged Me!”
Conan O’Brien doesn’t realize the injustice his breakfast has done to a man dressed like Edgar Allan Poe. You can watch the absurd situation below.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqA6ph2aNv8%5D“The Mindy Project” Has Potential
It’s difficult to tell the direction that The Mindy Project is headed in after just one episode, but the show definitely has promise.
The Mindy Project revolves around competent OB-GYN, Dr. Mindy Lahiri, who despite being a very accomplished doctor, has very little else figured out in her life. The episode begins with a voice-over detailing Mindy’s upbringing. She was basically raised on romantic comedies and describes Tom Hanks as her first boyfriend. The highlight of her college life was being able to watch as many romantic comedies as she wanted without supervision. It’s clear that she has a very distorted and unrealistic view of love.
At first, it seems like this show is going to be nothing more than a deconstruction of clichéd romantic comedy plots which seems boring. Then, it is revealed that Mindy is in the middle of a interrogation for public intoxication. Apparently, she did not find this as relevant as detailing her relationship with a handsome oral surgeon that ended badly when he left her to marry someone else. The opening minutes of the show demonstrate well where Mindy’s priorities are, especially since her relationship with the oral surgeon was completely irrelevant and had no bearing on the plot.
AGT Results Recap: August 29th
From Left to Right: Comedian Tom Cottor, Host Nick Cannon, Sand Artist Joe Castillo, and Earth Harpist William Close
Only three acts were eligible to advance to the finals of America’s Got Talent this week. Surprisingly, the competition actually got serious. There were 12 acts performing for a spot in the finals. Certainly more than three of the acts deserved to advance, but the AGT is finally realizing its potential. The tough eliminations made the hour exciting.
The hour opened with an unnecessary commentary on the semifinalists from guest comedian Steve Harvey. Harvey seemed to do a terrible job at crudely connecting the acts to his own personal life. He wasn’t funny at all. On the bright side, he was simply honest when it came time to talk about Tom Cotter, saying that he is pulling for him to win the competition. It’s a nice sentiment, but Harvey’s appearance was still a waste of time.
To make the show last an hour, Nick Cannon told the viewers that the results would be announced differently this week. First, the four acts with the highest vote totals would be announced in no particular order. Then, the three finalists would be revealed. The first grouping was Joe Castillo, Turf, and The Scott Brothers. It was a great performance night Tuesday with all these acts performing reasonably well. However, none of these acts seemed like standouts on Tuesday. That being said, of the three acts, it makes sense that Castillo got one of the Top 4 spots.
Cool TV Video of the Day: Kimmel Mocks Leno To His Face
It’s no secret that Jimmy Kimmel hates Jay Leno. Kimmel takes every opportunity he gets to crack jokes about Leno, which surely will not change now that Kimmel will be in direct competition with the Tonight Show. Since Kimmel has been talking about Leno a lot lately, let’s take a look at Jimmy Kimmel on The Jay Leno Show segment “10 at 10”.
America’s Got Talent: Semifinals Round 1
The Scott Brothers
Overall, this season of America’s Got Talent has been subpar. The live shows started with 48 acts, more than half of whom did not deserve to be seen again. Including the YouTube show, roughly two-thirds of the acts seen on live television have been eliminated. That seems about right, although there are still some acts that shouldn’t have another shot. Only three acts out of the 12 performing are advancing this week.That being said, Tuesday’s show was full of talent. It makes the decision for who advances genuinely difficult for one of the only times in the entire season. However, as with the last quarterfinal performances, it seems too much of the best talent was put on one show.
Andrew De Leon
Andrew De Leon is a talented opera singer. His performance of “Ave Maria” was technically good, but it wasn’t special. There’s no doubt he would be a better singer with training, but, unfortunately, he went from singing in his bedroom straight to the national stage. The crowd seemed a lot less engaged in this performance than last week’s performance. There’s no question De Leon has a lot of natural talent, but he does not have star quality. If he was grouped with other acts or was in another stage of the competition, his performance might have been sufficient. However, it isn’t sufficient this time. De Leon’s time on AGT is most likely over. Read the rest of this entry
Cool TV Video of the Day: Max Headroom Incident
Warning: Today’s video is more like Creepy TV Video of the Day. Despite 25 years passing, The Max Headroom incident is still very unsettling.
In 1987, someone dressed as the 80s television character Max Headroom hijacked the signal of two Chicago television stations, WGN and WTTW. The first incident took place during the sports segment of WGN’s The Nine O’Clock News. WGN’s engineers were able to cut the hijacker’s broadcast short by switching the stations signal to a backup transmitter. A few hours later, the hijackers successfully took over WTTW’s signal for 90 seconds. The PBS affiliate’s engineers tried to stop the intrusion into the Doctor Who episode “Horror of Fang Rock,” but the hijacker’s broadcast was over by the time they started looking into it.
The video below is from the second hijacking.
Wait! What's A Dial? 