Blog Archives
The Colbert Rapport: Will He Last on CBS?
Ever since 2005, Stephen Colbert has been ruling late night television on Comedy Central. Next year he will be leaving his post after ten years to take over for David Letterman on Late Show. This is a drastic change for Colbert, whose current show is a satirical version of The O’Reilly Factor. Will his current rapport with his audience get in the way of his success as himself on CBS?
Letterman announced his departure not even two months after Jimmy had taken over for Leno. I cannot say that I was surprised that by Letterman’s retirement. Everyone knew Fallon was going to be some serious competition. Fallon is more relevant and appealing to the precious 18-49 audience. He has a social media savviness that Letterman doesn’t have. So when Letterman “unexpectedly” announced his retirement, CBS needed a host that would supersede Jimmy’s popularity. Colbert already has a large and loyal audience from his show on Comedy Central, which make him a very good choice for Late Show.
The Walking Dead’s “The Grove” Gives Viewers Another Reason to Drink This St. Patrick’s Day
With only two episodes left in this season, The Walking Dead has finally started to answer some questions that have been bugging viewers since the midseason finale. Last night’s episode focused on Tyreese, Carol, Lizzie, Mika, and Judith. On their way to Terminus, they find a home in the middle of nowhere. It seems to be the perfect place to start over; it’s secluded, has a water pump and a propane tank, puzzles, a doll, a big comfy dad chair. Basically everything is going to go back to normal, right? Of course not.
One of the first questions that last night’s episode answered was why Carol was teaching the children how to fight. To put it simply, it’s because of Sophia. Carol described her as “not having a mean bone in her body”. She wasn’t capable of killing anything, which was her downfall. Now that Carol has two surrogate daughters, she doesn’t want the same thing to happen to them. Carol can see a lot of Sophia in Mika, in that she cannot bring herself to kill people invading the prison or even a deer except she has no problem killing walkers. Lizzie, on the other hand, cannot bring herself to kill a walker, but can kill people. And animals, Lizzie kills animals too for some reason; probably because, as Mika put it, she’s not right.
Speaking of which, we also learned that Lizzie was the one feeding walkers outside of the prison. Which doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone since she has pretty much been friendly with walkers since she was introduced. So friendly, that she gets upset when anyone kills a walker. We see her have a near emotional breakdown after Mika shoots a walker right in front of them. Luckily, Mika calms her down by telling her to look at the flowers right next to her. Then she screams at Carol for putting down a walker that Lizzie was playing with. It’s hard to believe an eleven year old could hold that much crazy, but she does.
Hannibal‘s Kaiseki Leaves Us Hungry for More
Season two of Hannibal hit the ground running. Quite literally too, as the opening scene was a flash-forward of an intense fight between Hannibal and Jack Crawford. So far, we know that Hannibal is going to get figured out, and the rest of the season is going to be dedicated to seeing how that comes together. Season two started where season one had left off, Will Graham was framed for all of the horrible things that Hannibal had done and is now imprisoned. Even worse, his new psychiatrist is Dr. Chilton, who is still full of himself even after having all of his organs removed. At this time, only the audience, Will, and maybe Hannibal’s psychiatrist Bedelia Du Maurier know that Hannibal is last season’s big baddie “The Chesapeake Ripper”. It’s unclear, as of right now, what Bedelia knows, but she has made some implications that she knows too much about Hannibal.
This season is going to stray away from the first season’s formula of featuring a killer of the week. Instead, they are going to have a “big baddie” which has already been revealed to be Mason Verger, notably played by Gary Oldman in the film adaptation of Hannibal. It isn’t known exactly when Verger is going to show up, but last night introduced an unknown killer kidnapping random people based on the color of their skin. Also the feel of their skin, that was oh so creepily pointed out to the audience when the killer complimented a man’s smooth skin on the subway. Later, this man was abducted and found himself in a room of “dead” people. It’s unclear whether or not they are dead or in heroin-induced comas even though the coma thing has been done before. The last shot of the night revealed that the bodies are arranged in a way to make it look like an eye.
‘The Walking Dead’: “Claimed” Recap
Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead continued to follow the formula of showing only a few characters at a time. This week we followed Rick, Carl, Michonne, Glenn, Tara, and the new group of survivors. Fans of the comics knew exactly who they were, but were the new survivors were introduced to the audience as Abraham, Rosita, and Eugene. They are traveling to Washington D.C. because Eugene is a “scientist” and he is going to “save the world.” I think it’s safe to put those in quotes because you cannot trust a man with a mullet. Especially one that claims to be a scientist.
Michonne asks Rick what their plans are- whether they are going to stay in the house or continue to travel. Rick doesn’t have a clue, so he just makes her take Carl scavenging while he takes a nap. Rick is woken up by a group of strange men that have broken into the house. Since he is still weak from being beaten by The Governor, he hides under the bed. Things get awkward when a man walks into the room and decides to take a nap. Then things get really awkward when another guy comes in and demands to have the bed. Then things get super awkward when that guy chokes the other guy just to have the bed. He sees Rick hiding under the bed before he’s choked to sleep. Rick slips out under the bed while the both men are sleeping/passed out.
‘The Walking Dead’: “Indifference” Recap
In last night’s episode of The Walking Dead, we finally got to get out of the prison. Since Daryl, Tyreese, Michonne, and Bob were taking too long to get medicine, Rick and Carol decided to make a trip of their own. This would have been a great opportunity for Rick to lecture Carol about killing two innocent people, but he didn’t bring it up. Instead he did something a little bit sneakier, he observed.
While scavenging for medicine, Carol and Rick ran into some hippie couple that I don’t remember their names. It’s not important because they lasted 20 minutes anyway. Since Carol didn’t even bat an eyelash when they died, it was obvious that Carol has changed drastically. The old Carol would have expressed some remorse instead of convincing Rick to go back to the prison. Rick made an executive decision and exiled Carol from the group. Not only is he afraid of having her around his children, he’s afraid that Tyreese will kill Carol when he finds out she killed his girlfriend Karen. This is the best scenario since Rick is giving Carol a chance to start over again.
Remakes Of Old TV Shows Are Unnessessary
For the past few years, it seems that every new television season brings at least four remakes of older television series. While the practice of remaking shows may have made sense in an era where no one could re-watch the old version, nowadays, it doesn’t make sense. Do you really want someone to reinterpret an old favorite when you could easily watch the original in reruns, on DVD, on Netflix, or through less legitimate services on the internet? Probably not.
To be fair, there are a few successful remakes. The most unlikely was Hawaii 5-0. No one, except CBS saw it being successful, yet it averages around 10 million viewers. Dallas is successful because it is just the Ewing clan 20 years later, so it’s more like a continuation than a remake. Out of all the remakes in the last 10 years, Battlestar Gallactica, which took the original concept and made it darker, was probably the most successful. However, the success of all three shows is the exception to the failure of most modern remakes.
‘Trust Me, I’m a Game Show’ Host Review
TBS’s Trust Me, I’m a Game Show Host is everything a modern game show should be. It has the bawdiness and banter of Match Game with a side of Hollywood Squares “is this person telling the truth.”
Unlike most game shows, there are two hosts: D.L. Hughley and Michael Ian Black. It’s an unusual setup that works because it seems like the producers will be casting meek contestants, who aren’t entirely comfortable with the jokes and subject matters. The producers are picking people that blush when you mention boobs, so of course they’re not going to be comfortable when D.L. Hughley gives a fact about the first patent for vibrators. While it would be nice to see a contestant hold their own against two comedians, the contestants aren’t the star of the show.
The facade of a game show only serves to allow D.L. and Michael to banter, which gets a little dirty because the show is aired at 10:30 pm on cable. The fact that the Trust Me, I’m a Game Show Host isn’t on network television allows both hosts to curse, tell questionable jokes, and D.L. to crack all the jokes he wants about being a black man. For some reason, that is something D.L. likes to remind the audience. He constantly calls himself “the dark side.” It’s funny the first time. By the five hundredth time, it’s been run into the ground.
‘Dancing With The Stars’: The Half Way Point
Everyone still can’t get over the Christina Milian shocker from last week. She received the highest score of the night, but still went home. It just proves that anything can happen on Dancing with the Stars. Even though one of the best dancer on the show didn’t make it to the half way point, the remaining dancers are that much closer to winning the mirror ball trophy. So how did they do last night?
Bill Engvall did a tango to Jimmy Buffet’s “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” Putting these two odd elements together seemed to make a nice combination. He lost the smoothness in his footwork. I think he was more fixated on wanting that cheeseburger. Len liked how the routine was sharp and had tanginess to it. Carrie Ann and Len gave Bill 8s whereas Bruno gave him a 7, totaling a 23 out of 30.
‘Mom’: “Loathing and Tube Socks” Review
Believe it or not, Mom is the best new sitcom. To be honest, I didn’t have high hopes for the show and really thought it would be cancelled at this point. Well, I was wrong. Shows that I had much higher hopes for, such as We Are Men and The Michael J. Fox Show, have either crashed and burned or their cancellation is only a matter of time. Mom has improved. Stepping back from the show and not reviewing it for a week has made me see that.
In “Loathing and Tube Socks,” Christy comes to terms with the fact that she is the problem in her life, which is only slightly the case. Christy’s attitude doesn’t help matters, but how would you feel if your teenage daughter was pregnant and your mother would make you her fall guy? Granted, Bonnie only made her daughter the fall guy in Christy’s dream, which had them smuggling drugs from Mexico. However, it was clearly a little too real for Christy. Christy even called her mother to yell at her. Bonnie didn’t take to well to this, but Bonnie has little more than a superficial love for her daughter and thinks she’s a crazy person.
It’s Raining Dead! ‘The Walking Dead’ Returns
Spoilers (show, video game, and comics) ahead, you’ve been warned.
The Walking Dead kicked off its fourth season last night. After a sleeper third season finale, fans were hoping for an amazing premiere. The episode “30 Days Without An Accident” shuffled its way along. It spent the whole episode building up the rest of the season. Not that it’s entirely a bad thing, since that’s what premiere episodes are supposed to do.
Most importantly, the group is quickly going to discover a whole new problem. This time, it isn’t a horde of walkers or a gang of crazy survivors. Not yet, at least. It seems that the animals are finally being infected. Whether it’s by the same infection or a whole new strain has yet to be determined. It started with one of the newer group members (aka walker food) thanking Daryl for the deer he hunted earlier. By the end of the episode, he mysteriously turns into a walker. Throughout the episode, Rick noticed that there were some sick animals in and around the prison. Hershel had stated that they have enough food to feed all of the people in the prison. Well, not anymore.
Wait! What's A Dial? 