It’s been four years, four years on the WB. When “Smallville” premiered, I remember seeing the previews for “Everwood” and thought, “What the hell? I’ll give it a shot.” I never really thought it would become a ritual every week. “Everwood”, a casualty of the upcoming merge of the WB and UPN, is proof positive that television executives have no clue what quality programming is. After a long hiatus, and many time slot changes, the executives decided “It’s ratings were too low” (explain the logic behind that) and cut it down from the fall’s schedule. Which is not to say “Everwood” wasn’t sliding. “Everwood” was an excellent show, but became much too bogged down in melodrama and began lacking the spirit and small town quirkiness the first three seasons had.
Category Archives: TV Tomb
The 4400: Season Premiere
Two hour premiere June 11th
Season Premiere on June 18th
The obscure, but apparently popular series returns once again to the USA Network with much anticipated season three on June 11th. I’ve never seen this show, nor have I ever sought it out in spite of its unique plot. But “The 4400” a mix of “Taken”, and utterly shameless elements ripped from “X-Men” rejoins the story once more as the government is seeking to warn America about the potential war about to brew with humans and the 4400, while they incorporate themselves into society with obvious supernatural powers such as telepathy, and underwater breathing.
Washington the Warrior
How many people really know George Washington? Well–aside from historians. How many of you know Washington really? “Washington the Warrior” discusses the early career of Washington from his treks as a soldier, his rise to power and inevitable political decisions that would affect his country from poor choices right down to country changing events.
Stephen King's Desperation (2006)
I mean sure, “The Stand” had many biblical themes to it, and I don’t hold that against it basically because it’s my favorite television movie of all time, and my favorite King mini-series, but that’s because it never used the biblical themes so blatantly before. I have to say “Desperation” is one hell of a disappointment. It’s a cheesy, ridiculous, and utterly un-scary practice in babbling, that actually required a considerable amount of effort to sit through. After weeks of anticipation and excitement, I finally tuned in and basically zoned out by the second hour. If there’s any indication that producers have run out of material for Stephen King min-series, it’s “Desperation”.
Masters of Horror: Imprint
What—you thought I wouldn’t review this episode? You fool. Showtime, or as I like to call it, HBO-lite created the “Masters of Horror” series more as a Halloween novelty and then in to a full on series. They then invited horror veterans to throw in their own tales in the proverbial cap and really garner ratings and acclaim. And then they took on Takashe Miike. And then they banned his creation. The equivalent of this being that I ask an artist to draw the most disturbing picture he can, and then when he does, I scream “Whoa! Too disturbing!” And then I tear it up. My question is: How can you give an arsonist a match and then not expect him to burn down a whole city? How can you let Takashe Miike direct something for you and then get angry when he actually directs?! Did anyone at Showtime even know who he was?
10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America
One of the more notable episodes coming up on the History Channel’s “10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America” event, is the exploration of “The Scopes Monkey Trial”. The upcoming series from the History Channel involves ten episodes exploring ten fateful days that changed the landscape of American culture and history, and they examine truly relevant events that changed our way of thinking from the gold rush, and the emergence of rock music in to conservative culture.
One of the events chronicled here in the great series is The Scopes Monkey Trial which would later inspire the great Arthur Miller to write one of his most amazing plays “Inherit The Wind”. As someone who has been immersed in the incredibly volatile debate brewing in our country about creationism vs. evolution, I decided to watch the Scopes episode first. “10 Days” is a series that is a mixture of a documentary, a chronicle, and filmed sequences by film directors from David Helbroner of “Southern Comfort”, to award-winning documentary director Bruce Sinofsky and it’s a major event for the History Channel.
Religion and science is an ongoing battle that may very well go all the way in to the end of human existence. Some people prefer to think we were born of logical origin, and some prefer to think were born in the image of a god, and what happened around this time was that people were so against the theory of evolution that they arrested John Scopes as a scapegoat to make an example of him. From this came William Jennings Brian who was a devout Christian, and Clarence Darrow an evolutionist and agnostic who came to his friend John’s defense. This material even without the help of Arthur Miller is engrossing plain and simple.
What’s so good about the series “10 Days” is their episodes are paralleled to issues that are important today, in some way or another. And the “Scopes” episode is representative of the ongoing debate of creationism and evolutionism today that has and continues splitting America. The series also explores both sides of the issues, scrutinizing both Darrow and Brian. Upcoming episodes for “10 Days” including “When America Was Rocked” concerning the rock influence on Conservative America, and “Gold Rush” about the California Gold Rush.
Cheerleader Nation
Now, I for one don’t watch reality shows, mainly because: a. I’ve seen a lot of them at the beginning, and b. 99 percent of them really suck. I mean, really suck (that one percent is just a margin of error), and I very rarely ever sit down to watch a reality show. But as far as “Cheerleader Nation” goes, it’s not a bad show. Would I watch the entire season? Hell no, but from the episode I was given a chance to see, it’s tolerable enough to sit through. And, if for no other reason, watch it because it has cheerleaders. It’s awfully staged, pretty cheesy, there are your assorted mixed bag of characters including your stage moms, and your drama, but it’s also pretty fun, I’m ashamed to admit.