The summer TV season is almost over and it has been a good one. A lot of quality shows aired during the “dead” months. But which shows were the best and which ones were duds? I will take a look at the summer schedule and tell you which ones I thought were the best and which ones didn’t work out that well. That’s coming up later in this column.
Random Thoughts on Random Shows
‘Prison Break’
I didn’t watch the first season, because I watched another show at the same time last year. But this year I get a chance to watch it with my new TiVo. So eventhough I was a little lost on how characters were related and such..it didn’t stop me from enjoying the episode. I don’t know what first season fans thought of the episode, but I thought it was good. I will continue to watch it.
‘Vanished’
This new show has gotten mixed reviews so far and to be honest..I was doing other things while watching this show. I didn’t pay that much attention to the show, which can’t be good. It did nothing to really grab my attention, but there was nothing horribly wrong that I won’t give it another shot. Although, since NBC has a similar show coming up called ‘Kidnapped’ it will be interesting to see which show is better in the long run.
‘Big Brother 7: All-Stars’
This was a double eviction week. George SHOCKED everyone to win the first “HOH” on Thursday. He quickly nominated Erika and James for eviction. Everyone wanted Janelle to go home, but George quickly formed an alliance with her and Howie. That didn’t work that well, since James won the first “POV” to get himself “off the block”. This has been the 5th time in a row this has happened! Nuts! So James is off and there goes George’s main target to leave the house. Who does he put up in James’ place? Howie! Why? Mike and Will brainwashed George and made him do it. Then, Will and Mike lied to Howie and said he was safe. Howie went home and a fight almost broke out! The next person to win “HOH” was Mike and he had all the power. Too bad the “Coup d’Etat” power became meaningless. He had three chances to use it and he didn’t, so it goes unused. If ‘Big Brother’ does this again, they should give a longer time period or something. Or at least not give it when a double eviction is coming up. That makes thing shorter. Oh well..anyways Mike is the second “HOH” and they go after Janelle. But wait..”Chill Town II”, which is Mike, Will, AND Erika, know that Janelle is a bigger target than themselves. So they want to keep her around. They nominated James and Janelle with Danielle and James thinking that James is safe. Why? Well..Will and Mike are supposed to be in the “Legion of Doom” alliance with them. WRONG! It’s “Chill Town II” and that’s it! To make things more obvious, Janelle gets a little help from Mike to win the second “POV” to keep the streak going. She gets taken off and George gets put on, but it really doesn’t matter as James will more than likely be voted out with only Danielle voting to save him. He will be gone and that will leave 6 people left in the house. But lets see if I was right first. By a count of 3-1..James is going home as expected! So Janelle and George are together. Mike and Will are together. Erika is with Mike, so she is with them. That just leaves Danielle as the odd one out. She just got betrayed with her only friend, James leaving the house. Erika is the new “HOH”, though, and I’m not sure who she will put up. Will she go after her friend, Danielle, like “Chill Town II” wants? Or will she go after Janelle? Interesting, but I think she will end up going after Danielle unless she is playing Mike all along. But I see “Chill Town II” vs. “Beauty and the Chicken” coming up! Who would have thought it would come down to this?! Not me! Prepare for WAR!
Now lets take a look at what else has been going on this past week at IPTV!!
Seinfeld Quote of the Week
“I don’t see how sleep got all tied up and connected with THAT!” – Jerry talking to Elaine about if they can still be friends and have sex at the same time, from Season Two’s “The Deal”
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…
Columns a.k.a. The Same Plus a SPECIAL Extra!!!
Mathan Erhardt is still hyped about the return of ‘The Wire’ in a few weeks. He also looks forward to the Emmys and has another “Misguided Pilot Idea” for you. In addition, he comments on ‘Psych’, ‘Monk’, ‘Eureka’, ‘Lucky Louie’, ‘Entourage’, ‘Saved’, ‘Life on Mars’, ’30 Days’, ‘Brotherhood’, ‘Weeds’, and ‘Deadwood’. Only 4 for 11 this week, which is .363 and just about right. Who wants to give me some money for HBO each month?!
Matt Basilo dreams of seeing Elisha Cuthbert and Rachel Bilson together in a photo shoot and I agree with him. He also had TOO much fun this past week with his friends. He does manage to comment on ‘The 4400’ and the special ‘William Shatner Roast’ that occurred on COMEDY CENTRAL Sunday. All of that plus some wrestling stuff as well this week from Matt!
Romo and Murtz team up to watch some pilots of new shows debuting on the major networks this Fall. They first look at FOX and 5 of their new shows. See what they liked and didn’t like before you watch them yourself!
Recaps a.k.a. Tick..Tock..Fall is Coming Up on the Clock!!!
Trevor MacKay starts off the “double eviction” week for ‘Big Brother 7: All-Stars’ with the Thursday night episode!
Murtz continues to cover the ‘Canadian Idol’ for us LIVE! He was there for the results last week and the country night this week!
I see someone get evicted on Sunday night’s ‘Big Brother 7: All-Stars’ episode! I also see a SHOCKING elimination on ‘Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Fresh Meat’!
Kevin Wong has the finale of ‘Treasure Hunters’, the LIVE performances on ‘Canadian Idol’, and back-to-back episodes of ‘Rock Star: Supernova’ with the final 5 singing and then one of them going home the next night!
Ed Hampton says goodbye to another one on ‘Canadian Idol’ this week!
This week we had 3 TV on DVD reviews! Two by Kevin!
Kevin Wong does two DVD reviews this week. He goes back to school with Strangers With Candy – The Complete Series, and goes sci-fi with Star Trek Fan Collective – Klingon!!
Murtz reviews a show that has revived SHOWTIME, so he says. I tend to agree as he got his hands on Weeds – Season One!
No Celebrities, but ANOTHER Contest!!
No celebrities this week, but you still get a chance to win a FREE DVD of Arrested Development: Season Three! Travis Leamons is giving one away so just click above and enter your name in the drawing to win this DVD for FREE!
The Weekly Pulse Weekly Poll
Last week..I asked the question…“which new show are you looking forward to the most this Fall?”. And since I only got four votes, I didn’t know what to do. My column didn’t go up until late (not my fault..by the way), so there was less time for votes. So I decided to extend this poll a week longer so that everyone who wants to vote in it..can vote in. So go now and tell me which new show you are looking forward to the most. Let me know by clicking on the link and VOTING! Remember..VOTE OR DIE!
What Did My TiVo Record This Week?
Friday
– ‘King of the Hill’
– ‘Comedy Central Presents…’ (Dane Cook!)
– ‘Monk’
– ‘Psych’
– ‘WWE Friday Night Smackdown’
– ‘Rachael Ray’s Tasty Travels’
– ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’
– ‘Late Show with David Letterman
Saturday
– ‘Courage Under Fire’ (Denzel Washington Part 1!)
– ‘Fallen’ (Denzel Washington Part 2!)
– ‘Feasting on Asphalt’
– ‘Ace of Cakes’
Sunday
– ‘ComicView’
– ‘King of Cars’
– ‘Inked’
– ‘King of the Hill’
– ‘The 4400’
– ‘Big Brother 7: All-Stars
– ‘The Dead Zone’
– ‘2006 Teen Choice Awards’ (Hosted by Dane Cook!)
Monday
– ‘King of the Hill’
– ‘Made’
– ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’
– ‘Prison Break’
– ‘Treasure Hunters’
– ‘Vanished’
– ‘WWE Monday Night RAW’
– ‘Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Fresh Meat’
– ‘MTV Cribs’
– ‘Saved’
– ‘Late Show with David Letterman’
Tuesday
– ‘The Secret Life Of…’ (Theme Restaurants!)
– ‘The Secret Life Of…’ (Grocery Stores!)
– ‘King of the Hill’
– ‘Fear Factor’
– ‘Big Brother 7: All-Stars’
– ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’
– ‘The Contender’
– ‘The Real World Reunion Special’
– ‘ECW Wrestling’
– ‘Rescue Me’
– ‘Late Show with David Letterman’
– ‘Rachael Ray’s Tasty Travels’
– ‘Miami Ink’
– ‘Ham on the Street’
Wednesday
– ‘ComicView’
– ‘Road Tasted’
– ‘King of the Hill’
– ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’
– ‘Blue Collar TV’
– ‘2006 BET Awards’ (Replay presentation!)
– ‘One Tree Hill’
– ‘Dog Bites Man’
– ‘Laguna Beach’
– ‘Two-a-Days’
– ‘Criss Angel Mindfreak’
– ‘Late Show with David Letterman’
Thursday
– ‘King of the Hill’
– ‘Big Brother 7: All-Stars’
– ‘My Name is Earl’
– ‘The Office’
– ‘Who Wants to Be a Superhero’
– ‘Mind of Mencia’
– ‘Wild N’ Out’
– ‘Pimp My Ride’
– ‘TNA Impact!’
– ‘Late Show with David Letterman’
– ‘Throwdown with Bobby Flay’
Time to Talk a.k.a. The Best TV of Summer 2006!!!
The summer TV season is about to end in the next few weeks. All of the Fall TV shows will be taking their place in less than a month’s time. Some are already debuting. So I thought it would be a perfect time to tell you which shows I liked the best this summer and which SUCKED! I know that most of these shows still have 1 or 2 episodes left, but I have my mind set and I don’t think this will change much after the finales.
We will start with the bad stuff first. But first a general note here. This will only be shows that I watched, which has been about 90% of the shows that have aired during the summer. The exceptions are any show on SHOWTIME or HBO and some of the “extra” cable channels like BBC or SUNDANCE or OXYGEN or E!. I don’t have these channels, so I can tell you about those shows. In addition, you will see no MTV or A&E shows on my lists. Why? Well..I generally liked more than 5 of those shows on those networks. It is also hard to separate them from the others. They never totally SUCKED and they weren’t the BEST out there..so they are firmly in the middle and in their category all together.
I have a “top ten” of shows that were great or at least above the rest. But we will start with the rest first. In this category, there are four types of shows that had similar elements with the other shows in their type. I grouped them all together.
We start with shows that got cancelled before they had a chance to become good or bad. These three shows aired once or twice and didn’t get good ratings. So the networks took them off the air. Lets see if that was the right thing to do or not. The shows in this category are ‘One Ocean View’ (ABC), ‘Tuesday Night Book Club’ (CBS), and ‘The One: Making of a Music Star'(ABC). ‘Tuesday Night Book Club’ was just awful! It was a train wreck from the start. It was the REAL ‘Desperate Housewives’, and it wasn’t that interesting. Some of the women were beautiful, but that’s all it had going for it. The same thing can be said about ‘One Ocean View’, but I actually liked this show somewhat. It was created by the same people behind ‘The Real World’ and really..this was the “adult” ‘Real World’. It was interesting, but I can see why it got cancelled. ‘The One’ was a reality TV show that was looking for a singer! Yep..FOX has ‘American Idol’, CBS has ‘Rock Star’, NBC has ‘America’s Got Talent, and this was ABC’s version. Too bad that everyone is tired of this idea by now. That’s why it SUCKED! Brought nothing too interesting to the table.
These next shows is almost like the above shows. Except..they weren’t cancelled. Still..these shows either had short seasons or are still airing episodes that could affect their overall placement as good or bad. So I decided to lump them together. These shows would be ‘Chappelle’s Show’ (COMEDY CENTRAL), ’30 Days’ (FX), and ‘The Contender’ (ESPN). ‘Chappelle’s Show’ had only 3 episodes this season and they were funny. Not as funny as the first two seasons, but still funny. Too short, though. ‘The Contender’ and ’30 Days’ are still airing right now and I really couldn’t put them in my “top ten”, since I didn’t know how they would end. I like both of these shows and I would say that they just missed the “top ten”.
The next group of shows are shows that I said I would watch at the beginning of the summer, but by the end of the summer..I had lost complete interest in the shows. I recorded these shows each week and I watched them, but towards the middle of their seasons..I just stopped caring about them. It didn’t matter to me if I watched them again or not. These shows include ‘Windfall’ (NBC), ‘The 4400’ (USA NETWORK), ‘The Closer’ (TNT), and ‘Falcon Beach’ (FOX FAMILY). ‘The 4400’ started off strong. I watched it and liked it. But really the show became too “sci-fi” for me. I would probably watch it again, but it never was a “must-watch” for me. I recorded a TON of shows this summer on my TiVo and this show was always one I would watch last. The same goes for ‘Windfall’. I would watch others before this show and didn’t really care if I watched it or not. ‘The Closer’ and ‘Falcon Beach’ were just bad to me. Things about these shows annoyed me and made me stopping watching them. I gave them a shot, but they weren’t good.
The final group of the shows that didn’t make my “top ten” were all reality TV shows this summer. Some were interesting, while others couldn’t hold my interest but they all just weren’t good enough to make it to the “top ten”. These shows include ‘Rock Star: Supernova’ (CBS), ‘America’s Got Talent’ (NBC), ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ (FOX), ‘Fear Factor’ (NBC), and ‘Treasure Hunters’ (NBC). I never got into ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ or ‘Rock Star’. I watched them a few times, but they never held my interest. ‘America’s Got Talent’ became a ratings hit, but it annoyed me at times. It was crazy, but somehow it worked. Too annoying to watch all the way through, though. I liked ‘Fear Factor’, but it wasn’t good enough to make it to the “top ten”. The same can be said for ‘Treasure Hunters’. In fact, it just missed the “top ten”. It would have been #11 on the list. Not the greatest reality TV show and not that original, so that’s why it was left off.
That just leaves the “top ten” now. These 10 shows were better than all the rest. I will give them to you in order. Starting with #10, which is close to the “rest” and going all the way to #1, which is the best show of the summer that I saw! So here we go!
#10 – ‘Who Wants to be a Superhero’
This barely made the list. It only had a few episodes this season and it’s still airing. So it almost made one of the other two categories in the “rest”. But this show made the list, because it’s unique. It’s a little silly at times, but it’s so silly..it becomes entertaining. Who wouldn’t want to be a superhero created by Stan Lee? It’s a stupid reality show, but an unique one. That’s why it’s on the list.
#9 – ‘The Dead Zone’
This show went along with ‘The 4400’. It started off strong and got me interested. I almost lost interest in it, but somehow it still kept my attention enough for me to continue to watch it. It’s usually the last show I watch, but I still watch it. It almost fell off the list, but the main characters kept me interested in watching this show.
#8 – ‘Monk’
Another show on the USA Network and another strong show. I like the main character on ‘Monk’ and it always entertains me. But why is it not higher on the list? I’m not as entertained by it as other shows. I need to laugh every now and then, even with drama shows. This is a mixture, but not enough to make it higher on the list. Still..a solid show.
#7 – ‘Last Comic Standing’
This is a reality show and one that got a second chance in the summer. Smart move. It was funny. There were some comedians that weren’t funny, though. Still..there were some funny people. I didn’t like Josh Blue winning the entire thing, since he wasn’t the funniest. That’s what knocked this show down a few notches.
#6 – ‘Hell’s Kitchen’
One of the best reality shows of the summer. I didn’t watch it at first, but I did catch it near the middle and I was hooked. Gordon has this personality that makes you want to see what he will say next. Kinda like Simon Cowell. In addition, I love watching the FOOD NETWORK and this could have been on that network. They have a show like it actually, but it’s not as ruthless as this show. That’s a good thing, though, as “ruthless” works. A reality TV show that’s a keeper.
#5 – ‘Rescue Me’
A great show that has the drama and the comedy mixed together perfectly. It’s not higher, because I wasn’t entertained as much compared to other shows. But really..from this point on..you can switch up the order. These final five shows all are great and the top shows of the summer. You can’t go wrong with any of these shows. But there was less comedy in this show compared to the others, so that’s why it’s here.
#4 – ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’
An extremely funny show. It is not afraid to tackle any issue that is “taboo”. That’s what makes this show unique and funny at the same time. Great show.
#3 – ‘Saved’
A new show, but a great one. I like the idea behind it. I like the main characters. It has drama and it has comedy. It has it all going for itself. Another great show and one of the surprise hits of the summer. A fan for sure.
#2 – ‘Psych’
See above. The same thing I said about ‘Saved’ can be said here. Another new show, except this show is funny. It’s supposed to be fun and not serious. So there is not that much drama. Drama, but meant to be less serious. No big deal. I like the main character a lot and I’m exactly like him! That’s why it is in this spot. That’s why it is above every other show. Well..except for this last show.
And #1 – ‘Big Brother 7: All-Stars’
I can hear the moans and groans now. A reality show, but my favorite one EVER! This is the “all-star” edition and that means these players know how to play the game. To be honest, this show started off kinda slow. It has built up to being a great show, though. Things are getting interesting, especially how Will can manipulate EVERYONE in the house even when they know that’s what Will does. It’s amazing to watch really. Still I’m a little mad Kaysar got sent home the way he did as I wanted to see the final showdown between him and Will. But he is gone. This show is always entertaining and can always surprise you as you never know who is with who. The best show of the summer? No doubt. It’s on three times a week, so it DOMINATES the summer months. No exception here.
So there is my list. You agree with me? Probably not. Drop me a line and tell me which shows you liked this summer. I would love to hear it. Agree or disagree..there it is. Those are the shows I enjoyed this summer. And I hope to watch the same shows next season. Never again can you say that there is nothing good on TV during the summer!
That’s all I got this week! Any questions, comments, or suggestions are always welcome, of course! Whether that be telling me which shows liked the best this summer or anything else!
Remember..“Life Ain’t Always Beautiful, but It’s a Beautiful Ride!”
And as always…“You Can’t Fight Fate!”. See you next week!
