Television: September 2008 Archives

Season four of Grey's Anatomy saw a few changes both on and off the screen as season four of the series got underway in the follow of 2007. Due to her producing responsibilities on both Grey's and its spinoff Private Practice, series creator Shonda Rhimes assigned the day-to-day showrunning duties to writer and executive producer Krista Vernoff. Season four would also prove to be a real test for the series popularity, as several cast members were not returning for the fourth season. Kate Walsh and her character doctor Addison Montgomery were leaving for Private Practice and it was announced that Isaiah Washington, who played Dr. Preston Burke would not be returning to the show after his contract wasn't renewed.

Check out the fun new show on ABC from executive producer Ashton Kutcher, Opportunity Knocks. Imagine a game show in your own yard. ABC is going across the country and setting up shop on different family's yards. The family is quizzed on how well they know each other as the audience (friends and neighbors) cheer them on. Each family must work together to complete both mental and physical tasks in order to win exciting prizes!

As a huge Superman fan it hurts me to say this, but after watching the entire seventh season of Smallville over a two-and-a-half-day period, the series may have officially jumped the shark. I've been a fan of the series from the start, even though Tom Welling and some of his co-stars will likely never be considered among America's greatest thespians. There's little doubt that Clark Kent is a tough character to create storylines for, with the limited budget of a television series and I give the writers and producers a lot of credit for coming up with as many interesting storylines as they have over the years. Unfortunately, they can only do so much, and not even several guest appearances from prominent DC characters could save this season.

Strangely, I never got a chance to watch The Big Bang Theory even once, during its first season on CBS. However, I was excited to watch the first season on DVD for several reasons: I'm a big fan of Johnny Galecki and anything with him in it has a chance for success, the premise of two twenty-something physicists who live across from a blonde waitress/wannabe actress has undeniable comic potential and Sarah Gilbert rejoining Galecki as a recurring character seemed like a good idea. They had such good chemistry as Darlene Connor and David Healy on Roseanne; I was excited to see the two actor's team up again. So, I guess it's safe to say that I popped The Big Bang Theory - The Complete First Season into my DVD player hoping for some pretty solid entertainment.

Created by Josh Schwartz and Chris Fedak, Chuck centers around a computer whiz named Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi). In the pilot episode, we learn that Chuck is socially awkward and feels more comfortable interacting with computers than most other people. He works as a computer expert at his local Buy More with his best friend, Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez). Chuck's sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) a doctor looks out for her brother and wants to help him find a girlfriend. On the night of his birthday party, Chuck receives an e-mail from his former Stanford University roommate, Bryce Larkin (Matthew Bomer), who is now a "rogue" CIA agent. When he opens it, an entire server of sensitive data -- once only available to the United States government -- called the Intersect, is subliminally embedded into his brain by way of a long series of images. Both the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency want the intelligence returned to them and dispatch agents of their own -- Major John Casey (Adam Baldwin) and Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski) -- to retrieve that data.

CSI: Miami has always been my CSI of choice. Whether it's the sunny Miami locale, or watching Lieutenant Horatio Cane (David Caruso), go off the rails a bit more than some of the criminals he's charged with having to catch week after week, I've been hooked on the series for years. I've read many complaints that CSI: Miami finally went a too far during the sixth season, by adding to much of a soap opera element to the show and indulging David Caruso's well documented ego by allowing Horatio Cane to turn into a deity. While I agree that that the producers of CSI: Miami made some missteps during the sixth season, I think the new plotlines give the series some fresh material to work with in season seven and beyond.

HBO photo: Michael Tackett

I received a copy of Terminal City in the mail sometime in early August. I have to admit that after glancing at the accompanying promotional materials, I had little to no interest in viewing the ten hour mini-series. It was about a woman with cancer, who somehow how ends up with her own reality series. I thought the subject matter was too depressing and I set it aside. Later that day, I decided to give Terminal City a try, because I'm a fan of Gil Bellows (Ally McBeal) who plays the husband of the cancer patient in the series; I'm glad I did, because Terminal City turned out to be one of the most provocative, emotionally gripping dramas about family relationships I've seen in a long time.

The PBS series American Experience has long been known as a program that produces extensive documentaries on the people and events that have helped shape the history of America. The documentaries are fairly extensive, often taking years to complete. Not surprisingly, the series has done several documentaries on different Presidents of the United States. Recently, PBS and Paramount released American Experience - The Presidents Collection, a rather mammoth box set, covering some of the most important Presidents of the 20th century--Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Truman, The Kennedy's (Joe, John, Robert and Edward), Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush--Clocking in at approximately 2100 minutes over 15 discs, there's a massive amount of information contained in the set.

If you don't know who John Oliver is, you probably should. He's the bespectacled British comedian who serves as a regular correspondent on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, delivering his views on political issues of the day with a deadpan style. His first Comedy Central Special, John Oliver - Terrifying Times, gives the comedian a chance to go solo, trading the green screens of Jon Stewart's studio for the stage at New York's Symphony Space, but his trademark dry wit is the same. Slightly longer and with more naughty words than its original televised incarnation, this hour-long special showcases Oliver's uniquely literate and legitimately funny take on just about every problem facing the world today.

Christmas specials are a dime a dozen. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, literally hundreds of movies and specials liter the television landscape to mark the yuletide season. While Halloween is observed, relatively few specials are on television to mark the occasion. Fewer still, have entered the pop culture lexicon. One definite exception is, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Based on the comic strip Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, the Great Pumpkin was the third Peanuts special produced for television. The first broadcast took place on October 27th, 1966 on the CBS network, scoring a 49 share. To put that in the proper context, in 1966, there were only three networks to choose from, so a 49 share means that almost half the television sets in America were watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown that night. The special has continued to air each year since.