Fav Scene of the Week - Oct 25th 09

I have to say that at first, The Middle sort of passed me by. I was watching but not immediately blown away like Modern Family but I also wasn't turned off like Hank. Episode 4 was the make or break episode for me and it made me take notice of how funny this show is.

I love the character Brick and I could have easily picked one of his scenes but I went with Frankie and Sue.

Fav Scene of The Week - Oct 18th 09

One of my possible choices was Miranda Bailey's crossover from Grey's Anatomy to Private Practice. Her first scene reminded my why she is one of my favourite characters.

Instead I picked a scene with Sheldon and Raj from The Big Bang Theory. It could be seen as childish but this has me laughing every time I see it.



I do have to make a special mention to a scene from Modern Family regarding a certain song, In the Moonlight. This song has been in my head since seeing the episode and I've even purchased it off iTunes. I've included the scene from the show and an extended version of the song.

Fav Scene of The Week - Oct 11th 09

There were a number of candidates which were all comedies. I'm yet to find something that caught my eye in a dramatic sense, though Brother and Sisters did fly near the radar.
Possible candidates were the plane flying scene from Modern Family and Sue's Monologue from Glee. I chose a scene from The Office instead. It would have been easy for me to pick the wedding dance but I decided to chose a different dance involving Andy.

Heroes...Going, Going, Gone

So it finally happened and I joined the other millions that have done the same thing. I have officially dumped Heroes. After avoiding watching the season opener for nearly two weeks, I finally sat down to watch the double episode. Day after day I had put this episode to the back of the queue watching everything else that had been aired in between. Yesterday I finally decided to just sit down and watch but only because there was nothing left to watch.

I found myself pausing constantly as I was getting bored, I just couldn't find myself interested. Halfway through the first episode, I went to get myself a drink and I had a brief chat with my mother. She had stop watching the show two episodes away from the end of last season. She asked me why I was flogging a dead horse and that it's not a new show so I shouldn't give it the same chance I was giving those (I adopted a policy if giving the new shows 3 episodes to get me interested). It got me thinking about the time I originally wanted to stop watching it until now. Two seasons and it still hasn't got any better. I got to the end of the first episode and rolled my eyes at the thought of trying to watch another two and that's when I made the decision to finally break up with the show.

I would have placed money on one of the new shows being the first to drop off my TV guide but I was wrong. It was a long time coming and I mentioned it in a post a couple of months ago. The quality of the show has declined as fast as the viewing figures and it should be given it's marching orders (as mentioned in my cancellation predictions). On Monday Trauma, which starts straight after Heroes, got more viewers (5.49m compared to 5.41m though Heroes had a better figure with the 18-49 demo).

I mean there's even a Twitter campaign to get people to stop watching it. I as well as millions of others have said goodbye to Heroes and so should NBC.

Fav Scene of The Week - Oct 4th 09

Every week I will be posting a clip of my favourite scene/s of the TV week whether they be comedic or dramatic. This week I've picked one that was funny but not from a comedy show. There were a couple of scenes from Cougar Town and Modern Family but I chose one from FlashForward instead. The scene involves Courtney B. Vance and Joseph Fiennes talking about Vance's character's flashfoward.



It was nice to see something so light-hearted in what is billed as a drama.

My Cancellation Predictions

"It lacks cohesion." A quote from the season opener of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. This is something that can be said of many shows on TV and is often thrown at new shows in particular.

I've watched most of the new shows that have been aired so far. I've taken a look at the ratings for their debut and in some cases, their second outing. I'm going to loosely predict what shows I think will be cancelled as well as predict some more established shows. The first one on my list was going to be The Beautiful Life but the plug was already pulled before I got the chance to write this.

Lets get one thing straight, though I'm predicting the following, it doesn't mean I necessarily dislike the shows that I've picked, as there are a couple that I like but still think they will be canned.

Ugly Betty - Now this hasn't even been shown yet and that is one of the points of why I feel it will be cancelled. This week ABC announced that Betty's season opener air date has changed. It was moved to Friday which is the least watched week day (I'm looking at it in terms of the highest viewed show per day). CBS so far has that night in the bag with Medium, Ghost Whisperer and Numbers. The viewers were already dwindling before this move.

Hank and The Middle - They're just not as good as ABC's other two new comedies Cougar Town and Modern Family. That and the ratings are reason enough.

Trauma/Mercy - I can't really choose between the two but I think one of them will go. My personal opinion is Mercy but Trauma had the worst debut. Not sure why NBC went for two new shows about the emergency services.

Cold Case - I like this show but there were rumours that this was up for the chop with Without A Trace and it was an either or decision. With CBS cutting costs in both primetime and daytime, I see this as one to go.

Dollhouse - Another show that I like but not enough people are watching this. It also doesn't help when SyFy's Stargate Universe and encores of shows already shown in the week get better rating numbers.

Smallville - I haven't watched this since the first season but like Ugly Betty, it has been moved to Friday. I don't see why it couldn't have been moved into The Beautiful Life's vacated spot instead of a Melrose Place rerun. These are the reasons I have this down plus the length of time it's had on air.

I've had to put the following in a separate section as if they were on any other network, I think these shows would be canned but as NBC's figures as a whole haven't been as good as CBS or ABC this week (in some cases Fox either) then it's hard to tell what they would actually get rid of.

Heroes - I really don't think I should have to explain this one as those that no longer watch it know why. It should have been cancelled last season but they persisted and gave it another go. The characters have become annoying, they've killed off some interesting and popular characters, it's lacked direction and decent story-telling and people are abandoning it fast, including many of my family and friends.

Parks and Recreation - I really like this show but it's the worst performer out of NBC's Thursday comedies.

The following ones I'm debating and could go either way depending on how they do further down the line. I won't go into my reasons, in some cases, you just have to watch them to know.

Eastwick
The Forgotten
Accidently On Purpose
Brothers
Till Death
Melrose Place
Castle

The last one I am mentioning is just what I think should end.
One Tree Hill - I think it should have ended last season as I think it was time and ended on a good note, which I mentioned in a previous post. Now it feels like they are just dragging things out. If you have to have Dan Scott married to Rachel Gatina and another Nathan may or may have cheated storyline, then you need to end it.

Obviously Lost isn't included in any of the lists, as we all know that it will be airing it's last season. I think it was good that they announced a couple of seasons ago the timeline for the show.

We shall see what shows are still on when I do this again, after the mid season shows have aired.

Not A Beautiful Life In The End

Before September has even ended and all the new fall shows were even given their first outing, we have already seen the first casualty. According to reports, The CW has cancelled The Beautiful Life after only two episodes.

The first episode managed to pull in around 1.4 million but the second episode struggled with 1 million. More than half of the viewers from it's lead in show, America's Next Top Model, decided to tune out of The CW. As somebody wrote, people seemed to be more interested in Tyra Banks trying to make a model than a show about models. To put it more into context, more people follow it's co producer, Ashton Kutcher, on Twitter than the combined ratings of both episodes.

I struggled to even write anything coherent about the first episode of The Beautiful Life so I was eager to see if any kind of reaction would come from episode two. With a build up of returning shows aired this week, I had put TBL aside to watch at the weekend. Before I had the chance to watch it, my mother told me that my prediction was right. After the ratings were released for Wednesday's shows I thought that it would be the first show to receive the chop.

Yes the ratings were poor but I think what made The CW act so quickly was probably the success of The Vampire Diaries. The network had already announced this week that they have ordered new scripts of Diaries, Melrose Place and given One Tree Hill a 22 episode order.

Melrose Place has also had less than flattering rating figures but only time will tell if this or another show will be next on the chopping block.

Version 2.0

The popular thing amongst the TV networks seems to be bringing back things to life. Whether it be an old TV show or a film, networks are looking to the past for their future shows.

With CBS resurrecting Hawaii Five O and a number of shows either in the pipeline or already showing, it seems that networks are running out of fresh ideas. Why the case for all the reboots?

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Dawn Ostroff was quoted as saying "When you do a remake you have built-in fan base and that's a huge advantage for us." But as we know in some cases, a fan base for an old show doesn't guarantee success now. All you have to do is look at the ratings for Melrose Place and 90210. Granted that they are both on The CW but even so, they aren't the most popular shows. Another case, Knightrider didn't last too long on the air. I never watched it myself as I couldn't see myself watching a pale imitation of a show I used to watch as a kid.

You can compare the reboots to a band reforming or giving an old relationship another go. Sometimes the chemistry just isn't there, things are forced and you're going through the motions. With the reboots, they seem to have more to prove than a new show would because everyone is keen to see where things go and what old characters come back. Sometimes when you bring old characters back, it can take things away from the new ones. Then there are some cases where you just don't care about the new characters. Where do you find the balance?

The latest news this week was that William H Macy was going to be in the US version of the hit UK show Shameless. These kinds of reboots at times fail to do anything. Kath and Kim didn't work out last year. To me the US version just wasn't as funny as the Australian version. I won't even mention Coupling's demise. There is always an exception to the rule and in these types of reboots; it would be The Office, which is currently in its sixth series. It isn't as easy to find a TV gem these days.

With a couple of the new shows that are to air, I've never had the opportunity to watch their predecessor. I didn't even realise that V would fall into this category. Even though there might be many reboots, some are just a completely new show to me.