New Show Alert: Glee (Fox)

Last night, I watched the premiere episode of the excellent new show, Glee (of course, watch means on my DVR, fast-forwarding through the commercials).  I had missed out on the “special preview” last winter when the show aired after American Idol, but I always heard great things about it.  I figured I would just watch it when it eventually premiered this week on Fox.  It was a fantastic episode with lots of fun moments and great music.  My wife really felt that all the actors were talented enough to be considered professional singers (which I’m sure they are).  I’m looking forward to the season, especially with the many guest stars they have lined up.  My only worry for the show is that it might get cancelled.  It always seems that critical darlings get cancelled before they hit the ground running and Fox is notoriously axe-happy with new shows.  Hopefully when the ratings figures come out, it will be safe…for now.  I’m already making room for it on my lineup.

DVR Priority Status: Currently 54/55, but it'll probably go up if there's a conflict.

Available Space: 46hr 3min

Cutting the Chord: Models of the Runway (Lifetime)

Yesterday I came to the conclusion that there is no reason for me to watch Models of the Runway, the spinoff/companion show to Lifetime’s popular Project Runway show.  When the show premiered, I always wondered why Bravo (the home network at the time) did not create a show about the models.  It seems I was not the only one, but it took a good 5 seasons before the idea materialized into a show.  Now that it’s here, I don’t really care anymore.  There is already another show that does it dramatically well (with catfights and crazy divas) – America’s Next Top Model.  At least on that show, the models actually have a say and control over their fates.  In Models of the Runway, we only follow the lives of the models as long as their corresponding designer is still on the show.  This year on Project Runway, so far the designers have been assigned their models and nowhere have we seen the dreaded and boring “pick your models” segment.  I’m sure if I watched Models, I would understand what is going on or if this is a new segment, but for now, I don’t really care.  That’s not what Project Runway is about.  For now, what I care about is that I have freed up two extra hours I can now use to save Project Runway on my DVR.

DVD Release of the Day: Heroes: Season Three

Season Three of Heroes has finally been released.  The show hasn't been great since the first season, so why do I still follow it?  Season two was up, down, and all over the place while the first part of season three seemed to completely ignore everything that had happened (and made the series great) up to that point.  It was really annoying and with my DVR filled with new shows, I was this close to cut the chord.  Still, something happened and I kept thinking...maybe it will get better.  It's not just sitting there on the DVR list - 8 episodes left for me to watch.  Supposedly the show got better during its second half.  I will give it a shot, but maybe I should consider deleting it and renting the DVD instead.  Is it too late for the DVRed episodes?

Visual Distractions

Last weekend was my 1st year wedding anniversary weekend.  My wife, knowing full well how much I love media and entertainment, treated me with an excellent gift: a shiny, new Blu-Ray player.  So, not only does the new player allow me to watch Blu-Rays, but it also plays DVDs, streams Netflix movies, and Pandora radio stations (my wife loves this one).  Since we have a Netflix account, we upgraded it to receive high definition Blu-ray discs and now we can use their nifty streaming service.  This is great, but there's a downside.  This means that my television attention time will be divided by even more options.  I already had to deal with live television, recorded shows, and DVDs.  Now, I have to contend with two more options that will dominate my television screen.  (sigh) It seems that I get further away from my goal with every new technology.

Mourning the Fallen: Life (NBC)

6 Episodes Pending, 0 to Record (Canceled)

It's very sad when a show you enjoy gets canceled.  Unfortunately, that is the nature of television and the burden of every TV fan.  I knew Life was in limbo when the new season started on NBC last fall.  Like many shows scarred by the writer's strike last year (wow, that was last year?), the show lost its momentum when it returned in the fall.  Unlike many other cop shows (which I typically do not follow), the show was more character-driven and the main character, played by the always-game Damien Lewis, had his own personal mystery to resolved.

If you're not familiar with the show, Lewis plays Charlie Crews, a fruit-loving cop that was wrongfully accused of murder and was sentenced to life in prison.  While in prison, new evidence absolved him and he got a hefty settlement from the LAPD along with his old job.  The show was great, and the first season had a first-rate supporting cast.  Sarah Shahi plays Dani Reese, his parter (who battles demons of her own).  Adam Arkin plays his friend Ted Early (an ex-con he met in prison).  Finally, the first season featured the talented Robin Weigert (who was excellent as Calamity Jane on Deadwood - another show that ended too soon).  Anyways, it was an exciting show with clever mysteries solved each week, all while Charlie figured out who framed him for murder and tried to piece his life together.

I don't know about other people, but I get very discouraged from watching episodes of canceled shows.  I had an entire season of Dirty Sexy Money sitting on my DVR for months before I realized I did not want to invest any more time to a show that was not getting resolved.  For me, a show has to be excellent for me to want to submit myself to additional episodes knowing the show is canceled.  Life, however, is another matter.  I still have 6 episodes left to watch of the great show.  I just hope it has a satisfying ending (although I'm not keeping my hopes up).  I just want Charlie to have a happily-ever-after ending and for him to solve the mystery.  For now, the DVR has somehow kept the show alive for longer than NBC ever wanted.  Either way, I'll be sad when the show is over and completely deleted from my DVR. 

DVR Priority Status: 6 episodes left from the show's final season (sniff, sniff!).  

Available Space: 40hr 37min

Show Status: Nature's Most Amazing Events (Discovery Channel)

6 Episodes Recorded, 4 Pending, 0 to Record

It's interesting that this is the second Discovery Channel show in a row that I review, but that is the nature of the summer season.  When all serial shows take a break, I indulge in nature, history, and travel shows to pass the time.  Two years ago, I absolutely fell in love with Planet Earth and I was eagerly looking forward to some sort of a sequel.  Nature's Most Amazing Events fits the bill and it is a beautiful show with amazing footage.  The show takes some of the most spectacular events that were highlighted on Planet Earth and covers them in more detail.  Last night, I watched the show's second episode about Grizzly Wilderness.  It followed the great salmon run in the Pacific North West.  I loved the footage of the bears trying to grab a fish from the bottom of a river using their feet.  It almost looked like the bears were dancing in the water.  It was very funny.  Well, that was my late-night viewing last night and it is one less hour off my DVR.  The show is now on repeat viewings on the Discovery Channel and is highly recommended for nature show lovers out there. 

On a tangent: I love nature shows and the BBC Natural History shows (that usually show up here on the Discovery Channel) are some of the best.  Earlier this year, I really wanted to see Earth (the movie), but never got around to it.  I'm a bit tired of seeing films about Polar Bears dying in the Arctic at this point, but I'm game for anything else.  Global Warming is very sad, and I can only hope that we can revert it before it gets catastrophic for our planet.  

DVR Priority Status: Already recorded the 6 episodes, so it is no longer on my recording list.  I now have 4 episodes to watch.  

Available Space: 33hr 51min

Show Status: Out of Egypt (Discovery Channel)

2 Episodes Recorded, 2 Pending, 0 to Record

It usually takes me a while to learn about new shows unless they're highly publicized network/cable events. Recently, while reading one of the newer issues of Entertainment Weekly, I skimmed through Clark Collis's guide to the week in television. Collis provides excellent, witty commentary on some of television's more overlooked shows. That particular issue was a two-part issue (probably the Fall Movie Preview). One show caught my eye with the following listing:

9-11PM
Discovery, TV-PG
Series Debut
Out of Egypt
This new history show is fronted by Lost Egyptology expert Kara Cooney. What do you mean, you didn't know Lost had an Egyptology expert? All the cool shows do these days.

Like most history geeks out there, I thought this show sounded pretty cool. It wasn't only the appeal of watching a show about Egyptology, but knowing that the expert worked on Lost. Not remembering the actual name of the show, I browsed through days and days of Discovery Channel listings until I found it and added it to the bottom of my DVR queue. It premiered last Monday with two episodes (for whatever reason numbers 3 and 4). On Tuesday, I opened my DVR list and there it was starring back at me. Having spent Tuesday & Wednesday on a soap opera marathon with my wife (with the added bonus of finally watching the Project Runway All-Star Challenge and elmininating an extra two hours from my DVR), I finally decided to tackle it this morning.

Overall, I thought it was an egaging show. I've only watched about half an hour of the total running time (approximately 40 minutes without commercials) of the first episode. In the show, Cooney travelled to ancient Egypt, Italy, Peru, Israel, and Sri Lanka to discuss relics and mummies. It has good production values and she amazingly is provided access into some cool places and archeological sites due to her academic profile(she works for UCLA). In Egypt, she was present during the opening of a crypt filled with animal mummies. I knew that Egyptians preserved animal mummies, but I had no idea it was to send their messages to the gods. It was very interesting and I'm excited to finally finish the episode tonight and delete the one hour out of my queue.

DVR Priority Status: Currently 49/52, but I will keep it on my queue

Update: I finished the episode. Mission accomplished! One hour deleted from the DVR.

Available Space: 37hr 24min