OK, so this is a loaded post. Obviously
just from reading the title some of you are probably offended or
cringing or doing a whole gaggle of different things reacting to “THE
Word” as it is called on tonight’s season premiere of Black-ish
(#Black-ish, #DeesNiggas). Personally, I always thought THE Word was
Jesus or the Bible or some form of that, as Christians tend to say it
is. But apparently the N-word is THE Word that everyone wants to
discuss. Let me explain.
First, let me start by saying that I
truly don’t like talking or writing (especially in my novels) about
race. I have a few written stories and screenplays I haven’t
released that focus on the topic. However, I find that for any
minority or non-minority continuing to focus on race is what can
impede the forward march of more creative writing. Maybe one of the
reasons we don’t see as many non-white characters in or leading
sci-fi or fantasy books, films and TV is because so few minority
writers want to write that stuff (we all know the other reason is
because they aren’t given a chance or quality or a million other
things). With that said, I continue.
ABC’s Black-ish makes its season
premiere tonight at 9:30. Now, there are tons of things going on
tonight sense it is premiere week. Seeing as how the networks want to
destroy each other, Fox’s Empire will also be returning a half hour
earlier (#Empire). So, in order to draw in those ratings and really
get “black twitter” talking as was mentioned in an Essence.com
interview with Anderson and Barris (one of the show’s creators),
they have decided to go for the most click-baity topic they can by
addressing the use of the word nigga.
To be fair, this is a topic discussed
in Black households, families and communities of both affluent blacks
as well as less upwardly-mobile Blacks. But the problem I have with
this is that it is a commonly discussed topic. Everybody wants
to talk about niggas and whether it’s OK to say it. Even Empire
(its competition for the night) had its own controversial dust-up
last season when Terrence Howard came out and said that he believed
the word should be used on the show to bring authenticity to it. In
fear of repeating myself as my book DARKER (#DARKER) has an epic
nigga-rant that tries to look at the use of the word from all sides,
I don’t want to delve too far into what people should and shouldn’t
do and whether they should say it or not.
Why, then, am I a little ticked by
this? Mainly because of the way it was advertised. The advertisements
were so blatant and in your face with how we should essentially be
excited for the use of the word and the crazy and hilarious
shenanigans that will follow, it almost felt like they were selling
niggas at a market. “Hey, we’re gonna use the word nigga. Some of
you out there, especially you niggas (you know who you are *wink
*) better get ready to tune in
and talk about it, because we’re doin’ it for you.” What?
Look,
don’t get me wrong, Black-ish is a nice family show that has its
funny moments. Admittedly, I don’t watch it on a regular basis. But
what ticks me off is not just the feel of the advertisements that
this is somehow edgy when this is literally the oldest conversation
that Blacks have been having in this country, but I am a little
ticked at how well the marketers thought it’d work. And you know
what, they might actually be right. Man, if I just think to mention
that my horror novel DARKER uses the N-word in one tightly compact
little area in the novel—though it is based off of Stephen King’s
Carrie—I’m sure millions of people will flock to Amazon to
purchase it just to see how I spell it: er or a -ending.
To
sum it up, I’m not necessarily mad at the show for tackling the
common conversation, I’m more mad that it is used so flippantly as
a ploy to draw in more viewers. But hey, if it works (and we all know
how often niggas used
to work) so be it.
Note
to first time readers: I tend not to use nearly as much cursing or
bad words in my posts as I find them generally unnecessary. However,
there are curses throughout most of my books. Also, I rarely get this
inflammatory about a subject, so just consider that when viewing
other posts.
What
do you all think? Is the use of the topic justified? Will you be too
busy watching Empire or something else to care? Or will you watch and
have no effect on you? Let me know what you think in the comments
below. Hint: click where it reads “no comments” to comment. I
will close the comments after a few weeks or if they get out of hand.
As
always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for
Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHomeor #ThePowerOfTen).
For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check
out #TheWriter.
The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday.
All other 14 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon.
Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to my
blog.
Until next time, “Fight the power.
You gotta fight the power. Fight the Power. You gotta fight the
powers that be!”
P.S. OK, admittedly those were lyrics
from a Public Enemy song. No, they weren’t aimed at the producers
of the show or any specific people. You’re reading too much into
this. Just because I sound angry and look angry, doesn’t mean I am
angry!
First, I would like to announce that
I’ve made the decision to do a cumulative post on most of the new
shows I listed in my #PremiereWeek post a few days back. This means
that I will withhold talking about most of them until their third
episode has aired so I can get a good sense of where the show is
going and what it wants to be. For anyone saying they’d like to see
a review of the show before they tuned in, but they also don’t want
to be behind, I’m sorry. All I can say to you is that if you do
come to find my opinion about shows that important, most channels
(cable and network broadcast) tend to keep the first three episodes
On Demand so you can catch up. Three (really two and a half) hours of
bingeing on a good show isn’t that bad. And actually, it is much
better than bingeing a full season of something. This way, I won’t
break my back trying to review every single new show all at once.
Oh, and some of those reviews will come either the week of the third
episode or the week of the fourth.
With that said, I have to break that
thought and post about The Muppets’ (#Muppets) new show. If you
read my initial premiere week post, you will know that I was not too
thrilled with this show or idea. Honestly, I think many people have
soured on the Muppets or at least I thought they had soured on them
as their second movie in their big comeback a few years ago didn’t
do so well. I thought, “well, people are clearly not that
interested in puppets anymore.” But with the final winner of
America’s Got Talent just last week being a puppeteer—the second
one to win the million dollar prize in its ten year run—I clearly
don’t know as much as I thought I did. Maybe the jubilation from
watching that has carried over to this show. I don’t know. But what
I do know is that I actually found it pleasant, far more than I
thought I would.
A mix between The Office and 30
Rock—two NBC shows that both were good in their time but I thought
stayed longer than they should have—this new incarnation of the
Muppets follows the behind-the-scenes exploits of a fictional show
entitled Up Late with Miss Piggy. The first episode saw Miss Piggy
trying to veto guest Elizabeth Banks because of a failed Hunger Games
audition. It also saw Fuzzy meeting his girlfriend’s parents for
the first time and Kermit getting acclimated to having a new pig
girlfriend/assistant to his Liz Lemon. And you know what, it was
actually funny a few times.
Before you go there, remember what
you’re getting people. This is not going to be highbrow humor; in
fact, I would argue that no sitcom really has that (yes, that
includes the Big Bang). But I will say that if you lifted this script
and put it into an episode of 30 Rock, few viewers would know the
difference. It’s on that level. Much of the humor is geared toward
adults just like the two winning puppet masters of AGT also had adult
humor mixed in with Will Ferrell-esque silliness (love Will Ferrell).
In talking about the kind of humor, I
would be remiss if I didn’t mention the controversy. A few
conservative groups have come out against the show believing it would
be too dirty or too adult for its eight o’clock time slot,
especially since it was marketed as a family show. While I have yet
to see the other episodes, I didn’t find anything too offensive or
dirty in the show to warrant such outrage. I actually find it funny
that this is the show magnet-ing controversy when ABC clearly
expected that crown to go to Black-ish’s season premiere, which
they quite cheerfully promote for approaching the use of the N-word
(so edgy! Has it ever been done before?). Another post will follow
about that.
If anything, the humor wasn’t adult
enough. Here’s my thing, after watching the show I really don’t
know who it is geared to. I thought there’d be more jokes for
younger children (under 10 crowd) but not really. Adults will get all
of their silliness, but will they tune in weekly for it and what will
motivate that? The crowd I see most likely to both be young enough
still for the novelty of puppets and old enough to get all the jokes
would be the tweeners, teens and new adults (11-22). The question is
will that be enough to keep it afloat or will older people tune in
for nostalgia and the Office-like humor? Again, The Muppets always
skewed a little older even in their original show. Will this attract
the fans left over from shows like Community, Parks and Recreation
and the like? Only time will tell.
What do you think? Did you see the
premiere of the new show or were you too busy watching Scream Queens
over on Fox or The Voice over on NBC or something else on some other
channel... or reading? Even if you didn’t see it, are you
interested now that you know what kind of humor it has? Do you think
you would watch it with your family? And will you give it the three
episode challenge as I do most shows? Let me know what you think in
the comments below. Hint: click where it reads “no comments” to
comment.
As
always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re looking for
Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHomeor #ThePowerOfTen).
For those interested in something a little more dramatic, check
out #TheWriter.
The final episode of season one of The Writer is coming this Friday.
All other 14 episodes are out now available exclusively on Amazon.
Join us on Goodreads to talk about books and TV, and subscribe to my
blog.
Until next time, “Pope, the floor is
not a hamper.” “Maaannn!”
P.S. Fine, that’s not really a
sign-off line. It’s really more dialogue than anything. And yes,
it’s from Family Guy from, like, ten years ago. But gimme a break,
the Pope is here. Am I Catholic? No. But it’s the pope. The pope,
y’all!
So, there was a heck of a lot of TV
going on last night and I still haven’t decided how I’m going to
cover the new shows. I have been debating whether the new shows I’m
interested in will get an individual post for each episode or if I’ll
do a first three episode summary and my ultimate judgment on whether
I’ll continue watching them or not. For now, I’ll just cover a
few of the old returnees, and as you can see, we’ll start with
Gotham (#Gotham).
In my opinion, Gotham whimpered back
last night. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of stuff happened, but it
wasn’t as “umph!” as I might like. However, the fact that it is
a season premiere is the big reason why I will excuse that as this
looks to be an amazing season.
It opened with Bruce and Alfred still
looking into that cave they found behind the fireplace. The nosy
little boy he is, he had to get that door open. Remembering that this
is not the all-out genius detective Bruce will one day become, I
still found it a little ridiculous that he would decide to build his
own bomb and blow the door open, rather than taking a strip of clear
tape and lifting the fingerprints from the most used numbers on the
keypad. But the bomb making will come in handy too. Strangely, it
looked nothing like a clock. Huh.
Meanwhile, Gordon suffered through his
own version of Breaking Bad or the latest episode of The Writer
(#TheWriter) after he was fired from police duty for touching an
officer who showed up late for work. The fact that the guy even told
on him shows just how ridiculous the cops in this show can get. While
Gordon struggled to figure out what was right for him to do—go and
collect a debt for Penguin of whom he asked a favor—crazy Barbra
managed to get a phone in Arkham Asylum and called him and his new
girlfriend.
Adjusting quite well to her new
residence in Arkham, Barbra befriended Jerome (our supposed future
joker and current redheaded Dennis the menace), as well as some rich
guy with not a single lick of back story. Didn’t matter because he
refused to be a criminal under another criminal mastermind who seeks
to bring total anarchy to the city. The white guy let his black
sister (oh no! Somebody call the people who complained about the
Fantastic Four’s race discrepancy) gut him in front of Barbra and
Jerome.
Oddly, this new big menace was the same
guy speaking at Commissioner Loeb’s forced retirement—a favor the
commissioner owed to Penguin for sparing his life... and his head
(shocked that the FCC let FOX get away with a severed head in the
eight o’clock hour). This a favor to Gordon from Penguin, Jim not
only got reinstated to detective but also saw his black lady boss
become the new commissioner.
All that acted as setup for the season
as now a slew of villains will be let loose and puppeteered by this
new guy, and revenge from Barbra and Loeb is sure to come. From some
of the internet’s theories and rumors circulating, many are saying
that Barbra will turn into Harley Quinn as she and Jerome already get
along swimmingly. While I can see that in some respects, I’m not
sure if Warner would want to do that so close to Suicide Squad
releasing. For one, while viewers of the cartoon are well aware of
her background, most people are not, especially those who didn’t
read the comics after the 90s. Muddying her origin story on the show,
then introducing an entirely different background in the film could
make people hate both as the disparity in age between the two was
always a key aspect of her character. Also, Barbra still seems too
put together to become as loony as Harley needs to be. We’ll see if
her character devolves into lunacy on par with Jerome, but for now I
wouldn’t like this idea.
Probably the biggest thing from this
episode that actually ticked me off was its still unresolved spirit
of what it wants to be. Does it want to stay completely grounded in
reality or will it venture into the paranormal, bizarre and magical
which could introduce some of Batman’s stranger villains like
Clayface and Killer Croc. This, evidenced by the use of some strange
potion imbibed by Zaardon. No, not Zordon the Power Rangers’ pale
white benefactor and mentor, but a cheap, costumed villain who Gordon
arrested at the beginning of the episode. The potion turned out to be
a smoke bomb of some sort that magically went off at the most
convenient time for an Asylum break. My reaction: “Really? He just
happened to kill over and die from the potion at the same exact time
the villains came to get Jerome, Barbra and the others? Well, OK. If
you say so, Gotham.”
Still, I had fun and it’s nice to see
that they’re building on character—is it too early to say that I
suddenly like the kid playing Bruce and could totally see him growing
into Batman?
Anyway, what did you all think about
the season two premiere of Gotham? Did it not have enough action for
you? Are you disappointed in the background they’re building for
the Joker (I always liked his mystic and the fact that he had no
reason for his evilness; sometimes bad is just bad)? Do you think
Loeb will return for revenge or is he forever off the show now? Let
me know what you think in the comments below. Hint: click where it
reads “no comments” to comment.
As always, check out my books on Amazon
(if you’re looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER, #BrandNewHome
or #ThePowerOfTen). For those interested in something a little more
dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of
The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now
available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about
books and TV, and subscribe to my blog.
Until next time, “ridin’ through
the six in my popemobile, just ridin’ through the six makin’ hope
so real.”
P.S. OK, maybe I made that up. It was
about time I made up a good sign-off, right? So what if it’s a play
on Drake’s song lyrics. According to Meek, he didn’t even write
them. And just because I’m not pope doesn’t mean I don’t have a
popemobile. Alright, fine, I keep workin’ on it.
The Leaves Are About To Turn Any Day,
The Weather Is Getting Cooler And Hipsters Are Explaining Their
Thesis On Why They Cut The Cord. Brace Yourselves People, It’s Fall
Premiere Week! #PremiereWeek
Picture courtesy of the 2015 Emmys
Ahhh! I am so excited! As I said in an
earlier post, I am back after my summer hiatus to blog and chat with
you about TV with a few movies, books, cooking recipes and pop
culture chat sprinkled in, and did I mention the season 1 finale of my
episodic novella series The Writer (#TheWriter) will be releasing
this Friday? Check it out and catch up on the entire season over at
Amazon. So, with the season premiering, we have a lot to discuss on
TV concerning shows both old and new. Let’s begin, shall we.
Dang it! What should I do first,
people: the old school returnees or the new class of shows? Since
you’re already familiar with the old school, let’s go over the new class (at least the one’s I’m interested in watching).
Out of the over 100 new shows slated
for the 2015-2016 season, CBS seems to have the fewest among the
major channels. This probably stems from the fact that they rarely
seem to cancel anything and still have the blob/goo monster that is
the CSI franchise dominating their network. Speaking of which, it is
slated to have a full season of CSI: Cyber which premiered back in
March. I am not interested in that show unfortunately (or maybe it is
fortunate. Frees up time). The two CBS shows I am interested in are:
Limitless and Supergirl.
Since Supergirl won’t be premiering
until October 28th (what? First they make us wait a year
for Batman v. Superman, then they push Supergirl back to 3 days
before Halloween? Not cool, Warner Bros.), I’ll focus currently on
Limitless.
Picture courtesy of CBS and IGN
Based on the film starring Bradley Cooper, Limitless
follows Brian Sinclair, an average Joe who, like Cooper’s
character, winds up with a super pill that makes him a genius while
he’s on it (think Meth except... well, nothing like Meth. Never
mind). The question for the show, just like for the movie, will be:
what will he do with this power? Do I feel an Uncle Ben reference
coming on? Huh? Is he going to turn into Spider-man? Hey, don’t
criticize my humor and wild assumptions. If you’ve seen the trailer
for the show, you’d know that he has a little fire escape stunt
that seems very familiar to a certain web slinger.
Why I’m Interested:
A sequel of sorts to the movie, Bradley
Cooper’s character will appear in the show from time to time I
guess as a sort of Mr. Miyagi to Brian. In a dual role, he’ll also
serve as a producer to help this thing succeed. As a huge Alias fan
back in the day, I am excited to finally see his return to TV even if
it is only a pop-in every so often.
Aside from that, I find the premise
enticing in that its not your typical genius or typical everyman but
a hybrid mixture of both, whose “powers” fluctuate in and out
depending on how often he takes the pill. Also, in the movie there
was a big deal made about how he’d have to keep taking the pills or
possibly die, so... that’s always fun. And it’s got Jennifer
Carpenter in it whom I have secretly crushed on since she played
Emily Rose during that exorcism movie—not the really famous one,
but the other lesser famous one. No, not that one either, but the
other one. I ain’t got time, look it up.
Hopefully, this can take the procedural
buddy cop show love affair that TV has enjoyed since Moonlighting
(and even earlier), and add a new flair to the case of the week
premise.
Moving ON!
FOX
Speaking of TV series serving as
sequels to films, Fox has Minority Report premiering this week.
“What? But wait, what about the rest of the shows on CBS?” Sadly,
I’ve never been a big fan of most CBS shows, therefore, I’m not
interested in watching Angel From Hell, Code Black or Life In Pieces.
Check back in January for my decision on Rush Hour.
Back to Fox. With a plethora of new
shows, Minority Report looks to be an interesting sci-fi addition to
the network. After quick cancellations of shows like Almost Human,
and the horrific failure that was Utopia, along with a slew of other
bad comedies and some not oft-watched comedies (I’m lookin’ at
you Mindy Project), Fox wants to invest in some of the bigger names
this season.
Starting with Minority Report, they’ll
feed off the fact that it was a Spielberg-directed Tom Cruise-starrer
that drew enough of a fanbase to earn a 7.7 IMDb rating even 14 years
after its release. Spielberg is back, though only as an executive
producer.
Starring Meagan Good as Lara Vega and
Stark Sands as Dash, these two team together to fight crime as Dash,
a pre-cog who can see crimes before they happen seeks to fit into
society as a normal person. If you know anything from the movie,
apparently Dash is the weakest pre-cog of the three used and is now
an adult living in an era where what he used to do as a child is now
illegal. Pre-crime, or arresting someone on a crime they haven’t
yet, but will in the future commit is his everyday reality. Where as
Brian is Spider-man, Dash is Kitty Pryde or Jean Grey from X-Men. You
sneaky shows you, having superheroes without capes and cowls.
Why I’m Interested?
OK, there’s a lot here. To begin, the
movie focused a bright light on not just the imperfect system of the
pre-cogs and what they see, but also on the questionable morality of
this new way of stopping crime. Now that it’s illegal or at least
frowned upon, will that give this show an outlaw/vigilantism feel a
la Batman? Will we want to root for Dash and his female cop friend
for stopping the crimes even if people aren’t given the opportunity
to change their mind and not commit the crime? Or will the show gloss
over those things in favor of buddy cop shenanigans similar to Castle
(I love Castle)?
Admittedly, fans should be leery as Fox
has a habit of quickly axing sci-fi or anything they feel will push
their budget to capacity. On the bright side, they’ve put this in a
prime spot on Mondays paired with the strong Gotham returning for its
second season. We’ll see how much of the futuristic technology they
can incorporate.
Staying on Fox, Tuesdays will be packed
with new shows to fill the slot left by the annexing of the Mindy
Project. They’ll start with Grandfathered, headlined by Uncle
Jesse—uh, I mean, John Stamos, and that fat kid that turned out to
be Hollywood heartthrob hot (so I’ve been told by women), Josh
Peck. Basically, a guy’s life is flipped upside-down when an
illegitimate son shows up and tells him that he is also a
grandfather. I am only hot and cold on this show as I haven’t seen
enough advertisements about it, but I’ll tune in for the first
three episodes when they premiere next week.
After that, they have the Grinder,
starring Ben Savage and Rob Lowe, a show I know even less about
outside of the fact that they’re lawyers in a small town. Someone
mentioned a big fish in a small pond thing and it got me thinking
about Robert Downey Jr.’s The Judge—probably not a good
comparison. I feel the same about it as I do about Grandfathered.
I’ll give it the first three episodes, but I can’t say I don’t
see my interest already fizzling.
But then we go from the “eh!”
category back to, “I’ve got to see this!” Filling out the rest
of Tuesday is Scream Queens (not to be confused with the VH1 reality
series from near a decade ago). You want young starlets? They got
Emma Roberts, Keke Palmer (#Keeks), Lea Michele and Abigail Breslin.
You want older stars? They got Jamie Lee Curtis and Niecy Nash. You
want blood, guts, mayhem and all-around bitchiness? Who-hoooo-hooa!
They got that. Scream Queens is set to follow a new year at Wallace
University’s most popular Sorority house. After an unfortunate
death rocked the campus 20 years ago, a sudden and new string of
murders has come to grip the campus again.
Why I’m Interested?
From Ryan Murphy, creator of Amerian
Horror Story (a favorite) and Glee (never quite got into it) and
Nip/Tuck (loved the first two seasons then it fizzled), comes this
little comedy horror gem (fingers crossed, here’s hopin’!) that,
from what I’ve read will be another anthology series such as AHS
but highly toned down in gore for network TV. I’m also excited to
see it because I recently released my own horror revolving around
sorority house horror entitled DARKER (#DARKER) currently out on
Amazon. Much less humor, I’d like to see what commonalities we’ll
have. And I’m always up for a good scare.
Next, we have Rosewood on Wednesdays
which will have Empire as the follow-up in its sophomore season. More
on that later. What about Rosewood? Well, I’m not really that
jazzed about this show. Starring Morris Chestnut, who I highly enjoy
in many of his movies, it’s a show about a pathologist who works
with the police a lot. The crux or draw to get you to watch: he’s
extremely close to death because of a rare birth defect with his
heart. To that, I react with this:
Yeah, it seems just like another
run-of-the-mill procedural cop show and with Minority Report and
Limitless already on my new show card, not to mention the returning
favorites, I’m not that excited about another case-of-the-week
drama. While I’d love to support more minorities in good roles, I
don’t see myself tuning into this until my mid-season slump/hunt to
see if I missed something good.
Moving on!
Fox Thursdays is pretty much old hat,
bringing back two old favorites in Bones and Sleepy Hollow. While I
completely hate the move of Sleepy to Thursdays (yes, put all the
black shows/female dominated shows on Thursdays as if Grey’s,
Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder and The Blacklist weren’t
already enough), I do thank God and the creator of DVR almost
everyday.
Fox Fridays will be a sort of shuffle
day. They will start with returning shows Master Chef and World’s
Funniest and throw whatever reruns tickle their fancy into those
slots whenever desired. And, of course, Saturday is sports and Sunday
is Animation Domination (yes, I still call it that even though Last
Man on Earth is coming back along with Brooklyn-9-9). Unfortunately,
I stopped watching most of that stuff long ago and only tune into
Bob’s Burgers occasionally because I love the awkwardness of that
family.
To sum up Fox, they seem to be playing
fairly safe with their new shows banking on the cache of certain
names or certain races of people (hint, hint every night has black
people). However, it should be of note that Fox has always skewed
both younger and/or more ethnically diverse ever since the days of In
Living Color, so not much surprise there.
CW
Speaking of younger skewing, next up is
the CW—the dreaded Marcia of the Network TV Brady Bunch. Awkward
and gawkish, the CW will continue to stay true to itself and see many
returning shows including, The Flash, iZombie, Jane the Virgin,
Arrow, Supernatural and a slew of others. Note that I only actually
watch one show on CW which is The Flash—I came into Arrow too late
for me to really enjoy it and don’t have time to catch up with it.
The good news about the CW is that just about all of its shows are
returning, so congratulations to the shows that got viewers to
believe in them. The bad news is that because of all the returns of
hour-long dramas and comedies, most of their new shows won’t
premiere until mid-season or as a replacement of something that gets
unexpectedly canceled. The even worse news is that the only show they
do have coming out new is the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend which I will
have to do a completely separate post on. Why? Because from the
trailers and commercials I’ve seen of the show, it sounds a lot
like my new book, “Yep, I’m Totally Stalking My Ex-Boyfriend”
slated to come out in early October. I don’t know if I’ll watch
this show yet but wait for a post maybe in a week or two talking
about it more in depth as well as my book and why it matters that
they look so similar.
As for the mid-season shows, again,
wait until January.
Pasar!
NBC
Next, we have NBC. Where to begin with
NBC? They have a slew of shows which are new and look good/are
possible rip-offs of other things, and I cannot wait to see all the
knock-off glory.
They start their Mondays with an old
stand-by, The Voice. You know, that’s the one where the people sing
and there’s the chairs and, uh... like... some other stuff.
Competition! They move into their new show Blindspot at 10pm.
Starring Jaimie Alexander—the
non-Wonder Woman, who should have been Wonder Woman who, instead,
played Lady Sif in Thor—as a tatted-up Jane Doe found in a bag in
the middle of Times Squares (Fabo from D4L would be proud; it’s an
obscure rap reference. I ain’t got time, look it up!). She doesn’t
know who she is or why she’s there but the tattoos are not just
clues to crimes, but tell a story of who she is and her connection to
the FBI agent who has been put in charge of her mystery. A lady
Bourne Identity which was just a more specialized version of Dominic
Purcell’s 2002 show John Doe, this will see the lovely Ms.
Alexander as a kick-butt enigma knowing stuff but not knowing why. A
mystery wrapped in a mystery, topped with a bubbling layer of
cheese... and more mystery, this is sure to keep me guessing for at
least as long as Red’s real identity on The Blacklist did.
Why I’m interested?
Oh! I guess I already explained that,
didn’t I? Did I say that Jaimie Alexander is one of the 252
Hollywood women that I have a crush on and wouldn’t mind having
babies with? I did say that? When? Just now? Gotcha! You readers are
tricky.
Passer!
Tuesdays will see more of The Voice
followed by new shows Chicago Med and Best Time Ever with the
returning Chicago Fire coming back in November to replace the latter
show. While I am highly interested in the city of Chicago right now
(“Yep, I’m totally stalking my Ex-Boyfriend” is set there), I
haven’t watched any of the Chicago shows and am just not that
interested in another medical show. Sorry, Chicago Med, I’m
probably not going to watch you.
Best Time ever will also most likely
get the cold shoulder as variety shows of this nature seem more
YouTube clip-worthy than having me devote a full hour to view it.
Wednesdays will also be filled with
returning shows, including a second season for the Mysteries of
Laura, which I will be watching, and Law and Order SVU which I dabble
in. Chicago P.D. Will end the night.
Then on Thursday is when things get
interesting with two new shows sandwiching The Blacklist into the 9pm
time slot (still don’t like it because it’s against Scandal, but
it did alright there last year and my DVR came in handy). Up first,
they’ll start the night with Heroes Reborn.
To start, I am surprised that NBC
didn’t go for the kill ABC trifecta and switch Heroes Reborn to 9pm
on Tuesday to go against Agents of SHIELD or move it all the way to
Mondays at 10 (the first incarnations original slot) to go against
CBS’s Supergirl come late October. If they had moved it to Tuesdays
against SHIELD and moved Chicago Med to Thursdays, they could have an
almost exact copycat night with ABC.
I digress. Heroes Reborn brings a
renewed spin to the original show in which people were given
superpowers because of some moon/sun eclipse thingy. As with most
things involving superpowered people, it will be dealing with those
who have the powers and those who want to destroy them, or capture
them or do other such terrible things with them. The thing working
against it is that, unlike Marvel’s shows, CW’s superhero
universe, and even DC shows on Fox and CBS, Heroes Reborn neither has
anything to connect it to something else nor does it really have a
rich and long-standing source material. This may have been one of the
reasons it originally got canceled. With the influx of superheroes
now, it is hard to say whether this can stand above the rest of the
crowd.
Why I’m Interested?
OK, by now fans of the original Heroes
show can probably tell I wasn’t much of a fan the first time around
(moon/sun eclipse thingy? Come on, Michael, do your research). You
have to remember that the first one came out back before comic book
adaptation hysteria kicked into overdrive. If felt too much like
X-Men and I was never fully into X-Men. This time, I’m giving it a
chance simply based off the fact that there was such fan support for
it that NBC saw fit to bring it back. That doesn’t happen often,
which means (it better mean!) that there was something good I just
missed the first time around. We’ll see.
As said, The Blacklist follows that,
but then another new show entitled The Player will air. Probably my
most intriguing show of the fall, The Player looks similar to a TV
idea I had way back in the 90s (maybe one day I’ll get to make it)
entitled The Game. This rendition sees Wesley Snipes in all his
Wesley Snipes-black glory returning to someplace other than prison
for IRS and tax fraud. Ha ha ha! #TheShadeIsReal! But seriously, he
doesn’t stray too far from the criminal element as he plays a
broker/game executor who oversees a high-stakes gambling arena where
the super wealthy gamble on crime. Yeah! Crazy, right? It totally
just blew your mind and then you shrugged and said, “eh! I could
actually see that happening.” Now you’re thinkin’, “holy
crap! How is he readin’ my mind?” Hey, it’s just how I roll.
Philip Winchester will play the titular
character who will be forced to complete complex tasks and stop
crimes, while people bet on his ability to accomplish such charges.
Forget figuring out How To Get Away With Murder, he’ll have to
figure out how to save a life, who shot the sheriff, and who’s that
lady week after week. It’s... just... a lot.
Why I’m interested?
Well, I finally get to see Wesley
Snipes on TV—always been a very specific dream of mine. I also like
the concept of the show as it will surely be challenging morally and
seems to have a very Liam Neeson’s Taken kind of feel to it. If it
can keep the intensity and pace each week while building up to a
climax that would see the Player confronting this group of super
wealthy people, I’m all in.
Then, in a strange and unconventional
twist, NBC has decided to put two comedies on Friday after having
abandoned their Must See Thursdays TV slogan they had back since
Seinfeld first premiered, maybe longer than that. To add to the
weirdness, their first comedy will be the returning Undateable, which
I never watched but heard great stuff about. But, in a Drew Carey
late 90s early 2000s spin on things, Undateable will be live... all
season. Teh! Yeah, take that in for a moment. Not that live
television is anything new, but the insignia of “live” is usually
saved these days for award shows and reality competitions, or at the
very least variety shows where flubs and mistakes from the script can
actually endear us to an actor more (Hi, Jimmy Fallon!). Doing this
with a scripted sitcom for longer than two episodes is a big risk,
which could either pay off in massive dividends or crash and burn the
sophomore comedy. Either way, well played Undateable. I am now
intrigued to see where this is going.
The same can’t be said about the one
new show on Fridays, Truth Be Told. Starring Saved By The Bell blonde
kid not playing Saved By The Bell blonde kid (Mark Paul Gosselaar for
you lames) and black bailiff from the highly underrated and even more
under-watched Bad Judge, this show is about... uh... Well, there’s
these two married guys and they... um... I’m sorry, is this a new
age version of Seinfeld? I can’t for the life of me figure out what
the hell this show is really about. It’s not about people falling
in love. It’s not about a modern family. It’s not really about a
group of friends struggling to be single in the big city either. So
what the heck are they doing? A tee-hee, I don’t know but Vanessa
Lachey is on it, so... that’s somethin’.
NBC rounds out the night with Grimm (my
fave) and their usual Dateline which then oozes over into both
Saturday’s and Sunday’s schedule when football isn’t on. From
the list of shows, it seems like NBC is trying to at least appeal to
the current trend of superheroes, as well as inject some more
minorities into their line-up with The Player, Truth Be Told and
Chicago Med. Baby steps.
ABC
And Finally, we have ABC. Oh, ABC, my
beloved. What shows shall you enamor me with this season only to
cancel them before I’ve had time to truly enjoy the bounty of their
stories and the richness of their characters? Why do I return to you,
my love, when ill-will and scars remaining from shows taken before
their time are fated between us? What new heights shall I soar to on
the back of twisty, turning good shows? What unforeseen and
unmitigated depths shall I sink when a show I’ve long anticipated
turns out to be terrible and bland? Only time shall tell, I suppose.
We begin with Mondays slate of shows.
Two old familiars return with Dancing With The Stars #DWTS already
started and Castle (#Castle) premiering tonight. For what it’s
worth I so enjoy both shows but can see how some fans have tired on
both of them. I mean, how long can people make the life of a writer
interesting, am I right? Oh, wait...
Tuesday is where we see our first drop
of new blood, though, technically its just old blood but with a new
and tighter face. The Muppets, after making their movie return a few
years back, return to the small screen and boy is it looking to be
controversial for the first few episodes as news broke earlier this
summer about Kermit and Ms. Piggy breaking up. OK, honestly I am
probably not going to watch the show but, come on, who didn’t see
the two of them breaking up? It’s been how many years he’s been
hoppin’ on that and he hasn’t put a ring on it yet to make her a
Mrs. (that was a little dirty wasn’t it)? With all joking aside,
it’ll be in the half hour time slot right before sophomore comedy
Fresh Off The Boat. Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is holding steady in
its third season at 9pm as mentioned before while ABC will slot a new
show at 10pm. The new show, Wicked City won’t start until October
after a few weeks of Beyond The Tank, but I’ll talk about it here
as it is supposed to start soon enough.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen or read
much about Wicked City. It doesn’t seem to be that hyped of a show
by the network which is generally a bad sign, but I’ll tune in for
the first three anyway. What’s looking like it could be an
anthology series in the vein of American Crime, it is a modern period
piece set in 1982 LA where music and hard drugs mingle into murder
and mystery. It has a few recognizable names to it if you watch
enough TV/Film like Ed Westwick and Taissa Farmiga, but other than
that it seems to be a big mystery.
Why I’m Interested?
Again, I’m not stoked to see
it but I will tune in as it promises to be a harder, darker-toned
look at crime that will break from the normal cop procedural symptoms
and look at the crimes from all sides like American Crime did. That
is not to say I was enthralled with American Crime but found it
decent for network TV.
Bewegen auf!
Wednesday stays completely the same for
now with every single sitcom coming back and the night ending with
Nashville. Of course, viewers will look forward to ABC’s click and
news-cycle baiting Black-ish premiere that will highlight the use of
the dreaded N-word. To that I say, I enjoy watching Nashville.
Onward to Thursday, which also will see
a seismic shift in absolutely none of its programming. The same
line-up of Grey’s (I wrote something up on that, concerning Ellen
Pompeo’s comments earlier this summer), Scandal (prepare thyself
#gladiators #Scandal) and How To Get Away With Murder. With the
latter going into its second season, each show has proven to be a
ratings juggernaut on Thursdays as compared against NFL numbers.
We’ll see how viewers and Grey’s core fans respond to the
aftermath of the whole Derek fiasco.
Friday also doesn’t show much new
programming as ABC is still trying to rebuild its TGIF of the 90s
with Tim Allen’s Last Man Standing starting the night. While I
thought Reba McEntire’s Malibu Country from, like, two years ago
was a worthy coupling to Tim’s zany aging white man troupe, the
network has decided to add a middle-aged Asian man and his family to
the mix.
Coming to 8:30pm ABC Fridays is Dr.
Ken, replacing last season’s Cristela which felt like it would have
gone great with CW’s Jane the Virgin if made into a one-camera
format. Dr. Ken will follow popular “that one Asian guy in that
funny movie” actor Ken Jeong as he brings a funnier, fantasized
version of his real life before fame when he was just a lowly
super-educated doctor. A “what could have been” look at his life,
it’ll be your standard family sitcom focused on upwardly mobile
Americans.
Why I’m Interested?
Well, out of all the new shows coming
out, I am probably the most mixed about this one. From one vantage
point, I really want to see this to see if Ken Jeong’s humor not
only translates well back to TV (he’s been a little dirtier in the
films and was only a tertiary character on Community) but also to see
if he’ll be able to adequately play both the straight man and the
set-up guy as is generally required in sitcoms. On the other hand, I
feel this show doesn’t have the full network backing as it is being
placed in a black hole of a slot. See, I feel like if ABC is going to
bring back TGIF—as they already have TGIT—then go all out with
it. Move one of the successful Wednesday sitcoms to Friday after Tim,
move Fresh Off The Boat and The Muppets also so that you can then
have Shark Tank earlier in the week. By toe-dipping, they make me
think they don’t have faith in the property.
Saturdays will stay open for films,
sports and specials as usual, but Sundays will see the rise of two
new shows. Just like Last Man Standing, ABC execs have been looking
for something to compliment Once Upon A Time (#OUAT) and Revenge. Now
that Revenge has been served... its walking papers, only OUAT remains
with America’s Funniest Home Videos still in the 7pm spot for those
that watch it. While AFV will have new host Alfonso Ribeiro, he will
not be the only new, black addition.
That’s right, they’re adding black
gold, oil to be precise. At 9pm will follow probably my third most
anticipated show of the fall, Blood and Oil. Centered around a young
couple that travel to North Dakota to strike it rich in oil, and the
preying family they intersect with on their search for riches, this
is bound to be a twisty, turny, backstabbing soap drama that has been
missing since the first season of Revenge (though I enjoyed all 4
seasons). With Don Johnson attached as the baron, rich guy standing
in the way of the young couple’s hustle, I am highly intrigued.
Why I’m Interested?
For the past few years, I have been
watching Dynasty on DVD. One of the two shows to drive the 80s wild
with its opulence, high fashion and over-the-top catfights—sorry,
lady quarrels—it showed that rich people could be just as
deceptive, mean, conniving and cutthroat as the people at the bottom,
they just look better doing it. That, coupled with Dallas, ignited a
need for the nighttime soap outside of procedurals and doctor shows.
If Blood and Oil can channel even a hint of those shows or the modern
day Dynasty (Empire), I’m in for at least half a season. It’s
lily whiteness will not be a problem for me.
Speaking of the whitest show we know,
ABC made an interesting choice following Blood and Oil up with
Quantico. Let me just get my TV exec playing hat out for a second and
say that from everything I’ve seen so far of Quantico, it feels
more like a Tuesday at 10pm show to me for ABC. Listen, if you watch
enough TV and tune yourself into the mood of networks and of the
viewing people, you can tell that some shows should air on certain
days of the week. Quantico finishing off the Sunday schedule doesn’t
seem like a brilliant choice as it looks a little too involved
plot-wise for viewers winding down their weekend and looking to focus
on work the next day. Then again, AMC had Breaking Bad and HBO has
Game of Thrones and True Detectives but it should be noted that those
shows were either in the summer or had far shorter seasons than what
is expected of Quantico. The only way I see this being a good day for
it is if it brings back memories of Alias. But again, I digress.
Quantico, led by the gorgeous Priyanka
Chopra, will follow a new class of recruits to the FBI’s famed
Quantico training facility. You’ll see them grow and becoming the
agents they will be in the future. Then (and this is where a full
season of this might make some viewers weary on Sunday nights), the
show will hit us with a dual narrative as we jump forward in time to
see that one of the recruits has pulled off “the biggest terrorist
attack on US soil since 9/11.” Gasp! Yeah, I know. Similar to
HTGAWM, you’ll spend much of the season trying to figure out who it
is while also getting wrapped up in the romance drama.
Why I’m Interested?
For one, it shows that the networks are
reaching out so far into diversity now that they’ve actually put an
Indian woman as the lead on a show. For that, I applaud them,
especially knowing that at some point a great deal of viewers will
mistake her for Middle-Eastern. I am also interested in the whodunnit
aspect of the show as this will cause me to hate everybody and nobody
at the same time. Paradoxical! And if it does end up having parallels
with Alias, I’m all for that as well. The one thing I don’t want
is for it to become another FlashForward in which the action slows
down to such a crawl mid-season when things are supposed to be
getting more intense that the writers suddenly have no plans for
season two and leave everything too tidy while not solving the main
mystery. Solve the main mystery of who did it, but in doing that,
present us with a secondary mystery for next season.
Well, there it is. There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. A very long post, for a very long season ahead
of us beginning later on tonight. So, what new shows are you eager to
see? What old shows are you going to tune in for? Are there some old
shows that you’ve finally given up on in favor of that new hussy?
Or are you upset that your new show isn’t listed and isn’t coming
on until later in the season? Don't be afraid to include any new cable shows you think are going to be amazing. I need to know your thoughts. I need to know them now! Questions, comments and, more comments
down below.
As always, check out my books on Amazon
(if you’re looking for Halloween scares check A Furious Wind, DARKER,
Brand New Home or The Power of TEN. For those interested in something a little more
dramatic, check out The Writer. The final episode of season one of
The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now
available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about
books and TV, and subscribe to my blog.
Until next time, “I watched every
show! Every single episode. I’m all caught up and I feel superb! I
watched every show.”
P.S. Sure, my sign off just happened to
be lines from Andy Samberg’s Emmys opening last night. So! It still
applies to me. Come on ask me anything? Actually, don’t ask me
about The Walking Dead... or Fear The Walking Dead... or True
Detective... or what happened on Big Brother. Crap! I gotta go see if
Mr. Samberg has room in his Under The Dome/Lost dungeon hatch.
Arnold Schwarzneggar is the new Trump,
They canceled Under The Dome, NBC Cannibalized Hannibal and other
Crazy stuff that happened this summer Season #SummerRoundUp
I’m back! For the... two or three of
you readers out there, no, I haven’t died. Like most TV shows over
the summer, I took a hiatus. Why, you ask? Many reasons. First, I had
to get some work done. Pretty much the entire summer was eaten by the
first season of The Writer (#TheWriter) out now, season finale this
Friday.
That project took a lot out of me as I had forgotten how hard
deadline writing can be. I had half the season done and suddenly,
bam! A month and a half dissipated and I had only added three
episodes. At one point, I even had to shut down my other social
networking to finish. Thankfully, I had a good outline and a few
scripts remaining from the original TV pitch. Again, if you haven’t
checked it out, please do. It is slow-building, but I would say it is
comparable to TV shows and books like Game of Thrones and Breaking
Bad.
I also was quite busy with my garden
this summer and maybe I’ll get around to posting a few pics of my
veg garden if I have time (currently I’m in the middle of the final
edit of my comedy novel “Yep, I’m Totally Stalking My
Ex-Boyfriend” due out in early October, #AhStalking). You’ll get
to see all of my insect and furry friends that visited and pestered
me in my garden.
Also, later on this year, I’ll be
releasing my first full-on mystery novel The Knowledge of Fear
(#KnowFear) about the annual slaying of three young girls in a small
town in northern Ohio and the detective thrown into the melee of
paranoia and danger. Currently re-tooling it as I initially sent it
to publishers and they said it started too slow (you readers can be
the judge of that).
And finally, I’ve made contact on the
twittas. No, not alien contact but followers and cool people contact. One
such contact I’ve made was with a friendly woman named S. M.
Dahman. An author in her own right, (her first book Twisted Greens is
out here: http://amzn.to/1YvAfG5
) she just recently interviewed me for an author spotlight on her
blog here: http://wp.me/p6D8TG-54
. As I don’t tend to blog too often about writing and rarely talk
about myself because of my overwhelming humility, I would highly
recommend you visit there if you are an aspiring writer or looking
for good blogs and other ways to connect, and you currently want to
know a little more about me.
Now, to the topic at hand. So much
stuff happened this summer. The hottest recorded summer in history
happened. There were fewer comic book movies this summer than we’ll
ever see for the next five summers. AMC premiered a new spin-off show
from the Walking Dead called Fear The Walking Dead. And... and...
and... Oh, all the excitement is making me want to break into song
with my own rendition of The Sound Of Music’s “Favorite Things.”
Republicans started their run for high
office,
Stock Market traders took really big
losses,
Avengers was so-so, and Ant-man was,
meh!
That doesn’t stop me from loving
Marvel.
Hank Baskett got high and touched some
girl’s penis,
Picture courtesy of WETV's Marriage Boot Camp
Kermit dumped Piggy and proved she’s
the greenest,
Picture courtesy of ABC's The Muppets
Drake went back-to-back, Meek wan-ted
to know,
And sweet Kylie Jenner turned into a
h—uh... a, uh... very respectable young lady. Yep. That’s what
she turned into. Role models, those Kardashians. Back to the song!
There were fires,
Huge ass earthquakes,
Droughts along the coast,
All these things that happened in
2015, and also Aquarius.
Picture courtesy of NBC's Aquarius
Spielberg used Brad-bury to give us The
Whispers,
Tom Cruise did plane stunts and this
chick wore flippers,
This was a recap of the season we had,
in summer twen-tyyyy, fif-teeeennnn!
Woo! Good, right? And you kept up with
the beat? What? You didn’t like the song? It was too short for you?
Oh, so I didn’t cover enough events, huh? Now you’re gonna
complain that I didn’t actually sing it, and that if I sung it and
recorded it, then put it on here that would have made for a better
blog post? Teh! You know, you people are so difficult to please some
times. Sometimes, I wish I could just build some sorta structure to
keep you less desired readers from reading my blog, but I don’t
know how I would do that. Maybe I could get you to build it. It would
be really tall, and long and it would be a... what’s the word I’m
looking for? Right, a dome. It would be a dome.
Speaking of domes, CBS took theirs
down, canceling Stephen King’s Under The Dome after three seasons.
While I enjoyed the first two seasons (even though they veered from
the book wildly) I can’t say I liked the third as much. Things got
too crazy with the baby and Barbie acting all doting father. It just
got weird.
James Patterson’s Zoo didn’t do
much better, taking a good concept but never really doing much with
it in my opinion. Those animals should have been eating more people.
And what about the wolf guy? They set him up as this mysterious dude
that knows stuff and then killed him off-screen, so you think his
killer will be this big baddie, and then they kill him next
commercial break! They had the big black guy whose been in everything
lately and is the TV version of Michael Clarke Duncan, yet we never
see him fighting a bear or some other massive animal—though I am
behind two episodes.
I enjoyed Astronaut’s Wives Club for
what it was as did I enjoy Wayward Pines which was right up M.
Night’s alley, steeped in that creepy The Village vibe. At least
this time they had real monsters.
Jurassic World was good but a box
office bigger than the first? Whoa! Slow it down, world. Slow it
down. Even with inflation and all that stuff, I didn’t think it was
the all-time classic that the first one was. At least it was no
Terminator Genisys which felt like it diminished the star quality of
everyone involved, including Arnold. It makes me wonder how the hell
he got the job for the next host of The Apprentice when Diddy and
Russell Simmons were both available New York candidates and
minorities, if the rumors about NBC were true.
A slew of movies came and went without
a peep but Straight Outta Compton was a crazy little movie about Dre
and Ice Cube, following the group called N**** With Attitude. It made
a ton of money and is even being talked about for a sequel.
What’s not being talked about for a
sequel is NBC’s Hannibal, another big cancellation of the season.
They had finally caught up to Thomas Harris’ first book and covered
the Red Dragon only to see the two Murder Husbands jump off a cliff
together and old Bedelia jealous and stood up for dinner—or, I
mean, not stood up. Sorry, that’s insensitive. I meant Hannibal
always stayed a step ahead. No, that was a tasteless joke. I can’t
seem to stop putting my foot in my mouth and—oh! I’ll just move
on.
The weather has been a complete mess
everywhere. It got up to 165 degrees in Iran, wildfires and dust
storms swept across Cali and Arizona, and the crazies both here and
abroad brought the violence and sadism.
Still, plenty of good stuff came from
the summer. Serena got back with Drake (though, she promptly lost
what would have been a history-making match), the Braxtons finally
started working on an album together, Uptown Funk really gave it to
us, and we finally cured the world of Iggy Azalea. So, as we head
into the fall, we leave summer 2015 with a few lingering questions:
How long will this charade with Trump and the Republican party last?
When will that Lexus hoverboard actually hit markets? Why does the
Weeknd sound so much like Michael Jackson on certain songs and then
nothing like him on others? When will Kanye West start preparations
for his presidential run? What in the hell really are those?
Was Girl on The Train that good of a book? And why in the hell won’t
The View just die already?
Hopefully we’ll have these answers soon.
Until then, as always, check out my books on Amazon (if you’re
looking for Halloween scares check #AFuriousWind, #DARKER,
#ThePowerOfTEN or #BrandNewHome). For those interested in something a little more
dramatic, check out #TheWriter. The final episode of season one of
The Writer is coming this Friday. All other 14 episodes are out now,
available exclusively on Amazon. Join us on Goodreads to talk about
books and TV. Subscribe to my blog and leave your comments below.
Until next time, “Jumpman, Jumpman,
they gave me my own collection, woo!”
P.S. OK, I may have been listening to
the new Drake and Future mixtape while typing this. Still working on
my sign off! I’ll get it eventually.
