Tag Archives: TV reminder

TV Reminder: Entourage premieres tonight at 10:30PM on HBO

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The boys are back for one last hurrah. The eighth and final season of Entourage premieres tonight at 10:30PM on HBO. The shortened six episode season will air every Sunday at this timeslot; the series finale falls on August 28.

In an interview with Vulture, creator Doug Ellen says longtime viewers can expect a return to original form. “I wanted to get back to the early roots of the show, and get back to the guys sticking together, really looking out for each other” he says. “I wanted it to be a little lighter this season; obviously, the third episode is pretty dark, but I think we come out of that in a good way that’s realistic but also comedic.” As for the post-HBO run Entourage movie that’s in the works, Ellin says that the final season will not lead into the movie simply because the storyline for the feature film has not been decided yet. In his words: “I wish I was smart enough — everybody’s like, ‘Oh, you gotta leave it open, and do this and this.’ Every year I do the best I can and it ends somewhere and hopefully it satisfies. But it has nothing to do with any plan for the movie, because at this point there is no plan except [that] we’re gonna do one.” The plan is to ship the boys off to Europe in the movie, but beyond that Ellin’s taking his time in creating a satisfying conclusion for Vince and his friends.

Jump after the break to watch the season 8 poster animate and the latest trailer that teases what’s in store for the six-episode story arc ahead. Continue reading TV Reminder: Entourage premieres tonight at 10:30PM on HBO →

TV Reminder: Childrens Hospital returns tonight at midnight on Adult Swim

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The hilarious web series turned TV show Childrens Hospital returns tonight for its third season. And the whole gang of idiots is back! Creator Rob Corrdry reprises his role as Dr. Blake Downs, a clown who believes in the healing power of laughter. But as we learned last season, Childrens Hospital is in fact a show within a show, so these characters are actually playing “doctors” on the show. So for instance, Corrdry’s Dr. Blake Downs is really a man named Cutter Spindell. The same goes for the rest of the all-star cast: Ingrid Hagerstown is Dr. Valerie Flame (Malin Akerman), Dixie Peters is Dr. Cat Black (Lake Bell), Lynn Williams is Dr. Lola Spratt (Erinn Hayes), Just Falcon is Dr. Glenn Richie (Ken Marino), Rob Huebel is Dr. Owen Maestro (Rob Huebel), Lady Jane Bentick-Smith is Chief (Megan Mullally); and Fred Nunley is hospital administrator Sy Mittleman (Henry Winkler).

This series is more than a parody of Grey’s Anatomy-type shows. It completely does away with episode continuity and this makes for an off-the-walls, truly organic laugh-fest every week. In an interview with IGN, Erinn Hayes explains it. “We don’t have any regard for episode to episode continuity,” she says. “There’s a chart somewhere in the production offices that shows who is having a relationship with who in a particular episode so they don’t have too many of the same pairings. They don’t want repeats.” Co-star Rob Huebel adds, “We have no continuity. One episode I’m dating one girl and the next episode I’m married to someone else. There’s no continuity at all so we don’t care about that. The only thing we really care about is that it’s funny.” And forget about medical training. Hayes continues, “This season there have been two scenes where we have to actually look like we’re trying to save someone’s life and we just have no idea what to do. There’s not even a hint of reality. All we knew how to do was check his pulse and say ‘we’re losing him.'”

The 14-episode third season of Childrens Hospital premieres tonight at midnight on Adult Swim. The uninterrupted 15 minute episode is titled “Run, Dr. Lola Spratt, Run” and is about a kid getting stuck in quicksand; watch out for guest stars Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Lisa Edelstein (House). See images from the ep below, and watch a preview after the break. New episodes will air every Thursday at midnight. And if you missed the first two seasons, they’re now available on DVD.

Continue reading TV Reminder: Childrens Hospital returns tonight at midnight on Adult Swim →

TV Reminder: Steve Carell departs ‘The Office’ tonight

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Oh, I can already feel the tears swelling up. Tonight’s episode of The Office is called “Goodbye, Michael” and it will be the final episode starring the brilliantly talented Steve Carell.

The Office boss is going out with a bang, thankfully. The super-sized episode is extended from a half hour to fifty minutes in length; it will air from 9PM to 9:50PM, followed by a beefier episode of Parks and Rec (9:50PM-10:30PM) to soften the blow.

Don’t miss Michael Scott’s swan song tonight (4/28) at 9PM on NBC. The Office will attempt to forge on without him; two more episode will follow, then the season seven finale airs May 19. Perhaps this impressive slate of upcoming special guests will have you excited for the final three episodes. Will Ferrell, Ricky Gervais, Ray Romano, James Spader, Catherine Tate, Will Arnett, and Jim Carrey will all be vying for Michael Scott’s managerial position at Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton branch! Continue reading TV Reminder: Steve Carell departs ‘The Office’ tonight →

TV Reminder: South Parks returns tonight at 10PM on Comedy Central

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HUMANCENTiPAD

The boys of South Park return tonight! For the season fifteen premiere, Trey Parker and Matt Stone have something quite disturbing in store for us. What do you get when you bring together Apple’s iPad and the Dutch horror film The Human Centipede. Well, um, the “HUMANCENTiPAD” of course! And that is the title of tonight’s episode. It’s bound to be a riot. Watch a cartoony Steve Jobs introduce the revolutionary new product in the preview above and tune into Comedy Central at precisely 10PM for the goods.

Reminder: Kiefer Sutherland’s web series ‘The Confession’ premieres tonight on Hulu

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The Confession, fully previewed here, is a thriller that follows a hitman (Kiefer Sutherland) who has a theological discussion with a priest (John Hurt) about why his victims deserved to die. The series streams exclusively on Hulu; 10 five-to-seven-minute webisodes have been produced. The first batch of “chapters” have been made available to watch starting today. In “Chapter 1” Sutherland enters a Catholic church confessional where he confronts a priest at gunpoint and forces the holy man to listen to his sins. Sutherland makes it a point that it has been 35 years since his last confession. The episode switches back and forth between the confession and action-packed flashbacks highlighting the hitman’s misdoings. Having watched the first episode I can say though this new character is not Jack Bauer, Sutherland certainly can’t contain the man he played for so many years. Also of note, 24‘s composer Sean Callery has produced the music for this series, and you can hear (ever-so-slightly) hints of 24‘s sound effects. Whether or not you’re a fan of the genre-defining FOX show you should make some time to watch this top notch, high caliber series being distributed over the web. Graphic scenes do pop up, so if you haven’t signed up for a free Hulu account you’ll have to do that to access the video page.

Watch the intense trailer above, then head over to Hulu and stream the first three chapters of The Confession.

TV Reminder: Robert Knepper reprises T-Bag tonight on ‘Breakout Kings’

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Prison Break fans, listen here: Robert Knepper will reprise Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell, the slimy, handicapped villain from Prison Break, on tonight’s episode of Breakout Kings. In an interview with TVLine, Knepper shared his excitement about bring back the fan favorite everyone loved to loathe.

“Nick Santora – one of my favorite writers on Prison Break – wrote me an email right before we started shooting, saying, “You know what? I think this might be the best dialogue I’ve ever written for T-Bag.” And I’m here to tell you it was. It was all the familiar things you love to hate about T-Bag – the danger, the humor – but it was interesting to highlight him in this episode by saying, “Let’s try to get in his head a bit. Let’s figure out why he’s doing this.” And the pathos and emotion that comes out is just…. I could not have just jumped into this thing if I hadn’t had four years of basically getting ready for it.”

When asked why is escapes prison this time around he said, “There is a huge reason. I’m not going to give it away, because it’s so beautiful, and it’s such an incredibly important reason. I will tell you that he’s not escaping to escape. It’s not just, “I want to be free.” He has a very, very specific reason for doing it, and it will break your heart.”

Knepper’s four-episode guest stint on Breakout Kings begins tonight in “The Bag Man” at 10PM on A&E. Check out a handful of images in the gallery below.

[Images via IGN]

TV Reminder: ‘The Event’ returns tonight on NBC [Update: Low ratings]

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After an extended three month hiatus, NBC’s sci-fi drama The Event returns to the airwaves tonight. After a promising start (remember–what happened to that plane?!), the mysteries started piling on top of each other with no cohesive plot thread tying them together and this resulted in contrived, lackluster plotlines that failed to challenge the viewer intellectually (or in any way for that matter). Save for the handful of character-driven episodes the first half of the season was dominated by run-of-the-mill action sequences, cheesy dialogue, and lots of running (Sean and Leila need more to do!). As the show’s creativity lost its touch early on, viewers dropped in significant numbers. The long hiatus provided the show’s creators plenty of time to retool things; I have faith that the show can transform itself from a rollercoaster of good-decent-filler episodes into a reliable mystery drama that’ll make me want to tune in every week. But first things first–they’ve got to tell us what the event IS! Perhaps episode 15 will provide some answers.

The Event returns tonight at 9PM on NBC. It’s a 2 hour, erm, event, so set your DVRs accordingly. Check out photos from “And Then There Were More” and “Inostranka” in the gallery below. Beware of minor spoilers. Need a refresher? Jump after the break to watch a brief recap.

Update: To the surprise of no one The Event returned not with a bang but as a bust. Though the two-hour return was (for the most part) fast-paced with some fun action segments, the writing is still poor and the story is, well, uneventful. The ratings agree: the show drew a 1.4/4 in the 18-49 demo and 5.2 million total viewers. That’s down 26% from its last original airing back on November 29. If these numbers don’t start to steadily increase and stabilize between now and April, you can kiss this thrill-less sci-fi thriller goodbye.

[Images via IGN; Deadline]

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Continue reading TV Reminder: ‘The Event’ returns tonight on NBC [Update: Low ratings] →

TV Reminder: Jeopardy champs face off against Watson supercomputer this week! [Update: results]

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Here’s a healthy reminder that Jeopardy champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter will face off against each other and the supercomputer known endearingly as Watson this week. The man vs. machine 3-night competition begins tonight and will run through Wednesday the 16th. Jeopardy airs at 7PM ET on ABC. Fill your brain with knowledge about Watson’s abilities before tuning in tonight, then let Judgment Day the games begin!

Update: No surprise here; Watson dominated and destroyed the species that created it. After the three-day, two game competition the scores tallied like this:  Rutter scored $21,600; Jennings $24,000; and Watson a whopping $77,147. In the end, these amounts were wiped away and replaced by fixed scores of $200,000, $300,000, and $1 million, respectively. The two human contestants agreed to share half their winnings with their charity of choice. All of Watson’s earnings will find their way to a charity selected by IBM called Skynet World Vision and World Community Grid.

With Watson on board, Jeopardy received its biggest jump in ratings since May 2005’s Ultimate Tournament of Champions (which featured Jennings and Rutter). It’s being reported that Monday night’s show posted an 8.8 rating and that spiked 9% on Tuesday to a 9.6 rating. All in all, Watson proved that machines are certainly getting smarter and more sophisticated. But at least we don’t have to expect world domination just yet; it thought Toronto was a U.S. city! Side note: How cool was it to watch Watson’s avatar “sweat” during the heated competition? When it was confident about a response green swirls swooped to the top of the display, and when it was unsure about one (or–gasp!–answered incorrectly) the swirls would change to a yellow hue and sink to the bottom. Watching the computer “think” was fun to watch.

TV Reminder: ‘Parks & Recreation’ returns tonight at 9:30PM on NBC

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Finally, finally!  The Pawnee gang led by the one and only Leslie Knope returns tonight!  In the season 3 premiere “Go Big or Go Home” Leslie is trying to convince newcomers Chris and Ben (Rob Lowe and Adam Scott) to give the Parks Department more money.  Prepare for the premiere by watching this informative and hilarious preview, and look in the gallery below for character profiles.

BONUS! Hop after the break to watch Rob Lowe flip out at the cast of Parks and Rec, presented by Funny or Die. NSFW warning is in full effect (language).

Update: Parks and Rec hit a series-high rating–6.2 million people tuned into the season 3 premiere.  That’s up 52% from its fall season premiere in 2009.  The Office lead-in helped; Parks retained 71% of its viewers.

[Images via IGN; Deadline; TVLine]

Continue reading TV Reminder: ‘Parks & Recreation’ returns tonight at 9:30PM on NBC →

TV Reminder: ‘Conan’ premieres tonight on TBS [Update: the ratings are in…]

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Conan O’Brien returns to the boob tube.  Tonight.  11PM ET.  TBS.  Do it.

Tonight’s guests are Seth Rogen, Lea Michele, Jack White, and the guest we voted on (Team Coco is still tallying the results).  The remainder of this week’s guests include Tom Hanks, Jack McBrayer, Jon Hamm, Charlyne Yi, Fistful of Mercy, Michael Cera, Julie Bowen, and Jon Dore.  Conan airs Monday through Thursday.

Bonus! Look after the break to see the “Conan Pale Whale” by artist Yiying Lu.  It really makes for a wonderful desktop background.

Update: Deadline reports that the Conan premiere attracted 4.2 million viewers last night, making this telecast the most watched late night talk show of all time on basic cable.  He beat out fellow cable hosts Stewart and Colbert, as well as network TV competitors Letterman, Kimmel, and yes, Jay Leno.  He drew in 3.3 million adults 18-49 and 2.5 million in 18-34.  The projected median age of the viewers was 30–the youngest of all late night talk shows. Continue reading TV Reminder: ‘Conan’ premieres tonight on TBS [Update: the ratings are in…] →

TV Reminder: ‘The Walking Dead’ premieres tonight! [Update: the ratings are in…]

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After many years of anticipation, tonight zombies will invade our living rooms like never before.  The Walking Dead, a comic book series created by Robert Kirkman and adapted for television by Frank Darabont, follows a group of survivors dealing with a world overrun by zombies.  The collaboration between Kirkman, Darabont, producer Gale Anne Hurd, and makeup effects artist Greg Nicotero promises to result in a frightening drama about the human psyche featuring the best looking and most convincing zombies made for television.  The 6-episode season one arc begins tonight at 10PM on AMC.  The series premiere runs an hour and a half in length, so set your DVRs accordingly.  And if you plan on celebrating Halloween night outside the home, don’t forget to record it!  Happy Halloween!

Look in the gallery below for character profiles and spooky stills from the premiere.

Update: The Walking Dead premiere was a record-smashing success!  The 10PM showing attracted 5.3 million viewers–the largest audience for an AMC original series ever.  Want another record-breaking stat?  In the 18-49 demo, the show netted 3.6 million viewers making it the highest rated cable series debut in 2010.  The adults 25-54 and 18-34 demos netted 3.1 million and 2.1 million viewers, respectively.  AMC aired the premiere two more time during the night (at 11PM and again at 1AM), so if you take those showings into account, the premiere garnered a grand total of 8.1 million viewers.  Says Charlie Collier, AMC president: “It’s a good day to be dead.  We are so proud of this series, its depth of storytelling and the remarkable talent attached.  As the network dedicated to bringing viewers the best stories on television, we are so pleased to have the opportunity with The Walking Dead to raise the bar within this popular genre and continue our commitment to being the home of premium television on basic cable.”  So Mr. Collier, how about renewing this flipping success for a second season, hm?

[Images via IGN; Deadline; EW]


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