NET | 8PM | 8:30PM | 9PM | 9:30PM | 10PM | 10:30PM |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ABC | Revenge (R) | Revenge (R) | Revenge (R) | |||
CBS | << 60 Minutes | Undercover Boss | The Mentalist | CSI >> | ||
FOX | The Simpsons (R) | Brooklyn Nine-Nine (R) | Family Guy (R) | Bob’s Burgers (R) | ||
HBO | The Comeback (Season Finale) | |||||
NBC | Football Night in America | Sunday Night Football: Bengals at Steelers | ||||
MISC | The Great British Baking Show (PBS) The Librarians (TNT) | Nanny Cam (Lifetime) |
Archives for December 2014
On TV Tonight: Friday December 26, 2014
NET | 8PM | 8:30PM | 9PM | 9:30PM | 10PM | 10:30PM |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ABC | Last Man Standing (R) | Cristela (R) | Shark Tank (R) | 20/20 | ||
CBS | Now That’s Funny! On Set with TV’s Hottest Comedies | Mom (R) | Blue Bloods (R) | |||
CW | Whose Line Is it… (R) | Pen & Teller: Fool Us (R) | ||||
FOX | Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special | Bob’s Burgers (R) | Glee (R) | |||
NBC | Caught on Camera with Nick Cannon | Dateline NBC |
Video Playlist: Top 10 ‘SNL’ Segments – Fall 2014
Season 40 of “Saturday Night Live” has gotten off to a rather mediocre start. The hosts haven’t been a problem, but a lot of the writing has underwhelmed. It also says a lot about the state of “SNL” that most of the show’s most memorable bits this fall have been pre-taped, and the best sketch was cut at dress. The ratio of pre-taped bits to live sketches even has me changing the way I refer to any one particular clip, which for the purposes of this listicle, I’m referring to both pre-taped bits and live sketches as ‘segments’.
Without further ado, here are the 10 best segments from this fall’s episodes. [Read more…]
Morning Static: THE GOOD WIFE, GLEE, ENTOURAGE & More!
• Music To Our Ears: Hear Lea Michele’s ‘Let It Go’ from ‘Glee’
• Watch: ‘Entourage’ Movie Reveals First Trailer, Fake Trailer & Mark Wahlberg
• Resolution Watch: Five Suggestions to Help You Enjoy More TV in 2015
• News You Can Use: How to Get a Job in Shondaland
• D’OH! Television’s Obsession with Remakes Could End the ‘Golden Age’
• It Gets Better: Legend of Korra Creators Officially Confirm Your Suspicions About That Ending
• Extant Season 2: Who’s In? Who’s Out?
• Casting Coup: ‘Captain Phillips’ star Barkhad Abdi heads to ‘Hawaii Five-0’
• American Idol Twist! Meet the Season 14 Top 24 Now
• The Good Wife Tease: Will Alicia and Finn End Up in Bed Together?
• Jerry Seinfeld Releases “The Interview” Video, and Explains Why He’ll Never Do Another TV Show
• What We Watched in 2014: A Deep Dive Into the Year’s TV Ratings
• Funny Business: What Saved by the Bell’s Bayside High Was Like for the School’s Black Kids
• Parents Television Council Debate: We ask TV’s biggest protest group all our longtime questions.
On TV Tonight: Wednesday December 24, 2014
NET | 8PM | 8:30PM | 9PM | 9:30PM | 10PM | 10:30PM |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ABC | The Middle (R) | The Goldbergs (R) | Modern Family (R) | blackish (R) | blackish (R) | blackish (R) |
CBS | I Love Lucy (R) | Madam Secretary (R) | Scorpion (R) | |||
CW | Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (Movie) | Merry Madagascar | ||||
FOX | Bob’s Burgers (R) | Brooklyn Nine-Nine (R) | ||||
NBC | It’s a Wonderful Live (Movie) | |||||
MISC | A Christmas Story (TBS/TNT) |
TV Year In Review: Our Top 10 Scenes from 2014
It’s the end of 2014 so you will start to see many lists about the best and worst of television. I love these lists (example A being that I’m writing one) but often times the lists include scenes or shows that were on the last television season. So, in the interest of being different my list of the top 10 scenes of 2014 will only include scenes from the first half of the 2014 – 2015 network season (meaning anything before and including mid season finales are eligible).
**So many spoilers ahead** [Read more…]
Morning Static: HOMELAND, DOWNTON ABBEY, ONCE UPON A TIME & More!
• Woo-Hoo: Charlie Sheen’s Anger Management Is Ending—for Good
• Finally: New Better Call Saul Teaser Has Tons of Actual Footage
• Casting Coup: Mike Colter tapped to play Luke Cage on Marvel’s Netflix series ‘Jessica Jones’
• Must Read TV: Showtime boss explains quiet ‘Homeland’ finale
• Must See TV: It’s a Wonderful ‘Downton Abbey’ with George Clooney.
• Behind-the-Scenes: ‘Mike & Molly’ Last-Minute Holiday Episode Is a Christmas Miracle
• Controversy: For Black Twitter, the rage over VH1’s ‘Sorority Sisters’ is personal
• The Other Wonder Woman: Michelle MacLaren Is the Best Director on TV
• Post-mortem: ‘The Affair’ Creator on the Finale’s Big Reveal
• Storybrook Scoop: ‘Once Upon a Time’ casts Sebastian Roche
• Holiday Cheer: Jimmy Fallon, One Direction put classroom instrument spin on ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’
On TV Tonight: Tuesday December 23, 2014
NET | 8PM | 8:30PM | 9PM | 9:30PM | 10PM | 10:30PM |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ABC | Shrek the Halls | Toy Story That Time Forgot | The Year: 2014 | |||
CBS | NCIS | NCIS: Los Angeles | NCIS: New Orleans | |||
CW | The Flash (R) | Supernatural (R) | ||||
FOX | New Girl (R) | The Mindy Project (R) | New Girl (R) | The Mindy Project (R) | ||
NBC | One Direction: The TV Special | Michael Bublé’s Christmas in New York | Kelly Clarkson’s Cautionary Christmas Music Tale | |||
MISC | Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon) | Girlfriends Guide to Divorce (Bravo) Benched (USA) |
Season Finale Review: THE AFFAIR Goes Out Without a Bang
During their brief separation, Helen Solloway referred to her morally-questionable husband as a potential sociopath. Was she wrong?
In last night’s 10th installment of “The Affair,” Noah’s side of things never felt more fantastical. For months, he bedded beautiful women, then once he was caught, he used his time away from work to finish his book. Upon landing his six-figure deal, Helen begged him to come back. Later, it was he who played victim as he faced Cole’s loaded gun.
With Noah preoccupied back in the city, Alison was suddenly ready to make amends with Athena, if only to temporarily get away from the husband that reminded her of Gabriel, and from an already strained relationship with her lover. In her retelling of events, Cole was ready to kill Noah, or Noah’s family, or himself, without Noah having ever chased Scotty into the backyard. In present-day, Noah was arrested, presumably for Scotty’s murder, and Alison promised she’d get him out of it. Was that why her summation of the day’s events failed to include Noah and Scotty’s encounter, or is there something else we’re missing here entirely?
Last night’s season finale left its audience with many unanswered questions, but few of which have driven my interest in this thought-provoking character drama. I have very little empathy for Noah or Alison, but those characters, and their relationship, are why I’m watching “The Affair” in the first place. Everything else – including equally mesmerizing performances by Maura Tierney and Joshua Jackson – is secondary. The Showtime drama is at its best when it centers in on the formerly secret tryst, and its ramifications on the marriages it’s destroying. The show is at its worst when it navigates away from that, and more towards tertiary characters like Whitney, and the ongoing statutory rape/pregnancy story line with Scotty.
Last week, Ruth Wilson gave an impeccable performance during Alison’s breakdown at the pediatrician’s office, and again when her character contemplated suicide in the near-arctic waves. This week, Jackson shined in both Noah and Alison’s vastly different retellings of the day the Solloways went to pick up Whitney. Both accounts showed Cole at his most manic state since the pilot, a character who has since lost everything else that mattered to him most.
I don’t regret listing “The Affair” high up on my list of 2014’s biggest televisual accomplishments, but the show still hasn’t figured out what it wants to be in a world where Noah and Alison’s relationship is no longer forbidden. The last two episodes have embraced more outlandish story elements (Alison’s one-night stand with Oscar, the reveal that Helen’s mother had a P.I. following Noah for four months), the kind I wouldn’t have expected to come from the show “The Affair” was trying to be in its earliest episodes, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. As long as its writers are able to make clear that they’re attempting to do nothing more than create a can’t-miss prime time soap, I will gladly continue to watch the misadventures of these self-absorbed white people. I can’t, however, keep watching a show that jumps back and forth between wanting to be a complex television narrative, and just another overly-complicated tale of egotistical, misguided souls that could only truly exist in a soap-operatic world. The show just doesn’t work when it tries to be both of those things.
Despite its faults, and one mediocre cliffhanger, I look forward to seeing what comes of season two, and seeing if the show can overcome its end-of-the-season identity crisis.
Side notes:
• I really enjoyed what little Geoffrey Owens (f.k.a. Elvin Tibideaux, “The Cosby Show”) was given to do in those rubber room scenes, but does anyone believe for one minute that he wrote Noah a note telling him that he was his hero? C’mon now!
• Det. Jeffries has been lying about having a wife and kids this entire time. The real ‘babe’ in his life goes by the name of Steve.
• the first time, Noah and Alison’s recollections featured memories that have previously only been shown in the other person’s retelling of events. Executive producer Sarah Treem spoke with Alan Sepinwall about that, and her response provides insight into Noah and Alison’s psyches, and what might change from a storytelling perspective in season two.
• ICYMI, write-ups on episodes one, two, three, four, five, six and seven, and a teensy bit on episode eight.
THE MENTALIST Redux: Our Top 5 Favorite Moments From “Black Market”
We begin this week with Mr. and Mrs. Cho, or as you know them, Kimball Cho and Teresa Lisbon. They’re buying a ring for their fake engagement. And you didn’t fool me, show. You wouldn’t deprive me of watching Jane propose. Here are your Mentalist Top Five moments! [Read more…]