Just when I wasn’t sure how much farther I could fall for Pushing Daisies, it just continues to pull back the layers. 

Tonight, we were treated with yet another charming story, but, as usual, the true magic comes from the characters.  The tension between Olive and Chuck seems to have eased a bit, as Ned’s admirer-from-afar gets a dose of conscience and realizes that exposing Chuck’s deception may not be the best thing to do.  Otherwise, broken-record time…performances, perfect;  comedy, sharp;  dialogue, witty…not a lot to add that I haven’t already said.  This was my favorite episode thus far.  I loved the noir-ish moments with Olive and Emmerson toward the beginning of the episode, and Ned’s character development continues to amaze me.

I think, however, that I have found the thing that will grate on my nerves with this show.  In the first few episodes, the longing glances that Ned and Chuck exchanged were cute.  But now, it’s starting to get a bit sickening.  We get it, you’re the love of each others’ lives.  Ease up with the goo-goo eyes. 

Despite that, A.

Some shocking news from Dancing With The Stars last night.  Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan, favored by most to win the dancing competition was startlingly sent home after receiving the lowest score.

Sabrina was the first to get a perfect score from the judges a few weeks ago, and, like I said earlier, most were expecting her to win this year. 

I feel like pretty much everyone was expecting Sabrina to not have a problem winning, so those that would have voted for her slacked off this week.  Just goes to show how much your little old vote could be worth!

There have been rumors that Jay Leno might not be leaving The Tonight Show in 2009 when his contract is up. The host has expressed interest in continuing on in television past 2009, and his ratings continue to go up, so there have been rumors circulating that NBC might back out of a deal it made with Conan O’Brien 3 years ago that guaranteed him the Tonight Show in ‘09 - even if backing out would cost them $40 million dollars.

NBC Universal CEO, Jeff Zucker put those rumors to rest today when he announced that not only was Conan going to take over in 2009 - but that Jimmy Fallon was on the short list to replace him on the Late Show.

Will an O’Brien/Fallon lead NBC late night dominate until the world ends in 2012? Who knows…

Leno is still planning to stay in television after 09, and may continue to host a Late Night show, possibly moving to another network.

via AICN

Happy Halloween! It’s that time of year again, and to celebrate, we’ve ranked the 10 Scariest TV Shows of ALL TIME….

10. Are you afraid of the Dark?

If you’re in your mid to early 20s, then you probably remember “Are you Afraid of the Dark?”. It was a show that first ran on Nickelodeon on Saturday nights. It was an anthology show that featured kids telling campfire tales as a framework for short scary stories. It was very much in the vein of Tales from the Crypt or the Twilight Zone, with a 90s, kid friendly spin…but it still scared the hell out of us here at TV Jab when we were but wee lads.

09. The Outer Limits

While the original Outer Limits was more of a “monster of the week” styled show, the remake, which ran from 1995 to 2002 introduced a more science related sci-fi that you normally see on television, and some of the show had truly frightening concepts. At 154 episodes, chances are, The Outer Limits is out there, “controlling the horizontal, and the vertical” on a television somewhere…right now…

08. Unsolved Mysteries

Unsolved Mysteries was a lot of things. Long before cable television took the concept of “reality television” and ruined it, Unsolved Mysteries could haunt your dreams with some of the most frightening tales of Ghosts and Alien encounters ever. What made them so terrifying?

They actually happened…
Read the rest of this entry »

First off, I’m not sure who the black guy is in that picture…maybe someone cut from the pilot? Consider me confused…anyway, on to the story!

I’ve found myself consistently enjoying Samantha Who? (as consistent as three episodes can be). While the concept seemed anything but fresh at first glance…a girl recovering from amnesia discovers that the woman she used to be was not a good person…it’s surprisingly snappy, and Christina Applegate has some undeniable comedic talent.

Audiences have loved it, too…it has managed to retain a very large portion of its Dancing With The Stars lead-in. So it should really come as no surprise that ABC has handed down an order for a full season of the comedy. It’s on Monday nights immediately following DWTS, so if you’re not watching, check it out next week!

TVGuide has it on good authority that NBC has plans to create a spinoff to The Office.

The word is that none of the key players will feature in the new show like Private Practice did with Grey’s Anatomy…rather, we will be seeing some new faces on the show that will transfer to the spinoff later.  We’ll be seeing Rashida Jones in this week’s episode…I wonder if we may be getting a glimpse this week of what we can expect in the spinoff.

NBC is looking for a name to headline the show…who do you think would be a good follow up to Steve Carrell’s Michael Scott?  Also, what would be a good name for the new show…The Office: Miami?

The CW has released an official description of the the 7th episode of the season:

LANA ABSORBS CLARK’S POWERS AND GOES AFTER LEX — Kryptonite and high voltage mix during a lightning storm, causing Lana (Kristin Kreuk) to absorb Clark’s (Tom Welling) powers. Using her newfound super powers, she breaks into Lex’s (Michael Rosenbaum) safe and steals incriminating evidence which she then delivers to Lois (Erica Durance) and Grant (Michael Cassidy), demanding they run a story exposing Lex’s secrets. After Grant refuses to use stolen material, Lana decides to take care of Lex herself. Clark tries to stop Lana from killing Lex and a super battle ensues between the two. Allison Mack, Erica Durance, Aaron Ashmore and John Glover also star.

Neither Jimmy Olsen nor Kara appear in this episode.

I have to say, pretty much anything that focuses on Lana makes me want to not watch Smallville these days, so I’m really not very excited about this episode. I’m also kinda concerned with how easy it seems to be to give someone else Clark’s powers. How many times has this happened now? A few - and each time it seems to get easier to do.

Eventually you’re just going to be able to rub up against him and steal his abilities.

Season 2 Episode 6

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to review Heroes this season.  It’s easy to write reviews when the episodes are great, and it’s easy to write reviews when the episodes are terrible.  But this season has been pretty middle-of-the-road.

Peter essentially served as a bookend for this episode.  We opened with him and Caitlin in Ireland, where she pledges to kill Elle.  They finally decide that they have to follow Peter’s prophetic painting and head to Montreal.  Once there, Peter finds a mysterious note from Adam Monroe, a name we saw earlier in the episode (and it’s said he’s the white-haired guy in that picture of the 12).

With that, they take an unexpected trip to June 14, 2008, where New York has been evacuated, and, if the previews are to be believed, 93% of the world population is dead.  Could that virus be connected to the work that Mohinder is doing for the Company?  I’m wondering if this jumping to the future thing is going to be Heroes‘ modus operandi for the rest of the series.  They jump into the future to see what’s at stake, and then come back to the present to prevent it.  I’m not knocking it…I love the time-hopping that goes on.

Now Mohinder appears to be a full-fledged employee of the Company.  He is currently monitoring Monica, helping her to learn the extent of her abilities.  Bob comes to him, trying to convince him to test out a new vaccine that will hinder the abilities of the specials.  Despite some prodding by Noah, Mohinder refuses to use Monica or Molly as lab rats, and destroys the store of vaccines.  Bob apologizes (completely heartfelt and above-board, I’m sure), and Mohinder is hooked up with a new partner…Niki (though she was giving of a definite Jessica vibe in their conversation).

Bob escorts Monica back to her home in New Orleans.  He supplies her with a brand new shiny video iPod with clips of “everything from martial arts to plumbing”.  This could turn into something pretty cool down the road.

Meanwhile (read: 300 years ago), Hiro is desperately trying to help Kensei free the sword maker from White Beard in an effort to fix history.  They sneak into the camp and manage to help the sword maker escape, but in the chaos, Hiro transports himself and Yaeko far from the camp.  She comes to realize that, when she fell in love with Kensei, Hiro was masquerading as him.  They share a kiss, which Kensei oversees, pushing him over the edge and compelling him to turn them over to White Beard.  It looks like things are gearing up for a showdown between Hiro and Kensei.

Now let’s talk Noah Bennet.  I was expecting to see a more toned-down version of HRG this season since he left Primatech, but, if anything, he’s even more hostile than last season.  He ruthlessly pries memories from Ivan, his ex-partner’s brain, uses his dead daughter against him, and, once he has what he needs, caps the dude in the head.  I understand that you’re trying to protect your family, but that’s harsh.  Couldn’t he have just used the Haitian’s ability to pull the location of the paintings?  That would have been considerably less…intrusive…than a bullet to the head.  But HRG is at his best when he’s bad, and he was bad to the extreme tonight.

So Bennet makes his way to the warehouse where the paintings are located.  They are:

• Peter looking into a mirror. 
• Claire laying bloddy on some stairs.
• A hand holding a vial.
• A blonde girl banging on a door or window.
• Hiro and Kensei fighting.
• Someone with a broken nose holding a gun (my money’s on Mohinder)
• The final painting we saw earlier with Bennet shot dead.

Now we head south of the border.  As frustrated as I am with they Maya and Alejandro storyline, Zachary Quinto is good enough as Sylar to bring a spark of life to the subplot.  Here, he manages to convince Maya to use her deadly power to get them out of a jam.  He confesses that he is planning to kill Maya and take her power, or, if he can’t do that, just use her to continue his killing spree. 

Finally, the Claire storyline.  As usual, it’s the most polarizing plot of the night.  On one hand, the way that she and West teamed up to use their abilities to freak out Debbie was pretty sweet, and a good representation of how immature teenagers would use special abilities.  On the other hand…well…as fellow writer Michael put it:  “I mean the whole “pretty girl that’s nice has to show one up the bitchy cheerleader” aspect of it.  It’s all “Bring It On!” levels of cliche.  Plus the “evil” cheerleader could not have been more one dimensional.  She was even drinking from a paper sack - because she’s BAD.  ugh.”  Indeed.

This episode really seemed like filler.  Last week was an undeniably great episode, and next week looks excellent.  This week, though…meh.

Episode grade: B

Everything I praised How I Met Your Mother for last week was completely thrown out the door this week.

This is the biggest problem I have with this show - and it may be something that no one cares about but me - but this episode was filled with highly inappropriate stuff to be telling your kids. Last week weed was replaced with sandwiches, so that the kids listening to the story that their father is telling (the entire premise of the show) won’t know what he’s talking about - this week, Ted spends the entire episode telling his kids about the lovely world of pornography.

From Barney finding a porn with Ted Mosby in it, to the gang actually attending a porn convention - there is a ton of stuff in this episode that Ted just flat out shouldn’t be telling his children. This inconsistency is something I find really annoying and hurtful to the show. It can be played to great comic effect, like it was last week, but as soon as the writer’s feel like they can’t write around it, they just throw the premise of the show out the door.

The second plot for the episode, though, was much better. Marshal has to choose between his dream job of saving the environment, or being a sleazy corporate lawyer that makes the big bucks. His seduction into the world of being a corporate lawyer was very funny, evne if it was pretty predictable.

Overall I found this episode to be pretty disappointing.

Grade: B-

If you watch Jimmy Kimmel Live or Live with Regis and Kelly, you know that Jimmy pulled double duty last week.  He hosted his regular show every night in Los Angeles, and immediately flew to New York to fill in for Regis, then hopped on a plane back to LA.  And he did it for the whole week (minus one day), totalling 22,406 miles.

According to the guys at the Guiness Book of World Records, this sets the record for the most miles commuted by a person in a single week.  As a comparison, 22,406 miles would take you around the world 2.83 times.