News & Notes
Over on cable, BBC America has the 18th season premiere of Friday Night With Jonathan Ross, BET, Bravo, CMT, CNN, Comedy Central, Current TV, E!, Epix, Fuse, G4, HBO, Discovery Health, MLB Network, MTV, National Geographic, Oxygen, Planet Green, Showtime, SOAPnet, Style, TNT, VH1 and probably some others all have the Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief telethon, Starz has the series premiere of Spartacus: Blood & Sand, and Syfy has the series premiere of Caprica.
Next Friday, the 29th, is the series finale of Dollhouse on FOX and the return of Smallville on The CW.
Enter our White Collar and Burn Notice giveaways. The first prize pack includes a cashmere scarf, flask and t-shirt and the second prize pack includes DVDs, a logo flashlight and t-shirt.
Prime Picks
Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief (Everywhere): Lots of musical performances from lots of big names an organized by George Clooney. Runs two hours. If you’re a big music fan, then you will probably want to watch the whole thing. But, if you’re not, like me, then watch the first half, give some money, and then flip over to Syfy and watch the Caprica premiere. Read more about the telethon at MTV.com.
Caprica (Syfy): Series Premiere. This is a sci-fi family drama set 58 years before the beginning of Battlestar Galactica. At its base, it is the story of the development of the Cylons, but really it is about Daniel Graystone, played by Eric Stoltz, and lawyer Joseph Adams, played by Esai Morales, as they attempt to re-create the daughters they lost in a terrorist attack. Runs two hours and plays twice. Here is my review of the “Pilot” episode after it was released on DVD last year. If you are worried about having never seen Battlestar Galactica, don’t be. Anyone can watch the this show with any references to the previous series playing more like Easter Eggs for fans of that show. On the other hand, if you liked Battlestar for the space battles and such, then you may be disappointed by Caprica, but if you were a fan of the storytelling on that series, then you will definitely want to check this out. What this series really is, is a drama set in a world not unlike our own, where the writers can tackle issues we deal with in our daily lives in interesting ways. Such as, technology, religion, business, corruption, sports, sex, greed, loss, terrorism, and pretty much anything else. The cast is very good, which means the acting is too. While there might not be any space battles, there is still plenty of incredible special f/x. After having seen the first few episodes, I’m looking forward to see where they take things with this one. I’ll be onboard, will you?
Solid Selections
Hope for Haiti Now: A Global Benefit for Earthquake Relief (Everywhere): Lots of musical performances from lots of big names an organized by George Clooney. Runs two hours.
Spartacus: Blood & Sand (Starz): Series Premiere. The series begins with a Thracian warrior having his destiny be seized by an act of rebellious violence and as punishment he faces death by battling in the arena of gladiators. Plays again later. Don’t really know much about this, but everything I’ve heard about it points to it being pretty terrible. I may check it out at some point, but it is not high on my list.
Other Options
- The Best Thing I Ever Ate (Food Network): New. Stars of the Food Network talk about their favorite foods that are “Salty Goodness.” A repeat episode follows. Both play again later.
- What Not to Wear (TLC): New. Jazz vocalist gets a fashion tune up by Clinton and Stacy. Plays again later.
Sports Notes
- ESPN has doubleheader NBA action with the Los Angeles Lakers at the New York Knicks followed by the Chicago Bulls at the Phoenix Suns.
- ESPN2 has Australian Open tennis coverage and a college basketball game.
Late Night
- nip/tuck (FX): Repeat. This past Tuesday’s episode, “Joel Seabrook,” replays.
TV Marathons
Bravo has five episodes of Project Runway early.
Discovery Channel has six episodes of Doing DaVinci.
Oxygen has 14 episodes of Roseanne.
Spike has nine hours of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
Syfy has eight episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise early.
VH1 has 10 episodes of Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is.
WE has 10 episodes of Platinum Weddings early.
I don’t understand why the Haiti telethon needs to be on every channel–well, I do understand that all the stations feel the need to be PC and not be the one channel that doesn’t air it for fear that people might think they don’t care–but it leaves people with little choice. At least I can catch up on the rest of my Thursday night TV before the premieres of Caprica and Spartacus. (Already rented the Caprica DVD a while back, but need to refresh before the series.)
Kyle, Yeah, especially since I’m not all that into musical acts. I pretty much go with the donate somewhere and watch Caprica, which is pretty much the same as what was released on DVD, sans nudity.
I’ll probably be using tonight to catch-up as well, as I presently still have 11 things to watch from last night. In addition to other stuff from earlier in the week. I’m really, really, for reals going to have to push my Buffy/Angel watching to weekends only.
I’m planning to start Buffy S4/Angel S1 this weekend once I catch up with Thursday TV. I don’t think I ever watched Angel S1–I think I started with the second season. Not sure what season I originally started watching Buffy live–might have been Season 5, but I had caught up before that season started by watching my brother’s VHS recordings from syndication.