I mean, there really isn’t anything more I can say. It’s laugh out loud hilarious. Like always. Mash play and enjoy!
Parks and Rec returns to NBC September 20.
Category Archives: Television
2012 MTV VMA winners: Rihanna & One Direction on top
Last night MTV Video Music Awards was a total bore and the ratings reflect that. Only 6.1 million viewers tuned into the Thursday night telecast; that’s down over a whopping 50% from last year’s show when a record-breaking 12.4 million people watched. Was it host Kevin Hart’s mediocre monologue or the unmemorable performances and acceptance speeches that caused the viewership plunge? Or maybe airing it on a school/work night wasn’t the best idea. No matter the case, it was dull so let’s just skip to the winners.
Rihanna took home the top prize Video of the Year for her Calvin Harris-produced dance track “We Found Love,” but UK boy band One Direction came out most successful with three Moonmen for Best New Artist, and their hit single “What Makes You Beautiful” scored them Best Pop Video and Most Share-Worthy Video. Other notable winners include Chris Brown (“Turn Up the Music” won Best Male Video), Nicki Minaj (“Starships” won Best Female Video), and Drake (“HYFR” won Best Hip-Hop Video).
Click here to view the full list of winners.
‘Saturday Night Live’ lines up hosts and musical guests for new season
Though it hasn’t even started and we’re already missing Kristin Wiig and Andy Samberg, the 38th season of NBC’s Saturday Night Live is going to start with an exciting bang. The late night comedy sketch show has tapped Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane to host the upcoming season premiere with musical guest Frank Ocean. A man of many talents, MacFarlane is a great choice to start the season of right and so is Ocean who is hot off his debut release Channel Orange. In the weeks following the September 15 premiere, Studio 8H will be visited by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (promoting Looper, out 9/28) and Mumford & Sons (airing September 22) and Daniel Craig (promoting Skyfall, out November 9) and Muse (airing October 6).
In addition to Wiig and Samberg, it has been confirmed that Abby Elliot will not be returning this season. Jason Sudeikis is still on the fence but all signs point to a no-show.
FX renews ‘Anger Management’ with 90 episode back order
It was expected and now it’s official. FX has granted Charlie Sheen’s comeback vehicle Anger Management–the highest-rated new comedy series on cable this year–not only second season but 90 additional episodes. “We set a very high ratings bar that included some additional hurdles for Anger Management to earn its back-90 order and the series met and exceed those metrics,” said FX executive Chuck Saftler. “[Creator] Bruce Helford has created a sitcom that works extremely well in our pre-10PM programming lineup,” he continued. “Charlie Sheen and the entire cast did an amazing job in the first ten episodes, which were produced in a very tight window. I have no doubt that the producers and cast will be able to pull off the Herculean task of producing 90 episodes over the next two years.”
Production on season 2 is already underway, and Charlie’s father Martin Sheen (who was introduced as Charlie’s estranged father in this season’s penultimate episode) will return as a series regular. Though it plays like a typical sitcom, a likable cast headed by a recovered Sheen makes Anger Management a show worth tuning into during the dog days of summer.
‘American Horror Story: Asylum’: more clues & trailers, a premiere date
As we inch closer to fall and Halloween, you can sense the return of Ryan Murphy’s spooktacular inventive anthology series American Horror Story. Over the course of the last few weeks, FX has dropped clues for fans to watch and dissect. The first three can be viewed here, and the rest of them have been neatly posted to AHS‘ official Facebook page. The most intriguing of the bunch include two new trailers introducing the members of Asylum and they are Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Lily Rabe, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters and newcomers Adam Levine, Chloë Sevigny, Joseph Fiennes, and James Cromwell. Other new players not featured in the trailers are Jenna Dewan and Clea Duvall. Watch an introductory trailer above and an even insaner one after the break; they both play in front of an AHS theme-infused rendition of the famous song “Que Sera Sera.”
Below, flip through four creepy pieces of key art; I wouldn’t recommend peeking before bedtime.
AHS: Asylum premieres October 17 at 10PM on FX.
Continue reading ‘American Horror Story: Asylum’: more clues & trailers, a premiere date
Live action Marvel TV show from Joss Whedon gets a name: ‘S.H.I.E.L.D.’
Earlier this month it was reported that Avengers director Joss Whedon would return to write and direct the sequel and develop a live action series for Marvel Television at ABC. Today more information regarding the latter announcement was divulged. The ABC drama will be called S.H.I.E.L.D. (which stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division) and is based on the league of Marvel superheroes headed by Nick Fury (who is played by Samuel L. Jackson in the movies). S.H.I.E.L.D. will be written by Whedon, his brother Jed, and Jed’s wife Maurissa Tancharoen; these three previously collaborated on Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and FOX’s Dollhouse. They will executive produce with Jeffrey Bell and Marvel TV’s Jeph Loeb. According to Deadline the show has officially been greenlit and production is already underway. Whedon plans on directing at least the pilot.
The Avengers are preparing to assemble on TV; which members of S.H.I.E.L.D. do you think Whedon and friends will decide to introduce on the small screen?
[Via Deadline]
Comedian David Cross on the resurrected fourth season of ‘Arrested Development’
If you consider Tobias Fünke a reliable source, then listen up! In an interview with Rolling Stone, actor and comedian David Cross talked about the upcoming fourth season of cult sitcom Arrested Development.
“I’m not gonna divulge anything, but I know what the stories are and what Mitch [Hurwitz] is doing, and it’s so layered. It’s really audacious and amazing. I think a lot of people will miss the work that is involved, the story, the Venn diagrams that are being created, the domino effect that characters have with each other in their various episodes. I know what he’s doing, and this has never been done on a TV show like this. This makes Lost look like a Spalding Grey monologue. You’ll have to watch each episode more than once.”
And then there is this bombshell. Cross says the initial plan to air 10 episodes might not stick; the season may be expanded. “I think it’s going to be 13 episodes, not 10,” he said. There’s too much story. Some characters will have two-parters. Everybody sort of participates, sometimes in a bigger way and sometimes in a tiny little thread that goes through everybody else’s stories.”
Read the brief interview in full at the source link below, and shake in anticipation in your cutoffs as new episodes of Arrested Development are expected to premiere on Netflix in Spring 2013.
[Via Rolling Stone; EW]
‘The Office’ season 9 will be the show’s last
Some say this news should have come when star Steve Carell left the show at the end of season 7. But the show went on and this past Tuesday the series’ executive producer Greg Daniels announced that the upcoming ninth season will conclude the antics in The Office. Daniels served as the series’ showrunner from seasons one through five and then handed the creative reins to exec producer Paul Lieberstein, who plays Tobey. For the final season Daniels returns as showrunner and he had this to say about the not-so-shocking news.
“This will be the last season of The Office. And we’re planning a very big exciting last season. We’re going to have a lot of faces coming back … There are a lot of things that I’ve personally been wanting to do since season two … All questions will be answered this year. Now that we know we have an end date we can blow things up and take some chances and it will be very freeing, creatively.”
He assures fans that NBC has not cancelled the show (why would they–it’s the network’s highest rated comedy); The Office is closing its doors because the creative team behind it feels the time has come; many fans likely share the sentiment. “This year feels like the last chance to really go out together and make an artistic ending for the show that pays off a lot of the stuff that matters most to fans,” said Daniels. He continued, “You have a choice–only tell the beginning of story and the middle, or allow a story to end. If we didn’t let it end this year, I don’t think we would have been able to tell the ending stories of so many characters… we couldn’t count on getting everybody back for season 10.” (What with Mindy Kalling headlining The Mindy Project on FOX with fellow Office star B.J. Novak, and Rainn Wilson moving on to NBC’s Office spinoff The Farm.) Daniels added, “You could see a world where new people keep coming on the show. But I think [we want to] do justice to the existing characters in the most creative and explosive way and that means the show will be changed to such a degree that if anything was to continue it wouldn’t be the same show.”
Specifically, what can longtime viewers expect to see in the final season? Daniels says more drama will hit Jim and Pam’s relationship, the season will explore who’s behind the documentary crew that’s been filming the Office employees over all these years, and the elusive Scranton Strangler will be revealed. Do you want to see Michael Scott again? The producers do. “We would certainly wish for it,” Daniels said. “We’re not going to put so much pressure on Steve by writing something that would only work if he would return. He really loves how he was exited. He’s probably anxious about not messing up such a stylish exit. It’s a perfectly legitimate point. We’ll see, we haven’t written anything, we just have some ideas for the ending.”
The Office returns Thursday, September 20 on NBC.
TV teasers: ‘American Horror Story: Asylum’
Don’t expect to understand anything that’s going on in these three creep-tastic teasers for the next season of American Horror Story subtitled Asylum. In the first (titled “Special Delivery) a nun walks into a dark forest with two buckets filled with who the hell knows (I’m thinking body parts), dumps one of them out for some reason or other, and then continues nonchalantly into the woods. The next two are embedded after the break. In #2 (“Blue Coat”) we see a nun in black garb praying in an alcove as another in white passes by to hang a blue coat on the wall; then she sits down (to pray?) and at the very last second she sneaks a peek at us! In #3 (“Hydrobath”) we get a birds-eye view of a bathtub filled with a milky substance and inside it a body writhes around until a zipper magically locks the thing (a human?) inside. So many questions but these “clues” dropped by co-creator Ryan Murphy and co. will surely get you excited for what’s to come next in his anthology series.
American Horror Story: Asylum premieres this October on FX. Continue reading TV teasers: ‘American Horror Story: Asylum’
TV trailer: ‘Homeland’ season 2
Following two tantalizing teasers, Showtime has released a full-on trailer for the second season of its critically acclaimed drama Homeland. Carrie looks to be a lot more stable following her shock treatment at the end of the first season, and this time she’s going undercover as a brunette with brown eyes. She’s still popping pills, mind you, but now we know that without them she can’t do her job. What else? Saul is there for moral and professional support, and David Estes looks on with suspicion. On the other side Brody is still praying with the Qur’an in cahoots with the terrorist Abu Nazir, but it appears as if he’s still treading a fine line between acting as war hero and serving as a “turned” terrorist. In the meantime, Carrie and Virgil and his cousin are back at video surveilling Brody and the clip ends with a major twist: Carrie and Brody get back together again? All of this plays in front of a beautiful, haunting rendition of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” by Scala & Kolacny Brothers.
Homeland returns Sunday, September 30 on Showtime.
TV teasers: ‘FRINGE’ season 5
Fringe fans, I have not one but two teasers for you today. The first, embedded above, is simple yet enticing; as a barrage of Observers briskly walk toward the camera, our heroes (namely Broyles, Peter, Olivia, Walter, and September) recap the evolution of the term “Observer” as it has changed significantly since its introduction in season one. The teaser concludes with the final season’s tagline “they are coming.”
Next you’ll want to jump after the break to watch another new teaser that includes the very first real footage from the season five premiere. In it a happily married (Peter is indeed wearing a wedding band on his left hand) Peter and Olivia are enjoying themselves in a park with their daughter Etta when all of a sudden a group of Observers make it their mission to disturb the peace.
Fringe returns for its fifth and final season on Friday, September 28. Continue reading TV teasers: ‘FRINGE’ season 5
It’s official: Joss Whedon will return to write & direct ‘The Avengers 2’, develop a Marvel-based TV series
What a day! Arrested Development keeps its head down and powers through and Disney and Marvel announce that The Avengers helmer and geek god Joss Whedon will return to write and direct the anticipated sequel tentatively titled The Avengers 2. The superhero summer blockbuster hasn’t even hit Blu-ray yet, and we still have to get through Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Solider, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ant-Man, but just knowing that the mastermind behind arguably the greatest superhero movie of all time is going to do it again. And if that wasn’t enough, Whedon also plans to develop a live action drama series set in the Marvel universe for ABC (it may or may not star members of the elite Avengers team).
After Disney CEO Bob Iger spilled the beans during the company’s earnings call, Marvel released the following statement nicely summing it all up: “Joss Whedon has signed an exclusive deal with Marvel Studios for film and television through the end of June 2015. As part of that deal, Whedon will write and direct Marvel’s The Avengers 2 as well as help develop a new live action series for Marvel Television at ABC. He will also contribute creatively to the next phase of Marvel’s cinematic universe.”
That last bit is interesting, isn’t it? Will Whedon be free to dip his toe in Phase Two waters? Whatever comes of that, rest assured knowing that the man behind Firefly isn’t going anywhere anytime soon Marvel fans. And for you Whedon fans, perhaps his recent shift in luck will amount to a TV series lasting more than a few seasons (Buffy and Angel notwithstanding).
Update: Save the date; The Avengers 2 (that’s a tentative title) releases May 1, 2015. Now cry because that’s so far from now. And then later recover because you know that new installments from the other Marvel franchises are on the way.