Hi, everyone! Our site has been doing great. Even though I've been very sick for the past few months, everyone carries on..it's awesome. My special thanks to all my volunteers, particularly Gisele, who does all the daytime stuff and is always willing to do extra stuff.
I hope everyone had a nice holiday!
Don't forget, you can see all the new items that have been added to our site every day on our What's New Page.
We always need more volunteers for our site, so please check out our jobs page if you are interested! We don't turn anyone down! No matter what your skill level, we can find something for you to help out with.
I have not been watching much TV over the holidays. I caught up on "Dexter", my favorite show. Sadly, it is over for the year. Love that show!! It is so excellent. I wish they hadn't killed off the characters they did this year, though.
I am still bummed that they canceled "Eastwick" on ABC and "Dollhouse" on FOX. SIGH.
I checked out some of the soap operas over the holidays. I stopped watching them for a while, for no other reason than I just fell behind and never caught up. I was watching Bold & the Beautiful last night from Thursday, and I was a third of the way through before I realized it was a re-run from 2007. Oopes! I was wondering why Brooke's father was at the jail, and then I saw Phoebe and went, uh-oh, this is not a new episode (she died in 2008)! LOL!! So then I watched Wednesday's episode. It was okay...kind of boring.
I watched a General Hospital episode the other day, too. Some shows never change much. It was interesting, but it has been so long since I cared about any of the characters. They ruined most of them, or never show the ones I like, or killed them off. I see One Life to Live is as good as ever and All My Children is just tedious. Y&R seems fine.
I recorded SNL from last week, a show I never watch, just because James Franco was hosting. I thought he might say something about being on GH - only in the opening monologue, where he kind of made fun of it. He is a jerk from what I've been reading. Way too full of himself and thinks he's too good for soaps. The soaps don't need you, Mr. Franco. And SNL sucks as much as it ever did. Good thing I have a DVR and could fast-forward through most of it. Yuk. It was gross and unfunny.
I spend a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook. There are tons of my favorite TV actors and writers on there, posting about their latest projects as well as their home life and travels. There is also a ton of TV news.
Let's hope the new winter/spring TV season brings some good shows, right? Ones they won't cancel.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #75
I don't know where the time goes....things just go so quickly and get so hectic, and I forget to update my blogs! Bad girl!
Our site is still doing great. We're probably getting more celebrity interviews now than ever before. Our volunteer Laurie has been doing many, and I have done quite a few. Hers are way more impressive as she works much harder to get them.
We have most of the soap opera stuff covered but still need more writers for the daily updates. We have trouble on certain days, certain soaps. I used to write more of those myself, but I have been very lax lately about it. There is just always so much to do! We do have all the short recaps covered, at least, and of course as always our daily transcripts.
I tried to watch all of the new fiction shows from the networks this fall so I could write reviews of them all for you. Check 'em out. I think I only have one more to go...
We were able to start our new sections for CSI and Law and Order...still working on that, though, with the help of our volunteer Amanda And next is our new Grey's Anatomy section. Stay tuned, lots more to come!
As always, we put all the new stuff listed on our What's New Page to let you know what new things are going up every single day. You can also sign up for our twitter, and I try to post there regularly to let you know about new and exciting content as well.
The economy has us down but not out! Ad revenues are down but still keeping us going. I think we all have a bright future ahead on the net. Things are definitely looking up.
I have really enjoyed watching primetime this year. I love a lot of the new shows, although Glee is the only one I am making sure to watch (I watch the others only if I have time after all my other shows). The best of the new ones, I think, also include Flash Forward, The Middle, Stargate Universe, and White Collar. I also enjoyed Eastwick, Cougar Town, The Good Wife, Trauma, Vampire Diaries, and Mercy. I wish I could find time to watch them all, along with the tried and true shows I already watch.
I still enjoy Dollhouse, Castle, Fringe, Smallville, CSi, all my favorite shows. I wish Dollhouse and Fringe were doing better. Why do they pile all the best shows on Thursdays and Fridays? So stupid.
We still enjoy House, and now I got my husband watching Mad Men, and we are back to watching South Park, which is actually funny again. Dexter is still my favorite show, always love that one, and this season is no different. In fact, even better maybe with John Lithgow and the return of Keith Carradine (Well, sorta). True Blood was awesome and over too quickly. I am still watching Defying Gravity, thanks to the internet. CBS canceled it, but Canadian TV still airs it.
I just don't know how anyone, especially a scifi or fantasy fan, could not like Dollhouse, Dexter, or True Blood. Some people are just too picky. These are great shows.
My second favorite show after Dexter is Medium. That show has not lost a thing moving to CBS. If anything, it's only gotten better. I wish I could watch both shows every day. Yes, I'm that cracked.
Have a good week! Go visit our site at http://tvmegasite.net and don't forget to click around!
Our site is still doing great. We're probably getting more celebrity interviews now than ever before. Our volunteer Laurie has been doing many, and I have done quite a few. Hers are way more impressive as she works much harder to get them.
We have most of the soap opera stuff covered but still need more writers for the daily updates. We have trouble on certain days, certain soaps. I used to write more of those myself, but I have been very lax lately about it. There is just always so much to do! We do have all the short recaps covered, at least, and of course as always our daily transcripts.
I tried to watch all of the new fiction shows from the networks this fall so I could write reviews of them all for you. Check 'em out. I think I only have one more to go...
We were able to start our new sections for CSI and Law and Order...still working on that, though, with the help of our volunteer Amanda And next is our new Grey's Anatomy section. Stay tuned, lots more to come!
As always, we put all the new stuff listed on our What's New Page to let you know what new things are going up every single day. You can also sign up for our twitter, and I try to post there regularly to let you know about new and exciting content as well.
The economy has us down but not out! Ad revenues are down but still keeping us going. I think we all have a bright future ahead on the net. Things are definitely looking up.
I have really enjoyed watching primetime this year. I love a lot of the new shows, although Glee is the only one I am making sure to watch (I watch the others only if I have time after all my other shows). The best of the new ones, I think, also include Flash Forward, The Middle, Stargate Universe, and White Collar. I also enjoyed Eastwick, Cougar Town, The Good Wife, Trauma, Vampire Diaries, and Mercy. I wish I could find time to watch them all, along with the tried and true shows I already watch.
I still enjoy Dollhouse, Castle, Fringe, Smallville, CSi, all my favorite shows. I wish Dollhouse and Fringe were doing better. Why do they pile all the best shows on Thursdays and Fridays? So stupid.
We still enjoy House, and now I got my husband watching Mad Men, and we are back to watching South Park, which is actually funny again. Dexter is still my favorite show, always love that one, and this season is no different. In fact, even better maybe with John Lithgow and the return of Keith Carradine (Well, sorta). True Blood was awesome and over too quickly. I am still watching Defying Gravity, thanks to the internet. CBS canceled it, but Canadian TV still airs it.
I just don't know how anyone, especially a scifi or fantasy fan, could not like Dollhouse, Dexter, or True Blood. Some people are just too picky. These are great shows.
My second favorite show after Dexter is Medium. That show has not lost a thing moving to CBS. If anything, it's only gotten better. I wish I could watch both shows every day. Yes, I'm that cracked.
Have a good week! Go visit our site at http://tvmegasite.net and don't forget to click around!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #74
Our site has been going great. We have all of the soap summaries covered for now, so that is very exciting. We have tons of great volunteers, but we always need more! We have a new volunteer, Kaylee, who has so much energy and has been a great find to help us with the updates.
I have been trying to catch up on so much, been working like crazy. You can see it all on our "What's New" page
I was so excited last week to talk to Eric Braeden (Victor on Y&R). He is a great guy. I might soon get to talk to Eileen Davidson. I also got to talk to Aldiss Hodge of "Leverage", one of my favorite shows. Just so awesome. My first phone interviews, all in one week!
I am still working on our site's new design. This is the one I have right now...I am not a professional designer, so that's the best I can do for right now. I was hoping to get a professional to help us out, but so far it has not worked out. They either say they will do it and then not doing anything, or they are head cases. I spent days arguing with this one guy, who turned out to be a real jerk and then quit. He did nothing but insult me and the site, and he would only do things his way. Sheesh. So much for "the customer is always right". In this case, the customer didn't even get a say. Plus he was pretty much an idiot. Our web host, Marcos, might be able to help me out some more.
We are hoping to add tons more shows in the new few weeks. I made main pages for CSI, Law and Order, and Grey's Anatomy. So far it's just the main page, so I hope to add more shows plus fill out the rest of each section. Our site always has tons of great content, but there are so many great shows, too, and I know people like to see current stuff. Anything to please our visitors/readers! I hope that we can keep our other current pages for Smallville, Lost, House, et al. updated with spoilers, news etc. as well. We always need more help on these show sections! Please email me if you can help out with your favorite show!
I have been getting some great free DVD's from Warner Brothers lately, and reviewing them for our site.
Our volunteer Carrie has finished season two of the 24 episode guide recaps! She will be back writing them for season 8 in the spring, I'm sure. Our volunteer Patti went to the All My Children studios and got some great photos and autographs for us. Our great interviewer Laurie got some more soap star interviews!
Another great volunteer, Keith, has been writing Y&R updates daily...these are our day-ahead detailed summaries. I'm so glad that he is now doing that because it is too much for me to do on top of everything else, and I know people love this show. I do, too, I just fall behind a lot. Just so grateful to all of our wonderful writers and other volunteers! Please don't be offended if I don't mention you...I am so happy to have all volunteers...
Don't forget to enter our monthly DVD drawing!! We have tons of great ones. I just added Supernatural on Blu-Ray. The September contest starts this coming week on the 5th. Don't enter before that or it won't count. You can only enter between the 5th and 25th of each month.
So I watched tons of TV dvd's this week...I don't always have time to watch the whole series, though...I never run out of things to watch, honestly. I have tons of DVD's and many hours of shows on my DVR. Lately I haven't had time to watch most of the soaps. I have only been watching Y&R and B&B. I fell so far behind on all of them, but I do still record them. Maybe one day, time will stop for a few years so I can catch up on everything ;)
It's so sad that Guiding Light is ending. I stopped watching it a while back because they got rid of so many of the characters I liked, and the stories were kind of dull. It sounds like things are better lately, but only because it's ending ! So stupid. Although I have to say, not keen on the idea that Mallet left town and Marina. That sounded really lame. Also, I don't like how they broke up Dinah and Shayne. It sounds like it was all very contrived in order to throw Shayne and Marina together, and rushed because of the show's ending. Why not just make it all a happy ending for fans, anyway? So stupid.
I have been enjoying reading what the GL actors say on Twitter. Poor guys, they are all used to getting up at 4 or 5 am and not they don't have jobs...but they are still up, and posting to their fans on Twitter! LOL!! If you want to know which Guiding Light actors are on Twitter, you can go to our Links page, or add me on twitter and look at the friends I follow. I follow mostly celebrities...no, I'm not shallow at all :)
I'm sorry that "Burn Notice" is gone already, but I am happy to still have "Leverage" to watch and now "Monk" and "Mad Men". I guess "Royal Pains" is over, or soon will be, and I'm sure "Deep Blue" will be soon. I just started watching "PSych" regularly, which also just returned. SO glad to have all these summer shows to watch while the big nets are showing crap. I only had two regular network shows I watched this summer: Harper's Island on CBS, and Defying Gravity on ABC. There are some others I never got around to watching, like Merlin. Maybe I will catch them on DVD.
I am not mentally ready for the new season to start....it puts a lot more pressure on me :) but I will be glad to see my favorites like Smallville, Supernatural, Dollhouse, et al. again. I am still sticking to the vow I made two years ago and only watching one new show per season. I just got so sick of them canceling them all the time. I can't get upset if I don't watch the show, right? I have commitment-phobia when it comes to network television. I don't think I am the only one, either. So, anyway, Glee will be the only new show I will commit to watch this fall. I may watch others casually, or record them, but I will not get emotionally involved. That is my annual fall commitment, and I have done a pretty good job of sticking to it. I do watch other new shows but, they are not top priority. Last year I think I chose Fringe and Dollhouse. However, I did end up watching The Mentalist, Castle, and Southland...
It sounds like there are a lot of good new shows this year, especially scifi-like shows: Fast Forward, V, Eastwick, Past Life, Vampire Diaries....wonder if any of them will make it?
I will probably be forced to watch The Cleveland Show because my husband likes all the Family Guy-type shows. I really liked Alex O'Loughlin in "Moonlight", but not sure if his new show "Three Rivers" will be any good. Plus, what a bad name. And why so many medical shows this year? Is it because of the Grey's Anatomy success, or because everyone is talking about the health care problems? Kinda stupid, I don't think most people will watch all five of them. Why did they bother getting rid of ER just to make more of the same kind of show?
Well, have a good week, I'm off to set up my DVR now for the new shows...
I have been trying to catch up on so much, been working like crazy. You can see it all on our "What's New" page
I was so excited last week to talk to Eric Braeden (Victor on Y&R). He is a great guy. I might soon get to talk to Eileen Davidson. I also got to talk to Aldiss Hodge of "Leverage", one of my favorite shows. Just so awesome. My first phone interviews, all in one week!
I am still working on our site's new design. This is the one I have right now...I am not a professional designer, so that's the best I can do for right now. I was hoping to get a professional to help us out, but so far it has not worked out. They either say they will do it and then not doing anything, or they are head cases. I spent days arguing with this one guy, who turned out to be a real jerk and then quit. He did nothing but insult me and the site, and he would only do things his way. Sheesh. So much for "the customer is always right". In this case, the customer didn't even get a say. Plus he was pretty much an idiot. Our web host, Marcos, might be able to help me out some more.
We are hoping to add tons more shows in the new few weeks. I made main pages for CSI, Law and Order, and Grey's Anatomy. So far it's just the main page, so I hope to add more shows plus fill out the rest of each section. Our site always has tons of great content, but there are so many great shows, too, and I know people like to see current stuff. Anything to please our visitors/readers! I hope that we can keep our other current pages for Smallville, Lost, House, et al. updated with spoilers, news etc. as well. We always need more help on these show sections! Please email me if you can help out with your favorite show!
I have been getting some great free DVD's from Warner Brothers lately, and reviewing them for our site.
Our volunteer Carrie has finished season two of the 24 episode guide recaps! She will be back writing them for season 8 in the spring, I'm sure. Our volunteer Patti went to the All My Children studios and got some great photos and autographs for us. Our great interviewer Laurie got some more soap star interviews!
Another great volunteer, Keith, has been writing Y&R updates daily...these are our day-ahead detailed summaries. I'm so glad that he is now doing that because it is too much for me to do on top of everything else, and I know people love this show. I do, too, I just fall behind a lot. Just so grateful to all of our wonderful writers and other volunteers! Please don't be offended if I don't mention you...I am so happy to have all volunteers...
Don't forget to enter our monthly DVD drawing!! We have tons of great ones. I just added Supernatural on Blu-Ray. The September contest starts this coming week on the 5th. Don't enter before that or it won't count. You can only enter between the 5th and 25th of each month.
So I watched tons of TV dvd's this week...I don't always have time to watch the whole series, though...I never run out of things to watch, honestly. I have tons of DVD's and many hours of shows on my DVR. Lately I haven't had time to watch most of the soaps. I have only been watching Y&R and B&B. I fell so far behind on all of them, but I do still record them. Maybe one day, time will stop for a few years so I can catch up on everything ;)
It's so sad that Guiding Light is ending. I stopped watching it a while back because they got rid of so many of the characters I liked, and the stories were kind of dull. It sounds like things are better lately, but only because it's ending ! So stupid. Although I have to say, not keen on the idea that Mallet left town and Marina. That sounded really lame. Also, I don't like how they broke up Dinah and Shayne. It sounds like it was all very contrived in order to throw Shayne and Marina together, and rushed because of the show's ending. Why not just make it all a happy ending for fans, anyway? So stupid.
I have been enjoying reading what the GL actors say on Twitter. Poor guys, they are all used to getting up at 4 or 5 am and not they don't have jobs...but they are still up, and posting to their fans on Twitter! LOL!! If you want to know which Guiding Light actors are on Twitter, you can go to our Links page, or add me on twitter and look at the friends I follow. I follow mostly celebrities...no, I'm not shallow at all :)
I'm sorry that "Burn Notice" is gone already, but I am happy to still have "Leverage" to watch and now "Monk" and "Mad Men". I guess "Royal Pains" is over, or soon will be, and I'm sure "Deep Blue" will be soon. I just started watching "PSych" regularly, which also just returned. SO glad to have all these summer shows to watch while the big nets are showing crap. I only had two regular network shows I watched this summer: Harper's Island on CBS, and Defying Gravity on ABC. There are some others I never got around to watching, like Merlin. Maybe I will catch them on DVD.
I am not mentally ready for the new season to start....it puts a lot more pressure on me :) but I will be glad to see my favorites like Smallville, Supernatural, Dollhouse, et al. again. I am still sticking to the vow I made two years ago and only watching one new show per season. I just got so sick of them canceling them all the time. I can't get upset if I don't watch the show, right? I have commitment-phobia when it comes to network television. I don't think I am the only one, either. So, anyway, Glee will be the only new show I will commit to watch this fall. I may watch others casually, or record them, but I will not get emotionally involved. That is my annual fall commitment, and I have done a pretty good job of sticking to it. I do watch other new shows but, they are not top priority. Last year I think I chose Fringe and Dollhouse. However, I did end up watching The Mentalist, Castle, and Southland...
It sounds like there are a lot of good new shows this year, especially scifi-like shows: Fast Forward, V, Eastwick, Past Life, Vampire Diaries....wonder if any of them will make it?
I will probably be forced to watch The Cleveland Show because my husband likes all the Family Guy-type shows. I really liked Alex O'Loughlin in "Moonlight", but not sure if his new show "Three Rivers" will be any good. Plus, what a bad name. And why so many medical shows this year? Is it because of the Grey's Anatomy success, or because everyone is talking about the health care problems? Kinda stupid, I don't think most people will watch all five of them. Why did they bother getting rid of ER just to make more of the same kind of show?
Well, have a good week, I'm off to set up my DVR now for the new shows...
Sunday, August 2, 2009
The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #73
If you're bored this summer without nothing to watch, you are just not exploring all of your options.
I have been enjoying "Being Human" on BBC America. It is a really good British scifi/fantasy series.
The premise is that a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost share an apartment. It sounds silly, like a joke, but it's really good. The acting and writing are fantastic. It's funny, and poignant, and exciting. Make sure you check it out.
If you can get an online peek at the British version, it's even better. They cut it up a bit on BBC America. Also, they had a pilot that has not been shown on the American channel, with different actors, and it is great.
Another great British show was "Life on Mars". You may have seen the recent American version. It was crap. The UK version is great. It only lasted two years, but it was just the best. You can now buy the first season on DVD (I don't know why it took them so long!).
Another great British show, of course, is "Torchwood". I am a big fan of "Doctor Who" but had not yet gotten around to watching Torchwood (which is sort of a spin-off), aside from a few episodes. I have the first two seasons of Torchwood on DVD but hadn't gotten around yet to watching them. I recently watched "Children of Earth", which is this season's Torchwood (they made a miniseries instead of a whole season for some reason). It was great!! Sad but great.
I love Doctor Who, too, and really miss it. They are coming back in 2010, thank goodness!! I can't wait. There have been a couple of good Doctor Who specials this year. I wish they could keep David Tennant around...he is awesome.
I watched a couple of other good TV movies, too, recently. One was "Impact", from Scifi Channel, about asteroids headed toward the earth...it was much better than those previous movies that were about similar subjects. The acting was good (the guy from JAG starred in it) and the writing was fine. It was really enjoyable.
I loved the recent FOX movie "Virtuosity". Well, it was an ok movie, but it was a great TV pilot. I wish they had made it into a TV series. Apparently they decided not to. That is really stupid of them. It was truly great. It was written by Ron Moore of Battlestar Galactica (among many other things) and directed by Peter Berg (who has done so many fabulous things). What were they thinking?
Just go find some good TV to watch! It's everywhere!
I have been enjoying "Being Human" on BBC America. It is a really good British scifi/fantasy series.
The premise is that a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost share an apartment. It sounds silly, like a joke, but it's really good. The acting and writing are fantastic. It's funny, and poignant, and exciting. Make sure you check it out.
If you can get an online peek at the British version, it's even better. They cut it up a bit on BBC America. Also, they had a pilot that has not been shown on the American channel, with different actors, and it is great.
Another great British show was "Life on Mars". You may have seen the recent American version. It was crap. The UK version is great. It only lasted two years, but it was just the best. You can now buy the first season on DVD (I don't know why it took them so long!).
Another great British show, of course, is "Torchwood". I am a big fan of "Doctor Who" but had not yet gotten around to watching Torchwood (which is sort of a spin-off), aside from a few episodes. I have the first two seasons of Torchwood on DVD but hadn't gotten around yet to watching them. I recently watched "Children of Earth", which is this season's Torchwood (they made a miniseries instead of a whole season for some reason). It was great!! Sad but great.
I love Doctor Who, too, and really miss it. They are coming back in 2010, thank goodness!! I can't wait. There have been a couple of good Doctor Who specials this year. I wish they could keep David Tennant around...he is awesome.
I watched a couple of other good TV movies, too, recently. One was "Impact", from Scifi Channel, about asteroids headed toward the earth...it was much better than those previous movies that were about similar subjects. The acting was good (the guy from JAG starred in it) and the writing was fine. It was really enjoyable.
I loved the recent FOX movie "Virtuosity". Well, it was an ok movie, but it was a great TV pilot. I wish they had made it into a TV series. Apparently they decided not to. That is really stupid of them. It was truly great. It was written by Ron Moore of Battlestar Galactica (among many other things) and directed by Peter Berg (who has done so many fabulous things). What were they thinking?
Just go find some good TV to watch! It's everywhere!
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #72
I want to write this column about "The Cleaner", the drama on A&E.
It tries really hard to be an earnest, realistic drama about addiction and getting clean. The problem is, it's still TV, so it can't be too realistic, and if they could make it that way, it would probably be too depressing to watch.
Maybe it's hard for me to watch the show objectively because of my own background. Maybe all dramas have this problem. You got two types of viewers. 1) people who just want to watch for entertainment, and 2) people who have experienced addiction or been related to someone who has. You can't satisfy both camps, and someone will let both down. Maybe it's the same for doctors who watch ER or cops who watch Law & Order.
The Cleaner probably satisfies the first group more than the second because it is probably more entertaining than it is realistic. Then again, since there are no other shows close to this....it is the best they can do.
The show is really good, gritty, and has a lot in common with reality. But in real life, most addicts don't get clean (or stay that way) and their situations are not neatly tied up in one hour. The people on the shows are actors, so even with lots of makeup etc. they don't look as bad as real alcoholics or addicts. Even though they show them vomiting and stuff, they don't look that bad. They do the best job they can, though, given the restraints of TV.
Benjamin Bratt and the other actors, and their characters' stories, are the best part of the show and what is worth watching. They are all really good. There is a bit of preaching and thinking-out-loud, but it's not annoying. It's pro-religion, but you can ignore that aspect of it pretty easily if you want.
The shows that are hardest for me to watch are the ones involving families and alcoholism. I never knew anyone addicted to drugs, so I can't relate to that. Most of the stories on the show, that I have seen, anyway, are about middle-class or rich people because they hire him... most of the time, the bum lying in the gutter is not his client. Sometimes, though, they do have that.
I just watched a very depressing one that had two alcoholics and a drug addict. One had a little girl and her alcoholic father; her mom had died. That was very hard to watch. My dad was an alcoholic. My mom died when I was 10. I was put into foster care when I was 13. The episode had many similarities to my experience. This father, unlike mine, really cared about his daughter and wanted to get clean so she wouldn't be taken away.
William Banks would not have been able to help my father because he didn't want to get clean. I guess that being in that position, it is hard for me to feel much sympathy for the drunks and addicts. Banks talks about how they are in pain and stuff, when to me they are just whiny and selfish. Anyone who puts their own pain ahead of their family or loves ones is just selfish, and there's no getting around that. It took me a long while to figure that out about my own dad. My mom used to make excuses for him. Once he had to give up the alcohol after he had a stroke, I realized that he was just a selfish person and a jerk. There are lots of jerks in the world, and we all know them...it sucks to be related to them.
Unlike me, this little girl in the show took care of them both and was the more mature one in the relationship. However, when she got upset that her father was going away for a while to rehab, I could identify with that. Even though your father is a bum who treats you bad, you as a child worry about losing your parents, you still love them, and you fear the unknown and what might happen; change. Even though my getting put into a foster home was a great thing, I did not want to leave my dad and go there. That part was very painful to watch.
Unlike real life, though, this father got help and they got through their problems...things looked happy at the end. That doesn't happen so much in real life. I did get a little annoyed, though - they always act like foster care is the worst thing. I know it is a lot worse than it used to be, but still...it is often better than the home you were born into.
Next week, back to your usual happy TV blog!
It tries really hard to be an earnest, realistic drama about addiction and getting clean. The problem is, it's still TV, so it can't be too realistic, and if they could make it that way, it would probably be too depressing to watch.
Maybe it's hard for me to watch the show objectively because of my own background. Maybe all dramas have this problem. You got two types of viewers. 1) people who just want to watch for entertainment, and 2) people who have experienced addiction or been related to someone who has. You can't satisfy both camps, and someone will let both down. Maybe it's the same for doctors who watch ER or cops who watch Law & Order.
The Cleaner probably satisfies the first group more than the second because it is probably more entertaining than it is realistic. Then again, since there are no other shows close to this....it is the best they can do.
The show is really good, gritty, and has a lot in common with reality. But in real life, most addicts don't get clean (or stay that way) and their situations are not neatly tied up in one hour. The people on the shows are actors, so even with lots of makeup etc. they don't look as bad as real alcoholics or addicts. Even though they show them vomiting and stuff, they don't look that bad. They do the best job they can, though, given the restraints of TV.
Benjamin Bratt and the other actors, and their characters' stories, are the best part of the show and what is worth watching. They are all really good. There is a bit of preaching and thinking-out-loud, but it's not annoying. It's pro-religion, but you can ignore that aspect of it pretty easily if you want.
The shows that are hardest for me to watch are the ones involving families and alcoholism. I never knew anyone addicted to drugs, so I can't relate to that. Most of the stories on the show, that I have seen, anyway, are about middle-class or rich people because they hire him... most of the time, the bum lying in the gutter is not his client. Sometimes, though, they do have that.
I just watched a very depressing one that had two alcoholics and a drug addict. One had a little girl and her alcoholic father; her mom had died. That was very hard to watch. My dad was an alcoholic. My mom died when I was 10. I was put into foster care when I was 13. The episode had many similarities to my experience. This father, unlike mine, really cared about his daughter and wanted to get clean so she wouldn't be taken away.
William Banks would not have been able to help my father because he didn't want to get clean. I guess that being in that position, it is hard for me to feel much sympathy for the drunks and addicts. Banks talks about how they are in pain and stuff, when to me they are just whiny and selfish. Anyone who puts their own pain ahead of their family or loves ones is just selfish, and there's no getting around that. It took me a long while to figure that out about my own dad. My mom used to make excuses for him. Once he had to give up the alcohol after he had a stroke, I realized that he was just a selfish person and a jerk. There are lots of jerks in the world, and we all know them...it sucks to be related to them.
Unlike me, this little girl in the show took care of them both and was the more mature one in the relationship. However, when she got upset that her father was going away for a while to rehab, I could identify with that. Even though your father is a bum who treats you bad, you as a child worry about losing your parents, you still love them, and you fear the unknown and what might happen; change. Even though my getting put into a foster home was a great thing, I did not want to leave my dad and go there. That part was very painful to watch.
Unlike real life, though, this father got help and they got through their problems...things looked happy at the end. That doesn't happen so much in real life. I did get a little annoyed, though - they always act like foster care is the worst thing. I know it is a lot worse than it used to be, but still...it is often better than the home you were born into.
Next week, back to your usual happy TV blog!
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #71
Hi to everyone! Yahoo 360 went under, I guess, so this is our new blog. I am not too disappointed, though...it was not a very good service. This one is way better.
The old blog posts are now at my Yahoo profile. That's what I get for not updating my blog..LOL.
Usually I talk first about our site, and then I talk about TV. Our site continues to do well in terms of visitors and traffic, and adding content. All that is good.
We just got some new guys to join us in writing AMC and Y&R summaries, so that is great!! So now I just have to find someone to write B&B Tues.-Thurs., and Guiding Light...I try to write them whenever I get a chance, but I have so many other things to do...
So I hope to find some time this week to post for more help!
We did have a financial partner, but he has had to bail out for now, so I am back to financing things on my own again. So please, go to our site right now and click on the ads! That helps us out a lot. Or if you have some extra change, please click on the "donate" box and send us some money via Paypal. I don't keep it - it all goes towards the site's bills.
I hope I can always afford to keep the site going with all the tons of information and other fun stuff we put out...knock on wood!!
We still have many great volunteers who help out every day on the site. You can see all the new stuff that's put up on our What's New page.
We had a volunteer, Laurie, who was a big help for a while, running all the abc soap transcripts and making daily screencaps...but she quit, so now we do our own. Juanita has been a god send in doing the screen caps...
Anyway, the plan when I had a financial partner was to pay someone to re-design the site for us, put it in a Content Management System so it would be easier to update, and then we'd try to sell it. I am still hoping to do that, but now I have to do it all for free (or at least cheap).
I have been working on a new design for our site. Let me know what you think of it! It's a work in work in progress, though...the new logo came from Dennis, who was the winner in our Logotournament contest. That was a pretty cool and fun thing, to see all these people make logos for our site. I am not a designer, so this was very helpful.
I know, there are a lot of ads, but they pay the bills! Without them, we couldn't have such a large site.
I am still looking into getting a Content Management System. Our webhost installed Drupal and Webgui on our site so I could test them out. I am not a programmer, either, so they seemed really hard for me. I might have someone to help me get the site set up in Webgui...waiting for something first. Otherwise, we might just stick with Frontpage since it is very useful to us writers who are not coders :)
Got any questions about our site? Any problems with it? Any complaints? Send them my way!
It's summer, so of course our TV options seem limited. Well, they're really not. There are tons of new shows out there. You just have to look a little bit.
First there's the daytime soaps, which are on year round. You might think, "oh, they are stupid" or "they are for women", but you would be wrong. It's true that soaps do tend to be romantic, but they are now targeting young men as much as everyone else (advertising dollars). They are also not slow like they used to be. I will grant you that some of them are not so good, but it just varies depending on the writers. I'm told that Guiding Light is very good right now (now that it's being canceled!). I know that Young & The Restless is very entertaining.
If you like lots of action or adventure, watch General Hospital. It hasn't been about the hospital much in a few decades; it's kind of like The Sopranos Lite. If you like melodrama and romance, try The Bold & Beautiful or One Life to Live. If you like gay storylines, well - As The World Turns has Luke and Noah; One Life to Live has Fish and Kyle; Young & The Restless has Phillip, Rafe and (sorta) Adam; and Guiding Light has Olivia and Natalia (AKA Otalia). One of these shows should have something for you unless you really just hate dramas. The great thing about soaps, too, is you really don't have to watch every day if you don't want to. They do a good job of catching you up.
Now to Primetime...
I really enjoyed watching "Harper's Island", which just concluded on CBS. It was a great horror miniseries. They didn't call it a miniseries, but that's basically what it was. It was like 14 parts spread out over as many weeks, and it ended in mid-July. It was a whodunnit/horror story. They did a great job with it. I was a bit disappointed in the end by who the killer was, but that's because they did such a great job writing the characters and sucking me in. The writing and acting were excellent. You can catch it over on cbs.com if you missed it. It was not canceled- it was never meant to be more than this short miniseries. I say, write more!! And put them on a night like Saturday so they won't have any competition!
"Burn Notice" is back on USA, and soon "Monk" will be returning as well. These are two of my favorite cable shows. I have also been enjoying "Royal Pains" on USA and "The Cleaner" on A&E. I missed "The Cleaner"'s first season, so I have been watching those in reruns. It is, pardon the expression, an addictive show. I got to talk to star Benjamin Bratt, as well as the man whose life the show is based on (by phone), so that was awesome. Syfy has a good new show, "Warehouse 13", so that has been fun to watch. It's kind of like the X-Files but more light-hearted and fun. The guy who is the hero in that reminds me a lot of the actor who plays Jack on ATWT.
Speaking of "Royal Pains", the guy who plays the brother on that show can be really enjoying. I hope the writers keep toning him down. I know several people who are annoyed by him. It's definitely the way they write him because he was never this annoying when he was on the sitcom "Joey".
I am a real TV addict, so I never run out of anything to watch (that is both good and bad!). I have tons of soaps to catch up on, on my DVR. I download "True Blood" online, so I have that to watch (one of my favorite shows). If you like vampire shows, you gotta check it out. The first season is out now on DVD.
Oh, and speaking of DVD's, I have tons of those to watch, too!! Okay, now I feel pressured....LOL.
There are just so many choices now, and on top of the TV, DVR, DVD's etc. you also have so many online places to watch now. It's unreal, isn't it? Sometimes it seems like, the fall season is just too much. I think that may be why people don't watch as much network tv any more. There are just too many choices. I have two DVR's, so my other one is filled up with a whole season of shows I haven't yet watched, like Life, 30 Rock, Reaper, Samantha Who, and more. Who knows if I'll ever get around to watching them?
I know I don't talk much about reality TV. If you like reality TV and want to talk about it, please feel free to leave comments here. Or if you want to really talk about it all the time, let me know and you can become a guest columnist. I just don't watch reality shows. I don't watch anything that's not fiction. There's just not enough hours in my life.
My husband and MIL both watch a lot of news, which I don't watch, either, so I hear a lot of that. She also watches MASH reruns a lot, and he watches a lot of sports as well. Unless I have my earphones in (and sometimes even then), I have to see and hear it all.
I don't get reality shows. To me it's like watching bad actors in a trashy, boring soap opera or game show. I don't like "real people" (not that these are real people, either). I watch TV and movies to escape from reality. I like to watch drama and comedy and good acting and great writing. Reality shows have none of that. They also seem to celebrate the lowest common denominator - trashy people saying mean things or hurting each other. Ugh. It's just dull.
It's not JUST reality TV, I don't watch any non-fiction. When I was younger and had fewer channels (and more time), I used to watch game shows, variety shows, and talk shows sometimes. Now I have to be more selective.
But all TV is good TV, and I have nothing against non-fiction shows, per se. I think the trend is going away, though, from reality tv. Only the best ones are surviving. I think the networks are realizing that people only watch certain ones now. They are not filling out their schedules with them as much as they used to. Thank goodness! I am sure they will still have them as long as they are profitable and don't cost too much.
Have a good week!
Suzanne
The old blog posts are now at my Yahoo profile. That's what I get for not updating my blog..LOL.
Usually I talk first about our site, and then I talk about TV. Our site continues to do well in terms of visitors and traffic, and adding content. All that is good.
We just got some new guys to join us in writing AMC and Y&R summaries, so that is great!! So now I just have to find someone to write B&B Tues.-Thurs., and Guiding Light...I try to write them whenever I get a chance, but I have so many other things to do...
So I hope to find some time this week to post for more help!
We did have a financial partner, but he has had to bail out for now, so I am back to financing things on my own again. So please, go to our site right now and click on the ads! That helps us out a lot. Or if you have some extra change, please click on the "donate" box and send us some money via Paypal. I don't keep it - it all goes towards the site's bills.
I hope I can always afford to keep the site going with all the tons of information and other fun stuff we put out...knock on wood!!
We still have many great volunteers who help out every day on the site. You can see all the new stuff that's put up on our What's New page.
We had a volunteer, Laurie, who was a big help for a while, running all the abc soap transcripts and making daily screencaps...but she quit, so now we do our own. Juanita has been a god send in doing the screen caps...
Anyway, the plan when I had a financial partner was to pay someone to re-design the site for us, put it in a Content Management System so it would be easier to update, and then we'd try to sell it. I am still hoping to do that, but now I have to do it all for free (or at least cheap).
I have been working on a new design for our site. Let me know what you think of it! It's a work in work in progress, though...the new logo came from Dennis, who was the winner in our Logotournament contest. That was a pretty cool and fun thing, to see all these people make logos for our site. I am not a designer, so this was very helpful.
I know, there are a lot of ads, but they pay the bills! Without them, we couldn't have such a large site.
I am still looking into getting a Content Management System. Our webhost installed Drupal and Webgui on our site so I could test them out. I am not a programmer, either, so they seemed really hard for me. I might have someone to help me get the site set up in Webgui...waiting for something first. Otherwise, we might just stick with Frontpage since it is very useful to us writers who are not coders :)
Got any questions about our site? Any problems with it? Any complaints? Send them my way!
It's summer, so of course our TV options seem limited. Well, they're really not. There are tons of new shows out there. You just have to look a little bit.
First there's the daytime soaps, which are on year round. You might think, "oh, they are stupid" or "they are for women", but you would be wrong. It's true that soaps do tend to be romantic, but they are now targeting young men as much as everyone else (advertising dollars). They are also not slow like they used to be. I will grant you that some of them are not so good, but it just varies depending on the writers. I'm told that Guiding Light is very good right now (now that it's being canceled!). I know that Young & The Restless is very entertaining.
If you like lots of action or adventure, watch General Hospital. It hasn't been about the hospital much in a few decades; it's kind of like The Sopranos Lite. If you like melodrama and romance, try The Bold & Beautiful or One Life to Live. If you like gay storylines, well - As The World Turns has Luke and Noah; One Life to Live has Fish and Kyle; Young & The Restless has Phillip, Rafe and (sorta) Adam; and Guiding Light has Olivia and Natalia (AKA Otalia). One of these shows should have something for you unless you really just hate dramas. The great thing about soaps, too, is you really don't have to watch every day if you don't want to. They do a good job of catching you up.
Now to Primetime...
I really enjoyed watching "Harper's Island", which just concluded on CBS. It was a great horror miniseries. They didn't call it a miniseries, but that's basically what it was. It was like 14 parts spread out over as many weeks, and it ended in mid-July. It was a whodunnit/horror story. They did a great job with it. I was a bit disappointed in the end by who the killer was, but that's because they did such a great job writing the characters and sucking me in. The writing and acting were excellent. You can catch it over on cbs.com if you missed it. It was not canceled- it was never meant to be more than this short miniseries. I say, write more!! And put them on a night like Saturday so they won't have any competition!
"Burn Notice" is back on USA, and soon "Monk" will be returning as well. These are two of my favorite cable shows. I have also been enjoying "Royal Pains" on USA and "The Cleaner" on A&E. I missed "The Cleaner"'s first season, so I have been watching those in reruns. It is, pardon the expression, an addictive show. I got to talk to star Benjamin Bratt, as well as the man whose life the show is based on (by phone), so that was awesome. Syfy has a good new show, "Warehouse 13", so that has been fun to watch. It's kind of like the X-Files but more light-hearted and fun. The guy who is the hero in that reminds me a lot of the actor who plays Jack on ATWT.
Speaking of "Royal Pains", the guy who plays the brother on that show can be really enjoying. I hope the writers keep toning him down. I know several people who are annoyed by him. It's definitely the way they write him because he was never this annoying when he was on the sitcom "Joey".
I am a real TV addict, so I never run out of anything to watch (that is both good and bad!). I have tons of soaps to catch up on, on my DVR. I download "True Blood" online, so I have that to watch (one of my favorite shows). If you like vampire shows, you gotta check it out. The first season is out now on DVD.
Oh, and speaking of DVD's, I have tons of those to watch, too!! Okay, now I feel pressured....LOL.
There are just so many choices now, and on top of the TV, DVR, DVD's etc. you also have so many online places to watch now. It's unreal, isn't it? Sometimes it seems like, the fall season is just too much. I think that may be why people don't watch as much network tv any more. There are just too many choices. I have two DVR's, so my other one is filled up with a whole season of shows I haven't yet watched, like Life, 30 Rock, Reaper, Samantha Who, and more. Who knows if I'll ever get around to watching them?
I know I don't talk much about reality TV. If you like reality TV and want to talk about it, please feel free to leave comments here. Or if you want to really talk about it all the time, let me know and you can become a guest columnist. I just don't watch reality shows. I don't watch anything that's not fiction. There's just not enough hours in my life.
My husband and MIL both watch a lot of news, which I don't watch, either, so I hear a lot of that. She also watches MASH reruns a lot, and he watches a lot of sports as well. Unless I have my earphones in (and sometimes even then), I have to see and hear it all.
I don't get reality shows. To me it's like watching bad actors in a trashy, boring soap opera or game show. I don't like "real people" (not that these are real people, either). I watch TV and movies to escape from reality. I like to watch drama and comedy and good acting and great writing. Reality shows have none of that. They also seem to celebrate the lowest common denominator - trashy people saying mean things or hurting each other. Ugh. It's just dull.
It's not JUST reality TV, I don't watch any non-fiction. When I was younger and had fewer channels (and more time), I used to watch game shows, variety shows, and talk shows sometimes. Now I have to be more selective.
But all TV is good TV, and I have nothing against non-fiction shows, per se. I think the trend is going away, though, from reality tv. Only the best ones are surviving. I think the networks are realizing that people only watch certain ones now. They are not filling out their schedules with them as much as they used to. Thank goodness! I am sure they will still have them as long as they are profitable and don't cost too much.
Have a good week!
Suzanne
Sunday, May 10, 2009
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