The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #106

Not too many new or original fiction shows on TV this week.... lots of re-runs, reality shows, and Christmas stuff.

Good thing I have a DVR full of TV to catch up on (not to mention DVD's)!

We've been watching the Korean drama "Mystery Housemaid" and this week is the end! Oh, no!!  We enjoyed it a lot, though. I doubt we will find anything else that interesting. Like most American shows, they kind of dragged out the ending, which was somewhat predictable.

I guess they figure we're all too busy with holiday things to watch TV. I don't know if that's true or not, especially not since people don't always watch on their "TV sets" any more, anyway.

I really enjoyed the "Doctor Who" Christmas special this week.  It's always good to see that show. I don't know if I like this new doctor - he's older and not that cute. I still miss David Tennant! He was the best Doctor.  Really, though, I miss the best writer, Russell T. Davies.  The show has not been nearly as good since he and Tennant left.  This special was enjoyable but it didn't make much sense at times.

I have to point this following thing out because there are a lot of people who think they know better.  The cable and satellite companies are not keeping track of what you watch or what you record on your DVR. Stop being paranoid!  For one thing, they don't yet have the technology for it.  Secondly, have you met the people at your local cable company? They barely know how to operate the equipment.  Thirdly, that would be a huge privacy violation and we would not stand for it.  They couldn't get away with doing that without letting us know they do it and giving us the choice to opt out of it.  Here's an article that will prove that. It's from July but still works.   This comes up periodically in conversations I've had on the net. Recently someone suggested boycotting The Young & The Restless next month to protest Michael Muhney's firing. Unless you're a Nielsen family, a boycott is a meaningless, empty gesture. It might make you feel good, but it won't hurt the show or let them know that it was a bad idea.  It's better to write a letter, phone them and send an email!  I know people don't like to hear that a boycott is not effective, but, sorry, it's not. Unless you're a Nielsen viewer or you watch the show on their website. Those are two ways they track your viewing.  If you just watch the show or DVR it, otherwise, they don't know.

Speaking of Y&R, I'm not sure I agree with the soap columnists that say that it's been depressing the past few months. They claim that because of Katherine's death, followed by Delia's death, it's too sad. Well, I'm not sure I agree with that. I did NOT agree with Delia's death, for many other reasons, but story-wise and acting-wise it's been great.  Soaps are good when they have tragic or dramatic stuff going on. Sure, there does need to be a balance, and I think in most ways, they have done a good job with that.  Katherine's death was shown in a very positive, uplifting way. Sure, the actress' death was sad, especially for her friends and family. They handled the character's death very well, for the most part. Besides Jill, who's always carrying on anyway, I thought most of the episodes were about how Katherine was such a great person and how they will miss her. She was very old, and it's not the same thing as a little girl being tragically killed before her time.  Also, they didn't really have any control over when the actress died, so they had to scramble to write about Katherine's death, and then I'm sure the Delia car accident was already planned.  I don't really think the show was all that depressing, other than Delia's death.  Now, having Michael and Fen in jail is very dramatic, but I don't think it's "sad" or depressing.  They had a lot of good stories for the other characters, like Cane and Lily, and Devon, and the fight between Jack and Victor, and the relationship between Nick, Sharon, Dylan and Avery. Lots of good stories came out of Katherine's death, like Nikki's search for her son, Victor's control of Chancellor (and fight with Jack and Jill), Devon's sudden wealth, and Jill's search for clues.  Now, I'm not saying all of the writing is perfect, but I think they have made a good effort here.  My main complaint about Delia's death is that I don't like it when they kill off children, and they already did this same story with Nick and Sharon. It's kind of a repeat of that same story.  The other problem I have with the show right now is that there are too many new faces and a lot of them are people I just don't care about.  Now we're also losing Billy and Adam.  Not good!

I've been reading Bill Bell's biography lately (he's the guy who created Y&R and wrote it for many years). All of the soap writers should read the book, and particularly this part on page 80 where John Conboy, who worked with Bell, talked about him: "It's a very viable story, which doesn't rely on sensationalism," he said of Bill's show. "The story comes out of people reacting to each other, and the emphasis is on character and relationship.  The story is not built on incidents. This is one of the best serials I've come across as far as the way it's constructed."  The suits should note that Y&R was not a hit at first because the viewers had 14 soaps that they were already watching! It took 4 years for it to move up to the #3 spot. Not only that, but Bell was also writing some of "Days of Our Lives" at the same time! Amazing.

I watched quite a few soaps on my DVR this week, and now I'm enjoying the Perry Mason Movie Collection Volume 1. It's from the mid-80's and quite enjoyable. I love seeing William Katt when he was young and pretty, playing Paul Drake Jr. Also, there are so many other recognizable actors as guest stars. That's the fun thing about watching older shows.  I always loved Perry Mason in any form. I will be reviewing this on our Primetime Reviews Page.

Speaking of lawyer shows, I see that "L.A. Law" is finally out on DVD! That's great. It was a really good legal soap opera. Corbin Bernsen, Harry Hamlin and the rest were great.

I hope you can visit our site and our advertisers. The ads are what pay for our site's hosting costs and other expenses.  I know, we all hate ads! But they're necessary sometimes.

Please also enter our monthly drawing if you can. Enter starting the 5th of each month to the 25th.  We have lots of DVD's to give away as well as some books and CD's.

We have lots of writers on our site who bring you content every day!  They are fabulous and work hard. We all love TV and love to share our opinions and observations with you.

Don't forget to check out our "What's New" page to see all the new stuff.

I hope you had a great Christmas, and Happy New Year!  The re-runs pretty much stop on Thursday with the return of "Community" on NBC and many other shows. Yay!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #105

I'm so glad they brought Brian back on "Family Guy". The episode didn't start out very funny, but it got a lot more so toward the end.

No new "Mentalist" for two weeks. Boo!!!

I loved the "Psych" musical episode this week. It was so great!! They always do a good job with their episodes.  Too bad Yang had to die, though!  Now, the music was not fantastic, though. If it had been a real musical, there would definitely have been a real ballad, like one between Shawn and Jules. It did go pretty fast for 2 hours, I must say.

My living room DVR is mostly filled with soaps since I'm usually a month behind...

I enjoy "Almost Human". I hope it stays on the air. There was one episode where the "hero" abused his position as a cop, and I didn't like that at all. It made me wonder if I should stop watching. It's been fine since then, though. Good scifi for the most part.

Lately, I notice cell phones in movies and TV shows. When I was reading the Harry Potter books a year or so ago, it kept making me wonder, if it takes place in the present, why don't they have computers and cell phones? They could have used them a lot in those stories. It struck me as kind of stupid that they didn't have modern technology along with magic. Also, it really bothered me, as a former teacher, that the students were only learning about magic and the Wizarding world and not about math, science, English etc. Last week, I went to see the Hobbit and it struck me that they could have used some good cell phones to communicate better. Also, we have been watching this Korean mystery soap called Mystery Housemaid. It takes place in the present but they have HUMONGOUS cell phones. I think these are what they call "phablets" now. They are way too big, though.  And, getting back to "Almost Human", it strikes me as odd that they still use cell phones in a future where they have all this cool technology like robots that seem like people. By that time, wouldn't they have some kind of implants in their brains or something, instead of cell phones? I mean, heck, the hero has a fake leg that is just like a real one for the most part. They also had a type of listening device that you could swallow and it was almost indetectible.  At the very least, I would think that cell phones would be as small as hearing aids, like Bluetooth, but smaller and with some sort of holographic keypad.

I have a bunch more TV DVD's to watch now... I'm thrilled that FX sent me some new episodes of "Justified"!! Yippeee! Love that show.

Some new shows coming up:

"The Assets" (ABC) January 2
" Intelligence" (CBS) January 7
"Killer Woman" (ABC) January 7
"Chicago PD" (NBC) January 8
"The Spoils of Babylon" (IFC) January 9
"Helix" (Syfy) January 10
"Enlisted" (FOX) January 10
"Animation Domination High-Def" — "Lucas Bros. Moving Co.," "Golan the Insatiable" (Fox) January 11
"True Detective" (HBO) January 12
"Chozen" (FX) January 13
"Under the Gunn" (Lifetime) January 16
 "Flowers in the Attic" (Lifetime) January 18
"Rake" (Fox) January 19
"Looking" (HBO) January 19
"Lizzie Borden Took an Ax" (Lifetime) January 25
"Black Sails" (Starz) January 25
"The Capones" (REELZ) January 28

Here's a much larger list!

I mostly watched soaps and DVD's this week.  You can read my DVD reviews!  Sundi and I also review the new shows so make sure to check back there.

Those of us who are fans of Michael Muhney, who plays Adam on The Young & The Restless, were very shocked that he was fired this week.  Stupid stupid decision!  He's an amazing actor.

I can't believe Christmas is almost here!

I've been catching up on "Once Upon a Time", my favorite show that's airing right now. Now I'm also watching the sequel show, Wonderland, which is not quite as good, but still, I enjoy it.  Wow, it's such a shock that Peter Pan is Rumplestiltskin's father!

The only problem with watching so much SciFi and fantasy is that I have some very weird dreams... some good and some not.

You can tell that sweeps are over and the holidays are upon us because it's mostly re-runs.  That's fine with me because I need the time to catch up on my viewing!

I took a break last night from TV viewing to listen to Christmas songs on the music stations on my Oceanic Time Warner Cable.  With DISH there were quite a few holiday channels. We have 4 here that are pretty good. 810 is Contemporary holiday songs. 819 is R&B holiday songs. 839 is traditional Christmas songs (mostly the really old ones like Bing Crosby, with a smattering of other easy listening hits from Carpenters, Neil Diamond etc.) and then there are some local radio stations on the cable, and one of them, 855, plays Hawaiian Christmas music. Honestly, I would rather just have a variety of all four channels play, so I don't have to keep changing it. I do have lots of Christmas songs on my computer, but I don't have the speakers hooked up right now.  Still, it's great to have all these music channels on our cable.

It's also great that you can watch and listen to lots of holiday TV shows, movies and albums on sites like YouTube. I've been enjoying my favorite Christmas movie, "Scrooge" on there. They have the entire movie, and also the original album soundtrack, and some of the Tommy Steele UK version.  So much fun!

Have a great holiday season!  Thanks for reading this blog, or Twitter, or Facebook, and for visiting our site.  Please give me the best Christmas present and visit my site often, and visit those annoying things that pay for the site (I'm not allowed to tell you what to do with the advertising, but it rhymes with "pick") and tell all of your family and friends about our site and how they should visit it. Even better, volunteer to help out with the site because we need that most of all!

A big thank you to my site's volunteers that put in so much work. We could not have such a great site without them and their efforts, that's for sure. Especially Giselle, who runs our daytime section.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, etc.

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #104

Network TV sweeps are over; coming up are lots of re-runs, reality shows and holiday specials. Blah.

I hope you all enjoyed the Psych musical episode this week. I had fun interfering them earlier this week! I should have the transcript of that chat up soon.

Most of this week I was just watching soaps and not much else. We had family visiting, so I didn't watch much TV besides that.

What is your favorite Christmas special or movie? My favorite is "Miracle on 34th Street". I also love the original Grinch cartoon, Rudolph, and the Peanuts special.  There are so many good ones, though. I wish I had more time to watch all the great Lifetime and Hallmark Christmas movies!

Last week they showed a new version of "The Sound of Music", and I haven't seen it yet, but I hope to watch it. It looks good. I don't know if I'll be able to see Bill the Vampire from "True Blood" in the Christopher Plummer role, though.... that might be too much of a stretch, especially since we've seen him naked on that show so many times.

They decided to re-show the special again on Saturday, which meant they had to pre-empt their planned showing of "It's a Wonderful Life", so now they're showing that next Friday. I hate when the networks change things at the last minute.

I also don't know why the various TV networks all have different levels of quality and information on their press websites.  CBS and FOX are the best and NBC is the worst.

FOX has one page each week, which lists all of their shows for the week. They have a guest star list for each show. This is their "schedule" but they also have separate press releases as well, which they also email.  Plus, they have a section for "Screeners" so we can watch some of the shows ahead of time. That makes them the best. You do need a password for the screeners and photos.

CBS has great press releases for each episode of each show, with a long cast list for each one. They don't password-protect their press releases, so anyone can view them.  They put photos in their press releases and also the Twitter handles for each actor or writer on the show.  They are the only network that has a good long cast list for each show.

They are very good about keeping everything on their site updated. Occasionally they all do make mistakes, like this week CBS News' press site did not have any press release for 60 Minutes, even though it was a new episode. Also, sometimes they forget to change the dates on the press release for their re-runs, so two this week said June or some other date instead of December. No biggie, though.

While all of the networks sometimes change their schedules at the last minute, CBS seems to change it a lot more, which can be annoying. Also, they put "cheat tweets" in their press releases, and a link to the photos which only press with passwords can see, so that's annoying - I have to edit those out every time.

Unfortunately, they also own The CW, which is password protected.  However, the CW does send me show descriptions and video links in email, so I can't complain too much about them :)

ABC password-protects their photos and videos, and they don't think my site is popular enough to give me a password, apparently :( They used to let me but changed things, I guess.

ABC has press releases for each show, like CBS, but I don't like the way they have it set up. It's not as user friendly as CBS or FOX, IMHO.  They don't put photos in them like CBS does and the guest cast lists are not nearly as good. Often they just put "TBA" and then never tell us who was in the show. It's very irritating when they don't tell us who will be in the show because if it's an actor that was on a soap or one of the other shows I cover specifically, I would like to let people know on our site. I don't know why they wouldn't want to tell us, to help promote their shows.

ABC Family is also part of their site, and they have the same kind of press releases, too.

NBC is the worst press site because it's super-slow. It takes a long time for their pages to load sometimes. Also, the information there is not as nicely laid out as it is on the other press sites. It's hard to explain but trust me, it's very hard to find the information on all the shows. In fact, I usually go to their public schedule page and compare that to the press releases so I can make sure I have all of the shows covered. And even then, sometimes the information is wrong on one of the sites!  Their news press releases are terrible because they often don't put the information up at all for "Dateline".  ABC News and CBS News usually do put theirs up, even though it's at the last minute.

Lifetime/A&E/History has a great press site. So does PBS.  NBC, Syfy, USA and TNT all send me information in email like The CW does. I get lots of press releases, video clips and more. Sometimes I also get information from the other networks, especially History, TLC, Discovery, etc. I guess AMC doesn't care if we promote their shows or not because they never send out anything and rarely give any episode descriptions or cast lists out. FX does send a lot of video clips and some descriptions.  The BBC Press Site has some good information but doesn't send out much in email.

A lot of the networks also let me interview their actors and many mail me screeners. I'm very grateful for all of them and what information they put up and give out. I just wish they ALL had great websites like CBS and FOX!

Have a great week, everyone...

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #103

It's December, so that means holiday time. Every year I send out holiday cards to all of the volunteers on The TV MegaSite, and I send a gift as well. I know they appreciate it at least as much as I appreciate their year-round hard work! I wish we could get even more volunteers...

If you have even an hour a week to offer, please email me at suzanne@tvmegasite.net and let me know what you'd like to do. The list of jobs is at http://tvmegasite.net/jobs.shtml

I really wish I could get one volunteer per major network. Each person could find news and spoilers for that particular network's shows and send it to me or post it on the forum. That would be heavenly!!!

I need to do more posting around the net for help, too. It's been awhile since I've done much of that. It's so time-consuming.

This past week I've been catching up on some of my favorite shows like Vampire Diaries, Once Upon a Time, Bones, Revenge, Revolution, Arrow, and more. They are all recorded on the DVR in the bedroom, so I have to put them on DVD and watch them in the living room.

I have a DVR in the living room, but it is mostly taken up by soaps and a few primetime shows that I watch right away. The living room DVR only holds about 80 hours. The one in the bedroom holds about 500, or something like that. I should probably reverse them...would make more sense...LOL!

The PR people send me DVD's to review, and right now I'm watching the latest episodes of "Reign" from The CW. I've got one more DVD and some FX shows to catch up on. Sundi reviews a lot of new shows there for us, too, so make sure to check them out.

The Mentalist is one of my favorite shows and I always enjoy watching it. I love that they finally got Red John and all the stuff that's happened since! I can't wait to watch tonight's episode.

Supernatural isn't on this week...too bad! I always love that one.

Haven is still good but so bizarre. I admit, I'm a little confused about what's going on. I guess that's intentional. I love Colin Ferguson, and he's doing a great job, but I liked him way better on Eureka as the sheriff.

This time of year, there are lots of great holiday specials like Rudolph and Frosty, and It's a Wonderful Life, and more. What's your favorite? Mine is the original Miracle on 34th Street, but I do love the original Grinch and Rudolph as well.

The networks don't put many re-runs on like they used to. They have lots of specials and reality shows, and the only re-runs are ones they think they can get good ratings for. It's not like the old days!

That new 'Bonnie & Clyde" sounds interesting, but I didn't put it on my DVR. I might catch it later, along with that new Sound of Music that I already missed. There's just way too many good shows on nowadays.

I have to go watch the "Psych" musical episode now...should be fun!  I get to interview the stars on Tuesdays and they are always such a hoot.

Have a great week!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #102

Sunday November 10

I can't believe we're a third of the way through November already! And Thanksgiving is coming soon (Although, it's late this year).

Friday November 22

I haven't been very good about typing in here the past few weeks. I've mostly been watching the soaps. I constantly have to delete stuff from my DVR, so watching the soaps gets rid of them.

I'm very sorry to see Billy Miller leave Y&R!  He is fabulous. I know he will go on to many wonderful things. I'm glad that David Tom will be returning. I hope he does a great job. Last time he played Billy, he was playing a really young guy. A kid, really. Billy is more mature now, with a son and a tragedy behind him, and a failing marriage. Somehow I can't see him going up against Victor. But we'll give him a chance.

I'm currently watching the soaps from October 28, so I'm slightly less than a month behind!

As for primetime shows, it seems the only ones I am able to keep up with consistently (besides Family Guy, which I watch with my husband) are Castle, CSI, Law & Order, and Haven.  I'm behind on everything else! Yikes.

The problem is not only time but I tend to think, oh, I can delete this from the DVR because I can watch it On Demand or on Hulu. But there are still shows from the summer I'm behind on and they are long gone from either of those places. I'll have to buy them on DVD or something.

Am I the only one with this problem? Somehow I doubt it.

The site is coming along well... we always need more help, though!

This past week I created two new sections of our site for "Covert Affairs" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm".  Covert Affairs returns next year for its 5th season. Curb Your Enthusiasm hasn't been canceled, but it's up to writer/creator/star Larry David as to whether he brings it back, or when.  It's such a funny show!!

Next is a section for "Dallas".  I have about 15 other shows I want to create sections for, too! It takes a good day or so to create one section because it's not just making new pages, but I have to make new buttons and also create content. That means finding information online, writing, working with graphics, etc.  Time consuming!

This week's news page is at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news112413.shtml  I'm sure it's mostly re-runs since this week is Thanksgiving.

I was sad that Jennifer Love Hewitt's show "The Client List" has been canceled. I'm very glad that "Drop Dead Diva" has been renewed, though, and also that "The Killing" will be back, even if it will be on Netflix.

We live in Hawaii, which has a lot of channels in Japanes, Chinese, Korean etc. We've been watching this Korean drama called "Mystery Housemaid". It's very good; a little soapy. It's a kind of mystery. This family's mother commits suicide because the husband is having an affair. They hire a new maid to help take care of the kids, and she is very odd.  The rest of it is all about finding out what her mystery is and how she grows closer to the family, and whether the father will choose his mistress or his children.  They should make an American version.  The housemaid is very strange, so it makes you wonder, as the children do: is she magical? Is she a robot? Is she a ghost or perhaps possessed by their dead mother?  It's in sub-titles, of course.

Monday December 2

I finally got a lot of the soaps off my DVR (meaning that I watched them and put them on DVD, with no commercials), and I finally got through all of the DVD's that were sent to me. So now I'm finally catching up on the other primetime shows like Bones and Revenge.

I've been sick this week, so I haven't had as much time to work on the site as I usually do. Ah, well!

One of our site's best volunteers, Boo, passed away suddenly last week. It's very sad. She was about my page, only in her mid-50's. She'd been in pain for years, though.  She used to have so much energy and worked so hard on our site! She was my right hand for quite a while. The great thing about Boo was that not only was she good at writing, and she did lots of stuff, all the time. I really don't know how she did so much. I could really rely on her.  She was also very good with the other volunteers and got to know them all very well.  She is definitely missed!

Thank goodness we have so many great volunteers on our site! We're so lucky to have so many wonderful people.  Many of them have been working on the site for many years.

This time of year, I send out lots of holiday cards. I especially enjoy sending them to the volunteers. The little bit I can give them to reward them for their help makes me feel better about not being able to pay them! Or me :)

Happy Holidays to all!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #101

• Sunday November 3

My site needs more volunteers, so please help us out! There are perks, believe me. If you just have an hour a week, we can use your help! It doesn't matter if you don't think you have any skills or know how to write.

"The Simpsons" was pretty funny for once. I still can't believe they used the term "blue balls". LOL!

I have tons of email to catch up on (emails for the site, I mean). It never ends!

I made a list of all of the shows I watch, so I could then figure out which ones I've missed. I have many that I missed this summer, but also I have my DVR from DISH Network that I used to use in my old town (haven't hooked it up yet to my old TV). Here in my new home, I have 2 DVR's, but sometimes I still miss an episode here or there if my husband wants to watch TV unexpectedly... thank goodness we have On Demand!

So tonight after figuring all that out, I've been catching up on my favorite shows: Once Upon a Time, Haven, and now Person of Interest!

Here's my list of shows (the episodes I'm missing are listed; if there's no episodes listed, then I'm caught up).

Roughly in order of preference-

Supernatural
The Mentalist
Haven
Once Upon a Time
Beauty & the Beast
Person of Interest 
Almost Human
Vampire Diaries ("For Whom the Bell Tolls" 10/24 on DVD) ("Monster's Ball" 10/31 on DVR)
The Originals "House of the Rising Son" 10/8, ("Tangled Up in Blue" 10/15 on DVD), ("Girl in New Orleans" 10/22 on DVR), "Sinners and Saints" 10/29
Revolution ("Patriot Games" 10/16 on DVD), ("One Riot, One Ranger" 10/23 on DVR), "Dead Man Walking" 10/30
Sleepy Hollow "For the Triumph of Evil" 9/30, ("John Doe" 10/14 on DVD)
Tomorrow People
Elementary "We Are Everyone" 10/10, "Poison Pen" 10/17, "An Unnatural Arrangement" 10/31 (saw part)
Revenge ("Confession" 10/13 on DVD), "Mercy" 10/20, "Control" 10/27, "Dissolution" 11/3
Bones ("The Lady on the List" 10/14 on DVD), "The Woman In White" 10/21
Law & Order
NCIS "Once a Crook" 10/22, ("Oil and Water" 10/29 on DVR)
Criminal Minds 9/25-present
Castle
CSI "Passed Pawns" 10/30
Big Bang Theory
Two and a Half Men
Agents of SHIELD ("Eye Spy" 10/15 on DVD), ("Girl in the Flower Dress" 10/22 on DVD)
The Neighbors ("Challoweenukah" 10/18 on DVD), "Any Friggin’ Sunday" 11/1
Curb Your Enthusiasm (have on DVD)
Suits  7/30, 8/6, 8/13, 8/20-on Amazon,  8/27, 9/3, 9/10, 9/17 on DVR
Anger Management 2-16 and on
Being Human UK -Season 5
Drop Dead Diva (most of season 5 - saw first 3 episodes)
The Client List (the last few episodes?)
Covert Affairs (need to get DVD's)
Dallas (on old DVR)
The Fosters (on old DVR)
Franklin & Bash "Freck" 7/17, "Control" 7/24, "Out of the Blue" 7/31, "Shoot to Thrill" 8/7, "Gone In A Flash" 8/14
Jeselnik Offensive (Amazon Prime)
Law & Order UK (season 7?)
Saving Hope (on PC)
Broadchurch (Amazon prime)
American Horror Story: Coven "The Replacements" 10/23,  "Fearful Pranks Ensue" 10/30,
Arrow (last season on DVD, this season on Demand)
Once Upon a Time in Wonderland ("Down the Rabbit Hole" 10/10 on DVD), ("Trust Me" 10/17 on DVD), ("Forget Me Not" 10/24 on DVD)
Blacklist (only saw first episode)
Back in the Game "Night Games" 10/30
South Park ("Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers" 10/23 on DVR), "Taming Strange" 10/30
Reign (only saw first episode)
Red Dwarf "Lemons" 10/18/12, "Entangled" 10/25, "Dear Dave" 11/1, "The Beginning" 11/8
White Collar (missing several seasons including this one)
Damages (last season on DVD--waiting for Barb)
Go On (missed a few episodes -- on Amazon Prime)
Men at Work (DVD)
The Crazy Ones
Brooklyn Nine Nine (only saw first 2 episodes)
Hostages (only saw first episode)
Betrayal (only saw first episode)
Cougar Town (missed most)
Cult (Missing a few episodes)
666 Park Avenue (missed last few episodes)
Mr. Selfridge (on old DVR)
Mistresses (on old DVR)
Primeval (on old DVR)
Sinbad (on old DVR)
Sullivan & Son (Missing a few episodes)
True Blood (missing many seasons)
Twisted (on old DVR)
Vikings (on old DVR)
Watch at least one episode of these to check them out: Dracula, Mom, We Are Men, The Millers, Sean Saves the World, Cedar Cove, Under the Dome
Watch all of:
In the Flesh (on old DVR)
Lost Girl (missing most)
Nashville (on old DVR)
Sons of Anarchy (missing most)
Banshee (only saw first episode)
Bates Motel (only saw first episode)
Game of Thrones (haven't watched)
The Glades (haven't watched)
Grey's Anatomy (only saw first season or so)
Grimm (only saw first episode)
Homeland (haven't watched)
Glee (only watched first season or two)
Low Winter Sun (haven't watched)
Merlin (on DVD)
Misfits (only saw first season or 2)
The Newsroom (only saw first episode)
Nikita (missing most)
The Wire (haven't watched)

• Monday November 5

Since we live in Hawaii now, there are quite a few channels here in Korean, Chinese, Japanese, etc. My husband was watching this one Japanese show, Fat Detective, but now he's really hooked on this drama called Mysterious Housemaid (Korean). It's so funny because usually I'm the one hooked on TV shows. He barely watches anything that's not news or sports. I've never seen him watch anything with subtitles before, either, yet he loves this show. It's so funny. I don't watch it with him, either.

I watched the wonderful 1993 miniseries "Tales of the City" on DVD. It was fabulous!!! A great soap opera/comedy/drama about some people in San Francisco in the late 70's.

• Tuesday November 6

Tonight I was mostly watching the DVD of an Australian show called "Jack Irish" starring Guy Pearce. Pretty good noir-type crime drama.

I have been spending two days trying to catch up on tons of emails!

• Wednesday November 7

My DVR started getting crowded again so I had to take a break from the DVD's and watch some shows on the DVR. I caught up on NCIS, Beauty & the Beast and the soaps.  I'm mid-way through October on the soaps! LOL!

Tomorrow I'm going back to the DVD's because I have a huge stack of them to watch.

• Rest of the week-

We've been super busy this week!!

I've only watched a few of the DVD's....

The past 2 days, I've been watching up on "Suits". I had the last 5 episodes from this summer on my DVR, but first I had a few episodes to watch on Hulu from when I was moving... so I hooked up my Roku, which I hadn't done since we moved here. I love my Roku! If you didn't know, it's a little device that attaches to your TV and uses your wireless internet connection so you can watch shows from Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix etc. It's great. I have the LT version so it only cost me $50 on Amazon. Anyway, I love Suits, even though sometimes it's a little complex for me...I don't always completely know what's going on. It's still a great show with wonderful actors and characters. They have such great guest-stars, too, like Eric Close (one of my favorites).

I've spent the last week trying to catch up on my emails, too! I had about 700 to go through. These are almost all TV MegaSite-related, from the TV networks or PR people.

I hope you can check out our Primetime Forum because I post a lot of news on there.

I could really use some help, though, with that forum!

I took "The Crazy Ones" off my DVR. As much as I love the actors, I just can't stand the show.  It's not only not funny, but it's annoying. The characters are grating.

We live in Hawaii now, and one thing is hard to get used to: all of the stations that are Hawaiian, or Japanese, or Korean. Not that I mind, it's just weird - kind of makes you feel like you're in a foreign country.  Especially since most of the channels are the lower ones on the list (where cable companies normally put the major networks).

I don't think it's official yet, but it looks like Prospect Park is not going to be making any more episodes of "All My Children" and "One Life to Live". It doesn't surprise me, although it does make me sad. I just think they were doing it all on the cheap and the shows didn't make them enough money to keep going.  There aren't too many successful web TV shows except for a few that charge you to watch them, like "Venice".  Showing soaps for free on the web is not going to make them much money.  Maybe if the shows had been really well written, and they had gotten the original actors back (particularly Michael Easton and Susan Lucci), then they could have pulled it off. I guess we should be grateful that we got another few episodes of each show at all. In some ways, I think just leaving them the way they were was better (especially One Life to Live, which had a great finale already).

I think they were hoping that they would get all of the original audience (a few million viewers) plus a few new people. There were several things they didn't realize, I think. #1 A lot of people watch the soaps out of habit. Once the shows went off the air, the viewers' habitual watching died. It probably didn't help that many people had the shows on their DVR, making them even easier to watch. #2 a lot of the soaps' viewers are over 55, so that means they're much less likely to watch a TV show on the internet. Even setting your DVR, which is done at the push of one button, is easier than watching on the net. Not that I'm saying it's hard, but it is for a lot of people, especially if they only have a phone for the internet and not a whole computer. For those of us older folk, watching a show on your phone is awful. It's too small to see.  #3 People don't like change, particularly soap opera viewers. That's one reason why people watch soaps because they have the same characters that go on and on for years in the stories. Recasting half of the shows, moving AMC ahead five years, and all the other changes, is too hard on viewers. Add in to that the "bad language" and putting a lot of sexual innuendo and near-nudity certainly didn't help.  #4 Those things might not have mattered so much if they had really improved the shows writing 125%, in order to get newer viewers (as well as making them more "hip" and innovative). Today's young viewers have to have a reason for watching a show online. Watching their grandma's soap opera is not going to happen unless it is so good that word-of-mouth makes it popular, like, say "Breaking Bad".

Both AMC and OLTL put more focus on the younger characters, but AMC's dialogue was horrible and the stories were boring, IMHO. I'm sure younger people would have an even worse opinion about it. OLTL was way better], but it still would not be the type of thing someone would bother tuning into unless they already watched it.  I hate to say these things because I do love the shows and I watched every episode of the newer ones.  Also, I think they would need to have a ton of money to hire bigger names and really get the show going in production for at least 5 years before they'd start seeing any profit. Prospect Park doesn't have the money or connections to do that.  Now, I could be wrong about all of this and perhaps the main reason that the shows didn't make much money is that everyone thinks soaps are dead and the soap stigma is just too big to overcome. Or worse, the names of the shows make them "old" in the eyes of everyone except the most diehard fans.  They might have been better off if they'd just created a brand new soaps and brought in the characters or actors from those 2 shows, and not called it a soap opera. A lot of hit shows are really soaps, but they don't call them that, so people don't feel like "soap opera viewers".  Whatever the reason, I give them credit for trying. I hope there are more soap operas online in the future.

I would like to think that ABC has seen the errors of their ways and will buy back the two shows and put them on the air again. That would be a great thing to do (and think how many fans will be so grateful to them!).

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #100

 My 100th TV Blog post! Yay!!!

Don't forget, we have lots of volunteers on our site, and you can see what we do on this page: It tells you "What's New"

• Sunday October 20

Of the new shows, I like Sleepy Hollow,  Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Wonderland,  The Crazy Ones, Back in the Game, The Originals, Reign, The Tomorrow People,  The Black List, Hostages, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Betrayal, but I don't have time to watch them all... the last 4 not very often. Looking forward to Almost Human and Dracula!

I didn't watch anything this weekend besides the soaps - trying to catch up.

• Monday october 21

I'm a little behind on "Once Upon a Time", so I'm catching up on that now. It's always an enjoyable and great show.

I always put up tons of news and articles on our Primetime Forum.

• Tuesday October 22

We have a new volunteer since this past summer, Sundi, who has been helping me write reviews for all the new shows. She's an outstanding writer!

I've been slowly getting through all the DVD's this week to review, too. I have about 7 left.

I had to watch this Lifetime movie that's premiering this weekend called "The Husband She Met Online", which was fun!

I have 2 DVR's and so far I haven't watched too many of the shows in the other room. I need to either watch in the bedroom or move them to DVD so I can watch in here... There's always a lot to watch!

I have to say that "Back in the Game" was actually pretty funny this week!

• Wednesday October 23

This week's "Castle" was pretty good as always, and Law & Order: SVU. CSI was a great anniversary episode. I loved it when they showed all of the old cast at the end.

I'm still way behind on "Criminal Minds" and falling behind on "Bones" and "Sleepy Hollow".  SIGH.

Later in October....LOL!

I had trouble keeping this up the past few weeks! Not that it's new...ha ha!

I was catching up on soaps a lot this week so I can clear them off my DVR. GH is still my favorite, but the others can sometimes be enjoyable. Y&R is too depressing right now because of Delia's death.

One of our volunteers was kind enough to record the soaps for me while I was moving, so as soon as she sends me the DVD's, I can catch up on those as well (and running the transcripts for our site).

I'm so far behind on watching almost all the TV shows! I only have so much time, I guess...

I'm going to have to sit down and make a list of the shows and put them in order of how much I like them, and catch up on those first. I hate being disorganized.

This week's Primetime News and schedule is up! I delete them every week and move them to older news pages.

I have this new page where I put stuff that I haven't put up on the site yet! Check it out.

We've really been enjoying Real Time with Bill Maher every week, now that we get HBO. Woo hoo!


Have a great week! Watch lots of good TV...

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #99

Still catching up on watching the soaps. I'm about a month behind now!

I have a bunch of shows on my bedroom DVR to watch now, but I did watch "The Mentalist" from Sunday. One of my very favorite shows! It was great seeing the wedding.

We had no "Simpsons" or "Family Guy" to watch this week.  Too bad!

Two canceled shows already, Lucky 7 and We Are Men. I hate when they cancel stuff so quickly. Why not give it a chance?

I watched "Beauty & The Beast" but then realized I had missed the season premiere. I went to watch it On Demand, but for some reason, The CW is the only network not listed on there. Bummer! I'm going to have to watch it online, I guess.

I loved this week's NCIS episode, the one where Gibbs helps the girls in Afghanistan.  Certain shows are always very good, like Castle, NCIS, CSI, The Mentalist, Revenge, and Bones,..solid, dependable shows that are sometimes great.

It's sad to see Munch leave SVU. Good episode but not enough of him on it. I loved seeing David Steinberg play his brother. Both Richard Belzer and David Steinberg were big stand-up comedians in the 70's so they must be old friends. Also great seeing the guy from "Homicide: Life in the Street", too.

I still watch "Back in the Game", and it's still not that funny. I do like the kid who plays her son, he does a great job. This week he was acting "bad" and it was so fun to watch.  I guess another problem I have with this show is that she seems too well bred to be James Caan's daughter. He is a gross slob and she may be a bit of a loser, but she dresses nicely and always looks nice and too refined, speaks well. That's TV for you, I guess. If she were in real life, she'd dress poorly, at the very least.

Parts of "The Crazy Ones" were actually funny this week, speaking of comedies. They had some good Hawaii jokes.

Sadly, I lost one of my volunteers for our Primetime Forum, but I'll still post on there regularly.

We have a lot of great volunteers who post on our site every day!  Especially the ones who write soap opera recaps and updates. Some of those ladies have written then for many years and do a fabulous job. Not to leave out some of our wonderful guys who write them as well.

More shows were canceled this week, Ironside and Welcome to the Family. Not a big shock in either case.

I'm having a hard time getting caught up on all the shows...what else is new? From what I can tell from my friends on Facebook, everyone has that same problem.

Haven is my favorite scifi show... love it every week! Vampire Diaries is still great, too.

Mostly this week and weekend I tried to catch up on all my soaps and the transcripts for our site!

Keep watching TV! Make sure to visit our site and also our Talkin' TV Group on Facebook...

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #98

• Sunday 10/6

I finally finished watching "Devious Maids" today. It was really good. I can't wait for it to return!

We watched "The Simpsons" again. It was the Halloween episode. I thought it was slightly better than the previous episodes, but still not as funny as it should be. Same with "Family Guy". I also watched "Revenge", which I always love. I caught up with last week's "Castle" On Demand. My DVR deleted some shows last week so I lost quite a few that I'm going to have to find On Demand or online. Now I'm watching last week's "Law & Order: SVU". This is the episode where they combined the Trayvon Martin case with the Paula Deen scandal. It is a bit silly...

• Monday 10/7

Now I'm watching "Haven" On Demand. I kinda figured Audrey would still not remember who she is.  I also watched "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", which is awesome!

I also watched the new show "Super Fun Night". I don't get it. If I wanted to see fat girls on my TV, I'd videotape myself. I'd be funnier and sing better, too.

I saw the rest of epsiodes of "CSI" and "NCIS" that had gotten interrupted when my DVR ran out of room, too. So sad to see the end of Ziva.

I'm posting more on our Primetime Forum and trying to keep up with that a bit...

For some reason, my DVR keeps saying it's full, even when I have room left! Grrr. So annoying.

I watched "Bones" and now watching "Sleepy Hollow". Good shows! Glad Pelant is gone.  Then I also watched tonight's "Castle".

Then I started watching up on the soaps. I last left off around Sept. 9. I'm running transcripts as I catch up.

• Tuesday 10/8

I spent a lot of time watching soaps, and then I also watched a bunch of primetime shows off my DVR: "NCIS", "Supernatural", and "Person of Interest". Some of my favorites! Glad to have them all back.

I got a second DVR for the bedroom, but it keeps having problems and the cable guy keeps coming out to fix it. It's crazy!!  So I keep missing some of my shows. Thank goodness for On Demand and the internet. I think I'm about 3 episodes behind on "Criminal Minds" now... for some reason, that one's not on On Demand, so I'm going to have to catch it on Hulu or iTunes.

• Wednesday 10/9

I have a huge stack of DVD's to watch and catch up on. I just watched the premiere of this season's "White Collar", a great show. Tomorrow morning (too early!) I get to interview the stars of the show, so that's why I had to watch it. But glad to watch it, too.

Gisele runs The TV MegasSite with me. Her daughter, Shannon, is now helping me a lot with our Primetime Forum! She's doing a great job, too. We have so many great volunteers for our site but always need more so please check out our list of jobs and let me know what you'd like to do if you have a few free hours every week...

• Thursday 10/10

I did a dumb thing! I ran Wednesday's transcripts and named the files bb.html, yr.html etc. and then didn't put them up yet, and so I ran thursday's "Bold & The Beautiul" and "Young & the Restless" but used the same file names so they overwrote the Wednesday ones. D'oh!  Such an idiot. I have to re-run Wednesday's now. LOL!

Actually, that's only the second stupidest thing I did today. I had left a note for my husband to wake me up so I could go to my interview with the "White Collar" stars, and I left it on the laptop on a NOTEPAD file, and Windows rebooted, so he never saw the file, and I missed out on getting to talk to them. Very sad! I love those guys. I had questions all prepared.

I've been running some of the older ones whenever I can...

This morning I watched "Law & Order: SVU" (which was pretty good) and "Back in the Game" (not sure yet why I'm still watching that).  I deleted some other shows off the DVR because I'm recording them in the other room or because I can watch them On Demand. I was running out of room again and had to delete stuff.

Tonight I watched some great comedies. I laughed pretty well at "Big Bang Theory", and then sort of grimaced through "The Crazy Ones" (I only watch it because I love Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar, but it's not very good), and I laughed really hard at "Two and a Half Men". Awesome episode.

I don't know why there are so many horrible dads on TV sitcoms this year. Hey, writers, work out your daddy issues somewhere else, okay? Just concentrate on making the shows FUNNY and not full of angst.

• Friday 10/11

Friday has some of my favorite shows - "Haven", "The Neighbors", and "Real Time with Bill Maher". Woo hoo!  We watched "South Park" kind of late, but it was funnier than the first two episodes this year. They mixed a parody of World War Z and the Trayvon Martin case.

Otherwise, I've just been catching up on the soaps! I record them all, run the transcripts for our site as I record them to DVD. I really don't pay close attention to any except for "General Hospital" and "One Life to Live", though. I mean, I know what's going on generally with the others but I sometimes don't hear or see what's going on if I'm out of the room or doing something else. Right now I'm on the Sept. 12 episodes.

• Saturday 10/12

Still watching the soaps but need to watch the DVD's as soon as I've gotten somewhat caught up on the soaps.

I just found that OWN skipped one of the "One Life to Live" episodes and cut quite a bit out of the episodes, so I'm going to have to go back and watch them on Hulu or iTunes.  I'll need to do that, anyway, to fix up the "One Life to Live" transcripts. The closed-captioning is not great on those, so I have to fix them up.

"Days of Our Lives' is okay but kind of boring, for the most part. I miss John. I do love Justin (Wally Kurth), and Marlena, and Eric. I like Will, Chad, and Kristen, but they're all going to be leaving the show within the next year, so that's annoying. I can take or leave the rest of them, or at least their stories.

I don't like what's been going on with "Young & the Restless", particularly the story with Delia. I haven't watched those episodes yet, but I've seen parts of them. I didn't like the way they had Paul and Chris get married during Katherine's memorial service. That was just weird. The rest of it was ok.  I don't like Sharon being so crazy, talking to her daughter in her imagination and obsessed with Nick, and especially her using Faith in her plotting. It is nice to see Cassie again, though.  I also don't like the storyline about the chick that's going after Cane (or Devon?). I can't keep that all straight. I like the story about Nikki and her long lost son, even though that's been done a million times. They've re-cast the younger people so much, it's hard to feel much about them. I like Noah a lot, but they need to give him more to do.

As I said, I missed a lot of "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" that I need to go back and re-watch, but I really don't like the new actor who plays J.R. I don't think he's a very good actor, and he looks too young to be A.J.'s father. I love seeing so many of my favorite AMC actors and characters on there more than I like any of the stories.

"Bold & The Beautiul" has a lot of stupid stories, but I do like the relationships between Bill, Liam and Wyatt.

I'll probably always like "General Hospital", good or bad. The stuff with Ava and Morgan is icky. I hope they get rid of Ava soon (and I'm pretty sure she is the one who killed Connie). I like the actress, but not the character. It's great that they gave Monica some good scenes with A.J. The actors who play Silas and Franco are doing a great job, but I really do prefer them playing John and Todd. However, I didn't like the way the GH writers wrote Todd at all (he was too comical), so that doesn't really bother me all that much. I do miss John McBain, though. I was glad to see Todd on "One Life to Live", but they really needed John as well. Starr...well, they ruined her story so much on "General Hospital" that it ruined her character as well. They're not writing her new character Kiki as being all that interesting.

I have so many other primetime shows I need to catch up with, too!  Enjoy your TV-watching this week...

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #97

• Monday September 30

I'm going to start writing in this every day so I don't forget or fall behind!

It's Monday September 29 and I'm watching "Once Upon a Time" season premiere. Always such a great show!! Love it, and it's good to have it back. I don't understand those people who thought they didn't do well last season. Silly! It's enjoyable and that's all that matters.

I'm watching it as I start gathering the weekly soap scoops for our newsletters and forums.

Now I'm watching "The Mentalist". They'd better not kill off Lisbon!  This is one of my very favorite shows. You know, it's hard to choose one favorite show any more. It used to be "Doctor Who", but then the writing changed drastically on that (for the worse), and David Tennant left.  "Dexter" has been my favorite show, but now it's gone.

I would have to say my favorites include, besides "The Mentalist", "Once Upon a Time", "Supernatural", "Person of Interest", "The Bridge", "Sherlock", "Ripper Street", "Haven", "Warehouse 13", "Falling Skies", "Perception", "Justfied", "Teen Wolf", and "Longmire". The new show "Almost Human" might join this category, and "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D" does, too.

Watching "Revenge" now. Then I'm going to have to catch up on some older shows...

I forgot to mention in last week's blog that I do still watch the soaps. I'm just always behind on them. I was watching them and then in September, I fell behind again because of the new fall shows.

We watched the "South Park" season premiere. It was not funny at all, either. Not too surprising because it hasn't been very good the past few years. Frankly, I don't even know why we still watch it.

• October 1

My DVR keeps filling up. It's so aggravating! I missed recording some of the shows last night. I hope they're On Demand.  Most of the DVR is filled with soaps that I have to watch and move to DVD for a friend.

Right now I'm catching up on episodes of "Devious Maids". I had only watched 3 episodes before I fell behind because of moving, so I waited until they re-ran all of the episodes. It's a fun soap.

I'm still watching Devious Maids, but I took a break to watch some Bold & Beautiful and run the transcripts (from the past 2 weeks). I still have so much catching up to do for the site.  Now I'm watching Days of Our Lives.

• October 2

I watched the second episode of "Back in the Game", but it wasn't nearly as funny. I hope it gets better or else I'm going to have to stop watching it. That's the only new comedy I'm watching besides "Brooklyn Nine Nine", which is also not all that funny... I really like the actors, though. I just don't find most of today's sitcoms funny. I only like "Big Bang Theory", "Two and a Half Men", and "The Neighbors". They are consistently funny.  We have lost faith in "Family Guy", "The Simpsons" and "South Park". They have not been funny at all lately.

I deleted the episodes I had saved of "Mistresses" to make room on the DVR. I'm going to have to get the DVD or something.

I think CSI is the only show I was able to watch so far from tonight's episodes. Stupid DVR!

• October 3

I always love "Big Bang Theory"! So great to watch tonight's, especially Wolowitz and Amy! Hysterical.  I'm so glad to have Vampire Diaries back, too. Such a fun show and always so many great shocks in each episode!!

"Two and a Half Men" is very uneven. Tonight's was just so-so.  Carl Reiner was the best part of it.

I always love "Elementary" and I'm so glad to have it back!

I'm sad to hear that "Lucky 7" was canceled already. Not surprised, though.

Gisele, who runs our daytime site, is away for a couple of days. I really rely on her so much!

Thankfully, her daughter, Shannon, is helping me out now on our Primetime Forum! Woo hoo!

• October 4

I've just been watching mostly soaps and running transcripts to catch up for the site.

I'm almost caught up, finally on "Devious Maids"! Just 3 more episodes to watch. Love this show.

I watched "The Neighbors" - good show, although this one was not as funny as the others. I hope it stays funny!

For some reason, my DVR didn't record "Haven". Hmmm..... it's not full, so I'm not sure why.

• October 5

Saturdays are always busy for me because I start gathering all of the press releases and info for the next week's TV schedule.

My husband is annoyed that he can't watch sports in the evenings too much here in Hawaii. The games run in the afternoon while he's at work.

I've been trying to run this past week's transcripts all weekend, so I hope I'll be caught up by Monday. I haven't really watched much TV since Thursday. I need to, though, since I'm way behind on everything.






We watched the new "South Park" but again, it wasn't all that funny. It was just slightly better than last week's episode.

I hope you all have a great week!!!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #96

Hi, everyone! Thank you for taking the time to visit...

Our site is doing well! We have lots of great new content every day. I hope you can check it out!
Don't forget, we have all of the soaps recapped every day with both short recaps and detailed summaries (updates), as well as transcripts. We have even have them for the online soaps All My Children and One Life to Live.

I moved this summer, and I also had computer problems, so we are a bit behind on the transcripts, but it's all fixed now, so I'm slowly catching up! We have a lot of awesome volunteers who work tirelessly every day to write opinion articles, updates, recaps, and fan fiction, and to make wallpapers, puzzles, and more for you so please do check it all out. We have some great proofreaders as well that do a lot of work to make sure that the spelling and grammar are fairly good, and to keep typos to a minimum. There's always more to do on such a huge site!

We have tons of daytime and primetime news put up every day! This is what the indefatigable Gisele and I probably spend most of our time on. Mandy summarizes Soap Opera Digest for us every week, and Gisele and I both put up tons of news and appearances that we find on the net and in other newspapers and magazines. We probably have more appearances for soap actors than any other site, and we sure do have a ton for primetime actors as well, especially for the shows we cover in depth.

Every weekend, I gather all of the info for this week's primetime shows and post it on our news pages for that week This week it's the week of 9/22. I put up a short summary of the shows and divide them up so you can what is new for the fictional and non-fictional shows, as well as some re-runs and some DVD news. I put up a lot of info that the TV networks send me, too. I spend most of the week trying to do that as much as I can (they send me a lot, so without more help, it's hard to put it all up). I have also been posting the full press releases on our Primetime Forum, along with other news.  Please visit and chat with us! We also have a small Facebook TV group. Check out all our new stuff...

We always need new volunteers, so please see if there's anything you'd like to do to help out! You don't have to be a great writer or have special skills. You just need to have a few hours free each week.



I'm still slowly trying to put the newer design on all of our pages, as well as build pages for newer shows, but it's very slow going because I have so much else to do!  Besides all the stuff mentioned above, I have lots of DVD's and shows to review and frequently interview primetime actors as well. I really fell behind last spring and summer, so I had about 80 to put up, but I'm all caught up now.

I hope you all had a good Summer and are enjoying your Fall. I moved across the country, so I fell behind on some of my shows. I've still got to catch up on Mistresses, Suits, Devious Maids, Dallas, Anger Management, Covert Affairs, Drop Dead Diva, The Fosters, and so many others.

I had DISH network for many years and loved it. In our new apartment, we have to have Time Warner Cable. It has some things I like, but the DVR doesn't have nearly as many hours, so that's frustrating. It gets filled up really quickly. I still have a little trouble figuring out how it's recording things and have to double-check all of my timers every week.  The thing I like most about it is the On Demand, which is way better than the one DISH had. But I miss the convenience of DISH.

What do you think of the new shows? Sundi and I have been reviewing them. I pretty much have agreed with most of what she says in her reviews. She writes way better than I do because she's a college professor.

Tonight we watched "The Simpsons" and it was very dull. I hate when they try to do a satire for some show or movie I haven't seen. I think this was a "Homeland" satire.  It was completely lost on us, since we haven't seen that show. It should have been funnier, anyway. Tonight's "Family Guy" was not very good, either.   Most of the new sitcoms are not very funny, either. I do like "Back in the Game",, but most of the others have been disappointing. I really love Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Michael J. Fox, so their shows were particularly disappointing. 

I still love "Two and a Half Men", and the addition of Amber Tamblyn is great. "Big Bang Theory" is still pretty funny, too. I will always watch "The Neighbors", which is silly and fun, and "Hot in Cleveland" with its great Betty White barbs and fabulous guest stars.

This summer, we enjoyed The Jeselnik Offensive a lot (you should only watch it if you don't get offended easily). I'm glad to have HBO back so I can watch Real Time with Bill Maher again! He's always hilarious.

I like most of the new dramas, except for Ironside, which is awful and way too violent. I adore Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!!  I love Sleepy Hollow, Hostages, The Blacklist and Betrayal.

I'm glad that "Unforgettable" was renewed and really bummed that "Bunheads" was canceled. Also, I'm not very happy that King & Maxwell was not renewed.

I'm happy to have my shows back, even though it's tough finding time for them all. I like "Castle", but I'm not sure I like how they changed the story to her working for the FBI. I hope that doesn't last too long. I love "Bones" and everything about it. They sure do keep that story fresh no matter what.  I'm looking forward to the return of my CW shows like Arrow, Supernatural, Beauty & The Beast and Vampire Diaries. I think the Originals will be just as good. I do still have a lot of last season's "Arrow" to watch because I fell behind. In our old place, the CW primetime was late at night and something conflicted with Arrow, so I watched it online, but...

I already love "The Tomorrow People" and I'm looking forward to "Reign" as well.

I don't know if I'm going to like NCIS without Ziva. I found the first episode of the season kind of confusing, to be honest. It's not a show I'm used to paying that close of attention to. I don't know why Gibbs had his sniper rifle trained on the head of the CIA or what happened there.

Person of Interest is always great! I love that show. I always think it's silly when they come out with some good show featuring mostly guys and then they feel that they have to add women to it. Like we won't watch or something unless we have more females to identify with. In this case, however, it didn't hurt the show, so that's good.

I just caught up on last season's Revolution, and I really enjoyed it. I know it doesn't always make sense reality-wise, but it's an entertaining show with lots of action and enjoyable characters. 

Law & Order SVU has always had a lot of violence and a bit of S&M, but I felt that their season premiere was way over the top in that regard. Do they really think we want to watch an hour of torture and violence? UGH.  I enjoyed CSI's return, but I thought the story was a little too contorted. I'm glad they didn't kill off Morgan or any other main character, but I thought having Ellie be the villain was stupid and came out of nowhere. Plus, women are seldom serial killers.

I had to give up on Nashville for now, even though I like it. I just didn't have time for it, and it is a soap, so if you fall behind, you're lost. I have most of last season on my DVR still. The same thing happened to me before with Grey's Anatomy, True Blood, Grimm, Lost Girl, and Glee, and it's why I don't watch Downton Abbey, The Newsroom, Game of Thrones, Homeland, Scandal or The Good Wife and probably won't keep watching Betrayal. Just too many shows and not enough time. There are also lots of shows like Chicago Hope or Blue Bloods that I would watch if I had more time, but they're not interesting enough for me to keep up with.

I love Elementary now and I'm glad to have it back.  I haven't yet watched the season premieres of Revenge, The Mentalist, Once Upon a Time or Criminal Minds, but I do love those shows.  The rest of the shows I haven't mentioned here...I don't watch or don't like, or both.

I'll check out American Horror Story: Coven, but it better be as good as the first season and not horrible like the second season. I know a lot of people liked the second season, but for me it was just way too violent and gruesome. I have no problem with blood and gore, but I don't like torture.

I really really enjoyed "The Bridge" this summer and I hope it comes back. What a fantastic drama. It is dark and sad, but it also has lots of humor and just fantastic characters. The story just reaches in and grabs your heart. Sometimes it crushes it.

I love Dexter, and I enjoyed the finale. My brain is still not really recognizing the fact that I won't have more episodes to watch. :-(   I didn't think they should have killed off Deb or broken up him and Hannah, but it wasn't a huge deal to me. I just thought that it was glaringly obvious that it wasn't his being a serial killer that endangered his loved ones - it was his being involved with the police and going after bad guys that did it.  Dexter was a pretty smart guy, and so I felt it was dumb for him to blame his killing on the losses he'd suffered and the rest of it. I know he was grieving, though, so he might act in a non-sensical way. I would have liked to have seen how the show went on from the ending. Dexter has to eventually get over his grief and solitude and go looking for Hannah and his son. It would be interesting to see if he was still killing people, too. I really enjoyed the progression of his character from season one when he was mimicking human emotions in order to fit in, to the  last season when he realized that he actually had emotions and was living like a more normal person.  Maybe I will read the books to get my "Dexter" fix now.

I hated that Burn Notice ended, but this season was great, and the finale was awesome. It was a perfect way to end it. There, too, I can see them making some sequel movies where they come out of retirement. I hate to let my favorite shows go. I stll miss "Leverage" and CSI: NY.

I'm very glad to have "Haven" back. I hope this isn't its last season. Syfy likes to cancel the ones I like after far too few seasons...

We moved in July, so I spent most of August catching up on Rizzoli & Isles, Royal Pains, Continuum, Defiance, Falling Skies, The Killing, Longmire, Wilfred, Major Crimes, Necessary Roughness, Perception, and Teen Wolf.

I look forward to the returns of my other favorite shows, like Justified, Mad Men, White Collar, Archer, The Americans, Psych, Ripper Street, and Warehouse 13! Even though I really don't have time for more shows...

I especially look forward to "Doctor Who". I have mixed emotions about them getting another doctor. I was never thrilled about Matt Smith, but he grew on me. The new guy doesn't look that handsome. I like my doctors to be handsome (like David Tennant) or at least very attractive (Christopher Eccleston). I know that many of them in the past were not that good-looking, but I was not a big fan of the show until the newer version.

Enjoy your TV watching this week!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #95

Welcome back! I hope you enjoy visiting our site and reading this blog...

We have a lot of new volunteers and help (always!).  Gisele has been working tirelessly as usual, but even more, really.... she's been transcribing all of our All My Children Transcripts and many of the One Life to Live Transcripts as well.

We have a new writer, Sundi, who has been writing a monthly Primetime Article as well as many Reviews of new shows for us!  Another new volunteer, Mendie, has been interviewing some TV stars for us.

We always have many great people writing our daily Daytime Soap Updates, Recaps, and Best Lines! As well as Juanita, who dutifully puts the photo screencaps into the updates every day, and many proofreaders, writers etc. It's a great group!

One of our most hard-working volunteers, Danielle, has left us and is no longer running our Primetime Forum. We could really use someone to replace her, even a little bit, by posting news on the forum.  I've been trying to do some, but I already have a lot to do.

We always need more volunteers!

Here are some random thoughts I wrote lately while watching TV.

I'm watching "Beauty and the Beast". I do love this show. The addition of Sendhil Ramamurthy has been awesome.

Sunday night we always watch The Simpsons, Family Guy and Mad Men when they are new. The Simpsons was not very funny; Family Guy was pretty good. Mad Men is always great!

Monday I watched Person of Interest, Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Castle and Warehouse 13.  Great season ending episodes for POI and Castle!  POI confused me just a little bit, I have to admit :) I love it, though. It's really scifi more than anything.  Big Bang Theory was awesome, even though the show is so unrealistic. Girls who never play D&D and guys who have only played with other guys? I started playing D&D in the early 70's.  Geeks don't just hang out with their own gender. So stupid.  Cute line about Zachary Quinto.

Two and a Half Men - I don't know why they are always putting this show down because it's usually pretty funny. I loved Charlie Sheen, but I also love Ashton Kutcher. It was great seeing him with Marilu Henner!! His character is not only gorgeous and funny but so smart, and they are great together.

Castle was fantastic. Even though I do have to say, I don't think the FBI would want Beckett because she is not really a rule-follower. The very end was so great and made me go "Aw!"

I watched this upcoming Lifetime Movie Network movie "The Perfect Boss" online. I interviewed star Linden Ashby yesterday and today I am interviewing Jamie Luner, the other star. It is cool for fans of Melrose Place to see them back together. It was an interesting movie if a little slow.

I did manage to catch tonight's NCIS and Body of Proof. NCIS has some pretty wild plots sometimes. I think Mark Harmon did some fabulous acting work in this - always an under-rated actor.  So sad that Body of Proof is leaving the air. This week's episode was great.

I've been catching up on episodes of "Revenge" on my DVR. I was missing one, so I watched it on Hulu. Great to have Hulu! I love Revenge... I hate when I read people who put it down. It's still great! I have a feeling I'm not going to like the ending of the last episode, though.  I know someone is going to die, so I hope it's not Jack, Nolan, Declan or Charlotte! (Darn it, it's Declan...that is too sad)

Soap fans got some bad news today - the two new online soaps, AMC and OLTL, are now only going to be two days per week. Nothing wrong with that except it does not bode well for the future.

I watched last night's CSI, the season finale. Great episode and good cliffhanger!

The new thing everyone's talking about is "binge-watching". I guess in general, they are talking about people who choose to rent or watch a DVD set or a bunch of online episodes of a show, all at once. I've been doing that for years! Who knew it would become trendy? Right now I'm binge-watching the first 6 episodes of "Falling Skies", which starts airing its 3rd in June. Every TV reviewer does this. So funny that it's trendy now.

I just wish I had the time and energy to binge-watch some shows I missed, like Lost, The Wire, Desperate Housewives, Scandal and more... as you get older, it's really sad, but you realize you'll probably never get to watch all of the TV shows and movies you want to see, or read all the books you want to read, or travel to all of the places you want to visit, etc. You just start slowing down and eventually you just run out of time. And they keep coming out with more shows, movies and books! Yikes!

I have been spending most of the time catching up on DVD's they send me to watch and review. I'm finally caught up, for the most part. Here are my reviews!

I also binge-watched "Teen Wolf" first season so I could then binge-watch the season 2 DVD that they sent me. Fun show! I have season 3 starting up on my DVR now.

Almost all of the "regular" shows are in re-runs now or replaced by reality shows. What shows are you watching this summer?

These are the shows set up to record on my DVR for the next few weeks: Anger Management, Bold & Beautiful, Burn Notice, The Client List, Colbert Report, Continuum, Daily Show, Defiance, Devious Maids, Days of Our Lives, Drop Dead Diva, Falling Skies, The Fosters, General Hospital, Hot in Cleveland, In the Flesh, The Killing, King & Maxwell, Longmire, Mad Men, Major Crimes, Mistresses, Necessary Roughness, Perception, Primeval, Rizzoli & Isles, Royal Pains, Sinbad, Sullivan & Son, Teen Wolf, Twisted, Ultimate Spider-Man, Under the Dome, Warehouse 13, and The Young & The Restless!

Don't forget to enter our monthly drawing for DVD's and more!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #94

Every day I spend many hours working on my site so please visit! We have lots of volunteers that put in their time to keep it going.

The What's New Page tells you what we've put up lately so it's very handy.

This week's Primetime News page features tons of news and video clips. I work on it a lot on Sundays, so check it later tonight out to see what's on TV and get the latest news. Check out last week's to see many clips and lots of info. This link will only be good for a little while, though, because I will move all that info to our Old News Page and delete the original page.

I forgot to mention in last week's blog that the one thing I object to about the four-letter words on One Life to Live... they seem to be overdoing it just a bit, for one thing. And also, I didn't like when Jeffrey swore in front of Viki. He hardly knows her, and she's his boss, whom he's hoping to impress so that she will give him a regular job. That did not strike me as realistic. Hopefully it will get better.

We watched "Mad Men", which is always so enjoyable. I was sad to learn that they only plan a few more years of the show.  We also watched "The Simpsons", which is ok, and "Family Guy", which was funnier than last week's but still should have been funnier.

Now I'm watching "Elementary", which is so good. I love anything to do with Sherlock Holmes.

Also, I watched "Once Upon a Time", one of my favorite shows. It was great! I can't wait until next week's season finale.  And now "The Mentalist", another favorite. I just love Simon Baker! I hope that Red John is not anyone we know and like.

I have mostly been watching DVD's lately....have to review them for our site.

I did catch NCIS, Castle, Warehouse 13, and Body of Proof. NCIS is always good, but it has been kind of depressing this season.  I love Castle! Even though they had a clip show, it was great. Warehouse 13 - so great to have it back! Always so fun.  Body of Proof... well, they are trying so hard to make the show super exciting. Frankly, I liked it better before they did that.  Now I'm catching up on "Person of Interest". Love that show!

May is always such a tough time because there are so many great shows, many of them ending for just the year, some forever.

I watched CSI, which was a weird one about some ghost hunters. I hate ghost stories in "real" shows because I don't believe in the supernatural and don't like it when people do. I don't mind it in a fantasy show, of course, because then it's not real.  And then they tried to say that the character David was in 6th grade 20 years ago. One problem with that - CSI started 13 years ago, and he was on it, so he would have had to be 18 when the show started!! I doubt they have morgue assistants that start that young (and he didn't look that young).

I always love Supernatural. Such a great show, and it always has shocks and surprises.  Fabulous actors, too.

I'm bummed about the shows that were announced for cancellation this week, especially Southland, Monday Mornings, CSI: NY, Body of Proof, and Go On.  Not surprised, but annoyed. http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/05/10/cancelled-shows-2013/ I was already annoyed about Smash and Cult being canceled. I'm glad Nikita got renewed, though.

So sad that this is the final season of "Burn Notice" this Summer. Noooooooo!!!  Glad that they renewed "Defiance" for another year, though.

We're catching up tonight on some episodes of "The Colbert Show". I think it's very funny, but my husband sometimes is not in the mood to watch it, so I don't watch it without him. And now we're 60 episodes behind...  Good thing he and I don't watch too many shows together or my DVR would get too full.

Wow, this past week's Doctor Who was fantastic!! I wish Neil Gaiman would write all of the episodes.

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #93

I'm going to try really hard to keep this updated now! I know, famous last words...

Our site still doing great. It keeps me very busy, and many of our volunteers as well. I hope you can check it out. It's huge and has tons of content.

We always need more volunteers, though. Right now we are in desperate need for some transcribers for some recorded phone interviews, and for All My Children and One Life to Live transcripts (both of which are now on Hulu and iTunes Mondays through Thursdays). We also need someone to write AMC updates (detailed summaries). We are writing them but are struggling to keep up.  So much work! Check out our Volunteer Jobs.

I have been searching fruitlessly for software that will save the closed-captioning from either Hulu or iTunes mp4's, to no avail.  It is really tough doing them manually every day. Our other transcripts are extracted from the TV's closed-captioning using special software and hardware. The CC technology online is different so it won't work for that. If anyone finds software that can do this, let me know. I will pay you if you find it and it works.

I might be able to pay a small sum if anyone can help me with the transcribing of interviews and/or the soaps!

Danielle will be leaving our Primetime Forum so we need more people to post news and spoilers on there. We still need someone to run our ABC soaps forum (for AMC, OLTL and GH). This doesn't take much time.

Even if you can only contribute a few hours per week, it would be great for us to have your help!

We have a new writer, Sundi, who is writing a weekly column about primetime. Patti has been writing AMC Fan fiction and will be back to writing her AMC reviews. We have other fan fiction and all sorts of other stuff as well as our daily soap opera recaps, updates and transcripts.  Gisele and I both work full time on the site. She puts up almost all of the daytime as well as proofreads and writes things when needed.  We're grateful for whatever help we can find!

Every week, I put up all the news and info I have about primetime shows, especially the press releases from the networks about the upcoming TV shows.  You can go to our main news page and click on the week's date that you want to see.

We get a lot of interviews lately; and I have more to put up! Which reminds me, I also still need help from anyone who knows how to use Microsoft FrontPage, or Expression Web, or wants to learn those programs. We have so much content and never enough time to put it all up right away.

These are good problems to have, in a way. Too many TV stars to talk to, too many DVD's to watch and review, and too much content!! But still, we need a lot more help.

I'm very excited about the two soaps being back. So far I think OLTL is better. I think their stories are good, their dialogue is good, and it's done very well, very tight. The "newbies" are mostly characters we already know (recasts).  AMC's dialogue has not been very good. It's stilted and unrealistic, IMHO. I'm not sure how I feel yet about the newbies, especially Celia. The others seem okay. I'm very happy to see some of my favorites back, especially Cady McClain (Dixie), Vincent Irizarry (David), Eden Reigel (Bianca), Thorsten Kaye (Zach), Trevor St. John (Victor), Tuc Watkins (David), and others... I really miss Michael E. Knight (Tadd), though.

I know that not everyone likes "bad words", but I can't really understand that mentality. I'm 51, but it has never offended me. Both of my parents swore profusely (although they didn't let us do it). I started swearing in my teens. I know not to use it around people that I don't know, or kids. But anyway, it's just words. They have no power unless it give it to them. I think it's a good idea to have them in all TV shows because it makes it more realistic. Many people do swear in real life.  If the shows were set in some deeply religious place, I might agree that it's not realistic. But they're not. I have to wonder what other TV do these people who are offended watch because most cable channels, DVD's and movies use 4 letter words all the time. A few curse words here and there on the soaps are no big deal. If it brings in more viewers, or younger viewers, even better. 

I've really been enjoying having Doctor Who back, too. I'm sure it will be gone again before I know it. I love that show. It's just always so much fun.

I've been reading the book version of TNT's "Monday Mornings". It's a good book. Some parts the TV show does better, some parts the book does better. I hope they renew it.

I got a ROKU this week and that's been pretty cool. In case you don't know, it's a little box that lets you stream some internet content to your TV. It has Amazon Prime, Hulu Plus, Netflix, and lots of other channels, games etc.  The box I got was about $50 on Amazon. They have other versions that do HD etc. but I don't have an HD TV so I didn't bother.  You do have to pay for those channels, but they have free trials. Hulu Plus and Netflix are each only $8 I believe. I already have an Amazon Prime membership, so that will stay free, at least.  It's been fun checking it all out. I hope someday they will add a youtube channel.

Last Week's Family Guy was not very funny... I hope this week's is better!

I usually watch all my DVR shows right away, but I've been falling behind the past few weeks, trying to catch up on my DVD's as well as watching AMC and OLTL. I have kept up with just a few of my favorites so far, like Doctor Who, Supernatural, The Mentalist, Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and Psych.  My husband only likes a few shows that we watch live, like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Mad Men.

I have really enjoyed "The Americans" on FX. Glad it's coming back for a 2nd season! So far it seems like most of my favorite shows will be back next season... I was very happy to hear that Beauty & The Beast was renewed. You can see a good list of which shows have been canceled or renewed. They haven't announced all of them yet. The only ones I'm worried about are Body of Proof, CSI: NY, Nikita, and Go On.

I'm bummed that they canceled Smash, though. I liked that show... but not surprised after they moved it to Saturdays.

We have a fun little TV group on Facebook - hope you can join us!

I really hate zombies, so I hope that craze is over soon. I don't watch Walking Dead or any zombie movies. They are gross and creepy. I did watch the original "Night of the Living Dead", which was very good. But it was in black and white and it was like old school scary, not gross or bloody. Most of the terror was implied.  I don't like modern day zombies with the flesh hanging off, drooling etc.  It seems like every TV shows I watch, practically, has to have their "zombie episode".  Last week it was Doctor Who. They've done it on Being Human, Castle, NCIS and so many others. UGH.

See ya next time!

Suzanne Lanoue
The TV MegaSite, Inc.
http://tvmegasite.net