The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #135

• Thursday 7/31 I had a lot of weird dreams last night, mostly about soap operas. What shows do you dream about? I don't remember all of the dreams last night, but I know I dreamed about some older guy on "General Hospital" and then they showed a flashback to an old clip with Joyce Van Patten.  Then later, I dreamed about "Days of Our Lives"' John Black.

We were sitting in the coffee shop at an airport (on our way back from vacationing in Cincinnati) and heard some guy mention "General Hospital", and the women he was chatting with replied that she didn't watch it. That was all I heard about their conversation. I wonder if he's going to the GH Weekend, since this flight is headed to L.A.? Seems unlikely, but who knows? I wish we were going there, but alas, we're just changing planes..

On our flight, I watched the first two episodes of the show "Partners" on FX starring Kelsey Grammer and Martin Lawrence. It wasn't that funny at first but got slightly better. I started to watch the "Cedar Cove" DVD, but then my battery ran out.

We had a stopover at the L.A. airport, where I saw one of my very favorite actors, Mark Sheppard. He's been in lots of my favorite scifi shows like "Medium", "Battlestar Galactica", "Doctor Who", "Leverage", "Warehouse 13", and of course, "Supernatural", where he still plays Crowley, King of Hell.  He usually plays a bad guy, but he's great at it. He's got a wonderful velvety voice and British accent as well as just being a fantastic actor.  I was just beside myself in geekiness seeing him. I went over and told him how much I like his work and asked if he minded taking a photo, so he was very nice and gracious about it.  I was so ecstatic!! How often does that happen? Almost never. I should have given him my card or asked for his autograph, but I was just too giddy.

When I got home, I watched "Longmire", "Major Crimes", and "Hot in Cleveland" from this past week. I still have a lot to catch up on. "Longmire" is fantastic - always!!!  I really enjoyed the "Major Crimes" episode with Luke Perry. It was hilarious and also touching at the end.

I don't know why they thought doing an animated episode would be good for "Hot in Cleveland". The many great guest stars are enough gimmicks for one show. This was just too weird and not all that great. Not very funny at all. It was like one of those bad old cartoons like "The New Adventures of Gilligan" or something.

• Friday 8/1 Today I've been mostly running the soap transcripts to catch up on those from this past week...

I'm very annoyed at my cable company, Oceanic Time Warner Cable. We're moving in about a week, and they said I can't get my cable/internet/phone turned on in the new place until 8/21.  We're moving in the same exact building, only 9 floors down!!  That's just ridiculous. I guess I'll have to catch up on some of my shows On Demand after I finally get the cable back. That really sucks.  Good thing I have lots of DVD's to watch!  But it really messes up the site's transcripts. We're still missing some from last Summer when I moved.

I watched "Unforgettable" while eating lunch today. I always enjoy "Unforgettable", and this one was very good. I loved seeing Colin Egglesfield as a CGIS officer. They should definitely do a spin-off with him, possibly also with Diane Neal, who plays a CGIS officer on "NCIS" sometimes!

A friend of mine runs another TV site and he was very upset last night that someone he hired to write for his site had just copied stuff from another site! Unfortunately, he's not alone. This has happened quite a few times to me as well in the 20 years since I've been running this site. I don't know why anyone would do this; it's unfathomable. Extreme laziness and/or stupidity? Who knows. It definitely takes someone who has no morals.  It hurts the site you steal from as well as the site you lie to.  I'm very glad I was able to help my friend and make him feel better about it. He was very upset. Those of us who run these type of sites do it because we love TV and we want to share that love with others in the world.  We're not rich and this is not our main income....

• The whole rest of the week I didn't update the blogs - so sorry! I have good excuses because I've been incredibly busy. First we were on vacation, then we moved, and then there was threat of a hurricane.  Whew!

First, the good news, Oceanic Time Warner Cable read on my Facebook page that I was annoyed, so they told me right away that they could fix it, and someone phoned me to assure me that I should be able to get internet and cable right away when I move into my new place. I didn't even have to call them - it was working already when I hooked it all up! It just takes a few days for the phone to start working. Isn't it great when a company exceeds your expectations?  Love it!

Also, the hurricane turned out to be nothing.  It mostly hit the island of Hawaii, what they call The Big Island. We're on Oahu. We just had lots of wind and rain.  We have a lot of that, anyway.

So as soon as we moved into our new place, the first thing I did was hook up the TV, DVR, DVD recorders et al. and it worked great. Yay!  Unfortunately (this is the bad news), I had trouble hooking up the computer that I use for making the transcripts. The plug that goes into the computer from the TV is not working. I think some of the pins may be bent, but I'm not sure. I hope the computer repair place can help me. I phoned them today, but they're probably closed due to the storms.  I can't run any more transcripts until that's fixed. Hopefully next week!

Otherwise, just been watching a little bit of TV... my regular summer shows that I always talk about. The "Longmire" finale was awesome! But sorry to see Branch go.

"Major Crimes" had another excellent episode and the ending of this week's episode was spectacular! I hope Fritz will be okay. They'd better not kill him off!

I've also been catching up on "General Hospital" still, here and there... you really have to be a devout soap opera fan now to be watching this crap. Sorry, but the writing on these shows is just awful. They think we're all idiots, apparently, and just like lots of violence and crime, and heroes with no brains.  I love the actors and have been watching since 1984 - that's really the only reason I still watch.  On GH, they make interesting characters but then write terrible stories for them. Have you ever noticed that when it comes to humor, it's mostly the bad guys that have it. There are some exceptions, like Felix, Lucy, Alexis and Luke... but mostly it's people like Obrecht, Franco, and Britt.  In real life, a lot of the actors are really funny.  Take Steve Burton. For years he was a humorless thug on GH, and now he's a humorless ex-vet on Y&R. This guy is so funny and full of energy in real life! You sure wouldn't know it by the way they write for him.

This week's "Entertainment Weekly" has a cover story on "Doctor Who". I'm so looking forward to its return!

This week's Primetime News (and schedule) is at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news080314.shtml   Next week's will be at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news081014.shtml  I should start on that one tomorrow...

Monday's Colbert Report (August 6) was so hilarious!! They should get an Emmy for that one.

I watched the last two episodes of "Crossbones" last night. It was so good. I'm very bummed that they canceled it. Not sure what they could have done for a 2nd season, but they definitely left it open at the end, so they could... they didn't kill off any major characters. I think my only complaint is that, given the time period, people seem to survive some pretty dangerous wounds from knives, guns etc. It veered dangerously into General-Hospital-like unbelievability in that regard.



We have a fairly active Facebook group Talkin' TV so please join us if you can! Lots of posting news and chatter. Sometimes it's hard to run because some people like to post spoilers, but I delete them if I see them and keep reminding people not to post spoilers and not to post too much news at once. They're a good group, though.

This is a cute commercial that the guys from "Dukes of Hazzard" star in... not my favorite show, but I always love John Stewart (especially when he was on "Smallville", but sometimes I like seeing the old Dukes shows because he was just so drop dead gorgeous).  Tom Wopat was on "All My Children" for a time!

Have a great week...

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #134

• Thursday 7/24

Today I watched this week's "Teen Wolf", "Major Crimes", two episodes of "The Colbert Show" and some episodes of "General Hospital" from early July.

I'm so behind on email and other work...

This week's news and schedule is at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news072714.shtml  Next week's is at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news080314.shtml  I hope to have it ready by next Sunday.

• Friday 7/25

I've been trying to watch as much as possible off my DVR because I'm going out of town for a week. I always worry about it filling up.  Thankfully, being summer, it's not as difficult. Still, I've been watching General Hospital like crazy to catch up as much as I can. I'm in early July still on that one.

I watched the last two fabulous episodes of "Crossbones". I'll be sorry when that show finishes its summer run. I sure hope it comes back. They sure like to rough up that poor Tom, don't they? LOL!

I still haven't finished watching last season's "Mistresses", which is somewhere on an older DISH DVR, so I decided to just copy this season's onto DVD. Who knows when I'll catch up?

This week, a lot of people I know are either at the San Diego Comic-Con or are headed to L.A. for the General Hospital Fan Weekend. I wish I could go to either! However, the schedule seldom works out that I can go because it's the same time as my wedding anniversary, and we always take a trip to a different state (it's our tradition). We've been to California and all of the nearby states already...  There are other reasons I haven't gone in past years, but I'm hopeful that it will change someday. In the meantime, we do have volunteers on our site at those events, taking lots of great photos!  Stay tuned!!

• Saturday 7/26

I was on an airplane for most of the day, so I didn't watch any TV. I did have a nice discussion with a woman from Holland on one leg of the flight. She lives a very exciting life. It would make a great TV show! She jets all around, visiting different countries, as nanny for kids. She speaks several languages, so she's in pretty good demand. She's also a ski instructor and very pretty. Only 19. but she seems older because she's very confident, mature, and independent! You never see characters like that on TV... that would be a fascinating show. She doesn't watch a lot of TV, of course. She's too busy living her life. The sad fact of life is that most really successful people in this world don't watch much TV because they're too busy.  Only those of us who love TV and make time for it do watch TV.

I've interviewed many actors over the phone, and when I ask them what TV shows they watch, it definitely sounds like they don't have too much time to watch TV, or much else, for that matter. It makes sense because if they're working on a TV show or movie, they spend most of their spare time sleeping, or working out, or with friends and family.

Speaking of actors, I always wonder if they're all hungry since they're all so skinny. Obviously when you're young, your metabolism is different. You can eat a lot and still be skinny. But they have to be a lot skinnier and in shape than the average person, so it's tough.

I was reading in "Entertainment Weekly" on the plane, about Chris Pratt. You may know him from "Everwood" or "Parks and Recreation". He stars this summer in "Guardians of the Galaxy". His weight has fluctuated a lot over the years because he's one of these chameleon kind of actors. If he's playing in a comedy, he often gains weight for that.  He got in real shape for GotG. I can't wait to see that movie!  Before this article, I was getting him mixed up with Chris Klein. Whoops! I don't watch "Park & Rec" so that's part of the reason. Once I read that he was Bright in "Everwood", the lightbulb went on.

Comic-con is over now... so glad I won't be hearing about that any more. But now the rest of the people I know are at the General Hospital Weekend.  More jealousy!

Anyway, we have lots of great photos from Comic-Con from Karl and Zina.  We'll have great pics from Nikky after the GH Weekend.

• Sunday 7/27

We're on vacation and not watching much TV. In my downtime, when I'm not sleeping, I've been working on the site.... I was late getting stuff done on this week's news and schedule pages.

Danielle was on vacation, so I did my best to do her job, too, but it's a lot of work. So glad she's back!  She posts tons of news every day on our Primetime Forum.

• Monday 7/28

We have a nice TV in our hotel room. I haven't watched it too much yet. My husband was watching re-runs of "Emergency" and "Adam 12" on METV. That's a great station for watching old shows. It's kind of like TVLAND used to be, back in the 90's, when it showed a lot of old rare shows. We used to watch some shows that most of you have probably never heard of, like "I Married Joan". (It was kind of like "I Love Lucy") and "Car 54, Where Are You?"

I'm on Facebook a lot. If you're there, please go to our site's page at https://www.facebook.com/tvmeg and click on "Like", okay?

Also, if you like to talk about TV or hear about it, please join our Talkin' TV group on Facebook.  It's a nice, small group of TV fans.  The only rules are: no insulting anyone (either actors or each other) and no posting of spoilers. Spoilers are what will happen on the show, but they're also what just happened. Try to wait 1-3 days after you watch any show to talk about storyline info. 

• Tuesday 7/29

I was sad to hear that "Crossbones" was canceled and ending soon. Not surprised, though. For one thing, most TV shows get canceled in their first year. It's just a sad truth of the TV biz now. Secondly, when a network puts a show on in the summer, it usually means they don't have a lot of confidence in it and don't expect it to do well (otherwise they'd put it on in the fall). This is less true of cable, of course.  Anyway, most summer shows on network TV get canceled. I applaud NBC for even trying something so daring as this show. I really enjoyed it. I loved the cast, and it was a kind of historical/adventure/soap opera.  I think a lot of people watched the premiere, decided it wasn't worth watching, and didn't give it a second look. That's too bad, but it happens a lot. We all do that sometimes. This is why the TV industry is the way it is now. People like to blame the networks, but if a show gets enough viewers, they keep it around usually! It's our fault for not being patient and not giving shows a chance, and being too picky.  Friday is a tough day for shows now, so they very seldom put anything on during that day that sticks around. There are some rare exceptions, such as Blue Bloods.

Apparently, a popular blogger among soap fans, Ravenbeauty, died. She wrote a blog and was on Facebook. She'd had cancer and it finally killed her. I didn't know her, but R.I.P. Ravenbeauty! She was one of our little media stars.  So sad when someone with so much drive and talent dies. You really have to have a passion for what you write or talk about, and spend many hours on it, in order to get that successful. Of course there's a lot of smarts and luck involved, too. Many of us have all that and still don't get that successful or famous ;)

• Wednesday 7/30

Today was our wedding anniversary, and we were traveling. I did flip around the channels here in our hotel in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. They have a nice big screen TV. It's one of the few hotels I've seen where they have both HBO and movies you can buy (usually it's one or the other).

Syfy did send me Sharknado 2, but I've been so busy, I didn't get around to watching it before it aired. Oh, well. Now I guess I'll watch the first one and review them both together! I hear they're supposed to be comedies to a certain extent.  I know people like to make fun of them as cheap and trashy, but if they're funny, who cares?

I brought a bunch of DVD's to watch, but we were having way too much fun traveling, so I didn't watch one of them! When we weren't out, I was sleeping...

Have a great week!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #133

This week's Primetime News and Schedule is at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news072014.shtml

Next week's is at  at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news072714.shtml starting Sunday. Hopefully!

Last week I caught up with my site's daytime transcripts! Yay! About time. They should be up more regularly now that my company has left. 

I'm also catching up on TV shows on my DVR because it's filling up fast. So far tonight I watched this past week's "Longmire", Monday's "The Colbert Show" and "The Daily Show", and "Unforgettable".

I had company for the past 10 days, so I fell a bit behind on my TV watching. Also, I had many DVD's to watch (I still do have quite a few left). I review the DVD's on our site. Sundi also reviews many shows.

My friend that was visiting, Barb, is more of a sports fan than anything else. She does love scifi, but unlike me, she watches shows sporadically or casually. I could never do that. If I watch a show, I have to keep watching it (it has to get really awful before I'll stop watching). I can't just watch an episode here and there. I have to know what's going on.  We all have our own preferences and priorities, I guess. Barb and I like a lot of the same movies, so I don't know why she doesn't like all of the same shows, too.  :) It's silly!!

At least she doesn't mind watching what I like, and she likes a lot of the same actors I do. We both enjoyed watching "Extant" and a few other shows. We tried to watch "The Invisible Man", a 70's scifi show starring David McCallum. She had brought me the DVD. Well, I loved it back in the 70's, when I was around 12, but now it's kind of boring. Shows were just very slow back then and can't measure up to today's shows, for the most part. Also, this show did get canceled pretty quickly so wasn't as good back then, either, as many shows that were popular.

We tried to watch "The Strain" but it was just too gross. It has great writing and the acting is fabulous, but it's just too disgusting. I don't like "The Walking Dead", either.  This show is kind of like Zombie Vampires. Blecch.

Barb did convince me to start watching Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert again. I got out of the habit last year, but now I'm recording them again on my DVR. They're pretty funny, especially Colbert. I like Bill Maher a whole lot more than she does, though.

I spent a lot of time this week watching the 6th season of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", which is just out on Blu-Ray. Love it!!! It's fun to geek out.  Which reminds me - Comic-Con is starting this week. I wish I could go! At least we do have our regular photographers who go each year and take many photos for us. Check out the past ones.

I was very excited to learn that Shemar Moore is returning to "The Young & The Restless" in September! I wish it were for more than two episodes. The show can really use him.

It was a sad week because James Garner died. He was one of my favorites. I grew up watching "Maverick" and "Rockford Files" as well as his movies. He was so gorgeous, and what a great actor, too.

Have a great week and if you're at the General Hospital Fan Club Weekend or Comic-Con, have extra fun for me!!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #132

I've been late running the daytime soap transcripts these past 2 weeks...busy busy! Mostly with company visiting.

Earlier this week, my visiting friend and I took a helicopter tour of Oahu (where I live). We took some other tours this week, too. They told us about many spots where they shoot "Hawaii Five-0" and where many other shows and movies from the past were filmed, such as "Lost", "Gilligan's Island", and "Jurassic Park".  When our helicopter took off, the pilot played the "Hawaii Five-0" theme! That really made me chuckle.  I really suggest that you take a helicopter tour if at all possible. Put it on your bucket list!

Catching up right now on some episodes of "General Hospital." I'm only a few weeks behind. I also have about 3 episodes of "Crossbones" to catch up on.

My DVR got quite filled up while I had visitors! I didn't watch too many programs and I'm trying to catch up now.

It's so hard to keep up nowadays with so many shows coming out year round.  What's your favorite summer show?  I always love "Longmire" and "Teen Wolf". I watched some of "The Strain" on FX but it's not my kind of show. It's too gross, like a zombie show or a gross horror show like "American Horror Story". It's very well written and acting but...too much for me.

San Diego Comic-Con is coming up soon. I wish I could go! I have a few reporters covering it for me, though, and they'll take lots of great photos. Our Comic-Con section needs a little updating. Make sure to read it because my family has a long history with it! I find it so funny that I get sent press releases and other info, and invitations to press events.

Wednesday my episode of "The Bold & Beautiful" was interrupted by a news break. I'm not sure if that's true country-wide.  On Thursday, "General Hospital" was pre-empted by news, so they're showing it tomorrow (Friday) instead. I don't know about the other episodes, but they aired here.

Are there any new shows in the Fall that you're looking forward to? Let me know!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #131

I hope everyone had a nice Fourth of July! Are you the type of person who likes to watch fireworks on TV, or only in person? Or do you not like them at all? I'm the second...

I haven't been watching too much TV because we're been super busy going out with friends and having company.  I did watch some of my usual summer shows like Longmire, Beauty & The Beast, Hot in Cleveland, Teen Wolf, Royal Pains, Major Crimes et. al.

I apologize - I even got behind on running the soap opera transcripts for the site (and everything else). I'm slowly catching up.

I still don't like that they made Gabe on "Beauty & The Beast" a bad guy...but now they've killed him. Even worse. Boo!! Glad that everyone else seems to have survived, though.

We could really use another writer for Y&R updates. Please email me if you can help out even one day per week! Thanks!

We went to see "X-Men: Days of Future Past" and loved it. It has many actors in it that are also on TV shows recently, such as Anna Paquin (from "True Blood"), Patrick Stewart (from "Star Trek: The Next Generation"), Halle Barry (the new CBS show "Extant"), Peter Dinklage ("Game of Thrones"), Evan Peters ("American Horror Story"), Shawn Ashmore ("The Following"), Ian McKellen ("Vicious"), Kelsey Grammar ("Boss") and James Marsden ("30 Rock").  Great movie!!

With my good friend Barbara visiting, I find that she's very different from me in how she watches TV and movies, even though we like a lot of the same stuff. She can watch occasional episodes of TV shows, or some movies in a series, whereas I can't do that. I have to watch all of the episodes or all of the movies. I can't bear to miss some. That would drive me crazy.

Having been so busy lately, out doing stuff with friends, I can see why some people might feel that if you watch a lot of TV that you don't have a life. It's hard to find time for both, and if you spend a lot of time watching TV, then you're not doing other things that might be more healthy, productive, or social. But I do love watching TV and movies, so it's a hard choice to make. I also do enjoy going out, singing at karaoke and with my band, hanging out with friends, etc. Nowadays everyone seems so busy. It's no wonder that TV doesn't seem as popular as it used to be.

Watch lots of TV! Ignore your friends! Or watch WITH your friends!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #130

I've been so busy with family stuff lately, that I haven't had time to watch much TV. I just watched my summer Must-See shows like Major Crimes, Teen Wolf, Beauty & The Beast, Hot in Cleveland, and Longmire. Woo hoo!

Behind again on "Bold & Beautiful", but I thought it was really dumb the way that Aly went from being kind of psycho and about to hit Taylor with an ax, and then five minutes later, Aly had forgiven her.  What???  Come on, that's not even trying.  I hope that after Aly finds out that Oliver is not really into her, she goes off again.  It's not very realistic that someone so disturbed would just suddenly be normal because she has a hunky boyfriend (let alone forgiving someone she's hated most of her life). I was shocked when Soap Opera Digest praised the episode in one part of their magazine, but then their great columnist Carolyn Hinsley pointed out how stupid it was, so that was a relief to read.

Beauty & The Beast is always entertaining, and they had a great episode recently where Kat and Vincent had to go live in the witness protection program as a suburban couple. It was fun and interesting. However, it was marred by the fact that it all happened in just one episode. They should have either made it an episode arc of at least 3 episodes, or said during the episode something like "3 months later" because it was too quick.  They moved in, met the victim, met his killer, the man was killed, they found his killer, moved out.  Stupid.  And again, I'm not happy that they're making Gabe a bad guy (and now a beast again!).

You've probably already read this by now, but "Teen Wolf" is even better this season than before. I'm glad they didn't leave Derek as a teenager too long! The kid they got to play him was really good, though. I like all of the characters, and Stiles is my favorite, but I love the actor who plays Derek (he's so gorgeous!), so it's good to keep him around.  I still really miss Allison, though, but Malia is growing on me.

Movies are fun, too, and my favorites, just like TV, are the scifi/fantasy/comic book movies. I don't go very often because I don't have many friends here yet to go with, and my husband is not a movie fan. I usually end up buying them on DVD. A good friend is coming to visit on Monday, so hopefully we'll see some good ones. I'm annoyed that I missed Captain America, though. We'll probably get to see X-Men but it's not in 3D. Bummer!

Why the soaps make the decisions they do about which shows get pre-empted on which holiday? I have no clue. All of the soaps had new episodes on 4th of July, except for "General Hospital", which had a re-run from April.  This should be the last planned pre-emption until Labor Day in September.

If you get On Demand, by the way, they have all of the episodes of Lifetime's Witches of East End, which returns July 6. I wish they did that with all shows. For that matter, I wish you could watch past seasons On Demand, not just the past one.

I hope you all had a great holiday 3 day weekend and got to watch lots of sports and/or soaps, and catch up on your favorite shows, etc. Do you have a favorite holiday TV show or movie you like to watch? There are some great marathons usually... they had a ton of them this weekend for "Walking Dead", "Batman", "NCIS", "Star Trek: Next Generation" and of course "The Twilight Zone"!  Here's a link that lists them all.

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #129

I didn't watch too much TV this week... I guess in summer, I fall behind because there are so many other things to do besides watch TV, and there are fewer regular programs that I watch.  My DVR is filling up, though. I need to start watching more, especially the soaps.


Speaking of the soaps, I was thrilled to see that James Read is now on "Days of Our Lives". He starred in one of my favorite miniseries, "North and South", back in the 80's with Patrick Swayze. He was also in "Remington Steele", and then most recently was the dad on "Charmed".  Love him! He's still very handsome.

I was already regularly watching Longmire, Beauty & The Beast, Major Crimes, Hot in Cleveland, Perception, Rizzoli & Isles and Murder in the First. Now I'm also watching Dominion, Defiance and Teen Wolf. Plus the soaps, of course.

I've got a bunch of interview transcripts to put up still (hopefully tomorrow) and then I have one more I need to transcribe. On Monday, I have two more interviews. One is with Diane Kruger, who stars as Sonya in "The Bridge". She's so great. Then I have a one-on-one interview with Cynthia Stevenson, who's starring in the Lifetime movie "Killing Daddy", along with Elizabeth Gillies and Billy R. Moses. I've enjoyed Cynthia's work for many years, especially in "Dead Like Me" and "Men in Trees", but also earlier in "Hope & Gloria" and "Oh Baby".

We really need someone to write Y&R updates for our site 2 or 3 days per week so please email me at suzanne@tvmegasite.net if you can help out! You must be a regular Young & The Restless watcher and be able to write passably well with detail and be understandable, and be able to proofread it before you send it to us.  And no stealing from other sites!

We have a volunteer on our site named Thane who is become famous as we speak. Thane has done quite a bit of coding for our site and helped me out on many occasions. He has started doing a stand-up act, and I think he'll be really successful (he's already headed that way).  His "gimmick" is that he's in a wheelchair and can't speak, so he uses an automated voice. He's also gay, from New Zealand and very outrageous. Honestly, he's hilarious. He's also got a very funny blog. Here's a video of his act if you want to check him out.  Be warned, it has some 4 letter words.

I can't believe it's almost July already. Where does the time go? Before you know it, it'll be the new Fall TV season again!





I'm trying not to feel overwhelmed lately... I've just been so busy and there's always too much to do!  We have a lot of volunteer jobs available if you want to help out!

Have a great week and watch lots of TV....

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #128

As soon as I got home from my trip last Saturday, I started catching up on shows on my DVR. I watched "Longmire" first because it's one of my favorites. Another one aired tonight, so I got to see two this week. Yay! Same with "Beauty and the Beast", I got to see two very quickly together.  I enjoy the show, but I don't like them making Gabe a bad guy again.

I now have another new stack of DVD's to watch and review! It never ends...

This week's Primetime News and Schedule Page is at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news062214.shtml

I wish I had time to watch all of the shows I like. I watched the first episode of "Game of Thrones" today on Vimeo.  I know it's one that everyone watches and loves, but I've never seen it before. Looks like a good show, but a little hard to watch.

This week's "Hot in Cleveland" where they go to New York was hilarious!!! Great seeing Mark Valley and Kirstie Alley as guest-stars!

We also caught up on two weeks' worth of "Real Time with Bill Maher". It's always funny, but I thought the June 6th episode was particularly hilarious, especially "New Rules" where he talks about gun nuts.

What shows are you watching this summer? Let me know.... if you're on Facebook, come to our Talkin' TV Forum. We have lots of great TV fans there!

I feel like there are so many shows I miss, that I never watch or have time to even check out. I hear about so many good ones that I've never seen, like the aforementioned "Game of Thrones" as well as "The Wire", "Homeland", "Girls", "Awkward", "Orange is the New Black" and so many more.

Have to go watch some more shows to review now.... I'm enjoying the new show "Murder in the First", especially the great cast. It's a good murder mystery and police story, too. Of course, it's by Steve Bochco! Now I'm catching up on "Perception" and then "Rizzoli & Isles". TNT sent me a bunch of shows to watch. Yay!

This morning I got to speak with British actor Richard Coyle, who stars in "Crossbones" with John Malkovich, on the phone. He seemed like a really nice, ordinary guy, and he was very nice and friendly to everyone. I just watched the second episode last night, and it was pretty good fun. I look forward to seeing more of the show.

Friday I get to speak with Jason Gann, writer and star of "Wilfred" on FX.  Then next Monday, Rex Lee from the new ABC Family show "Young & Hungry" (you may know him from "Entourage" or "Suburgatory").  Then on Tuesday, I get to speak to Julie Benz, star of "Defiance" on Syfy. This will be the third or fourth time I've gotten to speak with her, but it's always thrilling. I've always enjoyed her work, going all the way back to "Hi Honey I'm Home" in the 90's, but also and especially in the shows "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" as Darla.  So busy!!!

It's amazing how, in such a short time, TV has changed. A decade ago you couldn't watch TV on your phone. There were no iPads or Kindles. Most people didn't have broadband or wireless.  I have a Kindle that I got as a gift, and it's ok, but I think I'd rather get an iPad. They're just SO expensive, though. They're great for watching movies and TV shows, though. I don't know why Kindle screens are still so small. Most people still watch TV on their TV's, but quite a few watch on these other devices as well.

The PR people for the various TV networks send me some DVD's of the shows to watch ahead of time. They often package it in very cool, elaborate holders, with glossy booklets. Sometimes they send some fun stuff along with the DVD's. Syfy is really the best for that kind of thing.  Over the years, I've been amazed at some of the things they come up with. Years ago they sent out chocolate bars for "Being Human" (that's my favorite). Another time they sent out these cool gloves, that allowed you to also text while you had gloves on, when it was cold. Those were great gloves, too, very warm.  Someone, don't remember who, also sent out cake pops one time.  This year, USA Network sent some cookies from a bakery in the Hamptons, to promote "Royal Pains".  Unfortunately, I'm allergic to cake and cookies, but my husband enjoyed them.  I guess Syfy and USA, both being part of NBC and Universal Studios, has a lot of money to spend on these things.  Same with FX, which has very elaborate packaging for their screeners. They're part of 20th Century FOX.  They don't usually send out "fun stuff", but their screeners usually come in really cool packaging with glossy booklets and nice covers.  The other cable nets, like TNT and Lifetime, don't have nearly as much money, so they usually just send the DVD.  I'm very happy to receive whatever they want to send! I love getting the shows ahead of time to review.

I do remember some great "Swag" from past years, though. One year SONY sent me a whole bunch of stuff, a whole box of goodies from their soaps, from their old soap opera site soapcity.com.  USA sent me a box of cool stuff one time, near the holidays - lots of Burn Notice DVD's and other stuff. They also sent me a full set of "Psych" and "Monk" DVD's. I love getting free stuff, especially when it's cool or useful. I get many DVD's from Lionsgate and CBS, and some from Warner Brothers, BBC and Universal. The latter three used to send me lots and lots of DVD's, but they don't send as many now, which is too bad. I mostly only review the DVD's sent to me, or else I would review a lot more.

I have a lot of TV-related dreams. This week I had a weird dream involving two soap opera characters, some friends of mine, realitys hows, and werewolves. So weird! I also had a great dream involving "Longmire"'s Walt.  I love those type of romantic dreams.  Having a good, vivid dream is like having your own personal Holodeck.

This past week, I've been really busy, and trying to catch up on email and other stuff, as well as watch DVD's. Hopefully next week will be better in that regard!

We need a new Y&R Update writer for our site, so please email me if you can help out. Don't email me if you plan to just steal the recaps from some other site, though, like someone last week did! Yikes!

Check out our What's New page to see all of the new stuff we put up every day...

Have a great week...

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #127

• June 6

I watched last week's "The 100". It was very good! I can't wait to see the second part of the finale.  My only complaint about the show is that it seems like there isn't much sex going on, which seems unrealistic with all of these very attractive young people, with no adult supervision, in life and death situations. Not to mention the very attractive adults on the Ark!

• June 7

We went on vacation this week to San Diego. Since it's such a long flight from Honolulu, the airplane was a big one and had these screens on the back of the seats where you could watch TV shows, movies, listen to music, play games etc. I was very happy to watch the "Veronica Mars" movie. I loved that show. I need to see the movie again... wish I had time to re-watch the TV show, too.  I hope they make another movie. Nikky, one of our volunteers, tells me that there are two sequels books as well. I need to look for those.

I would have watched some TV, too, but the selection was not very good.  I did play the trivia game. It has different categories and mostly it lets you pick your own category (I think if you miss the question, it then picks a random question). I just kept picking Movies/TV and Music, so I did well. I would have done better, though, if the touch screen worked a little better.   Anyone, all airlines should have these cool screens. Not everyone has a tablet or a way to watch movies on the airplane.  I could have read on my Kindle or watched a movie or TV show on my laptop, but this was far less trouble...literally right there at the push of a button. So cool!

• June 10

Las Vegas has many TV-themed slot machines. They have for a long while, but we haven't visited there for a few years, so they're mostly all new ones now. We saw slot machines for "The Walking Dead", "CSI", "The Twilight Zone", "Sex and the City", and "The Munsters" as well as many movies like "The Hangover", "Iron Man", "Star Wars Trilogy", "Lord of the Rings", "Superman" and "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory". Those are so much fun!

• June 11

We stayed for a few days at my sister-in-law's place. She and her husband have done something that I think quite a few people do now- they canceled their cable.  They do watch TV, but now they just watch it on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon or the Web.  For them, it wasn't even a matter of the cost but just that they used it so rarely, they figured, why bother wasting the money? I think, though, that they're  already finding that some TV sites are not allowing you to watch their shows unless you are already a cable or satellite customer, and the sites like Hulu don't have nearly as many choices.

I usually do watch some TV while I visit at their place, but we were very busy, so I only watched some DVD's and that was it.  I do have plenty of shows waiting for me on my DVR when I get home!

• June 12

We still didn't watch any more TV this week, although of course with my site I do talk about it plenty. Just about everyone I know agrees that "Longmire" is awesome!

I read that Billy Miller is joining "General Hospital" and may play Jason. I love seeing him, but it will be interesting to see how he does as Jason. It's a shame he doesn't have a regular primetime or movie gig because he's a fabulous actor.

Every time I travel, I take a bunch of work and other things to do, and then I'm so busy that I do very little...back to work now!

Have a great week!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #126

Ah, Summer... lots of reality shows and re-runs, but also plenty of original fictional programming as well.

Last Fall or Winter, I didn't realize that "Major Crimes" had returned, and by the time I figured it out, I had missed most of the episodes.  TNT just sent me the next premiere episode, though, so I went bought last season on Amazon Prime and watched it. I had a binge-watching session of half the season. It was great! I love that show.

This week's "Bold & Beautiful" made me laugh. I don't know if it's supposed to, or if it was unintentional humor. When Bill had the helicopter pilot dump Ridge into the ocean, it was hysterical! That's the kind of crazy, over-the-top stuff that B&B is famous for. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. This time it worked. I don't usually like that type of stuff, though. I prefer to have dramas that are more realistic.

I was overjoyed to watch the premiere episode of this season's "Longmire". I really love that show!! It's so great. They have awfully short seasons, though. It's the kind of show you just want to go on and on, forever.

I'm also happy to have "Beauty & The Beast" back.  It's always fun and has a lot of action, drama and romance. Exciting ending this week!

I've been sick a lot the past 2 weeks, so I'm very behind on my work. I have tons of interview transcripts to put up, one to transcribe, reviews to write and lots of stuff from emails that I want to put up.  And now I'm going out of town so who knows when it will be done!

I haven't watched all of this week's "General Hospital" yet, but I see that they killed off Patrick and Sabrina's baby. Not hard to see that coming, but I always hate when they do that. Do they say to themselves, "Hmm, I see it's been X months since we killed off a child - it's time to do another one!"???  Yuck.

I enjoyed "Hot in Cleveland" this week. It's not the funniest show around, but the characters are very likable, and they have great guest-stars.  It's fun just to see Betty White and how she throws out the best lines!

I'm glad that "Mistresses" is back, too, but I still have to catch up on some of last year's episodes. They're here, somewhere, on one of my DVR's...

They're live-streaming the Daytime Emmys online, which is great for fans, but it's not as good as having them on TV. Many people don't have the internet, or don't have a good connection. I mean, how stupid is this - it's an awards show for TV SHOWS and they can't even show them on TV??? So stupid. The networks should be ashamed of themselves for ignoring this opportunity to praise and promote their shows. Especially CBS, which has two soaps and both are #1 and #2 in the ratings.  Not even to mention all of the non-soap daytime shows that they honor.  Really, they can't take a measly two hours somewhere out of their schedule to show it? In the Summertime when it's mostly re-runs anyway?? How about Saturday night - there's nothing on then, anyway.   And I'm particularly peeved because I like to record the Daytime Emmys and keep them.  Not as easy to do when it's streaming.  The 41st Annual Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony will be streamed live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel at www.daytimeemmys.net beginning at 5:00 p.m. PT on Sunday, June 22, 2014.

This coming week's news will be here. I hope to have it done by Sunday morning.

I guess I'm too busy because I can't believe tomorrow is Friday already!  Have a great weekend, everyone.

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #125

I'm finally watching "The 100" from the previous week. It's a gross episode. I don't like to see people vomiting. Otherwise, though, it was good.. The one from this week was great, too. It's a really good scifi show. I'm glad it was renewed for a second season! Yay!

Most of my favorite shows are in re-runs now. I spent most of the weekend watching 2 things: the soaps, to clear off my DVR, and the DVD's that the PR people sent me to review.

I'm caught up on "General Hospital" and "The Bold & The Beautiful" now. Or at least, I've watched all of the episodes that aired since last August (there are many on tape and DVD that I haven't watched- I may never get around to it).   I sure wasn't surprised that the Luke running around town was not the real Luke, nor that he had the real one still stashed in the loony bin. They dropped so many obvious hints that even if you were paying half attention, you would know that. I just hope they don't drag it all out too long or that the real villain will be a total surprise and not one of our obvious guesses.


I don't mind Bill and Brooke together (she's never been my favorite), but I really don't want her and Ridge back together. She has no chemistry at all with Thorsten Kaye.  Not sure yet if I like him with Katie, either. To be honest, as much as I love Thorsten Kaye, this was a very bad casting decision. He's nothing like Ronn Moss at all, and no matter how many times they say he's changed, it doesn't fix the basic problem that he looks, sounds and acts nothing like him. They should have brought him on as a completely new character. I would have liked to have seen him as a very dashing and romantic character, similar to the one he played on "One Life to Live" or even "Port Charles".  Usually, if they wait so long to recast a character, then it doesn't matter who they get to replace him, but since Ronn Moss has been on the show since it began, and Thorsten Kaye is so completely different, it's just too jarring.  I know I'm not the only fan who feels this way. I don't know what the answer is, though, since I do love seeing Thorsten.

I watched quite a few new primetime shows and DVD's that you can read about on our Reviews Page.  

Next I can start watching all of the tons of DVD's that I made in the past year, so I can get caught up on the other shows I like, like "Arrow", "The Vampire Diaries", "Elementary", "Criminal Minds", "Orphan Black", "Dallas", "Devious Maids" and more.  I've got a backlog of over 100 DVD's, but a lot of the shows on them are "filler" that I may not get around to watching any time soon. We'll see!

We really enjoyed the "Mad Men" season finale... it was so good! I love musicals, so it was great to see that vision of Burt dancing and singing at the end. Burt, played by Robert Morse, used to be a Broadway/movie star and sang and danced in many musicals, including "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". I was hoping we would see him sing and dance sometime, so it was great that they were able to fit that in!  Sorry they killed him, though.

May is always a tough month because they cancel so many of the shows, usually some favorites we like.  I know that a lot of people say, "they cancel everything I like".  Well, it's not just you. Most shows get canceled within the first year.  The major networks canceled about 40 shows this year, and 32 of them were new.  The rest get canceled by the second or third year.  There are a few that last a long time, like NCIS or American Idol, but the rest... it's very sad when you think of how much effort gets put into these shows, and then they just go away.  I guess we can look at each one as a long play or miniseries... but it's hard on us, and that's why a lot of people just stop watching shows at all.  It's hard to invest the time in watching a show and then you get attached emotionally, and that's why it hurts when you lose it (particularly if you feel there was a lot more story to tell).  You would think we would get used to it, since it happens so often, but I don't think we ever do.  The networks do it a lot more than they used to, too, and a lot sooner, so that doesn't help.  I like what FX has been doing with some of its shows. They do a 10/80 deal.  They give the show 10 episodes, and if it's successful, then they commit to 80 more! If not, that's all they get. It's a great deal for the shows and the viewers. I don't know why the other networks don't do something like this. It doesn't have to be 80.  10/30 would be a great improvement. They should also commit to not moving shows around so much, or having a huge hiatus in the middle (like NBC did this year with "Revolution").

From Tuesday -This morning I was on a conference call interview with Wil Wheaton, who has a new show "The Wil Wheaton Project" on Syfy. It was a great call and went on for an hour. He's a really nice guy and didn't just answer questions but engaged each questioner in conversation. Unfortunately, that meant some of us didn't get to ask a question. However, he was so nice to answer two questions for me on Twitter after that! Too bad I didn't get to speak with him, though. He would have been the 5th "Star Trek" actor I've interviewed... Check out all the interviews (there are quite a few new ones that I'll be putting up this week).  I watched his show and it was pretty cute...not the funniest thing in the world, but watchable, IMHO.

I was supposed to have some other interviews on Friday, but I was very sick, so I just stayed in bed.

TV gets a little easier to watch this time of year. Even with summer shows, it's not nearly as bad as when the major networks have tons of new shows in the Fall and Spring.  That's my life :)

We need some more backup soap update writers for our site!  Sometimes our writers get sick or have to go out of town, and then we don't have too many people we can ask to take over for them.  If you watch the soaps, or don't mind watching them occasionally, please email. We just need someone who can watch the episode, write up a summary, and email it. You have to be able to write pretty well and put in the details of the show. Email me if you're interested in helping out with this or with any of our volunteer jobs.

The cable networks really do a great job with their PR for their shows. Syfy has always been excellent.  They recently sent me the upcoming episodes for their new show "Dominion" and the return of "Defiance". The packaging is just amazing. Dominion looks like a hard cover book, and if you open it, it's one of those book safes, but it also has pages about the show. It's really cool.  USA Network sent chocolate chip cookies from a cookie shop in the Hamptons, along with the DVD of new episodes. Woo hoo!

Tomorrow I start the new page for this week's primetime shows. You can see it at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news060114.shtml and it should be all finished by Sunday morning.

Have a great weekend!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #124

• Thursday 5/16

Make sure you check out our What's New Page to see what we've been putting up! Lots of content every day.

I'm back to watching "The Americans", keeping up on that great show...

Looks like most of the shows are having their season finales soon if not already. Then I won't have to worry so much about my DVR filling up. Which is good!

• Friday 5/17

The only show we ever watch now on Fridays is "Real Time with Bill Maher". I'll be glad when "Haven" comes back! I do record "Continuum" on the DVR in the other room, but I'm way behind on watching it.

Then of course, Saturday, there's nothing on except for "Orphan Black" which I also record on the other DVR.  When is "Doctor Who" returning? Okay, I checked and they're saying it's early Autumn. I hope that's true!

• Saturday 5/18

I've just been watching soaps and not much else... I have a ton of other shows to watch but I'm just been either really busy or kind of sick. I've got a huge stack of DVD's to watch and review, too. I will definitely have a lot to put up next week.

• Sunday 5/19

The season finale of "The Mentalist" was great. Best one ever. If they had canceled the show, that would have been a fabulous ending.

I'm behind on watching "Revenge", but I heard they killed off Aiden. That's too bad, but I guess it makes sense that just about everyone on the show is expendable. I hope Jack isn't, but you just never know. I would hope that Jack, Victoria, and of course Emily/Amanda are the ones that MUST be on the show (and of course I hope they keep Nolan as well). I read that the actor who plays Aiden is on a new show this Fall. Great!!

"Mad Men" was very good. It's great to see Don climbing his way back up to the top. Not sure I want to see him get romantically involved with Peggy, though. We couldn't tell for sure from their dance whether it was romantic or just a father-daughter sort of thing.

• Monday 5/20

I didn't get a chance to send out this week's soap scoops...just didn't work out. I've been sick a lot this week. So far behind! I will definitely have them next Sunday night.

I hope you all are watching "Louie" on FX because this season's episodes are the best I've seen. They're very sharp and funny.  I don't think I watched anything on Monday... I had already seen the "24" episode the previous week on the FOX media site. It's been really good so far!

• Tuesday 5/21

I finally got through the Nurse's Ball episodes on "General Hospital". It was generally good, but there were a few things I didn't like. I didn't like that Epiphany stomped all over Mac's doll. That seemed mean and unnecessarily cruel, even for her (especially at Mac, who's such a nice guy, and at a charity event). They could have done something much more creative, like have Epiphany apologize later and say she was drinking too much. Or Mac threatens to have her arrested for destroying his property. Or the doll shows up mysteriously demolished, and Mac has to play detective and figure out who whodunnit. Any of that would have worked better.

I also didn't like how they teased John Stamos. I thought it was really dumb that the adults let Spencer interrupt Cameron and Emma's tango for his own thing.  The whole idea of why some elementary school kids would even know who Player is, let alone want to listen to them sing, is stupid. (I did enjoy seeing Ronn Moss and hearing Player, though. They should make him a regular character) I loved Obrecht and it made no sense that at least SOME of the people in the audience wouldn't clap for her, not knowing who she was.  It's not a very good fund raiser if the only people who attend are hospital personnel, Sonny and a few Quartermaines!  They should go back to having it in what looks like a big ballroom. This was too tiny and cramped. Like having it in someone's house. I know they're trying to keep it low-budget, but geez... I didn't mind the Yoplait sponsorship in general, but having the characters eat it and talk about how good it was, was not good - too obvious and awkward. Also, they should only let GH cast, past or present, perform at the ball, and not let in ringers, especially people we've never heard of. And finally, how about some acts that weren't singing and dancing? Besides Mac's, I mean. How about some tap dancing, or ballroom, or juggling, or stand-up comedy etc.? I did enjoy it, though, aside from those things.

The only show on tonight that I watch regularly was "Supernatural". Awesome show and it was a great season finale. The only thing I was wondering, was, why didn't the MOMENT Castiel get free of Metatron, he jump down to Dean with one of his angel friends and heal him? That didn't make sense to me. He just takes Metatron's word that Dean is dead and doesn't rush to save him?  Great shocker ending, though.

• Wednesday 5/22

I've got 2 conference calls this morning, one with Allison Tolman of "Fargo" and one with people from the Hallmark movie "The Color of Rain", including the stars Lacey Chabert and Warren Christie, as well as the book's authors and the movie's executive producer. Should be interesting!

Unfortunately, my "alarm" (my husband, David) didn't wake me up in time for the first call! But the second one went fine. I mostly talked to the two authors. One of the problems with these calls is that it's much more interesting, usually, to talk to the show's writers and/or producers because they can tell you about the creation of the show and what kind of thought went into writing it, etc. and that's much easier to come up with a question for. On the other hand, I'd much rather speak to actors, especially when they're my favorites. They usually just know about their own character or their own acting, so it's a lot harder to come up with interesting questions. Especially when it's a one-time movie or guest-starring role. There's only so much to say, and they can't give spoilers, either.

I guess a lot of GH fans are annoyed with Carly and Franco being together. It sure doesn't make a lot of sense that they're together. Then again, Carly is kind of like Alexis in that she tends to be attracted to "bad boys" like Sonny, Lorenzo, Johnny et al. Still, it does seem pretty unrealistic how fast she was willing to forgive him for all of the terrible stuff he did. I mean, I can see forgiving him, but then sleeping with him is a different matter entirely.  I guess they only care about the chemistry between the two actors. Frankly, I've never been a big fan of Carly as a character. I think Laura Wright did a great job on "Guiding Light" and "Loving", but I don't think her Carly is sympathetic enough. She comes over as too hard and unlikable. The previous Carlys, especially Sarah Brown and Tamara Braun, were better, IMHO. I'd much rather see Todd and Blair on my TV than Franco and Carly, any day.

All of the TV shows are winding down. Tonight the only new shows I'm watching are Law & Order: SVU and The 100.  SVU was great. Super ending. Another one that, if they had canceled the show, it would have been an okay series finale. It was great to see Munch again! I'm glad they didn't have the usual cliff hanger, and I'm very glad Olivia got a baby. I decided to wait until tomorrow to watch "The 100".

I need to try to get to bed early because I have a long interview to transcribe tomorrow, among other things.

Hope you have a great week! I'm busy getting ready to go out of town Friday for a week, but don't worry, I'll still have my laptop, still blog and all that.  I can't run the soap transcripts while I'm gone, but I'll do them as soon as I get back in June.

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #123

• 5/11

We need more volunteers, always!!  Please check out our volunteer jobs page.

We watched our usual shows, "Mad Men", "Family Guy", "The Mentalist" and "Once Upon a Time". Mad Men was the best episode all season so far. It was great to see the end, especially with Don. We could have done without the threesome scene, however. It was boring, so we just fast-forwarded through it. "Family Guy" was not very funny. The only good part was Cleveland's return at the very beginning. I enjoyed the other two as usual! "Once Upon a Time" was a great season finale. I was so glad to see Neal back, even if only briefly. The ending was sad, though. I really loved Emma going by "Princess Leia", though!! LOL!!

I stayed up late working on the site's weekly Primetime news schedule and also doing all of our appearances.   This week's Primetime News and Schedule is at this link and next week's will be at this link.

I'm seriously considering posting the blogs on Thursday or Friday instead of Sunday because the weekend is way too busy for me. So this will be a short blog for a change.

• 5/12

I got up a bit late today, so I posted our soap scoops newsletters a little late...oh, well!

Tonight I watched "Bones" and "Castle". I enjoyed both. Castle was kind of weird because it was a jokey episode all the way through, and then the end was shocking and sad! I'm glad it wasn't the season finale as I had first thought. Whew! It was awesome seeing Eddie McClintock in his guest-starring role. He always fabulous.

Catching up still on "General Hospital" whenever I get the chance... I finally made it to the Nurse's Ball episodes! I think I'm going to record those on DVD to keep. I have most of the older ones already on DVD.

I might have to try to go to bed a little early so I can get up in time for some calls tomorrow.

• 5/13

Don't forget to check out our Primetime Forum - Danielle and I post lots of stuff in there, every day.

I have 3 interview calls early this morning... one at 6 am, one at 7:30 am and one at 8! Whew.

They all went well. It was very cool to speak to the president of ABC. I was half asleep and didn't realize quite who he was, otherwise I might have asked him whether fans should give up on hoping that "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" might return some day. He may not have liked that question, though, since the call was ostensibly about the new Fall season. Instead I asked him about the new show "Galavant" which sounds really great. It's a half hour musical comedy set in a fairy-tale like land. The music is done by Alan Menken, who's done so many great Disney musicals. It's written by Dan Fogelman, who's written lots of movies, plus the TV show "The Neighbors", which I liked, (but it was just canceled after 2 years). The trailer makes it look really funny.

The second call was with Matthew Rhys, who stars in "The Americans" on FX. He was also in "Brothers & Sisters". I love both shows, and he was great in both.I didn't realize until I heard him on the phone that he's Welsh and has a really thick accent! That was weird to hear.  You can't hear his accent at all on his two TV shows. Then the last call was with Roseanne Barr and the producer of the NBC show "Last Comic Standing". They were very funny ladies to listen to. Roseanne is going to be a judge on the show. It sounds very funny, so I might have to check it out, even though I don't normally watch anything that's not fiction.

I watched some of the episodes of "The Americans" that FX sent me to watch. Such a great show! It's very intense, though...not something you can just watch casually. I'm very behind again and have a pile of DVD's to watch that were sent to me to review (not even counting the 2 huge piles of shows on DVD I recorded to watch).

I'm about a week behind on "General Hospital", but I see bits and pieces of it while I run the transcripts for our site. This Nurse's Ball seems very long. Do they really have to have every single person sing at least twice? Yikes. I think I liked it better in the earlier days when it was just a few days. One of these days I do need to go back and watch last year's Nurse's Ball.

Tonight I watched "NCIS", which was pretty good. The parts with Gibbs were great as usual. It was a fitting tribute to Ralph Waite and his character. It was so great to see Billy Dee Williams back at the end!!

I also watched "Supernatural". Oh, no, Dean has gone over the edge! Poor Gadreel. Always a fabulous show. I can't wait to see what happens next week.

I'm still catching up on work emails. I still have about 1400 to go through, but probably most of them are ones I'll delete because they're too old now.

Tomorrow morning I have a call with Harry Connick, Jr. (American Idol) and Claire Coffee (Grimm). That will be awesome! We used to go over to a friend's house every Friday night, and he used to play a lot of Harry Connick, Jr. records. I remember when he was on "Will & Grace", too. He's so gorgeous and sings so well.  Claire Coffee was on "General Hospital" for a while as Nadine, and now she's on this great scifi show...

• 5/14

My two calls this morning went great. Harry Connick Jr. is just very enthusiastic and likes to talk. He has a lot of energy and clearly loves "American Idol" and his role in it. Claire Coffee was joined by Sasha Roiz in the chat. I didn't know what to ask because I'm very far behind in watching the show, but I think it went okay.

A friend called me a "TV Maven". I guess that's apt. I think I prefer "TV Expert", though. Or TV Critic.

It was great to see Dichen Lachman in "The 100"! She's always interesting. This show seems like it's trying to be "Battlestar Galactica" sometimes, but I do enjoy it nonetheless. It always surprises me.

"Law & Order: SVU" was particularly creepy, but it had great guest stars. I look forward to next week.

I thought "Hot in Cleveland" was very cute. But only on a silly sitcom could someone look like Valerie Bertinelli even after supposedly having radiation treatments for a brain tumor. LOL!

I'm still trying to get through all of the emails...

• 5/15

Watching some "Bold & The Beautiful" today. I have to admit that Hope getting a "pregnancy scare" was a good plot device, and also a rarity on soaps (usually it's not a "scare"). However, some additional dialogue, to make things more realistic, would have been nice. Like, for instance, when Hope found out she wasn't pregnant, she should have worried that there was something else wrong and gone to see her doctor to make sure she was okay.  Also, when she was talking to Brooke, Brooke could have said, "Honey, why did you think you were pregnant? Didn't you use protection when you had sex?"  And Hope could have replied, "Well, Mom, you know that The Pill isn't 100% effective" or something like that. They also missed an opportunity there to give young women information about birth control as well as sexually transmitted diseases etc.  I'm not saying they need to lecture us every time, but this dialogue was only focused on what it meant for Hope's relationships or future and nothing at all about her health or responsibilities of being sexual active. Boo!  If Hope were ignorant trailer trash like Amber, then it would have made more sense, but Hope is well-educated and comes from a rich family. Not only that, but she has a very sexual mom who would have made sure that Hope learned about this stuff.  At least Liam did snark briefly to Bill that he should talk to Wyatt about birth control.

Huh, apparently the May 9th episode of "Unforgettable" was the season finale.  Even more weird is that the show returns for its third season June 29. CBS is acting like cable now :)

"The Big Bang Theory" was the only new show I watched tonight... it was good. Sad at the end but otherwise very funny. I'm glad they got Stuart a better job! LOL! I wonder if they'll bring the comic book store back or not.  I do always gripe about BBT because it's completely unrealistic, especially when it comes to university stuff.  Since it's a sitcom, I guess it's supposed to be more silly and fantasy than real.  In this episode, Sheldon was told by the college president and the faculty senate that he couldn't change his specialty from string theory to the other thing he decided on (can't remember what it was, something to do with cosmology).  That would never happen. Now, as far as the GRANT he got, which they did mention, the people who gave him the grant may have a problem with that, depending on the terms of the grant.  But the people at the university don't care what you study as long as it's still in your same basic field. It's not like he decided that he wanted to become a history professor or something. As long as he was still teaching and researching, I really doubt they would care.  However...when you do your training for your field in graduate school, that's usually what you study, and no one would take you seriously if you just decided to try another field later in your career. This is what gets me annoyed because they make it sound like Sheldon is this big shot genius yet he's an untenured associate professor. Makes very little sense. But anyway, if he did all of his graduate school study and previous work in string theory, I don't know that it's very likely that he would just change to another sub field so drastically like that. Or rather, he might branch out into that but he would have to do a lot of work to catch up on what's going on in that field already and do some publishing in that field before anyone took him seriously.  For instance, if you're an English professor who specializes in Elizabethan poetry, they might not care if you started studying 20th century poetry. But if you decide to switch to, say, American novels of the early 19th century (something very different, in other words), then it might not work... they would say, you're an expert on Elizabethan poetry, why are you trying to publish this book on American novels of the early 19th century? I'm pretty sure it's that way in Physics, too.

Don't even get me started, though, that somehow Sheldon, Leonard, and Raj are somehow all researchers at the university, but teaching is never mentioned...that's, of course, ridiculous, and especially for Raj, who, until recently, couldn't speak to women without drinking first. That's a whole other level of ridiculousness. Universities don't just have scientists who just do research. They're professors -they teach! Also, Sheldon just took a sabbatical and left, with no mention of whether he was in the middle of the semester or not. If they're going by real time, Caltech's Spring semester doesn't end until June 13!  They've said in the past that Sheldon is an untenured associate professor, so he's basically just quit his job.  Even a tenured full professor, though, has to teach his class and keep his office hours, so he can't just vanish mid-semester. Ah, well.

Have a great week!  Please do check out our all of our new content on our site!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #122

• May 4th

 May the 4th be with you!

We watched "Mad Men", which has been our habit now for many years. I think my husband, David, is getting tired of it because they don't show the 60's stuff as much any more, and the plot is not as good as it was. It's not fun watching Don have to swallow his pride just to work at his job. I still enjoy the show, though, so I'll keep watching it even if David doesn't. Although I love Jon Hamm, my favorite character is Roger, who's always funny. I have to say that when the dialogue is funny, that's my favorite thing about the show.

Then we watched "The Simpsons", which was a very odd Lego episode. We don't have kids and haven't seen any of the Lego movies, so it was a bit odd to us, but parts of it were funny.

We lastly watched "Family Guy", which had many good jokes. It seems like all three of these shows had creepy or icky father-centered storylines. Did they think it was Father's Day next weekend instead of Mother's Day???

Then I watched "The Mentalist", which I always love. I'm glad they're finally moving toward a Jane-Lisbon union. It was awesome to see Jonathan LaPaglia again, even if he was playing a bad guy. I loved him in the scifi show "Seven Days" (98-01). He still looks great!

Now I'm happy to be watching "Once Upon a Time"- love it! It was really great, and I can't wait until next week's season finale!

I've been watching some older episodes of "The Young & The Restless" on DVD... catching up on the episodes from February now.

• May 5th

Wow, lots of interviews coming up. This is what I have scheduled so far:
May 7 David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel (Bones on FOX)
May 9 Oliver Platt (Fargo on FX)
May 9 Writers/producers of the new show "Gang Related" (on FOX)
May 12 FOX executives announcing the Fall schedule
May 13 ABC executives announcing the Fall schedule
May 13 Matthew Rhys (The Americans on FX)
May 13 Roseanne Barr (Last Comic Standing on NBC)
May 14 Claire Coffee (Grimm on NBC)
May 19 Heidi Klum and Nick Cannon (America's Got Talent on NBC)
May 21 Allison Tolman (Fargo on FX)

There'll probably be more, too!

I'm putting up our latest interviews...  Check 'em out! While I did that, I watched some of the early April episodes of "The Bold & the Beautiful". Not my favorite show, but I like the actors a lot...

I did a lot of work on the site, including putting up 3 more reviews of new shows by Sundi. 

• May 6

I don't know why the people in charge of making the actors look good think that we want to see guys with short hair or that they should pull the hair way back on either men or women. I know they want us to see their expressions, but most people do not look good with their hair pulled back. With men it makes them look like their hair is receding. With women it looks ugly. Both should wear bangs or at least have the hair forward a little bit. Foreheads are just not attractive. Shaved heads or very close-cropped hair is also not attractive. I watched part of "Magic Mike" and I don't think that Channing Tatum is all that handsome... I don't like his short hair. Look, if you have kind of boring or plain features, having close-cropped hair makes you look way more so. If you have very broad or protruding features, than having short hair just emphasizes those. I was noticing this on the soaps. Why do they always show Jacob Young and Darin Brooks and Tyler Christopher with their hair pulled back? They have looked way better in the past with their hair combed forward. It just makes them look older and less attrative the other way. Why do they have Stich on Y&R and Shawn and TJ on "General Hospital" with such close-cropped hair? They are not attractive this way. I know Stitch is supposed to be a former military guy, but he's very bland looking so he needs more hair.  Same with Shawn, he's not very handsome and needs more hair.  TJ is cute but needs longer hair as well. And then with women, same thing, they need to quite pulling their hair back and showing so much of their foreheads.  What is wrong with these stylists, anyway???

I'm having a hard time getting motivated today, so I've just been reading a few emails and not much else! Before dinner, I did a little bit of work.

After dinner, I watched "NCIS", which is usually great. That spy story was a bit convoluted, but it's always fun to see Tony in action. That little part at the end with Jimmy was awesome, too! Then came "Supernatural", one of my very favorite shows. I love all of the characters!!  Now I'm catching up on some GH so I can delete it and make more room.

I do enjoy watching GH, but most of the time the writing is like a cartoon, not like a good drama. This is why so many fans are disatisfied with the show. Sure, it's a really good, fun cartoon, but it's NOT a good drama. It's a really weak drama, written for children or very stupid adults.  Speaking of GH, why do they continue to think that we want to see good looking, likable people who are evil killers? We put up with this for years when Bob Guza was writing the show, but it doesn't mean that's what we like or want to see. Sure, we loved Sonny and Jason, DESPITE their flaws, not because of them. I really love the actors who play Sonny, Ava, Julian, and Franco, and Shawn is okay, but they're all merciless killers!  At least, Sonny rarely used to kill anyone, and it was usually bad guys. Having him kill A.J. was stupid. I'm very glad to have them reform Franco, but why make Julian and Ava killers from practically the first moment we saw them? How can we pull for Julian to reunite with Alexis, Sam or Lucas when he's, you know, evil?  It just doesn't work even though I really love the actor who plays him.  Same with Ava. The actress makes you feel bad for her, and root for her love with Morgan, but she's a killer. Then, she cheated on Morgan with his own father. How could she possibly be redeemed?  Same with Carlos. He's great with Sabrina, but...he's obviously a killer and a very bad guy, too.

Now, as far as Luke, I think it's great that they've given Tony Geary so much to do, and he's clearly enjoying being a real bad bad evil villain... but trust me when I say, it better not really be Luke. It better be someone wearing a Luke mask. Or someone controlling Luke's brain (is it Stefano from "Days of Our Lives"?).  Either way, it's silly and cartoonish. I love the actors and their characters, but they deserve real writing, not this silly, mindless fluff.  We want realistic, 3-dimensional people, not cartoon villains. I admit I do enjoy seeing Sean Kanan yell at Sonny as Sonny's conscience, masquerading as A.J....

I'm still trying to go through my thousands of emails! Luckily our volunteer Danielle has returned to us to run the Primetime Forum, so I have a little time to catch up now...

Jenn, who has been writing our GH updates for a long time, especially on Mondays, is now going to be writing them five days a week. Christine will be gone for about a month or so, but when she returns, she will do probably 2 days a week. But make sure to check them out!

Looks like we might be getting a new Bold & Beautiful update writer, too, so let's hope that works out... we're always glad to have good writers and reliable volunteers.

Speaking of updates, our volunteer Joseph has done a great job over the years with writing "Days of Our Lives" updates every single weekday, consistantly, reliably and well!  Yay!!

• May 7

"Hot in Cleveland" was great like usual...that adorable dog was the best part of it, though!

I always love "Law & Order: SVU", and it had great guest stars and good story, but this kind of episode just makes me want to take a shower. The main good part was seeing that Nick and Amanda are together!

"CSI" was great - love that "Stand By Me" opening! It's always fabulous to see Treat Williams. I wish they would give him another network show to star in. He's always fantastic.  Older but still gorgeous and such a super actor.

"The 100" was exciting and gripping as usual. I'm really starting to love that show.

Now I'm watching some DVD's from February with episodes of Y&R.  It's great to see Tristan Rogers again!

• May 8

I'm glad to hear that The CW renewed "The 100" and "Beauty and the Beast", and they're going ahead with the Flash ("Arrow" spin-off). Sad about "The Tomorrow People" and "Star-Crossed" getting canceled, though. Not surprised. I think they both could have been done better. I think "Tomorrow People" was a bit too convoluted, and the guy who plays the star looks more like a villain than a hero, among other things. From what I read, a lot of people hated Peyton List's character.  As far as "Star-Crossed", I think the premise was too stupid for people to get past. If they had made the aliens more alien-looking, then it would have made way more sense. Just looking like humans with tattoos would not be enough to make people treat them so badly. Hmm, we'll have 3 new superhero shows to watch (at least) this coming Fall, with Flash, "Gotham" and the new "Heroes". Wow!

We're watching an old episode of "South Park" from 2010 that we somehow missed the first time around...it's about KFC and medicinal marijuana. Hilarious! They're not usually so funny anymore, unfortunately.

I was just reading an article about the actors who play Will and Sonny on "Days of Our Lives", and they mentioned eating candy that fans send to them. I'm really surprised. I would never eat anything fans sent to me if I was a celebrity. How do they know it's not poisoned or laced with drugs? There are some crazy people out there.

I watched some shows to prepare for my phone call interviews tomorrow morning. I tried watching the pilot for this new show "Gang Related" on FOX that starts airing May 22, but I couldn't get through one episode. That's how awful it was. Not only is it completely predictable and unrealistic, but it's very violent and has a lot of torture. UGH.

• May 9

The calls went very well! First I spoke with Oliver Platt, who seemed very nice. He was kind of hard to listen to, though, because he stutters or hems and haws a lot. Maybe he just wasn't awake yet, I don't know! He's a great actor, though, so we'll forgive him. :) I got to ask him 2 questions, so that was awesome. My second call was with Mary Lynn Rasjkub of "24", and she was really nice, very normal and down-to-earth. She took great care at answering the questions and worrying about whether she was being accurate or not. She even shared a great tidbit from "The Larry Sanders Show", so that was neat!  Then the third call was with the "Gang Related" guys. I got in pretty early with my question, and then I hung up because I just had to get breakfast! :)

On B&B, I'm glad that with all of Hope's "pregnancy scare" that Brooke finally chided her about being more careful when using birth control... stupid that no one else even mentioned it. How does a smart, educated young women of today sleep with two guys and not use birth control? Same with Steffy when she got pregnant... UGH.

• So many announcements this week about shows. I'm disappointed that NBC is canceling "Revolution" and that ABC is canceling "The Neighbors". Still waiting to hear about "The Mentalist" and "Nashville"! I'm very grateful that most of my favorite shows have been renewed so far.

Right now I'm watching one of my favorite shows, "Unforgettable". I hope it gets renewed for next year. My only quibble is, why were they having Carrie's high school reunion, but they said she graduated in 93. So why is she going to her 21-year high school reunion? I wonder if they filmed it the previous year but then didn't air it for some reason. I have to admit that, someone getting murdered at their high school reunion has been done many times, so it's almost a cliche at this point. They really should have edited it to make it 94...

• May 10

We heard that "Nashville" was renewed, so yay!!

I was very busy today and didn't get to watch much TV. However, I did go to this fund-raising event and met a TV star, Jim Nabors!  He lives here in Honolulu. It was great meeting him. Here's the photo I took...

At the end of my perfect day, I was very excited to learn that "The Mentalist" was renewed! Woo hoo!! That makes me very happy. It's a shame they canceled "Friends with Better Lives" because I thought it was pretty funny. Oh, well, you can't have everything.

If you loved the show "All My Children" then please do check out Patti's AMC Fan Fiction because she does a great job.

I'm posting this Sunday night - I hope everyone had a nice Mother's Day!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #121

If you like TV, you should definitely visit our site at http://tvmegasite.net!   You can see all of the new things we put up every day at our What's New Page.

I was very upset this week to learn that "Almost Human" was canceled. Sign the petition!
Join other fans on Twitter Monday (May, 5) #SaveAlmostHumantweetout (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT): #AlmostHuman #savealmosthuman

As usual, this week I enjoyed "Once Upon a Time", "Mad Men", "The Mentalist", "Family Guy", "Castle", "NCIS", "CSI", "Big Bang Theory", "Two and a Half Men", "Supernatural" and "Unforgettable"! Everything else I'm behind on.

I thought "Two and a Half Men" was pretty cute and very funny. Sad that they killed off Professor Proton on BBT, but it was a great "Star Wars" episode. I loved seeing Stephen Martines on "Supernatural" but I don't really enjoy those back door pilot episodes too much. "Unforgettable" was a great "Die Hard" episode. That show just keeps getting better and better!

I didn't like the backdoor pilot on "CSI", either, but I loved seeing Patricia Arquette! I still really miss "Medium".

Don't forget to watch the premiere of "24: Live Another Day" tomorrow night. Read my review of it and other shows.

April 30 I got to interview Colin Hanks in a conference call, so that was exciting! He seems really great.  I was in the conference for Kiefer Sutherland the day after that, but as often happens, they had too many people and not enough time, so I didn't get to speak with him. I enjoyed speaking to him on the phone, though. He seemed like a genuinely nice person. This is the second time, by the way, that I've gotten to listen to him but not actually ask a question. I hope the third time's the charm!  Friday I was invited to a call with James Spader, but unfortunately, it was canceled. Sometimes the production schedule gets in the way of these calls.

Don't forget that actors are just people like you and me. Sure, some of them are very rich and famous, but they're still just people. You and I may get divorced, or get drunk, or get arrested, or have problems with our boss at work, but nobody cares if we do. If celebrities do these things, everyone knows. Also, people make up stuff about them all of the time, so don't believe everything you read. And lastly, they also have people who follow them around all of the time and try to push them into a fight, or buy them drinks, or give them drugs, etc.  You and I don't have to contend with these awful fans as well as the news media and the liars.  I never believe anything I read about actors unless the actor has admitted to it.  Even then, you just don't know the whole story.  I'm not saying you should feel sorry for them or anything.   They are very lucky people who get paid a lot (although they also work very hard).  Just don't believe all of the gossip. Heck, even though I speak with them a lot on the phone, I don't know them and can only guess what they're really like. They are, however, just people, like you and me. :)

This week's news page!   Don't forget to also visit our Primetime Forum because Danielle and I post lots of news and other stuff on there!

I'm very happy that NBC will now invite me to press calls. Now if only ABC, CBS and the CW would do the same! I got turned down this week by the CBS guy who handles "Young & The Restless". I have no idea why. "Bold & Beautiful", which is owned separately, did not turn me down. Go figure! Thank goodness for FOX, NBC, and all of the cable networks.

You can see all of the interviews, but check back because  I have some more to put up this week...

Sad to hear that James Scott is leaving "Days of Our Lives". I wonder if that means that EJ and Sami will leave town together? I hope so!

I was excited, however, to learn that Michelle Stafford is on "General Hospital" now. I have some suggestions as to who can play Phyllis on Y&R. There are tons of great out of work soap actresses that could handle the role. I'm sure I'm missing some, but here's a short list:  Sarah Brown, Tamara Braun, Alicia Minshew, Kelly Menigham-Hensley, Colleen Dion, Lesli Kay, Julie Pinson, Terri Garber, Terri Conn, Crystal Chappell, Robin Christopher, Brianna Brown, Cynthia Preston, or Gina Tognoni...

This week I caught up on episodes of "The 100", which is a good scifi show. They have a great cast and good suspense. It's a bit like "Lost" but without quite so much pretension.

My husband and I used to love to watch Dave Atell's show "Insomniac" on Comedy Central. We tried his new comedy show and were very disappointed. So sad... it was not funny at all. It was nice to see him in an upcoming episode of "Louie", though.

If you can watch two shows on Monday, make sure to watch "Louie" which premiers on FX, too, besides "24"!

Otherwise I've just been spending this week catching up on bit on "General Hospital" (just a few weeks behind!) and "Young and the Restless" (I'm finally in February episodes!).

We need some new people to write "General Hospital" and "Bold & Beautiful" updates so please email me if you can do even one day per week!

I'm trying to use this site to get more help for some things that need doing on our site...not sure yet if I figured it out right, so I'm waiting to hear back from Amazon.

Have a great week and Happy Cinco de Mayo!