The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #120

I hope you all had a great Easter! 

I was very happy to get most of my weekly news work done and on time for a change...  The next week's will be up at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news042714.shtml  All week I gather the news and episode info from the press releases, post it on our forum, and then put it into this week's news page so you know what's on this week in TV!  Thankfully I now have Danielle back to help me with the press releases and our great Primetime Forum.

I need to find some time to post for more help. We really need some more writers for the daytime soaps (recaps etc.) and I really do need a bit more help with our Primetime news. Danielle and I can only do so much! It only takes a few hours per week if you want to help out our great site.

Sunday we always watch "Family Guy" (Re-run this week because of Easter) and "Mad Men", "Once Upon a Time" and "The Mentalist" (and sometimes "The Simpsons"). Also, I record "Revenge", "The Bletchley Circle" and "Orphan Black".  This week "Devious Maids" premieres, too! Can't wait for that one.

They were all good shows. I hope that, whether or not the show is over, that Lisbon doesn't go off to another city with that guy! She barely knows him. She and Patrick need to get together or I'm going to be very pissed. It was great to see one of my favorite actors, James Patrick Stuart, as this week's bad guy. He usually does play the bad guy! He's so cute, but he's good at being bad or being like a weasel.

As always, I loved "Once Upon a Time". I like how they left the door open for Neal to maybe come back. It was great to see Rose McGowan again, and Cora's past. Also great the way that Regina and Robin Hood finally kissed! Hurrah!

I watched a lot of "General Hospital" this week. I'm about a month behind, so Lulu just found out that Ben is her son.

There are a lot of very exciting things going on with my site, but I can't talk too much about it yet.

Monday I only watched "Bones" and "Castle", two shows I do always enjoy. Bones was very good, although I admit that I got a little lost with all of those McNamaras.... Castle was hilarious with all of the 70's stuff. However, they should know that nobody said "Groovy" in the 70's... that was a 60's word.

Now I'm catching up on some episodes of "Days of Our Lives" I have on DVD...the great episodes when Nick shows up alive again. Yes, I'm very behind on Days!!

Thursday I watched "Supernatural", and then last week's "Unforgettable". I've started watching the shows I have on DVD, including some "The Young & The Restless" episodes from January!

I got a lot of work done this week, so that was great!

I'm very excited about the upcoming interviews. Thursday I get to speak with the writers and producers of the new "24: Live Another Day". Great show, I just watched the season premiere. One of them is Manny Coto, who ran "Enterprise" the 4th season (I just watched that Blu ray last week!) and ran "Dexter" and other great shows.  Then next week, I'm interviewing Colin Hanks! So that's wonderful.

"Two and a Half Men" was very funny this week! It was great to see Jamie Luner guest-star on the show.  "Big Bang Theory" is always very funny. I watched the new show "Black Box" and I didn't find it very believable. It's about a world-famous neurological expert who runs this special clinic, but she's bi-polar. I wonder if Maurice Benard is watching it?

Friday we watched "Real Time with Bill Maher" as always. He's just so funny.  We also watched a lot of episodes of "The Colbert Report" On Demand. I would say this is the funniest show on TV. We got out of the habit of watching it the past year, but now we're watching it again.

It'll be great to see the new season of "The Killing" on Netflix! August 1st seems so far away...

Apparently a lot of "Days of Our Lives" fans are really pissed at the show and at Soap Opera Digest. SOD had a cover article all about how Sami finally finds out April 21 that EJ cheated on her with Abigail. They interviewed the two actors and went in detail about it. Then it turns out that the episode was all in EJ's imagination! Now, they do these type of dream or daydream scenes all of the time, so why make a special episode about something that didn't even really happen? And worst of all, why lie to fans about it? It seems like they purposely pissed off the fans for no good reason. These are the type of things that make fans turn off their shows for good, or cancel their magazine subscriptions. People don't like being lied to or tricked. 

I hope you're all having a good Spring and having nice weather finally! Go outside and enjoy it, and get some exercise, but then come back inside and watch TV! :)

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #119

• April 13

Do you love TV and watch DVD's or streaming shows?  I'm trying to get more help for our site. We always need new volunteers! If you're interested in writing an episode guide for any of the shows we cover, let me know! It's not hard. You just watch the show and write a detailed summary. You do need to be at least a competent writer because we don't have too many proofreaders and people have to be understand what you're writing. I will buy you the TV show on DVD, or a subscription to Hulu or Netflix, whatever you need to watch it. If you already have it, then I'm happy to buy you another show or movie. Our volunteers are not paid, but I'm happy to help out with gifts and things when I can. I can buy one per month! So email me if you're interested.

One of our General Hospital Update writers is quitting at the end of April, and another one is having some surgery. We need someone to write GH updates for two or three times a week. It's not hard, but it does help if you're a good writer and fast typist. We also need a backup person for Bold & Beautiful Updates and Young & The Restless Updates. One of our writers has had health and computer problems, and another one goes out of town a lot for doctor visits.

I'm excited that Danielle is coming back to our run our Primetime TV forum! Yay! She always does a great job, and it'll free me up to do other things.  Woo hoo!

I watched a lot of "GH" and "B&B" this week on my DVR... we watched "Family Guy" as always, plus the season premiere of "Mad Men", and then I watched "Once Upon a Time" and "The Mentalist". I put "Turn" on my DVR, but for some reason, it didn't record.

I wonder if Sunday is when most people watch TV? Because it sure seems like they put a ton of the best shows on at once on Sundays. I'm glad I don't watch "Game of Thrones", too. It's just too hard. I record the shows above and usually also "The Simpsons" on my living room DVR, then in the other room I also record "Revenge" and "Drop Dead Diva" and now "Bletchley Circle" on PBS (I think a couple of other shows, too). Since I missed "Turn", I'm recording it off the On Demand channel.

"Family Guy" was pretty funny.  "Mad Men" was kind of slow...it was nice to see what happened to almost everyone (where's Harry and Betty?!?!) but it wasn't very funny or all that interesting.  There was a lot of symbolism, but who cares? 

It's always great to watch the other two shows. I hope we get to see more of Rumplestiltskin soon.

I spent a lot of time working on our usual Primetime News Pages and the star appearances.

• April 14

I got up late but wrote up the soap scoops, anyway... I felt bad that I didn't do them last week!

We have this monthly drawing and some crazy, obnoxious woman won, and she keeps bugging me about when I'll send her the prize, even though I keep telling her I'll send it when I can. I have 2 prize winners every month and I'm really busy, so I don't always get a chance to get to the post office. I tried being nice, but she's just rude...So glad that most people that email me are very nice!!  Don't forget to enter our April drawing before the 25th!

We watched "The Simpsons" tonight from On Demand. It was really good for a change! Almost like they combined it with "Futurama". I sure enjoyed it.

Now I'm catching up on some episodes of "Criminal Minds". I've got most of the season on DVD from the other room's DVR, but I missed a couple of episodes. They re-ran one so I'm watching that, and then I'll watch one on Amazon Prime. They always do a good job with the show, and of course I love Shemar and the other actors!

• April 15

This week I watched the DVD for the 4th season of "Enterprise" so I can write up the review for our site.  It was really fun and reminded me of the original "Star Trek". They did a great job with it. The ending was a bit sad, though.  I need to go back and watch the first 3 seasons, too. I watch some of it but all.  In the past, when I would record stuff on tape, I had it set up so I would record multiple shows, and some of them I never got around to going back to watch because I was just too far behind.

I had to take some time to organize my DVD's this week so I would know which episodes of the shows I'm missing and which I have, all that sort of thing. I hate watching shows out of order.  Whew! So much trouble just for "watching TV". LOL!  This is one problem with TV today -- too serialized, and if you miss an episode or watch out of order, it can get confusing. So people stop watching.

I loved "Supernatural" this week as always. It was a very cool episode. It had Dean in the shower a lot, which is always preferably... For some reason, the cast of the show was tweeting about it with William Shatner. Not sure why he was involved...I guess he's a fan? He seems to tweet about all of The CW shows. What's that about?

I watched the new show "Friends with Better Lives" and despite it's dumb title, it's pretty funny. I will have to keep watching. Most sitcoms are lame, stupid or not funny. To me, at least!

• April 16

Mostly this week I've just been working on the site, and watching the soaps, and the Enterprise DVD.

I've also been reading this book "The TV Showrunner's Roadmap" by Neil Landau. It's all about how to make a TV show. Very interesting reading. It's like a textbook for anyone looking to get into TV as a writer, director or showrunner. Very eye-opening.

Please consider doing one of our Volunteer jobs. Most of them don't require more than a few hours per week of your time. Most don't require great skill or knowledge.  We're very happy to give gifts to our volunteers at the end of the year, and I think this year should be especially good. However, the best reason to help out is that we need you!  We're very grateful for all of our great volunteers. We currently have about 30 wonderful, hard-working volunteers.

• April 17

I always love the scifi shows, so it's great to have shows like Continuum, Warehouse 13 and Orphan Black back.

Still waiting to hear which shows will be canceled. This is a good list of predictions.  Even though it says October, it's current... I think they have a more positive outlook on the shows and their status than Zap2it does, but I have no idea which is more accurate.  TVLINE seems to think that it can go either way as to whether "The Mentalist" will be canceled, whereas Zap2it seemed indicate it was probably canceled, so who knows what to believe!!??!

It was a funny "Hot in Cleveland" this week. Loved seeing Susan Lucci!!

• April 18

I got to interview a very funny and kind lady this morning, Jenn Lyon! She plays the sitcom wife of George Lopez of "Saint George" on FX. She also played last year's Lindsey on "Justified"! It was a very fun call.
This one and the one I did last week with Costa Ronin of "The Americans" were both one-on-one calls. I hope to put up their interviews in a day or so. Sorry it's taken so long! Just so much to do. I'm hoping that this week I can start working on the 2500 emails in my inbox. :(

Next week I'm going to be interviewing Colin Hanks! Can't wait. So cool. He's awesome in this new "Fargo" miniseries on FX. He was great on "Dexter" and "NCIS", too. I always thought he was Tom Hanks' younger brother, but he's his son! Silly me :) I'm over 50, but I tend to think of myself, and anyone who was on TV, as young, even though they're older now. I still think of Tom Hanks as that guy from "Bosom Buddies" in the early 80's, even though I've seen him in a zillion movies and watched him get older just like the rest of the world.

I hope everyone had a nice Easter, Passover and the rest! I hope you're having nice Spring weather, too.

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #118

• April 6

There was no "Mentalist" this week -- too bad!

We watched "Family Guy" (one of the few shows my husband will watch any more, besides sports and news) and it was pretty funny... especially the part where they were making fun of the way people treat soldiers, but there were LOTS of great jokes in the episode. I could have done without the gross herpes stuff, though.

"Once Upon a Time" was as enjoyable as usual. Check out the link to the left because we have a new section of our site devoted to that show! Also Perception and Person of Interest.

"Turn" recorded on my DVR, but I haven't watched it yet. Maybe tomorrow.

I spent a lot of time this evening watching General Hospital and The Bold & The Beautiful, to make more room on my DVR. I enjoy both shows, but B&B is still too repetitive and is slow to get around to things. I know a lot of people complain about them making Aly crazy, but they did use good history to do it, like showing the clips from back when her mom died, how she tore up Taylor's wedding dress.  The actress who plays her does a great job, too.  Right now I'm on the early February episodes, slowly catching up!

I really hated seeing Robin leave, and it was stupid the way they did it because they never said why she couldn't keep in touch with her family. In this day and age, with the technology they have, and especially with the wealth of the Cassadines, they could easily have Robin calling and Skyping all the time, and them flying back and forth. I understand the actress is going to be gone, but why not just say that all of that is taking place off-screen? Or they could easily have filmed a few scenes of her ahead of time, Skyping with Emma. It makes no sense that Robin would run off to help them, even if Jason's life is at stake. It is not at all in her character to do that to her family.  Not even to mention that she should have told Anna and they could have come up with a way for her to infiltrate the Cassadine's lair and rescue Jason from them, so she wouldn't have to leave. I mean, apparently it's not even a "lair" but just the same hospital that Silas' wife was being kept in? In New York City? So Robin is in the same state, which makes it even easier for her to go back and forth. Just ridiculous.  The writers really think that we're idiots. I really love the actors and SOME of the writing, otherwise I'd just give up watching GH in protest of how stupid the show is. Even though I've watched since 1984.

• April 7

I didn't send out my newsletter scoops this morning... so sorry. I have been trying to change my sleep schedule, so it's always veriable, and I didn't get up early enough today to do them like I'd wanted. Definitely will have them next week! Don't forget that you can always read the soap spoilers/scoops by going to our page http://tvmegasite.net/day/news2.shtml  Those are the links I use, anyway...

I'm on Facebook a lot (too much, really!). There's this group I sometimes go on, for the Microsoft program Expression Web.  For our site, we use Microsoft Frontpage, which is an old program that they don't make any more. The last version was in 2003, I believe. A lot of people hate that program (but then again, a lot of people hate Microsoft, too) but I like it because it's very easy to use. It's a lot like Word, but it just has a few more added things to use.  After they stopped making it, they came out with Expression Web.  Unfortunately, in order for me to have volunteers who work directly on our site, they have to use MS Frontpage or Expression Web.  Frontpage uses something called Server Extensions that let it do all these great things I like.  If you tried to use some other program to access our site to edit it, it would really mess up the server extensions. At least that's what my webhost guy tells me! Anyway, Expression Web can be used as well on my site. I tried that program but I don't really like it. I'm not keen on using new software, even if it's somewhat similar to the old one.  I got a new laptop with Windows 8 a few months ago, and let's put it this way, it was tough at first, going from XP to 8.  I'm not one of those people who thinks it's too hard and wants to upgrade to 8.1 so I can have the start button back. Pfft. That's silly. There's a start menu on the Charms Bar so that's fine.  Using programs like MS Paint was hard at first because the menus are very different and it has a lot more features than the old version. But eventually I learn them and like them if I have to. I was worried that by upgrading to Windows 8, my new laptop might not run Frontpage, but it does. Anyway, this is all a rather long-winded way of explaining why I'm on this particular Facebook group.

So anyway, this one guy said something about my site, but I didn't understand what he was saying. He's a bit hard to understand, at least for me. So I asked him what he meant and eventually he answered... and I still didn't really know what he meant. I think now I get that he's making suggestions about how my site could make more money etc.  Thing is, people are always making these suggestions... I don't mind ANY suggestions, and I appreciate them, but a lot of people seem to think that somehow I'm being rude if I don't run with their ideas. I mean, first of all, my site has been around since the 90's, so I've thought of most of the ideas that people come up with, or one of my volunteers has. If I don't use that idea, there's a good reason. Either it's not something I want to do, or it would require more time or money than I have, to do it.  The thing is, although I wouldn't MIND making more money with my site, it's not my main goal. My main goal is to have a site that people come to because they're looking for information about TV. I want it to be a good resource. That's all! It's my legacy. I work on it full-time and many other people have worked on it full- or part-time, for over 20 years. It's a grand collaboration between TV fans, for other TV fans.  It's a smaller-scale version of IMDB or Wikipedia. If I had more money or more volunteers, I would make it as great as those sites. I can't, though, so we just do what we can...  the ad money we do get is pretty good. It pays for the site's hosting and other expenses. That's fine with me! I don't need to draw a salary. Sure, it would be nice if it made more money, if we could all get rich from it. I would love to have the money to travel to all of the fan conventions for the TV shows, like Comic-Con in my hometown of San Diego, or the GH Weekend in L.A. etc. Those are fun, and I could get great photos and videos, and more interviews.  But I'm not going to sacrifice the rest of my site or force my current readers to pay for content (which they probably wouldn't, anyway), in order to do that. I would love to take off the ads all together, but then I'd have to pay for everything myself, which I'd rather not do... So unless some rich guy out there would like to buy the site from me (and it would take quite a lot) or invest in my site...it is what it is.

Of course we're always looking to grow and improve the site! That's why, besides keeping up with most of the things we already do every week - news, spoilers, appearances, transcripts, updates, recaps, Best lines and more - we're also building new pages for newer shows, and putting the newer design on our older pages. These are the things we do, all of the time. And when I saw "we" I mean, myself, Gisele, and all of of our great volunteers! We have a lot of people who work on our site, and we're so grateful for them. If you see a name on the site that's not mine, then it should have one of their names. We always need more people, though, so please email me suzanne@tvmegasite.net if you can help out! Even an hour a week would be a great help. Here's the list of volunteer jobs we have available.

What I would MOST like help with is our primetime news forum and pages because I spend so much time on them and still always have more to do, and I can't say I really enjoy most of that, but it needs to be done... I would rather spend my time putting the newer design on all of our pages, and building pages for new shows etc.

Today I've been working on our monthly giveaway page, so please do make sure to enter every month to win a DVD or other prizes!

Wow, tonight's "Bones" was a fantastic episode about marijuana. I love that they sometimes tackle controversial subjects.

Tonight I was also watching a lot of the "The Bold & The Beautiful" episodes from the past month. It's weird because Ridge is being played by Thorsten Kaye, so he's very different. It helps when he says, "I've changed", that's for sure.

I watched "TURN" and it was really good. I don't have time to watch any more shows regularly! Gack!

• April 8

This morning, I interviewed the executive producer of "Kitchen Nightmares". I think he kind of thought I implied something that I didn't, but hopefully it was ok :) I've never seen the show before, but I saw the episode this week where they go back to this awful place in Sedona that they went to last year. Crazy people! I don't watch reality shows, but it was fun to hear about them on this call. What struck me as very weird is that people actually go there to see the place, even though they know now that the place has terrible service and lousy food, with long wait times. Why would you go there to eat?? LOL!!!

• April 9

I interviewed Billy Bob Thornton this morning about his new show "Fargo". It was great to talk to him, and he couldn't have been more nice or normal on the phone with all of us. He's probably the most famous person I've ever interviewed, but I guess fame does depend on things like your age, how much TV you watch, whether you go to movies, etc. He's the 4th Oscar winner I've interviewed, but unlike the others, he won for writing, not acting, even though he starred in "Sling Blade" as well as wrote it. He's really great in "Fargo".

I watched NCIS, and it was mostly a good episode, but I didn't like when Gibbs tortured a suspect (somewhat - he was in the hospital and he poked the guy, who's just had knee surgery, in the knee).  Even worse, it turned out he wasn't the guy they were looking for. Did we see Gibbs apologize to the guy? NO, of course not. I believe one of Gibb's rules is "never apologize".  Still, I hate when TV shows have police abusing their power like that.

I tried to find a website that measures or quantifies fame, or ranks the most famous people, but I couldn't. I think that's very odd!

"Hot in Cleveland" has been great this season! So funny. It was great to see Craig Ferguson on this week's episode. I used to love him on "The Drew Carey Show" years ago.

"CSI" this week was just gross...all about cannibals.  "Law & Order: SVU" wasn't much better. I hope they're done with abusing Liv. I don't like seeing torture and abuse.

• April 10

This morning I interviewed Martin Freeman, who will also be starring in the new "Fargo" series (which is great, by the way). You may know him from "Sherlock" where he plays Dr. Watson, or from the Hobbit movies, where he plays Bilbo! That was very exciting and he was also very very nice.  He sounded like just your average British bloke.

Later on, I interviewed Costa Ronin, the handsome guy who plays the Russian Oleg in "The Americans", also on FX. He has a Russian accent, so I hope I'm able to transcribe it properly. I had a one-on-one interview with him, so I got to ask him many questions. You can read all of these interviews (except for Ronin's, which I haven't yet transcribed) on our Primetime Articles Page.

Luke is still acting weird on GH, I see. I wonder if he's really Bill Eckert? Luke mentioned "The Outback" as if that was still around on the show, like it was in the early 90's. Bill Eckert, played by the same actor who plays Luke, and supposedly his cousin but looks a lot like him, died, but as we know, most people come back to life on GH. They would have to somehow have messed with his brain, though, because Bill was a nice guy. Also, it makes no sense that he hates Sonny, who was not yet around then... it will be interesting to see who is really masquerading as Luke or if someone has messed with Luke's head.

Wow, pretty surprising that Stephen Colbert is going to be taking over for Letterman. I hope he'll still be funny!

"Big Bang Theory" and "Two and a Half Men" always make me laugh, and this week's episodes were great. It was great seeing Mila Kunis, too! I really don't watch any other live action network comedies. Most of them are not very funny.

• April 11

I'm very glad that "Unforgettable" is back! CBS has not really given the show much of an audience, constantly pulling it off the air... I really enjoy it.

Bill Maher's Real Time on HBO was great as always.

Today I got the last two episodes of "Warehouse 13" in the mail...boo hoo!! I hate to watch it because then the show will be over.

I had a lot of family stuff to do today...it was fun but put me further behind on this week's work!

• April 12

I have a bunch of interview transcripts and reviews to put up this weekend..Check out this week's news and schedule!

I don't know when I'll be able to catch up on "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." since I just found out that the latest Captain America movie affects that show! I don't know when I'll see the movie, so...

I updated my "What I Watch" Page so you can see what I watch, what I recommend, etc. 

Have a great week, everyone!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #117

I must apologize because last week I inadvertently published my PERSONAL blog post here... I must have been really tired! :)

• March 30

I usually spend all week copying the press release from the various web sites and pasting them into our Primetime TV Forum
Then I paste them into a notepad page for each network. Then I put them on the next week's news page. This week's page was at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news033014.shtml and next week's will be at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/news/news040614.shtml  They're always numbered by the date.
Usually I do that last part on Saturday, but sometimes I just get busy or forget, and then I have to do it late, on Sunday, like I did this week! Yikes. Then I'm scrambling around, trying to get everything done.  So I did a lot of that today.

As usual on Sundays, we watched "Family Guy". It was okay. We skipped "The Simpsons". It just hasn't been very funny lately so we gave up on it.  Then later I watched "The Mentalist" and "Once Upon a Time". I always enjoyed "The Mentalist". No matter what, it makes me smile and chuckle and get involved in the stories. I don't know why it's ratings are so poor, unless people just got tired of waiting for them to catch Red John? I've really enjoyed it all the way through. I know that some people haven't liked the way they got rid of the CBI and had the characters join the FBI (I admit that was pretty far-fetched). Still, I love the way this show is written, and I love the characters.  I always love "Once Upon a Time", too, but this episode was too sad. I'm glad they brought back Rumplestiltskin, my favorite character, but not happy that they had to kill off his son to do it (he's my second-favorite character!).  Boo, hiss!! I loved it when MichaelRaymond-James showed up last season. He was so great on his two previous shows, "True Blood" and especially "Terriers". I was so upset when they canceled "Terriers", and now this. Boo!!!

Now I'm watching some of the soaps from February that I'm behind on (mostly "Bold & Beautiful" and "General Hospital"), to clear them off my DVR.  I can't say I really love either show...

No conference calls early tomorrow, thank goodness! I was invited to 3 on Wednesday, but hopefully I have other volunteers covering those now... I'm hoping to interview Graham Yost of "Justified" and the others will interview Keith Urban of "American Idol" and Simony Barry and Rachel Nichols of "Continuum"!  Then the following Wednesday, I get to interview Billy Bob Thornton! He'll be starring in "Fargo" on FX. That should be thrilling!

• March 31

I spent my morning working on the soap scoop newsletters and sending those out, and posting them to our forums. I also updated a few pages on the site and posted on Twitter and Facebook. Work work work! :)

I've been watching soaps while I did all that. I'm in February still with most of the soaps, although "Young & The Restless" a bit further behind (still in January I think). I really hate how they're having Robin leave again on GH. It makes no sense that she couldn't fly back and forth or have her family with her, or have them visit. Stupid! And I have to agree with Carolyn Hinsley that all of the soaps were pretty boring and un-romantic on Valentine's Day and around that time. The soaps need to do two things to bring back viewers: have more interesting (unpredictable, but not stupid) and realistic stories (no more soap cliches of coming back from the dead, evil twins, baby switches, ridiculous coincidences, etc.), and bring back lots of romance. Otherwise, why bother? Just cancel them all now. They really underestimate soap fans and think we'll watch any old rehashed crap. It's very sad. Don't they get that we're the same people that also watch the wonderful soapy dramas on primetime? We know what good writing is. Look at Good Wife, Vampire Diaries, and many other great shows.

This evening we watched "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO. I record it on my DVR Friday nights. We just love his monologue and the "Real Time" segment, which are usually pretty funny.  Now I'm watching "Bones", which is always enjoyable because of the colorful characters and fun cases. Poor Finn, though!

"Castle" was another re-run. They sure show a lot of those lately...

I was behind a bit on "Justified", so I had fun catching up tonight on "On Demand" with the last few episodes. Such a great show. Every episode is a pure gem. I sure wish all shows were like that one.

I also watched the next episode of "The Americans", which FX sent to me. It's a really good show, too, but this week's episode is really weird, and kinda gross. I don't understand the ending at all, either.

No "Supernatural" this week? UGH, that's disappointing...

I had trouble sleeping, so I got up and started watching "Magic Mike". It was so boring. I only sat through a little bit of it before going back to bed. I didn't realize it was a Soderburgh film. I don't like his... Also, I thought Matt Bomer had a larger part that he did, so I was disappointed. That guy Channing Tatum is a good dancer and all, but he's too bland to me.

• April 1

I watched some of the B&B and GH from February. Later I watched NCIS, which was pretty good. It was the second half of the two part pilot for the new spin-off of New Orleans. I don't know yet if I will watch that one. I do love Scott Bakula.

Then I ran the transcripts... I saw parts of the GH 51st anniversary episode. I really hate that they've killed off AJ again. First of all, I didn't like the way Ava manipulated Sonny into shooting AJ, and I find it hard to believe that Sonny would do that to Michael. But most importantly, shame on the writers for killing off one of the last remaining Quartermaines. I did like how they focused on Monica and brought back Emily, with a nod toward Lila, Edward and Alan. I liked what they did with the three Carly's, too, although it was kind of contrived. I would have liked to have seen more of Luke, Anna and other favorites, but it was great seeing Scotty, Bobbie, Lucy, Kevin, Mac and Felicia!

I was watching the sitcom "About a Boy" On Demand last night. It's not all that funny, but it's amiable and fun to watch.

• April 2

I was supposed to do this interview this morning but went back to sleep instead... actually, I was filling in for a volunteer who was supposed to do it. It was way too early for me. I have one tomorrow that I don't want to miss and it's even earlier. GROAN. That's the only problem with living in Hawaii because calls that are at a normal time on the mainland are super early here. I'm not a morning person, although I'm trying to change that.

I've been watching B&B and GH so far today, to make room on my DVR. I mostly enjoy GH... B&B is just the same stuff over and over, so it's not so interesting.

I think the TV networks need to make more shows that are non-serialized, like they used to. I mean, sure, it's great for them if they have a successful one like Lost where people watch every week, but how many of those shows can you sustain? Not many, I don't think, so people fall behind or lose interest. I like this new show "Crisis" but I don't think it's going to last very long. Like so many others this past season, like Betrayal, Hostages etc. it just requires too much commitment. If you look at CSI and shows like that, you can watch them any time and you don't have to worry about what you missed. Or even if you look at NCIS, the main characters have some stories and history but it's not pivotal, usually, if you miss an episode or view them out of order.

I took a little time tonight to email each of the major networks to let them know which shows I watch and which ones I'm particularly invested in, and asked them not to cancel them! It may sound silly, but I do this every year. They do read viewers' letters and emails. It may not help; I don't know. It does at least make me feel like I tried. I'm most concerned about The Mentalist on ABC, Almost Human on FOX, the scifi and fantasy shows on The CW, and Revolution and Dracula on NBC. There are a few others I like, too, but those are the main ones. You can write ABC an email by going to this page http://abc.go.com/feedback ; CBS by going to http://audienceservices.cbs.com/feedback/feedback.htm ; The CW by going to http://www.cwtv.com/feedback/comments/ ; NBC by going to http://www.cwtv.com/feedback/comments/ ; and you can just email FOX (Wow!) by emailing them at askfox@fox.com   And by the way, you can ask FOX questions at that address, too. They are very good at answering and always have been.

I have 2 DVR's and the one here in the living room drives me crazy. It has a lot less room than the one in the bedroom, and I'm always filling it up. What's irritating is that when it gets about 95% full, it says that it's all filled up, even though it has a couple of hours left on it at that point. It brings up a little blurb that tells me that, and I used to panic when I see the little blurb. Another thing. I was going to watch a half hour show On Demand, and it told me I couldn't do that because it would mean switching the channel away from 2 shows I was recording, even though they weren't recording for 20-something minutes! It has no concept of "watch a little now and a little later", I guess. So in order to watch the On Demand show, I had to cancel one of my recordings. I went back to re-record it and then it told me I couldn't record it because I had no room! Grrrr....

This week I also watched NCIS, which is always entertaining. And then tonight I saw Law & Order: SVU and CSI as well. CSI was a really good episode with a hostage situation, and Billy Miller guest-starred so it was cool to see him.

Law & Order SVU was tough to watch.  There are some legal things there they promoted that I kind of have trouble with, but I'm not going to go on and on about it...

• April 3

This morning I had a great conference call with Graham Yost, who runs and writes "Justified" on FX. He was really funny and interesting. I love that show! I also had one with the stars of "Bitten" on SYFY but for some reason I kept thinking it was tomorrow so I totally forgot to go to it. What a dummy! Oh, well, I'm way behind on watching it, anyway.

I watched quite a lot of GH today to make more room on my DVR. I have over 50 DVD's to watch besides that!

Although I'm behind on watching the soaps, I see parts of them on the TV while I run the transcripts. There were some great scenes this week where Ridge and Rick were fighting. It was Déjà vu because Thorsten Kaye is playing Ridge and Jacob Young is back as Rick. I remember when they used to argue on "All My Children", so I kept expecting Ridge to call him "Junior" the way Zach did. So funny. I wish they would bring on Michael E. Knight (Tad), though. I really miss him.  Especially now that Cady is going to be on Y&R, I have to say that he's the one I miss the most now from AMC. I also miss a few others but he's the most missed.

I enjoyed watching "Big Bang Theory" and "Two and a Half Men" as usual!! They're always funny.

• April 4

This morning I'm speaking with the stars of "Warehouse 13". I love that show!  So sad that it's almost over. The call is rough because we all know it's the last one and they're so nice, and funny. For them the show's already over so it's extra sad.  They sent us the next 4 episodes, and then there's just 2 more after that. They're great episodes, too.

Later on, I watched last week's "Justified" and also next week's (the season finale, which airs on Tuesday). It was quite fabulous. I just love this show so much that I can't even explain it. It's riveting. I can't watch anything else while these characters are on the screen. I love them all, even the awful ones. And the best one is Raylan, of course. He's just so wonderful. SIGH :) Next year I'll be even more sad around this time, about the end of "Justified". I can't even think of it right now.  I ordered all of the show's DVD's so I can review them for the site and re-watch them all.

There's this interesting thing going on in L.A. in May. Instead of the usual science fiction convention, they're doing one-act scifi plays, starring many popular actors who've appeared in scifi shows and movies. http://www.sci-fest.com/

I was just reading this interesting article in Soap Opera Digest. This guy, Jeff Giles, interviewed lots of people who had been connected with "One Life to Live" and wrote a book about it (I need to read that book!). He mentions in the article that he didn't get to interview either of the actors that played Todd, and he implied that Trevor St. John was not polite about it when he turned him down (although Roger Howarth was). Wow! That's a shame. Sounds like he's kind of a jerk. Too bad. I liked both of them...

I'm catching up on the DVD's the PR people have sent me to review. I watched the latest episode of the show "Pioneers of Television" from PBS, which is all about stand-up comedians who went on to sitcoms. Those are always good shows. Now I'm watching "Fargo", which will air on FX. Great new series, like the movie, starring some amazing actors, some of whom I get to interview next week! It's good, but I'm not sure if I really should be watching it before I go to bed because it's so dark...

I apologize for missing some of the transcripts lately, but our local stations have been pre-empting shows, which is really annoying. I'll eventually get the missing episodes when our volunteer Wanda sends me copies. She will hopefully send them someday, along with the ones from last Summer that we're missing.

• April 5

I read that John Barrowman is going to host a singing show this summer, "Sing Your Face Off". That's very odd (and not just because of the strange title). I guess because he sings and is on some similar show in the UK. He's such a fantastic actor, but he's also a great singer. I'll have to make sure to watch that one since he's one of my favorites. Even though I don't normally watch reality or game shows!

I've been watching the DVD's that were sent to me to review. I love this new show "Fargo" on FX, especially the actors, but there was one part I didn't like where they killed a dog. They need to stop using that horrible plot device in TV and movies!

I found out from Twitter that actor Ronn Moss is into guns. That's disappointing. Oh, well, it's not like a big deal. At least he was nice enough to reply to me when I asked him about it.

For once, I got our TV news and schedule pages done on time!

I can't believe that "Being Human" is ending on Monday. So sad! I'm still in denial about it.

I just read an article in "Entertainment Weekly" about the return of "24" on FOX. That should be good! Sounds fascinating.

Tomorrow I need to start watching some more soaps from my DVR and then finish watching these DVD's.

Don't forget to watch our "What's New" page for all the latest changes we made and stuff we added to the site.

Have a great week!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #116

We had company the week of March 16, so I didn't watch too much TV.  We did watch "Family Guy" with our friend, but it wasn't a very funny episode. Later we also watched "The Mentalist" and some of "Justified". Our visitor is not the type to show much emotion, so I have no idea what he thought of the shows! He's from Germany.  Most of the shows he watches are in German so I don't know them, of course.

The past two weeks, I watched some of soaps from January. I'm still very behind. I run the soap transcripts every day, but our local station didn't show Y&R Thursday and Friday due to basketball. That was really annoying because the rest of the country got the show, but not us. I have to hope a friend can eventually send me the shows on DVD so I can run the transcripts for those episodes.

Also, I haven't been able to send out the site's soap scoops newsletters... just for one reason or the other, I stayed up too late and didn't get it done, and then ended up sleeping in the next day. I will definitely send them out tonight.

I have a lot of interviews the past week or so. I should have more up soon. Check it out!  The only problem with these is that they tend to be around 7 or 8 am my time.  This coming Wednesday, we have three all at the same time, but I think we will get them covered.

I've been enjoying having all the shows back this Spring!  Unfortunately, it also means that we're getting closer to May when we know which shows will be canceled. It's a sad part of the year for TV fans. I watched 4 of the new episodes of "Warehouse 13" that are coming up in April. They are really great episodes, but now there are only 2 more left for me to watch, then the show will be over. Boo hoo!

I've been thinking a lot lately about heroes and villains, especially on TV.  The past few years, TV seems to want to give us characters that are not really "heroes" but just "protagonists" or "main characters". People that are not really good people. They would probably just say they're more realistic. But how much reality do we really want on TV?

Personally, I like TV and movies to be larger than life. If I want reality (not reality shows, which are not real), I will just go out in the world and talk to real people, or watch the news, or go on the internet. TV should be, first and foremost, entertaining. That means I want characters to be heroic and good. They can have bad guys, and the good guys can certainly have some shades of grey... but I don't want certain lines crossed.

I don't know, perhaps I'm in the minority about this. The show "Chicago PD" got renewed, so it must have gotten good ratings. I couldn't stomach it because it was about crooked cops. That's why I stopped watching "CSI: Miami" because the cops got worse and worse.  It really does depend on the show, though.

There was a show years ago that starred Simon Baker and some other fine actors as jewel thieves and other "bad guys". I didn't watch it for more than one episode even though I liked the actors. I didn't want to see charming guys that kill people. I don't mind a show like "Leverage" where they used to be bad guys, but now they're doing good things. None of them were killers (well, maybe Elliot, but he was a soldier).

I don't mind cartoon bad guys or ones who are more like comic book heroes, like "Dexter". Besides, that was a comedy. Dexter did kill people, but he only killed bad guys (at least until near the end of the series - LaGuerda was an exception) and he tried hard to be a good person. Even though Simon Baker's character in "The Mentalist" is not a strict good guy, all of the other people around him are, and Jane is definitely seen as someone who is not normal.  Even when he wanted to kill Red John, it was understandable because the guy had killed his wife and kid.  He didn't start out the show killing someone and then going, "Oh, well". Things have to be done in context, and in character. We have to get to know the character first, and like that person, before they do bad things, and then they better not be a cop or otherwise abusing their power.

I think we all still want heroes because why have shows like "Once Upon a Time" where Prince Charming is always a hero (he definitely makes mistakes sometimes) and the bad guys are sometimes not so bad.  It's good to have grey characters, but they'd better not cross a certain line. We don't mind "evil" characters becoming less evil, but we don't really want our "heroes" to be too tarnished.

At least I don't. You may think differently. I never watched "Breaking Bad" or "The Shield" because to me they were not shows that had people I could root for.  What do you think? Email me about it or post on our Talkin' TV group on Facebook.

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #115

I still haven't watched last week's Oscars! LOL!

This week started out right with the return of some of my favorite shows.

"The Simpsons" was pretty funny (it's always great to see Sideshow Bob!), but "Family Guy" was hysterical. We were in stitches with all the jokes in that one. Finally!  The show hasn't really been very funny for the past year so we're glad to see it's really funny again.

It was great to see "The Mentalist", especially to see Rigsby and Van Pelt back again. What a shocker of an ending, too!

"Once Upon a Time" is back and I'm so happy about that. It was great to see Chris Gorham, even if he did turn into a flying monkey! I hope they bring him back again.  Love the episode and the shocker ending, too. The show always rewards us with so many awesome twists and turns and great guest-stars and wonderful moments. I sure hope they can bring back Rumplestiltskin soon, though. He's my favorite part of the show.

I was just glad to get so much work on the site today... make sure to check out our news pages every week, and also our Primetime Forum.

If you watch "General Hospital" we would really use your help. We need some more volunteers to watch the show and write daily updates. These are our detailed summaries . We have 3 people writing them and none of them really want to do it every week and have trouble meeting the daily deadlines.  Please help!  You must be able to watch the show at least once a day and write a detailed summary (and write well enough to have good grammar, spelling, and punctuation). Email me if you can help out!

This morning I'm gathering the news and spoilers around the net about the four remaining soaps and then posting it to our newsletters and forums. I try to do it every Monday, but some weeks I don't do it for one reason or another, like being sick or having other work to do.

"Teen Wolf" is always fantastic, but this week's was even more so than usual! Wow!

I will miss Beauty & The Beast. They had a good season finale. I hope it's not the series finale.

I had an interview this morning with the creator of "Psych" on USA, Steve Franks, as well as the two stars James Roday and Dulé Hill. I've spoken with them before, and it's always fun. It was a bit sad, though, knowing that the last episode is coming. I got to see it, and it's really good! I'm so sorry to see it end. I reviewed the last episodes.

I enjoyed this past week's "Law & Order: SVU". I kind of figured that Rollins was working for someone and not just totally going off on her own, although of course the big twist was that she kinda did cross the line before having to work undercover. I love Donal Logue - such an amazing actor! He was so great in this role. I hope they bring him back or better yet, spin him off into his own series.

CSI was great as ever, too. Gene Simmons was on it, though, and he's a terrible actor.

I've seen a few little snippets of the soaps while I run the transcripts for our site. What is up with Luke on GH? I wonder what the Cassadines or someone else did to him. Creepy that he hit on Kiki.  I also saw how "Days of Our Lives" tried to make us think that EJ was responsible for trying to give Abby an abortion against her will! That would really earn him another shot in the head...

I didn't watch as much TV as usual this week because we were having a visitor (a friend from Germany). He loves golf, and they don't show golf too much on his country's TV, I guess, so he likes to watch the Golf Channel a lot.  We have to indulge our house guests! :)

I caught up on "Justified" episodes from the past month on our cable's On Demand. I so love that show! It's always so shocking and makes me chuckle as well.

Have a great week and have fun watching TV! Happy St. Patrick's Day, too!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #114

• March 2

The Oscars are tonight. I always DVR them and then watch when I get a chance. I had to stay off Twitter and Facebook all night to avoid spoilers. Not that I care all that much because I haven't see any of the nominated movies!

• March 3

I got to interview George Lopez this morning with other interviewers. We were told to only talk about his new FX show and his career. He did mention in passing the trouble he got into last week. I was hoping he would address the issue and make a joke about it, but I guess not. He seems to have some issues, that's for sure. I read up about him. He's always fighting with someone and he's divorced. I don't know what's gone on in his life, but it's sad that his mom died when he was young and his dad ran off when he was born. I can sorta relate. We're actually the same age so that's interesting. He seemed ok on the interview...not the nicest guy but not a jerk, either. Just somewhere in-between. You read our interviews on our Primetime Articles Page.

I watched the movie "42". I saw a lot of TV actors in it! Nicole Beharie from "Sleepy Hollow"; Christopher Meloni from "Law & Order: SVU" (he was awesome!); Lucas Black from "American Gothic"; Alan Tudyk from "Dollhouse", "Firefly" and so many other shows; Hamish Linklater from "The Crazy Ones"; T.R. Knight and James Pickens Jr. from "Grey's Anatomy"; John C. McGinley from "Burn Notice" and "Scrubs"; Max Gail from "Barney Miller"; Brad Beyer from "Jericho" and many other shows; Brett Cullen from tons of shows like "Person of Interest" and "Devious Maids", going all the way back to when I first noticed him on "Falcon Crest"; Peter Mackenzie from tons of shows (I know him best from "Herman's Head"). There were just so many!

• March 4

I've just been trying to watch as much as possible on the DVR to make room for more stuff. It gets tough when it's too full.

I'm glad the shows are all back from winter break, though. I really miss some of them!

• March 5

I've been watching a lot of soaps the last few days... they always bug me. Bold & Beautiful is just annoying because it's just the same stories repeated over and over. I'm at the end of January on most of the soaps still. I'm looking forward to seeing Colin's return on Young & The Restless and seeing Thaao Penghlis on General Hospital. I'm not looking forward to the lame storyline they're using to get Robin out of town, though. I'm sure it will be something really ridiculous and stupid.

I watched the 2 latest episodes of NCIS. It was great to see Robert Wagner back! I always love him. I was half hoping that they would show his new fiancee and it would be Stephanie Powers.  Too much to ask for, I guess! Or even his real life wife, Jill St. John, would be awesome. I do have to admit that I noticed that Michael Weatherly is getting a little pudgy, at least in the face. He used to be so handsome. He still is but...I don't know, maybe he was just having an off-week or was sick. It's funny because the other actor, who used to be pudgy (Sean Murray), is now skinny. It's like they switched places!

• March 6

Today I was watching General Hospital from late January when the little kids Emma, Cameron and Spencer hear Carly cry out for help and get all scared, and then Heather covers it up. That seemed silly to me. The kids were scared when they heard Carly crying out for help. They're supposed to be about 8 so that might concern them but not SCARE them. They should have gone for help at their ages.  There's just a whole lot of silliness to soaps. I know I'm always harping on shows being more realistic. They should be. Their first priority should be telling a great story in as realistic a fashion as possible. The story shouldn't be so realistic that it's boring or gross. I don't need to see characters going to the bathroom, but if they occasionally mention someone's hair cut or watch TV like a real life person, that would be great.  The story should be the most important thing, and then secondarily, the characters. The characters and story both need to be consistent and grounded in reality. It shouldn't make me shake my head in bewilderment or curse at the TV or wonder why I watch the show when it's so stupid. Soap operas should have lots of romance and thrills, not stories dumbed down to a third grade level. I read that Kimberly McCullough (Robin) said that she thought General Hospital was the best written it's ever been. Not even close.  In some ways, it's the worst. It was best in the 80's (at least when I was watching it), although back then there were other problems because soaps were slower moving back then and had certain social or censorship constraints on them.  I know that a lot of people hated long-time writer Bob Guza, but he created some really good characters and stories. The current guys are just mediocre with everything. It's like they're writing for not-too-bright teens.

And another thing...One of the things I've long noticed is that people on TV almost never touch, even young people that are in love. That's not realistic. People touch each other all the time, especially when they're young and in love.  Soaps are supposed to be romantic, so the young lovers like Michael and Kiki should be touching and kissing a lot. Even older ones like Sam and Silas should be doing that. Not at work, but everywhere else, especially in private.  And then I noticed this week (on the January shows I've watching) that Ava and Julian were having this conversation where he was half naked. I guess he had just been working out because he was only wearing these little shorts and nothing else. Who doesn't put on a shirt, especially when their sister is around? Okay, fine, fans wants to see him shirtless, I get that. But Ava shouldn't then go and stand very close to him and then lean on his bare shoulder. That's too creepy.  Not only are they siblings, they didn't grow up together. So now they're having siblings touch each other more than the couples in love, which makes it even more gross and creepy. And then lastly, the gay guys were kissing. Which is fine, I have no problem with it, but if you have them kissing, and no one else, then it's kind of like GH is just saying, "See, we have gay people kissing, too, just like other shows!"  so it's very contrived and manipulative.

I'm not saying everyone should be touching all the time or having sex constantly. Anyone who is under 30 and in love, certainly. Couples who haven't been together longer than a few years. Family members who grew up together should hug kiss in a friendly way, not hang out with each other undressed and touching bodies.  Even when couples are fighting, if they still have passion, they still touch each other. But think about what a great dramatic effect it is if the couple is having a fight then suddenly they're NOT touching? Or if they've been married a long time and don't touch much. It shows how their relationship is going. That's normal.  I wonder if soaps are worried that maybe the hair or make-up will get messed up? That's not a good reason. Story and characters should come first.  Physical contact is part of character and story, and aids in development of each.

• March 7

I'm looking forward to seeing my favorite Sunday shows this weekend, The Mentalist and Once Upon a Time! It was great seeing last night's "Big Bang Theory". Always so funny!

Last night I caught up on watching "Supernatural", so that was great fun. I love that show. It was sure nice to see Castiel back, and the episode with the Facers was great. And then the other episode with Kevin was awesome. Too bad he's dead now, but I hope we still see his ghost occasionally.

I still haven't watched the Oscars...I'll have to try to catch that this weekend.

I was supposed to have a conference call interview this morning with the "Bones" guys Hart Hanson and Steven Nathan, but I screwed up the time. Such an idiot! I watched next Monday's episode, which is really good. Freddie Prinze Junior returns!! Good story, too.

• March 8

I mostly watched soaps today... I'm finally on the Y&R episodes where Billy figure out that Adam killed Delia! Woo hoo!

I did a lot of work today to get our news pages ready. This week's schedule and news is here so check it out.

After we had a fun night out, we watched the last three episodes of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" that we were behind on. Well, we don't watch the whole show, just his monologue and "New Rules" because they're funny.

Have a great week! Lots of good new shows on. Who's watching "Resurrection", "Believe", "Crisis" and "Cosmos"? (Is it me or do most of these shows' titles sound the same?)

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #113

• Sunday February 23

So glad that the Olympics are over! I'm very tired of re-runs.

Here's a good article about which shows are being renewed and which they're not so fond of. I hope they don't cancel The Mentalist or Almost Human! I will also not be happy if they cancel Beauty and the Beast, Dracula, Nashville, The Neighbors, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Revolution, The Tomorrow People, or Two and a Half Men! These are all on their "Looking Not So Good" list.

Every Sunday night or Monday morning I post our soap scoops. Sign up here!

• Monday February 24

This morning I got to interview Jim Jefferies, star, creator and writer of "Legit" on FXX. I watched 4 episodes of his show last week and thought they were so funny. He was even funnier on the phone. Then we also did some chatting on Twitter! Awww!

I watched some "Days of Our Lives" earlier today and now I'm watching "Almost Human" and "Castle". So tired...have to watch "Teen Wolf" tomorrow, I guess!

• Tuesday February 25

I watched "Teen Wolf". That show is so great - riveting.  I did notice a few things that annoyed me about this week's show, but otherwise it's still great. I hate this idea (now overdone in so many TV shows) that an insane asylum always has a secret locked room (usually in the basement) full of torture devices and/or old paperwork etc. No one would do that. Why wouldn't they just clean it out and throw all the stuff away? Makes no sense. At the very least, it would be a stupid thing legally to have that stuff lying around near crazy people. The other thing that struck me as stupid is that, since Stile's therapist Marin Morrell knows that he shouldn't sleep or else the nigutsine (demon) will take him over, you'd think she's make sure that the orderlies were told not to give him a sedative no matter what.

Now I'm catching up on "Vampire Diaries", which I always love. I guess, just with Teen Wolf, you have to just sit back and enjoy the ride and not pay too close attention to the details, the inconsistencies or the contradictions (or occasional stupid things). It's nice to have Damon back as his old evil, wise-cracking self, but I also like the new, good guy Damon, too. We don't want him too sappy, though.

I got to watch next week's "Archer", guest-starring Kenny Loggins, so that was fun. That show is always such a great chuckle.

• Wednesday February 26

I get to interview Kenny Loggins this morning! Should be fun. Honestly I had no idea that he sang and/or wrote some of my favorite songs, like "Whenever I Call You friend" and I'd forgotten that he was part of "We Are the World". It was a great call. Make sure you check out all of the interviews.

• Thursday February 27

I can hardly wait for the new Veronica Mars movie that's premiering March 14. I was a huge fan of that show. I beefed up our Veronica Mars pages a bit more. I really love it when TV shows I liked find new life in other mediums. A lot of the shows I like become comic books. Movies are even better, in a way (at least you get to see the real actors and not just drawings, and hopefully the original writers as well). TV is still my preferred medium, though. I love that you can watch 10-30 episodes per year, every year. I guess none of us ever like change, so that's why it makes it difficult when our favorite shows go away. A show seldom gets so bad that I stop watching it or think that it should get canceled. It has to get really really bad or make huge drastic changes that I don't like, for that to happen. I can only think of a few examples where that happened, and they were shows that were not on the air very long. One was a show called "Get a Life" starring Chris Elliot. Loved the first season, hated the second. Another was the show "War of the Worlds" that I believe lasted 3 seasons. The last season was very different.  Even when they really change the cast or the premise of the show, it has to be something I really hate for that to make me stop watching. I'm a devoted fan, what can I say :)  Obviously I'm not talking about shows that I'm not a big fan of to begin with.

I'm very sad that "Psych" is ending, although it had a pretty good run. I feel that its last two years were the best in quality and humor, though. I read that "The Mentalist" might not be renewed. I hope that's not true! I can't believe it. Even though he found Red John, so what? The show is better than almost any show on regular TV. They should do whatever it takes to keep it going.

• Friday February 28

I watched the premiere of "Sirens" and also "Legit" (as well as many others they sent me DVD's for). Funny because Sirens' first episode had a lot of jokes about porn, and Legit's first episode of the season was partly about porn and quite a lot about masturbation.  I hope this isn't a new trend! Both were very funny, but still....kinda gross, too.

I'm always saying I want shows to be more realistic, and that's so true, but only to the extent that they're entertaining. That is, I don't want to see things that are boring or gross, just because they're realistic. These particular episodes were not boring, and they didn't quite go into gross territory (YMMV).

This morning I interviewed John Gammon, who plays Darrin on "The Middle" on ABC. It was a one-on-one interview. For some reason, my regular phone was acting funny, so I had to use my cell phone. It ended up working out ok.

There are a few actors I'm Facebook friends with and some are nice enough to chat with their fans. One of them is very opinionated, which can be funny. However, he's, how shall I say, unenlightened, and not very educated, so we have really had some verbal battles. Both of us know to keep cool, though. We don't get upset. I had quite a fight with this guy today about rape of all things. It's astounding how some people have some really backward ideas about women and about rape. I hope he got educated a little bit, but who knows. People are stubborn, particularly when they're arguing. I guess all those TV shows like the soaps and SVU really are necessary and more people should watch them to understand just what rape is, how devastating it can be and how often it happens (and what all the myths are about it). I have to admit that it kind of bugs me that on Y&R they're not calling it rape with regards to Nikki's sex years ago with Ian. I'm still on the January episodes, so forgive me if they've addressed this already. I think they have been saying all along that she was enamored of him but didn't necessarily want to have sex with him, but they were vague on the details of whether she said no or not. Clearly he was older and "took advantage" of their relationship, but if it is rape, they should call it that, and not use euphemisms.

I read that George Lopez got drunk and fell asleep on the floor of a casino up in Canada that he was working in, then I guess they arrested him. I wonder how that will affect the interview we're supposed to have with him on Monday? Hmm...

• Saturday March 1

I wasted a lot of time today so I fell really behind on my work on the site! Sometimes I just need a break from all of the email and press releases.

I really hope the new "Flash" pilot is really good like Arrow and gets picked up! I thought the character was great on "Arrow". I loved the original Flash show in the early 90's and was so bummed when they canceled it.  John Wesley Shipp, who starred in it, will have a small role in the new series, so that's awesome.  He's actually one of those actors I was just talking about that is good at chatting with his fans on Facebook.

It was very sad that Soupy Sales died. He had a kids' show when my brothers were little, and they liked it, and my mom did, too (it was over before I was 1 year old). I saw him on TV a lot later in the 70's, in shows like "What's My Line" and "To Tell the Truth" (I used to watch a lot of game shows).  He had a big fight with Howard Stern in the 80's, when they were both on WNBC, near the end of Soupy's career.  We were living in New York at that time and listened to Howard's show, so we heard about it at the time.


We always try to review the new shows as much as we can so please check out our Primetime Reviews page! Quite a few new ones there.

Happy March!

Don't forget to check out all of the shows we cover and the Primetime news...

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #112

There were still lots of re-runs this week. There were quite a few new shows, as well, though. Don't forget to check every week on our news page for what's on TV this week! This week's direct link is here (it will change next week).   Every week I copy all of the press releases and post them on our Primetime TV Forum.   Then I edit them down to a few paragraphs, which I put on that week's news page on our site. I often add video clips, photos and other things that the networks send me if I have time.  There's just so much - way too much for me to do on my own.

I need lots of help for our site, so if you have a few hours per week free and can follow simple directions, like copying and pasting, or if you want to write... we have lots of volunteer jobs available on our site!   I could really use some one (Or multiple someones) to help me with all this news.

I've been watching my disks with shows like The Originals and Arrow from my secondary DVR (the first one is mostly soaps and a few shows-- it holds fewer hours).

Sundi and I wrote many reviews of new shows, so check it out!

Tuesday February 25th is the last day to enter our monthly contest!  Hurry!

I've been spending a lot of time the past two weeks making new pages for more current shows. Stay tuned! Here's the list of all shows we cover (some have just one page or a few pages).

I wish I could spend more time on the site, but after a while, my shoulders start to really hurt, so sometimes I have to take a break.

We have so many great volunteers on our site that write daily, or weekly, or monthly articles, updates, recaps, fan fiction and more! Not to mention all the proofreaders, best line choosers, link checkers and more. I owe them so much for all their hard work!

For my personal viewing, I'm still catching up on the soaps. I'm on new year's episodes for Days of Our Lives, and for the other 3 soaps, I'm in mid-January.

Sunday's the last day of the Olympics, and then we get tons of new programming on all of the networks! Tons of new shows premiering like Mixology and About a Boy, and returning shows like TNT's Dallas, Perception and Rizzoli & Isles.

Next Sunday, March 2, will be the Oscars on ABC, so all of the other networks will have re-runs, but Monday will be back to regular programming.

I can't believe February is almost over already, can you? Have a great week and watch lots of TV!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #111

• Sunday February 9

Almost everything is re-runs this week because of the Olympics! I don't watch those, so I guess it'll give me a chance to catch up on my shows.

I DVR'ed the Beatles special tonight on CBS, though, so I'll watch that later and keep it on DVD. I love the Beatles!

I watched a ton of soaps to get them off my DVR. It's much faster now that I'm not also recording them to DVD. I'm caught up to Jan. 9 now on B&B, GH and Y&R. I have to record DOOL on the other DVR, so that one I'm still behind on until I can get started watching the DVD's.

• Monday February 10

Monday is always a busy day for shows for me because I record and watch Almost Human, Beauty & The Beast, and Teen Wolf. I watched Teen Wolf just now. Love it! It's always so intense and has great stories that twist and turn.

• Tuesday February 11

I ended up watching the rest of the shows on Tuesday.

I've been making new pages for new shows for our site. I'm just starting, but I made some pages for Almost Human, Beauty & The Beast, and Dallas so far.

• Wednesday February 12

I caught up on "Revenge"! Not as good as it was first season, but they still make it interesting. It's a good soap opera. I wonder if Victoria was really raped?

I've got a ton of DVD's now to watch that the studios and their PR people have sent me. I have to start them soon.

I'm also catching up on "Bones" this week. I've watched every episode of the show since it's start. I loved how they introduced Hodgins' mentally illy brother.

• Thursday February 13

I've mostly just been watching soaps and procrastinating about everything else.

• Friday February 14

I didn't watch any TV at all today. I was busy all day and then I went to bed early.

I can't wait for the new Veronica Mars movie. That should be awesome. I sure wish they could make movies of all my favorite shows that got canceled too early.

I just read an article that says that Y&R's ratings went down after Billy and Adam left the show. Well, I think really what happened is that the ratings went up for their exit and then went down again. That means some casual viewers temporarily tuned in to see the end of their story and then tuned out again. That doesn't mean regular viewers are leaving the show.  I don't think the over all ratings have gone down in the past year. The show has been boring, but long-term fans are not going to stop watching just because of some short-term problems. We like to see our favorites either way.

We have a very active TV group on Facebook, so check it out. It's a nice bunch of folks.

• Saturday February 15

I watched a recent episode of "Arrow". I always love that show! I still need to finish running my Friday soap transcripts, too. I got so far behind.

This weekend I was really busy and didn't feel much like working on the site. Sometimes I'll work really hard on the site for every waking moment, and other days I can barely bring myself to do anything. I guess everyone's like that with work!

Thank goodness my site's volunteers work really hard every day to write articles etc. for the site.


I really miss Gisele this week. She's on vacation. I depend on her for so much!


It looks all of the soaps are running their usual new episodes on Monday if anyone's wondering...

I was very sad earlier this week when I heard that Ralph Waite had died. We actually got to meet him in the 90's when we lived in Riverside. My husband David worked at UCR. Waite was running for Sonny Bono's senate seat (he ended up losing).  He came to the university and gathered people from the poli sci department to talk about issues. I went, and I was happy to see him and hear them talk. Stupid me, I didn't get a photo, but it was great to meet him.  He was a great guy - very smart, liberal, passionate and caring. Of course I watched the Waltons back in the 70's we loved it, and he was great as the dad on that (and on other great things like "Roots").  Lately he was also on "Days of Our Lives" as a priest, and he was also Booth's grand-dad on "Bones" and Gibbs' dad on "NCIS", so he was everywhere. Normally it's not so shocking when an 85 year old dies, but man, he was still very busy and involved, so it made it much more surprising, I guess.  Such a shame.

Have a great week!

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #110

• Sunday February 3

Since the Super Bowl was on, there wasn't much to watch on TV.  Besides, where we live, it was over by the evening, but they didn't run regular programming, anyway.

I'm not a football fan, so I don't watch the Superbowl. My husband likes football, but he didn't care about either team, so he didn't watch.

We did watch some re-runs of "The Simpsons" that I had on my DVR, but they were not all that funny. We gave up on the one about Comic Book Guy pretty early on. I thought the one about Google Glasses was pretty cute.  My husband is much pickier than I am.

I watched Tuesday's "Justified", which FX sent me the link for, and I reviewed it on our site.

• Monday February 4

I watched a lot of the soaps from around Christmas time, and then tonight's "Teen Wolf". I love that show! Looks like Stiles is possessed by an evil demon. I hate when that happens!

I'm also trying to catch up on NCIS and Criminal Minds.

I watched tonight's "Castle", which is always enjoyable, and "Beauty & The Beast", which is a fun adventure/romance show.

• Tuesday February 5

Whenever I'm running transcripts on my main TV or doing something else, I'm still catching up on NCIS on Amazon Prime on another laptop. I had to delete a lot of them off my DVR before when it was filling up with soaps.

I also have DVD's from the other DVR that I'm behind on, and a few to review for March.

Right now I'm watching "Supernatural" - I always love that one.  It can be gross sometimes, though. I try not to watch if it's too squishy. :)

Someone asked me a question about Veronica Mars, so it reminded me that I really needed to update that section.   Then I realized that I didn't have links to all the other appearances pages, so I've been putting those links on all of our appearances pages. One thing always leads to something else.

Now I'm watching "Almost Human", which is a very good show. I have to be in the right mood to watch it, though. It can be fun, but it's mostly a very dark show.

• Wednesday February 6

I watched some of the soaps today from the end of December, and I also watched "CSI" and "Law & Order: SVU". Fun meaningless shows... I'm all caught up now on NCIS, too.

I still have so many shows to catch up from on my other DVR (I put them on DVD so I can watch them here): "Criminal Minds", "Revenge", "Bones", "Revolution", plus I need to catch up on Person of Interest" and "Elementary". Too many good shows!

Our site has many pages with this script where a photo of a TV show loads on the top right, next to our logo. I spent a day or so finding new pictures for primetime shows. I hadn't done this since 2011, so I had quite a few to find. I know I'm still missing some.

• Thursday February 7

So far today I'm just watching soaps, but I hope to get back to the primetime stuff soon.

Later I watched "Big Bang Theory", which was hilarious like it usually is. Sheldon and Amy had a great kiss!! Nice way to end the episode.  Then I watched "Two and a Half Men", which is usually pretty funny. This one got better as it went along.

It's great news that Shirley Jones will be on "General Hospital". She's always awesome. I look forward to seeing her. I'm now watching the soaps at the beginning of January. I joined the General Hospital Fan Club. It's fun to get their newsletters, and photos etc.

I don't like sports much. Sometimes it's fun to watch a game live, but I have no interest in following any teams or watching it on TV.  I really really hate the Olympics. I especially hate when they pre-empt the soaps for the Olympics. Thank goodness NBC is only pre-empting "Days of Our Lives" once. This week the other networks have a lot of re-runs, so I'm guessing it's because they don't want to put new shows on opposite the Olympics for fear of losing ratings. I know some people enjoy watching the ice-skating, but otherwise I don't really get it.

I finally watched the old Y&R re-run from 1998 that they showed on New Year's Eve. It was great to see... they all look so young there. And there were so many that are now on "The Bold & The Beautiful"! Great to see Katherine again, too. I loved seeing Cassie, and Tony. I hated when they wrote them out. I never liked Sharon and Nick together. They were so boring back then. Now they are slightly more interesting. I preferred him with Phyllis.

• Friday February 8

I only record 3 shows on Fridays: "Bones", "Real Time with Bill Maher", and "The Neighbors". We mostly just watch the opening monologue on Real Time, and the "New Rules" segment.

• Saturday February 9

I dreamed about NCIS! I was part of their group. Fun dream :)

Don't forget to check out our site! We have new content every day.

Enjoy watching whatever new shows are on this week! Or the Olympics if that's your thing...

The TV MegaSite's Blog Post #109

I hope you're all enjoying the return of your favorite shows now that the holidays are over and we're in February sweeps. I know I am, especially "Justified" on FX.  I think it's the best show on TV, although there are some reportedly great shows I don't watch, like "Walking Dead", "Homeland" and "Game of Thrones".

I've been trying to catch up on all of the soaps (I know there's only four, but it still takes up a lot of my time!) while trying to balance watching and catching up on primetime shows.

Let me tell you about my history with recording the soaps... I started watching the soaps in the mid-80's while I was in college. I could only watch between classes, so I missed a lot.  Then in the early 90's, we finally got a VCR, so I could tape them and watch them later. This was great! Unfortunately, I just taped over them the next day. For one thing, it never occurred to me that I might want to collect them or watch them later on. For another, video tapes were not that cheap, and we were not that rich. 

Even though I started watching more and more soaps, and getting more VCR's, I still didn't tape most shows to keep. I did start keeping some primetime shows, but not soaps, for the most part. I mean, they aired every day, and there were at least 10 of them, and they'd been on many years, so it seemed like they would still go on for many years. Taping them all didn't seem like a good idea. I would save bits and pieces I liked or special episodes, but that's it.

Once I had a collection and started keeping track of what I had, I started trading shows with other people who also collected. This is how my web site started. I had a large list of tapes, and sending it via email became difficult, so I put it up on a website. That was the start of The TV MegaSite!

Then in the 90's, my husband and I started traveling a lot more. I would record the soaps while we were gone, or I'd have a friend record them for me. Sometimes I would fall behind and try to catch up.  So eventually, as we traveled more and I had more money to buy videotapes, I started getting a collection of tapes from here and there (mostly summer and the holidays, since that's when we traveled).

In the late 90's, we had a lot more money than time, and we traveled a lot, so I started taping more and eventually I had thousands of videotapes (not all soaps - lots of primetime as well).  Of course at some point I got more tapes than I could ever possibly watch.  They don't put the daytime soaps out on DVD, so my logic was that I had to record them because I couldn't buy them if I wanted them (it seemed to make sense at the time).

Once I was able to record onto DVD, I also had a lot of DVD's as well as videotapes. I have a lot of soaps going back to 2000, some on tape and some on DVD. At some point, I just decided to tape it all because I might use it someday and it would be cool to have a collection.  That was fine until we moved into a smaller house, so I dumped a lot of tapes (although not soaps, still - mostly primetime shows and movies that I knew I could get on DVD).

When we lived in our last house, I had tried to copy the soaps from videotape to DVD, but I found that it was difficult because the DVD recorders didn't always work. They were very picky about what they recorded to DVD and would often give me an error message on older tapes. I don't even mean super old, just 90's tapes.  Also, the quality deteriorates if you record to DVD or any media. It's one more generation removed from the original. I recorded them all on EP/SLP speed so they're not great quality to begin with. Then I would get discouraged.

I stopped actively trading at least a decade ago and also stopped keeping track of what I had on tape because there was just too much. This past summer, we moved to Hawaii into a 2 bedroom apartment, so I had to put a lot in storage, including all of my tapes and most of my DVD's. I brought with me all of the DVd's that I had recorded myself, including soaps.  I was recording the soaps for my friend Amanda, too, so I would record for me and then make copies for her.

Then last month, Amanda said she didn't want soaps any more. She had stopped watching. I thought, why am I still taping all these soaps? LOL! I'm still watching, but why am I taping them to DVD and keeping them? It makes no sense and takes up too much of my time.  So I made a decision that I never thought I would make. I'm not recording soaps to DVD or tape any more.  I'm still over a month behind, so once I reach the end of 2013 soaps, I'm done. No more recording to DVD (I still do record to my DVR but then delete the shows as I watch them).  It's truly the end of an era!

But don't worry, my site isn't going anywhere, and I'm still watching the soaps. I just don't feel any great need to collect (or should I say HOARD) them any more.  Maybe one day I'll be able to whittle my collection down to just the episodes I liked, or at least the decades I liked. If I ever get them out of storage!

I'm all caught up on the previous daytime transcripts that I was missing for our site for the past month. The new computer works great! It's so fast. The software is buggy, but I'm used to that. :) It just means that sometimes I have to reboot and run the transcript again. Now I can start running some of the ones we're missing from July and August.

I've been enjoying the new Syfy show "Bitten" as well as the return of "Being Human". I'll be so sad when the latter is done. I still miss the British version. I can't wait for the return of "Defiance", and "Warehouse 13"'s last season. I tried the new show "Helix", but it's not my kind of show. Too dark, gross and creepy.  I really wanted to like Intelligence, but it's slow and not that great. I watch too many shows already.  It was nice to get a break from new shows over the holidays so I could catch up a bit.




Mostly I edit our Primetime News Forum and our News Pages, and that keeps me pretty busy as well as running the transcripts, sending out our soap newsletters and reviewing new shows... then sometimes I have time to interview actors, too!



But I sure don't work on the site alone! We have tons of volunteers who work on the site besides me, writing articles, daily soap recaps and updates, picking best lines, coming up with puzzles, writing fan fiction, proofreading, making banners, etc.

Make sure to check out our What's New page to see all of the new things we put up every day on our site!