“My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad? In a coma? Or back in time? Whatever’s happened it’slike I’ve landed on a different planet. And maybe if I can work out the reason I can get home.”

This week’s ep pulls the dysfunctional relationship of Sam and Gene to the forefront as the murder of a shady boxing manager begins, with the prime suspect being none other than DCI Gene Hun himselft. It brings all kinds of questions to Sam’s mind: Is Hunt lying? Is he on the take? Did he really commit murder?

Now if this was your average, everything will be back to normal by next week police procedural the answer to the questions above would be a resounding no. But Life On Mars isn’t your typical police procedural is it?

So Sam investigates the crime under the watchful eye of replacement DCI Morgan, who like Sam, claims to be from Hyde, and there is something very uncomfortable about this character, almost everything he says can have a double meaning, one bearing on 1973 and the case, or to Sam and his plight. It’s kinda unnerving.

So much so that Sam dials the Hyde phone number he scratched down earlier in the series, and has a conversation with… Sorry I don’t really do spoilers
The worst part about the entire ep is that watching I knew that there was only one left after this.

There was so much good in this episode, the creepy “Hyde” connection with DCI Morgan, Gene’s cunning disguises to get into CID and into the training gym, Annie’s assignment to Road Safety, Sam’s nightmares of a ceaselessly ringing phone and the cries and screams on the other end when he picks up, Gene’s literally slimy lawyer, his reconstruction of the night of the murder “Visions of the future” and “Niagara Falls”, the tender moments between Sam and Annie (which always seem to get spoiled), the moments between Sam and Gene as you realize they may never be real friends, but there is genuine respect and loyalty there and the final moments of the episode with DCI Morgan and Sam (what the hell is that about?).

I really don’t want to see the show end, and it’s sequel Ashes to Ashes is still too far away!

Sigh. There’s always DVD right?

Life On Mars airs Saturday afternoons on Showcase.

This post was Authored by TD, Our Resident Authority on all things BBC

After being fired last week, Isaiah Washington seems to not want the controversy to die. In an exclusive interview to Ausiello at the TV Guide, Washington’s spokesperson, Howard Bragman, reveals that Washington is considering legal action.

Bragman says in the interview at TV Guide

“If they wanted to fire him,” Bragman asks, “Why didn’t they fire him when [the incident] happened? Why did they say, ‘Here’s what you need to do if you want to come back… ‘ and then, when he did everything that was asked of him, he still gets fired. Why do you treat somebody like that?”

“If you made a mistake, you acknowledged the mistake, you went into counseling, you met with the groups, you did the PSA, you did everything that was asked of you, and then they still kick you in the gut? How would you feel?”

Washington and his publicist have a point. ABC made him do all these things to help his image and then goes on to fire him. It’s pretty obvious that they kept him around because of the storyline and it would’ve been awkward to fire him midseason. ABC did act fairly poorly in this regard, but let’s not forget this is coming from a man who grabbed a fellow castmember, Patrick Dempsey by the throat. Washington needs to let the controversy die or he will never find any more work in Hollywood.

Do you think that ABC was wrong in leading Washington on or that they should have let him go midseason? Who’s side are you on?

This post was Authored by Angela Riley, Our Resident Authority on all things Grey’s Anatomy

Well, while we’re in the nearly year long interval between the end of Lost’s season 3 and the start of season 4, I thought it would do us well to look back at the lives of our castaways as revealed in their flashbacks.

Since Hallmark has deemed this month the one where we recognize the paternal side of our parentage, I thought it would be appropriate to look at Father relationships in Lost.

The biggest one, of course, is that between Jack Shephard and his father Christian. Christian’s appearance on the island was one of the early signs that this place was something other and different.

Initially, we saw how Christian’s drinking nearly destroyed his career when Jack turned him in.

As the time passed, and we saw more of Jack’s past, especially how Christian had managed to get sober until being attacked (verbally and
physically) by Jack in the middle of an AA meeting sent him off on his fatal bender.

Amusingly enough, Jack and Christian’s relationship is practically one of the healthier ones on the show.

Locke and his father Anthony Cooper were locked into a death spiral from the day when they met. Cooper, a lifelong con artist, tricked his son into giving him a kidney.

Cooper tried to divest himself of his offspring in a variety of ways, from ignoring him to trying to kill him. When they were reunited on the island, Locke was unable to kill his father, although he had no problem with taking Sawyer to meet Cooper so Sawyer could exact revenge on his own spiritual father.

Locke was ordered to kill his father by Ben, who had his own father issues; when Ben killed his workman father during the overthrow of the Dharma Initiative’s operatives on the island by the ‘hostiles’, he did it by exposing him to nerve gas while sitting next to him, and leaving his body in a wrecked minivan, instead of burying him in a pit with the rest of the Dharma members on the island.

Kate killed her father after years of abuse, putting her on the lam.
Her attempts to evade the law led her somehow to Australia, and her capture by an obsessive marshal put her on Oceanic 815.

Hurley’s father Dave abandoned him, but came back when Hurley found himself a millionaire. Although Dave had less than noble intentions initially, when Hurley left on the airplane they had the beginnings of a new relationship together.

Shannon had a close relationship with her father until his untimely demise. Sun’s father, the head of Paik heavy industries, is a menacing figure who wields power, both economic and more visceral.

The castaway whose relationship with their father was the most solid when they boarded Oceanic 815 was Jin; although he’d attempted to reject his past when he married Sun, he eventually reconciled with his fisherman father.

Every character on the show has a father, of course. Some of them (like Cooper and Christian) influence their children more than others.
Charlie’s father sits in the background, glowering at his musically inclined children and compelling them to take on a career in the meat cutting arts. Claire never knew her father (not to mention never knew he was Jack’s, too) until he came by when her mother was ill.

Of course, the point of this whole thing was that there’s way more drama in dysfunction than happiness, but on a show with an ensemble this big, that degree of parental dysfunction is almost enough to make someone despair for the future of the father/child bond.

So, this Father’s day, take a moment to give your dad a hug, or a card, or a call. Just don’t take a stranger to strangle them.

This post was Authored by Justin Mohareb, Our Resident Authority on all things Lost

Everyone’s favorite pirate reality show is moving to a new night and time. Our mateys from Reality TV World give us this:

CBS has announced that Pirate Master will move from its current Thursdays at 8PM ET/PT time period to Tuesdays at 10PM ET/PT beginning July 10. Pirate Master will be moving to make room for the eighth season of Big Brother . However Pirate Master’s sixth episode on Thursday, July 5 at 9PM ET/PT will air immediately after Big Brother 8’s premiere.

Nobody can be too surprised at this news but to be honest it doesn’t concern me. Summer shows, especially reality shows, get switched around all the time. Pushing it two hours later could hurt but putting it after the Big Brother premiere shows that CBS has confidence in the show and is willing to give it a chance. This could have been the plan the whole time too.

This post was Authored by Matt Kjesbo, Our Resident Authority on all things Pirate Master

Now that the ball is rolling and a LOT of posts are coming your way, I thought I would take the time to introduce you to some of our contributors.

As you may have noticed, at the end of each post is a by-line indicating who has authored the post, and included is a small icon of the contributor’s choice to represent their posts.

New categories will be added to the column on the left to group their shows together. If you come to visit and wish only to read about a particular show, you can click its category on the left to see only those posts.

So now I give you each of your TVShow Blog contributors.

Matt Kjesbo, Our Resident Authority on all things Pirate Master

TD, Our Resident Authority on all things BBC

Josh Kelhoffer, Our Resident Authority on all things Adult Swim

Larry Latouf, Our Resident Authority on all things Big Love

Angela Riley, Our Resident Authority on all things Grey’s Anatomy

Darren J Seeley, Our Resident Authority on all things Law & Order and Dead Zone

Justin Mohareb, Our Resident Authority on all things Lost

Tedward, Our Resident Authority on all things Dexter

Joe Purcell, Our Resident Authority on all things The Office

Ben Pasco, Our Resident Authority on all things Pro Wrestling

Beth, Our Resident Authority on all things Ugly Betty

This post was Authored by Melissa, Our Resident Authority on all things Entourage

Rodney Brazeau, Your Copy Editor

These are the shows we are covering for the time being, and if you have any requests or questions, feel free to drop them here, or Email me

Australian fan of Doctor Who are gearing up for Series 3, and fans of Captain Jack can watch him in Series 1 of the spin-off show Torchwood.

Australian Channel Ten have set up a new home page for Captain Jack and his crew who man the Torchwood Institute and protect the earth from external threats (kinda like a grown-up version of Men In Black). The series will see it’s premiere there June 18 at 9:30. Their new site can be seen here.

The Doctor begins his third series run Down Under with the Christmas Episode: The Runaway Bride on June 28th at 8:35 on ABC before moving to it’s regular night Saturday at 7:30 beginning June 30. You can visit their site here, but their info tends to be very spoiler-heavy.

This post was Authored by TD, Our Resident Authority on all things BBC

In the wake of this weeks season premiere, TVGuide.com has a short interview with Big Love’s Jeanne Tripplehorn (Barb Henrickson).

TV Guide: The wives seem to serve different purposes. Margene (Ginnifer Goodwin) has a childlike innocence, while Nicki (Chloe Sevigny) has a connection to power. But is Barb Bill’s one true love?

Tripplehorn: Exactly. She’s his soul mate. If she hadn’t gone through cancer, they definitely would not be in a polygamist relationship.
Bill was having money problems and Barb was dying, so they went back to the compound to lick their wounds and get back on their feet, and that’s when Nicki came into the picture. But it all spun out of control, because Barb lived.

Head on over to check out the rest at TVGuide.com
Some of the interview could be considered light spoilers, but no more so than the HBO promos.

This post was Authored by Larry Latouf, Our Resident Authority on all things Big Love

What do you have when you’ve got a show about a member of the Miami Police Department who goes after serial killers, with the only problem being that he’s a serial killer himself?

You get ‘Dexter’, one of the best new shows to premier last season, and Showtime has just announced that Keith Carradine will join the series.

The Futon Critic posted a press release from Showtime regarding the new season of Dexter.

Carradine, who, oddly enough, most recently played a serial-killer for a few episodes on ‘Criminal Minds’, jumps to the other side of the law for most of the second season of ‘Dexter’. Here’s what Showtime had to say in their press release:

“In season two, Carradine plays Lt. Frank Lundy, Special Agent for the FBI who is investigating a large number of dead bodies recently found in Miami. Carradine will appear in 11 of season two’s 12 episodes.”

One of my favourite films is ‘The Duellists’, with him & Harvey Keitel playing life-long enemies. I also loved Carradine’s portrayal of Wild Bill in the first season of Deadwood and damn, was I disappointed when his character was killed off halfway through the season.

My only question is whether he’s going to end up becoming Dexter’s nemesis for the season, or not. What do you guys think? For me, either way, I’m really looking forward to seeing him & Michael C. Hall work together on the small screen.

The only thing that truly sucks is that I have to wait until September for the new season to start. Damn!

This post was Authored by Tedward, Our Resident Authority on all things Dexter

Last week the Television Critics Association announced their nominations for their annual awards. Zap2it reports that Ugly Betty is nominated for three awards, including Outstanding Comedy, Individual Achievement in Comedy (America Ferrera), and Outstanding New Program. The awards will be handed out July 21, two days after the Emmy nominations are announced.

Also, the ALMA (American Latino Media Arts) Awards were handed out last weekend, and the show, Silvio Horta (executive producer and writer), America Ferrera, and Ana Ortiz were honored. Check out the story and a bunch of photos over at Yahoo! News

Finally, Ugly Betty reruns will resume next Thursday, June 21, with the episode Swag.

Summary: Christina’s swag lottery creates a feeding frenzy among the office fashionistas, while Betty wears herself out helping a suddenly cash-poor Daniel entertain a famous Japanese designer (Kurando Mitsutake).

This post was Authored by Beth, Our Resident Authority on all things Ugly Betty

It’s a common event in the history of situation comedies – a main character sees greener pastures and bolts their show. Don Knotts left The Andy Griffith Show, Maclean Stevenson left M*A*S*H, Randall Carver left Taxi and Shelly Long left Cheers. Okay, so the Randall Carver thing was no big deal…even a blessing, perhaps. But the truth is, a key player leaving can totally throw a show off balance. Now comes word that Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute) might be leaving for spinoffville…

Foxnews.com

Is Dwight Schrute about to have his own TV series? That’s the buzz at NBC, where new head of programming Ben Silverman could be thinking about a spin-off from the hit sitcom “The Office.”

This is bad news for Office fans. Dwight is an important player in the Office mix and his departure would be a big loss for the show. His interactions with Michael and Jim are key pieces to The Office’s brilliant puzzle. If true, the move should come as no huge surprise. Wilson’s departure is something most Office fans have been fearing. His brilliant performance as Dwight has made him hot property in Hollywood and he is in demand. The only real surprise is that he would be jumping for another television show instead of focusing exclusively on film. The other piece that lends credibility to Fox’s story - it’s looking like the only character left from Season 3’s Scranton/Stamford merger is going to be Andy Bernard (Ed Helms). Like Dwight, Andy is a comic antagonist and I have suspected since his introduction he was being groomed to be the main Office villain in the event Wilson departed the show. While I think Helm’s Andy is truly funny, Dwight Schrute’s shoes are mighty big ones to fill.

This post was Authored by Joe Purcell, Our Resident Authority on all things The Office

Torchwood (an anagram of Doctor Who and featured as a recurring plot point of season 2) the Doctor Who spin-off series is coming to the CBC this fall. The channel hasn’t mentioned when the show will be airing, and I personally am a little unsure of how much of it will make broadcast.

Unlike Doctor Who, which though occasionally creepy is aimed at family viewers, Torchwood is definitely a more adult series featuring language, sex, adult material and subject matter. While I enjoyed it, it has no where near the same appeal as the new Doctor Who series does, though it is fun to watch Captain Jack (John Barrowman) run around and hit on just about anyone and anything!

The series got troubling reviews from some critics in the UK as it left behind it’s core Doctor Who audience, the young, and positioned itself as a more grown-up program.

If you’re a rabid fan of the new Doctor Who the series is not necessarily a must, but it will certainly fill the time until the next series of Doctor Who starts, or series 3 comes to DVD.

The original article can be seen here

This post was Authored by TD, Our Resident Authority on all things BBC

We already know that next season of Heroes will feature a number of new characters. Which of the living core characters are going to be left aside isn’t certain yet, but we knew there would be new faces. Looks like the newly crowned Miss Universe, Riyo Mori is up for one of the jobs.

MSN Japan reports:

Mori said she is hoping to devote herself to her new role — which includes acting as a spokeswoman for AIDS issues — and is also looking for a possible role on the TV series “Heroes,” broadcast by NBC, which has rights to the Miss Universe pageant.

“As soon as I won Miss Universe I had this big chance,” she said. “I’ve never acted before. I went to the casting audition and read a script in English and Japanese, and they said it was really good. So I hope I can be in the show.”

Mori said her role would be “Yaeko,” a love interest for one of the main characters.

I am all for adding new characters and the geeky Hiro deserves a love interest more than anyone. Of course it is sadly stereotypical that I would assume a Japanese speaking character would instantly be Hiro’s interest, but in reality you know its going to happen.

But one of the finer things I like about Heroes is the characters. To take someone who has never been in acting and put them in a role like this is risky. Sure, she might turn into a natural and blow us all away but the lack of experience makes me worry.

Is she pretty enough to be a love interest? Of course she is.

Can she act? Someone seems to think so. But nothing is final yet.

This post was Authored by Rodney Brazeau, Copy Editor

Imagine your favorite TV Show or movie. Now randomly pick a point in its total running time. It could be 1 hour into it, it could be 43 hours, 14 minutes, and 56 seconds; any point in time will work. Now imagine if that TV show or movie ended at that point in time. This is apparently how Sopranos mastermind David Chase chose to end The Sopranos. At just over the half way point of a 2 hour 86th Episode, The Sopranos randomly ended.

It literally ended right in the middle of a scene. A scene in which basically nothing was going on. I’m not going to explain what was going in this episode because it doesn’t matter. If you’ve seen an episode of The Sopranos before but kind of lost track of the show just pretend the series ended where you stopped watching and it’ll be the exact same thing. I recommend continuing to watch The Sopranos if you haven’t seen every episode but not for the ending instead because episodes stand alone and are great.

David Chase did two things with this ending. First he told all of The Sopranos fans and his fans that he’s in control and can do whatever the hell he wants. He even pointed it out with the Twilight Zone episode that he used during the episode. Secondly, he chickened out and didn’t even give us an ending.

People are speculating as to what actually happened next. But the fact is that nothing happened. Tony’s not dead. Junior, Carmela, Meadow, AJ, Sil, and Paulie aren’t dead. Tony didn’t get arrested. Terrorist didn’t do anything. And the Russians didn’t get their revenge. I think it is completely ridiculous that anybody thinks that The Sopranos ending is anything better than okay. I’ll give you okay David Chase. I don’t think it was okay, I think it was poor and cheap, I’m merely acknowledging that some people could think it was okay. Anyone who thinks it’s better than okay, is wrong.

Endings might be difficult to write but he could’ve at least tried.

Have there ever been more people in America who simultaneously thought their cable or satellite went out?

How’d you like the ending? Did anyone actually think it was good or great?

This Post was Authored by Matt Kjesbo

TV is about escapism I get that. Heck that’s why we all enjoy it. But unlike American television where only the slimmest and therefore by definition prettiest get into primetime (though there are exceptions, Jewel Staite’s Kaylee on Firefly - so upset about how they told her to slim down for the film) I find that the BBC casts a little more realistically. That’s not to say that any of the leading actresses gracing UK screens are unattractive I just think that for the most part they have a nice cross section of real womanhood.

Yes, the Doctor’s companions, both Rose and Martha, are fit and attractive though Martha is definitely the slimmer of the two, while Rose revels in her curves, but to me they seem to be the exception, not the rule. First up would be Rose’s mom, Jackie Tyler, played by Camille Coduri, she’s a very pretty woman, but would she survive on American television. I don’t think so.

Now before I continue, yes, I’m a guy, so some of this may be construed as sexism, and for that I apologize, that is not my intent, I just sincerely believe that the BBC does a better job of portraying Every Woman than any American TV.

Instead of setting up examples for girls and young women to aspire to like they’re American counterparts, the characters on the BBC tend to be happy being themselves (I mean let’s face it, some of the folks on Eastenders are downright homely - but they’re real and that makes all the difference).

I found this to be especially true in Life On Mars and Robin Hood, both of the female leads, Liz White and Lucy Griffiths respectively, are attractive, but they sure don’t fit into the American TV stereotype of reed thin. Instead they are both curvy, and while both are pretty you feel like you could bump into them on the street, because their natural attractiveness is more an everyday quality and not fitted into place surgically or cosmetically.

And of course not to mention both of their characters are clever and adventurous, always a plus.

What do you guys think? Is this perception of “beautiful people only” on TV a North American problem? And what messages is it really conveying to female viewers?

This Post was Authored by TD Our Resident Guru of All Things BBC

According to TVShowsOnDVD, heavy metal show Metalocypse’s Season One has a release date:

” The next story: we’re told that Metalocalypse - Season 1 is coming to stores on October 2nd, as a 20 episode set on 2 DVDs. Also included are special features, but we haven’t gotten the details on these yet.”

Out of all the shows on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup, Metalocalypse is one of my least favorites. I love heavy metal, and the animation is amazing, but the characters just don’t grab me. It’s not a terrible show in any way. In fact, I’ll take it over the “American Idol” and “Survivor” knockoffs anyday. And, in it’s defense, it took some time for Aqua Teen to seduce me into the dark side.

Anyone headbanging to this news? Will you get the dvd or just let it fade away like a bad Poison album?

This Post was Authored by Josh Kelhoffer Our Resident Guru of All Things Adult Swim

Our favorite pirate adventure reality series picked up this week with JD taking care of some captain business with a couple members of the crew. First he asks Sean to be the ships cook. Sean accepts seeing that people aren’t going to get too upset with the person who feeds them. Next JD approaches Jay about being his inside man and leader of the crew or Bosun. Jay accepts the position which comes with some loot and the occasional shot of rum. JD is starting to realize that he’s not going to be captain forever and that he needs to start buttering up to some of the crew besides his officers Ben and Cheryl.

The challenge for the week is for Felipe Sanchez Grillos’ treasure who was the Captain Henry Steel’s Master Gunner. The Black and Red crew will have to race to the Snake Pit by first swimming to shore, racing up the coast, hiking up the mountainside, and into the pit. Once in the pit, the crews would have to find a chest which had some kind of magnetic compass thingy and which will lead them to the treasure.

The crews for this challenge began with the Black crew, lead by Captain JD and his officers (Ben and Cheryl). The remaining crew members are randomly split into the Black and Red crews with the Black crew getting the extra person. Kendra started out the challenge poorly for the Red Crew with her inability to swim. The Black crew took a quick lead with Azmyth leading the way a getting to the Sabotage. Captain JD and his Black crew quickly make their way to and into the Snake Pit. Meanwhile, the Red Crew falls further behind after Joy hurt her knee and needed to be carried. Arrrr!!

After looking around the Snake Pit for a bit Azmyth finds the Compass Plate (which turns out to be a magnetic disc with a spoon for a needle) and begins to look for the treasure. The spoon points to a direction and a number of paces on the plate which points to the treasure. The Red crew finally shows up at the pit but the Black Crew is too far ahead. Azmyth starts bushing away some of the leaves in the area where the Compass Plate is telling them to look and low and behold the Black Crew finds the $45,000 treasure.

JD again takes his half of the treasure and chooses to keep Ben and Cheryl as his officers (who again get 1/4 share). By the next morning JD also needs to assign three members of the crew for Pirate Court with the Black Spot. JD chooses Kendra, Christian, and Joy each because of their poor performances in the challenge. Christian you will remember is an ex-NFL running back. Christian is something like 270 lbs. and was very slow and worthless in all aspects of the challenge. Kendra and Joy make the standard mindless speeches. Christian at first said he felt comfortable and didn’t think he’d get voted off but he changed his tune when he called for a mutiny. Christian said the crew was unhappy and promised that he would pay them better than JD (which is nothing). JD defended himself and said that he thought the crew was happy. JD, of course, can’t believe that or he’s a totally idiot, but what else can he say.

Unfortunately, JD will be around another week after not receiving any votes again. Kendra received four votes to Christian’s five and Christian became the second pirate cut adrift from the Picton Castle.

So who’s going to win and be Pirate Master? I see Azmyth and Jay as the clear cut favorites. Too many people already hate JD for him to win. But there are still many Pirates laying low, especially the woman. Who are your doubloons on?

This Post was Authored by Our Resident Guru of All Things

Last Night was the season premiere of Big Love on HBO.

In the aftermath of her “Mother of the Year” exposure at theGovernor’s mansion, Barb retreats into her own world, leaving Nicki and Margene to take up the slack. Hell-bent on learning who betrayed the family, Bill gathers evidence against Home Plus employee Wendy, and gives Don an ultimatum to get rid of her. Having nearly succumbed
to Wanda’s poisoning, Alby urges Roman to take revenge against Joey and Bill. Continuing to track suspects, Bill makes dinner plans with neighbors Carl and Pam Martin, but Barb wants no part in the evening.

Meanwhile, Wanda faces an inquisition at Juniper Creek, and Joey feels the squeeze from Roman, despite Bill’s assurances that Roman will drop his charges in the wake of a state investigation. At home, Sarah meets an older suitor named Scott at an ex-Mormon meeting.

Reports are that this season picks up approximately 2 weeks after last
season’s finale. Barb becomes reclusive after the embarrassment of being exposed, which should cause Nicki to start acting a little more like first-wife. Shaking up the wives’ dynamic would be a nice twist.

It’s the interpersonal relationships between the characters that make this show so good. Even though it is important, I hope that they don’t spend too much time on Bill trying to find the one who betrayed the family.

We shall see!

Spoilers and discussion for this episode can be found by clicking the “Continue Reading” link below.

This Post was Authored by Larry Latouf Our Resident Guru of All Things Big Love

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I had thought they already addressed this when they brought in the other Kryptonian girl who the fanbase thought was Supergirl (Kara) but it seems we were wrong.

Zap2it.com reports:

“One of the joys of creating ‘Smallville’ has been our ability to reinvent and reinterpret classic DC Comics characters,” says executive producer Al Gough. “Miles and I believe that Supergirl will give our series the mythic jolt that it needs as we head into our seventh season.”

The latest season will premiere with the arrival of Kara, Clark’s (Tom Welling) 19-year-old cousin born on Krypton. As the daughter of Zor-El, Jor-El’s brother, Kara also has superpowers, including one that Clark has yet to develop: the ability to fly. On the more mundane side, Kara butts heads with Clark, is sweet on Jimmy Olsen (Aaron Ashmore) and draws Lex’s (Michael Rosenbaum) attention.

Its long ago noticed that they like to reinvent the characters instead of just carbon copying the storylines from the page. But this is one character that they appear to be hitting right on. I wonder if she will have a costume of sorts, and thereby influencing Clark to mask his identity. (The glasses were cool but ditched a LONG time ago).

That and she can fly. Last season we were told that we would see Clark fly. They tease us with him accidentally flying in earlier seasons (floating over his bed, flying through the tornado) and he did fly as his darker alterego Kal. But Clark himself has so far been carrying this mental block that wont let him fly. So they teased us that “this season he will fly” and it wasn’t really Clark who did it.

Perhaps Kara will give him lessons.

This post was Authored by Rodney Brazeau, Copy Editor

As you can see from the pile of posts below, we are catching up on some missed news, and introducing the International Friends to the new team of TV enthusiasts who have volunteered to write for their favourite shows.

There is a LOT of posts up today, and we will try to keep them coming as best as the TV schedules will allow. These folks have been incredibly patient with the process that brings them on board with The TVShow Blog.com and I hope you are patient with them.

Be nice to them. They have been nice to me!

Here’s to looking forward to an exciting time here at TVSB. Welcome aboard!

Rodney Brazeau
Copy Editor - The TVShow Blog.com

Many of us out there love Survivor and many more love the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise and the whole Pirate fad going on out there these days. Now the producers of Survivor give us Pirate Master. Arrrrr!

16 pirates sail the seas for over $1 million in prize money with a $500,000 prize going to the Pirate Master. Each week the crew begins with expeditions for gold and riches and ends with a pirate being voted off and “cut adrift”. Pirate Master revolves around the legend of the pirate Captain Henry Steel and his treasure the Chest of Zanzibar. I think we all get the gist of this game before even seeing the show in this age of reality TV. Our host for the adventure is something called Cameron Daddo and he’s not really any thing of consequence at this point.

Our adventure begins with the crew of 16 pirates and our host aboard the ship Picton Castle. Immediately, the Chest of Zanzibar is hoisted aboard the ship by the crew. The first of the chest’s 14 compartments is opened and reveled are two maps and two compasses, setting up our first challenge. The crew is randomly split into Red and Black crews and each is given a map, compass, and row boat. Our pirates then set off from the main ship to find the first treasure. Overall, this challenge was similar in almost every way to Survivor challenges with one intriguing twist. It looks like challenges will all have a sabotage aspect to them where one team will have the change to screw up and screw with the other teams. The Sabotage wasn’t that great this first week but could make for some interesting drama down the road. The Black Crew won the first treasure of gold coins which turned out to be worth $40,000.

Next the crew was to elect a captain. Joe Don was elected captain and it was then reviled that he would get half of the treasures being $20,000. 7 of the 8 members of the Black Crew voted for Joe Don to be captain. John did not because he and Joe Don have clashed a bit at this point. John also feels like he did well in the challenge and rightly so. Joe Don was then to choose two officers, he choose Ben and Cheryl who each received $5,000. The five remaining members of the Black Crew each get $2,000 in treasure. Arrrrr! At this point it’s probably worth mentioning some of the other contestants; we already know Joe Don (JD), Ben, and Cheryl, the only others who are note worthy so far are John because he seemed to do the best in the challenge and also because he’s a “Scientist/Exotic Dancer”, Joy because she got seasick, Louie who is Pirate Master’s versions of Rupert from “Survivor: Pearl Islands” and “All-Stars”, and Christian because he’s a former NFL player.

JD and his officers are enjoying their new quarters and their power. Meanwhile the crew is already starting to see the power go to JD’s head. On the next day Cameron informs JD that he must choose three members of the crew for Pirate Court, one of which will be cut adrift by the remaining crew. The 10 remaining crew members must either vote off one of these three or unanimously vote off and mutiny the captain. JD immediately selects John because of the problems they’ve already had. Personally I like John a hell of a lot more than JD. JD is very arrogant and really sounds like some dumb jock. John at least seems like he knows what he’s doing out there and looks the part of a pirate. But John is creeping everyone out at this point with his soft voice and long stripper hair. But John does at least appear to be a decent guy. For the eliminate JD also selects Louie because he is well liked and has spoken a little bit about a mutiny and Joy also because she is well liked and is unlikely to receive any votes. Can’t argue with Captain JD’s strategy as to how to get John sent home.

In Pirate Court each of the three is given a chance to plead their case to stay. Louie and Joy both give the usual upbeat speech about how much they’ll miss everyone if they go home and how they came to win. John’s pleads to the crew to mutiny JD. To emphasize his point, John has stolen the only two compasses and if he goes, the compasses go. Unfortunately nobody cares about the compasses or John and he is unanimously voted off and cut adrift.

Overall it’s a decent show so far but has a lot to live up to. Survivor is a juggernaut with high expectations. Every season that I watch Survivor it takes a good four or five episodes to get into and I have to say this started faster than Survivor. The first people to go on Survivor are usually nobodies who haven’t even had any face time; people who don’t stand out in any way. John at least stood out and I was disappointed to see him go so soon. It’s too early for me to pick a winner yet but I’ll have some speculation on that soon. Until next time Mateys!

Miss the first couple episodes? Visit the Official Website at CBS to watch the full episodes now!

This Post was Authored by Matt Kjesbo, Our Resident Know-it-all for All things Pirate Master!