Robert Rodriguez, director of Sin City and Desperado, is shopping a new women’s exploitation show set in prison. It will be called “Women In Chains.”TV Squad has the scoop!

I’ll admit, I got a thing for Rose McGowen, especially when she co-starred in Charmed, and a show like this may just be the perfect fit for her. We already know Rodriguez can direct exploitation decently, although it is debatable whether or not such homages are a waste of screen time, but we all deserve at least one guilty pleasure show at least one time or another.

I agree with the article. This show needs to be on a premium channel like HBO or Showtime. It needs breathing space. It needs to be able to do what it should do best: be exploitive! And I doubt if running on a channel like FX would help it much.

Variety reports.

So, I guess this is good news for 90210 fans, right?

I still can’t help but ask “why a 90210 spin off?” Everytime I see a story about it, I scratch my head. Will a 90’s show like 90210 work today? I mean, every time I flip through the stations and I see an old rerun, I can’t help but laugh.

In a bizarre promotion, American Gladiators is going crazy with an Incredible Hulk theme as a promotion for the upcoming blockbuster (or disaster?) based on the famous comic book character.Hollywood Reporter has the story.

This is insane! I’m scratching my head right now. I don’t even really know what to say.

I mean, I guess it makes sense in a strange sort of way. I’m in now way ripping on the event. It does sound kind of fun. I mean, you have the original Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, and former wrestler Hulk Hogan on the same screen. I’m not sure if such a spectacle has happened before, but it’s certainly the first I’ve heard of it.

Then there’s the insane amount of green that will be all over the stadium. I’m sure the whole place will look as if it’s filled with gamma radiation!

Television is not a perfect medium. There are so many pet peeves that aggravate me when I watch the tube that it made writing this article a little harder than I thought.

I was sitting at my computer with the notepad, trying my best to jot down things when they came to mind, and then it donned on me! The only true way to write an article like this is t actually sit down and flip through television and find the things that actually piss me off.  So throughout the week, I sat down in front of the television and with my cheap purple notebook, I wrote down the things the  really agravated me.

And here’s what I wrote down!

• Running commercials immediately after the opening title sequence. This gets really annoying
  when it’s one of your favorite shows and you’ve been waiting all day to watch it and the clock
  finally turns to 8pm, and you get that small taste of whats to come, you find out that you have
  to wait another 5 minutes for the show to actually start.
• Severe sound increases when the show cuts to commercials. 
• Pop up advertisements running on bottom of the screen during the show.
• Seemingly neverending commercial cycles. You know the ones where it seems like an eternity has
  passed and you finally decide to change the channel and then you change back after a minute
  and the commercials are still running.
• Paid programs-enough said!
• On Demand services not working
• Strange edits made to movies
• When you have a 100+ channels and there’s nothing to watch
• When you watch three hours of a ghosthunting show and they spend more
  time complaining about some dude in their team then they do ghosthunting.
• Marathons- What can you say, I enjoy variety and in a time when you can buy
  your favorite show on dvd, marathons are quite pointless.
• It’s ok to say “bitch” on television, but don’t dare put “hole” at the
  end of “ass.”
• The fact that SciFi shows Uwe Boll movies.
• When you sit through a show that is chock full of messages like “true beauty is on the inside” and then
  when it cuts to commercials, they cram “if you don’t use this zit remover, you’ll never get laid!”
  down our throats. 

If you’re wondering why most of it’s complaints about commercials, it’s because a good 60% of what I see when I flip through television is commercials, and they really do get on my nerves.

So commentors, I want to know, what is your list?

Ron Perlman, another favorite actor of mine, is a real character. I like him in just about every movie he does, even if the movie itself sucks (like Alien Resurrection). He’s one of those actors that has been all of the place in his career, from the Batman Animated Series to Beauty and the Beast to video games to movies, and is just now recently getting the attention he deserves.

Well, according to Zap2it, he is going to be starring in a new series for FX.

FX has had some good series, though I never was a true viewer of their original shows, I did enjoy tuning into The Shield and Rescue Me from time to time. I can already picture Sons of Anarchy being like one of those shows, and I can also see myself watching it, especially with Perlman and Sagal.

Out of all the new shows I have read about and/or have written about, this is the one that has me most interested.

Some new faces are coming to the crisis realm of 24, according to TV Squad.

Out of all these new people, the one that popped out the most was Tony Todd. Now, most people know him from Candyman, which I only just now saw maybe a couple years ago, but I know him from The Crow. But he’s been in a lot of things, from episodes of Star Trek:The Next Generation and The X-Files and movies like Platoon, The Rock, and Final Destination. He’s one of those guys that just carries a sinister presence with him. The man could play an ice cream man and still manage to be creepy. And that is one of his best traits.

Kelsey Grammer is one of my favorite actors. He’s one of those guys who is just so much fun to watch act. I though he had the perfect casting as Beast in the third X-Men, even if the film itself was far from perfect.

According to Variety, he is going to starring in a new pilot that ABC has greenlit.

Sounds interesting. I think I will have to keep an eye out on this one.

Sam Raimi is probably most known for directing the Spiderman and Evil Dead movies, but some of you may not know that he produced two somewhat popular series many years ago, Hecules and Xenia:Warrior Princess.

Well, he’s returning to television with a new series and Zap2it has the scoop.

I usually don’t get into the syndicated series, like Andromeda and Xenia, but I know a lot of scifi fans might, and stuff like this generally makes for some good entertainment on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

I love The Simpsons. It has been one of my favorite shows since I was a kid. I have watched it since the beginning. At least, up until now.

I have defended the later seasons. And I still buy the dvd sets, and I loved the movie, but after the last season of the show, I have no interest in watching the new season.

I have absolutely no interest in watching it. I oculd. I certainly have the time now. But I don’t. And it’s strange, for me, because there is no hatred there. It’s just a deep void that hasn’t been filled with the actual series in a while. The movie filled that void last year, but when the new season came back, I just didn’t flip to it.

One of the things I love most about the show was it’s stories and it’s heart, and while the heart may still be there, the stories are getting shortsighted. They were spending way to long with the irrelevant first act and by the time we get to the actual advertised story, the one everyone thought they were going to see, the show is nearly over.

I mean, I laughed. I still found the jokes funny. It doesn’t take much for me to laugh. I don’t anylize the jokes, and often, I don’t even need to get them. I find a lot of things amusing, and I wish a lot more people were like that too. Although, it does get old when all the jokes are the same overused technique (which is why I slowed down on Family Guy).

Another thing is, with the commercialls getting longer and longer, the shows are getting shorter and shorter.

We open with the opening titles. Then we cut to commercials. A couple minutes later, the show actually starts (often around 8:05 or even 8:07) and then after four or five minutes, we get an almost equal time of commercials, and then we come back to the middle act and then another equal time of commercials and then the final act, which usually seems to be the shortest.

It seems to me that they should drop the opening title sequence. Sure, it’s part of the shows history, but if it helps get them more storytime, allowing more time to balance the story with the jokes, which it seems they are having trouble doing, causing the big issue I mentioned earlier. It wouldn’t be much more time, but it could be enough.

After 19 years, the show has filled up with conventions that maybe they shouldn’t follow anymore. Things aren’t fresh. It doens’t seem like they are trying to keep it fresh when almost every year they do a Simpsons vacation episode or a Sideshow Bob episode. And must we always have the celerbity cameos? Can’t we slow down on those a bit?

In the 19 years, it may seem that The Simpsons have done everything, but I bet if they wised up and tried to come up with something fresh, they might be able to squeeze out a couple more years, or fall flat, but either way, I’m sure the series only has a couple more years left.

While a part of me fears the series’ end, the other part of me thinks it may be best if they just call it quits. Then again, maybe there is a little fight left in them.  Who knows? How often does a show like this make it this long? Not very often, and with the new shows I see rolling in, I seriously doubt many of them will even last half as long Homer, Bart, Marge, Lisa, and Maggie have.

Also, it is worth noting that the animation has been beautiful lately. So the newer seasons do have something to offer.

Because nobody asked for it, the suck factor of the live action Scooby Doo film series is getting extended to it’s original home, television. With a prequal, noneother! According to MovieHole.

Whats up with prequels? Do we really need to see the backstories to everything? We didn’t even really need to see Darth Vader’s life story, much less Mystery, Inc. Honestly, I think audiences can accept a bunch of teens and their dog solving mysteries without seeing how they met. And besides, we already got A Pup Named Scooby Doo!

Being a cartoon fan that grew up on Hannah-Barbara reruns, I must say that Scooby Doo is completely wrong for live action. Well, at least, the direction the live action films took were completely wrong for it. It didn’t even seem like Scooby Doo, and being that this is a prequel to that film series, I doubt this television event will be anything different.

A new Heroes promo can be found here.  It’s quite short, but gives us very brief glimpses of the making of the new season, and has a couple of interviews, but it feels very forced.

Mainly, it’s the typical self-promotion we get from pre-release promotions. At one point, someone says “Reading the first two scripts, I was like holy….”, and at that point, red flags went up. Not the red flags that say “this will suck!”  but the ones that seem “full of it.”

Or maybe, it’s just that Ijust can’t get this sinking feeling like they still haven’t truly learned their lesson, and that season 3 could very well end up sucking. I’m going to need some good hard evidence before I can get that out of my mind.

Galactica fans may be excited to know that some tv movies might be coming their way, according to The Watcher.

Exciting news, huh? Although, it’s not really a “for sure” thing. As the article reminds us that it’s not exactly written in stone yet.

So while there’s a chance that it may not be, it’s exciting news to think about.

I’ve never really had a chance to comment on Galactica. I think it’s a really interesting notion that the once-considered Star Wars ripoff came back like twenty years later and just continually blew audiences away. Seriously, out of all these retro reduxes (Bionic Women, for example), how many can say the same thing?

Looks like another BBC show is getting the Americanized treatment, according to ScifiWire.

ABC has given a series order to the time-travel drama Life on Mars, the network confirmed during its upfront presentation for advertisers on May 13. An American adaptation of the popular BBC SF series of the same name, Life on Mars will be executive-produced by David E. Kelley, who owns the rights to the show. It will star Irish actor Jason O’Mara (Resident Evil: Extinction) as a modern-day cop who is transported back to the 1970s.

I haven’t seen or heard of the original Life on Mars, so I did a little search and looked at the premise, and it seemed quite interesting, but at the same time, seems like something that I would tire of after a while, especially if they just drag out the premise and it’s nothing but “Oh, I’m from 30 years in the future, I’m used to iPods ot record players” and so on and so on. Something I can see ABC doing.

But it does have an interesting premise, one that I am at least curious enough to check out at least once.

But, this leads me to another question, one that troubles me. Why must they keep pulling shows from BBC? Can’t they come up with something original? Or has all this reality tv thing brainwashed them into laziness?

Fox has another boring reality show for us, according to Zap2it!

Hmm…sounds interesting. Not!

It actually sounds like The Simple Life, except more decieving and dramatic. I give it six episodes!

Remember Donnie Wahlberg? The “new kid on the block.” Or is it now “the old guy down the street?” Well, Marky Mark’s older brother is going to be starring in a new TNT Drama. Reuters has the story.

I was watching The Sixth Sense the other day, and I was thinking “this guy has potential.” Too bad, the biggest acting gig he has gotten lately has been the Saw films. Maybe this show will be an outlet for him to show what he just might be able to do.

As in tradition of the Duking It Out, we pit two very similar shows against each other.

In right corner, we have Herman Munster and his goofball family of misfit Universal Monsters.

In the left corner, we have Gomez Addams and spooky family of…….well, spooks!

 I remember watching Nick At Nite, and if I remember right, they had an entire night, or possibly a week, dedicated to The Munsters and Addams Family, and which came first. Both shows aired right around the same time. In fact, they both started airing in September of 1964 and both ended sometime in 1966.

 Which came first? The Addams Family first aired on Sept. 18th. The Munsters started on the 24th, so the Addams Family beat it by a mere 6 days.

But The Munster actually got higher nelson ratings.

Both shows are quite similar, though they had their differences. The Addams were pretty much a creepy version of the Beveryly Hillbillies, as they were a rich and odd family. They pretty stayed at their mansion and had visitors from time to time.

The Munsters were a lower class family, and often left the house. So, you could probaly say that one of the major ideas behind The Munsters was the idea of a family of misunderstood monsters trying to function within a real life society.

The Munsters spawned a couple of really bad movies, with the the original cast, and, at least, two godawful made-for tv movies in the 90’s. While remaining a part of pop culture, The Munsters haven’t really left their rerun form.  Other than the movies and a sequel series in the late 80’s, nothing else has really come from The Munsters, not even a modernized feature film.

The Addams, on the other hand, have since re-appeared in two animated series, two feature films, one direct-to-video movie, and a few video games.

Unlike my previous two installments (Simpsons VS Family Guy, SNL VS MadTV), I actually like both shows just about the same. But I watched The Munsters a lot more. In fact, I was introduced to The Munsters when I was real little and didn’t get a chance to see The Addams Family until I was almost 10 years old.

So to me, who wins? The Munsters, just because it was a big part of my childhood.

But it doesn’t matter what I think. The winner is determined by you, the reader, so go ahead and drop a line in the comment section!

I’ve been hearing rumbling sthat Scrubs was going to ABC for, at least, over a month now. Zach Braff has finally “confirmed” it on his MySpace blog. AICN has the scoop!

I liked Scrubs a lot. It’s not a show that I watch in it’s original broadcast, but in syndicated form on Comedy Central. To be quite honest, it has been a year since I’ve been a able to watch an episode, but I really liked the show. If I could use one word to describe it, it would probably be “spunky.”

Details have arose about Brea Grant’s character, The Speedster.My Way has story.

“Her character is supposed to be Hiro’s Joker,” said Masi Oka, who plays Hiro. “Batman has The Joker. Hiro has Daphne. This is the season where Hiro finally finds his arch nemesis, and it happens to be this Speedster. I kind of equate it more to Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, except Daphne says more than ‘meep-meep.’”

So The Speedster is a villian? To me, this is music to my ears. When I first posted about Brea’s casting, I was under the impression that she was going to be yet another new protagonist just stumbling her way onto one of the storylines.

She’s still a Flash ripoff, but most of the characters from the show have stolen their abilities from comic books.

Also, a new season 3 promo has popped up on the net. It doesn’t show much-in fact, it doesn’t show us anything at all-but it does give us an idea of Season 3’s direction, but nothing more than what the title of this new season, “Villians”, has already told us. Nonetheless, I present the link  to you guys for your curious pleasure!

Heroes is adding yet another Hero to their line up. TV Guide has the scoop!

Brea looks like a cute girl and all, but the show is already having enough problems as it keeps on overflowing with new characters when it’s losing sight on some of the best characters from the original season. For me, this is a bad sign.

I think that if they are going to give us new characters, for at least a while, they should be villians. We already have enough do-gooders.

The upcoming Star Wars tv series is a hot topic. Well sort of! It’s hard to discuss something when you really don’t know that much about it, and generally the conversation goes to the prequels and enters “How can Lucas screw this up more?” territory.

Many of the readers may not know that Star Wars has had television series before, most of which were much more cringeworthy than any of Jake Lloyd’s “Yipppppeeeesssss!”

The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)- Not really a series, but it was made for television. This is increbidly hard to watch two hour long tv special is one that George Lucas has tried ever so long to forget, but us nerds just won’t let him! It is really painstaking to watch. I have never finshed it, but the portions I did watch could be used to torture victims into submission.

Carrie Fisher was obviously lit up throughout the entire thing.  This was apparently shot when she was deep in her drug addiction.

It included a crappy holiday tune sung to the Star Wars theme, and featured music from the likes of Jefferson Starship. Seriously, what does Jefferson Starship have to do with Star Wars? What does Star Wars have to do with Christmas?

Though, all is not lost. The Holiday Special included the introduction to Boba Fett in an animated segment and even had brief looks at deleted scenes from the first film disguised as relavent moments. But still, this is definitely not worth the budget it took to create it.

Ewok Adventure(1984) and Ewoks: The Battle For Endor(1985)- I remember distinctly watching these two TV films a lot  as a kid. In fact, as embarassing as it is to admit, I saw these films before I saw Return of the Jedi, and I remember walking in Target and looking at the movie rack where Return of the Jedi sat and seeing Wicket on the cover and turning to my dad and asking “Why are Ewoks in Star Wars?” Wow! I was a stupid kid!

Of course, I learned the truth a few years later, that the Ewok films were spinoffs (”sequals” I said then) from Return of the Jedi, and while I loved them as a kid, I have yet to rack up the courage to buy the dvds from the cheap rack.

The Ewok Adventure, now known as “Caravan of Courage” thanks to Lucasfilm and their nack for changing/lenghtening titles, was about two kids stranded on Endor and looking for their parents with the help of the faithfull Ewoks.

The Battle For Endor killed off a lot of the Ewoks and all of the human family except the young girl, who makes it out alive with Wickett, who are later helped by an old man played by Wilford Brimley, the once respected actor from Cocoon who now sells life insurance on television commercials aired during The Price is Right. Eventually, the little girl idioticly gets herself captured and the old man and Wicket have to save her.

The thing I remember most from these films was how shocked i was when most of the main characters from the first film were killed at the beginning of the second. I mean, how often does that happen?

Droids(’85-’86) and Ewoks(’85-’87)- While two different animated series, I class these two together.  And besides, they were slammed together to make the Ewoks and Droids Adventure Hour!  These two shows weren’t as painful as the Holiday Special, and yet, they were all the more forgettable!

Both series were quite similar to the style of the animated series of the time, and following Return of the Jedi, they were obviously an attempt at keeping Star Wars alive on the small screen (kind of like the two shows they are making now).

Of the two, it’s Droids that I remember the most. I even have an old vhs lying somewhere in the house.  It apparently took place in between Revenge of the Sith and the original Star Wars, but oddly enough, it featured pirates flying imperial ships instead of, you know, the imperials. Something that has had me confused since I was a child.  Also, for some odd reason, the droids go from master to master, and yet I thought they were property of Capt. Antilles at this time. Maybe, I’m wrong!

Ewoks took place before Return of the Jedi and featured the Ewoks speaking in English and not their official language.

Both series didn’t last long, ut there have been video and dvd release featuring a few prominant episodes, but they are nothing more than a couple of interesting tidbits in Star Wars’ ongoing history.

The Clone Wars(’03-’05)- This one is fairly new and most of you probably already know about it, but I felt that since it is, in a way, a Star Wars tv series, that I should include it.

As you all know, Clone Wars took place in between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and was part of the huge Clone Wars marketting strategy Lucasfilm developed, which also included a multi-platform video game that was really easy to beat.

The first round of episodes were only three to four minutes long, and were really easy to miss when they aired on Cartoon Network. Luckily, you could find them on Star War’s main website, which was usually how I watched them. Then towards the release of Revenge of the Sith, the episodes were over ten minutes long, and built up to the start of the final film.

It was here where we were introduced to General Grevous, the uncanny and quite pointless villian from Revenge of the Sith. 

The animation was 2D, unlike the upcoming CGI series, and was done in a style very similar to Samurai Jack. Of course, the show was directed by Genndy Tartakovsky,a name that is easily to say than it is to spell and one that goes hand and hand with shows like Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack.

While I still don’t think the character designs quite match that Star Wars feel, at least in my opinion they don’t,  I did enjoy this show. It was action-packed and fun, which is something that can’t be said for the other shows and TV films listed above.

So there we have it. A short list of Star Wars cash-ins that range from pitiful to decent, save for The Clone Wars, which was quite entertaining.