Category: External TV (Page 134 of 419)

Mad Men 3.1 – On your mark, get set, get out of town

August 16, 2009 /

Welcome back to the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency…and, yet, although this is the premiere of the third season of “Mad Men,” it’s actually the first time that Premium Hollywood has gotten around to blogging the series. It’s certainly not that we haven’t been watching (the series did, after all, end Season 2 at the top of Bullz-Eye’s TV Power Rankings), but…well, the reasons why we haven’t done it before now are moot. We’re here now, so let’s get cracking, shall we?

I have to admit: the opening flashback sequence left me uncertain at first, and I wasn’t entirely sure if we were supposed to infer if it was Don’s own birth or not, but, yes, it does indeed appear that not only does Don have someone else’s identity, but it’s highly possible that he’s never really known who he was. Well, that would make it easier to escape into someone else’s life. As it turns out, not nearly as much time has passed as we might have expected: Betty is still in the final stages of the pregnancy we learned about in the season finale, so we haven’t even moved forward nine months. As ever, though, series creator Matthew Weiner managed to tease us a little bit about the timeline by having us presume that Don was warming formula for the new baby when he was, in fact, just getting Betty a bit of warm milk to help her get to sleep.

Time to jump over to the offices of Sterling Cooper, where there’s clearly been a bit of a British invasion since we were last around. John Hooker could be an interesting character, given the way he’s carving his niche as an assistant rather than a secretary. Could a relationship with Joan be in the cards? Too soon to tell. Based on the comments around the office, some firings have clearly been taking place (clearly, it’s not the least bit coincidental that the conversations about job loss, medical insurance, and taxes echo just as strongly now as they did in the 1960s), but I can’t imagine any of the others have been nearly as entertaining as Burt Peterson’s. It’s always good to see Michael Gaston’s face – I still think of him as Gray Anderson from “Jericho” – and he made a great explosive show of Burt’s departure. Burt’s screaming behind the closed door of his office was hilarious, but I think the biggest laugh came from Roger Sterling’s late arrival to Burt’s farewell. (“Oh, it’s that meeting.”) By the way, after all of the intense discussion last season over the meaning of the painting in Bertram Cooper’s office, I enjoyed a chuckle when Cooper’s premiere appearance involved a discussion about new pieces of artwork.

Vincent Kartheiser never fails to impress me with his work as Pete Campbell, running through the gamut of emotions this episode. First, he’s scared shitless that he’s destined to suffer the same fate as Burt, only to have his nervous twitching turn into a full fledged dance of glee when he gets the news that he’s being given the title of Head of Accounts. Then, when he learns that Ken has gotten the same news and that the higher-ups are basically playing the two of them against each other, he develops a stone face that would put the heads on Mount Rushmore to shame. And just as you think he’s going to go whine to Don (as he’s already done to his wife), he’s put in a situation where he has a chance to toady up to both Sterling and Cooper simultaneously, which you can bet he takes advantage of. You probably wouldn’t want to watch an entire series revolving around Pete, but for my money, he’s arguably an even more deep and complex character than Don is. I know Kartheiser has gotten recognition through the Screen Actors Guild, but it’d be nice if the Emmys threw a little love his way next year.

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External Entertainment, External TV, Mad Men, Reviews, TV, TV Dramas

True Blood 2.9 – Though I be a dead man, I said yes and amen

August 16, 2009 /

Well, you know what the Smiths said: if it’s not love, then it’s the bomb that will bring us together. And so it was at the beginning of this week’s “True Blood,” as we saw Sookie suck the silver shrapnel right out of Eric, God love her…and, by the way, the phrase “suck the silver shrapnel” clearly needs to be popularized as a double entendre post-haste. (On a related note, I also anticipate quoting Sookie’s exclamation, “You big lying A-hole,” enough to bring it into the pop culture lexicon pretty quickly.) Eric’s delivery of the phrase “she was superb” to Bill was genius…as, for that matter, was his chicanery to get hooked into Sookie’s emotions. The intimate discussion between Sookie and Bill no doubt thrilled fans of Charlaine Harris’s original novels, as it confirmed that they were finally going to get what they’ve been waiting for: a pairing-up between Sookie and Eric. And is it me, or was that the most erotically charge scene of the season to date? Maybe it’s just because there was no blood being smeared this time around.

Jason was clearly suffering from a little post-traumatic stress, given the way he looked when he saw Luke’s dismembered hand. As a result, the discussion between Sookie and Jason wasn’t terribly surprising, but it was sweet and heartfelt, a tone we’ve not seen between the two of them in quite some time. You can’t blame Jason for slipping into depression over their lack of family, but kudos to Sookie for giving him a kick in the pants about growing up. I doubt if it’ll take, given his history, but it’s a start, anyway. By the way, only a sister could get away with telling a guy that he’s lazy rather than dumb and to say that she sometimes wants to stick his head in a bucket and kick it around the yard. Did you notice that she gave him shit, but he opted to avoid any insults, even in jest? Maybe he’s smarter than I’ve given him credit for.

Could Jessica and Hoyt be any cuter a couple? I loved that comment from Hoyt when he was doing verbal battle with his mother, smacking her down for only bothering to bring up his father when she doesn’t like something he’s doing. But, then, I loved pretty much that entire scene, particularly when he was listing off the various types of people she doesn’t like. (As someone who was raised in the South, I dare say that I’ve heard her excuse about how why she doesn’t like vampires – “it was the way I was brought up” – more than a few times in a different context.) I think it was always a given that the meet-and-greet at Merlotte’s between Jessica, Hoyt, and his mama was already going to go poorly, but who knew it would result in Mama being around for Maryanne’s explosive entrance into the place later that evening?

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External Entertainment, External TV, Reviews, True Blood, TV, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

The “Mad Men” cast talks about Season 3

August 14, 2009 /

With two critically revered seasons on the books — and a third kicking off on Sunday — AMC’s “Mad Men” is certifiably one of the hottest shows on the cable TV dial. So if you happened to be at the summer’s TCA press tour, you’d probably do exactly what Bullz-Eye’s Will Harris did — namely, move heaven and earth to get some face time with the members of the cast who showed up for a TCA cocktail party. Of course, none of us are Will Harris, but thanks to the magic of the Internet, we don’t have to be — he’s gone and put the transcripts of his chat with the “Mad Men” cast online for all to see.

Will’s “Mad Men” interviewees were Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell), Christina Hendricks (Joan Holloway), and Jon Hamm (Don Draper) — plus, he’s reached back into the not-so-distant past to include some of the highlights from his recent talk with Rich Sommer (Harry Crane). Though none of the cast members let down their guard enough to let slip any details about the upcoming third season, we can rest assured that plenty of surprises are in store. In the words of Kartheiser:

“This season, season three, I have been blindsided by, like, four or five stories. Like, literally, I have been reading the scripts like, ‘Holy shit! Are you kidding me?'”

Of course, a major component of the show has always been its time period — and as “Mad Men” moves from the early ’60s into the turbulent later years of the decade, it’s reasonable to expect some of that upheaval to make its way onto the screen. Hamm confirmed this, saying:

“Everything changes, and I think that’s a big part of the story we’re trying to tell this season. The culture and the attitudes of the United States at that time are shifting, and these people have to deal with what that shift entails. Not only in their own lives, but in how they deal with their coworkers, how they deal with their workspace, how they deal with their relationships…how they deal with all of that.”

And that’s just scratching the surface of the article. To read the rest of Will Harris’ chat with the “Mad Men” cast, click on the image above or follow this link!

Actors, External TV, Interviews, Mad Men

TCA Tour – “The Office” set visit

August 13, 2009 /

During my time at the TCA Press Tour, I was fortunate enough to visit the sets of two CBS series (“NCIS: Los Angeles” and “Three Rivers“), two Fox series (“Bones” and “Dollhouse“), and two ABC series (“Castle” and “Private Practice”), but when you get right down to it, my excitement level about all six of those sets probably still didn’t equal out to how psyched I was to visit the set of just one NBC show: “The Office.”

It was an absolutely surreal experience to pull up in front of a building in Valencia, CA, and see a sign which read, “Scranton Business Park,” but it got even more bizarre as we stepped into the Dunder-Mifflin warehouse and immediately saw members of the cast milling about. We were quickly divided into small groups and taken on a tour of the actual Dunder-Mifflin office by cast members, and I was fortunate enough to be part of the group led by Angela Kinsey, who plays Angela Martin on the show.

My wife and I met Angela in 2007 when we attended our first TCA Awards ceremony, as “The Office” had taken home the award for Best Comedy Series that year, so I was already well aware that her real-life personality is the polar opposite of her character’s. She’s constantly laughing, and you could tell that, although she was no doubt drafted into the task of giving us this tour, she loves her job and doesn’t mind talking about it in the slightest. It was incredibly cool to be able to see the intricacies of the various certificates on the walls of the office, as well as the personal photos on each of the desks, but I think my favorite moment was when she told us that Brian Baumgartner, who plays Kevin, still has a post-it on his desk that was written during the very first episode of the show. No, wait, I take that back: it might’ve been when she recited back to us the way she used to have to answer the phone when she was an operator for 1-800-DENTIST. Well, either way, it was a real treat to have her give us the tour personally. We were also given the opportunity to take our photo at Michael Scott’s desk, which I absolutely took advantage of, but all things considered, I think I actually might like this shot from Pam’s desk better:

After the set visit, we returned to the warehouse, where we were each presented with our own nameplates which declared us to be Assistant to the Regional Manager of Dunder-Mifflin…and you can bet that mine sits on my desk at this very moment. From there, we were offered coffee and pastries as we sat down for a Q&A with the cast (minus Rainn Wilson, who wasn’t feeling well) and producers of the show.

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External Entertainment, External TV, Interviews, News, TCA Blog 2009, TCA Press Tour, The Office, TV, TV Comedies

Black on “Big Bang”

August 13, 2009 /

CBS has let slip…and by “let slip,” I mean that they’ve released a formal press release…that comedian Lewis Black will be appearing on the second episode of the new season of “The Big Bang Theory.”

Black will guest star as Professor Crawley, a brilliant professor of entomology – he even has a dung beetle named after him – who works at Caltech with the guys. Unfortunately, Crawley’s life is falling apart: his department’s being shut down because of budget cutbacks, his wife left him for someone who studies birds, and he’s moving in with his daughter in Oxnard…not Oxnard on the beach, but Oxnard by the onion fields. None of these things, however, prove nearly as aggravating as Sheldon, who keeps pestering him to settle a bet with Wolowitz about a cricket.

The third season of “The Big Bang Theory” premieres Monday, Sept. 21, at 9:30 PM, so Black’s episode should – at least in theory – air on the 28th.

In tribute, here’s a clip of Mr. Black talking religion with Bob Schieffer, followed by my favorite moment in “Big Bang” history:

Actors, External Entertainment, External TV, News, Stand-Up Comics, TV, TV Comedies

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