Tuesday, September 26, 2006

TV Shows Premiere, Networks Lag


As the networks premiere their shows, competition seems to slim.
NBC may be saved by their new provocative dramas as long as they don’t cancel them, which is what happened to Windfall and the sitcom Four Kings. Heroes proves to be similar to Six Degrees, as both shows bring their characters together through strange events. After the “pilot” episode of Heroes, it’s clear that a bomb of some sort will strike New York City. The characters slowly but surely meet each other through a universal connection to save the city and maybe the world. Six Degrees is out to prove the theory that anyone in the world can be connected to anyone else in the world through six other people. When Six Degrees is added to Heroes it equals CBS’s Jericho. A show in which the citizens of Jericho, Colorado band together after atomic bombs strike Denver, Colorado and Atlanta, Georgia.
What’s the one show that can relate these others once again? That is NBC’s Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. NBC’s writers for the show call the fictional network NBS. Is that a combination of NBC and CBS? It is obvious, however, that NBC is paying high-name actors and actresses to use their names on the show. Mark Wahlberg and Rachel McAdams were two of at least eight who were mentioned. With this aside, NBC has apparently gone into teaching its viewers a thing or two about television using Studio 60.
CBS opened with a brand new comedy about eight 20-somethings who shared the same third-grade class, bringing joy, trauma, and humiliation from character to character. Well, it certainly has pulled me in for quite a few on-the-floor laughs. It’s followed by How I Met Your Mother, which kicked off with more laughs than the previous season, leaving me on the floor again. Now I’m forced to just sit on the floor for these two back-to-back sitcoms.
NBC brought back their award-winning sitcoms My Name Is Earl and The Office, which are just as funny as the previous seasons. I’m not quite on the floor just yet. Deal Or No Deal appears to be more strenuous than before, as its viewers try their luck at choosing a case worth a million or two.

ABC has yet to “set-off” their grand opening. They are premiering Ugly Betty a week late. Low ratings set in for ABC with the same genre every year. Fox’s ‘Til Death is chalked full of laughs. I’m on the floor for this one, too.
Unfortunately, CBS seems to want to draw late night audiences towards such dramas as Shark and Smith. Most audiences are preparing for bed during this last hour of primetime.
Such crime shows as the CSI’s, The Unit, and Criminal Minds lack good storylines. They won’t last. Just like these, most of what’s out there on TV is all the same…it’s boring, especially what’s on Fox.
So much for the interesting. My eyes are obviously glued to NBC and CBS. Most of these shows won’t last. NBC usually cancels their best sitcoms and dramas, as they did with Four Kings and Windfall. Six Degrees was taken from the board game about actor Kevin Bacon. As for Heroes, it seems too much like X-Men. It’s obvious that nuclear attacks sale newspapers when they happen, but stories about them are either boring or depressing, so cliché.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

'Flyboys' Soar Into Theaters In Amazement

'Flyboys' wreaked havoc on German invaders as they soared into theaters this weekend. It's based on a book, of the same title, and a true story. James Franco played Blaine Rawlings, a Texas rancher who joins the Lafayette Escadrille, a division of French Air Force during World War I, to avoid his arrest. He flew for Captain Thenault, portrayed by Jean Reno, and Reed Cassidy, played by Martin Henderson, in a squadron of Americans and one other Frenchman. Throughout the story, Rawlings falls for Lucienne, a Frenchwoman, played by Jennifer Decker, who is in charge of her nieces and nephews after her brother and his wife were killed by a German bomb. Rawlings and the other men put up new strategic defensives against the Germans in dogfights while dealing with their own consciences and emotions in the air and on the ground. This film is filled with drama, a bit of comedy here and there, a bit of espionage, and plenty of action. The special effects were beyond astonishing and were so crisp that anyone will find themselves dodging bullets and bombs throughout every action sequence. You will fear for the lives of soldiers and refugees on the ground as they run for their lives, dodging bullets and firing back at the Germans. The end of the film has a twisted up twist, and the prologue of the characters proved to be quite surprising as well. Every actor and actress gave stunning performances. This is exactly how a film should be made. In the midst of my viewing of this film, it immediately hit my top ten list. This is a MUST SEE FILM! Ten Factor: 10