Pick of the Week

The Big C returns with Kathy’s tumors shrinking or disappearing altogether, but she had a shock at the end of last season where it appeared her husband had died. The show is a good mix of very black humor mixed in with some real emotions. Parts of it would seem very corny if it wasn’t for Laura Linney.

The Big C

The Big C
Channel: SHO
Time: 9:30/8:30c
Starring: Laura Linney, Oliver Platt, John Benjamin Hickey, Gabriel Basso, Gabourey Sidibe
Premieres: Sunday, April 8

Click here to view the embedded video.

Recommended

All of Jackie’s secrets finally come out in the open in the fourth season of Nurse Jackie. I’m surprised it took so long. She goes off to rehab and her marriage is falling apart. She thinks things were better when she wasn’t sober. Over on The Borgias, there are more historical dramas for the second season of what they call the original crime family.

Nurse Jackie

Nurse Jackie
Channel: SHO
Time: 9/8c
Starring: Edie Falco, Eve Best, Merritt Wever, Paul Schulze, Dominic Fumusa, Anna Deavere Smith, Peter Facinelli, Stephen Wallem, Arjun Gupta
Premieres: Sunday, April 8

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Borgias

The Borgias
Channel: SHO
Time: 10/9c
Starring: Jeremy Irons, Francois Arnaud, Holliday Grainger, Joanne Whalley, Lotte Verbeek, David Oakes, Sean Harris, Colm Feore
Premieres: Wednesday, April 11

Click here to view the embedded video.

Willing To Try

A midwestern girl tries to be roommates in a very New York girl’s apartment and then is shocked when she keeps trying to scare her away as a game. It is something that could be stereotypical, but looks smarter than that. Also, James Van  Der Beek is supposed to be hilarious in it.

Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23

Don’t Trust the B in Apt 23
Channel: ABC
Time: 9:30/8:30c
Starring: Krysten Ritter, Dreama Walker, JamesVan  Der Beek,   Michael Blaiklock,  Ray Ford, Eric Andre, Liza Lapira

Premieres: Wednesday, April 11

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not Interested

Jennifer Love Hewitt is jumping on the bandwagon a little to late with people who will do something a bit out of the ordinary to make ends meet, in the vein of Weeds and Breaking Bad. It wishes it was that clever, but doesn’t look like it is.

The Client List

The Client List
Channel: Lifetime
Time: 10/9c
Starring: Jennifer Love Hewitt, Cybill Shepherd, Loretta Devine, ColinEgglesfield, Rebecca Field, Naturi Naughton, Alicia Lagano, Kathleen York
Premieres: Sunday, April 8

Click here to view the embedded video.

Game of Thrones
Author: George. R. R. Martin

I had not read Game of Thrones before it became a series on HBO. I had no intention of actually reading it until I had watched one episode. After being hooked by the television series after the pilot, I wanted the back story that I knew a television show could not offer.

George R. R. Martin’s fantasy book is filled with sorcery, beheadings, supernatural beings, incest and dragons. It is set in a different land that is similar to medieval times where seasons can last years. This book takes place during summer where it has lasted nine years, but there is a warning that “Winter is coming,” which is also the goofy motto for the Stark clan in the novel. They do live in the northern part of the country where it is colder and they are a hearty bunch that thrives during the winter, but I think they could have worked on their motto a bit more before committing on that one.

Each chapter in the book is told in from the point of view from a variety of characters with a good chunk of them based around the Stark clan who are happy with their life up in the northern part of Westeros until they are dragged into the political world in the main kingdom. That brings us to King Robert Baratheon and Queen Cersei Lannister. Robert and Ned are childhood friends and Robert’s marriage to Cersei is contemptuous since he is not faithful to her and pretty much uses her family’s wealth to play like a spoiled kid with all the toys in the world at his disposal. Cersei has two brothers, her handsome twin Jamie, who killed the mad king that allowed Robert to take over his reign, and her imp brother, Tyrion. He offers a great comic relief in the novel and is the only Lannister that we get to hear his point of view, and possibly the only likable one in the bunch.

I have only mentioned adults at this point, but they are only part of the focus of the entire complicated story. Many of Ned Stark’s children share their stories, including his two daughters Sansa and Anya, who couldn’t be more different from one another. Sansa wants to grow up and marry a king so she is thrilled when she is promised to King Robert’s son Joffrey. Anya thinks that wearing dresses and doing needlepoint is stupid. She would rather learn to fight with a sword and climb trees. There are also chapters that focus on two of Ned’s sons—his younger son Bran who learns early on that climbing castle walls might lead you to where you don’t want to go, and his older bastard son Jon Snow, who will not get to become a lord when he comes of age so he is going off to join the Night Watch on the Wall, which protects the rest of the land from scary things to the far north.

The last young adult that the story focuses on is Daenerys. Her father was the former mad king who was killed and left her and her brother, Viserys, to grow up hiding from others that wanted to kill them so there would be no true heirs to the throne. Viserys grew up wanting to take his kingdom back so he sells his younger sister to Khal Drogo, the leader of a horseman tribe who has over 20,000 men that he thinks will go to battle for him for the crown. Daenerys starts off as very innocent, but matures and gains self-confidence in herself as the story progresses.

Telling the story from various points of view a chapter at a time is an interesting way to tell the story, but at times it does constrict the flow. There are storylines that could overlap with one another in different ways if that restraint of keeping it in one character’s point of view. I imagine it creates a challenge for George R. R. Martin that he enjoys so that’s why he does it. At times, I wished I knew what Cersei, Robert, Littlefinger, or other minor characters were thinking, but they did not have chapters devoted to them so we have to guess. This is where the television series fills in the gaps by adding scenes to the show that were not in the book and giving a bit more back story to some characters that we don’t learn too much about in the novel.

Another benefit of reading the novel along with watching the series is I know when I don’t have to pay full attention to a character while reading about them. Martin loves to go into great detail about what someone is wearing and many characters have very similar names that it is easy to get them mixed up. It is helpful that there is an index of characters in the back of the book, but I’d rather not have to rely on that when reading a novel. I found myself skimming over wardrobe details or even minor characters that are not mentioned in the series since I figured they must not be prominent later in the story. This sped up the reading process for me, since the book is quite lengthy.

I found reading the novel while watching the series at the same time highly enjoyable. I loved seeing the characters brought to life after reading about them or reading back story on a character after watching an episode. It is a very intriguing story with some shocking bit, especially the incest, and fun, adventures to read about, including the possibility of dragons! I can’t wait to continue reading this series.

In the last leg, I was surprised at how strong of a team Kentucky was in the race. This leg, Big Brother is the one that shocked me. I don’t understand why Rachel cries every time she is heading to the pit stop, especially when there isn’t a real threat about being in last place, but she does come up with some good lines like the Jersey Shore one.

The next leg had teams going to Paraguay. The first four teams (Army, border agents, Kentucky and gun girls) were two hours in front of the last teams. There was some airport drama that wasn’t interesting so we’ll just move on.

After they landed, the teams headed to some equipment place to find the next clue. It was an odd place with playground equipment next to barbecue grills. The teams had to slide down a slide, which would have been fun to watch if someone fell off, but no one did. Then they found the clue in a grill. The clue was a detour where teams had to stack watermelons in a perfect 10×10 pyramid  or attach 36 strings to a harp. Most teams chose the watermelons, which were heavy and time-consuming, especially when they weren’t stacked correctly and started falling all over the place.

The border agents were the first team to finish the watermelons and said stacking watermelons could now be crossed off their bucket list. When the watermelon pile fell for the army team, Dave wanted to use the express pass but Rachel convinced him to switch tasks instead. Kentucky and gun girls decided to switch to the harp task after their watermelon pile fell too. The cousins who were on the later flight passed the Kentucky team while Kentucky was leaving the watermelons. The cousins asked if the task was hard and Kentucky told them it was easy. Then they took their cab. When the cousins saw how hard the task was and how teams had switched, they yelled about Kentucky taking their cab.

While Big Brother team could be annoying with Rachel crying randomly, I did not understand the non-stop taunting that Vanessa was doing towards them. Vanessa was really obsessed with Rachel’s ass while she was bent over getting watermelons. She was wearing the same black pants that Vanessa was so I’m not sure what her point was. Even Ralph was telling Vanessa to pay attention to what they were doing, but she just wouldn’t stop. Big Brother ended up switching from the watermelon task just to get away from Vanessa. This ended up being in Big Brother’s favor since when they showed up at the harp task, Rachel was a wunderkind with stringing instruments. While the twins went there first since one brother was a musician and thought that it would be the easiest task for them, they struggled with it. The teams that had switched from watermelons to the harp also struggled with it, but Rachel just breezed through and got it done. It was impressive.

The army team arrived at the harps after other teams had arrived and decided they needed to use their express pass. That didn’t give them the advantage they wanted for coming in first though since it just allowed them to skip the detour. They still had a road block to do! It ended up with Big Brother finishing the harps first and the Big Arms team with Vanessa finishing the watermelon task last. The twins spent tons of time at the harps, almost switched to the watermelons, but decided to finish with the harps. They were the last team to leave that task.

The road block  had one team member balance a glass bottle on their head while doing a choreographed dance that included getting down on their stomach with the bottle on their head. If the bottle fell off and broke, they had to start over. They only had a limited number of bottles to use and if they ran out, they had a two-hour penalty. The border agents got to the road block and finished it before any other team even finished the detour tasks. One of the border agents said that he could do it since he had a big fat head. When the army team arrived after using their express pass, Dave tried to do it but broke every single bottle so they got the clue to the pit stop but had to wait next to it for two hours to pass before checking in with Phil.

Other teams had a hard time at the bottle dance, but no one else broke all the bottles. Big Brother and the guidos were naturals at it. Big Brother finished it first out of the guidos, Kentucky, gun girls and cousins. Rachel was quite happy with it, until she saw the guidos finish right behind her. That led to her to randomly cry like she does and say, “Jersey Shore is going to beat us!” That has to be the best line.

At the pit stop, the border agents came in way ahead of everyone else. They also won a trip to the Bahamas. Even though the Army team finished second, they had their penalty so they had to wait while Big Brother, Guidos, Kentucky and Gun Girls checked before them. After Army, the Cousins and Big Arms team checked in, leaving the twins to check in last after the harp detour pretty much destroyed them. They ended up being eliminated.

Questions

1. What did you think about Vanessa taunting the Big Brother team non-stop during the watermelon task?
2. Were you surprised that the Big Brother girl was just flying through the harp and bottle dance tasks like they were the easiest things in the world?
3. Were you surprised how difficult the harp task was for the twins? Do you think they should have switched sooner to the watermelon task?

Pick of the Week

Breaking In was cancelled with tons of other shows on FOX last year. Then it had its best ratings after the cancellation announcement. Even though it wasn’t super high ratings, it was enough to make FOX reconsider their decision. They decided to bring it back for another season. Will it last this time? They are bringing on Megan Mullally as a new boss and she clashes a bit with Christian Slater’s Oz character.

Breaking In

Breaking In
Channel: FOX
Time: 9:30/8:30c
Starring: Christian Slater, Megan Mullally, Bret Harrison, Alphonso McAuley, Odette Annable, Erin Richards
Premieres: Tuesday, March 6

Click here to view the embedded video.

Recommended

The second season of Breakout Kings continues with the main storyline of U.S. Marshals’ office using convicts to help catch fugitives. It is very much a weekly mini action movie with lots of car chases, fights and some humorous bits thrown in.

Breakout Kings

Breakout Kings
Channel: A&E
Time: 10/9c
Starring: Laz Alonso, Domenick Lombardozzi, Brooke Nevin, Jimmi Simpson, Malcolm Goodwin, Serinda Swan
Premieres: Sunday, March 4

Click here to view the embedded video.

Willing To Try

GCB  is based on a book called Good Christian Bitches. It was retitled Good Christian Belles since you know the first title wouldn’t fly. Now, it  has just been renamed GCB so you can call it whatever you want. It is about a former high school mean girl  who lost all her money when her hedge fund manager husband was carted off to jail so she has to return to her hometown in Dallas and live with her mother. She has gotten nicer over the years, but all her old classmates still remember how she used to treat them and are not happy to see her again. It does sound bitchy!

GCB

GCB
Channel: ABC
Time: 10/9c
Starring: Leslie Bibb, Kristin Chenoweth, Annie Potts, Miriam Shor, Marisol Nichols, Jennifer Aspen, Mark Deklin, David James Elliot, Brad Beyer
Premieres: Sunday, March 4

Click here to view the embedded video.

On Being Human, another werewolf, vampire and ghost show up at the house and tell a dying Leo that baby Eve is the secret to saving his life.

Grimm isn’t the best show on television but it is fun that it is filmed in the Portland area so I have to keep watching it. Also, I think the lead actor is learning how to actually act! I saw an real emotion cross his face in a recent episode. On tonight’s episode, a botched jewelry-store robbery results in murder and raises questions about rare coins; a friend of Aunt Marie’s visit Nick with information about his family.

On CBS, there are the old people shows on tonight, starting with A Gifted Man. In the first-season finale, Michael discovers a patient at the clinic has a special link to Anna. Meanwhile, Michael gets reacquainted with an old friend who’s been diagnosed with an uncommon illness. On Blue Bloods, a high-profile reporter and close friend of Frank is nearly assaulted while she is out with him, and Danny and Jackie search for the would-be attacker. Meanwhile, Jamie’s undercover case comes to a critical stage.

Archer has been renewed for a fourth season. Yippee! Continue to enjoy the third season with the episode tonight where Archer’s sexcapades compromise his effectiveness as an agent–yet again–and this time it’s really serious.

NBC is the only broadcast network that has new shows on tonight starting with 30 Rock where Frank tries to keep his romance with Lynn a secret from his mother by plunging into a fake romance with Liz. Meanwhile, Tracy and Jenna go snooping to find Pete’s missing whiskey; and Jack teaches Kenneth the fine art of vanquishing a business nemesis. On Parks & Recreation, Leslie and Ben are caught off guard when her opponent hires a high-power campaign manager from Washington, D.C. Meanwhile, Ron reluctantly interviews replacement for Leslie after things start falling through the cracks at the office. On The Office, the Florida contingent puts the final touches on the new Sabre store, with Dwight preparing a theatrical presentation in his continuing bid to impress Nellie. Back in Scranton, a red-faced Andy arrives at work with a humiliating injury.

Finish up the night night on NBC with Up All Night where a new boss takes the reins of Ava’s show after it’s acquired by Ava and Regan’s idol. Elsewhere, Chris and Reed try to restore an old motorcycle. Finally, on the premiere of Awake, a detective awakens after his family’s car accident to discover he’s living in two parallel worlds. In one, his wife survived the crash and his son perished. In the other, his son continues to live but his wife was killed. While trying to regain his footing in his complex double lives, he continues his efforts to crack cases in both worlds.

I ignored Happy Endings for the first season, but saved up the episodes meaning to give it a try. I’m glad I did since this show is hilarious. There is finally a worthy successor to Friends. On tonight’s episode, Dave’s food truck becomes the trendy hot spot in town thanks to its new liquor license, but Dave’s upset because his friends have stopped coming around. He thinks it’s because they’re jealous of his newfound fame, but the real reason is that his new signature drink is leaving them with erotic dreams in which he’s the star. Colin Hanks costars as himself.

ABC has its Wednesday comedy line-up leading into the deliciously trashy nighttime soap. On Suburgatory, Tessa’s efforts to impress the new poetry teacher are inexplicably derailed by Dalia; Fred has an odd request for George when he thinks Sheila is lusting after him. On Modern Family, the pressure is on Mitchell to get Cameron’s birthday celebration just right, since he was born on Leap Day and it only comes once every four years. Meanwhile, Jay undergoes a masculinity crisis; and Phil’s Leap Day plans hit a snag. On Revenge, in the wake of the murder at the party, Emily gets nervous while the Graysons band together. Meanwhile, Ashley supports her employers; and Amanda’s disappearance causes much speculation.

Psych returns tonight and on the episode, Shawn and Gus team up with Despereaux to locate a mythical dagger rumored to be the key to unlocking a dead billionaire’s treasure. On CSI, a blackout cripples the city and forces the CSIs to revert to old-school methods to solve the case of a missing child. On Top Chef: Texas,  season 9 comes to a close with the final chefs commandeering a Vancouver restaurant, where they must cook up a four-course meal for the judges and some surprise guests.

Tonight is the season finale of Parenthood. If NBC wasn’t doing so badly in the ratings overall, this show would be a victim of not-great ratings, but since it does fairly well with certain demographics it should be getting renewed for next year. On tonight’s episode, the family gathers to celebrate a big event in the Season 3 finale; Julia and Joel try to recover from the stress of the adoption process; Crosby and Adam make a decision about the Luncheonette; and Sarah comes to a conclusion about her future.

ABC has the oddest line-up on Tuesday nights. It starts out with Last Man Standing, which is a horrible lead-in to Cougar Town but I guess if they are both comedies, it makes sense, right? After that is the scary show The River followed by the crime procedural Body of Proof. On Cougar Town, Jules’ tunnel-visioned approach to planning her wedding is interrupted when Travis is rushed to the hospital after an accident. Meanwhile, the guys invent a new game after Grayson feels that Jules is shutting him out, but they didn’t count on Ellie and Laurie wanting to play, too. On The River, the Magus runs aground after colliding with another vessel, but the rescue mission turns dangerous when a crew claiming to come to their aid have another scenario in mind. Meanwhile, a shocking discovery leads to a tearful reunion. On Body of Proof, after the parents in an apparently happy family are murdered, the investigation uncovers some cracks in their seemingly perfect facade. Meanwhile, Curtis isn’t adapting well to his new position; and Megan’s new relationship intensifies.

The 10pm hour is quite busy on cable. On Justified, Raylan’s tactics put him at odds with the FBI as he intensifies his efforts to take down Quarles and the Detroit mob. On Southland, Tang’s bad day turns worse when she’s served legal papers and is involved in a shooting. Meanwhile, tension flares up between Sammy and Ben over the possible planting of drug evidence; and Lydia makes a big decision about her pregnancy.  On White Collar, Neal’s commutation is threatened by Agent Kramer, forcing Peter to choose a side in the Season 3 finale. To help his case, Neal tries to correct a mistake from his past.

We’ll finish this post with a mix-mash of other shows airing tonight. On Ringer, Bridget realizes she’s in over her head when Andrew proposes again; Olivia becomes suspicious of Malcolm; and Juliet makes a decision that doesn’t sit well with her mother. On NCIS, a chief petty officer is murdered. The investigation reveals that his death is linked to an international arms dealer, which jeopardizes top-secret clearance at a Naval research laboratory. Meanwhile, a probationary agent tries to join the team by getting in good with Gibbs. On NCIS: Los Angeles, the team tries to clear Kensi Blye of murder charges, but their task is made more difficult when a private meeting between Blye and a CIA agent turns deadly.

At the beginning of the episode, I tried to call it that Kentucky would not last long in the game since the one guy was missing a lot of teeth and the other one gets car sick. Boy was I wrong! They would have come in first place if one of them hadn’t doubted himself on the road block. I’ll just shut up now about Kentucky and check out the chupacabra that was hanging out in the desert.

The teams started off from the pit stop at 2am. The Big Brother team made the startling declaration that this race was more difficult than Big Brother. Really? You mean traveling and completing tasks compared to sitting around is more difficult?  We also learned that the gun girls didn’t tell the other teams what they did. Everyone thought they were kindergarten teachers, not federal agents. Sneaky! All the teams arrived in the town square at night, but had to get their next clue from a courier in the next morning so they were all caught up again. The courier did show up wearing some awesome pants to hand out the next clue.

It was a detour where teams had to choose between assembling a solar panel only using pictures as their directions and then boil a tea kettle filled with water to get their next clue or gather some firewood and clay, load it on a donkey, and deliver it all to a local pottery shop for their next clue. Everyone chose the solar panel except the border agents. One of the border agents was getting very stressed out since they couldn’t find their detour while they kept driving by everyone else making the solar panels, even though the other one kept saying that it was only 8 am and it would take a while for the solar panels to heat up enough to boil water.

Meanwhile, the solar panel people had some issues putting their panels together. Big Brother girl said, “Sorry, I’m just a girl.” This makes me immediately not like her. The girl with the army guy told him to quit being “crabby pants.” The girl with the big arms guy got frustrated and yelled, “Son of a monkey’s uncle!” Then someone else talked about “shenanigans.” It was a good montage of goofy words. The guidos cut themselves on their solar panel and ran to the cousins to get some help. The girls showed them how to do something that the guidos hadn’t figured out, which backfired later when the guidos finished first and ran right by the girls without helping them. The cousins learned their lesson after that. The clowns had to go run and ask another team for help and they were told there were pictures on the box. They hadn’t seen them. Oh clowns.

Then, I was amazed at the Kentucky team. They were one of the last ones to get started and the first ones to finish. They said they just opened the box, put it together and were done. They made it sound so simple! Shortly after they were done, the border agents, which were the last team to get started on their task were the second team to finish. They had to drop off their supplies right next to a bunch of teams waiting for their water to boil so they made them jealous. The last team to leave the detour was the gun girls team.

After the detour, the teams had to take an 18-hour bus ride to Buenos Aires. The teams ended up on three different buses. The second bus had to stop since something broke the window and the driver put it back together with cardboard and duct tape. That stalled the team on the bus and allowed the last bus to pass them on the road, which contained the cousins and gun girls. Maybe it was the karma from the guidos not helping the cousins back at the solar panels.

After the bus ride, the teams ran into a road block. They had to do some kind of math at a cattle auction. I didn’t pay full attention to what they had to do exactly. The blonde with the Army guy was doing the road block on her own until she decided to work with one of the federal agents. They were done quickly and out of there. The Big Brother girl who apparently can’t do math either was very frustrated while Kentucky was feeling good since “he’s good at figurin’.” Kentucky got a wrong guess, but that’s because he wasn’t rounding something. If he had done that first, he would have finished first. He figured that out after he offered to work with Big Brother, which was more for her benefit than his, since he already knew the answer. They were off before any other teams arrived.

The gun girls and cousins were there and left before the teams from the last bus showed up. The last teams actually got to the road block after the first four teams had already checked into the pit stop. They were pretty far behind. The guido had never “seen these animals before.” Yes, the exotic cow is a sight to behold! The long-hair twin said he was glad his brother had the task since he had “more schooling.” The girl with the big arms guy said that she was used to tuning boys out so she had no problem figuring out the math while ignoring the auction going on around her. The clown guy totally forgot how to divide. The clowns were the last ones to leave the road block well behind any other team. There was no race to the finish line against another team for them. They just hoped for a non-elimination leg.

At the pit stop, the Army guy team came in first place again. They won a trip to Grenada. On the way to the pit stop, the Big Brother girl wanted to go back to their taxi that they had told to wait even though they didn’t need to or something. I’m not sure exactly what happened but she started to cry since Big Brother guy upset her. I’m not sure how since he seems unnaturally calm and she spazzed. When they checked into the pit stop she said that they had got into it a bit and had to work on communicating. I think she needs to work on not randomly crying and wasting time. Other teams also checked into the pit stop, but the most important thing is the clowns came in last and were eliminated. Not so sad for them to go!

Questions

1. Were you as surprised as I was that the Kentucky team did so well in this leg?
2. What was up with the Big Brother melt down on the way to the pit stop? They weren’t even behind other teams and she was freaking out!
3. Are you sad that the clowns left or happy like me since they were creepy? What was up with the red noses they just had to wear on the mat?