Posted Aug 25th 2008 3:23PM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Reality-Free

September first brings Labor Day, back-to-school, impending autumn, and...
Cinemax HD. TV Squad received a press release stating that as of September first, Cinemax will be the only 100% HD channel, promos and all.
So what's this mean to us as viewers? I'm having a hard time wrapping myself around this one. Sure, they mention some new-ish movies they will premiere, like
The Bourne Ultimatum,
Shrek the Third and
The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. But to me, Cinemax is synonymous with B movies from a decade or so ago, one of those channels that you get for free in your cable TV movie package bbut never watch.
I know what you are thinking... your burning question that you are too embarrassed to ask...
Continue reading Cinemax: all HD, all the time
Posted Aug 25th 2008 9:24AM by Debra McDuffee
Filed under: OpEd, Video, Watercooler Talk

Be honest: who doesn't let out a good guffaw when watching somebody famous snap on TV? Or better yet, screw up?
Apparently, Bill O'Reilly is a big offender, since he is practically the star of the "outbursts" section of
30 Hilarious TV Meltdowns, Outbursts and Blunders, a collection of video clips highlighting these funnies. In classic
American Idol style, an auditioner from the
X Factor goes off on Simon Cowell and friends when she is rejected. Whoo-boy.
My favorite meltdown has got to be when Bill Clinton loses it in fits of laughter when Boris Yeltsin calls a reporter a disaster, after the reporter claims their summit was one. Or is it when a bunch of kids pelt a reporter with snowballs?
Continue reading TV meltdowns, outbursts and blunders - VIDEO
Posted Aug 19th 2008 3:21PM by Kona Gallagher
Filed under: Watercooler Talk, Celebrities, Reality-Free

I'm hesitant to get my hopes up, because there's always talk of TV shows making a leap to the big screen. Whether it's a great idea, as with
Arrested Development, or a horrific one like
Friends: The Movie, it seems that as soon as a show ends, the silver-screen talks begin. Regardless, I just about peed my pants when I read that a
Veronica Mars movie may actually become a reality.
Even though
Veronica Mars creator
Rob Thomas has two pilots in the works (
Cupid and
Outrageous Fortune), he still hasn't forgotten the little detective show that is singlehandedly responsible for people no longer asking him if he's the dude from Matchbox Twenty. Apparently, Thomas's production office is located on the same lot where
VM star
Kristen Bell is currently shooting
Heroes and the two sat down for a little chat.
Continue reading Is a Veronica Mars movie in the works?
Posted Aug 19th 2008 9:04AM by Brett Love
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, Watercooler Talk, Reality-Free

That question in the title may be a bit unfair, and slanted, given that I haven't actually seen the new
90210 yet. I could have just as easily titled this, "Is the new
90210 like totally awesome?" What I couldn't do is actually give you an opinion one way or the other, because The CW isn't going to let anyone see the show before the September premiere. Get a look at the message that drifted into TV Squad HQ from The CW.
"The CW and our studio partner CBS Paramount Network Television have made the strategic marketing decision not to screen "90210" for any media in advance of its premiere. We're not hiding anything . . . simply keeping a lid on 90210 until 9.02, riding the curiosity and anticipation into premiere night, and letting all our constituents see it at the same time."Continue reading Does the new 90210 suck?
Posted Jul 23rd 2008 3:20PM by Brett Love
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, TV on DVD, Watercooler Talk, Celebrities, Reality-Free
Now that we've all had a chance to take in and digest the saga of Dr. Horrible, one of the big questions is "Did it work?" It certainly seemed to work for the viewers. In our poll, an astounding 74.2% of you gave it 5 out of 5. Another 22.5% went with 4 out of 5. The bigger question though, is did it work out for everybody on the money end? And I ask that rather selfishly. Sure, I'd like to see Whedon, Fillion, Harris, Day, and the whole crew make a few bucks. But really, I'm more concerned with getting to see more of the story. If the numbers worked out for all involved, the chances of that happening increase greatly.
Jeffrey McManus has made some educated guesses at just how the numbers shake out for those involved. The short version of McManus' analysis: At a million iTunes downloads he has the principle actors bringing in something in the neighborhood of $100,000 with Whedon coming in at around $4 million $2.6 million. I'm not sure how feasible one million iTunes downloads on iTunes is, but I do know that at the moment Dr. Horrible counts for 3 of the top 4 episodes and the top season on the U.S. lists. Add in the international markets and it's certainly not an outlandish goal.
Continue reading Dr. Horrible by the numbers
Posted Jul 21st 2008 3:06PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: TV on the Bigscreen, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Retro Squad, The X-Files, Reality-Free
Oh, I'll be there, probably on opening weekend, but something about the new X-Files flick makes me nervous as hell.
Maybe it's the fact that it has been ten years since the last movie, and I wonder if people are still interested in it enough to make it a hit (and push another movie into production). I also worry about the plot, since nothing much has been leaked about what the film is about, other than it involves snow, mysterious happenings, and Billy Connolly bleeding from the eyes.
No, the real reason I'm worried is that the movie has a "standalone" plot and is not part of the mythology arc from the show and the first movie. I think this could be a mistake.
Continue reading Why I'm nervous about the new X-Files movie
Posted Jul 20th 2008 11:02AM by Jane Boursaw
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming, OpEd, Web, Watercooler Talk, Documentary

I watched
Hopkins this week for the first time. It's a six-part documentary from
ABC that delves into the lives of the real-life doctors who work at
Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, as well as the patients who come through its doors. It's
reality TV at its grittiest and most heartbreaking, in some cases.
When I first heard about the show, it sounded like an interesting premise -- learn about the doctors and caregivers who work at this medical center I've heard about all my life. When not performing medical miracles, they're just regular people. And from what I gathered watching
Episode 4 this week, the hospital pretty much takes over their lives, leaving little time or energy for the outside world and relationships.
Continue reading Hopkins: Are you watching?
Posted Jul 19th 2008 1:26PM by Brett Love
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Celebrities, Reality-Free

If you are like me, you stayed up late Friday night just to catch Act 3 of Doctor Horrible, even though you needed to be up at 5AM to watch F1 in Germany. Chances are that there are more of you that stayed up late and couldn't give two shakes about a car race at Hockenheim, but either way, we've come to the end of Joss Whedon's great experiment. It seemed like a good idea to get a post up and see what everybody thought. A lot of it was what I expected based simply on the players involved. It stood to reason that there would be some good yucks, a bit of a twist, and since this is Joss Whedon, even...
Continue reading Doctor Horrible, the aftermath
Posted Jul 9th 2008 6:00PM by Isabelle Carreau
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Video, Watercooler Talk

It's no secret: I'm the only non-U.S.
blogger here at TV Squad. I live in
Quebec City, the capital of Canada's French province. Living here means that I have access to American, Canadian, and French-Canadian TV channels on basic cable. Canadian and American TV lineups are pretty much alike, especially since a lot of the U.S. shows also air on the Canadian airwaves. But French-Canadian TV is somewhat different than the two other ones because of the language, the culture, etc. However, the influence of American TV can be felt throughout the French-Canadian lineup. One of the main areas influenced by U.S. TV is reality programming.
Reality TV,
like it or not, is definitely a major part of TV today all around the world. A lot of the U.S. reality shows originated in other countries, while some U.S. shows made their way around the world. In Canada, we have our own version of
American Idol and
America's Next Top Model, for example. In Quebec, there is a singing competition,
Star Académie, not unlike
Idol and a
Big Brother-like show too and some U.S. reality shows are dubbed. That got me thinking, what are the reality shows that are watched elsewhere around the globe?
Continue reading Reality TV around the world - VIDEOS
Posted Jul 9th 2008 6:00PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Watercooler Talk
The say that confession is good for the soul, and I can now say that it's true. After sharing with everyone here at TV Squad that I actually watch and like some reality -- unscripted, non-fiction, whatever you want to call it -- television, it turns out that I'm not alone. There are many people who have a guilty pleasure or two out there, a program that they tend to DVR or watch in passing (every week!), but they don't pledge their allegiance to the show in public.
Well, here they are. My friends, ready, willing and able to share their favorites.
Jane: My kids and I love American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, and The Apprentice (although we have a really hard time getting past The Donald's freakish hair every week). It's a lot of fun watching people 1) stare down their fears every week, and 2) make a fool of themselves while staring down their fears every week. I will say that The Apprentice was more fun with real-life people rather than celebrities. We're like, please, get over yourselves. You're not that important. And I used to watch The Bachelor back when it was interesting. It's just so not interesting anymore. %Gallery-21827%
Continue reading I'm not alone in watching reality TV
Posted Jul 9th 2008 1:01PM by Keith McDuffee
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Food/Home/DIY, Industry, American Idol, Site Announcements, Watercooler Talk, Celebreality

Since the early days of TV Squad, we've covered realty programming in some capacity; we published news, episode reviews and commentary on whatever had viewers talking. I think back then we were covering
Survivor, American Idol and perhaps
The Amazing Race. We had a decent balance of reality and non-reality posts, and everyone seemed happy.
As the years went on, that balance shifted. The reality shows we were covering were only increasing in popularity, and more shows came in to ride the wave. As we sat back and watched some of the newer shows break onto the scene with little posting from us, the readers demanded our take. The monstrosity of Reality TV was something we couldn't ignore, so we provided.
Then we reached the breaking point.
Continue reading Reality TV: What it is, who watches it and why it exists
Posted Jun 27th 2008 1:41PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Industry, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, Big Brother (US), Hell's Kitchen

As an intro to my article about The New York Reality TV School, I've asked Red from
The Shawshank Redemption to narrate my opening paragraph:
I wish I could tell you that the New York Reality TV School fought the good fight, and that the students in attendance were not a collection of mostly desperate people whose desire for fame burned more strongly than their sense of dignity. I wish I could tell you that, but the entertainment industry is no fairy-tale world. Thanks Red. Now, if you, the reader, would be so kind as to click through to the article, it would mean a lot to me. Not because I get paid more for click-throughs (I don't; AOL pays me a flat rate of 60 cents plus a pound of corn husks for every post I make, regardless of the number of clicks), but because I spent
three hours attending the inaugural class of the NYRTV school last Saturday. I just couldn't take it if the end result of that is an article no one reads...
Continue reading My day at the first school in the world dedicated to art of appearing on reality TV shows. (Yes, this actually exists)
Posted Jun 21st 2008 11:46AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Watercooler Talk, Celebrities, Emmys

For the first time in a long time, something was different about the Daytime Emmys. No, it's not that they're on in primetime; that happened years ago. What was different was the 35th Daytime Emmys opted to forgo the theater setting and seat the stars at round tables. As co-host (with
All My Children's Cameron Mathison)
Sherri Shepherd told the AP days before the AP, "Usually everyone is sitting in a row. This year, it'll be like a wedding. We're also going to do something so that fans will be able to get a view of what's going on at the different tables." That would be web video created by the actors at every table - table cam. Perfect for hams. The vids are at
SOAPnet. For details about the show from the winners backstage, check out
AOL.
So did the seating arrangements make a difference? Well, it depends. Those who were there probably had a better time because there was an open bar, just like the Golden Globes. For viewers, it still looked like the Daytime Emmys, including many familiar faces winning. After a strained attempt at comedy for the opening -- blending
All My Children fictional characters with
The View's real hosts -- the show commenced.
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Continue reading The 35th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards
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