TV Features

The Best Shows that are Overrated

Naming shows that are overrated including the bad ones would be too
easy, calling out CSI, American Idol, and other mainstream garbage
could go on forever, which is why we’re sticking to shows that are
actually entertaining, well crafted, and aren’t junk food well, at
least not too much so. The three shows named below are good, but due to a
mixture of underserved awards, crazy fanfare, and perhaps a little bit
of the “emperor’s new clothes” syndrome going on, these entertaining shows have turned
highly overrated.

Unresolved Television Storylines

Television shows get cancelled. It happens all the time. In
an ideal world, only bad shows would get cancelled and good shows would be good
for their entire run. In this perfect world, all the good shows would only end
when the story was completed, and each character had reached the end of their
arcs. But alas, we don’t live in this perfect world. We live in a world where
for some reason, TV executives think it’s ok to cancel shows abruptly
(occasionally mid-season) and not even bother giving the doomed series a chance
to finish satisfactorily.

Because of its episodic nature, television seems to be one
of the only media that is plagued by this issue. Movies don’t cut out half way
through without a conclusion. You never buy a novel’s first few chapters, and
then realize the last chapter will never be written. It just seems ridiculous.
However, as much as I love to bitch and moan about this, TV shows do get
cancelled. This article then, is a list of just a few examples of tv shows that
not only got cancelled, but were cancelled so abruptly that they ended on a cliff-hanger.

The Best Super Bowl Commercials

The game is over, but the real war has just begun. Who won the commercial battle in the 2011 Super Bowl? It was a pretty strong year with the usual competitors providing strong showings. Coke, Pepsi, Doritos, Bud Light, and several car companies were some of the standouts. We are going to run down some of the highlights from this year’s commercial wars.

Can a Wonder Woman TV Series Work?

NBC has green lit a Wonder Woman show to air sometime in the next year, but was this the right decision? Can Wonder Woman really impact the small screen again? Let’s look at the following points and see if she can: The Original Show: Yes, there was a Wonder Woman show back in the 70’s. It was well before my time and there hasn’t been a big push for a DVD release in Australia, so I haven’t actually seen the show for myself. Going off of the minutes of research I have done as to how the show was received and executed, it would appear that while the show didn’t tie to heavily into the comic book canon, it was still able to retain an audience with well written characters and a great female lead, Lynda Carter. Now I think it’s safe to say that she won’t be reprising her role, although she could cameo as Hippolyta, so they’ll have to find a new Dianna. I won’t do a section about casting or what characters should be featured, but I’ll just say they need a strong female lead compassion and full of love, but at the same is imposing and could kick the living snot out of you then proceed to tie you up… bondage anyone?

The Event Retrospective

With the first half of the premiere season done its time to take a look back at The Event and decide whether or not it stacks up. We all know that NBC was taking a run at making the new Lost, but the biggest surprise was how closely they mirrored ABC’s hit. While The Event is no Lost, it is a enjoyable show that seems both conflicted and confused. We will break down the show in a couple of categories.

Top 5 Episodes of South Park

With South Park just completing its impressive 14^th season, it now seems like a good time to look back and show the top 5 episodes so far. I remember watching the first episode, Cartman Gets and Anal Probe when I was eight years old. Yeah, I know I was way too young for the show, but it was a cartoon and it was the first of its kind. Except for The Simpsons, no cartoon has left such an impact on television and has remained relevant this long. South Park is at times: shocking, classless, thought provoking, and senseless, but all the while entertaining and funny. Like always, this is a personal list but I tried to take the South Park community picks into account. Here are the Top 5 Episodes of South Park….so far.

Ratings Outlook for the Fall 2010 TV Season

The 2010 TV season is in full swing, and being several weeks in seems like a good time to look at some of our favorite shows to give an outlook of their future. We will go network by network and come up with the odds of shows returning. We are mostly sticking to shows that we actually care about, because let’s be honest, does anyone reading this actually mind if Grey’s Anatomy comes back for another season? Very few shows have been given a direct answer as to their future, but we can infer the probability from ratings along with rumors.

Lost – New Man in Charge

After months of speculation and bated breaths the so called LOST epilogue is here. On the season 6 DVD there is an additional twelve minute scene, chronicling events after the finale. The End. We all hoped that it would solve all the unanswered questions the show still has. This may have been a bit too much wishful thinking on our end. While the mini episode entitled, New Man in Charge, is not the be all and end all of LOST, it does serve as a nice cap to the LOST story and manages to answer a few of our lingering questions. I will not give a review of the ‘episode’ but will highlight answers to lingering questions.

Happy 90210 Day!

Happy 90210 (9/02/10) Day!  In honor of this once in a lifetime occurrence, it’s the perfect time to look back on one of the most influential shows of that wonderful decade of the 90s.  Back then many of us who were going through adolescence couldn’t help but become addicted to the Beverly Hills, 90210 gang and marvel at how their lives resembled ours, if only we had a lot more money, were having much more sex, doing many more drugs, and were much, much, much more attractive.  Other than that, it was like looking in a mirror.  20 years after we were first fell in love with Brandon, Brenda, Dylan, Kelly, Steve, Donna, David, and Andrea (well, no one really cared about Andrea), here’s a look back at some of the shows most memorable moments.

New Shows and Naked Trees

As well as the onset of S.A.D. and naked trees, the Fall brings with it some new programming, some of which actually looking rather good. Obviously, the networks will probably change their minds mid-season and cancel them to make way for a Glee spin-off and more celebrities doing shameless crap, but at least things might feel fresh for a while. Below is a quick rundown of some of the most promising new shows, starting on a ‘picture box‘ near you.