What’s up with this girl? A couple of weeks after her Vegas wedding publicity disaster she releases a new video for her song Toxic. Not only was the song pretty bad, but she gets more down and dirty in this video than she ever has in previous videos. In fact some of her grinds made me think of Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” video released a while back. Another eerie similarity is that Britney also sports black hair for a part of the video – similar to Ms. Aguilera’s unattractive new look. Note to Britney: The last person you want to be emulating is Aguilera, a young lady who could have had a bright singing future, but whose recent career moves make it look like she is on minute 14 of her 15 minutes. By the way Britney, you became a star with good music and the sexy schoolgirl image. Crappy music and the new less-sexy, more-trampy look aren’t going to help sell the CDs. I think it’s time Britney fires her management team and start looking for some new advisors.

¶ 1/16/2004 06:08:00 PM //

I’m still cleaning… Dawson’s Creek Finale This is a show that was absolutely brilliant during its first season. But it began to go downhill when its creator, Kevin Williamson, left to work on other projects. He returned to write the series finale and it was brilliant. In a two hour period he made me forget the so-so seasons since he left and brought the show back to the quality that it enjoyed during its initial season. ER Season Finale While last season’s finale was better than the show’s 200th episode a few weeks earlier, it still wasn’t all that hot. This time out they sent two of the ER docs out into a war zone in the middle of an African jungle. Even with guns a blazing, this episode was still on the dull side. CNN At It Again CNN interviewing Harry Knowles? And they wonder why Fox News is kicking their asses? Disney Disposable DVDs Disney is developing a DVD that you can throw away after use. Way to help the environment Disney. I guess they figured AOL CDs weren’t already adding enough pollution to the world. SpikeTV The “First TV Network For Men” launched. Hmm, I always thought that was Playboy. Or even mentv in Canada. I guess they did as much research on their competition as they did on that goofy new name of theirs. EDIT: Since I originally wrote this, the about us section of their web site now refers to the site as the first network in America for men. I guess they pulled their heads out of their asses long enough to have a look around at the TV landscape. Although, I would still argue that Playboy or ESPN are a hell of a lot more appealing to guys than a network that specializes in reruns from the 1980’s. Gregory Peck & David Brinkley Die A great actor and a great journalist who will both be missed. Maxim WLBZ TV in Bangor Maine decided not to air an NBC special that featured content from Maxim magazine. Again WLBZ proves itself to be the worst network affiliate on the planet. I’ve known it for years. In the 90’s they would routinely replace Sunday afternoon NBA games with old reruns of Roseanne. Yep, programming geniuses. V It looks like V is coming back. Cool.

¶ 1/16/2004 06:00:00 PM //

Here’s a couple of random babblings that I was supposed to post last may, but never got around to. How self-important am I that I still feel the need to post them? :) Third Watch Finale After a couple of weeks of promos that never panned out, NBC’s Third Watch eventually did deliver on the loss of a cast member during its season finale. All I can say was that it was shocking, and a little on the gory side. Why do the networks seem to feel that they need shock value to tell a good story? (For those of you who don’t remember since it was last April or May, they ended up blowing one of the lead characters into two pieces.) Hadn’t we seen that before with characters losing body parts on JAG and ER? (Via a landmine and a helicopter blade respectively.) Here’s hoping that sometime soon network executives will wise up and insist on writers who don’t have to resort to shock value all of the time. ER 200 ER’s episode number 200 was bloody boring. (No pun intended.) If that’s the best that they could come up with for the show’s 200th episode, than all involved should consider a new line of work. Hunter After only a few weeks on the air, Hunter’s return to the air ended due to poor ratings. Hmm, I wonder if screwing around with the show’s timeslot on the first week played a part. I know I never bothered to check the show out after getting the shaft by NBC on week number one when they scheduled it at one time and then aired it an hour earlier. (Causing me, and probably lots of others, to miss it.) Enterprise The end of last season’s Enterprise saw them pull out the old standbys of the Borg and pon farr (the Vulcan mating cycle). The Borg episode was handled well, but the pon farr episode just seemed like an excuse to get Jolene Blalock stripped down to her undies and get her all hot and sweaty – not that there’s anything wrong with that…. The West Wing The final two episodes of last season on the West Wing were brilliant. The president’s daughter gets herself kidnapped, and we get a look at just how bad things can get in the oval office. And the temporary addition of John Goodman to the cast didn’t hurt things either.

¶ 1/10/2004 06:06:00 PM //

Further to my last post; in addition to posting more, I also intend to revamp the look of this space. I hope to lose the standard template in favor of something a little more customized. Witch Blade I finally saw an episode of the series Witch Blade last night. Yeah, I know, it’s been canceled for almost a year now. What can I say; I’m a little backed up. It was the two-hour series premiere. I was very impressed, especially with the director’s style. It’s a darn shame it’s already cancelled. More than once in my life I’ve stumbled across a show that was on its last legs that I’ve really enjoyed. But this is the first time I procrastinated in checking out a show for so long that it was already long gone before I ever saw it. But at least there are reruns. Battlestar Galactica While in TV mode, I think it’s time I make mention of the new Battlestar Galactica. Like most fans of the old TV show, I was less than thrilled when I heard about all of the changes that they had in store for the new remake. I have to admit all of my fears were groundless. The new mini-series was superior in just about every respect to the original. And for the most part, the changes made to the storyline were improvements on the original version. My one regret is that Dirk Benedict was nowhere to be found. But if they had to replace him as Starbuck, they couldn’t have found a better choice than Katee Sackhoff; even if it did involve a little gender bending to the character. Here’s hoping that the good ratings that the miniseries received will lead to it becoming a regular series. For me it couldn’t come too quickly, the miniseries kind of left us hanging, and I’m looking forward to seeing some resolutions.

¶ 1/10/2004 06:05:00 PM //

Since I’ve been more than a bit neglectful of this space in recent months, I figured it was a good New Year’s resolution to start updating a bit more frequently. Over the next couple of days I hope to digitize all those thoughts on movies and TV shows that I have been jotting down on post-it notes and scraps of paper for the last couple of months. It really ends up being a great resolution; not only do I give my site more frequent content, but I will finally manage to rid the top of my desk of all these little pieces of paper.

¶ 1/10/2004 04:11:00 PM //