Monday, December 31, 2018

My Planned Viewing Habits: Midseason 2019

It has taken me a while to realize that maybe I should do this post as early as I do it or maybe I shouldn’t write all of it at once. Maybe I should split it up into different sections since not all of the schedule for the midseason is released at once and there could always be changes with it. It is possible that some of what I mention won’t be on until the summer. But I still thought that I would mention what I can for this post about what I plan to watch in the midseason.

What are the shows that I’m still watching that returned this season during the fall? They are the CBS shows of 60 Minutes, NCIS: Los Angeles, Madam Secretary, Bull, NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans, Survivor, SEAL Team, The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, MacGyver, Hawaii Five-0, Blue Bloods, and S.W.A.T. I still watch the CW shows of Supergirl, Arrow, The Flash, Black Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow, and Dynasty. I plan to watch what I can of Riverdale until Survivor’s return. I still see it online at times.

I still watch the ABC shows of The Good Doctor, Modern Family, Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19, and How to Get Away with Murder. I still see Fresh off the Boat when I can. I’ll be into The Goldbergs for a while. I’ll be getting back into American Housewife when it changes timeslots. I still watch the FOX shows of Bob’s Burgers, The Resident, and The Gifted. I might still watch Family Guy and The Simpsons in the future, but I might not. I still watch the NBC shows of The Good Place, Law and Order: SVU, and Blindspot.

What are the new fall shows that I’m still watching that are on at midseason? I still watch the CW’s new Charmed. I still watch the new CBS shows of FBI, God Friended Me, and Magnum P.I. I still watch the NBC shows of New Amsterdam and Manifest. I still watch the ABC show The Rookie.

What shows am I watching that aren’t on at midseason? Murphy Brown is not on at midseason as it is now over again, possibly for good again. I think that’s probably it this year. Normally there are a lot of these, but not this time.

Here are all of the following new midseason shows that I might watch at least once: Fam on CBS, The Passage on FOX, Roswell, New Mexico on the CW, Schooled on ABC, The World’s Best on CBS, Million Dollar Mile on CBS, Proven Innocent on FOX, Bulletproof on the CW, In the Dark on the CW, Blood & Treasure on CBS, The Code on CBS, and The Red Line on CBS. I might give some NBC show a chance like I normally do, but I also don’t know yet if I will.

Now some shows will be returning at midseason that I’ll be watching. Brooklyn Nine-Nine had moved to NBC for the future and I’ll be watching it like I did when it was on FOX. Another NBC show that I might watch would be Ellen’s Game of Games. As for FOX, I will be watching The Orville and the final season of Gotham. Final seasons of shows will get priority over existing shows that I like in case there are conflicts with scheduling. I’ll be certain to watch iZombie and Jane the Virgin on the CW. As for CBS, I’ll be seeing Instinct and Elementary when they return. I’ll be sure to watch ABC’s For the People and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. when they come back, although Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. won’t be on until the summer.

I now need to mention all of the new fall shows I watched once and didn’t stick around with. They are the CW show All American, the CBS shows of Happy Together and The Neighborhood, and the ABC show Single Parents. With FOX, I had originally planned on watching Rel, but I didn’t stick with it after if first want to commercial. I wound up seeing a rerun of The Cool Kids instead and could watch it again, but probably won’t. It would be if nothing else good is on that I'll see it when it normally airs.


Now I post the usual closing where I point out that plans could change. I might end up seeing more of Chicago Med in the future, but I don’t know for sure if I will. What I do know if that this blog has had its updates alternating on Mondays with my Madam Secretary blog in addition to being published at other, random times. Well, now it will only be posted at random times as I cede Madam Secretary to all of the future Mondays for at least all of January and probably longer. Not sure when I’ll be back yet, just know that it will be sometime in January when I’m hopefully finally done with the cancelled shows post from last season that I’m still not done with yet.

Monday, December 17, 2018

Competitive Time Slots

You probably know by now that some time slots on TV face more competition than other ones do. This is bound to happen a lot. But sometimes, it feels like all of the networks (on major TV, at least) try their best and do whatever they can at the same time instead of competing at times where less people would watch what is on another network.

What’s an example? Well, there are actually tons of different examples of this type of thing. Tuesday at 7 Central is one of the most competitive time slots I’ve seen. I currently watch three things that are on at that time. Well, I might watch less in the future once the schedule changes. Both CBS and the CW are airing shows in a franchise of theirs. FOX is too, technically. NBC airs one of their most popular shows at this time and ABC has aired a highly rated comedy there recently.

But that is hardly the only example. Look at Monday at 9 Central. Despite FOX and the CW not airing shows then, the other networks try very hard at those times. CBS has aired a lot of strong programming then. Both ABC and NBC use the draw of their strong realities shows to create shows that have good lead ins. Despite this, a lot of shows on at this time wind up with lower ratings and have wound up as cancelled over the years.

Let’s get to the most competitive night of all: Thursdays. Thus, like Tuesdays at 7 Central, Thursdays at 7 Central, as the lead-in to everything else, is the most competitive of all. ABC airs their longest running drama at this time while CBS airs its longest running comedy. FOX is going to air the last season of their longest running drama at this time while the CW is also airing its longest running drama then. And you often don’t put the show that’s been on the longest at a competitive time slot for no reason, even if it is still ending in the future. It is getting a better send off that way.

You might wonder what the least competitive time slot is. I’m not entirely sure if there is on. Although, the 9 Central slot on Friday has practically nothing and the 9 Central slot on Sunday is unique in that for the fall, only two networks are airing shows then, the least of any time slot.


I think that’s about it for this post. I don’t know what else there is to say outside of this closing. Know that there will be an update in the next blog post about when updates of this blog will be. I hope that I am not offending anyone by these unusually timed updates. It can get confusing for me too, in addition to everyone that’s reading this as well.

Monday, December 3, 2018

Top Ten Christmas Specials

Well, I haven’t yet gotten to the part where I mention all of the cancelled shows from the previous TV season, but I hope to have that ready before the year ends. I do have something more timely that I am bringing you now this post. There isn’t too much to mention in terms of rules here. All you need to know if that if you don’t see something mentioned, it could be because I would rather mention it in the top TV Christmas episodes that I might do in the future. This is a list of all of the best specials in my mind that have aired in the past. I’m familiar with all of these, even if you aren’t. I hope that you enjoy the list and all of the choices that I put on it.

#10 The Story of Santa Claus: I’ve only seen this once and might only have this on the list due to a lack of other good choices to make this a list of ten choices. But this is a story that seeks to give the origins of Santa Claus in an interesting way as well as explaining how he got immortality. It’s not as good in my mind as another choice on this list, but I like it enough, if only because I realized something else I was going to put on this list was an episode and not a special.

#9 Claymation Christmas Special: While this is worthy of the list to me, it is nothing more than just some Christmas songs done to claymation works. I liked the songs in it and wish that it was aired still on TV. I might not have even known about it were it not on a tape of recorded things that I would watch.

#8 The Tangerine Bear: Here’s another more obscure one that I’m putting on the list. There aren’t that many that are notable in my mind. But I do like this special about an oddball stuffed animal who learns about how to be accepted in life. We don’t get as much from the toy’s perspectives in a lot of shows, but I do like how this person learns that he was always where he belonged, even if he didn’t know it at first and it took him until the end of the special.

#7 The Wish that Changed Christmas: In a very short amount of time, everyone gets what they want to in this special. It is such a nice special about finding purpose in life and has everything about family and friends, with everyone’s wishes fulfilled.

#6 The Christmas Toy: This special is largely set on Christmas Eve and then the next day. It features the jealousy of one toy over the introduction of a new toy. And they learn good lessons in the end about what to expect in life.

#5 Frosty the Snowman: It is kind of hard not to like this special and root for the snowman as he gets to live at the North Pole at the end. There are some realism issues with this, but that’s bound to happen when cartoons like this exist. There’s a reason that this has aired for quite a long time. I just wish that this didn’t keep airing with the awful Frosty Returns.

#4 Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer: There’s a reason that this has more or less aired every year after it first aired over 50 years ago. There have been attempts to recapture the magic of this by doing movies or sequels based off of this, but the original will always shine in a good place on TV with very little in it that makes it outdated.

#3 The Garfield Christmas Special: Here’s another possibly random one, but it annoys me that a lot of people will not know about the greatness of this special. There are a lot of good references in here over what really makes Christmas so good and enjoyable. I wish that everyone could remember these words about the true meaning of Christmas: “It’s not the giving, it’s not the getting; it’s the loving.”

#2 Santa Claus is Coming to Town: It was a long time before I saw this special and still think that I have only seen an edited down version. Still, I like how this creates a good story about who Santa Claus is for all of the kids to enjoy. It is very iconic in my mind and deserves to be shown every year like it is.

#1 A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Peanuts gang brings us their first and most iconic of all of the specials that they have done. While loving can be agreed upon as the meaning of Christmas for all religions, this one gets the number one spot for actually mentioning the story of Jesus in it. So many people might not have any idea what the Christ story is were in not for this special. But it is good in other ways, such as keeping the whole Peanuts aspect to the story and using actual children for the voice work. It may seem awkward in some places, but I don’t think that fans would have it any other way.


There’s not much to add in the closing, except saying why some specials aren’t on here. I didn’t put the PBS special Arthur’s Perfect Christmas on here as I felt that it was more of TV show episode than it was a true special. I didn’t put either of the Smurfs Christmas specials on here as I felt that they didn’t have enough Christmasness in them. I didn’t put How the Grinch Stole Christmas on here because I honestly prefer the Jim Carrey movie to it and figure it is along the lines of why watch the regular edition of The Lord of the Rings when you can watch the extended edition? I think that’s all for this post now.

Monday, November 19, 2018

Ranking the CW shows I’ve Seen: 2018 Edition

You might be wondering why I’d do such a post like this randomly. You might wonder that about nearly all of my posts. Indeed, a lot of them are random. But I saw that a site did their rankings of all of the CW shows (although I didn’t read what they were) so I figured that I would do it as well. This will contain a bit of a limit as to what I’m reviewing as I’m only going to cover their primetime shows and not any of their kids shows. In fact, I might put all of the Saturday kids shows that I have seen in some separate ranking all together instead of putting up one network against all the others. With that explained, I will now get to a list of hopefully every CW show I’ve seen without forgetting any. I have this split into three different sections.

List of every CW show I’ve seen: Arrow, The Flash, iZombie, The Messengers, Star Crossed, Riverdale, Black Lightning, Legends of Tomorrow, Life Sentence, Aliens in America, Gilmore Girls, Smallville, Hooten & the Lady, Masters of Illusion, Penn and Teller: Fool Us, My Last Days, The Outpost, The 100, Burden of Truth, Frequency, No Tomorrow, Everybody Hates Chris, The Vampire Diaries, Supergirl, Nikita, Reba, 7th Heaven, The Secret Circle, Hart of Dixie, Charmed, Mad TV, Farmer Wants a Wife, Emily Owens MD, All American, One Tree Hill, Reign, Valor, The Tomorrow People, Ringer, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Jane the Virgin, Dynasty, Whose Line is it Anyways?

What isn’t ranked and why: Smallville (I don’t think that I saw enough of it in order to rank it in a fair way among the others as I didn’t see enough of it as I would like it), The Outpost (this is another one that wouldn’t seem fair in my mind as I never saw what I wanted to out of it), 7th Heaven (I only saw bits and pieces out of it and could never gather what I wanted to as a result)

Continued: The Secret Circle (while I was a fan of it, I missed a lot of it and never saw how it ended and thus don’t think that I could rank it fairly as a result), One Tree Hill (while I think that I did gather enough out of it based on the one episode of it that I saw, I don’t think that that I could rank it fairly among the others as a result), Ringer (maybe this should be the lowest ranked one, but I felt that I never saw enough of it to understand it and won’t have it ranked among the others as a result)

The entire ranking from worst to best: No Tomorrow, The Vampire Diaries, Everybody Hates Chris, Star Crossed, The 100, The Messengers, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Life Sentence, All American, Masters of Illusion, Reign, Farmer Wants a Wife, Valor, Aliens in America, My Last Days, Mad TV, Reba, Dynasty, Arrow, Emily Owens MD, Burden of Truth, Riverdale, Black Lightning, The Tomorrow People, Charmed, Nikita, Frequency, Hooten & the Lady, Gilmore Girls, Penn and Teller: Fool Us, Hart of Dixie, Legends of Tomorrow, iZombie, Jane the Virgin, Supergirl, Whose Line is it Anyways?, The Flash

The bad shows

No Tomorrow: It may seem like the worst show in my mind on the network as there wasn’t much to it that I felt was any good. There wasn’t much of a point to it. It might have tried to brand itself as a funny show, but it wasn’t. And it didn’t make that good of a drama either. I don’t even know why enough of the people on the network thought that this would be a good show.

The Vampire Diaries: I liked this show for a while, but had to stop when I realized that it was too much like a soap opera and I couldn’t stay with it as a result. It seemed good in some places, but it was largely just teen angst drama with a supernatural twist. It lasted too long and wasn’t very good in the end, even if it seemed good at first.

Everybody Hates Chris: A lot of these shows on the bad list started out good in my mind but ended in quite a bad way. That alone isn’t enough to hate this show, but it didn’t really offer that much to it in the end. The plots were kind of dumb and it seemed odd that so many bad things kept happening to the main character all the time. It makes me mad that the creator of this show knew it was going to end and still chose to end it on a question the way that he did.

Star Crossed: There were some good points to it trying to teach others that we should get along with others like those of other races. But it seemed too weird in some places. They included far too much teen sexuality and the elaborate cliffhanger that ended the series was terrible.

The 100: While it was promising towards the beginning of the show, it seemed to lose all of what once made it good as it went along. It got too boring and strange. It didn’t make much sense anymore. I do not think that I’ll get back into this, although it is possible and I might watch the last episode if it ends. But I don’t care about keeping up with it long term anymore.

The Messengers: There was far too much strangeness with all of this show. I don’t think that I did myself any favors by watching it out of order and in so many strange ways that I did. But I do know is that it did have some good points to it which makes it on the better end of these bad shows. Still, too much of it did not work such as the many villains and confusing ending.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: I found this to be quite forgettable. There were too many weird parts to it and I do not see what so many critics found good about it. Still, it wasn’t that bad as there was a point to it. But the songs were a bit too weird and not much about this worked.

Life Sentence: The best of the bad shows in my mind, there wasn’t as much wrong with it as other shows on this list. There was a great episode of it, but a lot of it relied on issues that just didn’t seem like they made good ideas as they just seemed like drama for a sake of drama and not good storytelling.

The average shows

All American: It didn’t seem bad to me, but I’ll probably never watch it again. There wasn’t much that seemed to work, although it did have a good plot to trying to change someone’s fate in life. I feel that it relied too much on clichés of sorts in the end.

Masters of Illusion: Sure, the magicians do impressive feats, but the show seems too ordinary in too many places with the same tricks and same magicians seen time and time again. I like the fact that we can see tricks and good ones that you wouldn’t be able to see in most places otherwise. But it isn’t as good as we could potentially see elsewhere.

Reign: While this was based on real events in a way, it largely ignored them and just made up what it wanted to in order to come up with the plots that it did. I don’t have any idea just how much of this show actually happened. There was some goodness in there even if it was far too strange, even for a show that largely wasn’t outside the realm of reality.

Farmer Wants a Wife: It seemed like they should have probably promoted this better in the end and it didn’t seem like much outside of a farmer Bachelor show, but it was still a nice one to all who care about this sort of thing in the end. I don’t always like reality shows as much as you might think. But I did like this one and thought that it was largely good even if it could have been way better. I do wonder if the people in the show are still together.

Valor: While some of it worked out well, it didn’t work as well as it could have. Some of the plot was good and interesting, but a lot of it seemed bland and they could probably have used better actors in this. They could have done better in terms of women empowerment than they did, although I’m glad that they didn’t make it too much about women issues as well.

Aliens in America: There were a lot of good things about this, although some of the plots were bad like you tend to get from certain sitcoms. I did like how it taught me about the discrimination that people of the Islam religion face and other misinformation about them since I didn’t know about it before. And it was nice seeing a social outsider on TV, even if it is often an overused premise. Still, with too many of the plots not focusing on good morals, it is hard to rank this okay show any higher.

My Last Days: Not a bad show by any means, it failed to be outstanding and that great. Plus, it does have a rather grim subject matter, talking about dying people and chronically the rest of their lives. But I still felt that it was good to show this with real people and show what happened. I do hope that this show airs again in the future. It was a pretty decent show.

Mad TV: While it was funny on the CW instead of FOX, it wasn’t that good a show on either network. It worked, for the most part, but wasn’t as good as it could have been. I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t keep this as a summer show when Saturday Night Live is on reruns. It was middle of the road in terms of quality, which is why it is ranked here.

Reba: This show is beloved by many, yet I don’t have it ranked any higher, despite liking it myself. I felt that some of it wasn’t as good as it could have otherwise been or other shows have done. Much of the plots were dumb or flawed in some way while they also somehow did a good job addressing a lot of some serious subjects while keeping it funny. This could have easily been a drama, but it worked out well enough that it wasn’t, even if serious stuff came up a whole lot.

Dynasty: I feel that this show may grow more on me as time goes by. As of yet, I feel that there are good dramas that can happen in any families that are made even more crazy by trying to keep track of money and other issues like that. It doesn’t seem as good as it could be due to issues with some of the writing and acting not seeming as good as it could be. Still, with interesting plots and gripping storylines keeping me more into this than other things I could be into, I think that this could be higher in potential rankings that I might do in the future.

Arrow: Admittedly, this might also deserve more of a higher ranking, but I feel that enough are better than it to put it as low. While it can be better than a lot of other shows, it also often doesn’t seem as good as other shows by being too ordinary and not doing as much to separate it from other shows in the genre. I’m glad that I got back into it when I could have and will probably stick with it until the end. But I will always wonder if I didn’t miss much for the timeframe when I didn’t watch the show.

Emily Owens MD: Outside of its dumb ending, there wasn’t much that I didn’t like about the show. Still, I felt that it could have done better such as focusing more on better medical issues and not making this more about high school dynamics in real life. Even a show that’s not teen based is still into the whole high school cliques and clichés. But it had a lot of heart and good plotting.

Burden of Truth: While it may seem like the single case was too drawn out, it was nice seeing all of the meaning behind the huge case in general. There wasn’t that much time spent in the courtroom, yet we still got what we needed to out of the case in general. More could have been put into it to make it more of an interesting show than it was, but I think that it was largely good, if not good enough to rank with the good shows instead of the average shows.

Riverdale: There were a lot of things that make this show questionable in terms of quality. Yet, there are also tons of things that keep a person like me drawn into it. They make questionable choices such as with the whole Black Hood storyline which went in weird places and brought an off scene end to what was once an important character. It seems to have a lot of weird things in it and can be unrealistic. But I still think that it is a good enough show in some ways.

Black Lightning: The best of the average shows in my mind, this show is a bit strange and can be a bit slow moving to the point of wondering if many important things are happening that much in it. But I do think that it is quite good, even if it can be boring at times and not as interesting as it could be. I think that the addition of human villains is a good one and a lot of it works. But too much of the show is just wasted in conversation instead of more important things.

The good shows

The Tomorrow People: There was a lot to like about this show. I’m not even upset by its ending, because it didn’t seem bad to me. While it was a remake of another show I’m not familiar with and haven’t seen (yet, at least), it seemed to stand out well on its own. I’ll admit that parts of it didn’t always make sense, such as how the main plot was them fighting against other people like them while it seemed like all the regular people were not bad yet bad and things seemed confusing often as a result. Still, I have this with the good shows, even if I have it ranked as the worst of them.

Charmed: While this show is fairly new and could always be judged against the original, I think that it is still fairly good, even if they kind of hammer down messages to the point of it being annoying. They like to keep things simple and they have a recurring storyline thus far to keep us interested. I do wish that they had a somewhat older cast for this than they do, but I guess that doesn’t matter as much for now. I think that it is good so I’m ranking it here for now.

Nikita: This show struggled for a lot of its run to find an audience and stay on the air. It frequently airing at different times definitely didn’t help it. But it did a good job of wrapping things up in the end, even if it had such a short, final season. I felt that it was a good spy show, considering how I often don’t see this type of show on TV. It was nice seeing a female protagonist kick ass, something we sadly don’t all that much of on TV. I wish, in a way, that they kept out the love story aspect and there were a whole lot of unneeded twists and turns along the way.

Frequency: While I liked this show since the pilot, I also felt that none of the episodes were ever as good as the pilot episode was. None of them were bad, but not all of it lived up to expectations. Still, I liked seeing what they could do with the communication between the past and present making those of us wonder how it could affect everything in the show. They even had an epilogue wrap everything up that it could and otherwise wasn’t. Not every show nowadays can do such a simple thing.

Hooten & the Lady: For those of you keeping track, the top ten starts here in terms of CW shows. This show was really good, even if it had a last minute cliffhanger that left the fate of the leads in doubt. It was quite fun seeing the two unwilling partners always working together with hilarious antics often key to the show’s greatness. We got a realistic pair of archeologists doing events that could have happened. I don’t know how much of the mythos might have been true, but I like it nonetheless.

Gilmore Girls: If you missed this show at all, it might be worth something you should watch in the future if you are ever able to. We saw a teen pregnancy storyline much later than usual with the child now a teen herself. It was very quirky and even if it seemed weird, this show could have happened in reality. Nothing about it was something I felt couldn’t be real, although they did some questionable plot choices from time to time. Still, I felt that it was wonderful and am a bit upset that I missed it when it was on the first time.

Penn and Teller: Fool Us: Never, in any episode I saw, has a magician failed to successfully perform a trick on this show. We often see great tricks for free on TV that we would never get to see elsewhere without having to shell out money for it. While we only get cryptic hints into how they aren’t fooled, we do get a good performance to enjoy every time this is on.

Hart of Dixie: Sure, it wasn’t as much about medical issues as it could have been even if it had a doctor as a protagonist, but this show was awesome and I loved the way they ended things. We saw a town full of wonderful people having different adventures and we even saw songs in the show that worked, even if this wasn’t a musical show. Long live the heart.

Legends of Tomorrow: This only issue that I can think of with this show is that it recycles far too much from the rest of Arrowverse. Outside of that, it is hard to think of how this show could be bad. It has a lot of great time travel elements in it and keeps you linked into the larger world that it is part of. I have liked it since the pilot, which I felt was quite awesome, so it is hard not to wonder why one wouldn’t want to stick into it unless you can’t make the time commitment.

iZombie: A reinvention of the zombie genre, it is nice to see something other than just the usual people run from zombies and try to defeat them in a zombie show. Now, we get to see a zombie protagonist who only eats brains because she has to in order to live (interesting, since her name is Liv). It is more than just a standard procedural with a zombie twist and knows how to keep people interested in it over all the time that it has aired thus far. It’s a shame that it is ending soon.

Jane the Virgin: Its premise may be quite odd, but the show is wonderful to keep up with. I might not have seen the show were it not for a dream about it. There are so many twists and turns with it that you would want to make sure that you stay up to date on all of it if you can. You wouldn’t expect a lot of the crazy things that have happened in this show to happen all the time. Yet that is what can make this show quite an awesome one in the end.

Supergirl: Some seasons of this have been better than others so far. Still, it is hard not to like this with it often going beyond just the simple superhero show and into much bigger dynamics than that. We get to see a lot of lessons regarding racism or other issues of our time that need resolved. It doesn’t seem to hammer down a message that is too strong while making sure that we know what is right and not. I do look forward to seeing what else this show has in store for the future.

Whose Line is it Anyways?: Not a conventional show by any means, it is still quite hilarious, even if we often see the same types of things on it from time to time. If you can watch this show without laughing, than I think that you are doing something wrong with life.

The Flash: In my mind, this is the best CW for different reasons. One is that it shows us the real world consequences of decisions in life despite being set in a world that couldn’t happen in reality. We see the flash go after people who are often more than just a villain of the week. There isn’t much wrong with it, even if it isn’t a perfect show. It wasn’t hard for me to rank it here as the highest show on this network. I just hope that they can keep it going for a while.

Before I close this post, I might as well mention what rankings I might do next. There aren’t as many to chose from if I just go through the other four major networks and their primetime shows. I also do not know if I can do the kids shows as well with all the strangeness that has happened with a lot of them. I might, though, go through kids shows in groupings, such as putting those from FOX, the CW, the WB, and cartoon network in one group.

There are also shows on this list that have aired on other networks. I might need to go through all of the WB shows sometime that I have seen. Supergirl has aired on CBS, Mad TV has aired on FOX, and ABC has also aired Whose Line is it Anyways? If you can think of what network’s shows I should rank next, then let me know by commenting on this blog.


Well, I think that I’m finally done with this post. I don’t think that I forget anything that I wanted to rank and if I did, well, I can always update this list in future years. I’m not sure when the next post of this blog will be just yet, but know that I will let you know if I finish with these alternating Monday updates.

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Signs You Might be a TV Junkie (like me)

Once again, I have not given myself enough time to write myself a lot of a post as other posts are still being written and I don't have any ready to be published. But I thought that an idea like this would be best done in the bullet format and I can't do that as well using copy and paste from a document in Word. So here you get to enjoy this different type of post.

I know that I'm a TV junkie, although I'm trying to limit the amount of which I am in the future. It can be hard to pick between what shows I want to watch at a time and often just go with more than one, using recording methods to catch others later. How else am I or anyone else a TV junkie? Let's get to the list:

  • You can normally have the regularly planned schedule for each major network memorized in your head and can quote it to whoever asks.
  • Most of your calendar updates on your phone relate to when shows return.
  • You watch more than three hours of primetime a night.
  • You once noticed that about 2/7ths of your week was watching TV shows based on the number of hours that each show was.
  • You always watch a series finale or potential series finale you miss online as soon as you can.
  • You normally don't miss important episodes of shows by setting up tapes to record them.
  • There are some tapes with special recordings on it for you to keep watching over again.
  • One of the main reasons that you still have a VCR and tapes to record on them is because you need to record things on it that you will miss.
  • You know what a TV tuner is as you often use it to record shows and watch them later.
  • You know which networks have the best websites for watching shows online and which ones have the worst.
  • FOX and ABC put their shows online a week after they air. The CW, CBS, and NBC have them online much sooner.
  • Your solution to three good things being on at the same time is to record two of them for later while watching the third one live.
  • It is easy to tell with some shows which commercial breaks are the last one and how many breaks there will be.
  • Primetime dramas air a short break between the last part of the show and the scenes for the next one. It is the shortest break always of the shows.
  • The first commercial break in a syndicated sitcom lasts around 90 seconds.
  • The most recently aired season will start airing for the first time in syndication in November, shortly after the World Series has aired.
  • You know what syndication is.
  • You know what a showrunner is.
  • After a football game or any live sports event is done airing on network TV, they put around a four minute commercial break after it even if the show is already delayed or will be delayed longer as a result of this break.
  • You are always prepared for doubleheaders in football and how it could affect what you watch when and what you record for later.
  • After football season is over, CBS Sundays are going to air two basketball games before primetime in March and the Masters in April before the rest of the regular season is done with delays.
  • When a new show starts, you often recognize people from other shows they used to do.
  • You always read who the guest stars are in case you recognize them.
  • You thought that this post would be shorter until you thought of how many things work in it.

Monday, November 5, 2018

Fall Shows 2018

Hopefully this isn’t too late for people. But I have finally gotten to the reviews of all of the fall shows. This is the first time in a while that I haven’t had to split this isn’t multiple parts. I hope that you enjoy the reviews of all of these shows.

Happy Together: Show Description- A singer moves in with his accountant after a break-up with his former girlfriend. Behind the Scenes- Damon Wayans Jr., who was in Happy Endings and New Girl, stars on this show as well. There are others as well. It replaces Man with a Plan, only that’s going to return at some point. My Thoughts- It seemed like it was just a family having to deal with someone move in with them type of show that was made different by it being a celebrity instead of an in-law. It wasn’t actually bad, but it didn’t really work that well for me. It wasn’t really funny. I give it two out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This doesn’t seem to have much chance going forward. Where to Find- On CBS at 8:30/7:30 Central on Mondays

The Cool Kids: Show Description- We see the adventures of retirees and what they do now. Behind the Scenes- There’s not much to add here except that this show is unusual for featuring such an old cast of people in it. My Thoughts- It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t really that great either. I give it two out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This is likely to stay around for now. Where to Find- On FOX at 8:30/7:30 Central on Fridays

The Neighborhood: Show Description- A white family moves into a predominately black neighborhood. Behind the Scenes- There are a lot of famous people in this. It has Max Greenfield from New Girl. It has Beth Behrs from 2 Broke Girls. It has Tichina Arnold from Everybody Hates Chris. It replaces Kevin Can Wait. My Thoughts- While the show largely works, it wasn’t really any good or funny. The material does not work that well. I give it two out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This looks likely to last for now. Where to Find- On CBS at 8/7 Central on Mondays

Single Parents: Show Description: We see different parents who aren’t in a relationship form a bond with each other. Behind the Scenes- This has Taran Killam formerly of Saturday Night Live. It also stars Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond and ‘Til Death. My Thoughts- The plot largely doesn’t work as a whole. There are some bright spots, but not many of them in here. I give it two out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This is likely to stick around for now. Where to Find- On ABC at 9:30/8:30 Central on Wednesdays.

Charmed: Show Description- Three sisters find out that they are witches with powers and have to save the world from evil. Behind the Scenes- This is a remake of a classic WB show. Being a part of the new Sunday line-up, it doesn’t replace any old show. My Thoughts- It is quite interesting and good. I plan to vlog about this in my new YouTube channel Guywithcowonhead. I’ll post a link to a playlist later if I am able to do this. There are some issues with it as it has a cast that is younger than it needs to be and much of it could be too mysterious. But I still give it a good grade in the end. I give it three out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This seems likely to stick around for now. I will say that it being on a day of the week that was devoid of programming on this network for a while might be the only issue as to if it lasts. Where to Find- On the CW at 9/8 Central on Sundays

Magnum P.I.: Show Description- A private investigator and his friends help solve crimes. Behind the Scenes- This is a remake of a classic show with the same name. This has Tim Kang, who used to star in The Mentalist. This is likely in the same universe as Hawaii Five-0 and NCIS. It is filmed in Hawaii where it is set. It replaces two sitcoms, them being Superior Donuts and Living Biblically. My Thoughts- It pretty much works for the most part. I’ll admit that it can seem too generic and run of the mill, but that’s about the only thing I didn’t like about it. I give it three out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This is likely to last for now. Where to Find- On CBS at 9/8 Central on Mondays

New Amsterdam: Show Description- This is more or less a typical medical drama. I haven’t seen much of it to know why it has that name or how it is different. Behind the Scenes- Ryan Eggold, who used to star in The Blacklist and The Blacklist: Redemption, is on this show. My Thoughts- It is good in a way, but I can’t yet see what is different between it and other shows like it. Still, it is pretty good. I give it four out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- It is likely to stick around for now. Where to Find- On NBC at 10/9 Central on Tuesdays

The Rookie: Show Description- After major life changing events, an older man winds up becoming a cop for the first time. There are other rookies on the show as well. Behind the Scenes- This stars Nathan Fillion who used to star in Firefly, Drive, and Castle. My Thoughts- It seems interesting and different in a way from most other shows like it. I am worried about the typical relationship issues that you might see from time to time. I give it three out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This is likely to last for now as far as I know. Where to Find- On ABC at 10/9 Central on Tuesdays

God Friended Me: Show Description- A man gets a friend request from God or someone calling himself that and his life changes with the lives of those around him and those he gets requests from. Behind the Scenes- Violett Beane, who has had recurring roles in The Resident and The Flash, is a character on this show. An atheist helped create the show. This replaces Instinct for the moment, although that show will be back at some point. My Thoughts- I’m not sure where they are going with it. Hopefully, they can take both sides in the Christian/Atheist debate into account instead of leaning more towards one side or the other. I like it so far, even if not much happens in it. I give it three out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This is likely to last for now. Where to Find- On CBS at 8/7 Central on Sundays unless delayed because of sports or other reasons

Manifest: Show Description- People on a plane land years after their flight went missing and they were thought to be dead. Behind the Scenes- There’s nothing to add here. Should I cut this when I can’t think of what should be added here? My Thoughts- I’ll admit that it seems too mysterious in some ways. But I think that it is good enough in the end. I give it three out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This is likely to last for now at least. Where to Find- On NBC at 10/9 Central on Mondays

FBI: Show Description- Needless to say, this is about the FBI and it features various threats that the team has to face. Behind the Scenes- This stars Missy Peregrym, who used to star in Rookie Blue. Dick Wolf, who created the Law and Order franchise and the Chicago franchise, also did this as well. This replaces Scorpion. My Thoughts- Its main problem is being too generic. But it does seem more dramatic and a bit better than most shows are nowadays. I give it three out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- It is likely to stay for now. Where to Find- On CBS at 9/8 Central on Tuesdays

All American: Show Description- A teenage boy moves in with a coach who seeks to give him a better life. Behind the Scenes- This is based off of a true story. This replaces The Originals. My Thoughts- While this show worked, it didn’t really click with me at all. I give it two out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- This isn’t likely to last long. Where to Find- On the CW at 9/8 Central on Wednesdays


Murphy Brown: Show Description- An older woman returns to her job as a journalist with a team of people and other characters as needed. Behind the Scenes- This isn’t actually a new show, but a revival of an old show. This replaces Life in Pieces, for now at least. My Thoughts- It is quite good and topical. I think that the only issues that I have with it are strange acting choices that the cast does. But it works quite well. I give it four out of five stars. Long Term Prospects- It is likely to stick around for now. Where to Find- On CBS at 9:30/8:30 Central on Thursdays

Monday, October 22, 2018

The Talk Drinking Game

Sadly, I am once again pressed for time and don't know when I'll have the chance to write all of a post that I think that I should be able to write. Hopefully, I don't have to worry about this for a while as I can just get to the post in question where I do a drinking game for the talk show known as The Talk.

Take a shot if any of the following happens:

  • Sheryl Underwood gets the audience to either laugh or cheer (two shots if both happen at once).
  • The name of the show is mentioned.
  • Someone says, "Is that okay or no way?"
  • The question they ask after showing a clip or setting up a story has nothing to do with what they had just shown.
  • The audience is split in their reaction to the question of the day
  • A co-host is also a guest
  • Any co-host mentions their family

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Crossovers and How They Work

Once a phenomenon so rarely used that it seemed reserved only for fan fiction stories, the crossover is becoming increasingly popular and used a whole lot in this modern world of television. What all will we see with it in the future? Well, here’s a post about them.

Before I get any further, I might as well specify something: backdoor pilots do not count as crossovers in my mind. While they do set up people and characters seen in another show, they aren’t actual events where the characters would see people from other shows that were already established.

Some of the earlier examples of crossovers was when Popeye appeared in a Betty Bop cartoon. This works due to the Fletcher brothers owning both works at the time. There weren’t a lot of other really early examples like in the TV world nowadays.

There are some more modern examples of different shows working together. This happens so much that you kind of have to split the two types of crossovers into minor ones where people appear in more of a cameo role, and major ones where you see a lot more people together in groups. You especially see this a lot with Arrowverse. In fact, it could be argued that Legends of Tomorrow is the first true crossover TV show that we’ve ever seen.


I couldn’t think of much to put in this post. There wasn’t much for me to ramble on about this time around when writing this. Sorry if you think that this is too short of a post. I can’t always do it as well as I would like. Until next time, I’ll be here.

Monday, October 15, 2018

Back to School Commercials 2018

With all of the horrible length of time that all these political commercials were on the air, these seemed like barely a blimp on the radar compared to other things that were on the air. I may never count all of the political commercials. But it might be one of the many reasons why the numbers this year are much lower than in the past. Of course, I’ve been missing a lot with my new(ish) job so that might be what is going on to. Before I get to the reminder of the count from previous years, let’s get to other things that I think I should explain.

You will see the ~ sign at some points in this post. This means that I’m not entirely sure of the number at that point and can only be certain that it is something close to it. I’m sure of the total number of all of these commercials each year. It was hard to get the exact change of the month down. Just know that if I have a number that I know for sure is higher than any of the numbers mentioned, I will be taking out some of these past numbers that I’m unsure of.

In 2014, the official count of back to school commercials before Independence Day is 1. The official count before August is 48. The official count before September is 158. The official total of the whole year is 170. In 2015, the official count of back to school commercials before Independence Day is 0. The official count before August is 44. The official count before September is 125. The official total of the whole year is 136.

In 2016, the official count of back to school commercials before Independence Day is 1. The official count before August is ~61. The official count before September is ~261. The official total of the whole year is 286. In 2017, the official count of back to school commercials before Independence Day is 0. The official count before August is ~68. The official count before September is 219. The official total of the whole year is 234.

In 2018, the official count of back to school commercials before Independence Day is 0. The official count before August is ~20. The official count before September is 110. The official total of the whole year is 115.


Well, this is the lowest count across the board for all of these. Only the ones before the fourth of July isn’t broken for lowest due to the fact that you can’t get lower than zero. I’d honestly rather have over 300 back to school commercials every year than the shitload of political commercials that I’ve seen. I just hope that I don’t have to eat those words. We’ll see what happens in the future.

Saturday, October 6, 2018

The Late Show: Stephen Colbert versus David Letterman

It was a long while ago when I first did a comparison of two late night talk show hosts. There was a shift a while ago where nearly every host was replaced by a different host for one reason or another. I think that it is time to compare The Late Show version that David Letterman did versus the one that Stephen Colbert is doing. Let’s get to it, shall we?

What was David Letterman like? He had quite a quirky personality and would often do pranks of some various sorts from time to time. His most notable bit was the top ten where he would mention ten jokes relating to a topic of some sort. His format seems to have remained the most structured of all of the late night shows with little being different from show to show.

How he was good: He seemed fairly laid back and was quite a good host the whole time. He never had many problems with hosting that we can see from time to time with others. His style worked well for the most part and none of his bits seemed dumb like we can get from time to time.

How he was bad: He might not have seemed as weird as most good hosts are like. It could often seem like he was siding with one political side all the time with barely any mention of the other side. Some of his recurring bits could be quite dumb and made even more annoying because they kept happening over and over again.

What is Stephen Colbert like? He is highly eccentric which often works well. He reports on the news a lot in great detail, often poking fun at different issues that they do. His version is very political and even has political guests a lot more than you’d see on other shows like this.

How he is good: His antics are normally always entertaining with very few issues. He proves that he does not need a sidekick to keep things interesting. One can often get a lot out of his show, specifically his take on what is going on in the world.

How he is bad: It would seem quite often that his politics are often too biased in one way which might anger some of the other party. It can seem like he rushes through his guests too much in an attempt to fit everything into what’s going on in the show.

Who do I like better? This is hard for me to say. I’m not sure that there is one that I prefer to the other. I had known David’s show for so long that it is hard to think of anyone else doing it better. But Stephen does the show quite well. I’d have to say that since David was more simple with what he did, that I’d put Stephen as the slightly better host. If you aren’t into politics, then David is clearly the better person for you to watch. Of course, you might be better off with a different late night show.


I can’t think of anything else to say outside of this closing that I normally put in most of my blogs. It is hard to tell for sure when different posts of this blog will be. I’m still not done with the posts that are on Mondays just yet and I’ll be sure to tell you when I am done with that. Always keep an eye out for a post in this blog as you never know when it might come.

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Best and Worst Show of 2017

Welcome to the shortest post that I do year after year. If you look back at the winners of the silver globe awards and the winners of the golden huckleberry awards, you will notice that I mentioned shows that would qualify as the best show on television and the worst show on television. Check the archives of this blog for the nominees. Here are the winners of both awards.

Best show on television winner for 2017: Time after Time

Worst show on television for the 2017-2018 TV season: The Americans


I hope that you liked this post. I know that I sure do as there isn’t a whole lot for me to write in it. I wish that I could always do posts this simple in the future, but that’s not what I always do. I still need to do the huge post on shows cancelled from the previous TV season because I haven’t done that yet. I do not know if I will keep up with the posts I need to do or not.

Monday, October 1, 2018

Deciphering Different Scheduling Changes: Upgrades, Downgrades, and Stuff like that

You often see me talking about various things in the schedule when I do my cancellation predictions. It can often be telling going into a season what will be airing when or if it will be airing right away at all. I might as well do some sort of terminology into it. Most of this is something I’m inventing.

Upgrade: Let’s say that you started out at midseason and then you will be on during the fall the next time around. Or you were on during the summer and then you’ll be on earlier, such as during midseason before the summer months. This is typically a very good sign that they care about your show.

Downgrade: This is pretty much the same thing the other way. If you are always on during the fall and are then sent away to midseason, that’s a very bad sign for your long term chances of survival. If you have been on a while, you might not last much longer when this happens.

Long hiatus: There are two different ways that this can happen. One is that you are renewed, but don’t have a return date for a while. Another is that you aired a lot of episodes and then are pulled, but not in a way that means cancellation, during the middle of the season. The first one is more problematic and more likely will spill your doom when you return that you will be airing your final season. The second one is also a problem, but doesn’t always mean things will end.

Later than planned airing: A show being announced as airing at one point in time but doesn’t air until later is a huge problem. In all but one cases of this happening, that season ended up being the final one of the show. I have no idea why this would have happened most times.

The Friday move: Often, when a long running show is moved to Fridays, it is a bad sign that the show is going to end soon. Maybe it doesn’t hurt like when Hawaii Five-0 moved to Fridays. There are other times when shows are always there and often aren’t hurt as a result. It isn’t always a bad sign, but more than likely is. It's called a graveyard slot for a reason.

Sudden replacement: You’d think that if when a show is cancelled it gets replaced quickly, that would be a good sign for the newer airing show. But it often isn’t. More often than not, these shows are the next ones to get cancelled themselves, or never brought back.

No starting date: This is a variant that applies to new shows most of the time. The longer a new show doesn’t have a starting date, the more unlikely it is to last more. Also, if it has a starting date later in the season, then it is more likely not to stick around for future seasons. If it starts as late as the summer, then it might not be as bad as it could be. An odd thing that happens is when it is announced as part of one season but doesn’t air until the next season. Even if it is on at the fall, it likely won’t last then as a result. Look at 10 Days in the Valley or Terra Nova.


This is the end of this post. Sorry if it is full of information that you already know. I often have a habit of repeating myself from time to time. So if I already wrote a post with most of this information, then at least be glad you get to read it again if you haven’t before. And that’s all I can think of for this post.

Monday, September 17, 2018

Top 25 Episodes of 2017

If you are like me and getting tired of the redundancy of the Emmys, you might want to come up with your own version of a television award show. Well, I have already done that, but I thought that I could do even more. There are a ton of great episodes in television that aired just last year. I’m going to post what I think are the 25 best of them from last year. Sorry for doing a post like this so late into the year. The only real rule that I have is that only one show gets to occupy a spot on this list. There cannot be more than one episode of the same show. I did a top 25 instead of 10 because I wanted to include a whole lot more than I would otherwise. Enjoy the list.

#25 Poetic Justice (NCIS: New Orleans): It was kind of bad all of the things that Agent Pride did going into this episode, but I still feel that this was a worthy end to the season and pretty good episode overall. We finally got a recurring villain put away after three seasons and stopped his somewhat comic book style plot from happening.

#24 HalloVeen (Brooklyn Nine-Nine): You may think that people doing the old Halloween plot over and over again would get boring, but it actually had a good way of bringing everything together and this episode launched a great story arc for future episodes. There were so many players in the Halloween heist that you wouldn’t know if such a problem as to all the character’s egos would get in the way of it or not, but it had a good end with a proposal even if there was no real winner.

#23 The Long Distance Dissonance (The Big Bang Theory): Leave it to a long running show to bring back a character from the second season and have her play such an important role in the show’s plots going forward. With Amy gone away for the summer, it seemed like another woman might try to edge into Sheldon’s life. She then did the kiss from coast to coast that left the proposal happening at the end of the episode. All of this shows good writing since we knew about the ring that Sheldon had for a while now and they still gave us a shocking moment with its reveal at the end.

#22 Net Worth (Law and Order: SVU): With all of the issues of rich people thinking that they could just away with whatever crimes they do, it was nice to see a good take on it with a creepy older person and his younger son thinking that they could just get away with whatever crimes ultimately getting caught and charged with all the wrongs they did.

#21 Five Minutes (Modern Family): Sometimes a simple concept can be turned into a good episode. You might not need the usual format if you want to find something different and it can often work better than what is typically done. Thus, the show took select family members and showed a simple, brief part of their lives to us. Like the opening title card said, a lot can happen in five minutes. It takes great writers to come up with ways to do this and they did a good job with it.

#20 Eclipse Over America (Nova): You have to hand it to the production team to air an episode about the eclipse America just had the same day it happened. They had so much good information about the eclipse that just happened and other eclipses in general. It was very informative and wonderful to see, especially if one hadn’t seen the eclipse.

#19 The Song in Your Heart (Once Upon a Time): I’m often kind of a sucker for musical episodes at times. Thus, I picked this episode for the top 25 as I felt that it was a good episode of the show and had lots of good points to the plot for it. The songs worked with the story and we saw a lot of stories going towards the end of what worked for what the writers had planned.

#18 Twofer (NCIS): The second episode of the season, it may have seemed like a simple case going into it, but there were many layers to the subplots as well. First, Gibbs and McGee were still dealing with the aftermath of being kidnapped. Gibbs had the seemingly unusual happy reaction to no longer being in such a terrible situation while McGee was still reeling from what all had happened. The recurring story was what made this a good episode and it didn’t distract from the case at hand.

#17 And Finally: Black Bolt (Inhumans): It might be unusual to put an episode from one of last year’s most hated shows, but this isn’t your top 25 now, is it? I thought that the series finale of the show did things right that so many other shows get wrong. Everything was wrapped up and resolved. The main villain was killed off and the inhumans faced a new future on earth. It was a good way of ending the show and could be the start of a plot for a season 2 that I think everyone knew wasn’t happening at that point in time. But not every last episode is like that.

#16 Lian Yu (Arrow): The fifth season finale ended the flashback storyline and also brought an end to one of the villains that I loved to hate most. Adrian Chase brought team arrow to the island that Oliver was kept at for such a long time. We saw Adrian’s team fight off as his problems came to a head. The ending was literally explosive and left us wanting more.

#15 The Tables Have Turned (Survivor: Game Changers): Admittedly, the twist where two tribes would go to tribal council, vote as a group, and only one person would get voted out was manufactured to cause a lot of conflict. But boy it did. The tribal council was wondrous to watch with people trying to help their own causes and trying to control the other tribe’s votes. I love the tribal and the episode as a whole. This was such a great episode.

#14 eXposed (The Gifted): The pilot of this show started strong and continued that way until the very end. It had a great cliché dodge when you thought that it might be about yet another group of kids in school trying to fit in under extraordinary circumstances this time. Instead, they were now on the run and ended up working with other mutants.

#13 Fugitive (Grimm): Picking up where the last season left off, we saw so many plots moving forward quite smoothly from where we last were. The season premiere continued in many great ways with such a good episode that I’m not even sure I can summarize it all that well. My recap isn’t doing it justice. I think there was so much good about it that I can’t even write well about it.

#12 Duet (The Flash): Like I said before, I’m usually a sucker for musical episodes. This show saw a nice crossover with characters of Supergirl on The Flash dealing with various issues in love lives and bringing a lot of stories forward in a way they couldn’t have otherwise. Wally overcame what happened in the speed force while both Barry and Kara moved forward in their relationships that they wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. It turned out that the villain of the week that brought these people together wasn’t even a villain but someone who just wanted to help them.

#11 Live. Live. Live. (How to Get Away with Murder): I wasn’t sure if I would like this show a lot when I ended up watching it, but it turned out to be a good choice especially when watching this episode. I can always be amazed by how much a writer can put into a single night’s events. There was a lot going on and the cliffhanger that ended the year’s episode was quite intense in many different ways. Seeing what happened was the culmination of a lot of flashforwards and foreshadowing. It all came together quite well in many ways. This was a great midseason finale.

#10 Flashlight (MacGyver): Featuring two characters from Hawaii Five-0, this was also a good episode in many other ways, seeing the team from MacGyver doing a case in Hawaii was nice, even if it didn’t tie in to an episode of Hawaii Five-0 right after it. I really liked what all they did with the episode and how they could tie it in with characters from elsewhere in the franchise it is now part of.

#9 Inauguration (The Good Fight): One might not think too highly of a sequel series going into it about a character that got the short end of the staff in later seasons. But the first episode proved that you could start fresh with new stories about a beloved character and put what you need to about other people in the new show as well. It was a great way to start the series and I hope to get the first season sometime to see what all happens next.

#8 The End in the End (Bones): Going into the last episode of a show, you better not screw it up like many others have in the past. The show started with them trying to recover after the attack on their work place. They ended up getting the last recurring villain and everything seemed wrapped up well in the end. I only wished last year had more notable good ending for some shows.

#7 Ring of Fire (Grey’s Anatomy): Following from the cliffhanger of the last episode where a character had accidently caused an explosion at the hospital, you saw an episode that you knew would be better than the usual one. They upped their game as they continued to show what had happened last time and wrap up various details that they could before the next season starts.

#6 Looking for Mr. Goodbrain, Part 2 (iZombie): Sometimes all you need to do is take a gamble and do something that will change your show forever. This show made the zombie problem widespread and shared so that it would be public knowledge throughout the world of this show. I can often be a sucker for a great cliffhanger (provided it is resolved at some point) and this episode was no exception to this great type of rule. They changed the show and it became that much better for it.

#5 Post Las Vegas shooting episode (20/20): Full discloser: I don’t know what the actual episode of the show was so I’m making one up. I’m often surprised by how quickly they can do a show about an event that just happened. We got to learn a lot about what happened to some people and more about the whole senseless shooting in general. Unlike the sequel episode, it did not focus too much into an angle of what to do about it or many theories about what to do afterwards.

#4 Pilot (Time after Time): I actually forgot if I had this as best pilot in my silver globe awards or not. So switch this and number 2 in case I did. While we never saw much of this show, I am and will remain such a huge fan of this show and a strong start is the reason why. It had such a great beginning as they would say in Princess Bride that it sold me as a fan forever and I will always be upset at its cancellation. They had everything they needed in here with what the show would be about and what the plot would be going forward. I just wish that tons more people watched it.

#3 Crisis on Earth-x Part 4 (Legends of Tomorrow): If I had to pick just one part of this spectacular whole crossover, I’d pick this ending. It was nice to see everything come to a head and the final showdown of the heroes of earth 1 versus the villains of earth-x. There were so many things happening and it all worked out very well in terms of plot. We don’t see many plots working together as well this easily. All of the shows had to move forward after all that happened to the various characters. There were two weddings and a funeral and there was an awesome end to the crossover.

#2 Burnt Food (The Good Doctor): The pilot episode of this show is all that people need to see in order to know if they should watch this show. We got to see the main character and all of the other people that make this show great. It wasn’t just about Shaun. We see all of the characters and we see what makes Shaun such a great person despite seemingly having a disadvantage in life. I just hope that this isn’t a limited run series all the time. And give Freddie Highmore an Emmy and a Golden Globe. He does deserve this and should get the great acting recognition he deserves.

#1 Michael’s Gambit (The Good Place): If you have not been spoiled to The Empire Strikes Back and you saw the movie for the first time, then you would have seen something similar to the first season of this show. You were interested from the beginning and were shocked by the end. Suddenly, everything made sense in a way that it didn’t before and couldn’t have otherwise. Can you imagine if it didn’t have this twist and it was just about a world where things were wrong all the time despite that fact that it should be right? So much greatness about this show wouldn’t exist if this twist didn’t happen. It was one of the greatest plot twists ever and makes me glad that I stuck with the show.


And there you have it. I hope that you enjoyed my first ever top 25. There is hopefully more for me to choose from this year and you’ll see the post on it next year (hopefully). I tried to stick with some of what I picked for the silver globe awards that I had done before. Enjoy my alternative to the Emmys which I hoped that you enjoyed as much as I enjoyed all of these episodes.

Monday, September 3, 2018

A Run Down of the Cancellations, Renewals, and Schedule Changes: 2018 Edition

Sorry in advance for many things such as various confusion that I have done with this blog. For one, sorry that this post is as late as it is. Second off, sorry that there wasn't a post here last Monday. You might have thought correctly that it was my plan to update this every Monday. Only now there is a problem where I now have to alternate this blog with my Madam Secretary blog which will do political posts or posts about a new episode due to rolling something then and now this blog will have to be shared with that one. So know that if you don't see a post of this blog on Mondays, it will be a different blog updated instead. If it's not my Madam Secretary blog, it could be a different one entirely. Also know that Mondays will be phased out of this blog entirely except for maybe random updates at times. We'll see what happens. Now enjoy this post that I hope you enjoy in advance of this upcoming new schedule.

If you are like me and keep track of what the TV grim reaper posts, then you’d know what they would predict gets cancelled going into each season and they keep you updated as the season goes along. I do think that there are some cases where they are predicting badly and they can be wrong as a result because of it. Still, it would be nice to do a rundown of different shows and I’ll tell you what all things mean in the future because of it. This will avoid any upcoming new shows.

First things first: let’s get all of the obvious renewals without a time change out of the way. The CBS shows that fit that mold are 60 Minutes, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS, NCIS: New Orleans, Survivor, SEAL Team, 48 Hours, Criminal Minds, The Big Bang Theory, Young Sheldon, Mom, MacGyver, Hawaii Five-0, Blue Bloods, and S.W.A.T. The CW shows that fit that mold are The Flash, Black Lightning, Riverdale, Supernatural, and Dynasty.

The ABC shows that fit that mold are America’s Funniest Home Videos, Shark Tank, Dancing with the Stars, The Good Doctor, Back-ish, Splitting up Together, The Goldbergs, Modern Family, Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19, How to Get Away with Murder, and 20/20. The new show called The Conners sort of fits this mold as it airs when Roseanne used to.

Continuing this list with the FOX network, the shows they have that fit the mold of having an obvious renewal without a time change are Empire, Star, The Simpsons, and Family Guy. The NBC shows that fit this mold are The Voice, Ellen’s Game of Games, This is Us, Chicago P.D., Superstore, The Good Place, Will & Grace, Blindspot, and Dateline.

Now, were there any renewals that were illogical in some way? It didn’t seem like Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. should have lasted. For the People shouldn’t have lasted either. Instinct was a surprise since it went against long time CBS standards. A.P. Bio didn’t makes sense to stick around either.

Some cancellations came as a shock, although some weren’t as bad a shock as others. Kevin Can Wait was highly rated, but they did enough wrong with it that made it messed up. There wasn’t much that lead into Scorpion’s cancellation outside of them not rerunning it. Those were the only two real shocks in terms of renewals as the rest weren’t as bad as what the TV Grim Reaper thought. I don’t think that I will talk about the other cancellations and just go into the future with these notes.

Let’s get to all of the schedule changes starting with Sundays. Supergirl is moving there from Mondays in order to expand upon the CW’s schedule. Since Smallville had aired there, that makes sense as a change in the schedule. Bob’s Burgers has now moved back an hour in order to make room for more football coverage on the network. On Mondays, CBS trimmed their comedies and got rid of nearly everything on it for some point. Bull was moved there from Tuesdays to fill the gaps of what is gone now. I almost thought that they would put Survivor there between all those cancellations and them announcing the schedule for the next season.

More of the Monday changes are that Arrow is now there from Thursdays with the lead-in for that night putting Legends of Tomorrow back an hour. The Resident is up an hour on FOX. 9-1-1 is now there as well from Wednesdays. On Tuesdays, Lethal Weapon has moved back an hour. The Gifted is now there from Mondays. On Wednesdays, American Housewife has moved up an hour. Chicago Med is now there from Tuesdays. Chicago Fire is now there from Thursdays. As for Thursdays, Law and Order: SVU has been moved there from Wednesdays and will now be on at the latest hour which makes more sense given its gruesome subject matter.

What shows are now on Fridays? Fresh off the Boat has been moved there from Tuesdays. Speechless has been moved there from Wednesdays. They are being put there as part of the new TGIF. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has moved back an hour to air its final season. Hell’s Kitchen has been moved back an hour in order to accommodate an hour of comedies on FOX for the first hour. The Blacklist has been moved there from Wednesdays and won’t be airing until later in the season.

You might wonder what is taking or coming back from a long hiatus. Midnight, Texas has been on hiatus for more than a year, but has been moved from the summers to the falls. The Blacklist is on later as I have stated before premiering sometime at midseason. The Amazing Race will be on later in the season as well. I have no idea when Elementary or Celebrity Big Brother will air, just that they will be later again as usual. I’m not going to mention too much what midseason replacements will be on at midseason in the future unless I feel it is notable enough in some way.

No idea when Ransom will air again. The 100 won’t be on until later. Both iZombie and Jane the Virgin will air their final seasons sometime at midseason. Gotham and The Orville will be on later in the season with Gotham airing its last season. Last Man Standing is returning after over a year of being off the air. It was on ABC, but now will be on FOX. Brooklyn Nine-Nine will be on NBC at some point after airing on FOX. And while Timeless was cancelled, it will be airing a wrap-up made for TV movie just like CSI did. Is this going to be a weird and recurring on and off trend?


That’s about it for this post. I don’t think that there is much else to say about it. What I do know is that I thought it would be better to exclude most cancellations and new shows in this post. I don’t yet know if I will do this again next year or not.

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Sex and Television: A Virgin’s Perspective

I plan to stay a virgin for as long as possible. Only on my wedding night do a plan to change that. So you might wonder how my virginity might affect my understanding of certain TV shows. There are a lot of sex based things that you see on TV a lot. And I’m limited to network television. I don’t see the shows that have actual uncensored nudity in it. There are some things that I might not understand and possibly never will unless I actually wind up having sex at some point.

What is my perspective? For one, I do not understand the whole concept of flings. This should be known as different in my mind to one night stands or casual sex. It is when a person intentionally has sex with someone that they don’t really like that much, if at all, in order to get back in the game or something like that. Why would you choose to have sex with someone that you don’t like? These are often one time things and we might not see these people again. But this might be one of the problems that you see on TV that are far too common in real life.

Another issue I see is when people are having sex with people that they haven’t known that long. This could even lead to a prospect that I like to call love at first sex. Who wouldn’t want their relationship to begin with we met, we had sex, and that was just the first day of us knowing each other? This happened in the first episode of the show Salvation. In a flashback episode of The Big Bang Theory, Leonard was about to have sex with someone he didn’t know less than twenty-four hours ago. In an episode of Family Guy, Bonnie talks about how it was only several hours after meeting the man who would become her husband that she gave him her virginity. Does anyone else see a problem with that?

So many other issues are brought up. Some people, often women, regret having sex the next day. Then why have it in the first place? Too many divorced couples wind up hooking up again later and they often always regret it, or the women do. But why aren’t the men seen as having a sexual conscience? There have been a lot of shows about men who are constantly hooking up with women and they don’t care most times about any negative consequences and often don’t wind up with them except for when they do catch feelings for someone, but not always a hook up at first.

Often, a huge problem is the amount of cheating that is going on. And often, they want us to root for those who are being unfaithful to people. And another thing I wonder about is why they can’t just put the people who are supposed to be that way together in the first place. What’s with all the will they or won’t they crap? Does that actually happen in reality? I haven’t known of any relationship like that in real life. Do any of you?

What I do wonder is why abortion isn’t brought up as an option more than it is. I’m glad that people do not just mess up with pregnancy and then decide to kill the baby. Maybe it is still taboo enough that they figure they don’t want to rock the boat that much. Or maybe, they can have character that are so amoral, but never that amoral. Of course, people can debate if it is actually amoral or not. I can think of only two shows so far that have used abortion with main characters.

Now while I’ve written a lot thus far about sex and television, I haven’t done much about what being a virgin has to do with my lack of understanding about things that happen. There is a recurring joke that I see on TV. It has a man on the phone or on some type of connection while a woman nearby is doing something sexy. The man gets distracted which leads to this exchange:

Man: Damn it!

Woman: Already?

I don’t get this. What does it mean? Why does the live studio audience find this funny? Does it have to do with erections? That’s my only guess, but it is hard to know that much. I still am not fully sure what masturbation is. Does one have to be naked to do it? Why are tissues involved at times? Why would a married man need to do it or do it with pictures of someone who isn’t his wife? Does a man have to ejaculate in order for it to count?

Perhaps my virginity is one of the reasons why I don’t understand why sex is so common in TV. All of the people who have it seem to enjoy it all of the time so it must be good. Why else would people often get into trouble for it?

There are so many other issues that I probably wouldn’t understand if I did have sex someday. Why would people use handcuffs? Why agree to that? Why do spanking or other forms of beating? Do some people really get a warped sense of pleasure out of it? And why would anyone want to watch someone use the bathroom? That’s just messed up regardless of which gender it is you are or which gender it is you would look at.

What are other oddities I’ve noticed? For one, I’ve often noticed that people claim to have sex half a time. How is this possible? What does that even mean? And there are all these sexual positions that people often talk about, but you wouldn’t think that there could be more than ten and that’s even more than I think is possible. (Of course, that’s only if you do traditional, vaginal sex.) One show that I saw made it seem like the orgasm was the end of sex. You have to end there?

Of course, there are various issues with there is self censorship or other issues I see like that. I do not know why they can’t be more straightforward so they don’t confuse the audience. Like in an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond where the sculpture looked like a vagina. They must not realize that not all of us have seen one. And if they never say the word, then how are we supposed to know for sure? It took a lot of watching that episode for me to understand it.

An 8 Simple Rules episode brought up an issue that you’d think would be very important to address for teenage boys: unwanted erections. Only they had never said the word so it would have been confusing to some people. I had no idea what that was for quite some time and I didn’t have a father to ask as he died when I was five. There are a lot of guy things I might never know. Who would I ask?

I still don’t know if sex scenes are just called that or actually have sex happening in them sometimes. I do not know how often an actor or actress is naked when their character is. And something odd that I notice from time to time is that there is some sort of tell that virgins have. What? Apparently, you are having or about to have sex and the other person (not a virgin), somehow knows that you are one. Is there some sort of secret way of knowing?

What’s with TV shows often not just spelling things out? Do they expect us all to understand? Maybe there are reasons why things aren’t clear in some way. Maybe there are lawyers or others who object to certain things being said or not said and we just have to fill in the gaps ourselves (no pun intended). So there might always be confusion.


I think that is all I can think of for this post. This is the last of the Sunday updates. Sorry to be getting rid of them so soon after starting them. The Monday updates will or should continue for the near future and there will be random other days posted as well. If anything changes, I’ll let you know.