"You made me Senior Partner, I always repay my debts. I'm a Lannister."

A few years ago, I joined Entertainment Weekly's Front Row Panel. I honestly do not remember exactly when or how I heard about it, but it is a community forum where the editors of the magazine ask about different entertainment and pop culture topics. They are interested in knowing what their readers think about movies and TV shows that are out and also about what we like and do not like about the magazine itself. They have a section where you can grade new movie releases and take a weekly pop culture quiz and often send out surveys about specific topics.

More recently, they have joined the Twitter universe and regularly ask their followers to retweet information about TV show premieres and help promote different products. They then choose one of these retweeters to win DVD sets and other fun things!

Last week, I got an email telling me that they were giving away a TV show to a certain number of lucky people. Not knowing what show it would be, I was happily surprised when seasons one and two of the USA Network show Suits arrived in the mail. I was already a fan of the show and I have since re-watched both seasons.

For those of you who do not already know, Suits is about a college-dropout with a brilliant mind named Mike Ross who gets a job as a lawyer at a New York City law firm. He is hired by the firm's top attorney, Harvey Specter, and together they must keep Mike's secret from the rest of the firm. Patrick J. Adams and Gabriel Macht (pictured above) play the two leading men. The cast also includes Harvey's assistant Donna Paulson (Sarah Rafferty), Managing Partner Jessica Pearson (Gina Torres), Paralegal Rachel Zane (Meghan Markle) and Junior Parter Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman). 

The cast is phenomenal and the writing is fun and smart. I was not sure if I would like it when it started, but I very quickly became addicted and I CANNOT WAIT for the new episodes to start again on January 17th!

Side note: I think Janel Moloney and Sarah Rafferty need to start their own club called, "Actresses Who Play(ed) Kick-Ass Assistants Named Donna."

I highly recommend checking out this show and, if you are a huge entertainment nerd like me, I also recommend that you join EW's Front Row Panel immediately.

xoxo
c

ps. In the spirit of the holiday season, I also ask you to remember that there are still many people struggling after Hurricane Sandy. Here are a few sites where you can donate money and find places to help volunteer:
Staten Strong
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
American Red Cross
Habitat for Humanity
Robin Hood Relief Fund
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"No one's killin' any folk today, on account o' we got a very tight schedule."

After three straight days of "all ATX Festival all the time," I needed a few days to recuperate and process my weekend. A few days turned into a few weeks and I am sorry that I am just now getting around to posting about my experience. I went through a bit of withdrawl the week following the festival, but it seemed as if others who attended had the same reaction (and are still craving queso and bbq three weeks later). The overall consensus is that everyone had the BEST. WEEKEND. EVER!

The festival kicked off Friday night, June 1 at the State Theater with a red carpet and screenings of USA Network's Suits season finale and Royal Pains season premiere. After the screening, Robyn Ross from TVGuide moderated a great Q&A with Suits Executive Producer David Bartis, Royal Pains Executive Producers Michael Rauch and Andrew Lenchewski and actress Reshma Shetty. The Opening Night After Party was held at the Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental and included amazing performances by Landon Pigg, Mae Whitman and Alpha Rev with a special guest performance by Jason Ritter. I also got a chance to hang out with Ken Marino and a few of the guys from Children's Hospital as well as Robert Maschio and Neil Flynn from Scrubs.

Saturday morning, after getting about three and a half hours of sleep the night before, I headed back to the Stephen F. Austin where all of the panels were being held. My job for the weekend was to make sure that all the panelists showed up and made it to the correct room at the correct time, which basically means I was running around like a crazy person starting at 9:30 a.m. until the panels were over at 4:00 p.m. trying to track people down. (I may forever be referred to as "the girl in the green dress.") However, it also means that I got to talk to all of the panelists that were there! Everyone was extremely nice and very easy to approach. Saturday's panels were: TV Fantasy Goes Mainsteam, The Creators, Friday Night Lights Revisited, Women on Television, TBS very funny, Book to TV Series, One Tree Hill Says Goodbye, a Love Monkey Retrospective and The Stages of a Television Writing Career.

There were also screenings and Q&As going on at the Alamo Drafthouse and State Theater throughout the day, but if it did not happen at SFA, it was not on my radar.

After an Industry Reception at Austin Studios on Saturday Night, everyone headed over to the Hotel San Jose for the Friday Night Lights Outdoor Screening. Before the sun went down, there were musical performances by cast members Dora Madison Burge, Alicia Witt and Jesse Plemons. This event was free and open to the public and everyone was encouraged to bring their lawn chairs. Once it was dark enough, the crowd got a chance to see the premiere of the new Explosions In The Sky music video and then the cast of Friday Night Lights introduced the screening of the series finale episode. Following the screening, we headed back to the Stephen F. Austin for the Children's Hospital Marathon After Party. Although, I did not stay very long for this because I was so tired from the day that I almost fell asleep halfway through my Tito's Vodka Texas Sipper :o)

"Okay, new plan: we’re gonna fashion a cow costume out of this gauze and then we’ll just mosey on outta here like a cow walkin’ out of a hospital."

TV schedules are not what they used to be. Shows used to premiere in the fall, usually took a break at Christmas and had their finales in the spring. Sometimes there would be a break for the Olympics or Sports Playoffs/Championships or Presidential speeches. Nowadays (I sound so old :o) shows take hiatuses at random times for no reason and each channel starts and ends their seasons at totally different times. The USA Network, especially, just seems to do whatever the hell they please ;o) For instance, the third season of In Plain Sight just started a few weeks ago and White Collar starts their second season this summer. Even though it is only April, shows on all networks are already airing their season finales. I guess it makes for more things to watch throughout the year, but it is mostly just annoying and confusing.

While I am not going to run-down the list of all the shows I am currently watching (it is a lot), I will tell you about a few I think you should be watching but probably are not.

Aside from Justified, Party Down is another awesome show that I have just discovered. I knew about it when the first season aired, but as I do not have Starz, I could not watch it until it came out on DVD. I am even thinking about paying for Starz if I cannot get the new season any other way. This show is awesome and completely under-rated. It is a show about a group of actors and one writer who live in L.A. but have not yet hit it big, so they are working as caterers. And if you also watch the show Greek then you will recognize the uniform from Evan Chambers' caterer days, an homage to Party Down. I mean, how could a show created by Paul Rudd, Rob Thomas, John Enbom and Dan Etheridge (the last three all from Veronica Mars) be bad?! Add to that the fact that it stars Ken Marino, Jane Lynch, Lizzy Caplan, Adam Scott, Ryan Hansen and Martin Starr and this show is nothing short of hilarious. (Jane Lynch, obviously, has left for Glee, but is being replaced this season with the equally funny Megan Mullally) AND THEN there are amazing guest stars in every single episode including Kristen Bell, Joey Lauren Adams, Ken Jeong, Jennifer Coolidge, Ed Begley Jr., Enrico Colantoni, Jason Dohring, Breckin Meyer, Rob Corddry, Steven Weber, and George Takei and Rick Fox as themselves. Seriously, watch this show if you want to laugh a lot :o)

Glee has just come back from its winter hiatus. As much as I love this show, I feel like whenever they come back from a hiatus, the episode always underwhelms me. Maybe my expectations are just too high and I get too excited about the show coming back that I think it is going to blow me away and it just does not. That is not to say that last weeks episode was not good I just thought it could have been better. This weeks Madonna episode, however, was AWESOME. The only thing that annoyed me was that stupid American Idol ran long which messed up my DVR and I missed the last five minutes of the show, and consequently, the best musical number of the episode. Luckily, Hulu had it up the next day and FOX is re-airing the episode tonight. This is actually one of my shows that most other people are watching, and rightly so.

I know most people think that Modern Family is the funniest new show of this past season. I have watched several episodes and, while I do think it is entertaining enough, I just cannot get into it. My favorite comedy has to be Accidentally on Purpose. Jenna Elfman plays a thirty-something movie critic who has a one night stand with a guy in his early twenties, played by Jon Foster, and ends up getting pregnant. I seriously love this show and it makes me laugh hysterically every single week. Unfortunately, it did just have its season one finale this week and may not get picked up for a second season, which would make me extremely sad.

Foster and Nicholas Wright, the actor who plays his best friend Davis, also have an online talk-show that is super funny. Here is the first episode:



I follow these guys on twitter (@LunchItUp) and requested that they dress like pirates for one of their episodes. Which they did last week just for me because they are awesome :o)

One of my favorite shows, Ugly Betty, has unfortunately been canceled and the season finale aired a few weeks ago. Over the past four seasons, there have been some down times, but overall Ugly Betty was an amazing show that I will very much miss. It was different than anything else on TV and was extremely entertaining. This season especially has been awesome and if it weren't for stupid ABC constantly changing its time slot, I really think it could have kept going at least another season.

I am still loving The Vampire Diaries, Castle, NCIS, NCIS:LA, The Good Wife and others. There is actually a lot of smart, quality television on that I think a lot of people are over-looking because of more "popular" choices. I just wish I had more power to keep these good shows from getting canceled for crappier ones.

xoxo
c

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