"I threw my pie for you."

I follow a lot of entertainment-related people on my Twitter account. I also tend to follow people that I agree with so, sometimes my perception of what the majority of people are actually watching and enjoying is a little skewed. From my Facebook feed, it seems like most of my friends have not yet discovered my two new favorite shows so I thought I would try to change that, especially considering those same friends compose the majority of my readers.

Over the past month, my Twitter timeline has been a constant love-fest for new shows Orphan Black on BBC America and Orange Is The New Black on Netflix. I was not initially planning to watch either, but I could not ignore the loud voices telling me how amazing these shows are and I am very glad that I gave into the peer pressure. They were right and you should all be watching them as well.

While it was actually airing, I had only seen a few posts here and there about Orphan Black but again, mostly from entertainment writers and bloggers and mostly from the same few people. However, after hearing about Tatiana Maslany for four days straight at this year's ATX Television Festival, I decided I should probably see what everyone was talking about.

The pilot starts with a woman named Sarah Manning standing on a train platform when she sees another woman who looks exactly like her jump in front of a train. Sarah steals this woman's purse and identity and plans to clean out her bank account before leaving town with her own daughter and foster brother. However, she soon discovers that there is much more to this woman, Beth Childs, and their identical appearance than she first thought and she soon meets Katja, Alison, Cosima and Helena. They are all clones and are trying to figure out where they came from.

Maslany plays all of the clones and is absolutely fantastic. You forget that the same actress is playing all of these characters because they look and act and sound so different. It is rather remarkable. I had only ever seen her in one episode of Flashpoint and she was great in that small role but, after watching this show, it is baffling to me that she has managed to stay under the radar until now.

The rest of the cast is equally fantastic and includes Jordan Gavaris, Dylan Bruce, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Kevin Hanchard, Michael Mando, Skyler Wexler, Inga Cadranel and Matt Frewer.

The second season unfortunately does not come out until April 2014 but, luckily for you, the first season DVDs were just released! That means you have plenty of time to catch up on this amazing show!

"That's the problem with working, too much instability."

Thanks to my friends asking me to house-sit (and having better cable than me) and a free weekend of Showtime OnDemand, I have now caught up on several shows: Shameless, Homeland and Weeds. I also got a chance to watch the first episode of Kristen Bell's new series, House of Lies.

Along with Bell, House of Lies stars Don Cheadle, Ben Schwartz, Josh Lawson and Dawn Olivieri. It is a half hour comedy about a management consultant team from the second best firm in the country. Cheadle leads the series and his character will use any means to win over his clients and get them the information that they want. His crazy ex-wife works for the competition and his father is a former psychiatrist and helps take care of his cross-dressing son. It is smart and witty and I cannot wait to see where the rest of the show takes us. But mostly, I just love having Kristen Bell back on my television :o)

I was a little skeptical going into Homeland. I am not really sure why but, even though it was getting rave reviews, I just did not think I was going to like it. I was very, very wrong. The first season was a very smart, intense thriller about a CIA agent and the P.O.W. that she thinks has been turned into a terrorist after eight years in Iraqi captivity. The twist is that the rest of the country sees this man as a hero and the CIA agent has mental issues of her own. The show stars Claire Dances, Damian Lewis, Morena Baccarin, Mandy Patinkin, David Harewood, David Marciano, Diego Klattenhoff and Jamey Sheridan and they were all fantastic. Although, every time Mandy Patinkin's character, Saul, would come onscreen, I could not help but think, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." This first season ended in a breathtaking way and I cannot even imagine what will happen in season two.