"Don't end up hating me."

I meant to post this earlier in the day, but got distracted by episodes of Hart of Dixie on Netflix. Regardless, I have decided to try posting my episode picks each week. These are the shows that I am most looking forward to for the week of October 6th, 2013:

Sunday: The Good Wife - I was starting to waiver a little on this show, but it got a lot better towards the end of last season so I decided to keep watching and I am very glad that I did. The season premiere was awesome and made me very excited to see what is going to happen next with Alicia and Cary leaving Lockhart Gardner.

Monday: Hart of Dixie - Last season ended with Zoe leaving for New York City with Jonah Breeland and George going on tour with Lily Anne Lonergan. Now, Zoe is back in Blue Bell and must help track down George and bring back the Founder's Day Parade. I love the characters on this show, they are fun and endearing and I enjoy every episode. I am excited to see where this season goes.

Tuesday: Sons of Anarchy - Even though there are a lot of things happening, I still feel like much of the plot is setting us up for the end of this season and the final season. A few of my favorite characters were killed off last week but this is one show where I still cannot wait to see what happens each and every episode.

Wednesday: The Tomorrow People - This is a new CW series from Julie Plec and Greg Berlanti based on a British children's science fiction series from the '70s. It is about a generation of humans who are born with the special abilities of telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation. They are being hunted by a group of scientists known as Ultra. It has a great cast and looks like it could be a great new show.

Thursday: Glee - I stopped watching this show a while ago because I felt like every week was turning into a lesson of the week. However, I am interested to see how they remember Cory Monteith in this Finn Hudson tribute episode.

Saturday: The White Queen - I have really enjoyed this Starz mini-series. You can read my review here. There are two episodes left and while, I know historically what is going to happen, I still look forward to seeing how the story plays out every week.

I am not currently watching anything on that airs on Friday, but cannot wait for Enlisted to start in January.

Of the new shows this fall, I am still watching Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., The Crazy Ones, Masters of Sex, Mom, The Originals, Sleepy Hollow and Trophy Wife. Despite it's rave reviews, I have already given up on The Black List, as well as Hostages and The Michael J. Fox Show. I really wanted to like these shows, but I just could not get into them. I also started watching The Goldbergs, which is surprisingly hilarious, and there are a few new ones that have yet to premiere.

What has everyone else been watching? Is there a new show that I should be checking out? I would love to hear from you either in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter.

xoxo
c
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Lemon: I just want to let you know that it does not make you any less of a woman that you yourself have no wedding plans...

...or a boyfriend or even the prospect of one, because that little doctoring job you have can keep you busy for years to come and we have a great tradition of dignified spinsters down here.

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Even though I have been really bad about updating my blog the past few months, I have definitely not stopped watching television. A few new shows started this Spring, some good and some not-so-good. Here are a few thoughts on what has been going on most recently.

A few of the new shows that I have been watching are Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23, Girls and Scandal.

I am pretty picky about which sit-coms I watch, but I have really enjoyed Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23. James Van Der Beek is hilarious, but I am glad that he is not the main focus of the show, and I have liked Krysten Ritter since she was on Veronica Mars and Gilmore Girls. It was just renewed for a second season and I am very excited to see what other craziness they come up with. Will James win Dancing With The Stars?! :o)

Girls, on the other hand, I am not quite sure about yet. I have watched the first few episodes and while I do not hate it, I also do not love it. As a twenty-something woman myself, I just do not really feel a connection to any of the characters. It has smart writing and parts of it are definitely funny, I just cannot get into it.

I was not sure about Scandal when it started. Something about the way they promoted the show just did not appeal to me. However, after hearing all the great buzz about it once it premiered, I decided I had to give it a try and I am very glad I did. The first season was short, but very high paced and incredibly entertaining. It did not go where I expected it to, but that made it all the more intriguing. I have heard that creator Shonda Rhimes wants to make season 2 a short one as well so that she can keep up the pace of the storyline and I am totally on board for that. While I do not enjoy waiting longer for new seasons, sometimes shows stretch things out too much just to fill twenty (or more) episodes.

"Who doesn't like hot girls who carry guns?"

This week my DVR was extremely busy and I watched A LOT of television. So much that is all kind of mush in my brain right now.

My returning shows that started this week were How I Met Your Mother, Castle, Hawaii Five-O, Glee, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Community, Grey's Anatomy and Blue Bloods.

Glee seems to be reverting back to season one quality, which is a good thing. If it continues on this path I will continue watching it, if it goes back to where it was last season, I may have to stop watching it because last season got a little crazy. Hawaii Five-O is the same quality as last season, which is not necessarily a good thing. I do not love this show, but it is entertaining enough to keep watching for now. However, it might get dropped this season if my schedule gets too crowded. The same thing goes for Grey's Anatomy. I just do not love this show as much as I did the first couple seasons. I mostly continue to watch it out of obligation to the friends with whom I watch it. On the other hand, Castle and Blue Bloods continue to be great, and Community and How I Met Your Mother are both still hilarious.

My only real complaint is with NCIS. This is one of my favorite TV shows and I watch the reruns on USA every time they are on. My complaint is that over the past couple seasons the major plots for each season have gotten too convoluted. The acting has been as great as it has always been, I just feel like they are trying to do too much with the storylines and it is just gets confusing. This also applies to NCIS: Los Angeles.

"Remember middle school, when me and you worshipped the devil for, like, two weeks?"

Since The Help is coming out early this week, I am doing my Weekend Preview today instead of Thursday. In addition to The Help, the other big movies out this weekend are 30 Minutes or Less, Final Destination 5 and Glee: The 3-D Concert Movie.

30 Minutes or Less stars Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson, Dilshad Varsaria, Michael Pena and Fred Ward. In this movie, Eisenberg plays a pizza delivery boy that gets kidnapped by two wanna-be criminals who strap a bomb to his chest and give him eight hours to rob a bank. He enlists the help of his best friend and must also deal with the police, assassins that the criminals have hired to kill their father, and their own relationship issues. It looks pretty funny but I will probably wait for the reviews before I make up my mind about seeing this.

Trailer #3
30 Minutes or Less at MOVIECLIPS.com

"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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"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

I know I'll probably get yelled at a lot, but I am going to say this anyway, I don't really understand what the big deal is about The Godfather.

The first Godfather movie was well done...excellent acting and interesting story...but long. The second movie also had excellent acting and it was interesting to see the two stories side by side but was ridiculously too long and I ended up watching it in several sittings. Also, sometimes it was hard to follow what was going on. It must be a boy thing because I just totally don't understand why people are OBSESSED with these movies. Am I missing something? I mean, they were good, but I was definitely not blown away by them at all.

I prefer Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman or Angels in America.

I still have to watch the third one, but have heard it is not as good as the first two.

In between the Godfathers, I also watched The Soloist and Taken.

The Soloist had Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx and was good. I don't remember this getting very good reviews when it came out, so my expectations were pretty low, however, I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a touching story and both actors gave awesome performances. I have not seen very many of Jamie Foxx's movies but I love Robert Downey Jr. My favorite Downey movie is Heart & Soul but I also loved him in Ally McBeal, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man. I am super excited about Sherlock Holmes and Iron Man 2.

Taken was pretty cool, action-wise, but did not excite me very much. Liam Neeson was totally bad-ass and I think the movie would have been worse without him, I just think the plot needed a little bit more...I really know what...just more of something. Maybe it was a movie better seen in theaters, but I just could not really get into it. I am looking forward more to seeing Neeson as Hannibal in The A-Team next June.

In the world of television, my DVR is definitely getting a work-out this year. I am loving new shows Accidentally on Purpose, Glee and The Vampire Diaries. NCIS: LA has been pretty good but not quite as good as the original. Last weeks Grey's Anatomy was probably the best one in a long time and Dollhouse has just been getting better and better as the season goes on.

Unemployment is helping me get through my Netflix queue and stay up-to-date on my TV shows. If only I had time to look for a job! Joking. I am capable of multi-tasking :o)

I have gotten my queue down to 215 and after watching the final Godfather movie I will move on to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I will also be watching my Philadelphia Phillies in the WORLD SERIES!!! Keeping my fingers crossed for a repeat championship :o)

xoxo
c

Jack MacReady: It’s obvious the bastard’s got lyme disease!

Bill Pardy: What?!
Jack: Lyme disease. You touch some deer feces, and then you...eat a sandwich without washin' your hands, you got your lyme disease!
Bill: And that makes you look like a squid?!
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I don't like scary movies. I don't like things jumping out at me and I don't like blood and guts.

I can handle movies about supernatural occurences (ie. The Ring, The Exorcist) because after the movie is over I am brought back to reality and am not concerned with being abducted by aliens or possessed by the devil. However, I won't normally go to the theater to see these kinds of movies, unless one of my friends makes me.

I do NOT like movies where people are getting killed by other people (ie. Scream, What Lies Beneath). Watching those movies makes me think about the fact that people are murdered everyday, sometimes in their own home. My biggest fear is having someone break into my house and attack and/or kill me.

When I was younger and home alone at night I would not turn out the light of the room I was leaving until the light was on in the room I was entering. My bathroom was attached the my bedroom, but also had a door into the hallway. I would leave the hall light on, turn my bedroom light on, walk through my room into my bathroom (my shower curtain was always left open) and make sure the other bathroom door was closed before going back through my room, turning out the hall light and closing my bedroom door. I always sleep with the bedroom door closed because I figure, at least that way, if someone comes into my room, I'll hear them open the door. I'm not that bad now that I'm older, but it still freaks me out thinking that someone could be in my house and me not know it.

The only time I usually watch scary movies is if an actor/actress that I REALLY like is in it (Pulse with Kristen Bell) and/or if it's more comedic than scary (Slither with Nathan Fillion).

So, against my better judgement, I watched the movie Midnight Meat Train the other night. I don't say "against my better judgement" because it was a bad movie (although it was a little weird) but because it gave me nightmares that night which screwed up my sleep schedule for the rest of the week. Anyways, it stars Bradley Cooper (hence the bad judgement), Leslie Bibb and Vinnie Jones. Cooper plays a photographer who, while wandering the city one night, takes a picture of a girl and then discovers the next day she has been abducted. He becomes obsessed with figuring out what happened to her and eventually starts to believe she's been murdered by a butcher (Jones). That might not sound that weird, until you find out what's actually happening to these people. I won't tell you, in case you actually ever watch the movie, but it's definitely a bizarre ending.

I also watched the premiere's of Glee and Vampire Diaries this week.

Glee was not as awesome as the preview episode in the spring. I felt like it jumped around too much and tried to introduce too many plot lines, but it was still good. I will give it some time to improve before I stop watching.

I thought Vampire Diaries was actually pretty good. I'm a sucker for cute vampires, so it's not a huge suprise that I like this show. Again, I will give it a few more weeks before I make my final decision :o)

On a completely un-tv/movie related note, I was rockin' out at the Rascal Flatts concert tonight, so I will try to watch Coraline sometime this weekend and get back to you.

Next on my list is the Godfather trilogy. I have never watched any of these movies. I know, I know, it's a disgrace, but I'm working on it!

I hope everyone had a Happy Friday!
xoxo
c

"When you're wearing pantyhose on your head, never wear control top."

As the fall season approaches, I thought I would share my fall TV schedule with everyone. I forewarn you, if you have not figured it out on your own, that I watch a lot of television. I usually try out a few new shows but do not necessary follow them all season. I also sometimes stop watching old shows that have jumped the shark.

My Returning Shows:

Greek

One Tree Hill

Gossip Girl

Castle

How I Met Your Mother

NCIS

Grey's Anatomy

Dollhouse

Brothers & Sisters

Ugly Betty

New Shows:

Glee

NCIS: LA

Cougar Town

Community

Accidentally on Purpose

Eastwick

Vampire Diaries

V

I am super excited for Greek, Castle, HIMYM, NCIS and Dollhouse to begin again. Grey's, B&S and Ugly Betty I just kind of watch out of habit now. They were not all that fabulous last season and I am hoping they can get back on track this season.

I am a little nervous about One Tree Hill returning without Hilarie Burton and Chad Michael Murray and the addition of several new characters, but I will at least start the season watching. I am also interested to see how Gossip Girl addresses the issue of their characters starting college. I always find it a little illogical that an entire group of friends would all end up at college in the same city, or even all at the same college, but sometimes the writers can make it work. It did not go well on Dawson's Creek, but worked out on Veronica Mars, so we'll just have to wait and see.

I am not particularly excited about Eastwick, Vampire Diaries or V and they may be the casualties of my over-scheduling, but I will give them a shot.

Anyways, there is it. Greek starts tonight (ah woo hoo!) and then it's about two more weeks until everything else starts up.

xoxo
c