Results tagged “bbc”

Weekend Edition

We know it's a couple days away but we couldn't help talk up this Thursday night's NBC lineup: "The Office" will be back with 2 brand new episodes at 8pm and 9pm with the series premiere of Amy Poehler's highly anticipated "Parks and Recreation" sandwiched in between the two at 8:30pm. Check out the website of Pawnee, Indiana, the location of "Parks and Recreation" and of course the video snippets.

Unless you are a basketball or baseball fan, this weekend's options are kind of slim - feel free to sift through our picks - what are you going to watch? If it's not on our list, let us know and we'll talk about it.

Our friends over at BBC America's "Top Gear" have really done it - they have achieved unprecedented success with "Project Sipster": the creation of a car that gets 84mpg , goes from 0-60mph in 7 seconds, and whose cost was to be $7000 or less. You can see more in this video. Suck it Tesla and watch "Top Gear" on BBC America tonight at 8pm.

The Internet is abuzz today with promotion of HBO's "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" to air this Sunday. Some writer's are pointing out that the show doesn't address any of the problems going on in Africa these days (AIDS, war, famine, rape, pillaging of natural resource) - instead it depicts a laid-back and idyllic place with only quaint soap opera-esque concerns.

According to the LA Times, about 1 in 4 TVs were tuned to "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" when President Barack Obama made an appearance last week. Leno has had higher ratings only 3 other times in the past, but the media space is a lot more crowded than it was even 4 years ago, so it was a stellar night for NBC.

Tonight marks the end of "Battlestar Galactica", for about 20 years until the geeks of the future resurrect it like they did the now-campy 1970s version. Some have complained that this final season swung the show onto a science-fiction track that was too science-fiction-y but the show had to return to its roots, its core, before wandering off into the cosmos.

Today in the web TV world, Josh Schwartz's (Gossip Girl, The O.C., Chuck) music-themed web series, "Rockville CA" premieres on TheWB.com. The show features both indie favorites and up-and-coming bands such as Eagles of Death Metal, The Broken West, and Bishop Allen. “Rockville CA” is set in a fictional Los Angeles rock club and was shot on location at The Echo, which is an actual, real rock club, that you might have heard of if you have a heartbeat.

AMC's "Breaking Bad" is so good that we can't stop thinking about last night's episode. Both macabre and humorous, it was the best thing we saw on TV last night. The show starts with Walter White already out of the frying pan and in the fire and it ends with him seemingly consumed by the flames - we don't know how they're going to keep it up.

The TV highlight of the week occurred last night with the appearance of CNBC's Jim Cramer on "The Daily Show". Jon Stewart trotted out several video clips of Cramer pontificating about how to game and mislead the markets and how rewarding it is to do so. A lot of footage was cut in order to fit the show's 1/2-hour format so if you missed the airing and/or want to see the entire interview, you can get it all at "The Daily Show".

"American Idol" fans can now shell out $1.99 for an iPhone app that will provide them with a weekly update them on the vital statistics of the remaining contenders for the rest of this season. What isn't clear from the press release is if there will be geosynchronous Ryan Seacrest hair gel monitoring.

Today NBC launched a 24-hour cable channel in New York called "New York Non-Stop", replete with expanded news coverage, on-location stories, and interactive elements. When can LA expect the same investment?

Sunday @ 10pm features the return of AMC's incredible series, "Breaking Bad", with Bryan Cranston (pictured, right) as Walt White, the terminally-ill high school science teacher-turned meth cooker. We've been eagerly waiting for this show to resume and AMC has done a great job whetting our appetite with their sneak webisodes and other promos. Since the other stuff we like to watch on Sunday's @ 10pm are available on-demand, this is one of our prime picks of the weekend.

Who watched the new "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" last night? How did you like it? It's on our Tivo and we will watch it later but let us know.. We'll update you with the Nielsen numbers later this week - should be interesting.

Tonight marks a big debut in late night TV with the start of "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon". While we were concerned with the departure of Conan O'Brien from "Late Night", we think he can be very successful in the earlier slot. Jimmy Fallon, at 34 years-old, will be bringing some youth to the time slot, although both Carson Daly and Conan O'Brien were younger when they started their stints on late night television.

We have a host of finales tonight but the ones to keep an eye on are Timothy Hutton's "Leverage" (10pm on TNT, pictured right) and John Lehr's "10 Items or Less" (11pm on USA). Of local note, KNBC will be doing a special at 9pm on their historical 60 years of broadcasting in Los Angeles. KNBC helped define the medium of television and is due many accolades for it's services to the community over these 6 decades.

The spectacle that is the Academy Awards was wonderfully covered by LAist last night but the outcomes of the spectacle were very predictable. LAist was at the SAG awards last month and most of the big winners there, who were also nominated for Oscars, were winners last night.

Tonight marks the last broadcast of Conan O'Brien on "Late Night..." and what a ride it's been. From being a virtual unknown in front of the camera, O'Brien is now a staple of late night television. O'Brien's resurrection of NBC's "Late Night" after the departure of David Letterman to CBS was not easy and the first few years were very tenuous ones for the wild haired funnyman. With support from Lorne Michaels, O'Brien was given enough time to build an audience, something almost unheard of these days.

Our friend Michael Ian Black and his fellow "The State" colleague, Michael Showalter, will finally again be gracing the airways on a new Comedy Central show this summer called "Michael and Michael Have Issues". The first of seven episodes will premiere in July and we can't wait for them [hint, get us screeners or even have us visit the set].

Today AMC launched the beginning of a series of webisodes for its excellent series, "Breaking Bad", in advance of its new season starting on March 8th.

We love Amy Sedaris and we love the fact that we can see her on something other than just a few minutes with David Letterman - this time as a somewhat wacky psychic on "The Closer" tonight @ 9:00pm on TNT.

So "American Idol" fans, round three of the Hollywood auditions start tonight - we haven't seen a lot of chatter about this season here at LAist and wondered what your thoughts were. Has the show jumped the shark yet? Because if you're not into the show we'd just as soon not list it here. Your comment is your vote.

Did any of you watch the Grammys? Did you enjoy it? OK, so you might actually like pop music but tell us what you specifically like about it. To us, the performances seem somewhat off and the staging heavy-handed. There was a 17% increase in viewership of the Grammys this year over last year with most folks watching during the 8:30-9:30pm hour.

One wonders why they would punish themselves by watching "Lost" and "Damages" back-to-back on Wednesday nights as the experience is thoroughly disorienting but that's probably the idea.

Anyone else watch programming on ABC.com? Get ready for more commercials on that web property as their research has shown that they can pump a lot more commercials at viewers than they thought they could. You gotta love the attitude of one of the members of the National Association of Television Program Executives, a panel that is supportive of the research findings: "The key is what is that very fine line and balance before we push them (the audience) over the edge of being pissed."

From the background-friendliness of old standards made barely-audible on aged mall speakers, to the foreground of childhood favorites I've unearthed thanks to iTunes (and can now enjoy while snailing down the 405) -- Christmas music does me right each December. My Christmas faves range from silliness about honking donkeys, to “Merry Christmas” wished in Hawaiian, to John Denver’s sappy/sweet duets with the Muppets.

This Sunday night at 8pm brings the premiere of "Britz" (pictured, right) on BBC America. "Britz" is a thriller featuring two young British Muslims, each pulled in different directions by personal experiences in post 9/11 Britain. This drama asks (perhaps a year or two late) whether the laws we think are making us safer, are actually putting us in greater danger.

Looks like "60 Minutes" scored the first post-election interview with President-elect Barack Obama - it will air on Sunday at 7:00pm on CBS.

John McCain's appearance on "Saturday Night Live" pushed the show to it's second best rated night of the past decade, only topped by Sarah Palin's appearance a couple weeks ago. "SNL" has garnered a lot of attention for it's meteoric ratings recovery this season but has still been criticized by some, like The New Yorker, for not being as good as it could be. While we understand that for some people, "SNL" will never top it's 1970s incarnation but times are very different now and expectations should be adjusted.

Other than the Sarah Palin edition of "SNL" last weekend, there weren't too many bright spots for NBC in terms of viewership. FOX and ABC didn't fare much better and of all the big networks only CBS had more viewers last week than the week before. Those waves of pilots and new programming haven't paid off at all, perhaps because everyone is in the movie theater watching "Beverly Hills Chihuahua".