Results tagged “snl”

Weekend Notes: January Jones was host of "Saturday Night Live" and if Taylor Swift "nailed" her hosting duties a week ago then Jones did at least as good of a job. The key difference was the writing and the writing was definitely better for the November 7th show. Could it have been a better show? Yes, but not from anything January Jones could have done. It was so painfully obvious that the show had no idea what to do with her - most of her sketches were variations on her "Mad Men" role and most weren't very good. After an hour and a half, we still don't know if Jones is a good comedic actress, c'mon "SNL".

Weekend Edition Programming of note this weekend: "Saturday Night Live" has an odd choice for host this week: January Jones, aka Betty Draper from AMC's "Mad Men". She has a part in the obnoxiously overpromoted comedy Pirate Radio but does that make her funny? We're going to watch to find out if this turns out to be a brilliant gamble. Musical guest is the eager-to-participate-in-any-sponsorship-opportunity aka "whores", the Black Eyed Peas.

Series Premiere of the Night "Trauma"(NBC @ 9pm): Yes, "Trauma" is another drama in a medical setting but a major difference is its emphasis on action (surely you've seen the nearly-3D billboards all over LA). Starring Anastasia Griffith of "Damages" fame (check out our Emmys red carpet interview with her), the series focuses a lot more on the details and specifics of a situation rather than if the head nurse is having an affair with the hospital administrator. If you can tear yourself away from Ken Burns' latest epic, it would be worth checking out tonight.

You know Jim Breuer, if not by name then at least by his perpetually stoned-looking mug or his outlandish Saturday Night Live characters, most notably Goat Boy. This is the Jim Breuer you recognize, from Half-Baked and Chappelle’s Show and even Clerks. But a lot of people don’t know that Breuer also has a long love affair with stand up, dating back many years and several TV specials. And those specials, while rarely game-changing, have been good, sometimes great; the AC/DC hokey pokey bit is pretty magical. Unfortunately, Breuer’s new special Let’s Clear the Air lacks all of the magic and most of the funny that you could previously expect from the man you thought you knew.

As podcasts go, more often than not there are the kings of the ring, and everyone else is sitting on the sidelines. It’s sort of like the presidency: technically anyone can run for office, but historically old white dudes have passed the torch from one wrinkly hand to another. But every once in a while, there are wonderful examples of podcasts, and presidents, rising from the ground up to really do something spectacular. Barack Obama is one of these. The SuperEgo podcast is another.

Programming Notes for the Weekend: Saturday marks the return of "Primeval" on BBC America (@9:00pm). The well-produced science fiction series has been a major hit in the UK and today it's been reported that Warner Brothers will be taking the series to the big screen.

Weekend Edition

Weekend EditionLast night the TV Junkie was very fortunate to be invited to the taping of "The Soup" which will air on E! tonight at 10pm. It was a fantastic experience made all the more special by a great special guest and some hilarious shenanigans. Charming and kind host Joel McHale and executive producers KP Anderson and Edward Boyd (very fun men in their own right) gave us a few minutes for a video piece that will be posted later tonight. "The Soup" has always been a weekly gem and to see it being put together before one's eyes was an amazing experience. We're so fortunate to have this team at E! process and present a week's worth of TV and pop culture for us with just the right perspective of smart and biting humor. Watch it tonight, it's even better than usual.

Weekend Edition

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".

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.

Controversial contestant Joanna Pacitti has finally been pulled from "American Idol" after it was revealed that she had friendships with multiple executives with "Idol" co-producer 19 Entertainment. For fans of the show who couldn't believe that she had made the cut after performing poorly and fumbling lyrics to several songs during the Hollywood rounds of auditions, it will be assumed that she had moved ahead due to these personal relationships and not merit.

This December, online video viewing surged over 13%, DigitalMediaWire says:

A lot of our sport fan/fiend friends are convinced that this Sunday's Super Bowl event will be a boring blow out - "the Cardinals will win how?" is oft heard. But for a lot of media dorks, ourselves included, the Super Bowl is all about the ads. We already know that GoDaddy and PETA have had their ads denied (as must have been planned for). Adweek's Barbara Lippert analyzes past Super Bowl commercial foibles as well as a list of all expected advertisers for XLIII. On Saturday, CBS also takes a trip down memory lane with a program on the "best" commercials of years past.

A lot of programs return to or make their premiere on premium cable this Sunday including: "Big Love", "The L Word", "The United States of Tara", and "Secret Diary of a Call Girl". What we most eagerly anticipate is the season premiere of "Flight of the Conchords". The pair of musicians and their hapless manager, all hailing from New Zealand, might not have made a second season due to low viewership but their cult like following gave us one more. So enjoy every episode like a smooth New Zealand Merlot, savor it, because this might be their last run, on HBO at least.

Like it or not, this weekend is all about Part I of the season premiere of "24" (FOX, Sunday @ 8pm). Kiefer did a good job on today's "Morning Edition" on NPR and will be on Letterman tonight. As far as we're concerned there ain't jack but Jack on this Sunday. This doesn't mean we won't be keeping an eye on the Golden Globes, but all reports have it that the awards ceremony will be "subdued".

The TV Junkie says "welcome back" to you all, to a new year and a new "Winter Season" of TV. Premieres we are looking forward to this month are "Nip/Tuck" (FX 1/6), "Damages" (FX 1/7), "24" (Fox 1/11), "Battlestar Galactica" (SciFi 1/16), "Big Love" (HBO 1/18), and "Lost" (ABC 1/21).

It's official, Sean Hannity is the only entity that ever existed on "Hannity and Colmes". Alan Colmes has left the show and will not be replaced but he was always treated as either invisible or a punching bag. When watching the show, it was amazing to note that Hannity would either shout Colmes down or Colmes' microphone would seem to get magically weaker. If we were naive we could hope that this is a harbinger of the death of this kind of programming but look at the political entities we are dealing with.

Don't forget to check out today's LAist interview with Academy Award-winning actor, Timothy Hutton, whose new show, "Leverage", premieres on Sunday @ 10pm on TNT.

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.

After watching tonight's finale of Mad Men, we don't know how we will make it until next season. Jon Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live last night. Maybe SNL's Don Draper's Guide to Picking Up Women will help us get through the long wait or even get lucky.

The rumor of our favorite serial killer series, "Dexter", getting picked up for more seasons turns out to be true. Showtime bought two more seasons of the Peabody Award winning show (take that Colber(t)). Shooting of season four begins in the spring of '09 in Los Angeles. [Hey Showtime, where's the love? You sent me no screeners this season.]

Supposedly Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will make an appearance on tomorrow's "Saturday Night Live" - Lorne Michaels really knows how to ruin a good thing. I can see where he's going though, since evidently just getting a Republican to show up on your show after making fun of them for weeks pays off as David Letterman learned with a spike in viewership of last night's face-to-face with John McCain that trounced Jay Leno's ratings.

Gob from "Arrested Development", aka Will Arnett, has struck a deal with Fox to create his own show. His absence from the small screen will finally come to an end and here's to hoping that the show won't turn into some kind of generic garbage. Hubby Amy Poehler is also slated to get her own show on NBC sometime after their first child is born. I dunno, both parents are actors with starring roles on shows on different networks, that's a tall order to fill - wish them luck.

If McCain shows up for tonight's debate, make sure you have some friends over, plenty of beer, and make a drinking game out of the evening via these guidelines from Howcast. Chances are you will be plowed by 8pm.

Tina Fey for President! OK, well, she should at least be a cabinet member. She has more communications experience and exposure than all of the contenders combined. The big question that is getting asked is, will Fey be back again as Sarah Palin on SNL? She might be back on as early as this upcoming Saturday according to some reports, depending upon how negotiations go.

Recession? What recession? NBC reportedly has almost sold out of ad spots for the 2009 Super Bowl and are selling the spots at prices at least 11% higher than last year.

This was fun.

For some reason one of the entries for this evening didn't make it into yesterday's Weekend Edition post and that is the Pick O' The Night:

The TV Junkie is in New York City and will be at the above SNL taping!