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If Wednesday presidential debate was a little dry, you may want to tune into tomorrow's debate in Washington, DC, where you can see Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly duke it out. It promises to be a little less stuffy than what you are used to and for all you know even more informative.
Stewart already provided his opinion on Wednesday's presidential debate, noting his disappointment with President Obama's defense of his policies and pointing out that the President's best response to Romney would have been "LIAR, LIAR, LIAR." On his show, O'Reilly said President Obama was "...coming off as a boring college professor," who failed to bring up the 47 percent issue. O'Reilly even showed a clip of Al Gore blaming the President's performance on Denver's altitude. If you watched the debate you will at least need to acknowledge that Romney had all the energy that evening. It is not clear if President Obama was up past his bedtime or has some secret strategy to lure Romney into a sense of safety before launching a serious strike.
The Stewart/O'Reilly debate will be streamed live, Saturday, October 6th at 8pm ET from Lisner
Auditorium at The George Washington University. You can go to www.theRumble2012.com for more information and tickets to see the show online (since seating at the auditorium sold out pretty early).
Update: While many viewers (including myself) had problems with the Internet broadcast, it was a good debate overall. I would even say it had better coverage of the issues than the first presidential debate. And yes, it even covered crucial issues such as the "War on Christmas." What I found odd was O'Reilly's need to emphasize everything he said with a sign restating his words. This may work on television, but it looked goofy on the stage. I guess he is a creature of habit.
USAToday captured Jon Stewart's opinion of the night's debate:
The main thing is it's an ongoing conversation and I
don't think you can look at these things in this idea of it's a match
and there's a winner and the winner takes all. it's an ongoing
conversation. ... If you can strip it away and get to the core of what
someone's honestly thinking and believing, that's got a value to it on
its own.
If you are looking for a similar debate, try out Glenn Beck debating former governor Eliot Spitzer at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver on October 2nd. While it is not as humorous, it is equally informative about the issues in the upcoming election. Spitzer's take on the debate and Beck's followers was outlined in his Slate column:
The passion they summon for their anti-government rhetoric is based on a
strong emotional need to channel a visceral anger against the state of
the world—and the government has become the perfect target for their
ire. What transforms their anti-government views into a form of bizarre
patriotism is the way they turn the founders of the nation into paragons
of virtue. They say that if only we had remained true to the virtues of
the founders, things today would be all right.
Tonight at 9pm EST, President Obama and Governor Romney will hold their first debate on national television from the University of Denver, which is good for the country and most likely annoying for those who would rather watch their regularly scheduled shows. The topic tonight is domestic policy, with the debate moderated by Jim Lehrer, the Host of NewsHour on PBS.
CBS notes that the debates drew large audiences in the past and this one should be no different:
Despite ongoing efforts by both camps to tamp down debate expectations,
there's no question that the event will have bearing on the public
consciousness. According to Nielsen estimates,
52.7 million people watched the first match-up between Mr. Obama and
McCain in the 2008 presidential contest - and that was down 16 percent
from the first presidential debate in 2004, when 62.5 million people
tuned in.
The other debates scheduled prior the election are as follows:
-- October 11, 2012: Vice Presidential debate at 9pm EST from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. The topic will be foreign and domestic policy. The moderator will be Martha Raddatz, ABC News Chief Foreign Correspondent.
-- October 16, 2012: Presidential debate at 9pm EST from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. This will be a town meeting format covering foreign and domestic policy. The moderator will be Candy Crowley, CNN Chief Political Correspondent.
-- October 22, 2012: Presidential debate at 9pm EST from Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida. The topic will be foreign policy. The moderator will be Bob Schieffer, Host of Face the Nation on CBS.
My suggestion is catch up on national politics and watch your show
later on, but that is just my opinion as a citizen first and a
television viewer second. I can put tonight's Supernatural
on my DVR for later since the CW will not be broadcasting the debate (broadcasters include C-SPAN, ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, as well as all cable news channels, such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC).
And I expect the debate will have its dramatic moments, even if it does
not necessarily concern the same Supernatural theme of holding back the forces of hell (or does it?).
Tomorrow night (October 3) Supernatural returns for its eighth episode. Expect more mayhem from the Winchester brothers as they battle the forces from hell. Last season had a number of twists, including the death of Bobby and his return as a ghost. The program even made a few pokes at the fan base. That is what I like about this show - nothing is taken too seriously. In fact, the actors know they have a somewhat over-the-top fan base, which they will play to in various episodes, even if it means making an episode as actors playing themselves. Why take hell so seriously, I say.
If you are new to the series, no worries. CW provided a good summary of where we are at this point:
Twenty-seven years ago, Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki) and Dean
Winchester (Jensen Ackles) lost their mother to a mysterious and demonic
supernatural force. Subsequently, their father John (Jeffrey Dean
Morgan, “Watchmen”) raised them to be soldiers. He taught them about
the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads
of America…and he taught them how to kill it.
Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) have spent the last
seven years battling the things that go bump in the night. Over the
years, with the help of both fallen-angel, Castiel (Misha Collins,
“24”), and the King of Hell, Crowley (Mark A. Sheppard), the Winchesters
have straddled the line between good and evil. Last season, the boys
encountered their worst enemy yet, Leviathan, a highly adaptable,
seemingly unkillable foe that takes the form of billionaire Dick Roman.
Roman’s plan is to turn the human race into a walking buffet for the
Leviathan to feed on once the world has been taken over. Roman
discovers the existence of a tablet that is the only source on how to
kill the Leviathan and stops at nothing to get it. The Winchesters,
along with Castiel, also discover the tablet and the young prophet,
Kevin Tran (Osric Chau), who is the only one who can decipher the text.
Using the tablet, the boys are able to beat the Leviathan, but after
the blast, Dean and Castiel find themselves in Purgatory and Sam finds
himself alone.
Season Eight begins with Dean’s seemingly impossible escape from
Purgatory, though Castiel is nowhere to be found. However, Dean isn’t
alone. He’s returned with a mysterious comrade-in-arms whose reason for
escape is perhaps more than Dean bargained for. Meanwhile, Sam finds
himself reconciling the life he discovered while Dean was gone with
Dean’s sudden reappearance. As the boys struggle with their unexpected
reunion, they make a shocking discovery that could lead them on a deeply
personal mission to settle old scores. If only they could agree – is
this a “family business” or isn’t it?.
If you are interested in some words from the actors themselves, I summarized their Comic Con points from this past summer. Check it out, and enjoy the show.
Tonight on ABC you can see the return of two long anticipated series where the female character is hoping to learn more about her past. In Once Upon a Time, the citizens of Storybrooke are starting to remember their previous lives, which is bound to cause problems. Henry's fairytale book, the slow recovery of everyone's memory, and the backhanded actions of the town's mayor have kept up at the edge of our seat long enough. Now it is all out in the open and the consequences, both positive and negative, will keep us all engaged in the new season.
In the case of Revenge, Emily Thorne was knocked off balance at the end of season one when she learned that her mother was still alive. It appears the Hamptons-based twists and turns of season one to avenge the wrongful death of her father are nowhere near an end, and we are all the more lucky because we get another season. Of course, it is not for everyone. For example, one Slate review recently called the show "ludicrous":
ABC’s Revenge, which returns Sunday night, is an enigma. It is
not particularly well-written or plotted. The actors gather themselves
up with a solemnity befitting the Royal Shakespeare Company, then spend
it on lines like “Trust is the one luxury I cannot afford.” It is also
the kind of show that divides character names into two groups: the
vaguely aristocratic (Victoria Grayson) and the working-class Irish
(Declan Porter). It’s the kind of show that cautions the exceedingly
wealthy to think twice before stepping onto an airplane, or into an
empty Manhattan loft: You never know where someone might have left an
errant bomb or hitman. But don’t worry too much: Death has a malleable,
impermanent quality in this context; the Reaper, like the accountant, is
a connoisseur of loopholes. Revenge is a show, in short, where the aesthetic credo is: Make it ludicrous.
These points may be true, but everyone is entitled to an occasional guilty pleasure. Enjoy.
This Friday will be the beginning of the end; Fox's Fringe is in its last season. We get one last chance to see all of our favorite characters, this time in 2036.
Fox did a pretty good job summarizing where the show is going as well as where it started, which is pretty important with a series that can be in a different universe at any point in time:
Picking up from the events depicted in last season's flash-forward
episode "Letters of Transit," the seemingly peaceful "Observers" seized
control of the universe in 2015. Now in 2036, they have become ruthless
rulers who will reign supreme. What awaits in the future is the Fringe
team's final stand, which will bring together all that they have
witnessed in preparation to battle and protect the world.
Set in Boston, the FBI's Fringe Division started when Special Agent
OLIVIA DUNHAM (Anna Torv) enlisted institutionalized "fringe" scientist
WALTER BISHOP (John Noble) and his globe-trotting, jack-of-all-trades
son, PETER (Joshua Jackson), to help in an investigation of an airline
disaster that defied human logic. After the defining case was solved and
furthermore revealed to be one of a series of unusual incidents linked
together, the unlikely trio - supervised by Special Agent PHILLIP
BROYLES (Lance Reddick) and assisted by ASTRID FARNSWORTH (Jasika
Nicole) - was formed.
As unimaginable events continued to unfold, the Fringe Division's
investigations often led them to science and technological corporation
Massive Dynamic and its enigmatic chief executive, NINA SHARP (Blair
Brown). It was revealed that Walter and Massive Dynamic's elusive
founder and chairman WILLIAM BELL (guest star Leonard Nimoy) once were
scientific partners, and had used Olivia as a test subject when she was a
child.
Through the Fringe team's investigations, Olivia learned that the
root cause of these strange occurrences was due to the existence of a
parallel universe. Even more shocking was the discovery that Walter had
kidnapped Peter as a child from "over there" after his Peter had died,
thus creating an imbalance between the two universes that threatened to
tear both worlds apart.
Complications in these two separate, yet interconnected, worlds
quickly began to ripple throughout each universe. Ultimately, Peter
realized his kidnapping was the cause for the alternate world's
impending doom. So he chose to sacrifice himself by activating a device
that saved the universe, bridged the two worlds together but erased him
from existence.
Season Four found the Fringe Divisions working together to rebuild
the alternate universe. Despite Peter's seemingly permanent sacrifice,
he returned very much alive and helped stop William Bell's mad plans to
collapse the two worlds together. Then, after Olivia learned she was
pregnant with Peter's child and all seemed right with the world(s),
Walter received an ominous warning that "they" were coming.
I am not sure if all of this detail will simply scare you away, and trying to understand the show via the last season will not work, but for the loyal fans from day one this should be quite a season. And for the novices, I recommend starting with season one and enjoying each step of the way. You will not be sorry.
Note: Check out my earlier link if you want to see the cast at this year's Comic Con.
Update: Here is a season five trailer that gives you more of an idea about what you are in for this Friday.
The new shows continue to roll out in September. I have listed a few below:
-- Partners (CBS, September 24):
A comedy based on the lives of creators David Kohan and Max
Mutchnick, about two life-long best friends and business partners whose
"bromance" is tested when one of them is engaged to be married. Joe is
an accomplished architect who leads with his head and not his heart,
especially in his love life. That's in stark contrast to his gay
co-worker, Louis, who is spontaneous, emotional and prone to
exaggeration. Both have found joy in their love lives: Joe is newly
engaged to Ali, a beautiful and sophisticated jewelry designer, and
Louis' companion is Wyatt, a vegan nurse who Louis insists is just a
promotion away from becoming a doctor. As news of Joe's engagement
settles, time will tell if their business and personal bond can adapt to
the addition of two other important relationships.
-- Vegas (CBS, September 25):
Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis star in Vegas, a drama inspired by the
true story of former Las Vegas Sheriff Ralph Lamb, a fourth-generation
rancher tasked with bringing order to Las Vegas in the 1960s, a gambling
and entertainment mecca emerging from the tumbleweeds. Ralph Lamb
wants to be left in peace to run his ranch, but Las Vegas is now
swelling with outsiders and corruption which are intruding on his simple
life. Recalling Lamb's command as a military police officer during
World War II, the Mayor appeals to his sense of duty to look into a
murder of a casino worker - and so begins Lamb's clash with Vincent
Savino, a ruthless Chicago gangster who plans to make Vegas his own.
Assisting Lamb in keeping law and order are his two deputies: his
diplomatic, even-keeled brother, Jack, and his charming but impulsive
son, Dixon. Ambitious Assistant District Attorney Katherine O'Connell,
who grew up on the ranch next to the Lambs, also lends a hand in
preserving justice. In Vegas, two powerful men - Lamb and Savino - are
engaged in a fierce battle for control of the budding oasis, and for
both of them, folding is not an option.
-- The Mindy Project (Fox, September 25):
The Mindy Project is a biting new single-camera comedy from Emmy
Award-nominated writer/producer and New York Times best-selling author
Mindy Kaling ("The Office") that follows a woman who, despite having a
successful career, is unlucky in love and desperately needs to get her
personal life back on track before her friends and colleagues are forced
to stage an intervention.
Funny, impatient and politically incorrect, Mindy Lahiri (Kaling) can
quote every romantic comedy starring Meg Ryan that exists. She loves
the good ones and the bad ones, because the girl always gets the guy.
Mindy is determined to be more punctual, spend less money, lose weight
and read more books - all in pursuit of becoming a well-rounded perfect
woman...who can meet and date the perfect guy.
-- Animal Practice (NBC, September 26):
Animal Practice is a new comedy centering on Dr. George Coleman
(Justin Kirk, "Weeds," "Angels in America"), a top veterinarian with an
impressive list of famous animal patients at the Crane Animal Hospital -
a bustling New York City veterinary practice where it often seems as if
the patients are running the place. Despite his unorthodox style,
George has an undeniable gift with animals of all kinds - except the
human kind. Much to his chagrin, George recently learned that his
ex-girlfriend, Dorothy Crane (JoAnna Garcia Swisher, "Better with You"),
has inherited the family business and is now George's boss. Whip-smart
and ambitious, Dorothy shakes up the hospital as she brings order to the
chaos and butts heads with George's animal-friendly administration.
-- Guys with Kids (NBC, September 26):
Guys with Kids is a new comedy from Emmy Award-winning executive
producer Jimmy Fallon about three 30-something dads who try to hold on
to their youth as they face the responsibilities of having kids.
Thankfully, Gary (Anthony Anderson, "Law & Order"), Chris (Jesse
Bradford, "The West Wing") and Nick (Zach Cregger, "Friends with
Benefits") have each other to help navigate the highs and lows of
fatherhood - while still trying desperately to remain dudes.
Balancing work or staying at home, happily married or happily
divorced, taking care of the "littles" while maintaining a social life
is a daily challenge. Whether it's hosing down their babies in the
kitchen sink or hitting the bar strapped with "babybjorns," these guys
are taking on fatherhood in ways no one has ever seen before. Nick and
Gary's wives - Emily (Jamie-Lynn Sigler, "The Sopranos") and Marny
(Tempestt Bledsoe, "The Cosby Show") also offer their own parenting
advice.
-- The Neighbors (ABC, September 26): See my earlier summary.
-- Elementary (CBS, September 27):
Elementary stars Jonny Lee Miller as detective Sherlock Holmes and Lucy
Liu as Dr. Joan Watson in a modern-day drama about a crime-solving duo
that cracks the NYPD's most impossible cases. Following his fall from
grace in London and a stint in rehab, eccentric Sherlock escapes to
Manhattan where his wealthy father forces him to live with his worst
nightmare - a sober companion, Dr. Watson. A successful surgeon until
she lost a patient and her license three years ago, Watson views her
current job as another opportunity to help people, as well as paying a
penance. However, the restless Sherlock is nothing like her previous
clients. He informs her that none of her expertise as an addiction
specialist applies to him and he's devised his own post-rehab regimen -
resuming his work as a police consultant in New York City. Watson has no
choice but to accompany her irascible new charge on his jobs. But
Sherlock finds her medical background helpful, and Watson realizes she
has a knack for playing investigator. Sherlock's police contact, Capt.
Tobias "Toby" Gregson, knows from previous experience working with
Scotland Yard that Sherlock is brilliant at closing cases, and welcomes
him as part of the team. With the mischievous Sherlock Holmes now
running free in New York solving crime, it's simple deduction that he's
going to need someone to keep him grounded, and it's elementary that
it's a job for Watson.
-- Last Resort (ABC, September 27): See my earlier summary.
-- 666 Park Avenue (ABC, September 28): See my earlier summary.
That should keep everyone busy for awhile.
The party is over and the dust has now settled on another year of Emmys. So who took home the statue? Here is a quick rundown on some key categories:
Outstanding Comedy Series - Modern Family
Lead Actress in a Comedy Series - Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer in Veep
Lead Actor in a Comedy Series - Jon Cryer as Alan Harper in Two And A Half Men
Outstanding Drama Series - Homeland
Lead Actress in a Drama Series - Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison in Homeland
Lead Actor in a Drama Series - Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody in Homeland
Outstanding Miniseries or a Movie - Game Change
Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie - Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin in Game Change
Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie - Kevin Costner as 'Devil' Anse Hatfield in Hatfields & McCoys
I already talked about my disappointment with the comedy category, so I will not go into it again. In terms of drama, I am glad to see that the Hatfields & McCoys won an award. The History Channel should be proud of its first foray into a drama mini-series. I have watched a few episodes of Homeland and I never understood the praise for the show. I would have preferred to see Game of Thrones come out on top since it not only is a great drama but it also represents a return of fantasy to television, something that is often slighted. I guess I should be happy it was nominated. The fact that Fringe and other science fiction/fantasy shows never make the list still irks me. And many other drama were forgotten in the drama and acting categories, including FX's Justified and Showtime's Borgias. I know, only a few great shows can make the list. I guess my definition of great (or "outstanding") is a little different.
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