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// April 29th, 2008 // No Comments » // Soccer and Television

The Sopranos final run begins

// April 9th, 2007 // No Comments » // Television

So, the first of nine final episodes of HBO’s groundbreaking series, “The Sopranos”, aired last night. It was OK. I don’t want to say too much, because I know several people who haven’t seen it yet. However, I will say this; there’s only eight episodes to go, and not a damn thing happened to move the story along last night, so I hope things pick up quickly, otherwise a lot of people, including myself, will feel that they’ve wasted a lot of time.

Lost Season III Premier

// October 4th, 2006 // No Comments » // Television

So, season three of Lost kicked off tonight. With the Yankee game being bumped to tomorrow afternoon, I was able to watch it live. What did we learn? Well, we learned that “The Others” are much more civilized than they initially let on… and that’s about it. For all the “reveals” the show gives, there are only more questions raised. For example, there was Juliet’s referral to the Dharma Project in the past tense. Why the hell are the Others there, and what do they want with Jack, Sawyer and Kate? Well, based on the previews for next week’s episode, I don’t see the answers will be coming anytime soon. Yet, we all still watch, because, so far, it’s still pretty fun.

Arrested Development: Cancelled

// December 6th, 2005 // 6 Comments » // Television

Yet another quality show has gotten the axe, this time the absolutely hysterical comedy that Wooly turned me on to last year. Word is that FOX cut the order to 13 episodes instead of the normal 22. When I first read about this a few weeks ago, it was still uncertain, but it looks increasingly like we’ve seen the last of the Bluth clan – unless it can be picked up by HBO. One can only hope!

Alias: Cancelled

// December 5th, 2005 // 1 Comment » // Television

from ew.com:

On Thanksgiving Eve, ABC announced that supersly spy drama Alias will leave the airwaves for good this May. Yeah, right. We see through this black-ops smoke screen. We predict the show will return from the dead in two years’ time with a shocking twist that involves a Nielsen-ratings cover-up at the highest levels…

Sorry, back to reality. But it’s just this type of paranoid, nothing-is-what-it-seems plot contorting that Alias fans have reveled in during the series’ ambitious, colorful, frustrating, riveting five-season run.

Unleashed by J.J. Abrams in 2001, the show offered an intriguing premise: Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) was a grad student moonlighting as an international spook alongside her dad. Soon it transformed into a Bond-meets-X-Files whirlwind of missions impossible, quadruple crosses, and long-lost spy relatives. ”To me, what’s mattered about this character is how much she’s struggled to hold on to her humanity in the middle of this weird world that she lives in,” Garner tells EW. From Sydney’s original mission to take down SD-6 (a seemingly covert CIA branch run by Ron Rifkin’s Sloane that was actually a terrorist cell) to her work at APO (an actual covert CIA branch run by a seemingly reformed Sloane), the series has boasted more reinventions than Madonna and Cher combined. And almost as many wigs. ”I love that J.J. never let us take it so seriously that we couldn’t just turn it all on its head,” Garner says.

Alias has again recalibrated itself this season, focusing on Sydney’s pregnancy and the ”murder” of Michael Vartan’s Vaughn. (Dead, alive, or never existed? We’ll find out; he’ll return for several episodes.) In the wake of the cancellation news — no shock, given the sagging ratings (7 million viewers this season) — the show resumes in March to tie up years of clue-clogged story lines. Look for resolution on the murky Rambaldi mythology — as well as the resurfacing of familiar faces including Mom, Weiss, and possibly Evil Francie and Will — before Sydney joins those spies in the sky. ”There are very few accidents in the world of Aliasstorytelling,” says executive producer Jeff Pinkner. ”And by the time this season ends, you’ll see that the ending very much revisits what was set up in the first episode.”

Rest in peace, Alias. (Pssst, meet you at that secret drop in 2008.)

The article above is only partially right. There are a few new episodes coming up this month, including one this Wednesday after Lost. While it was always going to be tough when the main character can longer kick ass due to pregnancy, I must say that I’m surprised that ABC couldn’t give it one more year, if only to see what would happen after Jennifer Garner had the baby (which apparently, she did, last week). Alias has been one of my favorite shows these past five years, and I’ll be sad to see it go.

Lost Season Premiere Tonight!

// September 21st, 2005 // No Comments » // Television

Season two of the Emmy award winning drama kicks off tonight at 9 PM ET on ABC.

Some questions going into tonight…

Just what is under the hatch?

Who are the “Others” really?

What the hell is that creature?