Last month, I started watching Men of a Certain Age, after I saw TNT running ads to promote their network lineup, including this show (see that, ABC? That’s how you promote your programming.) So far, I’ve only missed the 2nd episode. The show features Ray Romano, Andre Braugher, and Scott Bakula as 40-something men in various phases of their lives. It follows the bonds that these three college friends have while dealing with the issues of middle age:
Romano’s character is a neurotic family man with two kids, but his wife is divorcing him.
Braugher’s character has a wife and kids, but is forced to work as a car salesman for his father’s dealership, in order to support the family.
Bakula’s character is an actor and ladies man, but he struggles-and-despises the roles he’s getting, e.g Lifetime movies.
Men of a Certain Age (2009)
It’s a new show, so it hadn’t been getting stellar ratings, but I think it’s pretty decent. Good stories, and good acting. It’s interesting to watch these three guys deal with the crap in their lives, but still talk and bond with each other. In every episode, they meet up at a diner to talk about what’s going on. If my best friends lived nearby, I know I’d be doing the same thing. Out of all the characters, I identify the most with Andre Braugher’s Owen character. He’s a family man who hates working for his unforgiving father (and who constantly disrespects him), but needs to keep doing what he’s doing to take care of the family. I haven’t seen Braugher in much, but he’s a terrific actor.
The good news is that TNT renewed it today (January 14 2010) for a second season. Again, TNT must believe in letting a new show develop an audience (again, ABC, you suck.)
This must be an original uncensored video for an upcoming episode about swearing. It’s NSFW, so…… listen with your headphones on while the cast swears profusely with some nice insults. [I give credit to the folks over at io9.com for the original title, because it's right on the money.]
Last month, I heard about a relatively new show called Better Off Ted on ABC. I forget exactly where I heard about it. I think someone mentioned it was funny. I didn’t remember much in the way of ABC tv promos, but I searched for it, and watched a season 1 episode available on Hulu.
I am in love with this show, and frankly, I find it consistently better than The Office has been these days. This show has a fun ensemble cast, great writing, and is just a smart comedy. Meanwhile, ABC is apparently burning off episodes one after another, and not even bothering to market this show. I heard nothing about this show beforehand, so really, that kind of mistake is ABC’s fault. What is with network television executives and their cliched stupid decisions? How can they get rid of good shows, and leave crap like According to Jim on the air since 2001?
If you search for news on Better Off Ted, you’ll find journalists and critics and regular Joe’s saying how great this show is, and that it is worth saving.
While it’s still available, watch the season 2 premiere “Love Blurts.” The company decides to dabble in eugenics by trying to hook up employees in order to save on health insurance.
I just started the first two mins of “The Great Repression” [also below] about sexual harassment, and it’s already great two mins in.
Watch the show. Decide if you think this show is worth saving. Join the campaign with me! Facebook it! Tweet it! Email an idiot at ABC! Do something! Just don’t let dumb comedy win out.
Yea, the Futurama cast is coming back! I just read that negotiations continued, and the voice cast is returning. All five of us fans can rejoice. Read more here.
The news this week has it that salary negotiations for the voice actors on Futurama have broken down, and Comedy Central / Fox are recasting all the main actors. Listen, I like Futurama a lot, but I’m not watching it without Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, or Tress MacNeil? It’s not the same. Would you watch The Simpsons with different voices? No.
A happy announcement — as of Monday afternoon, we had our cable tv and hi-speed internet back. Cause for celebration? Yes. Could it have been fixed sooner? You betcha. Let me explain.
Last Thursday, a Comcast technician was supposedly dispatched to our house to check the lines outside to find out what happened to our service, assuming something happened to the connections outside. Lo and behold that night, we still have no tv or internet. All the Comcast Live Chat rep can tell me from the details in the service record is that the technician noted that our lines were damaged. Okay, but did they do anything to fix it? No info.
So we waited for our service appointment until Monday. I got to the office super early, so that I could leave at 2pm to get home for the appointment. Just before 3pm, I arrive home to find the Comcast van in our parking spot, and the technician snoozing in the van. I wake him up, and he tells me that he fixed the problem already. Turns out, the cables outside our house were damaged, so he fixed them.
Uh……….
I told him that we had someone out here last Thursday who reported that. Why wasn’t it fixed then? Get this: this technician tells me that he doesn’t know, and “maybe he was a moron.” We go inside, and verify that our service has been installed. Can you believe that we could have been fine last Thursday, and I wouldn’t have had to jump through hoops on Monday for a job I didn’t have to be home for?
Do you know what I don’t get? When I’m home, I watch very little TV. Maybe I don’t have a lot of time at home, maybe there’s not much on. I’ve at the TV on at 2am while I was doing work, and it’s just crap. However, when I’m on the road, I can be up super late watching all the interesting stuff on TV.
I want to go to sleep, and there’s an interesting documentary on the Korean War. Maybe a super-interesting CourtTV-type of mystery/crime re-creation. Here in Canada, do you know what they have? Space, a 24-hour sci-fi channel. Last night, I watched two hours of Star Trek, and Aliens! It’s a better sci-fi channel than Sci-Fi in the States (soon to be SyFy in July 2009.)
This month, I watched the end of Battlestar: Galactica. It wasn’t canceled. After the 2003 miniseries and four seasons, the writers wrapped up the story. I’ll really miss the show as the show was simply unpredictable — you didn’t know what was going to happen next, and the stories kept me on my toes. Sure, there were one or two bad (or “eh”) episodes, but not every episode can be a home run.
The show had so much going for it, but I think I will especially miss the space battles. They were so ingenious, surprising, and fun. Some insurmountable battle with seemingly no way to prevail, yet the humans would use some crazy strategy that made you go, “Wow, I never thought of doing THAT. That is awesome!”
