Jim Parsons (Sheldon) interview - Big Bang Theory

"You're big in Latin America!" Say what? Jim Parsons (who plays Sheldon) wouldn't believe it until he saw a huge The Big Bang Theory billboard.

Honestly, it's kind of strange to see how The Big Bang Theory finally caught on. Nowadays there are people who root for a love connection between Penny and Sheldon. Weird!

From Day One I've loved Sheldon, Leonard (Johnny Galecki), Wolowitz (Simon Helberg) and - just a second, have to check how that name is spelled - Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar). Finally, I thought, a show that presents geeks not as total idiots who may have a line or two for comic relief or serial killers or whatever. The Big Bang writers have noticed that we love the geeks in our lives. Now, the only type of geek seriously missing is the way-cool-geek who has chicks drooling left and right without noticing. I hope he's going to make an appearance in season 3 or 4.

Truth be told, back at the premiere I tuned in because of Johnny Galecki. I had hoped to see a reunion of Galecki and Sarah Gilbert, but unfortunately that didn't really work. Yeah, Sarah Gilbert's Leslie Winkle is the weakest character I've seen on The Big Bang Theory (not her fault, though). Bygones.

I came for Johnny Galecki and stayed for the smart and hilarious comedy.

In the interview below (video) Harry Smith and Parsons talk - among other things - about the unpredictability of a show's success. That may be true if I think about some of my faves that got cancelled - Recently Trust Me, then also painful Swingtown, Life on Mars (US), The L-Word, Eli Stone, ER, Dirty Sexy Money, Lipstick Jungle etc. etc. while shows like Grey's Anatomy do survive the suckiest of seasons (s4) just as long as the last few episodes kind of wrap things up nicely. On the other hand.... stuff like Parks & Recreation with its disastrous pilot, 90210 with its mainly hideous female cast (AnnaLynne McCord excluded), or Castle with yet another one of those idiotic female detectives you want to shoot the writers for - I wonder who looks at those shows and yells Must See! One look at The Big Bang Theory and I thought: Please God, don't let this one get cancelled! It's too much fun! And she listened - two more seasons! yeah!

Jim Parsons interview re: The Big Bang Theory

True Blood Season 2 Sneak Peek

How excited are we to see a True Blood season 2 sneak peek? Are you kidding? Ecstatic! Just a couple of days ago I wondered if I should read the Sookie Stackhouse books or if it would spoil True Blood for me. Still not sure what to do.

So a few minutes ago I surfed around and came across True Blood season 2 sneak. My only question: When? When is True Blood finally coming back? Oh no, not this week, not next week... Sookie and Bill return June 14th!

Until then I hope to see more Blood. Bloody videos. You know what I'm talking about... additional True Blood promos. Go ahead, call me a masochist....

True Blood Season 2 Sneak Peek

Grey's Anatomy 508 - These Ties ... Review

Color me disappointed. This Grey's Anatomy episode didn't exactly deliver the goods. Of course we were curious since the media currently promote the hell out of this series. We wanted to know what exactly happened to Dr. Erica Hahn (Brooke Smith), just how "toned down" is Mer's bisexual friend Sadie (Melissa George), does Kevin McKidd's role as Dr. Owen Hunt improve (as in, does the doctor's presence at Seattle Grace start making sense) and what's Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica) doing there?

Hahn's gone - but not dead. No car accident, no spontaneous combustion. Dare I say it? Okay - she's alive, so Brooke Smith could resurface. Just sayin'.

Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez), as a result of Hahn's leaving, had to be heartbroken. This included crying on McSteamy's (Eric Dane) shoulder. But, of course it does. Surprise, surprise, contrary to what Shonda Rhimes proclaimed in her statement re: Hahn's leaving, Torres did not (yet?) label herself a lesbian. A "once-ian" or "twos-ian" was suggested. Not commenting on that. She probably has to sleep with a guy or ten to figure out that sex is sex and love is love and some major "het" studs are closeted homosexuals. That could take a season or three.

Mary McDonnell played heart surgeon Dr. Virginia Dixon and gave a quasi-imitation of Boston Legal's Jerry Espenson sans the Tourette's. So by the time the big huge "reveal" re: Dixon's Asperger's came along, Dr. Bailey was the only one surprised by that "reveal". Bailey, may we suggest watching TV? (Yes, we do watch shows that are so much more creative than Grey's Anatomy, but shhhhh...) There was nothing to indicate that Mary McDonnell would have to come back - though Seattle Grace needs a great heart specialist, with Dr. Hahn gone and all... (too bad Owen Hunt isn't one....)

The opening of Grey's Anatomy 508 suggested we'd get to see lots of tension, Cristina (Sandra Oh, Blindness) and Derek (Patrick Dempsey) bonding, Mer and Sadie catching up and perhaps renewing their relationship. No such luck. Sadie stormed in, threw herself between Cristina and Mer, and then started working in the hospital and hanging out with other interns. In the very end Mer and Der started talking about Sadie and then -- bye, see ya next week, suckers. Grey's Anatomy is a big tease (promoting the hell out of Sadie for weeks, not delivering anything interesting this episode).

By the way - We do call Sadie by her name simply because "I'm only here to create conflict because the writers can't think of any other way to create conflict than to bring in new characters in an already ridiculously large cast" woulde be too long. So Sadie it is.

Cristina had to endure another one of Dr. Owen Hunt's (Kevin McKidd) supposedly sexy but totally uncalled for kiss-attacks. I'm glad she walked away from that. By the way - lousy performance on McKidd's part. We feel his pain, though. His role blows. If he suffers from PTSD, as some viewers seem to think, I'd like to see him suffer from the symptoms associated with that, not just acting weird. At this point, we're definitely not rooting for a Cristina/Owen relationship.

Apropos Dr. Owen Hunt. At the beginning of season 5 Dr. Webber (James Pickens jr.) was determined to improve the hospital's ranking. So he hires an Army doctor? A guy for emergency-let's-save-a-life-and-not-worry-about-anything-else (like: unsightly scars, for example) type of doc? How does that make sense? Army vets and their families shudder at the thought of having those less-than-fab docs working at a (supposedly) fine hospital. This character has "I am only here to function as Cristina's love interest" written all over him.

Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Who else could bring a little tension in Izzie's (Katherine Heigl) life? George is busy being a doctor for a change and viewers would get upset if he ever came near Izzie again, so they had to bring in Denny's ghost. That's the problem writers face when their characters don't have a life. Nothing ever came of meeting Izzie's daughter, remember her? She lives outside the hospital.

As to Izzie - is she completely losing her mind? Is Katherine Heigl the next Grey's Anatomy star to be axed (as was talked about a while back)?

Grey's Anatomy - Lesbian? Queer? Now What?

Before we start talking about the Abracadabra! Lesbian Be Gone! news re: Brooke Smith who played Dr. Erica Hahn, we need to acknowledge how badly Hahn's and Callie Torres' (Sara Ramirez) coming out was handled. Viewers experienced the allegories either as sidesplittingly funny (South of border!) or as yet further proof that when it comes to queer women (emphasis especially on women), the writers are still required to write in code, if they want to write at all.

Callie's coming out also showed the sitcom-character one has come to expect from former must-see TV-show Grey's Anatomy. Emphasis on sit. As in: don't leave the hospital, don't talk to strangers. Even if nothing you do inside the four walls of Seattle Grace makes sense, mind you, this is your jail, so deal with it. Usually characters find conveniently placed patients (from the outside world! ;) to share wisdoms, truths, and secrets with, to learn something from, but no such luck for Callie.

Here's a (somewhat strangely comforting) thought: Perhaps this is exactly what the writers wanted to tell us? That they wanted to write this storyline about two lesbians but had to do it - history repeating itself - in code a.k.a. "tasteful" and so as not to "offend" the mainstream viewer, who's still chewing on that gay marriage thingy and as if that weren't enough has to make up his or her mind and cast their vote today. The horror.

What was so bad about the coming out you ask?

Let me imagine for a second that I am an educated woman, a doc at Seattle Grace hospital, live in Seattle, fall in love with a female colleague. This is new territory, I'm totally insecure but also completely excited about it. What could I do? I'm a doc, so I do what I've learned: I research. Piece of cake. Yummy. (First I'd do #1, though that's not dramatic enough for GA, and 2, 3 and 4 aren't all too visual. More below.)

1. Talk to my prospective lover. (GA chicks talk all the time about anything, but....)
2. Use the IT to find queer sites and forums. Newbies show up daily, so there should be answers.
3. Call a GLBT hotline. Ask my questions.
4. Check out the gazillion of books written by and for queer women.
5. Seattle? Check The Stranger. Read the ads. All of them, including the one for Babes in Toyland. The future is near. They got cool chicks that will explain anything - anything to me.
6. Seattle? Go to the Wild Rose, check out what other lesbians look like, play pool, make friends. ;)
7. Seattle? Spend half the night dancing at Neighbours, the other half sharing information with the chicks I picked up there. Or who picked me up. Matters not.
8. Call five of my best friends. I'm (I being the fictitious Greys-Anatomy-character) the only person I know who doesn't know anybody who's queer. So I let my friends tell me what their queer friends told them. Hell, fictitious me knew my ignorance would come and bite me, so second hand info has to do. I am, after all, in a hurry. Third date rule etc. Does that rule apply to lesbians? Another question I have to ask them.

Callie could've done IT research or made that hotline call - and perhaps even felt not quite comfortable sharing her confusion with her colleagues. [Insert Melissa Etheridge tune, circa 1999] Considering the network's cold feet/some h8ful comments (posted by the usual few - but very loud - fundamentalists) one could understand confused Callie wanting to keep it under wraps. She could've played hide-and-seek with her laptop/phone, chased by her ever so nosey colleagues. Not completely un-dramatic or unfilmable, methinks.

Too bad Callie was confined to Seattle Grace, what a pity.

That's just from the top of my head. All of the above makes a ton more sense than talking to a man. A heterosexual man. A colleague. A former lover. McSteamy. Or Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), a heterosexual woman who I can't recall being particularly hip to anything queer in Grey's Anatomy. We've seen her limits when Gale Harold played that weird patient and Bailey showed her ignorance re: other minorities (not African-American) in the way she dealt with Cristina (Sandra Oh).

Oh, fictitious me has a fictitious Grey's Anatomy storyline: Callie talks to cutie Mark Sloane (Eric Dane) because she knows that he and Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) shared not only one lover (hottie Kate Walsh as Addison Montgomery, which makes the two best friends "suspiciously close" to begin with), but had actual threesomes and sometimes - conveniently drunk, always a handy excuse - they would (insert allegory for "touching all over and so on and one thing led to another...." so as not to offend the mainstream Bible-quoting hater who just had to read this post and now has granny panties in a bunch or two and fingers ready to type h8ful comment). And they're no strangers to chicks and their girlfriends, the more the merrier, so.....

We hear that any queer storylines have been re-written.....

Kid Rock rocks the house (Explicit ;)

Kid Rock, beer bottle in hand, promoted his newly released Single CD All Summer Long along with Rock'n Roll Jesus in German tv-show TV total and enjoyed the freemdom to drop the f-bomb on television without being bleeped or censored.

When TV total host Stefan Raab asked Kid Rock about the "parental advisory - explicit content" label, he explained that "that's what makes kids want to buy CDs ... oh sweet, that has swear words on it".

One thing led to another regarding the f-word and soon Kid Rock grabbed the guitar and performed what he called "a sacred country song". He didn't mention the exact title, but it may be (Let me F U) One More Time. Afterwards he said "that felt really good".

Later on, Raab and Kid Rock performed "The F-Word Song" together. Yeah, everybody did have a good ol' time...

The F-Word Song (2:53)



The complete Kid-Rock segment (9:53)

Aliens in America cancelled - Petition online

Wow, some of my fave TV-shows just got cancelled. Bummer!

In some cases I can understand the decision. Back To You was fun because of Kelsey Grammer. It started out slow but got more interesting over time. Now it got axed. The format felt a bit dated.... still I'm sorry to see it go.

What really bums me out, though, is that Aliens in America is a goner as well. A little while ago I heard that Aliens in America got picked up by and will air in some foreign markets. How silly of me to think that that would make a difference, would give the show another season at least.

Aliens in America is indeed not just a fun show, it's excellent and very timely. That's what I thought. I even doubted the ratings (I always do, but whatever)...

But when I take a look at the Save Aliens in America Petition, see the few signatures, I have to agree - there don't seem to be enough people who are interested in the show.

However, should you be one of them, then please --- Sign the Petition

Men in Trees 215 Wander/Lust - Trouble in Elmo

Boy, the few viewers Men in Trees still has left might be gone for good now. Season 2 Episode 15 Wander/Lust was one of the worst episodes thus far. And that's saying something. Thought that tired Move Over, Darling inspired story-line Jack/Julia was done and over? Guess again. It just got started. Ouch. Jokes you could tell by watching the set-up. Some were old and moldy to boot. Who wrote this episode? An intern? Trouble in Elmo.

Oh, why we are still tuning in to watch Men in Trees in the first place, you ask?

Jane (Seana Kofoed) and Sam (Ty Olsson). They are the most interesting characters on the show. And hot hot Cash (Scott Elrod), of course. Cash was absent in 215. Now that didn't help. Oh, and we dig Celia (Cynthia Stevenson), not to forget.

Patrick (Derek Richardson) had to fight off heavy-set Greta (Bayne Gibby), yet another insecure woman whose sole purpose in life is to be with a guy - only this one is heavy-set and that makes her less desirable. What a novel idea, so politically incorrect and that's supposed to make it funny. Yuck. See the pattern? Marin is jealous of Julia just like that other 50's character, Annie (Emily Bergl) is jealous of Greta. Yawn on both accounts. (Patrick's going to sell the engagement ring and use the money to travel? That will never happen. It should, but it won't. Instead, he'll give the money to Mai to help her build that Florida-room. That's my guess.)

Jealousy's not the only thing can cause trouble. Even Men in Trees knows that. Let's see what was in store for other couples:

Sam gave Jane a diamond ring. He didn't buy it at Tiffany's. Nope, it came from the lost and found - of the Sanitation Department. Hard to believe, but Jane actually told him straight how much she hated the idea that the ring had been sitting in the gunk somewhere. Would Jane be completely insensitive like that? We don't believe it. She may think it and talk to Marin on the phone about it - which she does in a later, in a repetitive scene - but straight out complain about the gift? Be openly disgusted by it? Didn't ring true. The set-up of that conflict didn't work. The mid-section (Jane loses the ring) we anticipated, because the ring needed resizing. The only interesting thing here was the resolution. The cabby and the coffee-table. That was neat. And we love seeing Sam and Jane, of course. Just look at that screenshot.

Mai (Lauren Tom) and Buzz (John Amos) are in deep trouble. He stole money from the joint account. When his bookie shows up, Mai moves out -- and in with Celia. That could get interesting.

I know that Anne Heche claims fans would just love love love her Jack (James Tupper). Guess what? I don't know anybody who does. He's a louse and we know it. And we don't dig Tupper nearly as much as Heche does. Marin, by the way, isn't our fave character. Especially not when she does that 50's thing. Stand by your jerk. Wait for your jerk. Knit sweaters for your jerk while you sit home pining. Get real. You're a former New York chick? Gotta be kidding me.
The Marin/Jack/Jane storyline was so awful we'll simply fast-forward through MJJ next episode. Gimme a break.

Men in Trees - Tivo and fast-forward through the boring parts.