Reaper renewed!
Reaper fans rejoice! The Hollywood Reporter (with its new, ugly design) states that the CW has renewed the show for a second season.
The show has been on the bubble for a little while, and I can postulate the CW’s motives for renewal. First, it gives the opportunity to build a name for the show (which is a nice Buffy the Vampire Slayer combination of fantasy and humor). Second, it cuts some slack for the show with regard to any possible developmental interference the writer’s strike may have had on it.
The show will return for 13 episodes in the mid-season and will likely run alongside the CW’s other fantasy suspense series Supernatural after Smallville finishes its run.
The show has made great strides since its Kevin Smith-directed premiere and really shows promise. The still-struggling CW could use as many hits as possible. It’s a good thing that the network is pursuing shows with some degree of sophistication and not abandoning them for mindless drivel (coughcoughrealityTVcoughcough) in the pursuit of cheap ratings.
Scrubs: My Princess (season finale)
(S07E11) Well, that was a little confusing, wasn’t it? Kelso is still in charge of the hospital, Keith is still around, and J.D. and Elliot are talking about their almost-kiss from the 6th season finale, something we thought they had gotten past awhile ago.
It was pretty obvious that, once NBC told Bill Lawrence that he couldn’t make any more new episodes after the strike was over, there was a mutual decision to make “My Princess” the season (and, as it turns out, the NBC) finale. Problem was, since it was episode 709 (look it up at the NBCU Media Village site), some continuity problems would rear their heads.
Oh, well. Continuity was just a small problem with this episode. I will say this: any episode Zach Braff directs is going to be ambitious, and this was about as ambitious as Scrubs has gotten. But for some reason, I was expecting more from this Princess Bride homage than I got. It was funny in spots, but it could have been a whole lot funnier.
Why wasn’t this funnier? Not sure… maybe it was because, between the introductory scenes that set up the fantasy, the scenes of Cox telling Jack the story, and the real-life scenes from the hospital that illustrated what Cox’s story was all about, there just wasn’t enough room to do a proper parody. What the writers and Braff were trying to do was not only transfer the characters from Sacred Heart to the medieval village of Sacred Heartia, but also try to parody the Rob Reiner classic at the same time. In trying to do both, they really didn’t do either.
Hmm… it could have just been because the fantasy came from Cox instead of from J.D. You know J.D.’s fantasies are… um… a bit more colorful. And in them, he’s not an idiot. I will give the writers credit for not having Cox save the day in his own story; it was the Village Idiot (J.D.) and the Princess (Elliot) thwarting the monster / finding the diagnosis. He also acknowledged that they were both being idiots for determining their almost-kiss meant nothing. Seems like Percival’s old softie side is coming out more and more these days.
So, what parts of the fantasy did I like? We needed more Giant (Janitor) and Toadie (Ted). I mean, who doesn’t like hearing about Giant’s taste for toddlers and Toadie’s self-esteem issues? Tarla (Turk / Carla) were OK, but the CGI used to paste on both their heads was a bit distracting (as you can see on the left, the body belonged to Donald Faison). Maybe it’s because the Turkeltons’ two-headed relationship-expert shtick hasn’t been seen in a couple of years, and it was weird to bring it back just for the purposes of setting up the Tarla character (and, by the way, Tarla has one ball because they’re sharing a body, I guess; we didn’t know about Turk’s damaged cajone until later… maybe it was supposed to be a hint). We also needed to see more Lord Oslek (Kelso), just because I always want to see more of Ken Jenkins.
More fun stuff:
- Kelso sitting in his office pantless. By the way, even if it was out of order, it was nice to see Mean Bob back for a week. We haven’t seen nearly enough of that over the last few weeks.
- Idiot / J.D.’s secret hair care ingredient: “More manure!”
- Poor Keith. Where did he go, anyway? It seemed like he just disappeared after Elliot dumped him.
- Aloma Wright pops up again as Nurse Shirley. Are we going to find out about her in season eight?
- Telling line at the end of the episode. When Jordan asks Cox if the patient got a liver: “That’s the way I’m tellin’ it.” We should know that there aren’t always happy endings at Sacred Heart.
- Everyone now freezes until The Todd gets confused and walks away. I’m surprised they didn’t think of that earlier.
- “My name is Percival Cox. You hurt my friend. Prepare to die.” A classic line, remade Scrubs-style.
So the abbreviated seventh season is over. Braff acknowledged on his blog that they’re in production on season eight already, so we’ll be seeing the gang this fall on ABC. I’m really curious how they’re going to pull this off; we were seven episodes away from the end of the show, and now we’re eighteen away once again. Hopefully, those extra eleven episodes will be funny and not some Bataan Death March to the resolution of the J.D. / Elliot situation. That’s something none of us need.
Reality TV show director arrested for false imprisonment
In a case of reality television going too far, a director has been arrested in Florida for locking half his contestants in the house they were occupying. The show was called Pauper to Princess and its concept was to build eight women’s self-esteem and help them grow physically, mentally and spiritually.
The part that I really find amusing is that the excuse the director Marc Brilleman gave for locking the women in the house was “they could not leave because they were being disciplined”. Um, disciplined? Is this some sort of sadomasochistic fantasy going on behind these doors? Admittedly I haven’t read the contracts, but if they broke the contract by leaving the house, couldn’t you just fire and/or not pay them?
I wonder if this arrest will actually make it on the show. I hope it does. It would be a case of “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” It might actually help ratings on a show that doesn’t even sound like an interesting premise to begin with.
Finally! The official Sex and the City movie trailer!
After treating fans in early December with a teaser that practically gave nothing away (especially if you were keeping up with movie spoilers), New Line Cinema released today the official movie trailer filled with Sex and the City goodness! This trailer, in HD format no less, not only confirms some of the spoilers that have been posted on the net over the past months, but also gives fans some fresh info about the four ladies.
Spoilers ahead!
As you will see, the trailer confirms that Big and Carrie got engaged and that at least she will make it to the altar. But things seem to take a turn for the worse before they both walk down the aisle. Did something terrible happen to Big? Or is he a runaway husband? Unknown. But what is heavily implied is that Carrie will not be wearing a wedding ring.
Also, the talked about “Charlotte goes into labor while shopping and Big is there to help” scene may be a fantasy sequence as some reported but what is confirmed by the trailer is that Charlotte is indeed pregnant!
In the trailer, we also witness Steve telling Miranda that he cheated on her once. It’s also fun to watch scenes of Samantha looking at men while still being with Smith (she’s not touching but looking).
You can find this great HD trailer on Yahoo! Movies.