My Week In TV - 10/26/14

Because of the World Series, there was no Simpsons or Family Guy this week.. Once again I'm going to list them in general order of goodness...

American Horror Story: Freak Show: pre-Halloween creepiness! I've previously mentioned Kathy Bates using a Baltimore accent. In this episode Wes Bentley guest stars, and I have no idea what accent he's using.

How to Get Away with Murder: No gay sex scene this week but the mystery continues to play out. No, mysteries. Plural. Not just the murder that is at the heart of the show, but the smaller, interconnected plots revolving around it. Much of this is still far-fetched, though.

The Flash: Still enjoying this. I have a bit of a gripe that I'm going to defer until my next post because the problem's actually begun to resolve itself.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: One thing I regret about not being into Marvel Comics is that when this show introduces characters or hints at whom certain characters actually are or will turn out to be, the geek-out factor is nonexistent for me. Not a real complaint, just a thought...

Arrow: ...on the other hand, as I have a history with DC, when the same thing happens here, I can geek out with ease. (Although if it were a Superman or Batman series it would be even easier.)

Scandal: There were some things in this episode that didn't really ring true for me. I don't enjoy it quite like I did when I first started watching. And there's still a gap of Season 2 episodes that I haven't seen, which makes me feel I'm not quite up to speed.

Gotham: Same old story: need script help, some better acting, ditch some characters, love Oswald Cobblepot's story.

The Big Bang Theory: I was kind of bored by this week's episode. And now they've moved the show back to Thursdays, which complicates my TV schedule. I can record one show while watching another, but if I want to watch something else (like sports) I can't record two other shows on at the same time, so I either have to not watch the game or watch on of the shows On Demand. I don't like On Demand much, since most of the time now the fast-forward function is disabled, forcing me to sit through the commercials.

My Halloween Playlist

In the past I've written about my playlist of summer music. (Not going to bother posting the links. You can search for them if you want.) I haven't done so recently, and now that we're past summer it doesn't seem like the time, but I'll mention in passing that it's up to 213 songs (plus five mixtape compilations from DJ Jazzy Jeff and his DJ cohort MICK, formerly Mick Boogie). A while back I created a playlist for winter as well, but I don't have many songs on it. There's no special vibe about a winter song, unlike summer songs. As a result, I only have songs with "cold" or "chill" or similar words in the title. So I need to work on that at some point.

I also have a Halloween playlist. It's now up to 77 tracks, including TV and movie themes, songs that are obviously Halloween-centric and others that merely have a word such as "evil" or "ghost" somewhere in the title and aren't necessarily (or aren't at all) scary or creepy. It's just over five hours long. (And I've got a list of songs I need to add to my iTunes library.) Instead of listing them by artist or alphabetically, I'm gonna group them here based on various keywords or other categories...

My Week(s) In TV - 10/19/14

So I missed a week. Oops. Consider this a two-week summary (any more procrastination and it'd be a three-week summary). Instead of listing them based on the day they aired, I thought I'd rank the shows in general order of awesomeness.

How to Get Away with Murder: The show has really grabbed me. I'm glad I gave it a second chance after the first episode. It's a wild ride with mostly interesting characters. Viola Davis is, not unexpectedly, tremendous, especially at the end of the third episode a week ago.

American Horror Story: Freak Show: I find it a cross between the more sinister, darker Asylum and the more campy Coven. Jupiter, Florida in 1952 is a very strange place. I'm loving the musical numbers (of contemporary songs, not songs from the time period!) and the Baltimore accent employed by Kathy Bates as the bearded lady. (Also, if anyone wants to gift me with a DVD set of Season One, which I have yet to see...)

Arrow/The Flash: I'm combining these because they're practically the same show. Same co-creators, same format featuring current events explained/enlightened by flashbacks, both shows feature the titular hero and his support team. And, of course, Barry "The Flash" Allen was introduced in Arrow last season. There are plenty of differences as well, though. Arrow, while based on a comic book, is a little darker and more grounded in something close to reality. The Flash is more obviously of the genre, but it also makes room for a little more humor.

Scandal: I'm still on board with a lot of this, but I'm starting to tire of the Olivia/Fitz drama. If you're not going to put them together as an actual couple once and for all, and I guess it's impossible -- even on this show -- for a sitting U.S. President to divorce his wife and marry his mistress, then just put this romance far, far away for a while.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: I read an article somewhere which stated that it feels like this season's show will influence events in future Marvel films, unlike last season, when events in the Captain America sequel turned this series around. Of course, if the ratings aren't up to snuff, then there will be no more influencing in either direction.

The Big Bang Theory: Still solid and reliable, but at the same time it's a bit formulaic. For example, there are episodes in which the guys and girls go their separate ways -- in the case of last week's show it was the girls in Vegas while their men were at home being their usual geeky selves.

Bones: Again, kinda formulaic, although they're not above a bit of Law and Order-style headline-ripping. Or tweaking, in the case of the episode where the "corpse du jour" turned out to be an overweight right-wing radio talk show host who, it was said, didn't believe any of the conservative stuff he said but only said it because the ratings were so big. Sound like anyone you know?

The Simpsons: The 25th Treehouse of Horror special was on Sunday. Not bad, but for me the best part of it was the end of the final segment. That segment featured the Simpsons' house being haunted by the ghosts of their original selves -- from the crudely-drawn shorts on the Tracey Ullman Show. Then, under various circumstances, the current Simpsons die and become ghosts. Lisa then wonders if there can be other versions of their family, and a string of alterna-Simpsons suddenly line up at the door, including the LEGO Simpsons from last season and Simpsons looking like characters from South Park, anime shows (Maggie as Pikachu), Archer...and the minions from Despicable Me!

Gotham: I still can't figure out why I haven't stopped watching this mess. I feel like this could be such a brilliant show but they've made so many missteps. Too many characters, plotlines that are either predictable or ridiculous (or both), some bad acting...but this kid playing the young Bruce Wayne is excellent. I'm still undecided about continuing with this show.

Family Guy: Meh. Also, one week the show was a rerun for some reason. The new TV season is a month old and already there's a rerun?

Quick Review: Gone Girl

Okay, so I slipped away from blogging again for a few days. I actually saw Gone Girl two weeks ago. Heavily hyped, I managed to avoid spoilers before seeing it. Sometimes I don't actually mind spoilers, but in this case I really wanted to be surprised. It's the story of Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) who comes home on the day of his fifth anniversary to find his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) is missing. After he reports this to the police the investigation (with the help of a media frenzy) tilts towards him as a suspect in his wife's disappearance. Although I figured out a primary part of the mystery quickly, the details and subsequent events proved quite twisty, right up to the end -- which, as the final scene faded to black and the credits began, led at least three people in the theater to yell things like "THAT'S IT?" and "WHAT THE...!" I was not one of them. I enjoy an unconventional ending, as long as it's not so far-fetched or really stupid. This one? Definitely not how I would react if I were in Nick's place, but not too far...gone. (Pun intended.) My grade: A-minus.

P.S. I was watching very closely during the moment where reports indicated Ben Affleck's junk is supposedly onscreen. If it was, I missed it. I'll wait for someone to screengrab it.

WHAT THE HELL...Philly Gay News

So this happened...

This is just...shoddy. I shared that first Facebook post with the comment "Wow. Happy but very surprised. VERY surprised." I should have known by the 193-0 "margin." Anyway, I wanted to mention it on Twitter and that's when I saw this:

(You should follow Josh on Twitter, BTW.) When I returned to Facebook I saw the correction. Obviously it's good that they corrected it, but I have so many questions. How on earth did this information get posted in the first place? Who gave them the incorrect information? Who received it? Did NO ONE check to make sure it was legit before they rushed to post it? Whatever happened to journalism? (Okay, that last question I've been asking for years.)

So, yeah, Philadelphia Gay News, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?????

My Week In TV - 10/5/14

Well, Dallas was canceled by TNT. It seems that once J.R. was gone, so were the ratings. That will make my Mondays a little easier in the future. As for this most recent week, let's start with...

Gotham: I saw enough improvement from the pilot to keep it on my watch list, at least for now. I can do without Jada Pinkett Smith as a new character, Fish Mooney. But on the other hand, Carol Kane guest-starred as Oswald Cobblepot's mother. She would have easily fit into one of the Tim Burton "Batman" movies.

The Big Bang Theory: Silliness as Wolowitz (who spent some time on the International Space Station a while back) was asked by NASA to throw out the first pitch at an Angels game. His athletic ability adding up to zero, he uses a replica of the Mars rover to deliver the first pitch. It goes very, very slowly. That, and giving him a microphone to address the crowd, made the entire storyline ridiculous.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D: I want to see where they're going with the mystery of Skye's parentage. It appears she'll be meeting her father soon. Maybe she'll get a last name out of it and we'll know her as something other than "Skye."