In wishing you all a hearty welcome back to TV or Not TV this week I almost feel as though I’m saying it to TV in general.
For someone who writes about television this week is just an incredible week. No matter what night you turn the TV on (well, except for poor Friday and Saturday nigt… the red-headed step children of TV viewing) there is something to watch. Comedy, drama and pure trash await you at ever turn.
You know what, I’m so excited about this week let’s just get to the good stuff!
MONDAY
CBS – 8:30 PM: There was a very sublte moment in the season finale of last year’s How I Met Your Mother where womanizing Barney had a brief longing look at Robin, whom he had slept with a few episodes before. Wait, wasn’t this Ted’s story about how he met the mother of his kids? Aw heck, who cares, Neil Patrick Harris steals the damn show anyway.
NBC – 9:00 PM: If you attended Comi-con this year and sat in on the Heroes panel than you already saw what everyone else has been waiting anxiously to see. The show’s creator, Tim Kring, promises the pace will be faster, the action bigger, and he’s actually learned from the mistakes of the past. I’m in.
TUESDAY
FOX – 8:00 PM: Tonight on House the quirky Doctor and his team have to figure out why different recipients of organs from the same donor are all dying. I only bring this up because the life they are trying to save is played by Felicia Day from The Guild and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.
NBC – 8:00 PM: If you caught the season premiere last week of The Biggest Loser: Families than you saw that two of the dads in the families are so unfit that they are limited in exercise/participation. Tonight that continues and the contestants face the dreaded week 2 of weigh-ins, which typically have been incredible small compared to the week prior.
SCIFI – 9:00 PM: The ads for tonight’s episode of Eureka describe it as the mid-season finale. Normally this would be the time we were saying bye-bye to the show for another year, so it’s exciting to hear that in January we’ll start to see new episodes. If you’ve followed the show than tonight is clearly a must-see night. If you haven’t followed it I’d recommending tuning in at 8 PM instead and watching the previous week’s episode before this one.
CBS – 9:00 PM: Tonight we get to find out what it is like when you pull the comedy out of USA Network’s Psych with the premiere of The Mentalist.
WEDNESDAY
FOX – 8:00 PM: Tonight on Bones former lab man Zack pulls a Hannibal Lecter and helps the crew from his psychiatric ward on their current case.
NBC – 8:00 PM: We finally get to see how the new Knight Rider holds up in its regular one hour format. Here is hoping it comes off much better than last year’s Ford commercial disguised as a show.
CBS – 8:30 PM: Gary Unmarried premieres and I’ll be watching to see if it is better than the preview lead me to believe.
NBC – 10:00 PM: Season of 2 of Lipstick Jungle is here, and men across the nation will find something else to watch right now.
THURSDAY
NBC – 8:00 PM: The Good: My Name is Earl is back and Earl is actually working from his list again. The Office follows at 9 and has plenty of potential to bring us lots of laughs. The Bad: Both shows are an hour tonight and these one hour episodes always feel about 22 minutes too long instead of 22 minutes more funny.
ABC – 8:00 PM: Ugly Betty is back and I’ve still got my Man Card as I have yet to see a single episode. Lindsey Lohan will be reprising her roll from the end of last season, but it’s still not enough to get me to finally tune in.
CW – 8:00 PM: If you watched the season premiere of Smallville last week than you are probably wondering, like I am, why the show came back for another season and we’re having to wait for Reaper to get it’s mid-season time slot. Me thinks things do not bode well for the CW.
NBC – 10:00 PM: It is the beginning of the final season of ER. I can’t beleive this show has been around for a year longer than I’ve been married.
FRIDAY
PICK A NETWORK – 9:00 PM Eastern / 6:00 PM Pacific: For the first time in a long time I’m actually excited to see a Presidential Debate. Too bad they can’t just settle things the right way: Thunderdome!
Sorry, the networks don’t know how to recover from this so there’s just nothing else to really talk about for this day. I do find it funny that Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare is on the Independant Film Channel tonight. Didn’t see that one coming.
SATURDAY
NBC – 8:00 PM: If you missed the season premiere of Heroes than you get a second chance tonight. Hopefully it was so good you just had to come back for seconds tonight.
TLC – 10:00 PM: I love the way that Trading Spaces sounds more like an episode of Dr. Phil lately. Tonight two sisters will vie for mommy’s affection as they try to renovate two rooms.
SUNDAY
ABC – 9:00 PM: OK, go ahead and revoke that previously mentioned Man Card. I’ll be sitting there at 8:59 PM anxious to see what is going on tonight on Desperate Housewives.
SHO – 9:00 PM: Thank gosh there is such thing as a DVR because I’d have hated having to choose between the ladies of Wysteria Lane and my favorite sociopath Dexter.
ABC – 10:00 PM: My wife will be excited that Brothers & Sisters also returns tonight. By this time I’ll be watching Dexter.
– Will Wilkins never actually had a Man Card.
I just spent this evening (as I type this, naturally) doing something that I haven’t done in years – lose track of a few hours of my life while immersed in a Star Wars game. With my limited amount of free time and the nagging desire to get some kind of sleep each night, it’s a rare occurrence when I actually get to do any sort of gaming. As far as Star Wars games go, I haven’t really played one since Battlefront II (and that one because it promised – and delivered – some Ewok shooting). Well, the drought is over, because I just spent the evening immersed in 
I’ve got a cold this week, and when I wasn’t immersing myself in Jedis and Sith Lords, I was pitting a pirate against a ninja. That’s right – all that fancy radio-control technology has been integrated into 
In their infinite wisdom, the BBC of the late 60’s and early 70’s would regularly wipe the videotapes of older shows in order to reuse the tapes. What that means is that scores of shows have been lost to the whims of a frugal network – many of them landmark programs. Much of the 60’s TV work of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore – and their show Not Only But Also – suffered that fate. Some of the material survived, however, and that’s what’s collected in 
It’s become even rarer in this day and age, but it’s always a real treat when a show with a unique, quirky sensibility manages to break out of the network blanding factory and gain a foothold amongst viewers. The latest in that select pantheon is 
Mere months before the release of what would prove to be their swansong album, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel toured in the fall of 1969 – playing some old favorites and a few tunes from their as-yet-unreleased album, Bridge Over Troubled Water. Those concerts were recorded for a live album follow-up to Bridge that never came to be… until now. 
The thinking behind the release of 
Fans of Space Ghost Coast To Coast have been left in the lurch for years now as the DVD releases stopped abruptly, leaving many episodes in the lurch. Well, those fans can rejoice in and quickly snap up 
Some of it may be music written for the HBO series Big Love, but David Byrne’s 
If you can manage to put the Tom Cruise Crazy out of your head, you can see the charm in the young actor fronting the now 25 year-old(!) 
Spend those darkening, blustery days leading up to All Hallow’s curled up with the new commemorative edition of 
The second 
So, you cross Office Space with James Bond, with a touch of Alias? Sure, I’ll give it a shot. The show in question is 
Being a fan of the Disney theme parks and the design ingenuity and creativity that forged them, a book like 
Yes, you’re seeing spots. Lots of them. Not only is Disney re-releasing the live action, Glenn Close-starring 
Halloween is fast approaching us, so Fox has dropped another of their catalogue unearthing 
It’s easily one of the more depressing romantic flicks in cinematic history, but it is a classic of the genre and still holds up as a solid piece of filmmaking. It’s welcome, then, that 
Bitter, angry, and still funny, the complete first and second seasons of that angry mallard 
Some of the best Star Trek stories have been the numerous tales of alternate realities, so it makes sense that the latest Star Trek Fan Collective is – you guessed it – 
For some reason, they aren’t releasing full box sets of the 80’s Alvin & The Chipmunks, but we’ve got a 2-disc 
If you still have find memories of the John Hughes troika The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and Sixteen Candles, then you’ll probably want to pick up the new 
I never thought the mostly enjoyable run of classic Charlie Chan flicks would ever move past the first volume, but here we are with the 5th 
As in the past, the singular releases of the final Avatar: The Last Airbender arc have been compiled into 
Still stylish after all these years, the 50th anniversary edition of 
And if that’s not enough French fare for you, then how about a new special edition of Gene Kelly in 
Did anybody watch the Grey’s Anatomy spin-off 
You can now snag the 2-disc special edition of Michael Bay’s 
It seems like it’s taken almost 8 years just to get all 8 seasons of 
The second season of the Doctor Who spin-off 
And, while it’s not the Doctor Who release I was hoping for, the complete first season of 
Garishly colorful, borderline seizure-inducing, and practically incomprehensible, the Wachowski Brothers’ take on 
It’s mostly a soapy mess, but the real reason to at least check out the first season of 
Oh, Mike Myers… I truly believe that you honestly thought that 
Director: 
Director: John Wright
Of all the movies about war, whether it be Vietnam, Gulf War, WW II, even to go as far as to affiliate Braveheart or 300 in that category, there are ten that I could recommend. Perhaps a handful of them would leave you feeling both exhausted and exhilarated for their cinematic style and story telling. But there may be only one that that takes you beyond the edge and pushes you off while putting you through a whirlwind of emotions. Love it, hate it, one cannot deny the brilliance, not only of story, but casting and direction that is picture perfect. Yet, it is far from recognized getting lost in the shuffle of Apocalypse Now, Deer Hunter and Platoon. It even was lost during its opening having to compete with a far more digestible war piece, “M.A.S.H.” The reason; it makes you think and generally people would rather escape than struggle with their mind. “Catch-22″ not only makes you struggle but also has you contemplating far after several viewings.
Paul and Storm are a comedy music duo, and they have been performing as a duo since 2004. Before that, they were one half of a cappella band Da Vinci’s Notebook for about 12 years. A Paul and Storm show is part music concert and part standup/improv comedy”“just enough of both to fit neatly in neither category. They like to engage the audience, and are known to award snack cakes and/or other prizes for good (and sometimes bad) behavior. Their show would be PERFECT as a cable special, and would make lots of money for whichever brave channel decides to air them first.
You know ’em as the RiffTrax trio, but here at Song Fu they are the mighty RiffTones…
Run At The Dog are high energy, rock/pop, category-sluts with multi-gendered vocals and intricate arrangements. They are like Abba meets Faith No More meets Mos Def meets the Mormon Tabernacle Choir meets Steely Dan. The songs of this Minneapolis 5-piece are always written right away, with no respect for the calculating mind. Audience members are unsure whether to dance, laugh, or panic.
I suppose I am what you could call a “Multi-Instrumentalist”. That is a nice way of saying “Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none”. I began playing drums as a teenager and spent a great deal of energy during my 20’s trying to “make it” in the music biz. As a drummer, I have had the opportunity to play with some pretty incredible musicians, garnering literally DOZENS of fans over the years. In 2004 I joined the band Celestial Static, and spent several years melting some face with good friends Jeremy and Julie Elzerman. Once that ran its course, I decided to spend more time locked away in my studio, writing my own songs and learning to play guitar, bass and sing. It doesn’t pay the bills, but I have a good time doing it.
Oh no! Just when you thought it was safe to hang out at the Quick Stop…
Jonathan Coulton on Jonathan Coulton: “In 2005 I left my day job writing software to pursue music full time. To keep myself busy I released a new song on this website every week for a year in a project called Thing a Week. A few of those songs became big internet hits (my folky cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”, a funny video called “Flickr”, a song called “Code Monkey”), and I am now fortunate enough to make my living as a musician.
The Deal: After 20+ years making music as a hobby, I recently wrote and recorded a song for my daughter. I got a little taste of mild success (hey, my mom liked it). So now I’m taking my music out of the closet, dusting it off, and seeing how it does in the sunshine. Who knew there was so much work in just attempting to do music for a living. I feel like I am opening a Subway franchise (Only opening a Subway franchise seems more fulfilling in a creative way).
“BucketHat” Bobby Matheson is an awkward teenage accordionist and multi-instrumentalist who specializes in superhero-themed and “Comedy” music, and who works for minimum wage in the fast food industry. With his style varying from polka to folk, punk to pop, and then again from rock to bluegrass, we’re left unsure what to expect. One thing for certain is that Bobby doesn’t like talking about himself in the third person, and therefore will stop this silliness right now.
Steve Chatterton is an independent musician living in the suburbs of Toronto. Known primarily for his jingle work on local television and his electronic project 11t1, he’s now putting all of his musical efforts into the ever-elusive self-titled singer-songwriter recording project he’s been wanting to get around to since he was 10-years-old and had just discovered The Beatles. Steve is an honors graduate of the jazz guitar program at Mohawk College, and has since performed in a wide array of bands that nobody has ever heard of. After retiring from performing to concentrate on raising his kids, he’s recently put together his own basement studio and has set a personal goal of producing at least one song a month.
Fun, Zesty, Acoustic, Energetic, Crunchy. Some of these words describe the Baritone-Ukulele-wielding N8 Shivers (the others describe Taco Bell’s newest food-like invention). He began writing songs at the age of two, and taught himself to play the uke a mere 17 years later. N8’s Family members claim he’s the best uke-playing song writer they’re related to. He enjoys Stand-up Comedy, Coen Brothers movies, Chilly sandwiches, and Canadian sitcoms. His Turn-offs include Banana Flavored Things, Republicans, and Mountain Dew. N8 is currently employed as a Wizard in southern Ohio.