Week two of the full-tilt-boogie season brought with it some interesting things, including premieres for Animation Domination, The Amazing Race, Trauma, Hank, and The Middle. We also saw more huge numbers from House, NCIS, and Grey’s. But after all of that, the most interesting story again comes from the show with the worst ratings on all of the big four networks, Dollhouse. After season two premiered to a series low last week, things got even worse. Episode two just barely cleared the 2 million viewer bar, while falling below a 1 in the demo. Reached for comment, my BFF Jill said, “OMG! RLY!?”

Yes, really. The situation is dire. Even the hardcore Whedonites are now at DEFCON 1. Someone has got word that the show could be in danger of being pulled from the air. I don’t know anything more than they do about that, but I would expect it to get one more shot this Friday, before baseball takes over. If episode three doesn’t show some sort of improvement though, I wouldn’t be surprised if baseball makes way for a series of House and Bones repeats on Fridays at 9. Read the rest of this entry »

With the majority of the season premieres in the rear view, business picks back up for DVD sets this week. Big network releases include How I Met Your Mother, CSI: NY, The Unit, Kings, Life On Mars, and a very delayed release for Day Break. From the archives you’ll find my pick of the week, the remastered 20th Anniversary Edition of Traffik, along with Patty Duke, Cagney & Lacey, and a sweet He-Man collection. There are also a host of Fan Favorites collections from classic comedies like Barney Miller, Sanford and Son, and I Dream of Jeannie. The full list is after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

… and hates Marco White, apparently.

It was a strange week on television. The calendar keeps insisting we are in a sweeps period, but the networks are dropping repeats all over the schedule. Even Lost, which ABC promised would run uninterrupted, went the repeat route. There were still some big events. As usual, Idol dominated, but ABC made some noise of their own with the return of Dancing With The Stars, spinning the loss of Jewel and Nancy O’Dell into ratings gold by signing up jilted bachelorette Melissa Rycroft. At the other extreme we found NBC’s latest disaster, The Chopping Block. There were also interesting numbers, good and bad,  for Chuck, Heroes, Castle, Kath & Kim,  CSI: Miami, Lie To Me, Next Top Model, and Dollhouse. Read the rest of this entry »

With its “Casting Clack” post, CliqueClack brings you a summary of the TV casting news released throughout the week, be it the addition of a series regular, a new recurring cast member, a guest star, or even someone making a cameo.

Be warned, the casting news after the jump may contain slight spoilers about the roles the actors will play.

This week, we have casting news for: Chuck, Big Bang Theory, Without a Trace, CSI: NY,  Stargate Universe and many more.

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Our Guest-Clacker today is Julia Hass, a twenty-something living in the Boston area. Upon realizing she could not major in “being Tina Fey” in college, she’s been taking some time off trying to figure out what to do with her life, and watching TV. A lot of TV. She discusses her various attempts at employment, politics, pop culture, music, her family, and super-cute boys at her personal blog.

Is anyone else sick of this Twilight phenomenon? Because I am. God, I am. In case you haven’t heard, Twilight is the epic love story of Bella (a human) and Edward (a vampire), full of enough thwarted, passionate romance and heartfelt-yet-ridiculous declarations of adoration to make any tweeny girl sigh.

And while I have never been a fan of the whole cliched vampire/human pairing, this takes my dislike to whole new levels, and I will tell you why — it hurts every notion I have ever held dear about heroines. Bella, as far as a heroine goes, is pretty lame. She’s flat, drab, and completely helpless without her boyfriend, who follows her around everywhere and (creepy spoiler alert!) watches her while she sleeps.

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(12/14 – 12/21)

This week, the other networks just made it easy for CBS. After taking second on Sunday night, to NBC’s Sunday Night Football, the Tiffany network went on to win the next five nights in viewers and the demo. Granted, there were more repeats than usual, but even the CBS repeats were in on the game, as replays of CSI and Eleventh Hour more than doubled the viewers of their repeat competition. For the rest of the networks, the news was not quite as bright. Read the rest of this entry »

(12/7 – 12/13)

I work with a guy that has the barest of the bare bones cable packages. Thirteen channels. It amounts to the networks, Discovery, PBS, and shopping. It was a tough week of television for him. There were a lot of repeats. The CW only managed 3½ hours of original programming for the week, for example. Add in a host of Christmas specials and the pickings were a little thin. Taking advantage of all of that, CBS had great numbers for the introduction of Laurence Fishburne on CSI. Some of the other shows that did manage to air originals were not so lucky.

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