(2/1 – 2/7)

Turns out, not much. If you watched the big game, you couldn’t have missed the heavy promotion for the new NBC Monday. Chuck, Heroes, and Medium all got plenty of exposure. There was even a song and dance number. The Office got its fair share as well, with the bonus of being the show that followed the game. At the end of the day though, throwing those ads at 98 million sets of eyeballs didn’t bring the ratings that the network was looking for. Read the rest of this entry »

We started this week off with the Super Bowl, which, despite having some of the worst commercials in recent memory, yielded some pretty great quotes. In fact, between that, The Office, Leverage and 30 Rock, this was a great week for quotes. Below are some of our favorites — feel free to post yours in the comments.

The Super Bowl

“The entire Office cast is assaulted by a strange Xerox repair man played by Conan O’Brien, and it becomes a special Law & Order SVU.” – Rainn Wilson explaining the special episode following the Super Bowl

“Not only has she never been to the Super Bowl, apparently she’s never been to Tampa.” – Bob Costas on seeing Hayden Panettiere’s ridiculous fur-lined boots.

“Stop Drinking!” – Duane Johnson to Al Roker after he screws up the name of the movie again.

“It turns into a car!” – President Obama, telling Matt Lauer just how tricked out his Blackberry is now.

Matt Lauer: “You got replaced [on the cover] with Jessica Simpson….”
President Obama: “Who is in a weight battle apparently.”

“You know they say TV will rot your brain? That’s absurd. TV only softens the brain, like a ripe banana. To take it all the way, we’ve created Hulu.” – Alec Baldwin in the best commercial of the night.

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Did you notice that the ads for Heroes that ran during the Super Bowl last night said, “The new season of Heroes starts tomorrow!”? Were the other live-blog/chats I did of this show just a dream? Am I really so boring that that’s what is on my subconscious mind when I’m sleeping, or is NBC just trying to make us all think that the first part of this season never happened?

Anyway, we’ve got a new episode tonight, in which all of the heroes lose their powers! Sounds … fascinating. The ordinary people with extraordinary abilities are back trying to lead ordinary lives — except for Ando, who may still have some sort of power (or, judging by the picture, may just be pretending to be Gandhi).

Click through for the live-blog/chat transcript!

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Last night, I settled in front of my TV, excited to spend three joy-filled hours fast-forwarding through the Super Bowl to get to the commercials. Even though a few had popped up online in the days before the game, I avoided them to make sure I could have the “proper” viewing experience. I even made sure to have my 3-D glasses ready to go. I was all set for an evening full of awesome and needlessly expensive new ads, but then something weird happened: they all kind of sucked.

I honestly don’t even remember most of what I watched, since they were just so relentlessly mediocre. A few, however, stood out. The Alec Baldwin Hulu commercial, for instance, was hilarious. It, in fact, was the only ad I truly loved. I’m not here to talk about that though. What I want to talk about is the really messed up Doritos commercial that aired in which a man uses the power of Doritos to take off a woman’s clothes in the middle of a busy public street.

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There was plenty of clacking going on inside my head this week, everything from those stupid KFC commercials to Moonlight to the Super Bowl. Take a peek, and let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments section:

I wish 24 and Damages were better this season. Sure, it’s swell having them back, but so far, I’m not rabid for the next episodes or anything. That saddens me, because I really love both of these series, and it doesn’t get much better than Glenn Close and William Hurt. Hopefully, both shows will get better and have me pining to see what happens next. Or maybe I just expect too much. I didn’t even realize I felt this way about Damages until Modwild pointed it out to me in the comments last week. Mod, I don’t know whether to thank you or curse you!

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Let’s see … Psych is broadcast on USA Network. USA Network is part of the NBC Universal kingdom. NBC hosted Superbowl “Big Roman Numeral” this year. Hence, Psych had a football theme this past week (as did Monk – I wonder if the San Francisco Condors play the Santa Barbara Timberwolves in the regular season?).

Initially, I thought this was going to be a bad idea for the episode. However, as usual, I was incorrect. Shawn and Gus put such a nice spin on the whole theme, and loaded it all up with plenty of pop culture references, that it turned out to be an entertaining romp. The best part, aside from Gus’ no-massage massage and Shawn’s mention of The Mentalist was a moment at the end of the show where, amazingly, Henry smiled at something his son did.

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I just got finished watching a fantastic, no-nonsense, Super Bowl halftime show. It was actually all about the music; can you believe it?

Being a Patriots fan, I’ve seen a lot of Super Bowls over the years. Yep, I’m bragging about my team a bit — deal with it. I’ve seen halftime shows all about the sets, all about the lights and with several artists competing for the most attention.

Bruce Springsteen was a great choice for the halftime show this year, mostly because he entertained me, but probably you can appreciate the other reasons too:

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