Probably one of the more underappreciated shows that came out in the past couple years is the USA Network's Burn Notice. The new season came out last July 10- just after I flew back to Metro Manila from Los Angeles, and I gotta say- the show just keeps getting better and better.
Burn Notice first came out in the summer of 2007. The title refers to a memo of sorts issued by intelligence agencies that pretty much dismisses and discredits agents, operatives or other assets as unreliable, and are therefore, blacklisted from any project thereafter. So spies don't get pink slips, they get burn notices.
Our show follows the misadventures of Michael Westen (played by Jeffrey Donovan), an international covert-ops operative, who got inconveniently burned in the middle of an assignment, and is trying to figure out why he got burned, and who got him blacklisted and flagged on just about every government watchlist to begin with.
Finding his assets frozen, cut off from his network and waking up in a sleazy motel in Miami, Michael sets off to redeem himself. So he takes on just about any job he can get his hands on- small-time stuff, really, for someone of Michael's caliber- but hey, as long as it pays the bills, takes care of the rent, with enough leftover for blueberry yogurt and beer, it's all good.
So what's an ex-spy supposed to do? Get by with a little help from his "friends", that's what.
Michael then reluctantly enlists the aid of a couple of "friends": a trigger-happy ex-girlfriend, (Fiona, played by Gabrielle Anwar) who just so happens to be an IRA-trained demolitions expert and sharpshooter, and a former Navy SEAL and Military Intel Operative (Sam, played by Bruce Campbell) who's seen better days and too many sugar mommas and mojitos.
Then of course, there's Michael's mother, who's just happy to have her son back in town (after not hearing from him in 10+ years), and calls him up 20, 30 times a day, often asking for Michael to attend to some errand or help out with some problem at home.
The show is really a first-person narrative from the viewpoint of Michael, offering some interesting insights and nuggets of wisdom in espionage and covert ops. The show has an entertaining mix of action, suspense and comedy, fun and memorable characters, and ultimately a good storyline.
I just finished a Season 1 marathon, and now I'm watching the Season 2 episodes I've had recorded- and it's great stuff. Check out the Season 2 promo they had airing on the USA Network:
I have to admit- I wasn't that huge a fan of the old "Beverly Hills: 90210", even if I had a huge crush on Jenny Garth back then.
You've probably heard by now that The CW is coming up with a brand new 90210- with an entirely different cast of characters, cameos of old familiar faces, and well, lots of Beverly Hills drama.
Check out this new 90210 sneak peak from a vid posted by ecclectic2007 on YouTube:
One of the things that keeps "Grey's Anatomy" interesting for me this season is the addition of the character of Lexie Grey- Meredith's younger half-sister, played by the cute-as-a-button Chyler Leigh.
What I didn't know was that at age 23 (she was born 10 April 1982, btw), she's already been a part of at least 9 different TV series:
No surprise: Chyler did some modeling before her acting career took off. In fact, she's been in front of a camera since age 12, doing the round of magazines and catalogs. Even landing gigs on national ads for Coca-Cola and Wendy's, among other projects.
Other bits about Chyler Leigh: If you're a Marilyn Manson fan, you may recall seeing Chyler in the "Tainted Love" music video as well. She was ranked #65 on the Maxim Hot 100 Women of 2002. The following picture was taken for Stuff Magazine, the issue that came out in January 2002, to promote Not Another Teen Movie. That's Chyler with co-star Mia Kirshner.
You can continue seeing more of Chyler as Dr. Lexie Grey on ABC's "Grey's Anatomy"- check out your local listings on when you can catch it. Great show.I gotta thank my good friend, Tessa for the heads up on this. We were just chatting on Yahoo, geeking out on this coming Friday's episode of Battlestar Galactica, when she mentions this nice little promotional video she found in her TiVo.
Fortunately for us who weren't able to catch it, it's actually available online. And I have to say, it's a really funny recap to bring you up to speed. Feel free to play it over and over again if you need to :) I watched it at least thrice already.
Spoiler Warning: the eight-minute clip is filled with spoilers from all three seasons, so don't watch it if you still want to watch your BSG spoiler-free. Otherwise, enjoy!
Hey you CSI fans! William Petersen- who plays Gil Grissom on the CBS drama CSI- has signed on for another year of forensic investigating on the hit show. And he's doing it for US$600k per episode- up 20% from last year, according to TVGuide.com.
Now according to TV.com,
... just because Petersen signed a contract, it doesn't mean it will be "all Gil all the time" on the show. Petersen has a clause in his contract that will allow him to take a few episodes off and pursue other acting endeavors, including some theater work in Chicago.
Alright, ever since Gossip Girl hit local screens, people have been asking me about it- so here it is.
Gossip Girl is pretty much this season's biggest guilty pleasure. Think of it as The O.C. for 2008- well, more like 2007 to be exact. The CW came out with the show in mid-September of 2007. As of this writing, we're halfway into the first season, which means you have 13 episodes to catch up on to bring yourself up to speed.
I know it's not a huge huge show, but I've read somewhere that despite the show facing massive competish, Gossip Girl is one of the most downloaded or recorded shows (if not the most) of the season- which means people will probably watch their Bionic Woman or Private Practice or America's Next Top Model (when it was shown on Wednesdays), but people will find some way to get their Gossip Girl fix (via TiVo, or downloaded, or whatever).
The truth is, Gossip Girl was one of the most anticipated new shows of the season. If you didn't already know, the soap is based on the popular novel series (of the same name) written by Cecily von Ziegesar. From Wikipedia:
Gossip Girl revolves around the lives of socialite young adults growing up on New York's Upper East Side who attend elite academic institutions while dealing with sex, drugs, and other teenage issues. Featuring an ensemble cast, the series begins by introducing Serena van der Woodsen (Blake Lively) and best friend Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester), as well as Blair's boyfriend Nate Archibald (Chace Crawford). Other characters in the show include Dan (Penn Badgley) and Jenny Humphrey (Taylor Momsen), who become involved in the lives of the main characters despite being less inclined to merge with the upper-east-side crowd. The series is narrated by a seemingly omniscient character, "Gossip Girl" (voiced by Kristen Bell), who runs a blog about her fellow Upper East Siders — consequently stirring the plot and creating potential rivalries in this exclusive and vicious circle of friends.
I can still remember watching the Pilot episode just before Christmas; at the time I was raving about the new shows Chuck and Reaper, and I had this friend who was raving about this one. She checked out Chuck, and I checked out Gossip Girl. Her selling point? "You know, the narrator on that show is Kirsten Bell..." Ding! I'vebeen hooked ever since."I'm relying on old favorites while exploring current pop music. And since the show revolves primarily around high school students in New York, we'll definitely be using some New York-based bands. But these kids listen to the radio, too."
"Renzie on TV" sends out its congratulations to Heroes, for bagging this year's most coveted award on TV.com's Best of 2007!
The super-powered NBC drama rounded up 52% of the more than 10 million votes from TV.com fans, beating out Editors' Choice Lost, which only got around 2% of the vote.
Heroes also won over House (which got 4 million + votes), Friday Night Lights (54,000+ votes), Family Guy (24,000+ votes) and The Sopranos (16,000+ votes).
Here are the other winners of TV.com's Best of 2007:
Best New Fall Show: Pushing Daisies (Editors' Choice), beating out Aliens in America, Bionic Woman, Californication, Kid Nation and Reaper.
Best In Genre: Action/Adventure - 24 (Editors' Choice) runs off with The Best of 2007 Award, leaving CSI: Las Vegas, NCIS, Prison Break, Numb3rs and CSI: New York in the dust.
Best In Genre: Sci Fi - Editors were gunning for Battlestar Galactica, but fans handed the award to Supernatural. Geeks also loved The 4400, Stargate Atlantis, Eureka and Kyle XY.
Best Episode: According to the fans, it was the series premiere of Pushing Daisies - "Pie-Lette". Editors put their money on Lost's "Looking Through The Looking Glass". Other contenders were Damages' "Because I Know Patty", Family Guy's "Blue Harvest", the unaired pilot of Babylon Fields, and The Sopranos' "Made In America"
My personal take: a rather good year for Heroes, but the biggest surprise for me is Pushing Daisies- gotta check that one out. Sarah Shahi is another reason for me to check out Life, and I'm totally intrigued by these two new cartoons - Adult Swim's Metalocalypse and Frisky Dingo. Man, I gotta move on past Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab 2021 now.
Also gotta get me a copy of that 28-DVD Twilight Zone pack- now that's a lot of Twilight Zone. Other shows to possibly watch out for are Cavemen and Kid Nation- though I'm not particularly wild about that whole Kid Nation idea.
Frack. It's all I can say for now.
I was able to see the first 5 minutes of the brand new FOX action-suspense/sci-fi series, "The Sarah Connor Chronicles". And it was completely, totally awesome.
For those of you who have been living under a rock these past few months, "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" is the highly-anticipated TV tie-in of the "Terminator" series of motion pictures (yes, the one with Arnold Schwarzenneger in them).
How's that for a mean-looking cast, huh? We get this blurb from one of my favorite TV websites, www.TV.com:
The Terminator franchise arrives on TV with this serial drama. The series picks up a year after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day with John and Sarah Connor (Thomas Dekker and Lena Headey) hiding from the government. After two years in one place Sarah decides they need a change of scenery and in doing so they expose themselves to FBI Agent James Ellison (Richard T. Jones) and Skynet's army of Terminators including Cameron Phillips (Summer Glau) a reprogrammed Terminator sent to protect John. She informs them that Judgment Day was not stopped and will take place in 2011. John convinces Sarah to stop hiding and fight so Cameron takes them to a time machine the resistance has set up to take them to the year Skynet was created 2007.
How's that for awesome, huh? We have Lena Headey (Queen Gorgo from "300") playing the lead role of Sarah Connor, Thomas Dekker (Claire-Bear's best friend Zach on "Heroes") playing the role of adolescent John Connor, and Summer Glau (of "Firefly"/"Serenity" fame) playing a hot, re-programmed Terminatrix.
I might be a media guy, but my field is really more into radio and marketing more than anything else. For the most part, it means that what I know about television is pretty much stuff just about anyone can know- so don't expect me to go technical or anything. 
Hey, Renzie here at your service, and thanks for stopping by to check out the stuff on this blog.