from the couch of Renzie Baluyut

With our old favorite TV shows coming back for new seasons, we can definitely expect a lot of great viewing these next few months. There will be surprise hits and flops, drama on- and off-cam, and of course, new chicks on TV!

So far, I have my eye on three great-looking women: Anna Torv of the J.J. Abrams FOX drama Fringe, Dania Ramirez, the deadly Maya from the hit NBC show Heroes, and then we have Mädchen Amick, who plays Nate Archibald's new cougar love interest on Gossip Girl on The CW.

Lets get to know them a little better, shall we?

Anna Torv of Fringe

As special agent Olivia Dunham, Anna Torv kicks ass every week on Fringe. And just like any other FBI field operative, she's chasing down criminals on foot, or vaulting over cars, or even across buildings.

What makes Dunham's character so bad-ass is the kind of crooks she hunts down: you'd think they're regular serial killers or terrorists, but these miscreants are actually part of some much larger, much more elaborate conspiracy she's still trying to figure out.

Anna Torv's character is forced to confront the systematic spread of weird, paranormal occurences (called 'The Pattern' on the show), and I have to say that Anna is doing great playing Olivia Dunham.

Anna is an Australian actress, with a few movies and TV shows to her credit, but this is the biggest role she has thus far, and I say good luck on this endeavor. She's doing a great job, and I can't wait to watch the next episode to see how The Pattern unfolds.

J.J. Abrams' Fringe is this season's new sci-fi action/thriller. I'd describe it as the new X-Files, though there are people who also see a little bit of Dark Angel, Twilight Zone and Lost in it.

Dania Ramirez of Heroes

We've actually seen Dania Ramirez's character, Maya, last season on the NBC hit drama. Remember that Mexican chick who'd always be crying black tears and then everyone in a hundred-foot-radius would suddenly drop dead?

Well, Maya is back this season, and while we didn't see much character development the last time she was on Heroes, she promises fans this time, "I cry a lot less this season and make out a lot more."

We can all appreciate that. Thank you, Dania.

Dania Ramirez actually came from the Dominican Republic, and has had a recurring role in The Sopranos' final season. You also may have caught her on the last X-Men movie (X-Men: The Last Stand in 2006) and on a music video here and there.

As for Dania's character on Heroes, well, we've seen some more of that "making out" the other night. That, plus more revealing clothes. Still no idea how her powers work though. Is it psionic in nature? Does she exude some kind of airborne nerve toxin? A fast-acting disease perhaps?

I suppose we'll have to find out in the next several episodes of Heroes. And I wouldn't mind seeing more Dania Ramirez in the process.


Mädchen Amick of Gossip Girl

Her name Mädchen means "girl" in German, and is pronounced mayd-shyen- remember that. You probably remember her as Shelly Johnson from the old TV drama Twin Peaks, or that chick in the Stephen King movie Sleepwalkers (1992).

OK, so she also had recurring roles on a lot of other shows including Gilmore Girls, E.R., Jake In Progress and Joey- that plus a number of movie roles and other gigs. So you get the idea: she has been around for quite some time, and now Mädchen is back, for the appreciation of a totally new audience on Gossip Girl.

Mädchen Amick plays the role of Catherine Mason, one of this season's new characters. She has a summer fling with Chace Crawford's character of Nate Archibald, which of course goes on to extend for several episodes just for fun.

We also find out later on that Catherine Mason is stepmom to Blair Waldorf's (Leighton Meester) love interest, Marcus. With all the characters running around, up to their usual Upper East-side scheming and shenanigans, you know that this makes for great Gossip Girl drama, and it can only be a good thing for viewers, right?

There will definitely be more Mädchen Amick and Catherine Mason this season. You know you love her.

Hey, you can check out our featured actresses on their own respective profiles on the Internet Movie Database: check out Anna Torv's here, Dania Ramirez's here, and Mädchen Amick's here.

As long as TV keeps coming up with delicious eye-candy, this blog's feature on "Favorite TV Chicks" will be on hand to get to know more about our fine female performers who make our TV shows a little bit more interesting. Only on "Too Much TV | Renzie on TV!"

Cheers, everyone!

by Renzie Baluyut

You've probably been waiting for it all year- the third volume of Heroes finally made its premiere last night. I caught it myself, and liked it. I'm sure a lot of my friends did too. But in the business of television, buzz is good, but ratings ultimately matter. The question is: was the NBC drama able to hold up well enough against the fierce Monday night competition?

Not quite heroically enough, according to a report on TV.com. In fact, according to figures from The Hollywood Reporter, viewership of Heroes: Villains is rather disappointing- down 25% this season, based on ratings of the third season premiere last night, pulling in only 9.9 million sets of eyeballs.

Which meant one in four who saw the second season premiere last year was probably watching something else, leaving it up to the DVR to record the show, or just busy doing other stuff. Heroes overload, perhaps?

We had three hours' worth of Heroes last night: a 1-hour clip show at 8pm, which pretty much just brings us up to speed with what went down the past couple seasons, then you had Episodes 1 and 2 of the "Villains" volume: "The Second Coming" at 9pm and "The Butterfly Effect" at 10pm.

Understand, however, that in my case, I also want to catch my other favorite Monday night shows- specifically: Gossip Girl (on The CW, at 8pm), How I Met Your Mother (on CBS, at 8:30pm), The Sarah Connor Chronicles (on FOX, at 9pm). So thank Bob for DVR's.

Now that's just MY demographic. What about the rest of Monday night primetime-viewing America? It seemed that ABC's Dancing with the Stars pulled in 21.1 million viewers- more than twice the number of Heroes' viewers- at 9pm, and then CBS kicks NBC's ass at 10pm with David Caruso's screaming hot shades with CSI: Miami's 16.9 million viewers.

The biggest draw for Monday night however, seemed to have come from Monday Night Football, with the return of Bret Favre, so all around, even the other Monday night shows got hit: The Sarah Connor Chronicles only had 5.8 million viewers, Prison Break (also on FOX) also took a slight dive, and so did Gossip Girl, which saw 20% less viewers compared to last week.

Possibly impressive: comedy newcomer Worst Week garnered more than 11 million viewers last night- still at least a million more viewers than the Heroes season 3 premiere.

I'm still hoping that our heroes (and villains) would rally by next week. Sure looks like the Petrellis have some hustling to do.

Cheers, everyone!

Summer is right on top of us- with the last season's shows already wrapping up, and networks announcing their primetime lineups for the coming fall. Welcome to Renzie Reviews the 2008 Fall Lineup- in this post we cover NBC.


Returning Favorites on NBC

We'll be seeing new seasons of our favorites "30 Rock", "Chuck", "Heroes", "Life", "My Name Is Earl" and "The Office".

Also coming back are "Medium", "Lipstick Jungle", "Law & Order: SVU", "Law & Order", "Friday Night Lights", "ER", "Deal or No Deal", "Dateline NBC", "The Biggest Loser" and "The Apprentice".

Cancelled Shows

I was hoping they might be able to breathe new life into "Bionic Woman". Oh well- so much for that.

Axed this season were mostly game shows and competitions: "1 vs 100", "Amne$ia", "Clash of the Choirs", "My Dad is Better than Your Dad", "Phenomenon", and "The Singing Bee".

Also cancelled were "Las Vegas" and "Journeyman".

"Quarterlife" heads on over to NBC's sister cable channel Bravo.

New Shows on NBC

For new shows, there's a still-untitled spin-off of "The Office" in the pipeline, the new Christian Slater spy-drama "My Own Worst Enemy", a new Molly Shannon comedy "Kath & Kim", and the new Howie Mandell show, "Howie Do It".

Don't forget the re-imagined "Knight Rider"- though we heard it hardly has anything to do with the pilot that aired earlier this year.

Other new shows include dramas "Crusoe", "Kings", "The Listener", "Merlin", "The Philanthropist", and documentary/reality shows "America's Toughest Jobs", "The Chopping Block", "Shark Taggers", and "Who Do You Think You Are?"


Keep track of your favorite shows for the coming fall season on my continuing coverage: Renzie Reviews the 2008 Fall Lineup- our next posts will be covering ABC, FOX, CBS and The CW.

Cheers, everyone!

Finally, Jericho fans will be getting what they paid for in truckloads of nuts! A new episode comes out on Feb 12. So if you feel like doing some homework just before the new season premiere, you still have time to do some surfing or even watching the last few episodes all over again- which is what I'll probably be doing.

While we do have some shows to tide us over for now- The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Project Runway, The Apprentice and Lost, I'd sure like to get some resolution done for the whole lot of shows left midway through their respective seasons.

So here I am, still keeping tabs on the shows I usually watch. There are actually a lot of people asking me if a certain show has new episodes out, or if I know when a new show is coming back- so I thought I'd do everyone a service by posting a quick update on some of our favorite shows right here.

• 30 Rock last aired Episode 10 of Season 2 last Jan 10. It's been weeks since we got anything new.
  
• Bionic Woman aired Episode 8 "Do Not Disturb" last Nov 28- still no news on when we're getting more Jamie Sommers.
  
• Battlestar Galactica comes back with a fresh new season on April 4. Time to watch the earlier 1970s series?
• Chuck has already come back from Christmas break, airing two new episodes on January 24, but hasn't come up with new ones since then. We have 13 Chuck episodes so far.
  
• Gossip Girl came back on January 2, but hasn't aired another episode since January 9. We're also at 13 episodes for Gossip Girl for now.
  

• Grey's Anatomy came back with "Lay Your Hands On Me" last January 10- but that was it. Nothing new from the guys since then.
• No word from Heroes yet. Their last episode was last Dec 3, "Powerless".
• Nothing new from the guys of "How I Met Your Mother" since the last December 10 show, "The Platinum Rule".
• Earl and the gang of My Name Is Earl came back last January 10 with "Bad Earl"; we have yet to hear from them after that.
• We have word from the boys of Reaper- they'll be out with a brand new episode on March 6.

• Scrubs last went on with "My #1 Doctor" last December 6. No word yet when the guys will be out with a new episode.
• Smallville already came back with 3 new episodes since the break: "Persona" last Jan 31, "Siren" last Feb 7 and "Fracture" out this week.
• So far so good for Supernatural- they've come back from the holiday hiatus, with last week's "Dream a Little Dream of Me", and "Mystery Spot" out this week for Valentines' Day.
• I miss the guys from The Office- the last episode we saw from them was last November's "The Deposition".