Scranton Area Paper Company, Dunder Mifflin Apologizes To Valued Client; Some Companies Still Know How Business Is Done

Tons of TV talk because Thursday is the greatest TV day in the world.

The Office: So much hilarity tonight. I had to watch it a second time just to catch everything (like I need a reason to rewatch the episode). The show had wonderful bookends with Jim and Dwight doing fantastic impressions of one another. Then we got into the main plot of the obscene watermark, which was even more obsence than I envisioned it being. Creed got to play a large role in everything and of course, was his usual creepy self throughout the day's events. Also great was Kelly teaching the accountants how to handle PR and their pathetic attempts. Kevin was so awesome with both his Australian accent and then his digs on Angela later on. Michael's apology video was typical Michael, which we've come to love and enjoy. About the only thing that fell flat for me was the Jim and Andy, excuse me Drew, subplot. But overall, another gem from the Dunder Mifflin crew.

My Name is Earl: Tonight's episode was a perfect example of what a great show it can be. It does the best job of blending sweet, wholesome stories with the occassion bizarre or raunchy humor. I loved seeing Earl's quest for his GED and getting a chance to be on the other side of the desk to see what he was like when he was in high school. Being a teacher, the whole storyline struck a chord with me and I can relate. The music choices for the episode were also top notch. Nice job who ever decided to include "Lean On Me" at the point when Earl was seemingly getting through to a student and "Another One Bites the Dust" during the teachers' revenge sequence. This show works perfect in the 8:00 slot because it's a good warm-up show for the rest of the night.

30 Rock: A bit of a disappointment, especially because it was the season finale. After doing such a great job the past weeks introducing all of these interesting storylines, they tried bringing closure to all of them here and didn't properly do any of them justice. I wonder if they were really worried about not getting picked up for a second season and felt they couldn't leave anything open-ended. Also, I wasn't enamored with Sean Hayes as Kenneth's cousin. I've never cared for his work and I really didn't think he added much here. I think the highlights of the night were the return of Dr. Spaceman (you gotta love Parnell) and Kenneth using Liz' "by the hammer of Thor" exclamation. Sad to see the season end on a downer, but I know they'll be back in rare form next season. That is, unless Alec Baldwin leaves. Then the show could be in trouble.

Survivor: Not as strong of an episode as last week, but still a marked improvement over the beginning of the season. Mookie and Alex looting through YauMan's bag was a pretty shady move, but I'm glad to see that they didn't benefit from it. Who knows, this reveal may play a role down the line, as Yau said, but I don't think it's going to be too consequential. I mean, it's not like it wouldn't have been too hard to figure out anyways. The reward challenge was basically a retread of previous challenges. I'm torn on the immunity challenge though. On one hand it was a glorified game of Battleship, but seeing Probst use the pryo machine was cool. There's always that "luck" immunity challenge every year and depending on who wins it, it's either viewed as great or lousy. Thankfully Stacy won it here, which allowed things to pretty much stay at the status quo. Looks like Alex will try and stir up more shit next week, but I have a feeling it won't do him any good.

CSI: What is it with shows doing non-traditional episodes this week. First, we had the overly depressing episode of House. Now we get this rather jokey episode of CSI. It wasn't a bad episode, it's just not their forte and whenever they step out of their safety zone, they run into trouble. I will say that the idea of a guy receiving several death blows of various kinds before actually dying is intriguing. Unfortunately the way they played it out, the audience got onto the joke after the first two failed confessions and then it just because a waiting game until the actual C.O.D. was revealed. As I said with House, shows like this are fine on rare occasions, they just better not make a habit of doing them.

Odds and ends: Just a couple of quick notes. What was up with a mother and daughter getting called down to contestant's row today on Price is Right. Bob finally got one of his infamous "historic moments" right. Two family members on one show doesn't seem fair. Thankfully only of of them got up on stage. Also, I finally saw the new episode of Mythbusters about ninja myths. While the show's concept is neat and I'm sure the crew had a lot of fun doing them, the episode was rather wasteful. I highly doubt that anyone believe that any of those myths were going to turn out to be true. I will admit Jamie's "water" at the end of the show was pretty sweet. I've got to make me some of that.

Tons of TV Talk

I have a lot of catching up to do, so let me get right into it:

Heroes: Simply put, awesome! Even though I had figured a lot of stuff out based on NBC's endless promotions for the shows return, I still loved every mintue of it. Let's me say right now that Nathan is a complete scumbag. How dare he put the election before Claire. Frankly, I don't trust any of the Petrellis and no one should be associating themselves with them at all right now. I'm glad that HRG, Parkman and Ted are all free, but I really worry about them, especially HRG. The scene in the diner (nice callback there) shows just how little HRG knows and I really hopes he can avoid severe reprecussions from The Company. Speaking of the Company, Candace sure is one evil woman. Toying with HRG's emotions and then facilitating Linderman's abduction of Micah. Dressing like a schoolgirl stripper just adds to her devilish ways. I'm loving the Linderman character. He's a bad guy that you actually want to see stick around. Here's hoping we continue to learn more about his and his "friends" past throughout the rest of the season. The Sylar stuff was cool, but I had figured out Issac was a goner. BTW, how funny was Sylar's painting? He may be an artist when it comes to fixing watches, but he's clueless when it comes to canvas. I could go on and on about this episode, but we've got more to discuss.

24: After rebounding the week before, the show went back into its pathetic ways this week. The botched rescue of Audrey gets a major "DOH!" from all aspects of it. Then again, we all knew Jack wasn't going to get blown up. And while Jack was pretty much standing around waiting for Cheng for most of the hour, that meant we were forced to endure more White House melodrama. Daniels and his assistant making out was total ick. And then of course, there was the whole storyline involving Bill ouster. CTU had been a pretty embarassing organization this entire season, but with Bill gone, it's a complete joke. Chloe is now drowning in a sea of ineptitude there. These last few episode had better be Jack-centric or else the show may permanently alienate its fans.

House: A major downer of an episode this week. I'll tolerate it on occassion, but let's hope this isn't a norm. Nobody had it good this week. Certainly the focus was on Foreman and the pain he was suffering over losing a patient and having to see his mom in her state of dementia. But you also had Chase and Cameron locked in a stalemate over their nonexistant relationship. And then you had House agonizing over whether Wilson and Cuddy had feelings with each other. The episode still had plenty of great quips, none of which I can remember at this point unfortunately. Anyways, I fully expect them to rebound with another good episode next week.

Lost: First off...Mikhail, still alive = awesome. I thought that character had a lot more to offer, so I was pleasantly surprised by that twist. I don't know how he faked his death, but hopefully we'll get that answer someday. The main story involving the Sun and Jin flashback was, as is always the case with their flashbacks, very touching and moving. It also nicely gave us some more background into the debt Jin had to pay off for Mr. Kwon. It was so nice to see that the baby is Jin's, despite this seemingly spelling doom for Sun. I loved returning to the Staff hatch and this time we got to see the creepy vault room where supposedly, pregnant women came to die. The final scenes gave us two pretty awesome, "can't wait til next week" moments. First there was Juliette's "I hate you". It wasn't clear to me whethere she was still recording at the time (I'm leaning toward no), but regardless, it continues to muddy the waters of her true intentions behind her actions. Secondly, was the revelation behind the parachustist that Flight 815 had been found and that there were no survivors. I'm so glad to see this show bounce back after such a slow start. It looks like we finally see Locke again next week (thank heaven), so I'm sure we'll be in for some more awesomeness then.

Patience is a virtue....or so they say

Sorry for the lack of posting lately. I'm hitting that end of the year crunch at school. I promise to get caught up as soon as I can. Believe me, I've got plenty to say about Heroes, 24, House and all sorts of other TV goodness. Just hang in there and I'll get back to ranting and raving soon enough

Sunday Night TV

The Amazing Race Aarrgh, another non-elimination leg? Why weren't these spaced out better throughout the season? But I gues I'll tolerate it since it means the Cha-Chas are out of it yet. I can't believe Eric and Danielle overcame being marked for elimination and the yield. I hope the producers aren't trying to produce them as likeable underdogs because there's nothing likeable about their personalities. I did love how Eric mentioned is rapidly receeding hairline and then wore a cap in his post-leg interview. Ha! The Beauty Queens were rolling this week, which I hope doesn't mean that they are due for a fall. They've just played such a smart race that I would hate to see them get bested by E & D or worse, the Schmirnas. The postleg interviews seemed to indicate that next week would be the finale, but they didn't specifically say that it is the last episode, so I don't know what to expect. Maybe they'll keep doing non-elimination legs until the Schmirnas finish last.

The Simpsons It was another nice, but ultimately forgettable episode. Having Marge enter the world of MMOGs was unique, but I think a better story would have been having her get involved with online gambling, given her past addiction. The soccer subplot really seemed tacked on as a result of a thin A story, but I didn't mind it too much because I always love the Lisa and Homer interactions. The gaming stuff provided some good, albeit gory, visual gags including Nelson's bat falling into the fire, the bullies forgetting the keys to run and the townspeople using Bart's intestines in replace of ribbons to dance around the pole.

Well, I wasn't pretty, but...

So the Tribe managed to take 2 out of 3 from the Devil Rays, but they sure struggled to do so. This a a team that the Indians should have swept handily. Clearly, they still haven't rebounded from the ugliness in the Bronx. Here's hoping that our ninth inning comeback victory today is able to put a spark into this team. If our offense doesn't get out of this funk that they are in soon, we could be in for a long season. Next up is a short, two-game set against the Twins. Sweeping them would be great because it's against a divisional rival and it will have meant that we would salavage a 4-4 record on this road trip. OK, that's enough baseball for now...time to bury my head back in the books.

Thursday's terrific TV

Man, even without new episodes of The Office and CSI, we still had a good night of television.

30 Rock: Man, I thought I was in heaven when I saw positive Cleveland references on How I Met Your Mother. Now 30 Rock is showing Cleveland some love too. I cannot believe I just watched a show on national TV that had shoutouts to St. John Bosco and Big Creek Parkway. Totally awesome. Even if the focus had been on a city like St. Louis, this would have been a great episode. They are really doing a nice job of developing ongoing storylines like the Lemon/Floyd and Jack/Phoebe relationships. You also have Tracy's Jefferson movie subplot taking another hilarous turn with the Black Crusaders. It's a shame that this show is firing on all cylinders with only one episode left this season. I really hope people continue to tune into this show as it deserves high ratings.

Survivor: I've given this season a lot of flak for the lame have/have not twist. But they sure went a long way to redeeming themselves tonight. The last twenty minutes of the show was Survivor at its best. That was crazy seeing all the plotting and scheming going on. It was refreshing to see everyone trying to play the game. Too often you just have one or two who strategize while everyone else lays around waiting to see what will happen. Now, not everyone is doing a good job playing the game (I'm looking at you Dreamz), but at least everyone is putting in an effort. Best of all, the episode ended positively as Earl's alliance remained in tact. Now there's an immunity idol back in play and I have a feeling things are going to get a whole lot more interesting from here on out.

My Name is Earl: Not as good as 30 Rock or Survivor tonight, but they really set the bar high. This episode had its moments and once again was a solid episode. Give Earl credit for its consistency. It's rarely the funniest show of the night, but it never really has a bad episode either. Anyways, nice job by the casting dept. for getting Norm Macdonald to play Burt Reynolds son. Norm did great with the role and was very funny, in his jackass sort of way. I loved the shoutouts to Silver Spoons and the Fall Guy. I wonder if they'll get any flack for having a scene involving Norm's character shooting an actual gun at children. I wouldn't be surprised if that ruffles the feathers of a couple of people. Despite that faux pas, this was a good episode.

Hi, I'm a Marvel...and I'm a DC

Well, after being in such a foul mood after the Indians game, this helped put a smile back on my face. Check out this video that parodies the Apple/PC commercials. As Homer Simpson would say, "It's funny, cuz it's true".



These guys have done three other ones, so be sure to check them out on YouTube as well.

I'm sick to my stomach

The Indians looked absolutely horrible and got schooled for three straight games against the Yankees. Tue. and Wed. our starting pitching was terrible and today Borowski gives up 6 runs in the ninth for the Yanks to come back. Worst of all was our hitting. In the first two games, the Yanks had a couple of not-ready-for-primetime minor leaguers starting on the mound and we made them look like Roger Clemens. There has been absolutely no situational hitting by the team in over a week. Yes, we scored some runs today, but we could have had so much more. Twice we had the bases loaded with less than two outs and left it that way. Casey Blake needs to be benched immediately. He has been horrendous with guys in scoring position this year. We head to Tampa Bay next, which should get us back on track. But after the devastating loss today, I don't know what to expect.

By the way, I'll probably talk about the Tribe after each series and summarize my thoughts then. Then again, with the way they're playing lately, I may not bother writing about them at all.

Wednesday TV Wrap-Up

Lost: Not as strong of an episode as the last few have been, but I'll let that slide since it seemed that this was meant to be a set-up episode rather than one that's filled with monumental events. Neither Demond's flashback nor his flashfuture were terribly interesting. But like I said, the reveal of this mysterious woman who's landed on the island and knows Desmond is establishing something potentially interesting for the next few episodes. Most notable about this episode were the fun interactions between Desmond, Charlie, Hurley and Jin. It's always nice to see some levity on a show that is pretty intense most of the time. The small stuff with Jack/Juliette/Kate/Sawyer was interesting as well and also meant to set-up a bigger blow-off. Sawyer's really come into his own this season, I feel, and I hate to see him be treated as just a booty call for Kate because she can't have Jack. Then again, as far as booty calls go, Kate's not too shabby. And one last thing...he may not have made an appearance, but it was at least nice to hear Sawyer mention Bernard in reference to his Phil Collins tape he swiped. I was beginning to think he and Rose had falled into the hatch crater and everyone forgot about them.

Edit: While I put my thoughts for Lost up last night, I decided to post this link to the guy who recaps Lost episodes for Entertainment Weekly. You won't find a more in-depth analysis of each week's episode anywhere else. Some really cool stuff, especially if you're into the whole mythology of the show. Enjoy!

Mythbusters: This certainly wasn't my favorite episode of the show, but it was a very typical episode for them. You had Jaime and Adam tackling an off-the-wall myth that initially sounds too crazy to be true until they start testing it and make you think it just might work. In this case it was the idea that flying birds could actually make a truck lighter. I was impressed with their efforts on this one and despite their worries that fans will protest, I think they fully busted this one. Then you had the build team working on a myth that you know was put on the show simply so they could cause destruction to a large object. This time it was a speed boat that they were trying to bifurcate. Of course, they couldn't get it to split, so they just destroyed the thing. Given the pain they seemingly went through to get this one done, they deserved to have a little smashin' fun. On a side note, I'm curious as to when Mythtern Jess is going to get promoted to the build team. She had a much larger presence than normal in the episode and actually got to be included in the animation to illustrate the boat myth. I'd love to see her become a permenant member of the crew, but I'm not sure it'll happen. Having another smart, yet sexy female on the show certainly couldn't hurt, that's for sure.

Just who will "Come on down"?

So yesterday, it had been reported that the field of candidates to replace Bob Barker had been whittled down to three: George Hamilton (Mr. Tantastic), Todd Newton (host of Whammy! and other assorted game shows) and Mark Steines (Entertainment Tonight reporter).

Then today, TMZ (yeah, yeah, I know...a real bastion of journalism) reports that current Family Feud host John O'Hurley is the front-runner. They've since updated their story a couple of times and the bottom line is that nobody is saying one way or the other whether he's a legitimate candidate or not. Read story here

Here's hoping they have someone chosen in time for the CBS upfronts in May. Although, I'm still holding out hope that Bob will reconsider since he's looked as great as ever these past few months.

Speaking of which, did anyone catch today's episode. A truly astonishing thing happened. A guy was playing Half Off and before the game began, he immediately chose Box #4. After eliminating some of the boxes, #4 was still available, so of course he chose it. Don't you know it had the $10,000 in it. That guy needs to work for the psychic hotline. Either that or he should go on Deal or No Deal. If I find video of this, I'll post it up here.

Seriously?!?

Once again, House delivers tonight. And as typically is the case, it's the side stories, not the medical mystery, that deliver the best parts. I always love when they show unsophisticated side and tonight we got two gems in his watching wrestling (yay! Although, c'mon House...TNA?) and his glee over getting his letter printed in the tabloid. Then there was House's jealousy/curiosity over Wilson's date with Cuddy, which brought some great laugh out loud moments. On the more depressing side, we saw Chase's fail to get Cameron to say she wants a relationship too. Give the poor guy a break Cameron! With all these romances going on at the hospital, the hormones are flying everywhere. And that's not counting in the two child patients tonight who were dying as a result of having too many of them. Another top notch effort tonight and I'm so glad for this show; otherwise I'd have nothing to watch on Tuesday nights. Perish the thought I should actually be doing school work!

New Office deleted scene

Click the post title to check out the third deleted scene from this past week's "Safety Training" episode. If it wasn't clear before, I think this clip solidifies how much danger Michael would have been in had he jumped.

Edit: A fourth one has now also been added. This one is fantastic and once again showcases what a great ensemble cast they have.

Yet another morsel of goodness left out of the episode.

Monday TV Roundup

A pretty thin night with no How I Met Your Mother and Heroes (thank god that returns next week) and RAW basically doing a glorified house show. But here's what we did get:

The King of Queens: It's really a shame that this show as ending as it really hasn't decreased in quality, like so many comedies do by this time in their run. KoQ has never been the best sitcom, but it has always been consistently funny; a rare find in three camera sitcoms these days. Anyways, tonight's episode introduced an interesting concept - Doug becoming a vegan. There was nothing really wrong with the episode, but I would have liked to see it explored further. I mean, we barely got to see Doug's friends' reactions to the change and that could have supplied a ton of good humor. As it is, the show still provided some decent laughs, which is all I ask for.

24: Well after having fans endure some 17 odds hours of complete boredom and idiocy, this show seems to finally be back on track. Plenty of Jack! Audrey in peril! Chloe working behind CTU's back! On top of that, it appears Daniels is back as Commander-in-Chief. We may not agree with his politics, but he clearly makes for better TV than milquetoast Wayne Palmer. I liked how they were able to connect the China stuff to the Russian nuke plot without having it be completely ludicrous. Next week's standoff should be exciting and let's hope Jack and Audrey make it out all right. This show doesn't need to be killing off anymore beloved characters.

Is it April 23rd yet?!?!

I'm going crazy waiting for Heroes to return and I know I can't be the only one. To help make these seven days go a little quicker, here's a new extended promo for the final five episodes of the season:

Sunday Night TV

Amazing Race: A fairly ho-hum episode tonight. With this few teams left and knowing the finale isn't next week, it was obvious that this was going to be a non-elimination round. All of the tasks tonight seemed to be pretty cool, but they came off a little bland. I don't know if it was the teams involved in them or what, but the stunt car, kung-fu fighting, and kicking down doors activities did not live up to their potential. In the end, more airline problems for Eric and Danielle caused them to finish last and now they're marked for elimination. Let's hope the penalty is enough to eliminate them next week. At this point I'm rooting for the Beauty Queens, but won't mind if the Cha-Chas win. I'm worried though that one of them will suffer the yield that was teased in tonight's preview.

The Simpsons: I caught a couple of reruns that I hadn't seen before tonight. One dealt with the documentarian who had chronicled all of the Springfield folk over the past 32 years and was back for an update. The other involved Cletus' kids becoming singing sensations while Bart visited a psychatrist. Both of them had decent plots/concepts but were lacking somewhat in the humor department. Most new episodes seem to have an either-or method to them. Either the plot is strong but the jokes are tired/nonexistent. Or the humor is strong, but the plot is all over the place. I'm hoping they're saving all of their best material for this summer's movie.

Drive: I didn't bother with this. It seemed to have an interesting premise, but I just can't add another show onto my schedule right now. Especially one that is likely to be off the air again in 3 weeks. Such is the life of the mid-season replacement. Just ask Andy Barker P.I.

Take Two

So I've restarted my blog site with a somewhat new look. As usual, I stopped updating my previous blog site because I felt like no one was looking at it. However, I discovered that a lot of people weren't commenting because they didn't want to register with Blogger. Well I've taken care of that problem now. Anyone can post a comment if they like. If you're not a Blogger user, then your post will just be anonymous. It would be nice if you included your name in the post, but nobody's forcing you to. So enjoy once again as I try to enlighten you all on what's happening in TV, movies and anything else I want to talk about.