TV Blog From The TV MegaSite

The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 49

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 20:00:22 GMT

I finally did some posting for more help this week! Got more to do, it takes a while. I got the stupidest email from soaps.com I went to all of the trouble to read their stupid rules about posting on their forums, and it said "no links to your site", so I made sure not to put any links, as I generally do, even in my signature. I just put my name, TV MegaSite, and then 'we need help" - this was my signature and I made my comments on their forum. So they consider this "advertising" even though there was no link and I made comments about the shows, not just posting for help. Someone there is a control freak because they have more rules than I have ever seen on any board! Their email was very snarky, too.

Anyway, I hope we get some more help soon....we sure need it!!

Next Monday we start Phase One of our site's new design etc. I can't wait.

I have really been enjoying the primetime shows returning, even though, as I mentioned last week, some of the scripts have been uneven.

I guess they can't all be Battlestar Galactica quality!

I was sorry to see New Amsterdam finish...hope they bring that one back. Good scifi and cop show.

I guess a lot of good shows are coming back this week and next. There will be a lot more, I'm sure, as we get closer to May Sweeps!

I still haven't watched last week's new Law & Order: SVU. I taped it for my m-i-l while she was out of town, so we will watch it together. She loves that one and the regular L&O. So do I!

Ghost Whisperer should be coming back this week, and I think CSI and Without a Trace?

Smallville was good last week, but it had some stupid stuff, too. They need to work more on their plots sometimes and having the characters do really stupid things. I hope it will still be good season, since the show's regular writers/creators are leaving. They can't kill anyone else off except Chloe, so I don't know what they will do. I guess we will see less of everyone and it will just be Lois and Jimmy! No, just kidding...sort of!

The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 48

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:19:36 GMT

I am so lame at keeping this blog up...

Our site is about to start preliminary work on getting a new design! Yay!! It will be a design that loads much faster, has very few ads, and will be much easier for us to edit. Right now we use Microsoft Frontpage, but our future site will use a Content Management System, which is much easier. We might also have some sort of Wiki-type thing so people can post stuff on the site.

We still have all of our volunteers, though, and need more....I have been almost as bad writing the Y&R updates as writing in this blog, but I hope to catch up sometime this week (at least on the past two weeks' worth). We have a new B&B writer, so that's a good start. We need a new Guiding Light recap writer as well. Jenni, our Days of Our Lives update writer, just took over the Days recaps as well, which helps out Danielle, leaving her more time for the Primetime Forum and Days of Our Lives Best Lines.

Boo has been very sick but will now be back to keeping up with the primetime section better, especially the news page and stuff our volunteers send in (mostly for the episode guides).

I am really hoping we can start building some more primetime pages and getting more volunteers to help us with that section, as well as getting more daytime recap writers. I hope someone reading this will want to come join our great team! I see big things ahead of us for the future.

Lately I have been getting bored by the soaps. I think it is taking some of them some time to overcome the writer's strike (primetime, too, but more on that later). AMC was really bad for a while, but it's getting better...but it mostly still bores me. I can't watch GH any more, it's just too awful, but I might watch if Anna comes back. I tried watching Guiding Light the two weeks that Gus died and they all mourned him. The Gus stuff was the only part worth watching, frankly. ATWT has been really boring, and now they are getting rid of Martha Byrne and have this boring Mike replacement. Sofie needs to go, too. I probably should quit whining and watch OLTL because that was good all year and probably still is. I just got out of the habit of watching it. The only ones I am watching regularly now are Y&R and B&B. Usually B&B is too boring to watch, too, just depends on the day. I am sick of the Which Woman Will Get Nick? game show. I do love the actor who plays Storm, though, so I will keep watching for him, even though they have turned him into a psycho. Y&R is generally good, but some days are like watching paint dry. In short, they are good if you are doing something else while you watch them, but otherwise they are too boring to watch if you have to focus all your attention on them (unless you do a lot of fast-forwarding). I'm hoping they are just saving their good stories for May sweeps!

Primetime shows, which I'm very glad to have back, are spotty. Some episodes are great, some, not so much. OMG I watched this horrible episode of CSI: NY. I usually love that show. the production values, acting, etc were all great as usual, but the story was so damned obvious that I knew what was going to happen 15 minutes into it!! They shouldn't be that obvious. I am not the type who likes to figure out what's going to happen. I prefer to just sit there and let the story wash over me and happen. So if I figure it out, that means it is REALLY obvious. It was one where the little girl was kidnapped and held in the apartment next to the detective woman on the show (whose name escapes me). And, really, if you lived next door to a cop, would you kidnap a girl?? But okay, maybe I can buy that this woman was just plain loony...but the story was so stupid. It's not good if you figure it out long before the so-called detectives do.

I am really enjoying Medium lately, though.

OK, gotta run, have a great week!

The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 47

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:42:36 GMT

Our site is still doing very well! But we are having problems getting more volunteers lately, and we have lost a lot. I don't know why, but it's a darn shame.

I posted around a lot for help this week; I need to do more. I hope we get some new good volunteers!

We have a new section of our site devoted to the comedy-drama "Boston Legal". It still needs some work, but there's some great stuff there so far.

I am still waiting on our "angel investor" to partner with me and help redesign and promote the site. Cross your fingers for me! He is an honest person, just busy.

I'm so glad the writer's strike is over! But in some ways I'm wondering if it was not long enough...I don't think the networks really learned much about how people were sick of reality shows. Well, hopefully it will not be a big disaster in that sense. I worry that they did not really do their research. Most of the strike took place during the holidays when shows would be in reruns anyway. We never really had a week, I don't think, except perhaps Christmas, where there was not one new show. There were always a few leftover episodes (not even counting reality shows) and replacement shows. I kind of enjoyed the lightening of the load, and I'm still playing catchup.

I have two DVR's, with four tv's, and I record a lot. I did catch up on everything on my main DVR, except the soaps (there's always more soaps!), but I am still catching up on shows from the second DVR.

Speaking of soaps, they were so dull lately, except for Days of Our Lives, which has been really good for a change. I have just been tired of the soaps because they are either so bad or just plain boring. Maybe they will get better again now that real writers are back. I didn't watch many anyway during the "scab" period. Some soaps just had a fi-core writer, but it was obviously too much for the fi-core writers since the shows really sucked. It's kind of like they have all been treading water story-wise until the "real" writers came back.

The B&B episodes were still very exciting, but I don't like how they went back to "Brooke ping-pongs between Nick and Ridge while Taylor has a meltdown", even though it did bring James back. I don't know if that was the strike's fault or something they planned all along, but we've all had enough of Brooke ping-ponging. I liked Nick and Taylor together. Now they've ruined all that. I have enjoyed the stuff with Stephanie/Eric/Donna, though.

I have been watching Y&R but fell behind...trying to write the summaries daily for our site since I don't have anyone else to do it! It had some good days but some very boring days, too (like watching paint dry). I stopped watching GH because it was just so bad. Sometimes I will tune in to AMC or ATWT or GL...just boring shows for the most part with replacement actors, too.

I am still enjoying "Homicide Life on the Street" reruns late at night on the Sleuth channel. Great show. Probably the best cop show ever. I don't know why they can't make a great show like that again.

I'm almost caught up on episodes of "Boston Legal". What a great show that is. I just love the people on it, and it's so funny, and it makes some great points, too.

I finally finished watching "Life on Mars" season two. That is an awesome show. You must watch it if you get a chance. Unfortunately it's not out on DVD in the U.S. Weird ending but not bad. I don't know if I want to watch the sequel show, though, since it doesn't have Sam and he's my favorite on it.

I am so glad Jericho is back, and it's been just awesome!! I even had a Jericho dream last night. It was very weird.

I am glad "Back to You" is on this week...I like that FOX sitcom a lot.

I have not yet watched last night's Oscars...but I did record it and hope to watch it later this week.

The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 46

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 16:13:45 GMT

Each month we have Volunteer of the Month. In January it was Jeannie, who writes some of our One Life to Live updates. I love the VOM and wish I could pick everyone! But there's only 12 months per year and we have a lot of volunteers! Each volunteer usually gets a certificate in the mail and either a check, cash or gift certificate. Usually I choose VOM based on how reliable the person is. Do they turn their work in regularly? Do they let us know when they can't? Do they check the forum like they're supposed to? Are they "difficult"? etc.

The site is going well, but I need to go post for more help. I really hate doing this, but it has to be done. I have to post around on soap opera message boards, forums, and mailing lists, to ask for more volunteers to write recaps (actually it's for our updates, which are the detailed recaps). It's hard to find people who are willing to help, write well, and are reliable. Plus the updates are not easy to write. Even if you watch the show, spending the time to write up a detailed summary is a big pain in the butt! I know because I have done it many times myself, and even though it does get easier the more you do it, it's still a big pain in the butt. :) We've been very lucky to get anyone we can to do this.

One of our volunteers, Dani, was writing four different ones, but she has been very sick, in the hospital, etc. so it's been hard to replace her or find anyone to fill in for very long.

I have been trying to write the Y&R updates but ugh, did I mention it's a pain in the butt? :) So I am behind on it...hoping to catch up this weekend.

We also need to have someone to write the SOD and SOW scoops. This means you get the soap magazine and summarize the spoilers, news and info...then we put it on our site. For this, I do pay for a subscription to the magazines. It's hard to find someone who wants to do this every week, who also can write well and follow directions. At least, it's been difficult to find anyone who wants to do it and is good at it. Hilary was great at it, but sadly she passed away a few years ago. Mica was doing them but always had difficulty finding the time every week to do it, and she quit finally. So I have been doing it when I can. Problem is that it has to be done by Tuesday night or it's not worth it - the info is old after that.

And then also we have our newsletter scoops every sunday that get sent out...this is not hard, either, but I have had a terrible time finding anyone to keep doing them, aside from our Michele and Cheryl who do a great job every week doing the Days and Passions newsletter. So I have been doing them, but some weeks I just run out of time on top of everything else.

It seems like the past month or so I have had a lot of ennui when it comes to the site. I never seem to feel motivated. It comes and goes that way I guess. Or it may still be post-holiday blahs, who knows!! The only thing that keeps me going is that so many people rely on me, and on our site...don't want to let them down!

One thing I have certainly been doing a lot of is watching TV. I don't know why anyone bitches about the strike because I've had PLENTY to watch!

On cable I have been watching new episodes of Flash Gordon (just finished this week), Monk, and other shows. And the nets have been showing some unaired episodes that they still have, like House, CSI: NY, and other shows. And of course there's always soap operas!

I stopped watching GH for the most part because it's not only run by a scab writer now, but it is just plain badly written. I can't stand to watch it. Occasionally if I find it on, I see what's going on with the new character Claudia, played by Sarah Brown. Only a soap would bring back an actor as a completely different character and expect us to buy it! I just can't, but it is great to see her. And also great to see Mac and Felicia. The rest I really don't care enough about to watch. I mean, I like the actors, but I don't like seeing the bad writers write for ones I like such as Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis) because they just ruin her.

One soap that's been excellent is Days of Our Lives. I haven't watched it regularly for years, but the stories the past two weeks have been riveting. I loved seeing Shirley Jones as Colleen...too bad they killed her off. I like seeing Marlena as a stronger, more pro-active character. I love what she's done to Stefano! It's about damn time. I like seeing the new John offending everyone, and it will be great to watch him work his way back to the nice guy we all know he really is. Drake Hogestyn is really a much better actor than anyone gives him credit for, and he's finally able to show it now. What's interesting is that they've pretty much said that John has to be at least 60 because that's when Colleen supposedly "died" before she gave birth to him...yet the actor is only 54 and they have never made it seem like he and Marlena are anywhere near that age. The actress who plays Marlena is indeed 60, though. It's just weird that he is Stefano's brother because there was a time when they thought he might be Stefano's son! By this new history, he can't be more than a few years younger than Stefano. You'd think that might have come up before....LOL. The scenes in Ireland were great, but the only thing that bothered me is that there was not much mention of Roman and Kimberly. You'd think Colleen or someone might have mentioned them at the end when she was dying (let alone her other great grand-children Sami, Eric, Rex, Cassie, and Brady, plus Sami's children). Oh, well.

Y&R and ATWT have both been really boring the past few weeks. ATWT really irritated me this week when Evan was holding Lucinda and Lily hostage. He has one little needle and they can't overpower him? A needle is not like a knife - he couldn't just slash them with it if they had ganged up against him. Not only do you have to plunge a needle pretty hard into a person, you then have to depress the plunger for the drug to get in there. They wouldn't have had to hold still for all that. They could have each come at him from different directions. Not to mention that he turned his back on them several times! Why didn't they just pick up a chair or something and conk him over the head?? And when Chris was in the room, there were THREE of them against him! So that whole thing was ludicrous. The whole mystery was stupid - it was pretty obvious that it was Evan doing the murders even if I hadn't read in SOD that he was leaving the show. And then how stupid was Aaron to keep losing Sofie? I mean, my god...also that whole story is stupid because if you give up a baby for adoption, you have like 6 months to change your mind, and she would have been well aware of that and been able to act on it. And like we really need another psycho bimbo on the show after all the others they've had. And then that whole next day where Sam was going to rape Carly, that sure was obvious and we knew what would happen. I'm sure Parker pulled the trigger, who else? They should have kept Wally Kurth around longer because he is always great. Just a waste of another fine actor to make him yet another psycho. I usually like this show but it has been really bad lately...probably more scab writers are to blame! I am still mad that they killed off Dusty.

Late at night I have been tuning into the Sleuth Channel that I get on DISH (Okay, my DVR has been doing the tuning in) to watch Homicide: Life on the Street. WHat a fantastic show this is! Probably the best cop show ever, period. I will have to buy the DVD's for sure. And I'm going to have to start watching The Wire on DVD as well. I didn't know the same guy did both shows. Sleuth has some great shows like the short-lived Keen Eddie starring Mark Valley, and Simon & Simon, one of my favorites.

So, there is plenty to watch - you just have to look a little bit!

The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 45

Mon, 31 Dec 2008 22:43:43 GMT

Dota

Please click on the voting icon above to vote for my blog! Thanks!

My new year's resolution is to update this blog more often! :)

Here is a new promo for "Jericho" on CBS!
We have our own Jericho page at http://tvmegasite.net/prime/shows/jericho/
So check it out!

I hope everyone had a great holiday. We have had a lot of volunteers go missing, so I apologize if you looked for something that we normally have, such as our Y&R

updates, and they weren't there. That's just what happens this time of year...people get sick, or they quit, or they go out of town.

Otherwise things are going super! We have been fixing up our primetime section, so we have tons of news and spoilers on our primetime section, and even new polls!
I hope you can check it out.

The holidays are a great time for me because I get to send out holiday cards to all of the volunteers, along with cash or gift certificates. I feel like Santa! The site makes money from ads, and I use that money to buy stuff for them.

We get ads from about 6 different places now. I apologize if anyone is offended by them. They definitely do slow down the loading of the site. It's just really hard for me to turn down ads when they make money for us. One company is even paying us cash up front! Another company is paying me for putting their TV news RSS feed on our site...which is something I was already doing, more or less, for free.

We don't like bad ads on our site - the kind that can hijack your browser. Unfortunately, it appears we do have one. The annoying thing is that I don't know where it's coming from. I'm trying to track it down. It's easy to get out of and it doesn't install anything unless you click on one of the popups, but still it's very annoying. Of course all the ad companies say it's not theirs, but one of them is either lying or doesn't know what it's doing...I've narrowed it down to two companies, so I hope to know by next week. Please let me know if you ever see anything bad on our site! It probably is not meant to be there.

It's a sad time to be a TV viewer. I fully support the writers and their strike, but the viewers are kind of caught in the middle between them and the greedy producers. We all suffer during this time. I personally don't suffer much because I have tons of tapes and DVD's, and my DVR, to keep me watching. But I know it is affecting shows I like and hope will return. It has already pushed back the premiere date of 24. This is because they like to show 24 all at once, with no repeats or interruptions, and they've not yet filmed the whole season. So they don't want to start it until they know they can show it all. I think this is kind of stupid because you can always buy the show later on DVD and watch it all together if you want.

They were going to make a second Heroes show, but they canceled that idea due to the writers' strike. That is a terrible blow for us Heroes fans.

I hope you had a nice holiday season and got plenty of TV DVD's to tide you over during the strike! I sure did. I got Jericho, Crusade, Heroes, Joan of Arcadia and some great movies. Plus, Best Buy is/was having a great sale, so I also go The Dresden Files for a really cheap price, plus they were having a BOGO sale, so I also got Larry Sanders and Kidnapped. Woo hoo!

Don't forget that cable has many shows you might have missed that you can catch up on. I have been enjoying the second season of Life on Mars on BBC America. Great show! If you love scifi, or cop shows, or 70's nostalgia, you will love this one. It's just awesome. I have been waiting for almost a year to see the second season. Or series as they call it in the UK. Unfortunately it only ran two seasons in the UK. BBC America has many great shows, not the least of which is the great UK Robin Hood series. I believe they were showing a marathon of the first season this weekend. I have it on DVD, and it is wonderful.

If you like to cook, or even just to eat, the Food Network is a lot of fun. I usually go there if I am just channel surfing. My favorite is "Good Eats", which is very entertaining and funny, as well as educational.

The daytime soaps are using their last scripts right now...I don't know exactly when they will run out of WGA scripts. A lot of them have hired what is called "core writers", which I guess they say is different from scabs. These are people who willingly gave up their WGA rights and membership in order to write. Sounds fishy to me, but if you don't care about such things, watch the soaps! They are on EVERY DAY and need viewers desperately. Right now the best soaps are One Life to Live on ABC, As The World Turns on CBS, and Days of Our Lives on NBC. If you are not a long-time viewer of these shows, don't despair because they are really easy to catch up on. Days was really in the bottom of the ratings last time I looked, but it has gotten much better and moves very fast. General Hospital is very exciting. If you watched any time in the past 30 years, you may not like it because they mostly concentrate now on mobsters. If you don't care about the show's history, it is a really fascinating show to watch. The writing is very good in many ways and can really shock you. There are many shocks and surprises. The acting is fabulous. They are known to have the best cast in daytime, and that's really not a lie. Me, I will probably not watch the soaps after Jan. 30 because I don't like to watch scab writing.

Here's a good article about the strike and how it is affecting daytime soaps.

The plot thickens at strike-hit soaps

Me, I'm just behind on watching everything anyway....as usual!!

Happy New Year!

Please sign my petition to improve Daytime TV writing!

The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 44

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 13:34:15 GMT

Dota

Please click on the voting icon above to vote for my blog! Thanks!

We have a new Q&A with actress Constance Towers on our General Hospital site! Not only does she play the great and menacing Helena Cassadine on GH, but she guest-starred on The 4400 this past summer, and she has a long and interesting career in movies, stage, and television, not to mention that she is married to former Actor John Gavin, who was also our former ambassador to Mexico! Whew! So she's a very interesting lady.

We should be getting more GH interviews soon!

Our site is going really well right now. I just wish more people would enter our contest. It's a drawing we do every month, where I pick two winners. Then they get to pick their prize from the list. I have tons and tons of DVD's and some other prizes like books, cd's, t-shirts etc. But for some weird reason, fewer and fewer people enter. It's maddening, not to mention my closet full of prizes is getting seriously overcrowded. I get a new DVD or two almost every day from Warner Brothers alone. The only thing I can think of is that there are so many bogus contests and scams out there, that people think this is one, too. That's just sad. It's a real drawing, and we don't give anyone your information. And then some people fill out the entry form but don't give me their address! I can't send you the prize without your address! Anyone who does not fill out the form completely is not eligible. And seriously, how stupid do you have to be to put your street address but not your city and state? LOL! Anyway, these promotional companies give these things away for contests on our site and others just so that you will spread the word to other people about these shows or movies. They're not doing it to steal your identities or something! Also, we have our main contest page where I put any TV-related contest that I come across.

Right now we only have about 73 volunteers...I am planning to post around for more help. They are a good group, though! I am lucky to have them. I know that seems like a lot of people, but we sometimes have 100 or more. Some people do a lot of work, and some only write one article per month. That's fine! We only take what people can give.

It's great to work for our site because we have fun things like "Volunteer of the Month" and the holiday cards and gift (which I hand-sign and send out personally, by the way), plus we make sure everyone gets credit for their work and a bio on our site, etc. It's a fun team to be part of, not to mention that hundreds of thousands of people will see your work every month! We have volunteers from all over, not just the U.S. The list includes Canada, England, Nigeria, Scotland, South Africa and more!

I guess since it's after Thanksgiving, we will start seeing reruns now. I was surprised, frankly, that there were new episodes of CSI and Without a Trace on Thursday, and that there are new episodes on CBS Friday as well. I guess they figure people might be home watching after dinner...good idea. I hate reruns.

Well, I have my DVR full of soaps, and tons of tapes of the shows I haven't yet gotten around to watching like NCIS and Ugly Betty. Well, not to mention thousands of other tapes from the past...but we won't go there ;)

I didn't think it was a very good episode of CSI. I liked the previous one they did with the lab nerds, but this one was not as good. I always love the actor who plays Hodges, though. I first noticed him on Larry Sanders, and he was also great on Veronica's Closet, even though that was an awful show. I'm so glad that he's gotten such a good role on CSI even if they do make him completely unlikeable!

Without a Trace was okay, nothing special except for Sam tracking down the father of her baby.

I got to catch up on two episodes of Criminal Minds, from the past two weeks. I love Garcia. I wonder if they will pair her with Shemar Moore's character? Not loving his got-religion story, though. I still really miss Mandy Patinkin...BOO HOO!!!

I just have to wonder how they will top themselves after having a Jeffrey-Dahmer like serial killer last week.

Have a great Thanksgiving Weekend, everyone!

The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 43

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:06:06 GMT

Dota

Please click on the voting icon above to vote for my blog! Thanks!

We have some great new interviews and Q&A's with soap opera stars coming up on our site! I will post the links here when they are up.

Make sure you check out our contests page as there are lots of TV-related contest there, not the least of which is our monthly DVD giveaway contest! I have a big closet almost literally bulging with DVD's and other stuff to give away. Warner Brothers and other companies send me them almost daily!! So please enter because we don't have that many people entering any more. We used to have thousands enter but for some reason, we get less than 100 now. It's pretty sad when I can't even give away DVD's! And they are mostly good ones, too, not lame-o ones. :)

I hope you are not all too busy planning for Thanksgiving to visit our site!

I guess we will be having a lot of re-runs this week, due to the holidays. I just can't even believe it's already Thanksgiving, can you? Seems like it was just summer yesterday. Well, maybe that's because I live in the south and it was still very hot here until about a month ago!

I have to confess that I'm two weeks behind on Boston Legal because I messed up taping the episodes a few weeks ago, and a friend is sending me the tape, so I don't want to watch THIS week's until I get that one! It is kind of a soap opera, after all...

It was a very good Law & Order SVU this week. One of my favorite actors, Arye Gross, starred in it. When he was younger, cuter, and had all of his hair, he co-starred in "Ellen" (the sitcom starring Ellen Degeneres) as her boyfriend. Yes, you read that right. She (her character, not the actress) was straight on the show. I really liked them together, so I was sad when he left town and they broke up. Then Ellen became a lesbian on the show, which was very jarring. I don't mind a sitcom that stars a lesbian, or has a lesbian character (and in fact the show was MUCH funnier once it became all about her being a lesbian because she was telling jokes that we've never heard on TV before - this was before Will & Grace). But I don't like it when they completely change a character overnight. That's just bad writing.

Anyway, I have seen him on many shows, usually playing a villain. He was a horrible rapist/attempted murderer of little girls on this week's Law & Order SUV. Yet, the way they wrote it, and the way he played it, you actually felt sorry for him. I know, weird, huh? Well, turns out he was schizo, outright crazy, and he was not taking his meds, which made him into a crazed pedophile. The whole thing stemmed from his childhood, where he witnessed his sister being gang-raped. After his sister died later on, he started having these crazy visions that she was telling him to do these terrible things to avenge her. Or something like that. Anyway, the point was, he was not really responsible for his actions because he was crazy. Moreover, since they put him back on his medication, he was horrifed and grief-stricken by what he had done. He didn't want to live. The DA was trying to keep Louisiana from extraditing him because they have the death penalty, because she felt sorry for him, but he begged her to let them put him to death. Anyway, it was a really excellent episode that showed everyone's side and all the different issues...I loved it. They did a great job. That's why I love that show. Some might find it a bit depressing, but to me it was very interesting and I just enjoyed the acting and the story.

Some shows like that one really make you think. Others are just fun, escapist entertainment, like "Bones" or "NCIS" (I love them both).

Speaking of Bones, I was thinking the other day that there sure are a lot of geeky characters on TV now. Criminal Minds has that one guy how is a total dork but brilliant. Bones is all geeks except for David Boreanaz. They have that other show "The Big Bang Theory", a sitcom about geeks. There's a dorky intern now on ER. And of course all the CSI's have their lab geeks. I guess geek is "in". And then of course geek shows like Heroes are successful, too. It's a good time to be a geek, like me! Yay!!

House was very funny this week as always. They always crack us up. Sometimes they go a little extreme for comic effect, but that doesn't bother me. Oh, forgot about Gregory House, he's kind of the ultimate geek because he has no social skills (or chooses not to use them), and he is a genius.

I caught up this week on One Life to Live finally. Yay!! Now I can start on Guiding Light or AMC.

I have been running out of room a lot on my DVR, and sometimes I forget to make room, so I lost some shows this week that i had to download or watch online, like Men in Trees, Criminal Minds, and Ghost Whisperer! I have to say I really don't like watching shows on my computer because I usually watch on the TV while I'm typing or doing something on the computer. So if I am watching on the computer, I can't do anything else, and that is, well, an inefficient use of my time!!

Well, have a good weekend!!

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The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 42

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 01:44:54 GMT

I guess I'd better post before the writer's strike leaves me nothing to talk about. Yeah, right, like that would ever happen (me having nothing to say). Ha!

I'm so grateful for all our many wonderful volunteers. Fran, one of our few proofreaders, is also now sending out our All My Children scoops newsletters for me on the weekend, and that is such a great help because there are so many of those and they all have to be done on Sunday night! Now I only have to do GH, OLTL and the CBS Soaps one. Maybe one day I will find someone else to do those!

Sadly, one of our long-time transcript proofreaders, Brandi, is leaving us, so we need someone else to proof the One Life to Live transcripts. It's not hard...if anyone wants to do it, please let me know via email!

We try to only have original writing on our site...sometimes our writers (not very many, thankfully!!) get lazy and take material from other sites. Of course I always tell them not to, but occasionally you get a very confused or deceitful person who volunteers for your site. I don't know why people would want to take credit for someone else's work, though. Some just do it because they get behind and I guess don't want to let us down. But we always catch them, eventually, because writing styles are so different. And very good writers never do this, so it's always easy to figure out when someone's writing suddenly drastically improves! Ugh. It just means more work for us because we have to then go back and delete them and rewrite them. SIGH.

Sorry to be negative. This happened yesterday and I always just feel so kicked-in-the-gut when that happens. I don't believe this person knew that what she was doing was wrong, though. She didn't steal word-for-word, so I think she thought she was just paraphrasing or something. She's a very nice person generally and has been a great volunteer up till now.

Like I said, most of our volunteers are great!!

I have been very bad about doing the Passions transcripts, updates, and recaps, so I apologize to any Passions readers out there. The show only airs on DirecTV now, not NBC, but my friend Barbara has been recording them for me and mailing me the tapes. I have just been very lazy about watching them and doing what is needed. I hope to start doing that again this week.

Our Operations Manager Boo has been helping out a lot on the primetime section, and now she is building our new section for "Boston Legal". That is a very funny show. We should have some great content up there soon. I was sorry to miss their show from two weeks ago, which was pre-empted due to a special on the California fires, and then last week I messed up the recording, but I'm going to get a tape copy. Anyway, should be a great new addition to our site!

Oh, and Boo got a phone interview with John Walsh this week from "America's Most Wanted" so make sure to check out her article!

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Well, with the writer's strike, the soaps only have new shows into December or possibly January. Some of them may hire "scabs" (non-union writers who are crossing the picket lines). If they do, I will not watch scab shows. Our site will still cover them, though. I don't want to punish visitors to our site for this. We hope to have other additional content to keep visitors interested if the soaps just show reruns and do not hire scabs. These features may include daily clips from previous episodes, more puzzles and other fun stuff, interactive games or quizzes, more articles etc. So keep tuning in to our site, even if there is nothing to tune in to on TV except reality shows and reruns! LOL!!

Primetime shows will probably last into February, I'm guessing, from what I'm reading online. I fully support the WGA (the writers' union) and what they are doing. I support most strikes and union efforts anyway, but this in particular is a good reason to strike. The greedy TV networks (or is it the production companies? Or both) don't want to pay writers what they are due for DVD's and internet downloads like iTunes and Unbox. That is just not right. I just hope the strike doesn't go on for too long as it will only hurt everyone involved, not to mention the rest of us!

For me personally, I have tons of tapes and DVR stuff to watch, even if there's no new programming...but I am not happy that some of my favorite shows will get cut short this season.

END OF SOAPBOX!! LOL!!!

Did you catch the CSI and Without a Trace crossover 2-hour episode this past Thursday? I thought it was pretty good. I've definitely seen worse crossovers. Funny that the two lead guys had so much chemistry!! They were great. Two of my favorite actors, too, William Petersen and Anthony LaPaglia. If you've only seen these guys on these shows, check out these movies they starred in to see why I think they are so talented, gorgeous and sexy: "Betsy's Wedding" (1990), "The Client" (1994), and the show "Murder One" season two for LaPaglia; and "Manhunter" (1986) for Petersen. These are the things that made me fall for these guys, even though they're older and pudgier now (although I noticed that LaPaglia is looking leaner this year). It's ok, guys, I'm older and fatter, too! :) I'm glad Grissom ditched that awful beard, too.

I have to say that Thursdays and Fridays are the best and busiest nights of TV for me. Thursdays I have to record 3 shows at once: Smallville (my favorite), Ugly Betty, and My Name Is Earl. Then there's CSI, 30 Rock, ER, Supernatural, and Without a Trace. It's crazy. I stay up late Thursdays to watch as much as I can before I drift off. They should bring back Saturday programming.

I have been watching some of last season's My Name Is Earl on my Ipod so I can catch up to watch this season's that I have on my DVR! Such a funny show. I loved the one where he has to help the gay guy Kenny be more manly. Kenny's going on and on about how he can't get a decent guy since "Brokeback Mountain" came out because no one wants the swishy guy any more, and Earl and his brother are like, "what the hell's he talking about?" And also when they suggest that Earl might have a gambling problem, and he says, "I'm winning - that's not a problem. It's only a problem if you're losing!"

There's only a few good half-hour sitcoms that I watch. My Name Is Earl, 30 Rock, Back to You, and Aliens in America. I admit there may be some that I don't watch. I used to sometimes catch "Girlfriends", and it was funny. I don't know why people love "The Office" or "Scrubs" because they are NOT funny. That's the number one priority for a sitcom. "Back to You" is still finding its way a little but it mostly very funny. It's not "Frasier", but then few shows are.

Fridays as I mentioned, are also busy and have shows I love: Ghost Whisperer, Moonlight, Numb3rs, Flash Gordon, Men in Trees, and Las Vegas. I forgot to watch the new "Girls Murder Club" or whatever it's called, so I may have to find that one online. That sounded good.

I am liking Moonlight more and more. I am interested to see where it goes with his ex-wife...that was a good episode on Friday, especially the ending. The only thing I had problem with is that it seemed stupid that he never thought if maybe this woman was his wife's descendent or daughter. I would think that would be his first guess, not, "she must have come from the dead and found a way to become human again". Duh.

I am so tired of reading critics who complain about "Heroes". I think the show is as great as last year. They are just picking on it because it was such a huge hit.

Have a great week! I hope to write more in here like I did when I first started...discussing each night's shows.

The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 41

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 20:48:48 GMT

Our site is doing SO well! We have a link partnership now with TV Guide Online! Woo hoo!

We have a Volunteer of the Month. This month is Mary!! She writes our episode guides for Jericho, and our recaps for All My Children and One Life to Live.

All of our volunteers are great...we always need more, though! Please visit our Jobs page if you can help out. These are all volunteer jobs - we have no money!

The holidays are coming, which means that I will be sending out cards and gift certificates for the holidays to our volunteers. I love doing that!

I have a ton of DVD's to watch and review soon...it's great that they send me some great stuff, but I wish I had more time to appreciate them.

I updated my "What I watch" page, which I do semi-annually. It lists all of the shows I keep up with regularly. I also record a lot of shows and put them onto tape, and I may watch them later. It's hard to find enough time!

I have been catching up on my soaps from the past month. I'm caught up on OLTL and B&B, now doing ATWT. Whew!

"Damages" finally finished...it was a good show, but it got kind of predictable at the ending. I knew someone, probably that guy, would shoot Frobisher, and I figured they would find some way for the heroine to stay with Glenn Close. For next year!

CSI: New York has been great this year, thanks to Mac's stalker. It's all be good.

Heroes it still great. I don't know why it gets so many bad reviews this year. I think some reviewers just have to say negative things, especially if a show is successful. Now I am having a lot of dreams about the show, though, and it's not exactly a cheery, pleasant show!

I promised myself this fall that I would not watch most of the fall shows regularly. I just watch too much TV! So the only new ones I am watching regularly are Back to You (new sitcom on FOX starring Kelsey Grammer), and Moonlight (CBS vampire shows on Fridays). I also started watching "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" on FX, in its second season. I do tape a lot of other shows that I may someday watch, but for now I am not keeping up on them, and most importantly NOT going to feel guilty for not keeping up on! :)

South Park is back, and I am enjoying it. They've had a multi-part episode called "Imaginationland" where they made all sorts of scifi and other tv references...and been very funny. They weren't very funny there, for a while, so this is good to see.

I keep reading about an upcoming writer's strike. They seem to all be very prepared for it by doing as much pre-taping and rushing through production as they can. They are also worried that other unions, such as the director's union, will strike at the same time. So we have to wait and see what happens. I will not be unhappy to have more free time if they have to show reruns! But it is not good for the industry and people who might lose their jobs. I happen to be very pro-union and think that most jobs should be unionized. They are terrible in this country and most of them don't seem to have too much power any more. In Europe, unions are much stronger. People get more vacation time, better pay and benefits, etc. Here, people do not support them as much, and worse, they elect politicans that take away their power. We would be a much better and happier country if we had a lot more strong unions!

Well, I'm off my soapbox now :) The reason they are striking this time, by the way, is to settle the issue of internet payment. Right now, when you download a tv show or movie on iTunes, or watch it anywhere online, the people who wrote it, and others, do not get paid for that extra viewing. I just hope they can resolve it soon, and fairly!

This past week was a nice break from the FOX shows..oh, well, I don't mean a break, but at least I had fewer shows I had to watch! This was during the World Series.

Ghost Whisperer has been very interesting this season. I am glad that her brother is back, but I wish he weren't evil. That was a great one this past week, with the underground town. It was great to see "Fred" from Angel as her great-great grandmother. The week before, I thought the episode was really stupid until the end. This guy was stalking her, like he had stalked his girlfriend when she was alive. Well, he had used mostly intimidation and manipulation to stalk her, not violence, and the police had not been able to catch him at it. At one point, Melinda is home alone, at night, during the rainstorm, and her husband is out of town. This guy is on her lawn, giving her looks and taunting her. So what does she do? Run and hide upstairs, get all scared, in her nightgown, and then get more upset, run downstairs, and grab a knife (he had cut the phone lines). OK, well, first of all, she completely over-reacted since he had not been violent and there was no reason to think he would start now. Second, she was locked inside, so unless he was some sort of genie...she was safe. And when she was hiding upstairs, why didn't she throw on some real clothes instead of wearing the skimpy nightie? So that whole thing was stupid. And she could have taken film or a photo of him on her lawn, to prove to the police that he was bugging her at night on private property, at the very least! And when her husband figured out that he had been duped into leaving town, and he couldn't call her, he rushed back, but why didn't the police, or at least a friend, to check on her? That was all very stupid. But it did get good at the end.

Numb3rs has been very good still. They always do a great job making that show interesting. I just love the characters.

I'm so glad Men in Trees is back, and I hope it continues to do well! I liked that guy, Cash, though, so I'm very sorry to see him leave! He was gorgeous.

When it was on (before the break), I was enjoying Back to You. It had one so-so episode, but the others have been really funny. I particularly love Fred Willard. Never thought I'd say that!! LOL!! We met him once...he was at a celebrity softball game in our town, and my husband was one of the "local celebrities" on the other team. Every actor I've ever met has been super-skinny, and he was no exception. We also got to meet Shemar Moore (Criminal Minds) and Kristoff St. John, back when they were both playing brothers on Y&R. They are both so good-looking!

I have really been liking Moonlight so far. The actors are attractive, the stories are entertaining, and the two leads have chemistry. Then they throw in the Veronica Mars guy for good measure. What more could you ask for? Fridays are one of my favorite nights now. In summer they have Flash Gordon, Doctor Who, and Monk and the rest of the year, they have all these other great shows.

Bold & Beautiful has been great lately...especially with Stephanie's return. I like seeing Eric being strong for a change. I really don't know how I feel about Ridge and Brooke getting back together. I hope it's for good this time because the ping pong game between them and Nick is just tedious. I do like Brooke with Nick, but I also like Nick and Taylor. Brooke and Ridge are boring to me, but I can't see him with anyone else.

I was catching up on As the World Turns and it struck me as really funny when Rosanna (Cady McClain) objected to getting married to Paul on Halloween! Because in real life, that is her birthday! LOL!!!!

Have a great week!

The TV MegaSite Blog Entry 40

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:52:27 GMT

Some exciting stuff is about to happen on our site...so stay tuned! We may get a whole new design by next year, with a more professional look.

It's been great for me this week because Boo is back and helping to put stuff up etc. She never really left but cut down her hours drastically. So it's great to have a lot more help now! I can start to get caught up on things.

I have tons of updates to write, and some Passions transcripts as well. DirecTV is showing Passions now instead of NBC, but they don't close-caption it. So I am having someone tape the shows for me, and I'm doing the transcripts by hand. But it's slow going and very tedious. At least they are showing them online now, so people who don't have DirecTV can see them.

It looks like we should soon have our "What's New" script!! That will be cool.

Thane is our new Volunteer Manager, taking over from Boo. He is doing a great job! He is a unique person and very hard-working as well.

Thankfully we will now have Y&R covered...just have to find someone to do GH and Passions! I have someone now who is trying out GH, so I hope she can work out! That would be great.

The Fall TV season has started again, which for me is a mixed blessing! It was great this summer because there were just a few shows I watched, and I had a lot more free time.

So far the only new shows I have checked out are Back to You, Moonlight, and Aliens in America. The two sitcoms were very good. Moonlight is okay, not too bad, but it's hard not to compare it to "Angel", which was SO much better.

I'm really trying not to watch too many of the new shows regularly...I just don't have that time! It's hard enough to keep up with the ones I already watch.

I'm so glad to have Smallville back :) Love that show. I'm looking forward to Supernatural's return this week, too!

I am also loving House and Boston Legal...both great shows, and so funny! I had dreams about House last night :)

Those are all that come to mind...