Only You Can Save ABC’s “Happy Endings” – Well You and Everyone Else…

Even though the powers that be over at ABC moved Happy Endings to the death march that is Friday nights, they want you, the viewing public, to know that if it gets cancelled, it is your fault. In a move that is somewhat reminiscent of Fox’s “Get Arrested” campaign way back in 2005 (it does not seem like it was that long ago), ABC has gone the “save Happy Endings” route with the newest promo for the March 29th return of the sitcom.

VIDEO REMOVED BY YOUTUBE

Let’s be clear, I hate this move. I hate it for many reasons.

One – it really doesn’t matter if I tune in on Friday nights to watch Happy Endings because I am not a Nielsen viewer. I don’t know any Nielsen viewers. So telling me that my watching the fun gang of friends on Friday night will save the show? Incorrect.

Two – They have no intention of keeping Happy Endings around. If you want a show to survive, you don’t follow the “NBC’s foolproof plan to cancel Community” method of scheduling. Newsflash, people don’t watch a lot of TV on Friday nights. They certainly aren’t tuning in to catch a sitcom they might have just heard of for the first time when they saw this promo.

Three – I’d place good money that ABC will base their decision on overnight numbers from this one episode. Again, this is only based on Nielsen viewers on a Friday night. Digital and DVR numbers are not incorporated into the overnight returns so all those people who decided to just DVR the episode and watch it later in the week, they will have no effect which basically means this promo is pointless. Surprise, surprise.

Four, and finally – Is Celebrity Wife Swap really more important than Happy Endings? Really? If ABC was so concerned with the show sticking around, why on earth would they put yet another stupid reality show in a spot where it might have had even the slightest chance of catching viewers?

The whole things just reeks of corporate ridiculousness and in the end, it’s the fans of the show that will end up disappointed.

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1

Why would ABC deny the world of 23 episodes a year featuring this woman? Why? Not only is Eliza Coupe gorgeous and funny but seriously her on-screen marriage with Damon Wayans Jr. is one of my favorite TV marriages in many years. They are hysterical! Jane and Brad are one of the biggest reasons to love this show.  [Editor’s Note – Realizing I may never have another opportunity to bring this up, I just have to say Jane Kerkovich-Williams (Eliza Coupe) has the sexiest legs on television. Wow, I feel better now.]

It’s also a bit more agonizing to know we are watching the last episodes of the show when they are bringing in a third sister! Jane and Alex and crazy enough but can you imagine a sister who is apparently even more “Jane” than Jane? Not only that but it’s ADA Cabot/Mrs. Bobby Flay/Liz Lemon’s lesbian love interest herself, Stephanie March. Le sigh, I’d love it if she had a chance to return as a regular to a show, and can see her fitting perfectly with Jane, Alex, and the rest of their friends and by “fit perfectly” I mean “annoy the crap out of and we get to see Max’s reaction to her and it would be awesome.” (Speaking of Max, it looks like he’s getting a new love interest!

Between March as the third sister, Michael McKean as Dave’s dad, and Megan Mullaly and Andy Richter as Penny’s parents, the extended families of the Happy Endings family is so awesome its seems almost a crime to cancel. I guess all that’s left is to just enjoy the remaining episodes and pray that Nielsen viewers don’t have much of a social life on Friday nights.

Might as well enjoy some pictures of our favorite friends and their hijinks over the last couple years to try to soothe the pain.

*Several pictures lazily collected from Tumblr.

Mad Men Season 6 – New Trailer and A Whole Lot of Pictures…

April 7th marks the return of the one of television’s greatest shows of all time, and the move from the awesomely classic aesthetic of the early 1960s to the gaudy and unpleasant aesthetic of the late 60s and early 70s. That change will be evident in some of the photos below. Before we get to that though, let’s talk about what we’ve got to expect story wise coming up…

Continue reading Mad Men Season 6 – New Trailer and A Whole Lot of Pictures…

Riddick: New Teaser is Real & Awesome & Confusingly Named

I’ve been waiting for the new Riddick movie ever since Chronicles Of Riddick came out in 2004. I thought that movie, and it’s infinitely superior director’s cut, was one of the most evocative, creative and interesting new worlds in science fiction to come around in a long time. No movie has ever really opened up a universe so widely and amazingly the way they did with the jump from Pitch Black to CoR. Between the heavy push to make an all new franchise under the “Chronicles Of Riddick” banner, Pitch Black became The Chronicles Of Riddick: Pitch Black, an anime short film was released called CoR: Dark Fury, and of course there was just Chronicles of Riddick, which presupposed its own banner name by using it as the title of the film. At the time David Twohy talked about turning Chronicles Of Riddick into a trilogy, and expanding the mythos even further. Unfortunately that didn’t happen, because CoR failed pretty spectacularly at the box office. The fact that we’re even getting a sequel, is to me, a damned amazing thing in and of itself, and I’m incredibly thankful to even have it at all. While it’s a bummer we won’t get the epic trilogy Twohy originally planned, I’m positive this will still be an amazing film. Now finally, close to a decade later, we get to see Riddick on the big screen again, and it’s a damned great thing. This teaser for it is exactly the kind of teaser I like to see, which is it shows the scale of the film, doesn’t give away plot details, and lets you know what the style, look, and feel of the film will be. It’s what a teaser should be.

via [DreadCentral]

[quote] Diesel reprises his role as the antihero Riddick, a dangerous, escaped convict wanted by every bounty hunter in the known galaxy. The infamous Riddick has been left for dead on a sun-scorched planet that appears to be lifeless. Soon, however, he finds himself fighting for survival against alien predators more lethal than any human he’s encountered. The only way off is for Riddick to activate an emergency beacon and alert mercenaries who rapidly descend to the planet in search of their bounty.

The first ship to arrive carries a new breed of merc, more lethal and violent, while the second is captained by a man whose pursuit of Riddick is more personal. With time running out and a storm on the horizon that no one could survive, his hunters won’t leave the planet without Riddick’s head as their trophy. [/quote]

Now aside from looking totally badass, I do have one complaint, and that’s that we’re running into a Rambo-esque naming problem with the movies here. No film franchise is as confusingly named as the Rambo franchise. You’ve got First Blood, Rambo: First Blood Part 2, then they just cut out First Blood from the title and called the third movie, Rambo 3. Then the fourth movie they just called RAMBO, as if to say “F**K EVERYTHING, IT’S RAMBO WHO CARES RIGHT?”, and I’m afraid the Riddick franchise is doing a similar thing. If you had no knowledge of the Riddick Franchise, you’d be pretty confused about which movie goes first in any sort of chronological timeline. Furthermore are they all even still united under the ostensible brand of “Chronicles Of Riddick” anymore? I’ve seen reissues of Pitch Black just as Pitch Black now, without the CoR brand, and Dark Fury is more or less being ignored, and then there’s the video games which were AMAZING, but nobody played them either. Now we’ve just got “Riddick” with no CoR brand and well I guess I just give up. Listen, I’m not complaining. I’m totally stoked for the film. Honest. Now let’s hurry up and get it into theaters where it’ll bomb horribly and kill the franchise once and for all.

Excuse me, that sound you hear is the sound of my tears hitting the floor.

Riddick