Brothers & Sisters is a new show that premiered in America a couple of weeks ago and currently up to episode 2 it’s about the goings on in a close-nit, medium sized family, the Walkers, who own and and in someway all participate in the family business. Calista Flockhart plays Kitty Walker (daughter number 2), an obvious and determined republican and Daddy’s girl, who is constantly butting heads with her democratic mother, Nora (Sally Field) and the rest of her siblings: portrayed by Rachael Griffiths, is Sarah (the oldest daughter); the newly appointed President of the company with problems in her mariage and who has feelings for someone else. Dave Annable plays Justin (the youngest son); a V.E.T with a drug and alcohol problem. Kevin (another one of the sons who is played by Matthew Rhys) is the family lawyer and comfortable with being gay, and then there’s Tommy (played by Balthazar Getty); vice president of the family business and opinionated eldest son. Another addition is: Uncle Saul (Ron Rifkin… y’know, the guy that played the bad dude on Alias) who is CFO in the company and appears slightly dodgy. Other stars include: Johnathon LaPaglia (yep you guessed it, a dead-ringer of older brother, Anthony) and Petricia Wettig (who plays Holly Harper). Kitty is back in town for her new political tv show and who is opposed by the good looking and charming democrat, Warren Salter. Major holes start appearing in the family and the business when discoveries are made into the actual finances and possible corruption. Each member of the clan brings with them a different perspectives and story lines, which should hopefully keep it interesting.

In my opinion, I think Calista acts okay in it, as well as the unforgettable Sally Field who also acts very well. I like the concept of differing political opinions within the one family and am looking forward to bush junior and company being bagged out. So, so far, it’s been good, I recommend giving it a go.

Just a heads up, the second series of Dancing with the Stars starts on the 10th of October at 7:30pm Tuesday night on channel 9. Lets see if it can be as sucessful as the first! *fingers crossed*

For all you Mythbuster maniacs, please keep an eye out on SBS on monday nights. Our beloved Mythbusters has returned with a nice new start. WooHoo

If you are like us and totally loved season one of Prison Break, and are currently up-to-date with season two I’m curious if you’ve got the same opinion as me.  Episode 7 aired just a couple of days ago (in the US) and quite frankly, it’s been giving me the scats nearly since it’s return. For me, the formula that worked so bloody well in season one, either hasn’t been working or was changed for season two. I thought the suspense in season one was well thought out and awesome and that it had barely any holes in the story lines (well, except for the addition of        C-Note and the crime he committed to be incarcerated at Fox River) and yet, in season two, there are massive holes everywhere. I mean, c’mon, the whole Teabag thing has gone a tad bit far and then, the thing that is really getting up my goat is the dude that’s investigating the break out and subsequently trying to catch the escapee’s: they’ve got him as some sort of super cop who can think several steps ahead of Scofield’s plan, the plan I’m sure is to create heart pounding suspense  but in my opinion he is just too smart and it is detracting from the show.

I guess, now that I’ve wasted enough of my time to endure 7 episodes, I’ll more than likely continue watching it, but am close to the point where my care factor will be non-existent.

We spotted this show a few weeks ago online and in deserpate need of more decent entertainment we thought we’d give it a go. So it’s all about the residents of a little hick town called Jericho, in rural Kansas (America), witnessing a mushroom cloud appear on the horizon which causes mass panic amongst the people who fear that their country is under invasion, or worse still, nuclear attack. The main character of the show, Jake Green (a serious Jonny Depp lookalike) is the son of the town mayor who comes back for what he believes to be a breif visit only to be trapped and somehow turns into the ‘town hero’ after saving a bus load of school kids. In the second episode, Jake saved his old and now future potential love interest from dangerous acid rain, brought by the mushroom cloud, interestingly, with just mere seconds to spare and at the end we are given a clue as to how many city’s have been targetted and of a possible inside threat, all of which are pointed to terrorism…. geee, I wasn’t expecting that!

The show displays close-nit relasionships between the towns people and the support they give each other in time of crisis which is always very ‘feel good’. I guess since it’s a new show that I’m liking it so far, but we’ll see for how long because there is only so much mind numbing propagana I can handle.

Jericho airs in America on CBS at 8pm on Wednesdays and in Australia on channel TEN at 8:30pm on Thursdays. It’s definately worth watching especially if you’re into fear mongering and national threat levels.

Season 2 of How I Met Your Mother kicked off yesterday in the US, I won’t spoil it by giving away what happens. Let me just say how awesome the series is, I think this season is the season that will kick this show of into the league of super shows like Friends. The quality of the first episode was really well put together, we have Ted finally growing up, we have Marshall going through some changes and we have Barney, well being Barney. I’m really glad this show is back, it’s a great show.

I thought I might write about one of my experiences with Digital TV in Australia. Firstly I’d like to dispel a myth about digital TV; you might have heard that with digital you either get a perfect picture or none at all. This is very true; however what they don’t say is that if your reception is dodgy you will get dropped frames (jerky picture). I’d say this is something that is overlooked a fair bit. Depending on where you live your signal strength might not be good enough for full blown HDTV. There might be other factors like the number of splitters your antenna services and how long the cable run is from the antenna to the TV.

So if you’re an average Joe, in most cases I’d say that all you need to do is buy a set top box and be happy with SD, but if you really want to experience HDTV and trust me you really do, you should also factor in the cost of not only a HDTV set top box, but also for an antenna check up if the HDTV picture is jerky.

Two of my favourite shows are The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, they are ‘fake’ news shows on the comedy central channel in the US. When I say fake, they actually present real events, but in a comedic way. The Colbert Report (pronounced Col-bear) isn’t so much a fake news show, rather its a character that Steven Colbert plays, he’s an egotistical ill-informed Republican elitist. Its a complete crack up, although because it’s an American show, some of the humour is lost.

Both of these shows are really political, they are talking about things like the war in Iraq and the goings on in the political scene over there. It’s a stark contrast to the type of television we have over here, I can’t think of a single show that is discussing the war on Iraq or looking at the garbage that is coming from our politicians. I wouldn’t say that you need to be intelligent to watch the shows like the Daily Show or The Colbert Report, although the fast talking hidden wit is easy to miss if your not concentrating and I think that is the key. Australian TV is dumbed down so much, it seems that any show that makes you think too hard is off limits.

It’s a real shame TV has come to this, I guess the politicians are loving it but, only the issues they are happy to deal with and discuss are presented to us. Maybe the 6:30pm timeslot is ripe for picking … oh thats right … it’s trash TV time.

So according to this news.com.au article people are pissed off with Naomi Robson for wearing khaki and a lizard when she was reporting from Australia Zoo last night.
Of course she is blaming some wardrobe assistant, because its obvious she doesn’t care what she looks like. She has to be one of the worst looking presenters around, she is a parody of herself!
I think its funny that people changed channel to A Current Affair, because people just have to watch the sensationalist bogan crap that both networks put on at that time.

Not forgetting all those who sacrificed themselves for our freedoms, few people on this planet who has left and will leave this earth, are an inspiration, mentor and down right true bloody hero and Steve Irwin is one of those people. True, he sometimes put himself unnecessarilly in harms way but the passion he had for his family, animal conservation and life in general was truely awe inspiring.

Our Australian television screens have been filled with images of his many adventures, and I have full intentions of watching channel 9’s special presentation: The Crocodile Hunter - A Tribute to Steve Irwin, tonight at 7:30. What I find weird is that in some way, I haven’t really accepted his death, that I will wake up and see his face on TV saying “crikey”,  “g’day mate” or “croc’s rule”. So, I’ve opened a topic in the discussion forum, for those of you who would like to express your thoughts or opinions. For a person I’d never met I was in real shock when I heard the news of his passing and I’m sure that the loss of this wonderful, larger than life, Australian personality will be deeply missed, worldwide. Rest in Peace, Steve Irwin.

Some friends put us onto the show House MD, as you could guess from the title it’s a medical show. The twist is that the main character Dr House is a grumpy, sarcastic doctor who hates patients. We’ve only started watching season 1, but I’m pretty sure that channel 10 is airing season 2 at the moment.

I’m not sure how long I’ll stay interested, I’ve not been a long term watcher of medical shows, I think the last medical show I watched with any regularity was Chicago Hope … a long time ago.

If your into doctor/medical shows with lots of medical terms thrown around, combined with sarcastic humour, then this show might be a good fit for you.

So it looks like Stargate SG-1 is getting the axe after this season, although the producers of the show are looking for a new network to pick it up, so all might not be lost. I will be sad to see this show go, but I’m not surprised it’s getting poor ratings. In my opinion the last 2 seasons haven’t been as strong as the past. Maybe producing 2 shows (Atlantis and SG-1) is too much, the storylines are OK, they aren’t super but. Not like the past. Also the characters don’t seem to gel as much as when RDA was around, although the characters of Daniel and Valla are the exception. There is talk of some kind of movie, whether that will be in the form of made for TV or big screen sequel to the original Stargate (I hope not) is still be seen. All I can hope for is that Atlantis gets better, this show has it’s good weeks, but also seems to have more poor weeks. The stories all seem to come from the same template with little in the way of surprises. The characters are all very shallow and stereotypical (think Ronan and his hot head). 10 Seasons is something to be proud of … and no doubt I’ll have the season 10 DVD box set sitting next to all the other seasons.

Prison Break season 2 has returned to the US, being one of my favourite shows, I was very happy to see it return. I was hoping it would start at the same point in the story where season 1 left, but it kind of jumps a couple of hours, which was really annoying. I hate how they drew the suspense from season 1, where it looked like they were about to be caught, to what seems like a few hours later in season 2.
We have a new super smart FBI agent chasing the boys now, this dude must have some physic abilities, he can seemly know from a name, that this person would be buried in a cemetery (if that last sentence doesn’t make any sense, sorry I’m trying not to spoil). It also pissed me off that the PDA’s they were carrying had the complete census for every year and the Births, Deaths Marriages … man that must be some PDA!
Ok so enough with the ranting, the story does look strong, I was wondering how they were going to pull it off now that the boys have escaped, but I can see that it’s going to be good. All the boys seem to be heading to Utah for the money. Michael and Lincoln are trying to get LJ and they will also be trying to solve the bigger puzzle surrounding the president. I can just bet that the super smart FBI agent will end up helping them at some stage. Apart from my little nit pickings the show is solid.

I sat down and watched Prehistoric Park on Sunday night, I didn’t really know what to expect, whether it was going to be some lame Jurassic Park rip off or what. When I heard Charles Wooley’s voice (from 60 minutes) and saw that the show was in a documentary format I had to keep watching. The main presented really held the show together, his enthusiasm was great; it must be hard acting knowing that the animals are going to be rendered in later. The show is Jurassic Park meets David Attenborough, it’s really kind of different and I dare say Original. I hope the next few episodes keep it up, it could just fill that void left by It Takes Two (I know I’m lame) on a Sunday night at 6:30pm. It makes me wonder if it’s an Australian production, having Wooley’s voice over and all, is it just me or does he have a really good commentary voice, I reckon he’ll do well on radio.

Yesterday I was browsing the DVD section in Big W and I noticed a boxed set which was season 9 of SG-1, if ever there was proof that channel 7 has given up on Stargate SG-1, this was it. Normally the DVD’s don’t come out until the networks have finished airing that season.

I can’t finish this post without talking about the 200th episode of SG-1, it was awesome! I need to watch it again, the show had so many pokes at itself I didn’t catch them all. I was in stitches the whole show, starting from the Furlings at the start, to the ending scenes where RDA phoned it home, very cool indeed!
I guess they figured that with RDA on set for SG-1 he may as well make an appearance on Atlantis as well, this episode was also very strong, following on from the nanites from the last episode. The start of the episode put me off a little bit, normally I can tell what’s going to happen (the writers always seem to use the same template or something) but I didn’t see the nanite thing coming for some reason this time.

So overall a strong weekend of Stargate, I do hope the movie pans out this time.

A new talk show started last night on channel 10 called David Tench, featuring a completely animated host. The show was billed as some awesome demonstration of computer rendering or something. Honestly they need to do something with the voice, after two minutes I was ready to change the channel. The personality of the host is a lost cause; the self loving smart ass ‘lovable’ host is fake and poor at best. The facial rending is really bad; they probably use some software they picked up from Harvey Norman. Combined with the weak starting guests, I’m tipping this show to fade away soon, it might not be axed, well simply because it looks cheap to make. I guess there is the other possibility, that I’m way out of touch with what the younger generation wants to see, nah this show is just crap.

I used to look forward to Friday nights for the football, but now I look forward to watching The Chasers War On Everything, it’s a unique comedy show where they look for stuff that has been happening in the media and try and take it to the extreme. For example, a school aged kid game the PM John Howard a hug on the street, but he had a screwdriver in his hand and his security people didn’t react. So the chasers made an oversize comical looking axe to take to the PM with (when he was on his morning walk). The PM laughed and gave the chaser a light gestured hug, the next day he took it to the extreme, as the PM was walking along, he started up a chainsaw and as expected this time his security team kicked in. It probably doesn’t sound all that funny having been written down, but it was.
So if you want some quirky humour, you should tune into the chasers on Friday night on the ABC. Also since the ABC is the national broadcaster, they like other national broadcasters (BBC etc) are now offering episodes for download which is awesome, or you could do as the chasers say and ‘keep downloading them via bittorrent like you have been doing all year’.

We’ve started watching a show called Kyle XY, it’s about this boy who is found in the woods with no memory about his past and I mean no memory, he can’t talk and has no social skills. It turns out that he has some special abilities like being able to solve complex math problems and can learn things incredibly fast. The character of Kyle is very robotic and he speaks with this monotone voice that can be kind of irritating, but it fits so well with the character that it would seem out of place if not there. The narration is also very wonder years, the show is a feel good sort of family show (hence its on on the American channel ABC family). The show has a few other plot points, like Kyle is starting to remember bits of his past and we discover that some people are keeping a close eye on him.

It’s a different sort of show, I wouldn’t say that its for everyone, but I would say give the first couple of episodes ago, it’s been picked up for a second season, so it can’t be half bad

Last night was the final of It Takes Two, it’s a show that we have come to watch and even like over the past few weeks. I’m really glad that Ericka won in the end, it would have really annoyed me if Sarah won, she never really sang that much, she let Guy do all the solo’s and generally show off. I think the final should have been between Mark, Rachael and Ericka, David, but I’m sure the little teenagers with their misplaced love for Guy got them into the final.
There were lots of little things that really annoyed me about this show, but I found a winning formula for watching the show in the end, we recorded the show and watched it 1/2 later, that way we could skip all the crappy talk with that chick from Saturday Disney, is she the best channel 7 can do? It also pisses me off that they try to create the millionaire suspense with all the pausing before announcing the winners, it just looks plain stupid and what’s with the 2 minute cross selling crap with Sunrise’s David Koch!
Like I said in the end the best performers won, is it just me or does Ericka’s partner David have an awesome voice? He also had some awesome chemistry with Ericka, who knows what would have happened behind closed doors with those two.

What’s good for you has quickly become a must watch show, it’s a medical version of Mythbusters which is really well put together. My favourite presented is Michael Slater, not just because he used to be one of my favourite cricketers. He really has a good presenting style. I’m not really a big fan of Sigrid Thornton, she just looks plain wrong, I’m not sure what it is, she was at least presentable when she did sea change.
It’s funny, we’ve gone from reality TV which still isn’t declining to fact based TV, both formats are cheap to make, but for my mind fact based TV is much better. Channel 9 learned from the failure of its first furore into fact based TV, ‘Clever’ the best format is the simple format, Clever was too much game show.
Anyway now that Mythbusters is taking a break on SBS (for the awesome Top Gear) what’s good for you is a good alternative.