Fey as Palin
The funniest thing by far that I saw on TV this weekend had to be Saturday Night Live's opening sketch. Once again, it featured former SNL writer and regular Tina Fey as VP hopeful Sarah Palin. And, of course, it was a send-up of the recent VP debate (which I didn't watch). Queen Latifah was on hand to portray the debate moderator PBS's Gwen Ifill and SNL cast member Jason Sudeikis was dead-on as Democratic VP nom Joe Biden.This was the third appearance by Fey as Palin in the last four weeks and her guest shots have garnered higher ratings for the NBC show and increased traffic on its Web site. So those of you who couldn't stay up or just missed it (because, let's face it, SNL hasn't been too great the last couple of seasons) can visit and watch what everyone else is talking about! Check it out here http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/

A major Jeer to TNT!!! Saturday night's interruption of the final half hour of TITANIC was bad enough, but then they did it again yesterday!! I don't know if someone fell asleep in the control room, but about 30 minutes before the ending (you know, right about when the ship was breaking apart and crashing into the people floating below) the film was abruptly pre-empted by the MLB game that was already airing on sister-station TBS! And it went on for about 10 minutes. I guess that's why I should just get the DVD out from now on ...

And if my Sunday viewing schedule wasn't already tight enough, the football game had to run about half an hour late over on CBS ... thus preempting 60 minutes, which ran half an hour into the Amazing Race, and so on, and so on ... http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race/
So that meant a major decision was to be made regarding whether to finish the race or tape Desparate Housewives http://abc.go.com/primetime/desperate/index?pn=index ... the Race won, so I missed the first half of DH (no big loss, not into this season so far). Because, of course, I was over on HBO catching up with the bloodsuckers on True Blood.

Kimora Lee Simmons
I thought I had gotten a little ahead last week when I discovered that Showtime on Demand had the second episode of Californication already up to preview. So I didn't need to watch that last night. However, over on E! I found out just in time that the second season was premiering for Kimora Lee Simmons: Life in the Fab Lane. (Just what I need, another Sunday night show.) Sorry, file this in my I-just-can't-turn-it-off file. I mean, really, so you're fabulous, separated from mega-music mogul Russell Simmons, dating Djimon Hounsou, have your own clothing line (Baby Phat) and oodles, and oodles of money to spend ... you can catch an encore of last night's show at 9 p.m. tonight or visit http://www.eonline.com/on/shows/kimora/index.jsp

Dexter's just going to have to wait. This is where my cable's On Demand services work against me. See, Dexter and True Blood are on at the same time, but both are also On Demand ... after last week's TB I decided to make that my main 9 p.m. Sunday show and I would catch up on Dexter later in the week ... bad news for Dexter: I'm still trying to make time to catch up on Season 2 of Showtime's wildly popular The Tudors (season 2 ended last April). Anyone else feeling the On Demand or DVR guilt?

And I've decided to give up on AMC's Mad Men. Anyone else? I devoured the first season of this formerly great show over the summer on DVD. What the hell happened? Good thing they won the Emmy this year ... see season 2 for yourself at http://www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/

So many shows, so little time ...

And no, I didn't actually "watch" Cartoon Network's Star Wars: Clone Wars or Sci-Fi's new show Sanctuary either from Friday night. Both are saved for my future viewing ... and after looking at this week's schedule, I can see I'm gonna have a hard time penciling in time for that.

But at least I don't have to waste time watching Dancing with the Stars anymore. According to Access Hollywood, Olympic medalist Misty May-Treanor suffered a show-stopping injury Friday and is out for the rest of the season. Not that I'm a big Misty fan, I am, however, a HUGE fan of her hot, hot, hot partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy (both turned up on E!'s Soup this week)! Damn, that means he's out too ... and if we didn't need any more bad news it seems that producers will bring their first Dancing sex-tape star Kim Kardashian back to take Misty's place in the line-up (until, hopefully she gets voted out again this week). For info visit
http://abc.go.com/primetime/dancingwiththestars/index?pn=index

Maksim

Well, for tonight at least I can turn on over to AMC at 8 p.m. for a rebroadcast of 2004's ultra beef-cake flick Troy - Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean - do I have to go on?It's like Baywatch for women!

Men of Troy: Bean, Bana, Bloom and Pitt

And then there's always the LOST marathon continuing over on the Sci-Fi channel from 7-11 p.m. Tonight's episodes include "Hearts and Minds," "Special," "Homecoming" and "Outlaws." We're still in season one.

For more beef-cake: Our favorite Gladiator Russell Crowe chats up David Letterman tonight about his new flick with Leo DiCaprio, Body of Lies. While over on Jay Leno's couch will be the equally beefy Gerard Butler, who's plugging Guy Ritchie's latest film RocknRolla - but to me he will always be King Leonidas, leader of the 300 Spartans, who were so strong that all they needed were their red capes, shields and tiny loin cloths ... hmmm

King Leonidas (center) "Tonight We Dine in Hell!"

So, I effectively missed everything on TV last night because I was glued to the DVD of Iron Man. It wasn't as great as seeing it in the theater (I only have a 50-inch TV screen), but I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it. Tony Stark - Wow!

But don't worry, I covered my bases and taped Fringe, Paris' BFF (trainwreck), Bravo's Rachel Zoe Project and, yes, I'm still curious about the new 90210. So far, I'm only caught up on Fringe. I had to watch it this morning so I could be in on the water cooler-talk at work! Nothing like coming in unprepared and having everyone spoil it for me. Of course, that would be my own fault. We all know that there are certain shows that must be watched before coming into work the next morning!

So instead of the usual, here's some TV News that needs catching up on ...

The most exciting, of course, is that if you're a fan of the original Knight Rider (the one with The Hoff), you can now KITT your own car!Radio Shack is offering, for $270, a Knight Rider GPS system that features the voice of the original KITT (William Daniels)! For those of you who don't know, KITT stands for Knight Industries Two Thousand. It comes complete with flashing lights timed to the voice synthesizer every time a navigation greeting or a navigation voice instruction is given. The unit also interacts with drivers using a database of around 300 names, just as the car did - "Hello, Michael."
Unfortunately, it does not offer KITT's signature turbo-boost, shape-changing or arsenal of deadly weapons.


In too much of a good thing news: Access Hollywood reports that Beverly Hills, 90210 spinoff Melrose Place is being resurrected. Judging by the way the new 90210 is rating, I wouldn't necessarily consider this a good idea. However, this may be just the hit the newly DUI-d Heather Locklear needs!Way to be creative network suits!

And in I Can't Believe I Missed This News: The New York Post (nypost.com) reports that there was a little slip of the shorts during last week's Survivor: Gabon premiere!
Apparently some viewers (not including me) got a shock last week when CBS did not blur video of Marcus Lehman's private parts slipping out of his shorts during a running competition.
Under normal circumstances, the network would obscure any nudity (we've all seen this before during challenges, when people's bathing suits didn't quite cover them up). Especially since this episode was filmed months ago and presumably the slip would have been caught in the editing process.
The moment, which only lasted a few seconds, has been gleefully posted all over the Internet - I won't be providing a link, however, you'll have to find it yourself!
A spokesperson for CBS said in a prepared statement, "This was a completely unintentional, inadvertent and fleeting incident that was virtually undetectable when viewed in real time. In the first 24 hours after the broadcast, before freeze-framing images were widely posted online, we received one viewer comment from the 13 million who watched the telecast."
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor/


In case you haven't already heard, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have been tapped to play the usually horrendous Superbowl Halftime Show on February 1. According to the NFL, last year's halftime show was watched by more than 148 million viewers in the U.S. Let's hope there's no wardrobe malfuction, a la the aforementioned Survivor.For more information visit www.nfl.com

RIP TRL: Soon there will really be no more music videos on MTV. The popular music channel has yanked Total Request Live, its long-running midday video countdown show, after an unprecedented 10-year run.
MTV is quick to point that the show hasn't been cancelled, and it was just a good time to give it a break. The final episode is slated to be a special that will air in November.
TRL debuted in September 1998, and became a focal point of popu culture. It also famously would cause traffic james on the street outside of its Times Square studio when teens would gather to catch a glimpse of their favorite stars.

Over on VHI, The Supreme Bi-otch of Reality TV, Season 1 Apprentice contestant Omarosa is going to star in an "I Love New York"-type dating show. The show will feature her moving into a house with a dozen single men competing for her attention. I guess now that New York, Tiffany whatever, has found true love with season 2 winner Tailor Made, she's no longer available for yet another vomit-inducing dating show.

Tiffany & Tailor Made

The numbers were down for the Grey's Anatomy premiere last week. The ratings average was 18.5 million viewers from 9-11 p.m. and ABC won in the adults 18-49. That's down over 2 million viewers from last season's premiere (20.9 million).
ABC officials were quick to point out that last season Grey's gained an additional 2.1 million viewers-per-episode when DVR recording was factored in, which would put last Thursday's season open roughly on par with the last season.


And how about a little movie news: Last week Disney Studios held a showcase of its upcoming films and proudly announced that Johnny Depp has signed on to bring back the beloved Captain Jack Sparrow for a fourth Pirates movie!! Be still my heart ...And if that wasn't enough, Depp will also be playing Tonto in Disney's version of The Lone Ranger and the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland!
Chairman of Disney studios, Dick Cook, proclaimed, "Believe me, any time this guy wears a funny hat, it's good news for Disney." I couldn't agree more!

On TV tonight: Another exciting ep of Bravo's hugely successful Project Runway at 9 p.m.! Will this finally be super-hated contestant Kenley's downfall? Check out http://www.bravotv.com/Project_Runway/season/5/index.php for more information.
In other PJ news, Lindsay Lohan will appear on the first episode of the series when it moves over to Lifetime in January - yes January. Originally planned for a November debut, PJ on Lifetime has been moved back to January, not a particularly good sign. Anyway, LiLo's rep says, "Lindsay is excited to be a part of Project Runway, especially given her love of fashion and her new leggings line, 6126." Leggings? Are you kidding me?

And another dilemma comes my way. Tonight at 10 p.m. I have only 3 shows to watch! Last week's premiere of season 2 of Lipstick Jungle was pretty interesting, so I'll keep that one for now. For info visit http://www.nbc.com/Lipstick_Jungle/
Over on ABC, the second season of the popular Dirty Sexy Money debuts! And, according to the NY Post's Linda Stasi, it's a good one! I'll admit I watched this show early last season, but lost interest because there were other good shows on at the same time (I think it actually lost out to Project Runway, which used to air at 10 p.m.).
Anyway, if you long for the days of the sleazy nighttime soaps Dynasty (Yes!) and Dallas (another Yes!), Stasi says this is the show to watch! For more info visit http://abc.go.com/primetime/dirtysexymoney/index?pn=index
But I'll probably watch FX's Sons of Anarchy live and tape the other two to catch up on later. This is definitely my favorite new show of the season so far and things are really heating up! Tonight's show will repeat immediately following at 11 p.m. For info visit http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/soa/#Nav/Homepage

Oh, and finally, though I didn't watch, I found out this morning that justice was served last night on Dancing with the Stars - E!'s Kim Kardashian was the big loser, leaving the show with her cutie partner Mark Ballas - I'll miss him!
http://abc.go.com/primetime/dancingwiththestars/index?pn=index