Congratulations to Mike O'Dea & Karen Feldman who actually tied in the final Trivia Contest of 2015! New Year, new month, slates clean! Get your correct answers in guys!
THE ANSWER TO TUESDAY'S TRIVIA QUESTION: If you can remember back to the last post, I had asked what the Alec Baldwin SNL Christmas Elf skit was a parody of and the answer was of course Glengarry Glen Ross.
First Fives: Karen Heniger, Alex Nagler, Rachel Snyder, Bob Kaplan and Lillian Doremus
Honorable Mention: Brett Blattman
THE NUMBERS Friday's Broadcast Top 5
20/20 ABC-1.1/5.3
Dateline-NBC 1.0/4.7
Last Man Standing-ABC .9/4.4
Shark Tank-ABC .9/3.8
NCIS-CBS .8/6.9
Friday's Cable Top 5
NA
Friday's Top 5 Primetime Twitter Ratings NA
-For anyone interested, New Years Rockin Eve did really well ratings wise this year despite some pretty decent competition. ESPN had College Football, Andy Cohen hosted Hollywood Game Night before Carson Daly took over at 11pm and Pittbull also had a seat at the New Years Eve countdown table. Ryan Seacrest and his posse delivered a 7.5 RA18-49 from 11:30-1:15. Dick would be proud. Carson Daly and Pittbull both delivered a 2.7. My favorite backward counter of the evening was Howard Stern who was at the Billy Joel concert in Florida with Jimmy Kimmel. Have you seen this clip? Check out who Howard's first kiss of the year was with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzoECoqo17c
THE SHOWS Ray Donovan
I really need to thank all of you guys who were relentless in your quest to persuade me to watch Ray Donovan. I finished all 3 seasons over the break and enjoyed it so much I added it to the WWTM Binge List. I didn't take any notes while I watched, so below are some random thoughts.
- Why does Ray continue to wear only white shirts when he pretty much comes home covered in blood every single night? What's Abby's secret stain remover?
- What TV family is more dysfunctional than this TV family? Seriously...send me some options. I'm not sure anyone beats the Donovans.
- Do you think Angie and Brad watch the show? Do they admit to each other that Jon Voight is unbelievable as Mickey Donovan?
- The entire cast not only does a great Boston accent, their accents are all exactly the same as each others which if you think about it is a pretty difficult feat to attain.
- Do you think there are really "fixers" out there in the real world like Ray? Olivia Pope is a fixer, another fake TV fixer but a fixer nonetheless. Olivia doesn't have to kill anyone like Ray does. Interesting though that both of them choose to wear an awful lot of white. Do you think they meet up at the fixers yearly convention in Vegas?
- Abby bugs the cr@p out of me.
- I've never seen Eddie Marsan or Dash Mihok the actors who play Terry & Bunchy in anything before, but they both deserve Emmy nominations big time. Eddie's ability to keep the arm shaking in the exact same way all the time alone should get him something.
- Love Austin Nichols as Tommy Wheeler. He was Julian on One Tree Hill. Now he's an in-the-closet drug addict who's into a transgender dude/dudette played by the guy from Finding Carter and The Fosters who happens to make a really pretty woman.
- Lots of great guest stars like Sherilyn Fenn (who's gained a lot of weight) Hank Azaria, Katie Holmes (do they mention the braces?) Ian McShane, Roseanna Arquette, Jonathon Schaech, Jay Thomas, Ann-Margret and STARSKY! Paul Michael Glaser is aging very nicely!
- Is Avi gay? Why is he and EVERYONE else SO obsessed with his mother? Have we ever seen Avi's Mom's face?
- Lina is a badass.
- I love how everyone says Conor's name.
- Only the daughter of Ray Donovan can have her boyfriends brains and blood splatter all over her and be SO okay SO quickly? Props to Bridget Donovan!
- Ray only smiled in one episode.
- I am pretty sure that Ray's NEVER received any good news when answering his cellphone.
- Who has a work day like Ray Donovan? He's always turning his car around and getting right to wherever he needs to be to clean up someones mess and in 3 seasons has NEVER hit LA traffic.
- Can't wait for season 3.
Season 7 of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee premiered last week with President Obama joining Jerry for a very short drive around the White House grounds in a gorgeous 1963 split window Corvette. When I heard that Jerry got POTUS as a guest, first I thought "Obama's not a comedian" and then I thought "No way is the Secret Service letting him roam around the streets of DC or anywhere else" I was totally right about that, Jerry and POTUS went as far as the driveway would take them. I gotta admit, Obama was pretty funny and I guess if the Prez wants to be on your show, you let him! Jerry was awesome and asked great questions. This is a good one guys…enjoy:
http://comediansincarsgettingcoffee.com/president-barack-obama-just-tell-him-you-re-the-president
Billions
Billions doesn't officially start until 1/17 but Showtime's got the first episode available on demand and on their app right now. I OF COURSE had to check it out. I've been looking forward to this one. So here's the deal. Damien Lewis plays Bobby Axelrod aka "AXE" who's the only partner in his firm to survive 9/11. He's a big time hedge fund guy who seems to be a good guy. He's married, loves his wife, loves his kids, takes care of the 9/11 families and seems to have it all including a nemesis. Paul Giamatti is that nemesis. He's the US Attorney who has a major agenda and a few shades of gray. Paul's wife is Tara from Sons of Anarchy aka Maggie Siff who's honestly the most interesting character on the show. She actually works for Axe as a life coachy, motivational, therapy type person. A job I'm sure doesn't exist in any real life company, but okay, I'll go with it. I'm already SO into this show but I have an issue. There are some crazy close-ups of Damien Lewis and Paul Giamatti. Damien's split lip thing is soooo distracting and does he just not use the right lip balm or do his advisers think it adds character to his face? Damien…news flash…get that thing taken care of. Use some Blistex or ChapStick or something and get that lipitis taken care of. I LOVE Paul Giamatti, but a close up is SO not his friend. Sorry Paul.
Galavant
Okay, how funny is the premise that The Enchanted Forest is actually the name of a gay bar and the owner is an actual Queen? Come on that is funny sh*t! The Queen's "Off With His Shirt" number was a winner in my book and really, should be my new WWTM theme song. Every single line written is so witty and clever. You have to play super close attention to appreciate it all. If I counted right there were 3 Game of Thrones references, 2 Brady Bunch references, 2 Downton Abbey cameos and 1 surprise John Stamos cameo in the gay bar. The chef's helper in the kitchen was Daisy, the cooks helper in the kitchen on Downton Abbey which immediately followed Galavant. I thoroughly enjoyed that. Not sure if it was intentional, but enjoyable nonetheless. Too bad there was no actual cell service back in the Galavant days as it seemed if Princess Isabella had the best network, she wouldn't have thought Galavant was saying "Marry Harry, you're Gross" instead of "Don't Marry Harry, it's Gross" it's really all about the network people! Anyway so many other hilarious, brilliant moments like the unicorn attracted to virgins and children following King Richard around, "Uncle Keith" and Edwin the Magnificent fortune teller who used that paper origami thing we all used in 7th grade. Galavant's still headed to Isabella, but I'm guessing if the ratings do well, she'll be married to that 11 year old cousin so the show can keep going for another season. If ratings suck, Galavant finds her in time, they marry and you know the rest...Happily Ever After! (With an opportunity for a sequel I'm sure) and all episodes immediately available on Hulu.Downton Abbey
Since when does PBS run commercials? Did you catch that Amazon Audible spot before Mrs. Shipley, the lady who gave a ton of dough to PBS so we could all watch the final season of Downton Abbey? Anyway...it's now 1925 and you can already see the changes happening and feel the end is near. Lady Mary's no longer riding side saddle, Lady Edith's running the paper and thinking of moving to London with Marigold, and, while the Dowager Countess will never give up her cook, butler or hand maid, Lord Grantham is starting to think it's time. Seeing his neighbors auction everything they own and leave town has him thinking. The Dowager told Dinka, that sh*t stirrer, that there could be layoffs and NOT to tell anyone. Of course 5 seconds later she's blabbing to everyone including Spratt and all of our faves downstairs at Downton. Only Thomas seemed to care. He figured he'd be first to go and honestly, he's who I'd get rid of first. Funniest non conversation ever between Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Padmore. Brilliant writing and even more brilliant acting when pretty much with no words spoken, we netted out with: "Can you go talk to my fiance and see if he actually wants to sleep with me in our marriage or just Netflix and chill." News flash Elsie...Carson totally wants to sleep with you so you better head over to European Wax before that wedding! Not sure how Lord Grantham got Belvin, the blackmailing hotel chick, to go for 50lbs and a letter of admission from her original demand of 1000lbs and a story in the paper. Pretty awesome skills the Lord's got there. We should hire him to help with the upfront this year now that he's out of a gig. Mrs. Crawley and the Dowager Countess were at each others throats about the hospital merger and I'm thinking that it's going to get ugly before it's all over. Good news/bad news for the Bates. The Mr. Greene mess is over so now they can start planning their future. Unfortunately that won't include mini-Bates. Anna can't have kids. Bates says she's enough for him but Anna's become quite the Debby Downer anyway. I'm hoping before the shows final scene she can turn that frown upside down. Worse comes to worse she can open a salon somewhere in London. Did you see what she was able to pull off with Lady Mary's wet hair after the hunt? Groovy do with ringlets and a headband in less than 60 seconds. Impressive. I see a spin-off here...Bates Salon (turn right at the motel)
Cooper Barrett's Survival Guide
Total Hangover ripoff and totally stupid.
THE OTHER STUFF
-For all of you guys that have been reading this blog for a while, you know I don't really like murder mysteries, 20/20's, news or any of that depressing stuff. It's just not good for me at all. I reallllly had no intention of watching Netflix's Making of a Murderer but after having lunch with a friend who's also a reader, she convinced me that it was my duty to check it out. So…I'm on episode 5. It's tough to watch but man is it unbelievably compelling programming. I couldn't turn it off. (My husband had to hit the power button after I fell asleep watching). Hopefully I'll finish it this week. For now…for any of you guys that are watching or who've already finished…don't tell me anything. We'll discuss when I'm done.
-While I was on break, Teresa Giudice got out of jail and headed back home just in time to celebrate Christmas with those 4 screaming angels of hers. Santa came a bit early apparently and left a brand new Lexus SUV in her driveway. Maybe Santa doesn't have house arrest up there in the North Pole and didn't realize Teresa's not going anywhere for another month. Filming started for the Real Housewife the second she got home so I guess she's already spending the Bravo paycheck on the sweet ride. Not sure if you saw any of the photos but Teresa wasn't looking that great after her year in the pokey. I guess a year without a hairstylist, makeup artist and botox can really do a number on a girl.
-I read somewhere during the break that younger viewers aren't watching news on TV which wasn't a huge surprise to me. CNN's the youngest with a median age of 59. MSNBC follows with a median age of 63 and FOX News, as I've mentioned before has a median age viewer of 68! It's depressing enough to get old. Old + news can't possibly be good for the aging human.
-Hulu revived Wicked City…sort of. Only 3 of the original 7 episodes aired before ABC pulled the plug. All 7 original episodes are now available on Hulu. The 8th and final episode will be added shortly. Anyone care?
-I had fun with Entertainment Weekly's FANUARY Brackets. I only knew 2 of the digital influencers but Dylan, my 14 year old only knew 2 also so I didn't feel THAT bad. If you feel like filling one out…here's the link: http://www.ew.com/special/Fanuary-Ultimate-Fan-Bracket Monday's Trivia Question: One of my amazing friends (and readers) sent me an awesome TV Trivia game for Chrismakuh that I will be using for a while to help me come up with questions.
Here's the first one: In Just Shoot Me, who played magazine tycoon Jack Gallo? I'm adding a bonus to this...what show does he currently star in?Bonus Trivia Question: Wayne Rogers who played Trapper John on MASH, passed away over the holidays at the age of 82. Who played Trapper John MD after him?
WWTM-Kristy Like me on Facebook at Watching Way Too Much Follow me on Twitter at watchingwaytoomuch@tvnme http://watchingwaytoomuch.com kristy@watchingwaytoomuch.com