Tag Archives: Entertainment Weekly

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Fall means ALL the TV, ALL the time

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It’s that time of year when ALL the new TV shows are coming out. It’s a good year to be a geek when it comes to TV shows.

This time for Entertainment Weekly, I’ll be recapping Selfie on ABC.

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It stars Karen Gillan (Amy Pond/Nebula) and John Cho (Harold/Sulu/MILF Guy #2) and is an updated version of My Fair Lady and Pygmalion. I know that the name and premise of the show turns people off but it’s actually not that bad. Though I watched the pilot online and then rewatched it when it aired this past Tuesday. And well…they changed things which I’m not sure why because I thought that they did not help the story. But we’ll see what happens. My first recap is up and if you’re watching it too, follow my Facebook page to get links to all season (or however long this show manages to stay on) as I recap the show. I will say that I DO love John Cho and think he’s fantastic.

I would totally like to watch Gotham but as I have already have Monday nights busy, I can’t watch it live. Hopefully I can catch it on On Demand. I would also really love to watch The Flash on the CW but I haven’t even gotten around to watching Arrow yet so that will probably have to wait.

Last year I started watching Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but then I got busy on Tuesday nights and missed the second half of the season. Which is a bummer because I know there was that whole tie in with Captain America: The Winter Solider (Hail Hydra!) Therefore sadly I cannot watch new episodes until I catch up from last year. Luckily one of libraries ordered the first season on DVD so I’m on the holds list for it. I’m annoyed this isn’t on Netflix or Amazon Prime. I hope I can catch up because I DO want to watch this show as well as the Peggy Carter spin-off that is coming.

I WAS able to catch the premiere of Gracepoint on Fox last night.

I haven’t seen the original show that it’s a remake of, Broadchurch, so I can’t compare but so far I am planning on watching as much as I can. I will admit, David Tennant’s American accent was the real reason why I tuned in but the show is actually good. I am trying not to look at spoilers of the original series.

I’m still watching Doctor Who. Peter Capaldi is GREAT as the Doctor and the episodes have been pretty good so far. He’s VERY different from Matt Smith but I think that’s a good thing.

The other show I can’t wait to come on again is The Walking Dead. I’m both geeked and terrified at what is going to happen in this season. It also doesn’t help/hurt that with the news about the Ebola virus coming to America that the zombie apocalypse might very well become a real thing one day…..


So yeah. That’s what I’m watching on TV this fall. What about you?

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All For One: Recapping The Musketeers

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Two months ago I posted about how I was going to be covering The Musketeers for Entertainment Weekly. I was a bit excited yet apprehensive about covering the show. The first show I had done was kinda meh and did not have a large audience at all. This new show I thought would be more enjoyable and with a slightly bigger audience but was it really people’s cup of tea? Would anyone really be interested in it? Would I really enjoy it?

Two months later as we approach the season finale on Sunday night, I’m going to miss this most awesome show until next year.

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If you’ve been watching the show (or even if you haven’t), feel free to catch up on my recaps on Entertainment Weekly. I also really enjoy comments (hint hint) so if you’re catching up, even ones on older episodes would be great!

A lot of people don’t have BBC America (which is going to be a pain when Doctor Who starts up again on Saturday) so I know that it’s not as accessible as shows on network stations or basic cable. Which makes me quite sad because IT’S SO GOOD that I feel a broader audience would be great for it.

However after talking with folks on Twitter and Facebook, I have yet to come across a person who started watching this show and disliked it. Everyone I know who has had the chance to raves about The Musketeers.

Why have I enjoyed this show?

  • It’s a historical action-adventure drama. Period pieces are my favorite genre to watch.
  • There’s humor. When the writing is on point, there is some incredibly witty and hilarious dialogue.
  • There’s sword fighting. Which is the best kind of fighting.
  • There’s hot guys. And all so very different so you can and choose!
  • It’s a lot of fun. It’s really one of the best shows out there that you can sit back and just enjoy yourself.
  • You don’t have to think TOO hard while watching but you don’t have to sit there and feel like you lost brain cells after it’s over.

Because I enjoy the show so much, it’s been actually a bit hard to recap it properly. I fangirl so much while doing it that I have to leave things out and not do so much OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sometimes my recaps are too long but it’s because there’s so much that’s happening and it seems hard to leave things out. My notes are mostly illegible even to me because I’m constantly having to write down everything and then going back to see how something isn’t really that important.

Peter Capaldi is leaving the show because he’ll be starring on Doctor Who which makes me a bit sad because I’ve really enjoyed his character. He plays him to perfection and I’m going to be wondering what they’ll do to him on Sunday night to replace him. This is a video of him, not acting, but I laughed a lot when I watched it.

If you’re a fan of the men, then you’ll definitely enjoy this video.

It’s been a bit hard to interact with the show and actors on Twitter even though I’m recapping it. The show originally aired in the UK earlier in the year, and while BBC America is promoting it heavily, since you CAN look up to see what happened most of the anticipation is gone. Plus three of the 4 Musketeers (plus Capaldi) don’t have Twitter so that’s been a bummer. I have been retweeted and favorited by several of the actors so that’s been encouraging. Though to be honest, I’m not sure they actually read my recaps. Still I’ll take what I can get.
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There are some issues in the show that I find a bit troublesome. I’m not a fan of some of the historical anachronisms such as Milady walking around in public or that some of the female costumes seem a bit too modern. Also, while I know that having affairs was commonplace during that time period, I really am not a fan of how Constance handles her relationship with D’Artagnan and also with her husband. I think (as I said in my recaps) it’s more to do with how they’ve portrayed (or rather NOT portrayed) their relationship and I feel like there’s a lack of a story. It’s also really funny that there are other relationships that I (while again I don’t condone adultery) the chemistry of the characters makes that relationship so much better.

Blips aside, I know that I can’t wait til next year when the second season comes out. I hope I’ll still be covering the show but at the very least I’ll be watching as well. If you’re going to be watching the season finale on Sunday night and are on Twitter, come find me (@beatccr). Hopefully I’ll be livetweeting while watching or at the very least tell me what you thought!

Also…if you’ve read down this far, you’ll be the first to know that the next show I’ll be covering for EW will have another Doctor Who connection. I’ll be recapping Selfie starring Karen Gillan and John Cho. More coming on that soon!

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Here’s what’s been happening since last time

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So let’s update on things that have been happening in the last few weeks.

Running – I’m on my 3rd week of running! I’m using the Couch to 5k app from C2KFree and it’s been really helpful. I made myself go over week 1 twice so that I could do a whole week’s worth of workouts without stopping so technically I’m on week 2’s workouts right now. The first day was awful. Even though I work out, I’m not used to running and I basically felt like I was going to die. But I didn’t give up! I’ve been running outside and on the treadmill. I’m not going to be the fastest runner but by George I’m going to keep at it.

Soccer – World Cup is over but I got to go to my first MLS game thanks to one of my friends. We saw DC United take on Toronto FC. Our seats was in the supporters section and those fans are intense! Be prepared to get drenched in beer if DC scores which meant I got covered in beer three times. Michael Bradley from the USMNT was playing for Toronto so that was super exciting.

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D&D – We started our campaign and I had a blast! Since we’re playing with a starter set, the story was preset though our DM tells stories very well and can ad lib on the spot. Our adventures went a little crazy because our wizard decided to go off on his own while the rest of us was battling wolves and goblins. Because of his decision we ended up getting attacked by everything in a cave with most of us basically dying before the day was over. I also now have a reputation of being a wolf slayer. There was a room with three wolves on leashes. The wizard put one of the wolves in an enchanted sleep. To save another member of our party, I shot and killed one of the wolves with my bow and arrow. And then I beheaded the sleeping wolf with my sword. Apparently it was pointless and I didn’t need to do it and I killed a defenseless animal. Sigh. I still had a lot of fun and our next session is at the end of month. We also indulged in a bacon wrapped Oreo each.

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Wedding – My friends (“Lizzie & Darcy”) got married and it was lovely! I’m so glad to have been a part of it and I cried watching two of my best friends make their love for each other official. I also missed the bouquet toss and most of the dancing but not on purpose. I got roped into helping decorate the cars and it took a lot longer than we expected. I also really liked how the hair dresser did my hair. I asked for a fauxhawk and that’s what I got!

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 Via Beyond Studio

Concerts – I’m going to see Josh Groban next week. NEXT WEEK. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. There will probably be another update on that later. Since I’m going two nights in a row, I was told I should bring a sign saying “Josh! I’ll be here tomorrow too!”. I countered that I have a feeling there will be plenty of older ladies doing the same thing as well. Then I was told to add to the sign “And I’m not old either!”

And finally, my recaps on The Musketeers on Entertainment Weekly is still going strong. My latest recap was featured on the main EW.com home page!

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So that’s what’s been going on with me. How have you been?

 

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Musketeering and Odysseying

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Two fun things to talk about this week!

My next show that I’ll be blogging about for Entertainment Weekly starts next this Sunday. I’m really excited that I’ll be covering The Musketeers on BBC America. The show is not just another adaptation of the classic novel but instead takes the characters and puts them into new situations. Basically I’m really geeked because I love anything the BBC does, it’s a costume drama, there will be sword fighting, AND it stars Peter Capaldi, the new twelfth Doctor.

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Since the show airs on Sunday nights, my recaps will be either be posted late Sunday night or early Monday morning. My first post however is up. To get in the mood for the show, I take a look back at previous adaptations of the Musketeers and includes bonus GIFs of Man in the Iron Mask Leo. Click here to read my post!

If you want to join in on the fun, the show premieres this Sunday on BBC America at 9/8C. I’m hoping that this show is more mainstream and has a bigger audience than Metal Hurlant Chronicles. While that eventually became an interesting show, it was very niche-y and I was having trouble finding people to talk about it with, even online. This one I think I won’t have that much trouble and I’m already excited that the official Twitter accounts for BBC America and The Musketeers have already retweeted me. The show runs for ten weeks and I believe it’ll lead up to the premiere of the next season of Doctor Who. The show has already been aired in the UK and has been renewed for a second season though Peter Capaldi won’t be returning because he seems to have another show he’s already committed too. Silly him.

Once again, I probably will not be posting links to my articles every week on this blog, so follow me on Twitter or like my Facebook page (links are in the sidebar) to find out when I got new stuff or info. Let me know too if you’re watching!

Also in other fun news, I’m pretty geeked to be chosen as part of the promo blog team for the new Odyssey Adventure Club.

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I listened to Adventures in Odyssey growing up and it has fond memories for me. It’s a radio drama produced by Focus on the Family so there is a Christian slant to it which is a focus of most of the earlier episodes. However as the years went by, the focus of the writing becomes more focused on  the storyline. There are some solid episodes that are just as good as any book I’ve read because I got so involved with the plot and characters. Also there’s a bunch of jokes that are for adults that the kids just won’t get. It’s been really cool to rediscover these and see how different it is for me to listen to it as an adult vs when I was a kid. While the target audience is still the 8-12 year old range, I find these very enjoyable for long commutes for adults as well. The production level is stellar.

The Odyssey Adventure Club is great because I have been wanting to listen to all the episodes but it was too costly for me to buy all the albums or my library didn’t have everything. With the club, you can stream all the episodes online. I have three months to try to listen to EVERYTHING. This will be a challenge because there are over 750 episodes at about 30 minutes each. I’m currently finishing up album 5. I’ll probably be blogging again about this throughout the summer.

Here’s more information about the club and activities for users:

-Unlimited streaming of Adventures in OdysseyLibrary (740+ episodes) retail value more than $1,500. (You can also download the OCA app on your iPhone or iPad and listen to up to 5 episodes without streaming.)
– New monthly exclusives episodes
– Monthly web quests
– Daily devotions based on Adventures in Odyssey episodes
– OAC exclusive blog posts
– OAC Monthly Member Newsletter
– OAC exclusive video stories
– Other Odyssey content (Last Chance Detectives and more!)
Summer is officially here! Don’t let your kids’ boredom run rampant. Adventures in Odyssey is here to save the day. Below are some must-try ideas for summer fun! Want even more summer fun? For the month of June, you can join the Odyssey Adventure Club for only $5! More details can be found here.

Summer Activities

As a parent you are probably a big proponent of reading. Encourage your kids to dig into a book or two this summer with Adventures in Odyssey’s On Your Marks Summer Reading Challenge. Bonus points if YOU create a reading challenge for yourself as you read along with your kids!

Looking for something hands-on? Create Matthew in 3-D! Invite a few of your kids’ friends over for a play date, print off the activity sheet, and let them have at it for the afternoon (with the promise of cookies and lemonade once they’ve finished constructing Matthew).

Maybe your kids aren’t into reading, but they love math. If that’s the case, have them solve Eugene’s Sudoku!

The laundry needs to be done; the dishes need to be put away. But your kids are begging you to take them out to the zoo. Let them take a whack at Matthew’s Decoder in the morning, then make an agreement that if they figure out how to use the decoder, you’ll take them on an afternoon adventure. That’ll give you the morning to finish up your to-do list!

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All the blog stuff you can handle today

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So two milestones today: First this is my 100th post since I started this blog almost 7 months ago. Woo! Other than a break during the Christmas holidays, I’ve posted 3 times a week, every week since then. This is pretty awesome simply because I’m amazed that I’ve been dedicated enough to keep posting even when I can’t think of what to post. And that I’ve somehow managed to come up with 3 different types of topics each week. Woot.

And second: If you follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, I know you’ve seen me keep talking about this and you’re probably sick of it and want to be like “You already told us! Go away!” But for the rest of you, as I mentioned previously, I am a contributor to the newest blog on Entertainment Weekly‘s website, The Community. And this was the first week that my post was up!

To recap (heh), I’m currently recapping the show Metal Hurlant Chronicles on the SyFy channel. The show airs on Monday nights at 10pm.

So I’m slightly at a disadvantage than most people when it comes to watching and reviewing TV shows because well…this is my TV:

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Yep. That’s right. I have the tiniest TV ever. And obviously it’s not HDTV. And I don’t have a DVR either. (Heck at this point, I don’t even have a DVD player that works.) So if I want to watch a show, I HAVE to watch it live and I can’t pause, rewind, or fast forward. So this makes things challenging. Luckily for me the show comes on at both 10pm and midnight so if I didn’t catch something the first time around, I can wait an hour and rewatch. Now if I miss it the second time, then I’m just screwed.

Since I didn’t know exactly how I’d be writing this or what was expected of me, I ended up staying up all night trying to write my recap. I haven’t done an all nighter with this much pressure on me since grad school. I ended up going to bed at 6:30 am. The next day was very rough. I think I’m getting too old for this type of thing.

Anywho this is very exciting to see this!

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You can click here to read my entire post! Don’t worry if you haven’t watched it or it makes no sense to you. That’s how I felt the first time I watched the episode as well.

For the next four weeks, I’ll be recapping two episodes a week. As I said, the show airs on Monday night so my recaps will be up sometime Tuesday morning. Since I’m pretty OCD with my posting schedule on THIS blog, I probably won’t keep posting when I do have new posts up, so be sure to follow me on Twitter or on my Facebook page (links are in the sidebar to your right) to find out exactly when they do go up.

So yeah, allow me one last geek out about this and woo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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And so for (insert my name) of (insert my hometown), opportunity knocks!

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So in fun news for today: I can officially announce that I’m going to be contributor for Entertainment Weekly‘s new blog The Community.

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How did this happen? Well, I happened to be on Twitter (ok ok, I’m always on Twitter) and saw that the EW was looking for bloggers about television shows. So I applied. I then got back an email asking for writing samples about shows I’ve written. I sent in my blog posts about How I Met Your Mother, The Walking Dead, and Doctor Who. Apparently there was something in there that was good enough because then I got a reply back saying I had been chosen and could I be available to speak on the phone with an editor?! I’ve been chosen along with 20 other bloggers to write about TV shows and I’m geeked. It’s been an awesome whirlwind experience over the past few months and I’m really excited about doing this. I mean basically I get to do what I’m already doing, just with a potentially bigger audience.

If you like TV shows, you should definitely check out the blog. It’s written by other superfans so you’ll get a nice variety of shows and different styles of writing. While the blog is already up and running, I won’t start posting until the week of April 20.

The first show that I’ll be covering is Metal Hurlant Chronicles on the SyFy channel. (It’s ok. I hadn’t heard about it either when I was originally assigned to it.)

 

But after watching the trailer, I’m excited to see it. It’s a sci fiction book based on a comic book series. Meaning, yes it’s a geeky show.

Synopsis from Wikipedia: Métal Hurlant Chronicles is an English-language Franco-Belgian television science fiction anthology series based on the popular comics anthology magazine Métal Hurlant, known in the United States as Heavy Metal and in Germany as Schwermetall. All the episodes are a self-contained story taking place on a different planet with a different cast, linked together only by the idea that an asteroid, the “Métal Hurlant”, passes the planet in question during the events of the story. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9tal_Hurlant_Chronicles)

It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and that’s ok. The next few weeks I’m going to spend time doing some research on the show and comics so I can familiarize myself as best I can. Either way, this should be a fun time! If you follow me on Twitter or on my Facebook page, you’ll find out when I’ve posted!

Addendum: This is a really interesting opportunity for me. Unlike the other folks that are also going to be writing, I am not a journalist. I didn’t plan on writing about entertainment for a living (though it’d be pretty cool) and except for a few years as a high school correspondent for my local paper, I haven’t really tried my hand at journalism. I have a career outside of this. Yes, I like writing. Yes, I like to blog. Yes, I love entertainment. But it’s not what I was originally planning on doing. So it feels a bit weird to get chosen to do this and sometimes I really question why I got picked. Also it doesn’t help when I go online and see articles saying that I shouldn’t be doing this and that “exposure” doesn’t count as compensation and how I’m just screwing things up for “real writers”. It’s really easy to have all the insecurity slip in right now, and tell myself “you’re not that good!” or “you shouldn’t be doing this!”. But you know, I’m not going to focus on that. Right now, I’m ok with just getting experience and exposure. And no, nothing is wrong with me for wanting that. I’m also looking forward to learning things that I wouldn’t have I not been granted this opportunity. This isn’t a full time job for me and I’ll always have this blog to fall back on. So if next year I’m right back where I started, it’ll be ok. I’m excited to do this and we’ll see what comes out of it. I’m also going to have to grow a thicker skin it seems.