Blog: TV Tracker

Entries for August, 2008


"Supernatural": Season 3 DVD News

There will be fewer episodes and no full-scale commentaries, but if you buy your "Supernatural: The Complete Third Season" DVD set at the right stores at the right times, you might get a tiny copy of the Impala! Or a Jared & Jensen 2009 locker calendar!Feel better yet?According to today's release from Warner Home Video, Target and Best Buy will be offering limited-edition goodies with the purchase of Season 3 when the set goes on sale on Sept. 2. Target is throwing in a 2009 "locker" calendar featuring Jensen 'n' Jared in full Winchester regalia, and Best Buy is offering a die-cast '67 Chevy Impala inspired by Metallicar herself. Both extras will be available in limited quantities, so no dilly-dallying.The set is priced at $59.98, but the Target Web site lists the set for $38.99, while Best Buy comes in at $39.99. And as you've probably heard, it will include a featurette on the Impala, short commentaries on specific topics from select episodes, and the always-beloved gag reel. Because of the Hollywood writers' strike, there will be just 16 episodes instead of the usual 22.So what do you think? Best Buy or Target? Metallicar or calendar? And does any of this make up for the lack of the full-episode commentaries that have always been the highlights of the DVD sets?Not for me, they don't. I love the "Supernatural" commentaries, with all their inside jokes and behind-the-scenes insights. I love knowing that the actor playing the Djinn in "What Is and What Should Never Be" had to leave his face-tattoo make-up on all week, making it hard to catch a cab. I think it's amazing that the little diner in "All Hell Breaks Loose" was constructed from the ground up and that they had to build a little drawbridge to the entrance because of all the rain.And I could listen to the boyishly enthusiastic Eric Kripke ramble on about our show for hours. Seriously. I could. In fact, I have.But I will be going to Best Buy for my toy car anyway. Maybe my "vroom-vroom" noises will fill in the silence where all that glorious gabbing is supposed to be.Who's with me?

Project Runway: What Drives You?

Beep-beep, beep-beep, yeah!In a triumph of artistic creativity over crass product placement (as opposed to tasteful product placement), last night's episode found the designers taking the challenge to create clothes out of Saturn auto parts and running with it.Even though there were way too many seatbelts on the runway, the contestants left our memories of the uninspired supermarket challenge in the dust. Thanks to these found materials, the designers discovered themselves. And for the second reassuring week in a row, "Project Runway" jettisoned a whiny drip of a contestant and got its mojo back.Welcome back, mojo! And may we say that the hub-cap bustier really suits you.

The Hills: Drama Follows Them

Remember how last week I said that the amazing and frightening thing about "The Hills" is that it makes me to feel like a foreign-exchange student in my own house? Well, I take that back.After watching last night's "Are you kidding me?" soap opera involving yet another totally unsurprising Lauren vs. Speidi encounter, I have decided that the amazing and liberating thing about watching "The Hills" is that it is exactly like attending your high-school reunion, only you don't have to spend six months losing weight and fabricating a fabulous career first.

Ana Lucia and Other Blasts From the Past

Nothing like starting the week off with a TV resurrection to get those couch-potato juices flowing.According to Entertainment Weekly TV spy Michael Ausiello, actress Michelle Rodriguez is returning to "Lost" for one episode, giving the dreaded Ana Lucia a chance to wreak additional havoc (Just what we need on "Lost"! More havoc!) while reminding viewers once again why TV is so superior to real life.You're never really dead on TV , which is great news for out-of-work actors and suffering viewers alike. So with the bullet-pocked specter of Ana Lucia looming before us, let's think about who else we would like to raise from the TV dead.My votes go to:- Mesmirizing "In Treatment" headcase Alex (Blair Underwood).- "Supernatural" computer expert Ash (Chad Lindberg) and his rockin' mullet; and the demon-hunting Gordon Walker (Sterling K. Brown) and his homicidal grudge.- "Project Runway" tattooed babe Kelli Martin, whose premature departure a few weeks back robbed us of a second opportunity to hear Michael Kors crow, "Slutty, slutty, slutty!"- Toby and Karen of "The Office." They aren't dead, but I miss them anyway. Also, Angela's cat, Sprinkles, who is dead, but certainly not forgotten.Who do you miss? Besides Sprinkles, that is.

Project Runway: Life's a Drag

Since a good episode of "Project Runway" is about as faaaaabulous as reality TV gets, it is wildly appropriate that all it took to bring this so-so season back to life was a bunch of hairy men in sequins.Or as the pop-culture savvy pre-teen in my house said, "Yay! Drag queens!"Yes, ladies, gentlemen and everything in between, it was drag-queen night on "Project Runway," and it was the most fun this glum group of designers has had all season. And that goes Double D for depressed viewers at home.

Mad Men: I Have Issues

Forgive me TV fathers, for I have sinned. I have watched every single episode of "Mad Men," and I do not love it. I am impressed and intrigued, but in love? Not yet. And probably not ever.I could go on and on about why this prestigious drama doesn't light my fire, no matter how many cigarettes Don Draper and the gang light up. But I think it all boils down to one key complaint.I don't have any idea who the men and women of "Mad Men" really are.I find them totally fascinating and completely opaque. I don't understand what makes them tick, why they do what they do, and what all of those significant smoldering glances are supposed to mean. I am dumbfounded by Don and baffled by Betty. Need I add that Peggy is a puzzle? Didn't think so.If you understand why Don is slumming with Bobbie Barrett, why Betty would flirt with the guy from the gas station and blow off the guy from the stables, and what exactly is going on behind Peggy's bangs, I would love to hear it. Is this the best show ever, or just a big diorama with lots of gorgeous moving parts?Oh come all ye "Mad Men" faithful and enlighten me, please. I don't want to spend the rest of my critical life in entertainment Limbo.

The Hills: We'll Never Be Friends

The amazing and frightening thing about "The Hills" is its ability to make me feel like a foreign-exchange student in my own house. "Who are these pretty blond girls, and what are they speaking of?" I find myself wondering. "Who is that nasty Spencer person, and why is he not in jail or placed in stocks in the middle of town square?" "Where is this beautiful place called 'Los Angeles'?""And why, why, why do these boring pretty people have a combined income that exceeds the national gross of my little country of Suburbistan?" Clues? Anyone?

Swingtown, SYTYCD, Runway, Battlestar

What does a TV critic watch when no one is watching? Whatever the TV critic wants to watch. So on my recent vacation, I skipped the Olympics (Too tiring!), "Mad Men" (Too thought-provoking!) and "Generation Kill" (Great show, but...no.) but managed to make time in my busy, busy rebooting schedule for "Project Runway" "So You Think You Can Dance," "Swingtown" and about 20 hours of "Battlestar Galactica."In other words, I had a swell TV time. Here are some postcards from the couch:"So You Think You Can Dance": While I never really recovered from Mark's premature departure, my personal trauma paled in comparison to the poor Final Four, who danced themselves into the ground during the ridiculously demanding two-hour performance finale, only to return the next night for more dancing. It was like "They Shoot Horse, Don't They" with sequins.It was such a punishing show, I felt criminally negligent just for watching. Between the group dances, the segregated-by-sex dances and the totally-unnecessary-at-this-point solos, the whole thing was almost too cruel to enjoy.After all the sweat and sadism of the performance show and the delicious greatest-hits extravaganza that was the overstuffed finale, the crown went to Joshua, and I was OK with that. Yes, Katee was robbed. And Twitch too, probably. Since nobody ended up literally sacrificing their lives for their art, however, everybody won. Who's up for the tour?