TV Talk: Kardashians Break Ratings Record, Bad Girls Club Good for Oxygen

Posted by Veronica Santiago Categories: Animation, Comedy, Prime Time, Reality, Cable, HBO, Ratings,

-The “Balloon Boy” family will get no reality show despite all their efforts. Richard Heene and Mayumi Heene will, though, get jail time and probation for the stunt they pulled in October.

-Viewers are having no problem Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Sunday’s episode was the most-watched show on the network…ever.

-Speaking of bad girls, Oxygen is quite happy with its Bad Girls Club. Yesterday’s episode was that network’s biggest show to date.

-Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will start their new years in HD. Their Comedy Central programs will be shown in the new format come January 4.

-Another HBO program will be centered on Ricky Gervais. The Extras stars is now going to voice an animated series called…The Ricky Gervais Show.

Get to Know the Cast of Survivor: Gabon

Posted by Veronica Santiago Categories: Prime Time, Reality, CBS, Survivor, Features, Video,

With the premiere now just days away, it’s time to familiarize ourselves with the next round of Survivor castaways.

For the program’s 17th installment, the reality show will be kicking things up a notch. This season, the contestants will be “battling extreme conditions and interacting with wildlife such as elephants and gorillas” during their stay in Gabon. The filthy castaways will also have all of their flaws exposed in high-definition. (That’s a first for the long-running series.)

Host Jeff Probst says the African locale is the perfect setting for the contest we will be seeing this year. “In a strange coincidence to Earth’s Last Eden—good vs. evil emerges as a major theme this season. I think the audience will quickly identify with one group or the other.”

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Futon Critic

Jeopardy and Wheel in High Definition

Posted by Veronica Santiago Categories: Games, Prime Time, HDTV, News,

While most of the country will be acknowledging the 5-year anniversary of 9/11, fans of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune will be celebrating the debut of HD programming.  That is, of course, assuming those viewers even have an high-definition TV to appreciate the technology.

King World Productions and Sony Pictures Television are spending over $4 million dollars to get the production and sets ready for this big launch on September 11.  Upgrades will include wider and more detailed sets.  For Jeopardy, this will also include a new video wall to replace the individual TV monitors.  But the question is—will the shows’ primary fan base like change?

And more importantly— how will the personalities be affected by the change?  Let’s be honest—they’ve been around for a while.  Is it really in their best interest to have their features highlighted?  Poor Vanna has probably had enough trouble making sure obsessed viewers don’t see her in the same outfit twice, now she’ll have to make sure her dresses don’t come off bland under increased scrutiny.  And what about Alex Trebek? If he continues to go back and forth again between his clean-shaven and mustached looks, will we be able to see his in-between stubble?  And let’s not get into Pat Sajak’s ‘laugh lines’...

But then again - who cares?  We’ll all be focusing on more important things that day, right?

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