Here we go again...

Another day, another Starz historical drama that provides an excuse for violence and sex. Not that I mind either of those things (or the genre for that matter), but there are ways to do this and make it not suck, you know? Like the later seasons of The Tudors, for example.

Anyhoodle, Starz is soon premiering their latest original series, Camelot. Here's the blurb from the website:

In the wake of King Uther’s sudden death, chaos threatens to engulf Britain. When the sorcerer Merlin has visions of a dark future, he installs the young and impetuous Arthur, Uther’s unknown son and heir, who has been raised from birth as a commoner. But Arthur’s cold and ambitious half sister Morgan will fight him to the bitter end, summoning unnatural forces to claim the crown in this epic battle for control.

Thanks to Netflix, I was able to watch the first episode and I am now here to tell you all the things that are wrong with Camelot:

1) It's boring.

Everybody knows this story. So the shows doesn't exactly waste time on particulars, in fact, they pretty much jump right into the sex and murder aspects, but still. Yawn. I don't know if I was just too distracted, but I didn't find myself caring who controls Britain. Probably because this Britain is full of dirty peasants, Camelot is a crumbling heap, and Uther was ruling from what amounted to a wooden hut. I'm all for historical realism, but you gotta give me some knights, armor, and round tables to get me to care.

2) I am rooting for the bad guys.

I suppose Arthur is supposed to to be the hero of all this, but he's kind of lame. I say let Morgan (who should be called Morgana, I mean really) just take over and rule. She got banished by her father to a nunnery for 15 years and came all back all witchy and badass. For goodness sake, she is the most awesome character and is played by Eva Green from James Bond, so I say let her take over already. It's not ever really made clear why Merlin keeps going on and on about how it has to be Arthur in charge...probably something lame like Morgan is a woman and therefore cannot rule. Jerk. Oh, and Morgan gets to bang some warlord named King Lot who is played by the excellent James Purefoy (Mark Antony in Rome) so she gets bonus points for her most excellent taste in men.

3) Arthur isn't hot.

This one is self-explanatory. Arthur should be hot. The end.

4) Merlin makes no sense.

He's young here. Ok. But seriously, he is like young enough to be Arthur's older brother. The hell? Also, bald. Starz, let me explain something to you. Merlin is old. And has a beard. And IS NOT BALD. Also, he is not Joseph Fiennes. That is some wackadoodle casting right there.

5) Did I mention it was kind of boring?

I'm not saying the show is bad (yet). I've only seen the first episode, maybe things will improve. But I am also not saying you should run out and sign up for Starz for it. If the other eps become available on Netflix I might watch, but seriously show. Get your act together. Sure you've got some cool fight and sex scenes, but you need a helluva lot more than that.

An Idiot Abroad

This weekend, a friend of mine turned me on to a hidden gem on the Science network (which by the way I had never heard of until this week and it turns out the previous article is on it too). If you are familiar with Ricky Gervais, you will adore this show. Produced by Gervais, the show follows Ricky's close friend Karl Pilkington traveling around the world. The kick behind it is Karl isn't the worldiest or most PC person. He has clearly never traveled or met foreigners.


To be honest you spend the entire show laughing at Karl, and it is incredibly entertaining. Karl is a moron. But his one liners make you crack up. Additionally, Ricky and Stephen Merchant call and mock Karl throughout the episode. Karl is attempting to visit the wonders of the world. So far we have watched Mexico, Egypt and India and I have already set a season pass. He spent the entire mexico episode looking for Mexican jumping beans. My husband had a good laugh at watching Karl try to comprehend the squat toilets in India.

SET YOUR TIVOS! It airs on the science network on Sat nights at 10pm :)

Be warned you might need a Brit to translate a line or two. Crazy Brits!

Such a Tease

This afternoon I received the following text from my friend Wendy:

"OMG! Firefly is coming back!!!"

My response: "WHAT"

I experienced an instantaneous jump in heart rate and a million thoughts started running through my head. "But Nathan Fillion is on Castle...and Summer Glau is on The Cape, oh wait, that's getting canceled...will it be set 10 years in the future or something, I wonder if the costumes will be the same, and I bet Zoey is going to be even more badass..."

But then, a couple of texts later, I figured out what Wendy was actually telling me. Turns out the Science Channel will be broadcasting the full 15 episodes of Firefly. You're probably thinking, what the crap does Firefly have to do with science? It's science FICTION. But here's the cool part: after each episode, there will be short segments where a physicist weighs in on the science behind the fiction. Neat, right?

Entertainment Weekly managed to get Captain Tightpants himself on the phone for a brief interview about the "return" of Firefly. Basically, he would play Mal again in a second, one of the best things about the character was the low slung holster (HOT), and the reason why the show is still so popular is because of the genius of Joss' stories.

Sure, it's not as good as new episodes, but hey, we'll take what we can get, right? We Browncoats are nothing if not optimistic. Firefly starts airing on the Science Channel on March 6 with the pilot showing at 8pm and the first hour long episode at 10pm. After that, episodes will air (in the intended order!) on Sunday nights.

Not a Fan of the Bieber but Loving the Rent

Where has Whitney's evil rants on Glee been? I know this has been plaguing you at night. How have you coped without my countless references to plot whiplash and improbable plot turns? Well I guess the main reason I haven't posted was I have been shockingly happy with the past few episodes.

Plot whiplash has finally stopped. I do not feel lost every time I watch an episode and I am easily following who is dating whom. I thoroughly enjoyed the Valentine's Day episode. The songs lacked anything I would download, but the plot was sweet and I had several aww moments. My favorite moment of the past 3 episodes was Mike Cheng fawning over Tina when she got hurt in the football game. It was so sweet :)

Tonight's episode was plot perfect. It was cute and I am truly enjoying the "Sam" character. Now, I am not a 10 year old girl, so the Bieber songs weren't remotely enjoyable. In fact, I had given up on enjoying songs in this episode until I heard the opening chords of my favorite rent song. I will give Lea Michele and Amber Riley credit. They did an excellent rendition of "Take me baby" sans lesbianism. I was impressed by the range of their voices. Overall I liked the plots and was touched by the scene in the cancer ward.

That all being said I have one MAJOR issue with Glee. During the superbowl episode I noticed a great deal of product placement. I chalked that up to the superbowl, however, it has continued into the next two episodes. Have you noticed the "slushies" are now in 7-11 big gulps? Also, Santana told puck in the Valentine's day episode "she went to Jahred." Come on producers of glee! Don't stop believin! Don't Sell Out! I know its too late, but I can hope.

Ladies Lunching

Maggie Cats here: last week I spent a good chunk of time in LA visiting family. On Friday, me and a friend (who has asked to remain nameless) decided to go to lunch at a semi-famous Beverly Hill eatery. We just so happened to spot several "celebrities," meaning we saw some people from a reality show. I was able to strong-arm my friend into writing up a guest blog post detailing our adventure. Seriously, I literally wrangled a promise out of her to write about it...mostly since I don't watch the reality show in question. So enjoy!



One of the must see spots of LA is Rodeo drive. So Friday afternoon, Maggie Cats and I headed up to Rodeo drive for lunch at Villa Blanca, and of course, shopping. Why Villa Blanca? Well RHBH, of course. That’s the Real housewives of Beverly Hills, for those not in the know. Villa Blanca is owned by one of the housewives, none other than Lisa Vanderpump and her husband Todd (note from Maggie Cats: that name is fake, right? It’s got to be fake. Seriously, Vanderpump??).



Following the GPS, we wound our way around the streets of Beverly Hills until we found the restaurant located on the corner of Camden and Brighton Way. The outside seating wraps around the corner of the restaurant and was lined with billowy white sheer curtains. The weather was perfect—a normal February day in LA (71 and sunny). On Friday at 1pm the restaurant was humming. On the way in, a tall redheaded woman in a crazy (and I mean crazy, even by LA standards) outfit was standing across from us at the hostess stand. When the woman turned around,Maggie Cats recognized her as Phoebe Price.





Who the Hell is Phoebe Price? These are the words you will find if you google her, she’s famous because she is famous; she’s often on the red carpet and claims to be an international model—but really she just gets attention from her outrageous outfits and unique look. According to Maggie, the only reason she IDed her was because of the website Go Fug Yourself. Check it out: Ms. Price has an entire section dedicated to her cray cray stylings.



In line to sign in at the hostess stand were also several normal looking (by normal I mean not augmented) older 70+ year old women, one of whom called this the “hottest restaurant in town.” While I doubt that is true, it was a nice sentiment and made us feel oh so posh. Waiting on a table we headed to the bar. Maggie ordered a tasty cocktail called the Big Pink, which starts out like a mojito with lime, mint and simple syrup but then instead of rum gets vodka, cranberry juice, and finishes up with a splash of soda. This seemed to be the drink of choice in the restaurant today, as almost everyone at the bar was holding or ordering one. According to Maggie it was strong and tasty (it was both, equally).



While we were waiting at the bar and chatting up a gay couple that was in town from New York, the co-owner of the restaurant, Mr. Vanderpump, I mean Todd Kent, walked by, clearly large and in charge of the establishment. Celebrity sighting Number 2 had been made!





Once we were seated, I finally took notice of a woman at the bar, who had been casually eating her lunch the entire time. It was none other than the “morally corrupt” (said by Camille Grammer in season one of RHBH), Faye Resnick.



Faye enjoyed her lunch, and post lunch tea as we ate at a table outside. She had a nice chat with Ken, but for the most part she was alone. She checked her watch repeatedly, and her mirror at least two dozen times. So I can only imagine she was waiting for Kyle to meet her for lunch. Similarly, Ken’s obsessive cell checking—and not in a sly, cool-guy way—culminated in a walk outside with the phone held to the sky (as though an arms length would magically give the device satellite reception), was waiting for a call or text from Lisa. Were these so-called celebs actually expecting calls, or were they just eternally hopeful that someone would actually want to talk to them? Who knows.



After our lunch, which was quite delicious and reasonably priced, we hit the streets for some window-shopping. Or just hit THE street, because it's Rodeo Drive, baby. And you never know who you'll run into.

Eh.

Is it just me or is there not much to be excited about on television these days?

Where's the Veronica Mars, the Battlestar Galactica, the Pushing Daisies, the LOST? I can't really think of a show that I cannot WAIT to watch, that I spend the entire day looking forward to seeing, that I am depressed when it's over because it means I need to wait another week before watching it again.

I am sure some of you still have shows that get you excited like that (I can practically hear Dorilyn yelling "Fringe!" at the computer screen), but I am just not really coming up with anything that I salivate over. And it's kind of sad because the shows that I do like the most air on the CW.

Yeah, the network for 13 year olds is the one that I relate to the most. Sigh.

But seriously. They've got Vampire Diaries, which if you still aren't watching it, is pretty much made of awesome. It doesn't get me going the way, say, Veronica Mars used to, but it usually doesn't linger on the DVR for more than a few days.

If you need a reason to watch it, the Onion has 10 for you. And the one that I agree with the most is that the show "moves like a freight train." They get more done in more week on that show than most programs cover in an entire season. For example: this week, a vampire got shot in the head, tortured, escaped, a new werewolf character showed up, another character came to terms with her parentage, an evil vampire locked in a tomb made a deal with another character who is apparently working for someone else, a hostage exchange went horribly wrong, there's a twist with a witch, and the body count was like 10 (including some hearts being yanked out). Whew.

Other honorable mention CW shows: Nikita, Gossip Girl, and Supernatural. But nothing really spectacular, you know what I mean? Supernatural has been kind of meh this season, and I'll always watch (if nothing else just for Jensen Ackles), but it doesn't grab me like it used to.

Maybe it's just the winter blues talking, but now that the hiatus is over I am hoping these shows kick it into gear. Because I need some entertainment and fast.