Footprints on the Moon

With the fall series and season premieres coming up in the next week or two, I’m trying to keep my eye on the TV listings to see what’s coming up. I have a bad habit of wanting to watch something, but then missing the first show. Or first several. Since I don’t like to be behind, I end up not watching at all. And I’m not fancy enough to have a DVR, so at most I can watch one show in a time slot, and tape one. But I have an early bedtime, so I have to choose between the shows in later time slots. It kind of stinks, actually!
Among the shows I’d like to make sure I catch this year are The Biggest Loser, Lost, America’s Next Top Model, and Gossip Girl. Actually, I’m liking a lot of the CW’s new line-up– the mid-season starters are looking especially like things I could get sucked into. Gossip girl starts on September 19th. That’s next Wednesday night, so those of you with DVRs can set them now. It’s also convenient for me since I want to watch America’s Next Top Model, and that will be showing on Wednesday nights as well so I won’t even have to switch channels!
Gossip Girl on The CW looks pretty interesting. It’s based on the Gossip Girl books for young adults, and it features a group of teens from Manhattan’s Upper East Side, and a mysterious “Gossip Girl” who knows everything and posts it on her blog. As someone who writes a few blogs, and reads a lot more than that, I’m intrigued. Mix in that I have a bad habit for wanting to know all the gossip, and I’m definitely interested. One of my coworkers comes in here every afternoon and says, “Hey Jenn, what you know good?” Funny enough, I can usually come up with something.
I’m making myself a note to catch Gossip Girl on the CW next week… if I don’t space it out, I’ll make sure I come back here and report on it!

What are you guys watching on TV this summer? There’s not a whole lot on, but I have managed to find a few things to watch that isn’t reruns…

Big Medicine, on TLC
Real Estate Pros (formerly the Real Deal) on TLC
Criss Angel’s Mindfreak on A&E
Rescue Me on FX
and I’m looking forward to Property Ladder on TLC.

Can you tell I like the house flipping shows? And TLC? I watch them a lot during the evenings… they are all reruns, but I haven’t seen quite a few of them yet. If I have, I just start flipping channels and looking for something else. The funny thing about all those shows I listed is that except for Real Estate Pros, which is on Saturday nights, I tape all of the rest of them because they are either after my bedtime, or I don’t want to stay up late enough to catch the end of them! Is that sad?

Yeah, most shows have had their series finales, so it’s time for summer programming. Pardon me if I say… summer TV sucks. It’s barely started, and I’m already annoyed with it. I spent a good while scanning the TV listings tonight, and the only thing I actually want to watch doesn’t come on until 10pm. Which is, of course, past my bed time. I guess I’m either going to have to get used to watching reruns, or beef up my Netflix queue. Yep, summer is usually movie time. Hopefully the good ones hitting the theaters don’t take too long to make it to DVD. I want to see them, but I don’t have the extra cash.

I haven’t posted about American Idol lately, but I’m still watching. I actually can’t comment very much right now either because I haven’t watched last night’s show yet. I saw the first few minutes, and then set the VCR and went to bed early. Don’t worry, you haven’t missed much from me… if I had been writing every other week it would have all looked something like that “SANJAYA MUST GO HOME! NOW!” But he’s finally been voted off, and all is right in the world! With such a widespread “Vote for Sanjaya” movement, a lot of people were starting to get nervous that he’d make it to the end. That would have ended up with a lot of people boycotting the show, I think. My current favorites are Jordin, Lakisha, and Melinda. I say that, of course, with the whole season in mind because I haven’t seen the most recent episode. Who do you think will be going home tonight?

Today is the day! The postie blog carnival all about television went live this morning. This round is being hosted over at Simple Kind of Life by Colleen. There are a lot of great entries about current programming, reality TV, television memories, you name it. You can check out the carnival submissions here..

I have a confession to make. I am a reality tv junkie. I don’t know what it is about those kinds of shows, but they just draw me in, and I’m hooked. I think there’s just something about the fact that the people you are watching are real people and not just actors. Seriously, if there’s a reality TV show that I don’t really want to watch, I avoid it because if I watch one of the episodes, I’ll want to watch the rest– I just “have” to know what happens in the end!

Do any of you remember that show Paradise Hotel from like 2003? I watched the first episode because it just happened to be on, and I was sucked in. I did not miss a single minute of that show. Because a hotel guest went home each week and was replaced by a viewer, it just wasn’t safe to miss something. I was sooo invested in what was happening! Alot of people didn’t like Dave and Charla, but I rooted for them the whole time. I’d like to know where they’re at now.

These days I’m watching American Idol, America’s Next Top Model, and the search for the next Pussycat Doll. Actually, the final of the Grease show is on as I’m writing this. I’m good at that– tuning in for the final one or two episodes and then pulling for people like I’ve been invested from the beginning.

Well, this week we say goodbye to four more Idol hopefuls. You may have noticed that I never posted an opinion on the girls performances this week. Well, that’s because I haven’t finished watching them yet!!
This week A.J., Nick, Alaina and Leslie are all going home. I can’t say that I’m surprised by the results this week, except for the fact that Sanjaya didn’t go home. Over and over again I was reminded why I stop watching the results shows every year. First of all, they drag it out… I hate the way he lets people know they’re going home. And until the final 5 or so, it’s more of a popularity contest than a singing one.
And Fantasia and Kelli Pickler? Are all the good Idols busy??

On Sunday I mentioned watching the sound effects choir on the Academy Awards. Well, today I found a video on YouTube. So for those of you who missed the Oscars, or just missed this part, here you go. It’s really neat to hear a group of people make these sound so realistic!

Tonight was the boys who made it through last week… as usual, I missed the first three (I think) performances. I’m not really feeling like I missed much though. I don’t know. I guess I’m just not that into any of the contestants so far. I am a big fan of Sundance, but that’s as far as it goes and most of that is from his audition!

Simon said to one of the contestants that it lacked charisma, and I had to agree with him– for several of them! The singing itself wasn’t bad, but there wasn’t much feeling behind most of the singing. I would break down who sang what, and what I thought about it, but to be honest, I haven’t gotten to know them well enough to keep them straight!!

One more thing I will say though, does anyone else get the impression that the judges are being far nicer than they would have been in previous years?? After so many seasons of American Idol, you start to get a feel for what the judges might have to say about performances, but so far I’m just seeing them not entirely willing to say “Dude, it just wasn’t good.”

I just got done watching the tapes of American Idol this week… I set the VCR so I could catch a few extra winks before work. I only caught the last hour of the guys performance, but I got the entire girls show. I’m disappointed that I missed Sundance’s performance because he’s one of the only ones that stuck out to me during the audition stage. (I missed all of the Hollywood stage as well). From watching the recaps though, it doesn’t look like I missed a whole lot. There were a couple of not-so-good performances last night, but on the whole, I think the girls blew the boys out of the water. When it gets like that, I think the 6 guys and 6 girls thing is a little unfair.
I’ve got the VCR set to catch tonight’s show because I need to be heading back to bed. (I should be sleeping now.) I’m not really sure who will go home. Noone is really standing out to me as a favorite thus far, but especially at this stage, America tends to be swayed by the judges opinions. I’ll be a little more forceful about who I’d like to go and stay as we go along. This early on, I just don’t feel like I’ve had the chance to really decide one way or another.
How about you? Any early favorites? Who do you think should/is going to go home?