The World of Joel

There is no doubt that Saturday Night Live has seen better days, it has been a long time since I sat down and watched anything to do with SNL. However I remembered that Steve Carell was going to be on this week so I caught some of the skits on Hulu. If you don’t know Hulu is a great video service that plays full episodes for a lot of the shows on NBC and a few other networks. The three skits are in the following order. The Office in Japan, Obama vs. Clinton, and Graduation Commencement Speech. All three I found to be a real pleasure to watch and some good laughs. I especially love the names in the last video of the Commencement Speech, pretty clever. Enjoy them!
1) The Office in Japan

2) Obama vs. Clinton (NBA Playoffs Style)

3) Graduation Commencement Speech

So I started this year’s TV Season with high hopes. I had about 8-10 TV Blogs I was producing, a few returning shows I was excited to get back into. The blogs went really well, I did sell them in hopes of making profit which I did, and things worked out. I am starting some new blogs which I will get into later, but for now as the finale’s begin to roll and we see the effects of the writers strike with the shortened seasons, we look back on what I watched in 2007-2008.

Shows I Watched:
Amazing Race
Bionic Woman
Carpoolers
Chuck
Friday Night Lights
Grey’s Anatomy
Heroes
Jericho
Journeyman
The Big Bang Theory
The Office

Favorite New Show of 2007-2008 Season: The Big Bang Theory on CBS

Most Dissapointed About Cancellation: Journeyman on NBC (followed by a close second in Jericho)

Most Disappointing Series of 2007-2008 Season: Heroes on NBC

Favorite Show Overall: The Office

So I very rarely stay up late enough to watch the late night shows. I usually will watch Colbert at 10:30 and then hit the sack, but last night I was up finishing a book called Black Hands of Beijing for a Chinese Revolution class that I am taking. Needless to say I wanted to wind down a bit after 4+ hours of reading so I flipped between Leno and Letterman. I am finding more and more that I like Leno a lot better. Letterman just bothers me. Needless to say Leno had two guests I was more inclined to watch which was Bill Cosby and Novak Djokovic the tennis player who beat Federer at the Australian Open. Djokovic for those who don’t follow tennis is actually one of the lighter hearted guys on the tour and actually does some good impressions. However following Cosby last night left him feeling a bit dry.

Getting on to the point of the post, Bill Cosby was on last night, who I consider to be one of the most entertaining people to watch. The man is just funny. My parents saw him do stand-up a few years back and said he wasn’t necessarily running at full speed like he had in the past, but even last night he did a short routine and it really was quite good. It was one of those interviews where you could see Leno was really was a big fan, and the two had a lot of respect for each other. It just reminded me of how much I enjoyed Cosby’s work and made me want to go back and watch some of his earlier material. It was good stuff last night, just what you need after reading a rather long winded book.

Also if you want to watch my favorite part of Cosby’s stand up is his stand-up on going to the Dentist. I for one HATE the Dentist, so this is especially funny for me. Enjoy

Would they just stop striking already? Have you heard there is a possibility with the writers strike there might not even be new shows for next fall? What is the problem here, are we so stubborn that we can’t get a deal made? I for one am so sick of reality shows and game shows. I miss my Monday night Chuck, Heroes, and Journeyman routine. It seems like years since I have watched a new episode of The Office. Where is Jim and Pam? Friday Night Lights is running low on episodes, and the only show that I am even interested in tuning into right now is Sarah Conner Chronicles which I watched the first episode and enjoyed it quite a bit but its no Heroes, or Office. Heck I would even take some new episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

As many of you know I run a slew of online TV blogs for some of the shows listed above and there nearly abandoned without any content or any shows to write about there is very limited to update people on. At least Jericho is making a return soon, I need something to watch. After a long day of school there is nothing like sitting down and watching a good episode of your favorite shows. I guess that is why we have TV on DVD’s now?

Things are funny in the way they work out. I haven’t done a radio interview in almost two years, I loved doing them, but its been a while. Yesterday there was a comment on Journeyman Blog from Brian Howe thanking us for our work and support. I e-mailed him up and asked if we could talk. He said he would do his best and asked for my phone number and went from there and I got a call at about 4:30pm this evening. Never heard of Brian Howe? Well I bet you have seen him, several times in fact. He has been in such movies as The Pursuit of Happyness, Catch Me if You Can, Evan Almighty, Deja Vu just to name a few, and a handful of notable TV shows as well Law & Order and CSI.

So I don’t have any radio equipment anymore. In fact I used my iPhone on speaker and my Mac Book to attempt to record the interview and only got the last eight minutes of it. However the talk was about 20-25 minutes long. We talked about the show, his past, his getting the gig on Journeyman, the future of the show, the promotion of the show, and the cast.

If you want to check out more on the interview go to the Journeyman Blog. I loved doing the interview and hopefully I can get some more with the strikes still going around and Journeyman’s fait still in the air. I should have the audio for the interview up soon as well.

What a sad morning it was, it started out good, but then I got online, did my usual roundup of news for my TV Blogs, and saw some of the worst news since the cancellation of Jericho, Journeyman has been put on notice. Tonight Journeyman airs its tenth episode, and it will have two more before it is off the air. There is no official word on cancellation, but we do know that this is the end of the season, and there is very little chance if any that NBC brings it back next year, especially with the poor ratings. This and Chuck are my favorite new shows of the year, Journeyman for me being the more consistent one. Just like Jericho, Journeyman had a select following, it didn’t grab any of the ratings. Read my full comments on the ending of Journeyman, on my Journeyman Blog.

RIP: Journeyman
September 2007 - December 2007

When I went into the idea of creating TV Show Blogs the idea was to make a good number of them and see which ones take off and which ones were not going anywhere. I have begun the process of weeding them out and I have eliminated quite a few of the blogs I have been updating. Sites like KidNationTV, OfficeTVBlog, FNLBlog, Pushing Daisies.org, and a few others. So what was once just an overwhelming task now has been shortened a bit so I can now push my stronger sites to the front and work heavily on those. So here are the list of blogs performing well and that I am going to continue to push:

• ChuckTVBlog.com
• HeroesInsider.net
• JourneymanBlog.com
• CarpoolersTV.com
• BionicWomanTV.com
• JerichoBlog.net (When it Returns)

So we are a few weeks into the fall TV season and as you know a lot of my TV blogs are really doing well, and for that I am very happy and I appreciate everyones support. But thus far I have enjoyed most of the shows I blog about, but the one that I really enjoy is Journeyman so far. I like the characters, I like the premise, and I like the execution, and yet I worry it may not be on for much longer. The show has not gotten the strongest ratings, it is at a hit/miss timeslot at 10pm (kind of late), and it is a premise that has been done before, yet at the same time I really love watching it.

My Top Five Shows Watching Right Now (In No Order)
- Journeyman
- Chuck
- Heroes
- The Office
- Bionic Woman

Notables: Beauty and the Geek, Big Bang Theory, and Cavemen.

I have to say that more and more NBC is impressing me with there shows, I say this because Monday night from 8pm-11pm I am going to be watching back to back to back shows (Chuck, Heroes, and Journeyman). I haven’t seen a lineup like that in quite sometime. Having seen both the pilots for Journeyman and Chuck, I have to say that I am now really most excited to check out the Season 2 of Heroes which promises to be a great exciting roller coaster ride again this year. So if you didn’t already know, tune into NBC tonight for a stellar trio of television.

For those of you who don’t know, CBS reality show Kid Nation is premiering this evening. This is an interesting reality show that places 40 kids on there own to create there own town. To tell you how much CBS believes in this show, they are already casting for Kid Nation 2! With that being said you know that I have a Kid Nation blog? Well if you didn’t its KidNationTV.com, please check it out, and expect a review of the first episode up tonight and every episode from this point forward!

I have a review of the first episode up on the website as well, which can be found by clicking here.