Author Archives: Kyle

If We Controlled Your Remote… 3/18/18

Posted on March 18, 2018 by , and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Jenny’s Choice

I love cop shows/procedurals. I don’t think that’s a shock to anyone who’s been a reader here for any length of time. So it should come as no surprise that I was very excited about the new cop show on CBS, Instinct. Based on the James Patterson novel, the show stars Bojana Novakovic (Shameless, Rake, Satisfaction) as Lizzie Needham, an NYPD detective working on the case of a serial murderer who is basing his crimes off a book written by former CIA operative-turned-author/professor Dr. Dylan Reinhart, played by Alan Cumming (The Good Wife). Lizzie goes to Dr. Reinhart to get his help with the case, and the two hit it off (not in a romantic way… Dr. Reinhart is married to Andy, played by Daniel Ings (Lovesick).), and he’s lured back into law enforcement by the case and his budding friendship/working relationship with Lizzie. Both Lizzie and Dylan have someone in their corner (besides Andy). Lizzie’s direct boss, Lt. Jasmine Gooden (Sharon Leal, Hellcats, Guilty, Recovery Road), is also her best friend. And Dylan has an invaluable CIA contact/friend in Julian Cousins (Naveen Andrews, Lost, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Sense8).

I’ve seen tonight’s pilot as well as two other episodes, and I really love what I’ve seen. It reminds me a bit of Elementary, in that the lead is a bit of an odd ball (although not to the degree that Sherlock Holmes was in that one) and the pair has quite the fun relationship (better in this one, I think, especially as the episodes go along). Overall, it’s a fun take on the male/female cop/not-cop procedural, maybe more so because there’ll be no will they/won’t they, since Dylan is gay and married. If you’re a fan of that type of show, don’t miss this one. With Bones and Castle gone, this is going to fill that niche quite nicely!

On tonight’s episode, “Pilot,” former CIA operative Dr. Dylan Reinhart is lured back to his old life when NYPD detective Lizzie Needham needs his help to stop a serial killer.

See if Dylan and Lizzie can stop the killer tonight on CBS at 8/7c.

I’ll also be watching/DVRing Little Big Shots, Counterpart, Guy’s Grocery Games, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Genius Junior, NCIS: LA, Private Eyes, & Deception.
 
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If We Controlled Your Remote… 3/14/18

Posted on March 14, 2018 by and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

Last week, The CW premiered the new drama Life Sentence. As a teenager, Stella Abbott (Lucy Hale, Pretty Little Liars) was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and so for the past 8 years she has been living in the moment without worrying about the consequences of her actions. However, at one of her routine visits to her doctor, she suddenly learns that she is cancer free. When she tells the rest of her family, the floodgates open as they all reveal many things they’ve been hiding from her over the past 8 years, as they tried to keep up appearances for her health’s sake.

Stella’s mother Ida (Gillian Vigman, New Girl, Lopez) and father Peter (Dylan Walsh, Unforgettable, Nip/Tuck) have split up, and Ida is now pursuing a bisexual relationship with Stella’s godmother Poppy. The family home is about to be repossessed due to all the mortgages that had been taken out to pay for Stella’s treatments. Stella’s brother Aiden’s (Jayson Blair, Young & Hungry, The New Normal) grief over her illness led him to have a series of destructive relationships, dealing Adderall to soccer moms and sleeping with married women, one of whom is currently pregnant. Her sister Elizabeth (Brooke Lyons, iZombie, Jane by Design) gave up a college scholarship and her dreams to be a writer in order to stay home and take care of her baby sister. And husband Wes (Elliot Knight, American Gothic, Once Upon a Time) revealed several things he lied about, including his desire to have children. Now Stella must deal with the aftermath of her illness and figure out how to live life with consequences.

The series feels like a nice throwback to those classic CW family dramadies we used to see all the time a decade ago, such as Everwood or Hart of Dixie. I enjoyed last week’s premiere and look forward to learning more about this dysfunctional family and what other secrets they’ve been hiding and seeing how things shake out now that everyone has let their true colors fly. I’m also curious to see how Stella deals with going from feeling an outpouring of love from her family to receiving an outpouring of resentment and how she adapts to her new lease on life. Did she and Wes only get married because they thought they just had a small amount of time together? They promised to love one another and be together forever, but “forever” just got a whole lot longer. Wes seems to have held back a lot of his own desires and feelings just to spare Stella any heartache when she was sick, and now they must deal with that.

On tonight’s episode, “Re-Inventing the Abbotts,” Stella and Wes must defend their marriage to the INS; Peter and Ida decide to sell the house; Stella tries to help Aiden face reality; Elizabeth’s husband is not thrilled with Stella’s plan to deal with her sister’s writer’s block.

Check in on this new show tonight on The CW at 9/8c.

I’ll also be watching/recording American Housewife, Designated Survivor, Survivor, The Blacklist, The X-Files, 9-1-1, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Schitt’s Creek, Let’s Get Physical, and The Magicians.
 
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If We Controlled Your Remote… 3/13/18

Posted on March 13, 2018 by and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

Tonight, Rise, the newest drama from series creator Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights, Parenthood) and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller, premieres on NBC. Lou Mazzuchelli (Josh Radnor, How I Met Your Mother) has been teaching high school English in a small working-class Pennsylvania town for 17 years. He grows more and more disillusioned and disheartened each year and is doubting his ability to inspire and motivate his students. So he decides to take over the school’s lackluster theater department – much to the chagrin of Tracey Wolfe (Rosie Perez, Fearless), who had been running the department for the past 11 years. Mr. Mazzuchelli wants to really shake things up from the usual boring, safe plays the department has always done and put on something edgier, like “Spring Awakening.” He also wants to change up the usual cast, putting students in roles they may not be comfortable with and bringing in students who may not even realize their hidden potential, such as the shy Lilette Suarez (Auli’i Cravalho, Moana) and football star Robbie Thorne (Damon J. Gillespie). Though, Mr. Mazzuchelli has a tough battle in front of him as he faces pushback from the football coach (Joe Tippett), the principal, and concerned parents.

The series feels extremely similar to Friday Night Lights but set in the musical theater stage instead of on the football field (though that is also a big part of this town). The show also has a very similar look and feel to FNL, with its dark, grainy, gritty look and use of a shaky cam to make the viewer feel a part of what’s going on on-screen. The series also delves into the dramatic personal and home lives/issues of the characters. Mr. Mazzuchelli has a supportive wife (Marley Shelton, Mad Men) who teaches piano and three children at home, the oldest of whom is still a teenager but also an alcoholic (Casey W. Johnson, GLOW). The students also have their own family issues. One has a mother with a reputation for sleeping around, another has a mother in the hospital, another might be gay but has very conservative religious parents, another is transgender, another is homeless, and so on. It looks like this series is going to be a very emotional and inspirational show, filled with a lot of great musical performances, as we see how Mr. Mazzuchelli finds a way to change the lives of these young men and women and reinvigorate his own thirst for teaching, through this musical theater program.

While I really enjoyed tonight’s premiere, if I had one complaint, it would be the excessive use of the shaky-cam. This was the main thing that led me to eventually stop watching FNL. I enjoy this story and characters, the performances are great, and I definitely want to see more, but I want to feel like I’ve been taken on an emotional roller-coaster and not an actual roller-coaster.

On tonight’s premiere, “Pilot,” Lou petitions to take over as director of the school’s theater program in an attempt to revitalize his passion for teaching; he decides to make the school musical more provocative.

Check out this new drama tonight on NBC at 10:01/9:01c.

I’ll also be watching/recording The Middle, Fresh Off the Boat, black-ish, For the People, This Is Us, LA to Vegas, The Mick, The Flash, Black Lightning, and The Detour.
 
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If We Controlled Your Remote… 3/12/18

Posted on March 12, 2018 by and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

A couple weeks ago, TBS added the fun new animated sci-fi series Final Space to its Monday night lineup. Gary has spent the last 5 years alone on a prison ship Galaxy One for impersonating a captain. Gary was starting to go stir crazy with only the ship’s computer and maintenance robots to keep him company. However, that all changed when a mysterious green alien, whom Gary named Mooncake, found its way on board. Despite its friendly looks, Mooncake is actually a planet-destroying super weapon that is being hunted down by the evil Lord Commander. When his ship came under attack, Gary captured and befriended a cat-like bounty hunter named Avocato.

In last week’s episode, Gary and Avocato tracked down a bounty hunter named Terk, in order to stop him from telling Lord Commander about Mooncake’s whereabouts. However, Terk used Avocato’s missing son as bait to lure them into a trap. They came face-to-face with the Lord Commander but managed to get away, though Gary’s arm was torn off in the process. Once they got back to the ship, Kevin was fitted with a robotic arm. Meanwhile, on Earth, Quinn found evidence that a cosmic disaster—a tear in space-time—may have caused the Imperium T3 to crash, but her superiors refused to listen to her, so she decided to take things into her own hand and set off into space in a stolen ship. And back on the Galaxy One, KVN and Mooncake received a visit from a mysterious woman named Nightfall, who looked an awful lot like Quinn.

TBS has been turning out some great comedies lately. I’m really enjoying this serialized space adventure. It is both action-packed and filled with lots of adult humor. The show has fun characters, an interesting ongoing story/mystery, and each episode ends with some new twist or cliffhanger. This show will make a great binge once the entire season is over, but I’m also enjoying it week-to-week. If you haven’t yet started watching, the first three episodes are available to binge on TBS’s app/website.

On tonight’s episode, “Chapter Three,” Gary tries to hide Mooncake safely away on the planet Yarno; Gary and Avocato are trapped in a terrifying mind-puzzle; Mooncake is forced to fight in a combat arena called the Deathcropolis; Quinn investigates the gravitational disturbance.

See the crazy space fun tonight on TBS at 10:30/9:30c.

I’ll also be watching/recording The Good Doctor, Good Girls, The Resident, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, iZombie, UnREAL, and The Alienist.
 
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If We Controlled Your Remote… 3/11/18

Posted on March 11, 2018 by and

Have you ever been at a loss as to what to watch? Too many shows to pick from? We’re here to give you our opinions on what we feel is worth watching. Check it out and then let us know in the comments below what you’re choosing for tonight!

Kyle’s Choice

Tonight, ABC premieres the new series Deception. Cameron Black (Jack Cutmore-Scott, Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life) is a world-class magician who suddenly finds his career rocked by a scandal that also sends someone close to him to prison. Cameron believes it was all a setup, the work of another master illusionist, and makes solving this mystery his primary focus. Cameron soon crosses paths with FBI agent Kay Daniels (Ilfenesh Hadera, Billions, Master of None), offering his services after she appears to have fallen victim to the same illusionist. While Kay claims to dislike magic and not know anything about Cameron’s career, her partner, Mike Alvarez (Amaury Nolasco, Prison Break), is a super-fan who’s excited to have him on board. So Cameron stages his comeback, enlisting the help of his crew: street magician Jordan Monroe (Justin Chon, Dr. Ken, Twilight films), producer/makeup artist Dina Clark (Lenora Crichlow, Being Human), and master prop maker Gunter Gustafsen (Vinnie Jones, Galavant). He puts his talents and manipulation skills to the test to help the FBI crack their case, while also trying to get more information on who set him up.

I grew up watching David Copperfield on TV and always looked forward to his new specials. I was always fascinated by how he did his tricks. So I was excited when I first learned there was going to be a series about a magician helping to solve crimes. Sure, there was The Mentalist, but he just did some simple sleight of hand or mind tricks – he wasn’t a big stage magician/illusionist. I thoroughly enjoyed tonight’s premiere. The series reminds me of Castle meets Mission: Impossible/The A-Team/Leverage. It has this excellent blend of humor, drama, action, and mystery. Each week Cameron uses disguises, magic, and misdirection to help the FBI agents solve their case of the week, while at the same time he is exploring a larger arc of trying to prove the innocence of his loved one and catching the elusive illusionist who is helping these criminals. I really like this cast, and it’s especially great to see Vinnie Jones back doing a more comedic role – he was hilarious on Galavant. I’m looking forward to rewatching tonight’s premiere and checking out the future adventures of these characters.

On tonight’s premiere, “Pilot,” a disgraced magician puts his skills of deception and illusion to work at the FBI.

See the magic at work tonight on ABC at 10:01/9:01c.

I’ll also be watching/recording Timeless, Bob’s Burgers, O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession?, The Walking Dead, Worst Cooks in America, and Counterpart.
 
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