I had set up TED to download my favorite shows as they appear on Bittorrent. Funny thing happened this evening, though: episode 3 of 24 started downloading about 30-45 minutes before it actually aired. Kind of puzzled me, it did. Then I watched last night's episodes and saw the digital equivalent of a watermark which said this:

PROPERTY OF FOX
FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY
NOT FINAL AIR VERSION

Someone had apparently uploaded the version that reviewers get to see before the air date of a show. And tonight, I had episodes #3 & #4 downloaded and burned to disc before I finished watching last night's shows.

Information wants to be free, I guess. And watching 2 hours of a show in only 1:30 -give or take- makes me quite happy. I am curious as to what person(s) make it their business to give away broadcast episodes before they, umm, broadcast. My guess is that Fox would be quite interested as well.

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On the other hand, the previous two installments of TNT's The Librarian were fun fare. I expect the 3rd one to be no different. In any event, what follows is a very special promo poster for the series:

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Apparently though, there's some major league stupidity on the way. Yes, Kim Bauer is set to return this year. She will have a child in tow. Excerpt:

Do the writerÂ’s of 24 really think that Jack would let Kim Bauer have children? Does he not put up with enough crap in his day job?

Kim BauerÂ’s Kid Jokes

How do you get Kim BauerÂ’s kid out of a tree?
-Wave at him/her

Jack Bauer went over to visit his grandchild and saw it staring at the carton of orange juice. So he asks why they are staring at the carton of OJ. “Because it says ‘concentrate’ on it” says Little Bauer.

How do you know KimÂ’s child is related to Jack Bauer?
-It burned down the school to get out of 3rd grade.

Hmm. While Kim Bauer used to piss me off a great deal, Elisha Cuthbert has always given me, umm, warm feelings. Observe below the fold:

more...

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A new Bundy Web comedy to premiere in January.

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Posted by: John at November 21, 2008 02:07 PM (yEwnL)

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It's not awful that EW listed the 25 cheesiest action shows of all time. What's awful is that I actually watched most of them. Excerpt:

JACK OF ALL TRADES (2000-2001)
STARRING Bruce Campbell

PREMISE The Evil Dead veteran plays an American agent during the 1800s who's sent to the South Pacific to help a British spy (Angela Dotchin) guard against Napoleon's naval advances.

REDEEMING QUALITIES As always, Bruce's chin. And the brilliance of casting Verne Troyer as Bonaparte.

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The Legend of the Seeker premieres Saturday, November 1. If, however, you can't wait, here's the first 10 minutes of the series to further whet your appetite.

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Spoiler video for Lost right here. It's also embedded below the fold.

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Psych has been renewed for a 4th season.

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Well, I know that many of you are worried about our imminent slide into a socialist country. Think of the bright side: for those of us who have wanted to visit France, electing a Marxist makes things easier. By taxing and spending the ever living crap out of us, we'll become France. No need to buy expensive plane tickets.

Anyway, too many of you are obsessing over November 4. I will admit to having done so on occasion myself. However, November 1 & 2 are much more important days in that The Legend of the Seeker kicks off. Here are some more images for you to compare to the images you had already conjured up in your brain.

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Back in 184, Joe Piscopo has a comedy special on HBO. There were pretty funny skits: one where he did an "HBO Sports" special, with Eddy Murphy as Carl Lewis; one where he spoofed the Thriller video as the Nutty Professor; and one in which he played the lead singer of the Deltones, who had a gig singing to a mob boss. I mentioned it to my a friend today; he had never seen it. Anyhoo, I headed over to YouTube, and darned if they didn't have the video up. Jim Treacher once remarked on one of his blogs (not the Puce, because that would have been unreadable) that "YouTube is going to destroy this country and I don't care". I happen to agree with him.

I'll embed the video below the fold so that it won't hang your browser while it loads:
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So Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear (Hey, Boo Boo, what's in that pick-a-nick basket?) turned 50 on October 2. While I'm not old enough to remember when the show actually first aired, I remember vividly watching as a small child. I've recently introduced my children to those characters, courtesy of the Boomerang Channel.

Here's one that you might remember: Where's Huddles? I enjoyed both the comic book and the cartoon. One episode, if 38 year memory serves, involved Huddles building a swimming pool in his backyard. His neighbor mentioned that he had a "5 figure check", which made the pool digging guy quite happy. Until, that is, he discovered that 2 of those figures were to the right of the decimal point.

I know what you're thinking right now: what the heck is wrong with you, and why do you remember crap like this?

In response, I'll point to the back of the exceedingly long line of other curious people. Much like sitting on Santa's lap, you'll just have to wait your turn to find out.

Update: I'm still amazed by what you can find on YouTube here, here and here.

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I, for one, look forward to the television event that I hope the television adaptation of Wizard's First Rule, The Legend of the Seeker will become.

Just to whet your appetite, here's an image of Kahlan and Richard.

For the record, I won't have my Ral Partha figurines out on a map of the Westlands and D'Hara. At least, not so far as you know.

Update: One more picture.

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As an update to my previous post on this topic, here are some new cast members for this Sword of Truth television event:

Richard Cypher Craig Horner

Kahlan Amnell Bridget Regan

Zeddicus Zu'l Zorander Bruce Spence

Chase (Dell Brandstone) Jay Laga'aia

Darken Rahl Craig Parker

Preview Trailer can be found here > Legend of the Seeker

The trailer looks good, but then most trailers do. I look forward to the now published broadcast date of November 1, 2008. Mark your calendars, if you're a Terry Goodkind fan.

BTW, I'm quite interested in who they decide to cast as Mistress Denna.

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Earlier, I posted about Wizard's First Rule becoming an extended TV mini-series. Now we know a little bit more:

Richard Cypher'Rahl: Craig Horner

Kahlan Amnel'Rahl: Bridget Regan

Zedd, Chase and George Cypher have been cast, but I'm not at liberty to release just yet....something about finalizing contracts or some such legal mumbo-jumbo....

But its getting closer!

At first blush, Bridget Regan looks like she could, physically, play the part of Kahlan. Not too many photos exist on the Innertubes right now, but I expect that to change once she dons the white Mother Confessor's robe.

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The Sarah Connor Chronicles has officially been renewed for a second season. Good. It's rare that a new show I like actually gets picked up, but this time quality programming and decent ratings prevailed.

Tangentially related update: Related only in that it deals with fantasy/scifi TV. Turns out that Wizards First Rule will be made into a weekly TV series. Really? Is it going to be broadcast on the Playboy channel, or maybe the BSM/Torture Channel? I loved that book, but the whole Mistress Denna thing isn't something that I see looking good over the air.

Update to the tangentially related update: Okay, Terry Goodkind is sure that it's happening, so it must be true. Oddly, considering some of the subject matter, Disney is one of the partners in this 22-episode television adventure. Anyway, excerpt:

Dear Readers,

Now that the announcement about the TV series has been officially released, I would like to take this opportunity to put it in perspective and fill in some of the details. (Please keep in mind that some of this might change as things evolve.)

The first season will be 22 one hour episodes, on Saturday evenings, probably at either 8 or 9 pm. Since this is a syndicated program you will need to check your local listings for the station in your area.

The first season will cover the story of WIZARD?S FIRST RULE. Along with exciting opportunities afforded by the air time in which we have to tell the story, the TV series also brings unique challenges. All film formats ? TV series, mini-series, or feature films ? must, to a greater or lesser extent, alter the novel in order to translate the story from words to pictures. A feature film has severe limitations of time, requiring major parts of novels to be cut out. Sam Raimi knew that a feature film of WIZARD?S FIRST RULE could never work to tell the story. That?s why he wanted to do a long format TV show. I?m especially pleased that we are going to be doing 22 one hour episodes to tell this epic story ? much more time than a mini-series would have afforded. That said, there must still be changes, yet within those changes lie exciting opportunities.
...
With Disney now on board we have some of the most gifted people in the world working to make this project not just exciting but successful.

All this said, I would like to interject a note of caution. In projects of this nature involving vast sums of money there are always things that can go wrong. For example, while the rights to many books are sold or optioned very few of these ever see the light of a bright screen. Many books, even though there is initial enthusiasm, in reality are simply not a good fit for film. Announcements of book rights being sold are quite common; having such rights ever end up as a finished product is actually exceedingly rare. Because so much money is involved in the production of films there are countless stages at which a project can be stopped cold.

Well, I'll wait until they start casting before I decide to add it to my viewing schedule.

Final update: Check out Amy's Commentary here for why I think that the book isn't what the people at Disney think it is:

Why did several people in the book group strongly dislike Wizard's First Rule? One reason given was that they felt this book was not well written (or poorly edited), that there were too many misspellings and too much bad grammar. Another felt parts were needlessly crude. There was also the complaint that the story was too derivative of other fantasy books, not very original. The reason discussed most, however, was an episode three quarters of the way into the book - the long torture scene involving Richard Cypher and Mistress Denna, the Mord-Sith. Richard suffers at the hands of leather clad Denna and her rod- like Agiel. The S&M aspects of their "relationship" didn't appeal to me, and several group members found it extremely disagreeable, enough so to sour them on the entire book. This scene was unexpected and intense, but not - in my opinion - gratuitous. They didn't agree. One person was extremely uncomfortable reading this scene and could only skim it. Richard's encounter with the Mord-Sith may be important in later books, but I think such a traumatic scene should've been better foreshadowed.

From the people who make Dreams Come True™ comes this whimsical tale of a guy who gets tortured almost to death, complete with graphic descriptions of blood and pain. For the record, the sex is just glossed over, so Disney might be happy. Torture good, sex bad.

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July 18 marks the return of Psych and Monk with new epsidoes. I'm still not clear how they're going to deal with the loss of Stanley Kamel, though. Monk freaked out when he thought his psychiatrist was simply retiring.

Oh, and you might have noticed that NBC is attempting to drum up interest in Psych and Monk by showing reruns on Sunday evenings.

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I'm still picking up the pieces of my jaw after watching Tuesday night's episode of Boston Legal. Sure, the show is a liberal wet dream of how the world should be, but I love watching William Shatner. Anyway, for those of you who watch the show, the character Jerry - odd, goofy, the show would get along just fine without him- got a new girlfriend. Now Jerry is an odd guy, not bad looking I suppose, but he goes around purring, hopping and growling, all the while holding his hands flat on his pants. Okay, the writers gave him Aspberger's Syndrome to make him sympathetic, instead of pathetic.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Anyway, Jerry's character has issues which make bonding with a woman problematic at best. His last girlfriend left him for a toaster, or iPod, or some other inanimate object. Seems she had issues, too. Plus, she wasn't very attractive. However, his latest squeeze, Dana, borders on the thermonuclear side of the hotness scale. I checked around at ABC.com to find out if anyone knew who the heck she was. Turns out that her name is Rachelle Lefevre. The pictures at IMDB do not do her justice, so I looked elsewhere. If you watch Boston Legal, see if you agree with me that Dana is not only out of Jerry's weight class, she borders on being outside of his species. If you don't watch, just enjoy the eye candy.

Rachelle Lefevre #1

Rachelle Lefevre #2

Actually, none of the pictures do her justice. Wait until someone uploads photo captures from the 4/15/2008 episode. I should have been wearing a drool cup.

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Pretty soon, every South Park episode from all 12 seasons will be available online. For free.

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Pretty good TV show quiz here. Here's the pathetic part: I got 27 of 31 right, including one show which never actually aired. And now for the old part: I was correct on all the shows which started airing before 1970.

Bow down to my extreme suckitude. I wonder every day how I managed to land my wife. My lifelong goal is to prevent her from wondering.

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Some time ago, I received my first Instalanche for this post: Stacked and Packed. I couldn't claim any credit because, hey, a hot woman brandishing a ginormous gun is its own reward. In any event, Risawn recently discovered Battlestar Galactica on DVD and, not surprisingly, she's hooked. She owes it all to her brother:

Well, guess what? We threw in the first disc, watched the miniseries, and now I'm hooked.

Damn you, Jared, why did you have to get me hooked on ANOTHER freakin' TV Show?

Sucks, doesn't it? But the pain goes away once you stop resisting the assimilation.

So she's pretty, smart, a gun nut AND a BSG fan. You'd think it wouldn't get any better than that, but it does: Risawn might be the only person I know besides myself who includes the Death Gate Cycle among his or her favorite reads. I bought the first book at a used bookstore in Australia and bought the rest when I got back to the states, even going so far as to pay full retail price for the hardback version of the final book. And I can't tell you how much I loathe paying full retail price for hardbacks.

Anyway, stop by and congratulate her on her latest obsession. As addictions go, it'll be an easy one to quit, what with the upcoming season 4 being the last and all.

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