Gossip Girl: Season 2 Trailer (HD) (HBO Max series)

Here's a trailer for season 2 of Gossip Girl.

Gossip Girl: Episode 1x06 "Parentsite" Promo (HD) (HBO Max series)

Here’s a promo for next week’s episode, episode 1x06 "Parentsite".

 

Gossip Girl: Episode 1x05 "Hope Sinks" Promo (HD) (HBO Max series)

Here's a promo for next week's episode, episode 1x05 "Hope Sinks".

 

Gossip Girl: Episode 1x04 "Fire Walks With Z" Promo (HD) (HBO Max series)

Here’s a promo for next week’s episode, episode 1x04 "Fire Walks With Z".

Gossip Girl: Episode 1x03 "Lies Wide Shut" Promo (HD) (HBO Max series)

Here’s a promo for next week’s episode, episode 1x03 "Lies Wide Shut".

Gossip Girl (HBO Max): "One Night Stand" Promo HD

Here's the "One Night Stand" promo for the upcoming new HBO Max series, Gossip Girl.

Bookstagram Post: I've always been a "mood reader", and I want to read Katharine McGee's The Thousandth Floor trilogy!

View this post on Instagram

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always described myself as being a “mood reader” in the sense that I typically decide what I want to read on a bit of whim instead of making a somewhat long term T.B.R., and last week I rather randomly found myself being in the mood to read @katharinemcgee’s The Thousandth Floor trilogy. I read the first book, which is also called The Thousandth Floor, last year. I absolutely loved it, because it had a major Gossip Girl vibe to it, and Gossip Girl is one of my favorite guilty pleasure TV shows. Coincidentally, Gossip Girl is the main thing that inspired me to start my blog before I started blogging about books instead of TV shows. Unfortunately, I still haven’t gotten around to reading The Dazzling Heights and The Towering Sky, and that’s something that has really been bothering me more and more lately. Since I’m also currently low key obsessed with @victoriaaveyard’s Red Queen series; I’m thinking that I’ll alternate between reading books two, three, and four of the Red Queen series, plus the Red Queen novella, and reading and reviewing The Thousandth Floor trilogy. Both The Thousandth Floor, and Red Queen were excellent starts to their respective series, and I would love to finish reading both of those series. I think that alternating back and forth between both series would be a great way accomplish my goal of reading both series. 😀 #bookstagram #thethousandthfloor #thethousandthfloortrilogy #thedazzlingheights #thetoweringsky #katharinemcgee #redqueen #redqueenseries #victoriaaveyard #bookaholic #bookaddict #bookworm #bookblogger #bookblog #thethousandthfloorseries

A post shared by Taylor Madison Street (@tmswriter6) on Dec 11, 2018 at 10:40am PST

Related Post:My Gossip Girl Reviews

A Game of Thrones: Get ready, Everybody! This is only the beginning of one long-ass, yet truly awesome, song (My thoughts on book #1 in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin)

Let me start out this review on a bit of a tangent by saying that I’m a big fan of Lewis Lovhaug’s, who’s perhaps more commonly known on the Internet as Linkara, and his video review series, History of Power Rangers. If you haven’t heard of History of Power Rangers, it’s video series where Linkara does in depth reviews of each season of Power Rangers. At the time of this review’s posting, he recently released his review of Power Rangers Megaforce and Power Rangers Super Megaforce, so he’s now finally caught up with all of the seasons of Power Rangers that have finished airing. He will do his review of Power Rangers Dino Charge and Power Rangers Dino Super Charge at some point once Power Rangers Dino Super Charge has finished airing, but that probably won’t be for a while since Power Rangers Dino Super Charge apparently won’t be premiering until the end of January. If you’re interested in checking out his History of Power Rangers videos, you can watch them here. That being said, something that I’ve been thinking about a lot for a long time now is doing an in depth review series of either a TV show or a book series, similar to Linkara’s History of Power Rangers series, but in a written format. Since I’m focusing primarily on reviewing books for my blog these days, I think it could be a lot of fun to do that with the A Song of Ice and Fire book series since there’s a lot to talk about regarding the books and there’s the show Game of Thrones to talk about as well. With that said, here are my thoughts on A Game of Thrones.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I absolutely loved A Game of Thrones. I would even go as far as saying that it’s one of the best books, if not the best book, that I’ve ever read. I really regret not having started reading the A Song of Ice and Fire series a long time ago, because this book and all of the characters, along with the world that they live in is just truly amazing, in my opinion.

This might sound like a really weird and random book to compare A Game of Thrones to since they are in two completely different genres, but as I was reading A Game of Thrones, I found myself thinking a lot about the book The Bourbon Kings by J. R. Ward and what I thought about it when I was reading it. If you’re interested in knowing what I thought about that book, you can read my review for the book here. While I really liked that book, I definitely think that book had a lot of problems. One of the biggest problems that I have with it is the fact that pretty much all of the characters were very black and white, without any shades of gray to them. They were either good and likable people, or they were bad and unlikable people. Given the fact that The Bourbon Kings is essentially a soap opera in the form of a book, I really felt like the book should have had at least some characters that people could love to hate. 

There’s nothing quite like a boatload of teen angst and crappy parents to make a good story (My thoughts on 99 Days by Katie Cotugno)

Let me start out by saying that while 99 Days by Katie Cotugno has been on the list of books that I’ve wanted to read for several months now, I originally wasn’t planning to review it any time soon. However, I was feeling bad about the fact that it took me so long to read First Time (Penny’s Story) by Abigail Barnette and write my review for the book; not to mention the fact that I’m currently in the process of reading A Game of Thrones. That’s definitely taking me a while since it’s: A) A very long book compared to all of the other books that I’ve reviewed so far B) I’ve been trying to do some research on the A Song of Ice and Fire book series to help me with writing my review, and C) I’m also trying to watch at least some of the first season of Game of Thrones before I write my review for the book and post it.

I’m definitely putting a lot more time and work into my whole process for reading A Game of Thrones and writing my review for that book than I have for all of my other book reviews at this point in time. Obviously, taking a break from reading A Game of Thrones for several days in order to read and review 99 Days is counterproductive to my finishing A Game of Thrones, but I really was feeling bad about not having reviewed more books by this point in time. I decided to read and review 99 Days now, because I figured that it would be a quick and enjoyable book to read and review; that being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I definitely have mixed feelings about 99 Days. On the one hand, I felt like the story was rather cliché in some ways, and there were times when the whole Gabe/Molly/Patrick love triangle that 99 Days was centered around was a little exasperating. The backstory of what happened before Molly left town, and what things were like for her throughout most of the book reminded me a lot of Gossip Girl and the way the show began. If you’ve never watched Gossip Girl, it’s a teen drama about teenagers that pretty much all live on the Upper East Side of New York City. The show began with Serena returning to the Upper East Side from her self-imposed exile under somewhat mysterious circumstances. She originally left the Upper East Side after she slept with Nate, who was her best friend, Blair’s, boyfriend, and things weren’t smooth sailing when she first returned. Going back to 99 Days, because the backstory between Molly, Gabe and Patrick reminded me of Gossip Girl in some ways, I felt like the book was kind of lacking in originality. While 99 Days wasn’t the most original story in the world, it was still a very enjoyable book. Plus, Molly is a pretty likable protagonist for the most part, even though she did frustrate me at times.

Gossip Girl Rewatch: Once upon a time when this show was truly great… (My thoughts on episode 1x01 “Pilot”)

Let me start out this post by explaining why I decided to review an episode of Gossip Girl even though the show’s been off the air since December of 2012. For starters, as random as this will probably sound, reading Fifty Shades of Grey has really gotten me thinking about Gossip Girl again, and not necessarily entirely in a good way. As I’ve read Fifty Shades of Grey, I keep finding myself thinking about how sick and toxic Chuck and Blair’s relationship ended up becoming as the series progressed. Despite the fact that Chuck and Blair’s relationship became increasingly toxic as the series continued, both the writers for the show and what I always felt was a huge chunk of the show’s audience seem to view Chuck and Blair’s relationship as a fairytale romance, much like so many women out there seem to view Christian Grey as a romantic hero despite the fact that he treats Ana like shit throughout the course of the entire Fifty Shades trilogy.

For the record, I was originally a huge fan of Chuck and Blair’s relationship, but I stopped being a Chair shipper once Chuck tried to pimp Blair out to his Uncle Jack in an attempt to keep his hotel in season three. That being said, I haven’t just been thinking about Gossip Girl in a negative way though. I’ve found myself genuinely missing the show lately, so I’ve decided to revisit the show and watch some episodes again, blogging about them in the process.

Deciding to revisit Gossip Girl again feels very nostalgic for me personally since watching the season four episode “Empire of the Son” back when it first aired is what prompted me to decide to start blogging about Gossip Girl and TV shows in general. I’m just going to go right ahead and say that I’m going to start out by blogging about my Gossip Girl “Rewatch” simply on a trial basis since it’s a show that’s been off the air since 2012, I have no idea what the level of interest in reviews of episodes of Gossip Girl will be. Sure, Gossip Girl was perhaps the most popular show that I blogged about back when it was on the air, but that might have changed since the show has been off the air for several years now. I’d also like to clarify that if my Gossip Girl “Rewatch” reviews end up becoming an ongoing thing, I’m not going to watch and review all of the episodes in order. There are simply some episodes that I’m more interested in watching in the immediate future than others. I don’t really want to watch all of the episodes leading up to the episodes that I’m most excited to watch again. However, I thought that watching and reviewing the first episode of Gossip Girl would be a good place to start my “Rewatch”; that being said, here are my thoughts on the first episode.

Personally, I’ve always felt that this episode was a great start to the series. I know that some shows like to start off with their first episode diving right into the action as if the viewers are already familiar with the characters and the plot of the show. However, in most cases I prefer it when TV shows begin with some kind of event or several events to start things off, and I think that Serena returning to the Upper East Side under somewhat mysterious circumstances was a great way for the show to begin. I’ve also always thought that the first episode of Gossip Girl did everything the first episode of a TV should do. It did a good job of introducing all of the characters; the premise of the show, establishing various conflicts between the characters and it was simply a great episode.

Bared to You: Is it just me, or is everybody in this book fifty different kinds of screwed up? (My thoughts on Book #1 in the Crossfire book series by Sylvia Day)

Let me start out by saying that the main reason why I decided to read and review Bared to You is because I’ve encountered a lot of people who’ve compared the Crossfire book series to the Fifty Shades trilogy. In most cases, I’ve seen people say that the Crossfire series is significantly better than the Fifty Shades trilogy, which has mostly been attributed to Sylvia Day being a much more experienced writer compared to E.L. James. Although, I’ve also seen people say that they like the Fifty Shades trilogy more than they liked Bared to You. After reading Bared to You, I’m absolutely baffled by the fact that anybody would think that the Fifty Shades trilogy is better than the Crossfire series since it’s pretty clear to me that Sylvia Day’s writing ability is definitely completely superior to E.L. James’ writing.

That being said, I realize that everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and when I think about how there are some people who like the Fifty Shades trilogy more than the Crossfire series, I’m reminded of the fact that I like 90210 a lot more than Gossip Girl. While I do like both 90210 and Gossip Girl, I’m also not blinded by the fact that in terms of the quality of the writing for the two shows, the writing for Gossip Girl is definitely superior to the quality of the writing for 90210. At the risk of seeming like I’m going to far off topic, one of the main reasons why I like 90210 more is because anybody with even just a small shred of maturity can see that the relationship between Chuck and Blair, who are arguably the main romantic pairing on the show, is incredibly toxic and abusive. The sad thing about that is the way the producers always talked about Chuck and Blair’s relationship, it’s as if they view that relationship as some epic fairytale romance when it really did end up being a very toxic and abusive relationship. I feel I should mention that I was originally a major Chuck and Blair shipper, it was only when their relationship became truly abusive at some point during season three that I stopped being a fan of that relationship.

While 90210 didn’t have much of a clearly defined endgame couple, the closest 90210 had to an endgame couple was Liam and Annie. Liam and Annie’s relationship wasn’t necessarily handled all that well when it came to them frequently getting together only to almost immediately breakup with little to no buildup or development to them either getting together or breaking up. What I think made Liam and Annie’s relationship better is that at least it wasn’t sick and abusive with them constantly treating each other like crap or either of them trying to sabotage the other’s happiness when they weren’t together like Chuck and Blair constantly did. They definitely handled things between them with a lot more maturity, which is one of the reasons why I liked them as a couple as much as I did, but I digress.

Revenge: Casts Justin Hartley as Victoria's Long-Lost Son! | E! Online

According to E! Online's Kristin Dos Santos, Justin Hartley has been cast as Victoria's long-lost son, Patrick, for a multi-episode arc and his first appearance will be in the season 3 premiere of Revenge. Here's an excerpt from the article, which gives some more details on the role of Patrick:

Revenge's season two finale ended with a smashing cliffhanger—Patrick appeared at the Graysons' doorstep, and though we never saw his face, the very sight of him shocked Victoria enough to make her drop her glass, shattering it on the floor. Patrick's return will assuredly send shockwaves through the Hamptons in the new season.

Justin Hartley was a fan favorite on Smallville, playing Oliver Queen (Arrow) in the final seasons as a series regular. The 36-year-old actor also played the title role of Aquaman in a failed pilot for the CW, and last appeared on television in the canceled series Emily Owens M.D.

Though fans don't yet know much about Patrick, we know Victoria gave birth to him at age 16 and then gave him away to a nun when he was only 6 months old so that she could attend art school in Paris. (Priorities, people! Beauty before babies!) When Patrick started looking for Victoria later on, she paid him $5 million to disappear. Guess that didn't work?

Link to the full article:Revenge Casts CW Heartthrob as Victoria's Long-Lost Son! | E! Online



My thoughts: I've been a huge fan of Justin Hartley ever since he joined the cast of the now canceled soap opera, Passions, and I also liked him on Smallvile, so I'm really excited that he has been cast as Victoria's long-lost son. Although, I have to admit that I fell behind on watching Revenge an episode or two past the halfway point of season two. I'm definitely going to get caught up on watching season 2 in the near future though.

As for season 3, I'm really excited for next season, especially now that they've killed off Declan. I never liked Declan as a character, and I've especially never been a fan of Connor Paolo as an actor. I always thought that his acting wasn't very good when he was on Gossip Girl, and his acting on Revenge was always mediocre at best in my opinion. Justin Hartley being cast as Patrick is definitely the best and most exciting news that I've heard about Revenge's third season at the moment.

Revolution: Not since Power Rangers has a TV show forced me to completely leave my brain at the door in order for me to be able to enjoy it (My thoughts on season one of Revolution) (Part 3 of 4)

  (Part Three)

For the third part of my review, I thought that I would spend some time talking about my speculations regarding season two of Revolution. First off, it’s going to be really interesting to see how NBC moving the show to seven o’clock on Wednesday nights will impact the ratings. Hopefully, the show will be able to avoid suffering the same fate that Smash did in its second season when it wasn’t airing after The Voice, especially since I like Revolution more than I ever liked Smash, but that’s not really saying much though. Personally, I’m not sure that The Voice was ever a very compatible lead-in for Revolution to begin with, so whatever help The Voice provided Revolution in the ratings department didn’t last very long, at least that’s my guess having followed the ratings throughout the season.

After all, The Voice is a singing competition, while Revolution is a science fiction show, so I don’t think that there’s much of a crossover between the audiences for the two shows. Sure, I like both The Voice and Revolution, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s also the case for the people who watch at least one of the two shows, and I think the fact that Revolution repeatedly lost about half, if not more of The Voice’s viewers in the ratings throughout the entire season proves that. If I had to guess what the NBC network executives’ logic was behind scheduling Revolution on Monday’s after The Voice, they were probably thinking that since they obviously had high hopes for Revolution they should give it the best lead in that they could offer one of their new shows, which is The Voice. They were also probably thinking that while Revolution and The Voice are obviously not the most compatible with each other in terms of the kind of audience that the two shows attract, The Voice is at the very least one of NBC’s highest rated shows. That’s just my theory regarding the decision to air Revolution on Monday nights after The Voice for its first season though.

Honestly, I feel like the ratings for Revolution looked a lot more stable by the end of the season compared to the ratings for Smash’s first season. The fact that Smash didn’t seem to hold onto very many of The Voice’s viewers is something that really surprised me, because I thought the two shows would share the same audience, at least to some extent. Season two is definitely going to be a big test for Revolution, in my opinion. First off, it’s going to have to prove that it’s strong and stable enough to stand on its own since it will be kicking off NBC’s Wednesday night lineup now and unlike the show’s first season, it won’t have The Voice to provide the show with at least somewhat of a cushion in the ratings.

On a more personal level, the writers of Revolution are going to have to prove to me that the show is capable of maintaining my interest for the duration of the series, or for at least the foreseeable future and not quickly once again lose me as a viewer like Fringe did once its second season started. Honestly, I’m fairly optimistic that they will be able to keep me interested and invested in the show considering the fact that they managed to capture my interest a lot sooner than Fringe did, and they’ve kept me interested in the show since the episode “The Children’s Crusade”. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, they still managed to keep me interested in the show after not being all that impressed with the first episode, but at least I saw that the show had potential to be good, unlike Fringe’s first episode, which didn’t really show much potential in my opinion.

As for my predictions regarding the show’s second season itself, I’m not entirely joking when I say this but there’s a big part of me that’s half expecting that the season two finale cliffhanger will be that Miles and Monroe are shown lying asleep in bed next each other, naked, leaving the viewers to spend the entire summer wondering if they slept with each other, especially considering the homoerotic subtext that a lot of their scenes together had throughout the season. Like I said earlier, I was very surprised that the producers not only revealed the cause of the blackout fairly early on in the series, the characters also turned the power back on in the first season as well. As I said earlier, I was really expecting the producers to stretch that out for several seasons.

I haven’t been able to find the interview, but I read a comment on the IMDB message board for Revolution from a poster who claimed that Eric Kripke apparently said at one point that the show isn’t supposed to primarily be about turning the power back on, but instead it’s supposed to be about the characters rebuilding the United States. If that’s indeed the case, I think that sounds like a very interesting direction to take the show in, so I kind of hope that’s where things are headed.

As for the reveal that the President of the United States has secretly been hiding in a U.S. Colony at Guantanamo Bay, I can’t wait to see what happens when he returns to what used to be the United States. It would be nice to see the writers address the whole issue about how he can still be considered the President when the Constitution is supposedly no longer valid and there’s a law about term limits, not to mention the fact that fifteen years have passed since the power was turned off. Who knows how far into his presidency he was when the power was turned off? I’m not holding my breath about whether or not they will answer those questions though. The writers do have a tendency to overlook details like that at times.

As much as I loved the reveal about the President, it kind of bugged me that they had the President talk, but they didn’t show his face. Since the producers did that, I’m guessing that they will just to expect viewers to simply ignore the fact that viewers will have already heard the President speak if they end up casting an actor whose voice sounds nothing like whoever it was that said the President’s lines in the season finale. From a practical standpoint, I’m guessing the producers did that so they can decide who they want to cast as the President later on. They’ll probably want to find an actor who’s at least somewhat of a big name actor to play the part. What I think would be interesting if the writers have the President become the main villain of the show in season two. Like I said earlier, the show definitely needs to have one clear cut central antagonist instead of flip-flopping back and forth between acting like Neville is the main villain of the show at times, and then act like Monroe is the central villain of the show the rest of the time.


Part 1 of 4:Revolution: (Part 1 of 4)
Part 2 of 4:Revolution: (Part 2 of 4)
Part 4 of 4:Revolution: (Part 4 of 4) 

Revolution: Taps Patrick Heusinger for Season 2 Arc

According to The Hollywood Reporter's Lesley Goldberg, Patrick Heusinger has been cast in a recurring guest-star role for season 2 of Revolution. Here's an excerpt from the article, which gives some details on Heusinger's role and mentions some of his previous acting credits:

The actor will play Adam, a 30-something, physically fit handsome/roguish man who's cool, has a good sense of humor and lives life to its fullest. He joins a rapidly growing Revolution cast that recently added Rubicon's Jessica Collins.

Heusinger most recently co-starred on Fox's failed drama pilot Boomerang as the son of Felicity Huffman. His credits also include Gossip Girl, Black Swan and NBC's busted pilot Beautiful People.

The actor also appeared in Lifetime's pilot Witches of East End and recently was replaced by The Mentalist's Eric Winter.

Link to the full article:'Revolution' Taps Patrick Heusinger for Season 2 Arc



My thoughts: In terms of Patrick Heusinger's previous acting credits, the only thing that I'm familiar with is when he guest-starred on Gossip Girl during the show's second season. I really liked him on Gossip Girl, so I'm fairly confident that I'll like him on Revolution. His character sounds very interesting, and I can't to see how the character ends up fitting into the show's second season. I'm really excited for Revolution's second season to start, and I really hope the producers announce who will be playing the President of the United States in season 2 soon. That's definitely the casting news regarding Revolution's second season that I care about the most.

Men at Work: This show is absolutely hilarious and a wonderful surprise :) (My quick thoughts on episode 2x09 "Long Distance Tyler")

I just started watching Men at Work, and I have to say that show is absolutely hilarious. Although, for the record I've only seen the series premiere and this week's episode. It was a lot of fun seeing Jessica Szohr on the show. I always kind of liked her on Gossip Girl. She's one of the reasons why I decided to check out this week's episode. I had been wanting to check out Men at Work long before I found out that Jessica was going to be guest-starring on the show though.

The biggest surprise of the episode was seeing Ashton Kutcher on the show. I wasn't expecting that at all. I thought he was hilarious, especially when it comes to the fact that he was talking with a southern accent. It was a lot of fun seeing Danny Masterson and Ashton Kutcher working together again. I always loved them on That '70s Show. I wonder how Ashton Kutcher managed to have the time to guest-star on Men at Work though since he's a series regular on Two and a Half Men. I'm guessing that he was done filming Two and a Half Men for the season when he filmed his scenes for this episode. Regardless, it was definitely a lot of fun to see Ashton Kutcher on Men at Work.

The entire episode was truly wonderful and incredibly funny though. Men at Work really is a great show. If you're not already watching it, I definitely recommend checking the show out. I really regret not watching the show sooner, and I pray to God that it gets renewed for a third season.

That being said, I give the episode a rating of an A+.

90210: Are the writers even trying to have things make sense on this show any more? (My thoughts on episode 5x19 “The Empire State Strikes Back”)

Let me start off by saying that I apologize for taking so long to get this review written and posted. I had to work quite a bit this week, and I also had a lot of other projects that I was working on throughout the week. I’m going to try my absolute best to get my reviews for the remaining episodes of the series written and posted before the episode following it airs; that being said, here are my thoughts on this episode.

After thoroughly enjoying the previous episode, I have to say that I found this episode rather dull, and I frequently found my attention wandering as I was watching it. To be fair though, this episode wasn’t even close to being as boring as the first nine episodes of Gossip Girl’s final season were, and I still stand by my opinion that 90210’s final season is better than Gossip Girl’s final season was. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that everything about this episode was boring, because it definitely had some good things about it, and admittedly this episode has grown on me after having watched it several more times.

For starters, I would say that I found Annie’s storyline to be the most interesting storyline in this episode. The episode picked up right where the previous episode ended, which would be Patrick showing up at Annie and Liam’s house in order to confront her about her book. Patrick was furious with Annie for writing a book that was inspired by their relationship, and he was worried that people, namely his wife, would figure out that he was the inspiration for the character Patterson. Apparently, his wife’s book club was reading Undressed, and he told Annie that his wife would divorce him and take a lot of his money if she found out about his relationship with Annie. Before Patrick left Annie and Liam’s place, he threatened to hurt her family if she went on Entertainment Tonight for an interview with Nancy O’Dell in order to publically reveal that she is Author X, but Annie simply shrugged off his threats.

I have to say that I thought Patrick’s reaction to this whole situation was beyond dumb. After all, Annie didn’t use his real name in the book, and his wife never even met Annie, so how would she know that most of the book was inspired by Annie’s life? He never even told Annie that he was married. Besides, it’s not like he’s the only person on earth named Patrick. I just don’t understand how the writers expect viewers to believe that his wife would automatically realize that Patrick was the inspiration for the character Paterson in Undressed. Although, this is 90210 where 98% of the writing for the show is absolutely ridiculous and contrived, so I suppose she could figure things out by reading Annie’s book.

Annie finally came clean to Dixon about the fact that she is Author X and that she paid for his rehab by briefly working as an escort. Dixon was initially furious with Annie, but he forgave her for working as an escort to pay for his rehab treatment and not telling him about it by the end of the episode. Annie also ended up going on Entertainment Tonight for an interview with Nancy O’Dell and revealed that she was Author X like she said was going to.

All My Children: The citizens of Pine Valley are finally be back! (My thoughts on the online premiere)

I’m not going to deny that I was very skeptical about the idea of All My Children becoming an online soap opera when the news of Prospect Park wanting to take the show, as well as One Life to Live, online for a variety of reasons. For starters, the news that they might be able save All My Children and One Life to Live from cancellation just seemed too good to be true, so sadly I wasn’t all that surprised when Prospect Park announced that they wouldn’t be able to go through with their plans to do that. When Prospect Park announced their second attempt at reviving All My Children and One Life To Live, I chose to remain skeptical just in case things once again didn’t work out.

Even when it was announced that things were indeed going to work after all with taking All My Children online, I continued to feel rather skeptical about the whole thing, only this time my skepticism was more about whether or not the quality of the writing and over all production values for the online relaunch would be good since the quality of online web series has often been hit, miss, or a mix of good and bad in my experience. Given the fact that this relaunch features quite a few recasts for the characters from the younger generation who have been SORASed, as well as some completely new faces, I was also skeptical about of all these cast changes. That being said, I’m very pleased to say that this is the best online production that I’ve ever seen for a show.

With the exception of Eric Nelsen who plays the now teenage AJ Chandler, I was immediately impressed with all of the new cast members. Although, to be fair to Eric and his portrayal of AJ, he did start to grow on me as the episode progressed. He especially started grow on me once I got to his scenes with Denyse Tontz, who now plays Miranda, who’s also a teenager now. As I was watching their scenes together, I got a very strong feeling that AJ and Miranda will become a couple at some point, and I’d like to see that happen since Eric Nelsen and Denyse Tontz definitely have great chemistry together. It doesn’t look like they will be getting together any time soon though since Miranda was obsessing over another guy right in front of AJ. I have to say that I loved AJ’s reaction to Miranda fixating over the guy she apparently has a crush on despite the fact that it sounds like that the guy has pretty much only said hi to her at this point in time.

Given the fact that I’ve watched a lot of teen dramas over the years, such as 90210 and Gossip Girl, I’ve never been one to get too bent out of shape over the age of actors playing teenagers or the age gap between the actors playing teenagers and the age of the actors playing their parents. That being said, I found myself thinking that Eric Nelsen is too old to play a teenager as I was watched this episode. As soon as Eric first appeared, I was instantly reminded of David Hornsby, who’s a writer for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and also plays the role of Rickety Cricket on the show as well. Personally, I think that Eric Nelsen looks an awful lot like David Hornsby, but I digress. Although, for the record, I don’t know how old he is in real life, and I found myself not fixating on wondering how old Eric is in real life as the episode progressed. That being said, based on the preview for the next episode Eden Regal looks too young to be playing the mother of a teenager, if you ask me. Instead it looked like Bianca and Miranda were two sisters talking. I’ll try to reserve judgment about Eden playing the mother of a teenager until I actually see some scenes between Bianca and Miranda though.

90210: Wow! It really sucks to be…well…pretty much everybody on this show right now (My thoughts on episode 5x18 "A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Call Girl")

It’s been a while since I’ve written any reviews for 90210, and that’s partly because I found the past several episodes rather boring, but it’s mainly because I’ve been getting a ton of traffic for my posts related to the show New Girl, so I decided to focus on that show for a while. Plus, I’ve been working on a couple more long-term and elaborate posts for other shows as well as some writing not related to my blog. Anyway, given the fact that there are only a few episodes left of the series, I’ve decided to get back to writing reviews for the show every week; that being said, here are my thoughts on this episode.

I have to say that my thoughts on this episode as well as the past several episodes have been very mixed. They’ve also caused me to once again think a lot about why I like 90210 more than Gossip Girl, but at the same time I’ve also been thinking about some things that I think both the writers and the cast of Gossip Girl did a better job of compared to the cast and crew of 90210.

One thing that I’ve almost never been able to stop doing whenever I’m watching 90210 would be that I’ve constantly found myself comparing the character Naomi to Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl, and this would definitely be example of something that I liked more about Gossip Girl. Both Naomi and Blair are similar to each other in terms of the type of the character that they are: the “bitch” of the show, who’s rich, ambitious and is constantly seeking to elevate their social status. Don’t get me wrong, I like Naomi and I think that AnnaLynne McCord is one of the stronger actresses from the cast of 90210. However, I definitely like Blair more than Naomi, and I like Leighton Meester more than AnnaLynne when it comes to their acting.

When it comes to why I like Blair more, most of it has to do with the writing. To me, Blair has much more depth as a character than Naomi does. To me, a kiddy pool has more depth than Naomi does as a character, and I think the same can be said of the storylines that Blair had throughout Gossip Girl’s run compared to Naomi’s, which often lacked depth and just came across as a lackluster variation of quite a few of Blair’s storylines. For example, the rivalries that Naomi has had throughout 90210’s run have often felt very reminiscent of not only Blair’s storylines, but sometimes Serena’s as well, but where the storylines that revolved around Naomi dealing with a rival usually suffer is the motivation behind the rivalry, which have often been rather shallow and petty, making it hard for me to care that someone was causing problems for Naomi.

The writers for Gossip Girl on the other hand often gave enough depth and proper motivation and reasons for the viewers to get invested in storylines like that. For example, there were times where Naomi’s rivalry with Holly in season four reminded me a lot of Juliet’s vendetta against Serena throughout the first half of Gossip Girl’s fourth season, which I couldn’t help but get emotionally involved in as I was watching that storyline. Sure, I pretty much spent the whole storyline cheering Juliet on as she did everything in her power to ruin Serena’s life, mainly because I hate the character Serena, but at least the writers made me feel something. When it came to Naomi’s feud with Holly, I couldn’t have cared less about it and thought that their whole rivalry was beyond lame. 

Dallas: This has got to be the best episode yet of the series (My thoughts on episode 2x06 “Blame Game”)

As I said in my review of the first four episodes (My thoughts on episode 2x01 “Battle Lines” through episode 2x04 “False Confessions”), I truly believe that Dallas has been lucky enough to avoid suffering a dreaded sophomore slump like Revenge has been suffering from this season, and this episode once again reinforced that belief for me. This is definitely the best episode yet of the season, and perhaps the best episode of the series at this point. As far as I’m concerned, this episode only had one little flaw, which I found very forgivable. 

 

Since I only have one very minor issue with the episode, I’m just going to mention it now and get it out of the way. The only issue that I have with the episode is the fact that this episode features a continuity flaw in the scene where J.R.’s assistant is showing him how to use what looks like an iPad or a Surface when they already showed J.R. using a tablet to look at Elena’s loan agreement with Sue Ellen in episode 2x03 “Sins of The Father” and they also showed J.R. using a tablet again later on in that same episode in order to look through articles that have been published about him in the media over the years . I read somewhere that they were going to use some deleted scenes from the first season in order to help give the character J.R. a sense of closure before he died. If I had to guess, the scene where his assistant was showing him how to use his tablet was a deleted scene from last season that was used in order to allow J.R. and Bobby to have a nice moment with each other when J.R. keeps messaging Bobby on his computer and emails him a link to a funny video featuring a dog.

What I like about that scene is that on the surface it looks like a nice moment between J.R. and Bobby where J.R. is just trying to cheer him up that also gives the viewers a chance to like J.R. despite all of the bad or questionable things that he’s done over the years. However, it ends up being revealed later on in the episode that it was J.R.’s way of pulling one of his very last schemes, because the email of the video apparently included a computer virus, which erased the Cloud Drive from last season when Bobby tried to show Sue Ellen what was on it. That moment also seems very telling of how Bobby feels about J.R., in my opinion. Bobby obviously wanted to see it as his brother doing something nice to try and cheer him up, but instead it ended up being a part of one of J.R.’s schemes. Since I thought it was a nice moment that also ended up being revealed as another one of J.R.’s many tricks and schemes, I’m willing to let that whole whole continuity error go.

  

Personally, I thought that this episode was absolutely crazy, and I mean that in the best way possible. The part of the episode where Vicente and his men took John Ross, Pamela, Christopher, Elena, Bobby and Sue Ellen hostage in Bobby and Ann’s house reminded me a lot of the season three episode of Desperate Housewives “Bang” where Lynette and several of the other characters were held hostage in a super market. To this day, that episode continues to be one of my top all-time favorite episodes of Desperate Housewives.

Dallas: Wow! It must really suck to be Ann Ewing right now (My thoughts on episode 2x05 “Trial and Error”)

As I said in my review for the first four episodes of the season (My thoughts on episode 2x01 “Battle Lines” through episode 2x04 “False Confessions”) I’ve actually been enjoying season two of Dallas more than I loved the first season, which was an awful lot, and that continues to be the case with this episode. This was definitely the best episode yet of season two in a lot of ways. Although, there were a few things about the episode that I found somewhat disappointing, they are only fairly minor complaints, which I’ll get to later.

One of the reasons why I’ve been enjoying season two even more than I enjoyed season one is that I feel the writers have really been doing a lot of the things that I wish they had done in season one. One of them being that I really wanted the writers to give the viewers just a little bit more information about Ann’s past so I could better understand her behavior at times, and they’ve really delivered when it comes to that aspect of the season. While the writers had already revealed some more details about Ann’s past in the first four episodes of the season, this episode really delve deep into Ann’s backstory and finally answered a lot of the questions that I’ve had about Ann, such as how Sue Ellen and Ann met each other and became friends. They apparently met when Ann did volunteer work for one of the foundations that Sue Ellen started for battered and abused women.

Ann also mentioned that she grew up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money and never went to college, which is something Judith had apparently given her a hard time about when she was married to Harris. It sounds like Harris did treat her very well and was very generous with her when they first met. It was only after Judith met Ann and started to interfere in Ann and Harris’ marriage that the relationship between Ann and Harris took a turn for the worse. Apparently, Ann had been diagnosed with post partum depression after Emma was born, and she admitted that she’d taken more pills than she should have the day Harris kidnapped Emma at the fair. She also described herself as being a very awkward girl when she was growing up, saying that her mother had actually taken her to see doctors in order to see if they could find a way to make her stop growing. I can’t help, but wonder if that line was some kind of dig from the writers about the fact that Brenda Strong is really tall.

I have to say that I thought Brenda Strong’s acting in this episode was fantastic, especially when Ann was being questioned on the stand. I’ve always thought that Brenda was a great actress. She did a great job playing the role of Sue Ellen Mischke on Seinfeld, and she always did a fantastic job of narrating Desperate Housewives as Mary Alice Young, but I’ve been especially enjoying her work on Dallas. If you ask me, she should definitely consider submitting this episode for Emmy consideration. 

One thing that really surprised me about this episode was how quickly the whole thing with Ann confessing to being the one who shot Harris, as well as being tried and convicted unfolded all in the same episode. I know that some people were wondering if the writers and producers combined footage from several different episodes to make one episode in order to accommodate having to write Larry Hagman/J.R.’s death into the show on fairly short notice, but I don’t think that’s the case here. If they had combined several different episodes worth of footage to make up the episode, I’m pretty sure that the episode would have credited more writers then they usually do for an episode, as well as list two directors in the credits. I suppose it’s possible that they could have combined two or more episodes that just happened to all be written and directed by the same people, but I don’t think that’s the case here, especially since the producers previously said that Larry Hagman had filmed six episodes for season two before he died, and the episode that’s airing this week is apparently Larry Hagman’s final episode. For whatever reason, it looks like the writers decided to jump ahead one month about ten minutes into the episode so they get right to having Ann’s trial.