TV News and Reviews

I was going to do a post on nice family-friendly programming that was on for those who celebrate Easter, until I realized that there isn’t any nice family-friendly programming for Easter. Looking at the TV listings, you’d think it was just any other day. NBC isn’t even bothering to show the excellent primetime drama Kings, that has a biblical theme and spiritual tone.

I realize that the country, and certainly TV, has gotten more secular over time. TV execs also no doubt consider Easter to not be a very commercial holiday, so they don’t bother hyping it as much. It just seems a little sad that the networks and cable can’t manage to have one day without Rock of Love or a violent Batman movie out of respect for those who do celebrate Easter. The afternoon schedule on Nickelodeon starts with The Naked Brothers Band. I realize it’s only a teen drama, but still. Couldn’t we try just a little bit?

The History Channel has a couple religious history segments on in the afternoon, but it’s once again not exactly family friendly stuff. If you do celebrate Easter and feel the desire to watch TV, your best bet is to stick with sports programming on the main networks. If you have HBO, the George Clooney, Renée Zellweger movie Leatherheads is on at 4pm Eastern/3pm Central. And no, despite TV trends on Sunday, Leatherheads is not an S&M film. It’s a very nice, old-fashioned romantic comedy that takes place during the early days of pro football. It’s got style and snappy dialogue and it covers love, friendship, morality, and patriotism. It’s an entertaining, funny, and pleasant film to watch at any time, but it’s also a nice movie for the holidays.

If you’re looking for religious or holiday-themed movie suggestions to pop into the DVD player, head over to see About.com’s Top Christian Easter Movies, or CD Universe’s ecclectic Easter holdiay DVD list.

I hope you all have a pleasant weekend, and Happy Easter wishes to all who celebrate.

The big TV news buzzing around is that ABC picked up a comedy pilot entitled Let It Go, starring Lauren Graham as a self-help guru on TV who can’t follow her own advice when her boyfriend breaks up with her. Critics seems excited, but quite frankly another plot involving a woman acting crazy and stupid doesn’t exactly appeal to me. So many woman-centric comedies that I adored always ended up scaring me off when they slowly turned the woman into an idiot. I like Lauren Graham and she’s saying that it’s going to be something of a dark comedy, so perhaps there will be some sort of wicked charm that makes it worth watching. But I’m not holding my breath.

A drama pilot for CBS that looks interesting is entitled Back (which is a nightmare for trying to do a Google search on it, let me tell you). The story centers on a man who disappears during the 9/11 attacks only to resurface eight years later to try and reintegrate into a world that’s completely changed. This sounds like it has some great dramatic potential, but I think Mandy Bierly of Entertainment Weekly sums up the issues nicely:

“Interesting. Do I want to know why and to where he disappeared? Yes. Do I want it to be a season-long mystery, which is never solved because the show gets canceled? No. Also, I’m 50-50 on the title.”

I agree wholeheartedly. These serial dramas are a tough sell these days, considering how many of them get canceled and you’re left on a cliffhanger every time. Funny how I was just talking about the vicious cycle of not watching shows that we fear will be canceled.

You can get the hard data on all the new pilots that got picked up at Variety.com, and see them rated by EWs Popwatch.

**Lauren Graham photo from The Bonnie Hunt Show, October 6, 2008, c2008 Bob & Alice Productions, Warner Bros., NBC

For an afternoon TV highlight we had Dave Sanderson, survivor of US Airways Flight #1549, on The Bonnie Hunt Show. It was terrifying listening to him recount the experience being on the plane as the engine near his window burst into flames. He remained calm at first, but when the pilot told the passengers to “Brace for impact,” Sanderson thought it was all over for them. It was positively chilling, imagining yourself in that same situation. But despite the terror of those moments, Sanderson was one of the last people off of the plane, hanging back in order to help the other passengers exit the plane. He said he’d been raised to consider others before himself, and to do the right thing.

It may just be inexperience as a host, but Bonnie Hunt tends to interrupt her guests too much, but I think in this case she was feeling overwhelmed. Sanderson was an interesting personality, on the one hand very noble and devoutly religious, but on the other he came across as very cool and almost detached. Bonnie kept trying to get him to express something emotional, asking if he held anyone’s hand as they crashed or if he thought of his family. He said that he’d gotten into the “correct” crash position and didn’t want to be tied to anyone. He also said he put his wallet on himself so his body could be identified. These are not the sorts of things you typically hear in survivor stories and Bonnie was stunned. I’m wondering if he has a military background, because his responses seemed to be on that formal, military order.

In any case, he expressed extreme gratitude to the pilot and all the boats that came immediately to the scene to help. He said that everyone had a hero that day, because so many people stepped up to help, including two men on a ferry boat that hauled him out of the water and to safety. I’m glad that Bonnie Hunt had Dave Sanderson as a guest, to share his story and provide a role model and positive example for all those watching. You can see pics and get more information at The Bonnie Hunt Show website .