Two Tivos To Paradise 11.04.11: Hell on Wheels, Sons of Anarchy, In Living Color, The Walking Dead, Once Upon a Time, and more!

Posted by Al Norton on 11.04.2011

News on Sons of Anarchy and FX's record breaking month, the premiere of Hell on Wheels, the return of In Living Color, the best one season series of the last 15 years, Once Upon a Time's ratings success and more!



Hello friends. I hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween and that those of you impacted by the big storm in the East have power and heat back in their homes. My in-laws in CT have had neither since Saturday afternoon, so Mrs. Tivo-in-law has been staying with us all week. No mother in-law jokes here; I get along great with her and her husband so I am simply enjoy the spoils that come with having another adult in the house to help out with the twins. Speaking of the twins, they went out as Doctors on Monday night. Totally their choice, too, although it's not too surprising considering the esteem in which the profession is held in our house. Can't wait to show my daughter's cardiologist the pictures when we go in for her next appointment as I trust he will be appropriately flattered.

If you think Last Man Standing and How to be a Gentleman are/were bad, there is an even less funny show waiting for you later this season courtesy of the folks at Fox…





Syfy always does something interesting with their "reimaginations" and this one looks pretty cool...






Will Dailey, the official singer/songwriter of TTTP, contributed a cover of Territorial Pissings to the new Nirvana tribute disc Come As You Are…





You can get an extra dose of me by checking out today's Fact or Fiction column here on the 411mania Movies/TV page.

She broke down and let news in.

Neon Lights, A Nobel Prize, Then The Mirror Speaks, The Reflection Lies
Fox announced that they had two half hour In Living Color specials planned for the spring as part of the network's 25 anniversary celebration, with the option of picking it up as a series if they were happy with how they did. Keenan Ivory Wayans, who created and executive produced the original, which ran from 1990 – 1994, is back in charge of this new version as well.

The original ILC was a huge breath of fresh air on TV, a sketch comedy series that didn't try to be hip, it WAS hip, and helped launched the careers of multiple Wayans family members, Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, Tommy Davidson, and David Alan Grier. It also featured The Fly Girls, a dance troupe that over the show's run included Jennifer Lopez, Rosie Perez, and future Dancing with the Stars judge Carrie Ann Inaba. Aside from sketches that instantly became part of the pop culture vernacular (Men on Film, Fire Marshall Bill, Andrea Dice Clay, The Dirty Dozens, Funky Finger Productions, Homey D Clown, Great Moments in Black History, Handi Man, Wanda), the show also included musical performance by artists who up to that point had not been given a lot of screen time on other series/networks (Public Enemy, Kris Kross, En Vogue, Tupac Shakur, Mary J Blige, Jodeci, MC Lyte, Heavy D, Easy E, 3rd Bass, and Arrested Development).

I touched on this in this week's Fact or Fiction here at 411Mania but I'll share my thoughts here, too; we live in very tense times, with people legitimately and rightfully freaked out about the state of our country in a way that has not been true in my life time, and from great tension comes great comedy. So many of the headlines and pop culture touchstones of the year (bank's charging ridiculous fees, the Occupy movement, the NBA lockout, gay marriage, the Republican Presidential race, the Kardashians, Jersey Shore, all the singing competitions on TV, Glee, to name just a few) are ripe for share satire, and the In Living Color I remember pulled no punches as it went for laughs, with no one spared from its brutally unsparing eye. I look forward to a show that realizes there is truly nothing in life that can't be made fun of.

Living Free, Living Easy, Season Ticket On A One Way Ride
Hell on Wheels, the latest original series from AMC, premieres Sunday at 10pm following a new episode of The Walking Dead…





Considering AMC's current run of success with original series (3 of their four shows – Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead – are critical and ratings hits and the one that got cancelled, Rubicon, got a ton of good notices), it's hard not to be excited about this new show, especially since it looks so damn good. Made up of a cast of mostly unknowns, the series is set in 1860 and follows a Confederate soldier out for revenge who ends up hooked up with the folks who are building the transcontinental railroad, not to mention the folks looking to stop that railroad from being built.

You've got the emotional hook of a good "you killed my family, prepare to die" story, you've got a period of US history not usually seen on TV, and, as mentioned, you've got a fine looking product as well. David Von Ancken, who directed the pilot, as a pretty eclectic resume (Californication, The Vampire Diaries, Cold Case, CSI: New York, Gossip Girl, The Shield, Oz, Touching Evil) that makes me think he is a good fit to bring this to life. I wish I had received a screener from AMC but I didn't which means I can't actually tell you if Hell on Wheels is any good or not, just that I am excited to watch.

Ho Chi Mihn, Gunga Din, Henry Luce And John Wilkes Booth, And Alexanders King And Graham Bell
It was a bit of a slow news week so I thought I'd go with one of the lists I'm always working on, this one being The 10 Best One Season Shows of the Last 15 Years. If you were a member of the TTTP Facebook community you would have had your chance to weigh in with a vote earlier in the week. Here is my take, alphabetically.

The Black Donnellys (NBC, 14 episodes – 6 aired, 2007)
The Class (CBS, 19 episodes, 2006)
EZ Streets (CBS, 9 episodes – 8 aired, 1996)
Firefly (Fox, 14 episodes, 2002)
Freaks and Geeks (NBC, 18 episodes, 1999)
Kings (NBC, 12 episodes, 2009)
Lonestar (Fox, 6 episodes – 2 aired, 2010)
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC, 22 episodes, 2006)
Terriers (FX, 13 episodes, 2010)
Undeclared (Fox, 17 episodes, 2001)

What's interesting is that the shows are pretty well spread out over different networks except ABC; I'm not sure if that means ABC sticks with their shows or if they simply only cancelled bad shows during/after their first season. Many of these are available on DVD/Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime and I urge you to check them out, especially Terriers, which really was one of the best series of 2010.

Feel free to use the comments section below to share your version of this list!

Sunny Day, Sweepin' The Clouds Away, On My Way To Where The Air Is Sweet
The Sesame Street video of the week…





But You Were Up To Your Old Tricks In Chapters Four Five And Six
All you need to know about the Nielsen's for the past 7 days…

THURSDAY
Almost all of NBC's lineup was down in the demos (Community -18%, Parks and Rec -14%, The Office – 15%, Prime Suspect -10% to a series low) with Whitney (?!?!?) being the only exception, up 5%...The Big Bang Theory won the night in demos and total viewers…Rules of Engagement was only down 6% from last week's impressive debut…Grey's Anatomy won 9pm in demos and was the winner for the night among drama series in that category…Private Practice was up 4% at 10pm but still finished (a very close) second to The Mentalist…The Vampire Diaries hit a season high in total viewers…The Secret Circle was up 10% in the demos…It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown more than doubled the demos Charlie's Angels had been putting up in that 8pm timeslot, improving 30+% in total viewers as well…

FRIDAY
Chuck's final season debut posted the worst season premiere numbers in series history....Grimm actually opened strong, more than doubling the Chuck lead-in demo and finishing second in the hour in that category. It also almost doubled the total audience…Supernatural was down 10% in the demos while lead-in Nikita was up a bit in total viewers…Game 7 of the World Series was the most watched WS game since 2004 and the most watched that didn't involve the Yankees or the Red Sox since 2002…

SUNDAY
Once Upon a Time pretty much matched its premiere numbers (down only 4% in the demos), a serious indication that this show is now a HIT…Pan Am showed its first increase from the previous week of the season, up 6%...The Treehouse of Horror helped The Simpsons jump 33% from the show's previous new episode, although the premiere of Allen Gregory lost 40% of its demo lead-in…Sunday Night Football was up 60% from last week's blowout (even though this week was also a bit of a blowout)…Homeland was up 18% and hit a series high in total viewers…The Walking Dead was down 9% in week three but still put up stellar numbers for a cable series and great demos for any show…

MONDAY
Castle was the only show to post an increase in demos on Monday night, with HIMYM (-7%), 2 Broke Girls (-7%), Two and a Half Men (-15%), Mike and Molly (-10%), Terra Nova (-22%), House (-20%), and Hawaii 5-0 (-6%) being effected by Halloween (and at least in some ways by the sustained power outages in New England)…Rock Center with Brian Williams was down 17% from the demos that got The Playboy Club cancelled but was up in total viewers…Dancing with the Stars and The Sing Off both hit series lows in demos, although the latter was up in total viewers…Monday Night Football posted the best demos for all of TV on Monday…

TUESDAY
Stop me if you've heard this one before; a network pulls a hot new show and when it returns, ratings are down. New Girl was down 19% in its return, as was Glee. Raising Hope, also coming back from a break, was down 14%...NCIS was the night's top performer in total viewers and demos and is easily on pace to be the seasons single most watched scripted series. AGAIN…The Biggest Loser and Parenthood each hit season highs in the demos…Unforgettable was down in totals and demos yet also won both categories at 10pm...

WEDNESDAY
Survivor hit a season high in the demos and posted its best total viewer showing since December of 2010…Up All Night was down 14% to a new low…X-Factor helped Fox to the highest demo average of the night…Modern Family was the night biggest winner, with the best demo and total viewer numbers of anything that aired in primetime…Happy Endings tied last week's all time demo high…Revenge was up double digits to win 10pm in the demos…CSI won 10pm in total viewers and was up in the demos to finish second in the hour…

All The Young Dudes, Carry The News
Industry News, Notes, and Hot Rumors…October was a HUGE month for FX, with Sons of Anarchy (+22%), It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (+32%), and The League (+39%) enjoying major demo gains from last year. The three can also boast that their current seasons have the largest total viewer average in each show's history. Add in American Horror Story's record breaking debut and its pretty easy to call FX the hottest network on cable right now if not on all of television…Speaking of, FX has picked up a 13 episode second season of American Horror Story…ABC picked up full seasons of Once Upon a Time, Happy Endings, and Last Man Standing, and ordered an additional 5 scripts for Pan Am...Jimmy Kimmel will host the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which airs live on CNN on April 28th…The first guest co-host of the post-Regis era of Live! with Kelly (renamed until they make a permanent hire) will be Jerry Seinfeld, who fills the chair from November 21st to the 23rd…Queen Latifah will host a syndicated talk show in the fall of 2013 that she will executive produce along with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith…Rescue Me alums James McCaffrey and Andrea Roth have landed new recurring roles, the former on Revenge and the latter on Ringer…CBS is working on Life Isn't Everything, an adaptation of a popular Israeli comedy about a couple who divorce but can't stay out of each other's lives (and beds)…Details of FX's deal with the new Charlie Sheen comedy Anger Management have come in; it's a 10 episode order with an additional 90 being the second step. It's unclear if there is an automatic pick up based on ratings thresholds or if the contract states the second order can only be 90 episodes…Dan Fogelman, who wrote Crazy, Stupid, Love and Cars has sold a comedy to ABC about a average family who discovers all their fellow apartment complex residents are aliens…Chelsea Kane (Jonas, Dancing with the Stars) has signed to star in the ABC Family comedy Baby Daddy…Kaley Cucco will host The People's Choice Awards in January, replacing Queen Latifah, who has hosted the last five years…Fox added another 9 episodes to their second season order of Bob's Burgers, bringing the total to 22…Michelle Trachtenberg will return to Gossip Girl for multiple episodes later this season…Summer Glau has joined Tricia Helfer and Gerald McRaney in the TNT pilot Scent of the Missing…TLC picked up a second season of Long Island Medium…Sundance Channel is getting into the original series game, picking up a six episode first season of Rectify, executive produced by Mark Johnson (Breaking Bad). Originally in development at AMC, the drama is about a man freed from death row in Georgia after DNA evidence clears his name, with a script was written by Ray McKinnon, currently seen as Lincoln Potter on Sons of Anarchy…America's Most Wanted makes its Lifetime premiere on December 2nd when it takes over the Fridays at 9 timeslot its 24th season will occupy. The first 23 seasons ran on Fox…Family Feud has been renewed through the 2014-2015 season, airing new episodes in syndication in over 75% of the country. Ratings for the show are up 35% since Steve Harvey took over as host in 2010, and among women 25-54 (the target daytime demo) the show is up 40%...Before the NBC game show Who's Still Standing? settles into its Mondays at 8pm timeslot on December 26th it will run at 8pm on the Mon-Thu previous…Speaking of new game shows, ABC premieres the six episode first season of You Deserve It, hosted by Chris Harrison and Brooke Burns, on November 21st. On this show contestants compete for cash that will be given to someone who they think really needs it…HBO has officially ordered a pilot for The Corrections, an adaptation of the Jonathan Franzen novel that will star Oscar winners Chris Cooper and Diane Wiest, with Noah Baumbach directing…Michael Rispoli has landed the male lead opposite Kirstie Alley in the ABC comedy pilot The Manzanis…The final season of One Tree Hill premieres on January 11th…ABC Family released their winter lineup, with Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game airing on Mondays starting on January 2nd, with Switched at Birth paired with new fashion world drama Jane By Design on Tuesdays starting the 3rd…

Turns Out Not Where But Who You're With That Really Matters
(The Best of What's Around aka The Best Thing I've Watched In The Last Seven Days)…

I love Lewis Black and The Daily Show each individually quite a bit, let alone the combination of the two, but this edition of Back in Black raised the bar even higher than usual…

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

The Sesame Street thing had me laughing so hard I was literally crying. This was a great example of how I think The Daily Show goes after everything, pointing out in a humorous way when anything crosses a line/is over the top.


People Say I'm Crazy Doing What I'm Doing. Well, They Give Me All Kinds Of Warnings To Save Me From Ruin
What's flashed before my eyes the last seven days…





I love Jimmy Fallon and the above clip is a big reason why; how many hosts in talk show history could pull that off with any semblance of credibility?!?!...I know Once Upon a Time isn't perfect but it leaves me with a huge smile that continues long after the show has ended, and that's pretty high praise…LOVED the first week on Next Iron Chef: Superchefs; it was so much fun to see a lot of the personalities were used to seeing as judges feel what it's like to be on the other side of the table. Also, while the challenge certainly contained a gimmick, it still was really about their skills and not something so silly as to take away from just how good they all are at their jobs…The Halloween Community was a lot of fun; I think I liked Shirley's story the best…The collaboration between James Spader and the writers of The Office in the creation and development of Robert California is nothing short of genius…Believe it or not, that's not the first time someone has broken my feelings stick…The Walking Dead can't win; people complain about how there is not enough character development, and then when the action slows down a bit and we get to see more of the personalities coming through all the chaos, people complain that there is too much talking. Well, I take that back; The Walking Dead can and does continue to win in the only way AMC cares about, the ratings. Me, I am loving this season just as much as I did last season, if not a bit more…Revenge isn't getting any better on the actual quality scale but it certainly keeps the twists and turns coming and more than qualifies as a fun waste of time…I can't say that this season of Sons of Anarchy is better than previous seasons but that's only because it has ranked on my list of the top shows on TV since it premiered, so the bar is pretty damn high. I do very much enjoy that Clay is clearly the heavy at this point; I never got why other viewers didn't view him as such after he orchestrated the events that led to Donna's murder. I also like how Opie and Jax now have in common that Clay killed their fathers, and with Clay having Donna's blood on his hands, to me it would be fitting to have him take Clay out in the series finale as much as it would Jax. Actually, Jax walking away while Opie got his vengeance would be a pretty fitting ending…I have enjoyed the first two weeks of Boss and think it's a very well done show, although I will admit that if someone told me they found it boring I wouldn't argue with them…While most of the best dramas on TV are found on cable, Parenthood continues to be network TV's shining star, with one of the best ensemble casts in recent memory being provided with wonderful words to deliver each week. A great example of what the show does that is so interesting and different than anything else on TV is how Jasmine is starting to date and she and Crosby have to figure out how that works. When was the last time you saw a story like that on TV, where the point wasn't to somehow get the couple back together but rather to explore a very real situation that many people can relate to?...Really loved Katie Holmes on HIMYM this week and the way she threw herself into the role. A lot of actresses with that level of name recognition would not want to appear so unappealing (at least for most of the episode, at least) but she did so with gusto; LOVED her singing One Week. There is no question she could carry her own show if she decided she wanted to return to her TV roots…


TV Pick Of The Week
A # 1 vs. #2 regular season college football game is not all that common, let alone when the two teams competing are already pretty big rivals, so that makes tomorrow night's LSU – Alabama match up that much more memorable. CBS had to make more than a few deals to get this game in primetime but they did whatever was needed as this will most likely be the most watched non-bowl game of the college football season, and will probably out produce most bowl games, too.

Don't miss LSU – Alabama, Saturday at 8pm on CBS.

Two Tivos To Paradise
24 Hour Restaurant Battle, 30 Rock, After the Catch, American Idol, Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, Antiques Roadshow, Archer, Auction Hunters, The Big C, Boardwalk Empire, Being Human, Bones, Bored To Death, Breaking Bad, Burn Notice, Celebrity Apprentice, Cake Boss, Chopped, Chuck, The Closer, Community, Cougar Town, Crave, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Deadliest Catch, Desperate Housewives, Destination Truth, Entourage, Eureka, Fact or Faked, Falling Skies, Fairly Legal, Family Guy, Flipping Out, Food Feuds, Food Network Challenge, Food Network Star, Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters Academy, Ghost Hunters International, Ghost Lab, Glee, Gossip Girl, Great Food Truck Race, Grey's Anatomy, Happy Endings, Haunted Treasure, Hawaii 5-0, Hollywood Treasure, House, How I Met Your Mother, How To Make It In America, Hung, If You Really Knew Me, Iron Chef America, Justified, The Killing, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Law And Order: Special Victims Unit, Louie, Mad Men, Man v. Food Nation, The Middle, Mike and Molly, Modern Family, Necessary Roughness, New Girl, Next Iron Chef, The Office, One Tree Hill, Outside the Lines, Parks & Recreation, Private Practice, Project Runway, Psych, Raising Hope, Real Time With Bill Maher, Restaurant Impossible, Revenge, Ringer, Rocco's Dinner Party, Royal Pains, Rules Of Engagement, Sanctuary, Saturday Night Live, The Secret Circle, Shear Genius, So You Think You Can Dance?, Sons of Anarchy, The Soup, Suits, Suburgatory, Supernatural, Table For 12, Terra Nova, Top Chef, Top Chef Just Desserts, Top Chef: Masters, Top Design, Torchwood, Tosh.0, True Blood, Up All Night, The Vampire Diaries, The Voice, The Walking Dead, Warehouse 13, Web Soup, Wilfred, Worst Cooks In America,

People Love You When They Know You're Leaving Soon
Here ends another Two Tivos To Paradise.





We'll be back next week with all the latest in TV news plus our usual assortment of trailers and other effect methods of wasting your time.

Sources for this week's column include Daily Variety, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, and Hollywood Reporter (plus the web sites for those publications) as well as Aintit.cool.com, TVline.com & Deadline.com.