Author: Shane

Watch Pilot Episodes of NBC Shows Online Free

Amazon today announced a deal with NBC that will let visitors watch pilot episodes of NBC’s new fall shows Bionic Woman, Chuck, Journeyman, and Life online for free beginning September 10th, before they premiere on TV. The shows will be available on Amazon Unbox.

These shows join Heroes, The Office, and 30 Rock as part of Amazon’s offering. New episodes will be available the day after they air on TV.

“With the addition of NBC Universal TV content to Amazon Unbox, fans now have the ultimate convenience for enjoying their favorite shows whenever or wherever they want,” said Jean-Briac Perrette, President, NBC Universal Digital Distribution. “This further expands our longstanding relationship to bring a robust content offering to the marketplace in a variety of ways that will benefit the consumer and, at the same time, protects our content.”

Perhaps not so coincidentally, this deal comes just days after iTunes announced they would be pulling NBC content from their store.

Big Brother 8 Episode 27

Following his confrontation with Dick in which Dick basically let him know he had to win or he’d be going home, Zach won the endurance HOH competition in Big Brother 8 Episode 26. With his new power, the previously invisible Zach let everybody know he was thinking endgame, putting up the two people the jury likes the most: Jessica and Jameka. I do agree Jessica is the biggest threat, so while I’m not so sure this is the best move he could have made, if he can get her out, it will have been a useful week, and he ironically will not be blamed. Of course, if she stays, there will be hell to pay. At this stage of the game, tonight’s veto has the potential to be interesting. If Dick or Danielle get it, it’s unlikely it will be used because it would put the other one at risk of going up. If Eric gets it, Zach will have no choice but to nominate Dick or Danielle in Jessica’s place. If ever there were a time for Eric to actually try at a competition, this is it.

Jessica thinks she would have been safer if Zach left last week. Apparently then Dick and Danielle wouldn’t have turned on her I guess. Eric feels guilty because his decision to support Amber’s eviction last week is the key factor in Jessica being on the block, and he’s worried that he’ll lose her.

Dick upsets Danielle by… opening his mouth. More bickering ensues. He tries to apologize, she ignores him, she whines, he leaves mad. So pretty much the same as every other conversation they have.

While the houseguests are sleeping, Janelle sneaks into the house. Zach wakes everybody up and tells them it’s time for the veto competition. They show a picture of Janelle, to which Eric responds, “Looks like Miss Piggy meets Janelle. Must be her after the weight gain.” Immediately after, Janelle walks out to greet them. Whatever points Eric gained with America by booting Amber, he lost by insulting Dr. Will’s favorite puppet.

In the competition, the houseguests spin in a pink chair and must then do the morphomatic. They have 4 minutes to complete as many as possible.

Dick embarasses himself by primarily focusing on flirting with Janelle, who thinks he’s hot anyway (way to stay neutral), so maybe it wasn’t too embarassing. Without trying to flirt at all, Eric and Jameka somehow end up doing worse than him, though.

Dick-4
Zach-6
Eric-3
Jameka-2
Danielle-7
Jessica-4

Danielle wins the power of veto. She can either use it to seal someone’s fate or risk taking out Eric at the expense of possibly putting her dad in the line of fire.

As with prior weeks, Jameka is seen as a non-threat because she can’t compete for the next HOH. All her crying about it being a mistake was silly. It doesn’t matter if you can’t win HOH. Winning HOH normally is a bad idea anyway.

Eric believes the alliance is strong, but as Zach warned just a week ago, Dick and Danielle will decide who goes home, and there’s not a great deal Eric can do about it. He tries to convince Jessica of this, but she’s a realist.

The America’s Player task is to mimic Dick. Eric is happy to do it. He thinks it’s a good chance to bond, and Dick thinks it’s hilarious to boot. This actually did turn out to be one of the more entertaining tasks of the season.

Dick’s concerned that turning on Jessica may look bad, but it’s not like either of them have any jury votes anyway, unless they’re up against each other. Of course, if they do turn and either Eric or Jessica win HOH next week, they’re both going up, and one of them’s gone.

Danielle decides not to use the veto. Jessica doesn’t trust them and never has. At the very least, I hope America isn’t cruel enough to make Eric vote out Jessica. This week will be a special live double eviction week, so it should be an action packed (read: rushed) show on Thursday.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live blog of Big Brother 8 episode 28, which airs Thursday at 8/7c on CBS.

Smile! You’re Under Arrest

I’ll give you two guesses which network this is from, but you’ll probably only need one. Variety reports that Fox will work with producer Scott Satin from “Who Wants to be a Superhero?” on the tentatively titled project “Smile! You’re Under Arrest.”

The concept behind this show is that people with outstanding warrants are made to believe they will become rich, only to find out they’ve been setup by law enforcement officials. The show will target relatively petty criminals, who have no problems signing a release to be on TV, and in the end whatever promises were made to lure them will be kept.

“Unlike ‘Punk’d,’ where things start out bad, this shows starts out being the best day of your life,” said Fox’s Mike Darnell. “Everything is fantastic. Then you find out you’re under arrest.”

“This show is very Fox,” Darnell said. Take from that what you will.

Sanjaya Moving to Hollywood

If you hoped it was over, prepare for those hopes to be dashed. Sanjaya Malakar and his family are preparing to move to Hollywood in October since it’s closer to the music industry, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The family also hopes this will be good for his sister, Shymali, who was cut early on in the audition process.

The good news from this story if there is good news is that Sanjaya’s old home at 2313 SW 339th St in Federal Way, Washington, a five-bedroom, one-bathroom house with a recording studio, is now on the market. So if you’d like to move to the Seattle area, you, too, can live like Sanjaya for $360,000, a “no Sanjaya premium” price, says the real estate agent.

Bill Rancic Marries Giuliana DePandi

Bill Rancic, the only Apprentice winner who seems to have lived to tell the tale of his victory, married E! News Live anchor Giuliana DePandi in Italy on Saturday, according to People Magazine. The couple met while she was interviewing him and has been engaged since December.

The ceremony was held in both English and Italian. Giuliana’s sister Monica was the maid of honor, while Bill’s late father was the honorary best man. Due to both of their schedules being busy, the honeymoon will have to wait for now.

The Race 2 Episode 1

It’s a lazy Labor Day evening, which means two things: barbecues are finishing up and no news. No news isn’t good news, so I thought it’d be a good idea to take a look at The Race. Remember when there were three seasons of The Amazing Race per year? After riding high off Rob & Amber’s first stint on TAR, the progress quickly got thrown away with the ill-fated Family Edition, which came after being bumped in favor of Rock Star: INXS in the summer (itself the victim of abysmal ratings). Despite struggling ratings, The Amazing Race 12 has been kept around but reduced to a midseason appearance in early 2008, with the removal of non-elimination legs and 2 episodes. So what’s a diehard Amazing Race fan to do in the meantime?

No, this isn’t The Amazing Race Asia 2, which presumably will premiere in November or thereabouts (yes, I expect to cover that as well, though). Rather, it’s The Race, a production of Ithaca College, where teams race across New York state. Now I know what you’re thinking, but wait. Having seen The Race 1, I feel comfortable saying this is an entertaining program. Granted, it doesn’t have the exotic foreign locations or the multi-million dollar budget we’ve seen from The Amazing Race. What it does have is good quality character development and highly charged competitiveness we have come to expect. With two PEGASYS awards (Best Documentary and Best Educational Access) and a cast and crew of over 100 under its belt, it’s worth checking out.

The full recap of season 1 episode 2 is below. Check out the links to seasons 1 and 2 if you’d like to watch them. Season 2 is currently scheduled to premiere on ICTV Wednesday Sept 19th, and episodes will be online at some point thereafter (unclear exactly when, but stay tuned to dingoRUE for more). Season 2 Episode 1 is already online, though.

Watch The Race 1 Online.
Watch The Race 2 Online.

(Note: the videos are in Quicktime. If you have a plugin problem as I did, here’s how to get around it. Right click the link below the video. Select Save Target As. Save the file to your computer. Right click the file and choose Open With > VLC Media Player. If you don’t have VLC Media Player, you can get it here. Highly recommended, as any time I have trouble playing something, I always use that instead.)

With the success of The Race 1, this season has been expanded, with the addition of one extra episode, two more teams, and two more legs. Thomas Pardee returns as the host. The race 2 teams are:

Hal & Matilda, brother and sister from Oxford, England. They feel they have an advantage because they’re used to spending long hours in the car together.

Sadie & Ginalola, roommates who met at their freshmen orientation. They bicker like a married couple. Uh oh.

Daniel & Jeff, friends from Binghamton University and members of an a capella group.

Kristiyan & Nick, friends from opposite sides of the world. Kristiyan is from Bulgaria.

Jon & Jenna, boyfriend and girlfriend from Scranton, PA who met at work. Jon is worried about their ability to cooperate with each other.

Drew & Vanessa, friends who met minutes before auditioning for The Race (he didn’t have a partner and went up to her at random). This team looks like a disaster waiting to happen on the basis of the pre-race interview alone.

Dave & Matt, best friends and members of a comedy group. Some fun comic relief.

Nick & Chris, friends and drinking buddies. They call themselves “deceptively smart.”

We start off at Cayuga Lake, the largest of central New York’s finger lakes. The first task is to retrieve their keys from the lake with the tools provided, including candles, matches, sticks, saw blade, string, and a bandage, most of which probably isn’t needed. Now this I like to see. Make them work even for this. Dave & Matt are the first to get the bucket, containing car keys and a knife. The next destination is Beebe Lake at Cornell University. Dave & Matt got the wrong bucket and ended up with Jon & Jenna’s keys. They had an extra key to their own car, left the key they found on the windshield of the right car, and took off. This has to be a rule violation of some sort. Jon & Jenna happen to be the next team to retrieve their bucket and get all confused. Due to the misunderstanding, Kristiyan & Nick are the second ones to leave. Daniel & Jeff are next. Jon & Jenna figure out where the key is and leave in fourth, followed by Sadie & Ginalola, Drew & Vanessa, Nick & Chris, and lastly Hal & Matilda.

As if leaving the keys without saying a word was bad enough, Dave & Matt also stole the New York pages from Hal & Matilda’s atlas. Now I know it’s probably politically correct to be hating these guys now, but the way they say things makes it hard not to laugh. The flaw in this plan is that everybody knows it was them, and nobody seems to like them right from the getgo.

Nobody has any real idea how to get to Cornell. Daniel & Jeff hope for inspiration from Yanni. Dave & Matt find it first. Nick comes right behind them and feels okay turning around to find a place to park because there’s no way the other team can leave their car at the bridge where there’s construction. So much for that theory. Dave & Matt jump out the car and proceed to run to the foot bridge. Nick comes back to find the car’s still where it was before, now blocking traffic.

Detour: Maple Madness or Alpaca Antics. In Alpaca Antics, teams must drive 34 miles to Appalachia and herd an alpaca (notoriously stubborn animals) through a series of fences into a pen. In Maple Madness, teams must drive 28 miles to the Maple Festival in Marathon, where they must drive a soapbox derby car down a ramp and across the finish line without falling off.

Dave & Matt choose the alpacas and arrive back at their car with a bunch of angry bus drivers standing around it. Kristiyan & Nick also choose alpacas, as do third place Sadie & Ginalola. Daniel & Jeff aren’t very concerned with where they park either, but at least they park in a “Parking by permit only” area, rather than blocking traffic, and Hal & Matilda park alongside them, followed by Jon & Jenna. Daniel & Jeff go with Maple Madness because it’s the opposite of what everyone else is doing, reminiscent of Danny & Oswald on TAR2. Drew & Vanessa, Jenna & Jon, and Hal & Matilda also pick Maple Madness. Nick & Chris get as lost as could be expected and are bringing up the rear, with the maple task as well.

At the alpaca task, one of the first things teams are advised is that gentle talking will probably work better than chasing them. The guys don’t get the hint and not only chase their own but begin using dirty tactics to scare each other’s animals. Nick blames Dave & Matt, though he played a large role in the silly actions himself. After having garbage thrown out the window at them, Kristiyan talks about calling the cops, and Nick acknowledges they’re going to blow it out of proportion because Dave & Matt are immature. Both teams think they outsmarted each other at a red light when deciding whether to go left or right.

At the maple task, the padding provided is minimal, while the falls on concrete aren’t. Jon gets cut pretty bad, and he’s not alone.

The first pitstop is the Broome County Courthouse in Binghamton, which the Binghamton U guys are pleased about. As with the first episode last season, there’s no way to even disguise who’s going to be eliminated first. Teams are in roughly the same order they were before the tasks started. There are two terrible teams here, with Nick & Chris being the one that’s been long gone for quite some time (the other being Drew & Vanessa). To make matters worse, given their weight, this soapbox derby has the potential to be long and painful.

At the pitstop…
First: Dave & Matt (apparently not penalized for the key mishap)
Second: Kristiyan & Nick
Third: Jon & Jenna
Fourth: Sadie & Ginalola (right behind)
Fifth: Hal & Matilda
Sixth: Daniel & Jeff
Seventh: Drew & Vanessa
Eliminated: Nick & Chris

In the preview for episode 2, Nick apparently makes good on the promise to call the cops, Dave & Matt continue their mischief, and teams get frustrated at a tire changing task.

Big Brother 8 Episode 26

We left off in Big Brother 8 episode 25 with the eviction of Amber, followed by an endurance HOH competition. History has shown CBS will probably drag this out at least twice as long as needed, but we will eventually find out who is the HOH and who they choose to nominate.

Everybody still has the outcast mentality about Zach, and they all feel pretty good that it’s 3 against 1. Eric’s a disaster at this competition as usual, and it wouldn’t be wise for him to win anyway since America would probably make him nominate Jess. Considering he’s so far behind, Eric proceeds to go for the phone call from home instead. At 1 hour 45 minutes, BB makes an offer of two larger cups at the price of one day on cold water for the whole house per cup. Everybody in the competition takes the offer.

It came down to Dick and Zach at the end, as Eric and Danielle were so far behind it was pointless. Dick was particularly scared of Zach since he stuck his foot in his mouth two hours before the competition by attacking Zach, who pled his case but didn’t back down or get scared. And Zach is the new HOH. This goes back to the theory of Zach being a vote. Jessica with her HOH (and moreso because of Eric’s lame attempt to pacify America and boot Amber) managed to piss him off, rather than pulling him closer. Moreover, as Zach warned last week, unless they’re nominated, Dick and Danielle will decide who goes home.

Eric decides to give the call to Jessica, which was a nice gesture, because he didn’t want it anyway, and an attempt to apologize for being stupid last week. He then comes up with the plan to go after Jameka and make a deal with Zach.

It’s time to see Zach’s HOH room. Nobody cares. Nobody even pretends to care. These people aren’t getting any brighter.

Zach asks the question “Can you really trust a guy named Dick?”

Eric comes clean and tells Jessica he cast the stray votes. As much as he wants to tell her he’s America’s Player, he’s not allowed to do so. She figures out the mustard incident.

Jessica gets a call from her younger brother, who just go back from Iraq. The typical short tearful chat we see on Big Brother, but it seems like it was positive for her both emotionally and potentially in terms of how she’s perceived.

America wants Eric to get Jameka to get nominated. Ever since he changed his strategy to pleasing America rather than thinking on his own, he’s been getting votes that go along with his strategy, so this should be pretty easy for him to pitch. Zach doesn’t understand how he can benefit by keeping Jameka around, making this a logical move for him as well. Dick and Danielle, meanwhile, hatch a plot that will get rid of either Eric or Jessica without getting any blood on their hands: having Zach nominate both of them.

The America’s Player tonight is who America wants Eric to mimic to demonstrate just how annoying they can be. He should be able to skate by this no matter what as just being a joke.

It’s time for the nominations.
Dick-Safe
Danielle-Safe
Eric-Safe (but not looking pleased)

Jessica and Jameka have been nominated for eviction. He put up the two people who are the most well liked by the jury, leaving the weasel, the whiner, and the asshat as safe (feel free to assign these descriptions as you see fit). Jessica knew she was going up and understood. Jameka got upset. Eric blames himself for Jessica’s nomination, as he should. There’s always the veto, but it would make a lot of sense to get rid of Jessica if the nominations were to stay as they are now. Zach’s been largely invisible until this point, but I liked how he handled himself tonight.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live blog of Big Brother 8 episode 27, which airs Tuesday at 9/8c on CBS.