'True Blood' Hits Record, 'I'm A Celebrity' Commentary, TNT's 'Hawthorne, '24' Adds New Cast Member , CW Premiere Dates & More

I have been watching 'I'm a Celebrity' although not with any regularity. It's more like when I have nothing else to watch I'll watch it. I am interested in how it all ends, so that is what is keeping me slightly interested. The viewing public is not really having a love affair with the show either, as it is only pulling in 4.7M viewers on average (as of last showing). Not so great.

While I was watching 'Celebrity' last night I kept going back to my first week impression of how the camp looked like it was on a sound stage a lot of the time. I couldn't help but note some very distinct differences between 'Survivor' and 'Celebrity' particularly when they showed the "ninjas", as Patty called them, coming into camp in the middle of the night (3am actually) to wrangle a snake that had wandered into the campsite. Captions for the crew read "On-site security". I wondered to myself, do the 'Survivor' camp members have on site security to wrangle wild and potentially poisonous animals off in the middle the night? Because they never do show such a thing. And why show such a thing? Are you trying to convince us that you are really in the jungle or that our "celebrities" are facing dangers and conditions well beyond what they would ever experience in their celebrity life? Kind of a little over dramatization. Trying too hard perhaps? It just seemed very "campy", no pun intended. There is just something about this entire show that really lacks in how genuine it is. 'Survivor' feels genuine. This show just doesn't. Even if they are in the jungle, I wonder how much they are really roughing it. Even with the food challenges, the losers still get rice and beans. The contestants on 'Survivor' get nilch if they can't fend for themselves. Not that this needs to be like 'Survivor' exactly, but when you have a show like 'Survivor' and you put a bunch of celebrities into camp with far more luxuries than the 'Survivor' contestants could ever dream of, it's just lackluster. It's like the cheapened version of an excellent show. I think that is one of the reasons the American public is just not buying it. It's lame in comparison.

Last night I DVR'd and then watched Hawthorne on TNT. I liked it. There is a lot there and it held my interest about exactly who Hawthorne is, what happened to her husband (why did her daughter say she let her dad die?). It opened well with solid ratings of 3.83M viewers. Looking good for Hawthorne. It was followed by the third season of Saving Grace, which I also watched and is one of my faves. Holly Hunter is a genious in that role. It retained 97% of the audience out of Hawthorne and it's average viewers last night was higher than it's second season overall average. Looks good for Saving Grace.


While I was watching 'Hawthorne' I couldn't help note the differences (and some of the similarities) between 'Hawthorn'e and 'Nurse Jackie'. Obvious differences are it's tone. 'Nurse Jackie' is a darker feel, more gritty (language and overall bluntness) than most medical series on TV. 'Hawthorne' is , of course lighter. But, then Showtime can take more liberties in their story telling than TNT can. One similarity is the student nurse that is obvious and present. In the fall we will be getting a third medical show that follows nurses with 'Mercy' from NBC (which I blogged about back in May when reviewing the up coming medical shows from the networks this fall). Just a little note, 'Nurse Jackie' ratings were up 8% this week.


'True Blood' from HBO premiered it's second season. I blogged awhile back about how I wanted to add HBO to my cable package. Funny thing is, I got a call the other day offering me HBO and Cinemax for 6 months for $6.95! They must have read my mind. Unfortunately I didn't catch all of season 1 of 'True Blood' in time before they yanked the season 1 from the On Demand list. So, I haven't watched the episodes from Season 2 yet. Good news is that I can catch season 1 on DVD and I will because the episodes I did see of season 1 were excellent. It averaged 3.7M viewers and was the most watched series on the network since the 'Sopranos'. I have to catch up because I'm missing some good TV by not being in the loop!



In other news, '24' has gained actor Clayne Crawford in the role of a bad boy from Dana Walsh's (Katee Sackhoff) past. She is the character I blogged about a few weeks back who will be the expert CTU analyst involved with Freddie Prinze Jr.'s character. Rick Worthy (Battlestar Galatica) is in negotiations to join the 'Heroes' cast.

And the last bit of news for the day; the CW will launch it's fall season starting on September 8th. Premiere dates are ;


Tuesday, Sept. 8
8:00-9:00 p.m. "90210" (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Melrose Place" (Series Premiere)

Wednesday, Sept. 9
8:00-10:00 p.m. "America's Next Top Model" (2-Hour Season Premiere)

Thursday, Sept. 10
8:00-9:00 p.m. "The Vampire Diaries" (Series Premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Supernatural" (Season Premiere)

Monday, Sept. 14
8:00-9:00 p.m. "One Tree Hill" (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. "Gossip Girl" (Season Premiere)

Wednesday, Sept. 16
8:00-9:00 p.m. "America's Next Top Model"
9:00-10:00 p.m. "The Beautiful Life: TBL" (Series Premiere)

Friday, Sept. 25
8:00-9:00 p.m. "Smallville" (Season Premiere)
9:00-10:00 p.m. "America's Next Top Model" (Encore Episodes)

Don't forget 'Wipeout' tonight followed by ' I Survived A Japanese Game Show' and ' So You Think You Can Dance'. BTW.. my predictions of who would go home last week were right on.