ABC Sets Return Date For Brothers & Sisters

"Greg! Move ya head."

Yes, Brothers & Sisters fans, you'll be hearing that line again soon. ABC finally set a return date for season four of Brothers & Sisters. The rowdy Walkers will be joining us again with new tales of sibling insanity, love life woes and drama, drama, drama.

Seriously, if drama grew on trees it would be this clan's ever changing family tree. More drama than you can shake an entire family tree at, let alone a stick. So much drama...Well, there's tons of it.

Word is season four's time line takes place a few months after season three's finale left off.

The show's producer, Greg Berlanti, had a rough go of it last season with two of his three shows, Eli Stone and Dirty Sexy Money, both getting the ax from the alphabet network. While Eli Stone has already run it's course, ABC just aired the first of the final three episodes of Dirty Sexy Money this past Saturday evening.

Brothers & Sisters returns Sunday September 27th at 10pm.

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DVR Life's Emmy Picks

So here's our picks for the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards, slated to air Sunday September 20th. We here at DVR Life don't pay much attention to TV land politics, so we're making or picks based solely on what we liked and/or didn't like. These are not Emmy predictions, just of hopeful winners.

We'll probably post more at a later time about all the horrendus snubs, but in the mean time our picks are in bold:

BEST COMEDY SERIES
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
How I Met Your Mother
The Office
30 Rock
Weeds

DVR Life will know the Emmy's are a worthless waste of time if Family Guy wins this award.

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Jemaine Clement, Flight of the Conchords
Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory
Tony Shalhoub, Monk
Charlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
Toni Collette, United States of Tara
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old Christine
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds
Sarah Silverman, The Sarah Silverman Program

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men
Kevin Dillon, Entourage
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Jack McBrayer, 30 Rock
Tracy Morgan, 30 Rock
Rainn Wilson, The Office

Would have preffered to see John Krasinski on this list for The Office.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Kristin Chenoweth, Pushing Daisies
Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock
Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds
Amy Poehler, Saturday Night Live
Kristin Wiig, Saturday Night Live
Vanessa Williams, Ugly Betty

GUEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Alan Alda, 30 Rock
Beau Bridges, Desperate Housewives
Jon Hamm, 30 Rock
Steve Martin, 30 Rock
Justin Timberlake, Saturday Night Live

GUEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Jennifer Aniston, 30 Rock
Christine Baranski, The Big Bang Theory
Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live
Gena Rowlands, Monk
Elaine Stritch, 30 Rock
Betty White, My Name Is Earl

BEST DRAMA SERIES
Big Love
Breaking Bad
Damages
Dexter
House
Lost
Mad Men

We feel pretty bad about not going with Mad Men, the likely winner, but we thought this was the best season of Dexter yet. What we feel worst about, though, is the snub of Friday Night Lights.

BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Simon Baker, The Mentalist
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House

BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Glenn Close, Damages
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU
Holly Hunter, Saving Grace
Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Really disapointed not to see Patricia Arquette on here for Medium. Also surprised not to find Jill Scott of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. We bet HBO is a bit surprised by that, also.

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Christian Clemenson, Boston Legal
Michael Emerson, Lost
William Hurt, Damages
Aaron Paul, Breaking Bad
William Shatner, Boston Legal
John Slattery, Mad Men

We were really hoping John Mahoney would be on the list for his portrayal of Walter on last season's In Treatment. We also think Jake Weber deserves some love for Medium's Joe Dubois.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Rose Byrne, Damages
Hope Davis, In Treatment
Cherry Jones, 24
Sandra Oh, Grey's Anatomy
Dianne Wiest, In Treatment
Chandra Wilson, Grey's Anatomy

We actually have no pick for Supporting Actress In A Drama Series. Not to slag these actresses, but we don't think any of their parts were Emmy-worthy. Disapointed to not see Rescue Me's Callie Thorne or Allison Pill of In Treatment on the list.

GUEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Edward Asner, CSI: NY
Ted Danson, Damages
Ernest Borgnine, ER
Michael J. Fox, Rescue Me
Jimmy Smits, Dexter

GUEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Brenda Blethyn, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Carol Burnett, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Ellen Burstyn, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Sharon Lawrence, Grey's Anatomy
CCH Pounder, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Again, we have no pick for Guest Actress In A Drama Series we didn't find any of these performances Emmy-worthy. Disapointed to not see Allyce Beasley for her performance on Medium, nor Hillary Duff for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SERIES
The Colbert Report
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart
Late Show With David Letterman
Real Time With Bill Maher
Saturday Night Live

VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SPECIAL
Will Ferrell: You're Welcome America. A Final Night With George W. Bush
Ricky Gervais: Out of England
Kathy Griffin: She'll Cut a Bitch
The Kennedy Center Honors
Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger


MINISERIES
Generation Kill
Little Dorrit

We're surprised not to see House of Saddam on the list of nominees. While we preffered Generation Kill over that miniseries, we still expected it to be nominated.

MADE-FOR-TV MOVIE
Coco Chanel
Grey Gardens
Into The Storm
Prayers For Bobby
Taking Chance

Seems like Grey Gardens received alot more hype than Taking Chance, and Into The Storm may win because of Brendan Gleeson, but DVR Life is pulling for TC.

ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
Kevin Bacon, Taking Chance
Kenneth Branagh, Wallander: One Step Behind
Kevin Kline, Cyrano de Bergerac (Great Performances)
Brendan Gleeson, Into the Storm
Sir Ian McKellen, King Lear (Great Performances)
Kiefer Sutherland, 24: Redemption

ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR A MOVIE
Drew Barrymore, Grey Gardens
Jessica Lange, Grey Gardens
Shirley MacLaine, Coco Chanel
Sigourney Weaver, Prayers For Bobby
Chandra Wilson, Accidental Friendship

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
Len Cariou, Into the Storm
Tom Courtenay, Little Dorrit
Ken Howard, Grey Gardens
Bob Newhart, The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice
Andy Serkis, Little Dorrit

We realize that's a very unlikely pick but we have to go with our hearts!

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE
Shohreh Aghdashloo, House Of Saddam
Marcia Gay Harden, The Courageous Heart Of Irena Sendler (Hallmark Hall Of Fame Presentation)
Janet McTeer, Into The Storm
Jeanne Tripplehorn, Grey Gardens
Cicely Tyson, Relative Stranger

For all the A/V nerds out there, you can get full lists of nominations, including art direction, cinematography, et al here.

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Mad Men Season 3 Poster

Looks damn good, huh? What else is there to say? Mad Men is by far the most stylish show on television and it's no surprise that the poster created for the series' upcoming 3rd would also be stylish as all get out.

And while there's no new footage, here's a little promo for season 3 to get you by for now:



Mad Men returns, as the poster says, Sunday August 16th at 10pm on AMC.

P.S. We highly recommend clicking on the poster above to see the details up close in full size.

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Preview: USA's White Collar

Here's a preview clip of USA's new fall series, White Collar. We here at DVR Life are pretty excited by the clip and rather gaga over the cast, too. We're definitely looking forward to seeing Tim DeKay as FBI Agent Peter Stokes and Matt Bomer as slick con-man Neal Caffrey.

Both actors are favorites of ours and the addition of Tiffany Thiessen is quite spectacular, as well. While she may have dropped the "Amber" from her name, she will always be remembered as a highlight of our tween years. We are no where near ashamed to admit that, while Zack and Screech both ruled (in their own way, of course), Ms. Kelly Kapowski was by the far the main attraction when watching Saved By The Bell.





P.S. We totally stole that screen grab from here via a Google Image search.

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Welcome Back, Leverage!

We here at DVR Life love when a good series returns. Especially during the summertime. Living down in a swamp where oppressive humidity and blaring heat make it near impossible to venture outside really makes us appreciate a good TV show. Thankfully, TNT's Leverage is back for it's second season so we have a good reason to keep our curtains drawn tight and the A/C down low for another hour.

The plucky crew of Leverage returns for a second season, each crew member fresh off world-wide thieving adventures, acting failures, computer-hacking accomplishments and mercenary escapades. The crew's leader, Nate Ford, is having a hard time, though. The season opens with Nate being walked through an insurance office where he seems to have just landed a lucrative job. Thankfully Nate is a mess, or he wouldn't have been there to pull survivors from a burning car wreck that just flipped over his head as he literally ran from a life of cubicle dwelling and towards the nearest bar.

When that car accident turns out to be a case of sabotage (yikes! who would have guessed!?!) Nate is reluctantly drawn back in by his raring to go team mates who, to his dismay, take over his shi-shi loft apartment, and begin planning revenge for those wronged.

The new season seems to be headed in much the same direction as the first, though we have to point out that the characters seem a bit more polished, in a good way. We're always glad to see characters become stronger, not as annoying and/or more appealing, as the writers seem to have done over the show's hiatus.

If you have yet to catch Leverage, I think you'll be able to jump in rather easily. Thieves find a heart and become addicted to helping the powerless who have been wronged by those in a position of power: it's a Robin Hood for the current boom and bust days and nothing more than an intricate con and blow-you-away thievery skills will make up for it.

Leverage returns to TNT tonight, Wednesday July 15th at 9pm (EST).

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Premiering Tonight: Dark Blue

An initial thought that came to mind while watching the pilot episode of TNT's new cop drama Dark Blue: the script writers must have watched a million undercover-cop movies when they were kids. My second thought was a question: are they paying homage to these classic films or have they seeped so far into their subconscious they can't help writing in cliches?

Whichever the case may be, the show comes across, save for a bit of grit here and some testosterone there, as a watchable and less dramatic version of A&E's overly dramatic, unwatchable undercover-cop series The Beast.

While Dark Blue sticks to the grungy alleyways and dingy fight clubs pretty much all gritty cop shows are known for, the cinematography manages to pick it up a level or two over other examples of the drama. This may be no surprise coming from creators of the CSI, Eleventh Hour and Cold Case franchises - especially Cold Case - the two seem to have very similar pale-lighting, pretty dives visual styles.

Dylan McDermott leads the cast as Carter Shaw, a stylishly gruff lieutenant leading an undercover operation for the Los Angeles Police Department that's so far off the radar the F.B.I. have a hard time figuring out it even exists. Not too sure how likely such an outfit is, but damn if they don't have a really cool, exceedingly photogenic abandoned loft-cum-office that would require major amounts of off the books dough for rent.

While Patrick Swayze was The Beast's only saving grace, McDermott doesn't seem to have that burden upon his shoulders, and thankfully so. The performance is pretty solid but his character comes across as an overly tortured sort. Weary eyes, heavy sighs and an "I need to save everyone and everything" attitude would probably work just as well had the part been that of a depressive artist or well-meaning but beaten down single father (or something else equally depressing).

Production for the show is rather slick at times, but nothing compared to the overly stylized CSI's. There's a few slick spots, particularly one when the bad buys douse a hide-out in gasoline and exit slow-mo style to their pretty get away car with flames bursting behind them. At one point I thought an otherwise impressive gun battle seemed a bit like a trigger-happy (and again, slow-motion) Chevrolet commercial, but who even notices product placements these days?

The story line for the episode was pretty ho-hum for a pilot about this subject - handler and partner wonder if undercover-cop has gone so deep he's switched sides. It's been done before but it's just one of many stories to come, so hopefully they'll get over that bump and start giving us more original fair. There's a reason people drool over undercover-cop stories and hopefully the writing crew will figure that and their own voice out soon enough, lay off the old cop flicks and give us a great show. The potential is certainly there.

Dark Blue premiers tonight, Wednesday July 15th at 10pm (EST) on TNT.

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Preview: ABC's Defying Gravity

We have to admit, this show kind of snuck up on us here at DVR Life. With all the talk of the summer television season in late spring and how cable would be ruling the season we have to admit that we didn't hear anything about this show until just a week or so ago.

Our ears first perked up at the mention of Ron Livingston. Then we heard it was from the producers of Grey's Anatomy and also starring Laura Harris of Dead Like Me. All good, if not consistent (Grey's crew doing sci-fi?), things to hear.


Both clips are rather similar but there's some different footage in each. The trailers don't tell you much about the plot, only that there's zero gravity sex, someone yelling "Zoe!" and Ron Livingston is billed as a hot American hero, so we'll fill you in:

In the near future an international crew of astronauts (four men, four women: imagine that!) take off on a six year space mission covering the eight billion miles to Venus. The reasons for the mission, though, are being billed as "mysterious".

The series will be a mix of flashbacks, spot lighting the astronaut's path to being chosen for the flight, and the present.

Defying Gravity premieres with a two hour episode on August 2nd before taking it's usual Sunday 10pm time slot.

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Welcome Back, Eureka!

DVR Life really wanted to get this up yesterday, you know, before the show came back, but we were having nicotine fits or something. It's never too late to welcome back an old friend, though.

Things may have shifted a bit on the show, what with Carter not being Sheriff anymore, and even in the real world surrounding the show, with SyFy being the new official name of the Sci...well, what was the Sci-Fi network, but the show is back and quirky as ever.

The series' easy breezy story lines and grin-inducing verbal patter tends to get a lot of flack in the science fiction world as being mindless or labeled the kind of show you zone out on. We think that's a load of bull, though.

While the premise and story lines may not lead to mock UN sessions like Battlestar Galactica, the production values are of a decent level and feature some fantastic visual effects, especially for a show of it's size. It's also fun and witty and one of the few science fiction shows we could watch with our mothers (and that's a good thing - we love our moms).

The basic idea is this: not every show needs to explore the greater intricacies of the human condition or blah blah. It's good to have some sci-fi that elicits a giggle or two, wows us with non-killer robots and oddball experiments gone wrong. We heart Eureka for giving us a laugh, an escape and good science fiction all at the same time.

If you missed the return of of Eureka last night, fear not. Set your DVR's as the first episode of season 4 is being replayed on SyFy Tuesday at 8pm and then again Friday at 8pm.

The next new episode of Eureka airs on SyFy Friday at 9pm.

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Skins Finally Returning To BBC America

Rejoice teen-soap lovers as BBC America has finally lined up gritty brit-hit Skins to return for a third season. The series is perhaps the most realistic teen-soap to ever hit small screens, following a group of Bristol teens through their junior and senior years before heading off to college or real life.

The show picked up tons of flack from critics during it's first season, many claiming that the stories were unrealistic and overly dramatic...DVR Life would just like to point out that either none of those critics grew up in the early to mid-90's or we and our friends at Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, Fl. knew how to live exceptionally well because we laugh our asses off while watching Skins, partly because we truly feel "we've been there, done that and love seeing it portrayed on TV all these years later."

For those already initiated to the debauchery of Skins, be forewarned: series 3 features nearly an entire new cast. The only returning face will be Effy, Tony's younger sister who merely put in a few occasional appearances in the first two seasons.

While we came to love Tony, Sid, Anwar, Cassie, Maxxie and all the other generation 1 characters, the producers came up with the rather novel idea of starting all over again with a new line-up of juniors: generation 2. We're still not sure were DVR Life lands on this issue but you have to figure One Tree Hill already pulled the jumping past college thing and The OC had the kinda ridiculous idea of having their characters suddenly change life paths and skip college.

It's a bit refreshing to see writers come up with a new idea.

DVR Life is just happy to have the show back. After series 2 ended on a few very depressing notes last January we were promised a springtime return which never came. BBC America is pretty good at that kinda thing (where's Robin Hood?!?) so we were elated at this announcement.

Skins series 3 premieres Thursday August 6th on BBC America.

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Law & Order: SVU Guest Star Update

Ok, L&O nerds, here's a small update to this previous post.

EW's Michael Ausiello broke the news that Eric McCormack will be guest starring in episode two of Law & Order: SVU next season. Chances are you remember McCormack from either his days as gay BFF/roommate on Will & Grace or his one season run as ad-exec on TNT's Trust Me.

As previously posted, Law & Order: SVU exec-producer Neal Baer promised an Emmy winning guest-star via his Twitter feed for episode two and an Oscar winner for episode three. Now that we know the Emmy winnder, who do you think will be the Oscar-vet?

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Dollhouse Premiere Pushed Back

Fox has announced that the second season premiere of sci-fi guru Joss Whedon's Dollhouse will be pushed back one week in order to give the show some breathing room in a tight shooting schedule. The original air date, September 18th, will be taken over by a repeat of the Glee pilot.

Dollhouse will return September 25th with an episode written and directed by Whedon, which is sure to get all the sci-fi fans out there pretty excited. Maybe the show's live ratings won't suck for once.

Via (Hitfix)

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Sneek Peak: NBC's Day One

Post-apoc blog Quiet Earth managed to get a hold of the Day One trailer NBC used for upfronts last May.

The trailer, apparently consisting of temporary visual effects and music, was a bit surprising in the fact that the series seems to be more than just the post-apocalyptic tale DVR Life had been expecting. A female character in the trailer seems to have not only been through this already (I just want to save these people from suffering the way we did."), but has the power to choose who she wants to surround herself with on her second go-round ("I choose each and everyone of you.". An alien come to save planet earth from what-or-whoever destroyed her planet, perhaps?

Day One is set to premiere sometime after the Winter Olympics in early 2010 on NBC.

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Hilary Duff Coming To The Upper East Side

Ausiello just broke the news that Hilary Duff will be joining the cast of Gossip Girl for multiple episodes next season. While the mention of tween stars tend to elicit eye rolling and groans here at DVR Life headquarters, Duff's guest appearance on Law & Order: SVU last season was...dare we say...surprisingly good. If I recall correctly her character was obscenely annoying and we just wanted to smack some sense into her, which is a pretty good testimonial for Ms. Duff's acting chops.

Her run begins October 5th, the fourth episode of the teen soap's third season, as Olivia Burke, a real life movie star attending NYU. According to Ausiello, she'll be roomies with Vanessa and he's keeping his fingers crossed for some romance between Olivia and Lonely Boy.

Can't wait to hear Gossip Girl's nickname for Olivia. We're also looking forward to some passive and not so passive aggression towards the actress on Blair's part. Surely there'll be jealously flying all over the Upper East Side.

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ABC Goes Old School With Castle

I'm not sure if this should be listed under "Hey that was my idea", "Good use of corporate synergy" or "Way to think outside the box."

ABC has announced that they'll be publishing the latest Richard Castle novel. You're pretty familiar with the literary world and you're wondering who's Richard Castle? Well, then you're probably reading the wrong blog. Richard Castle is the fictional best-selling crime novelist and namesake of ABC's cop dramedy Castle. If you missed the series' freshman season last year, here's a pretty good reason to get caught up.

ABC is teaming up with publishing company Hyperion who is owned by Disney, ABC's parent company to publish the first real Richard Castle novel, entitled "Heat Wave", first on the net and then in print. The ABC website will debut the first chapter August 10th and then premiere one new chapter each week for a total of 10 weeks. The full novel will then be published by Hyperion on September 29th.

The novel will be a stand alone tale that relates to the actual TV show. No word on who is actually writing the novel.

And we here at DVR Life would just like to say that we totally thought of this. Well, while watching Castle last season, we actually thought to ourselves how cool it would be if the writers of the show would publish an e-book version of the novels the characters would talk about on the show...You know, just for fun. ABC, of course, has to go all money making style and actually publish a real book, but you know...Maybe Mickey Mouse can read our thoughts or something.

The second season of Castle is set to debut Monday September 21st.

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HBO's Big Summer

Folks at the HBO camp must be feeling pretty great. The network is riding high on some pretty big ratings this summer, the most impressive being the numbers for season two of vamp-opera True Blood which is reaching a reported average of 10.8 million viewers per episode.

This last week's first airing at 9pm Sunday drew 3.7 million watchers, which ballooned to 5.1 if you add in the second showing. Throw in DVR's and HBO On Demand and the network is coming up with that 10.8 number, which is a near 40% bump (38% to be exact) over the first season.

The network is also probably elated with the big numbers for it's newest scripted original show, Hung, which premiered to 2.8 million viewers. Throw in the second showing and all told the show was watched by 3.7 million. It managed to hold 76% of the True Blood lead-in and is reportedly the largest premiere for HBO since John From Cincinnati, which, while the show ended up bombing, premiered strong on the back of The Soprano's series finale.

Congrats, HBO, on a banner month.

Now let's get ready for the return of Entourage with it's sixth season premiering July 12th. This season will see some new additions to the cast and some guest stars. Joining the show full time will be Kate Mara of 24 and Brokeback Mountain as E's new assistant, The OC's Autumn Reeser as a junior agent at Ari's agency, and Gary Cole who's been in everything from The West Wing and Office Space to Kim Possible.

And speaking of The West Wing, Aaron Sorkin, creator of WW, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, Sports Night, etc, will make a guest appearance as himself. Other notables playing themselves this season will include Lil' Wayne, Zac Efron and a whole bunch of sports stars.

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