2013/14 TV Preview – Returning Shows

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Over the last few years the TV season has gone one where shows premier in fall to a fall/winter one to now series premiering fall/winter/spring with a handful in the summer. So it’s not really a “TV season” anymore, it’s new TV all the time.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FXX) September 4

Always-Sunny-Philadelphia-29
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Sunny enters its ninth season, yes NINTH season, on a new “edgier” network called FXX but is feeling a bit tired these days. While I don’t think anyone would argue that Sunny was as good the last few seasons as it was the first few, I’ll still check this one out – for a few episodes at least.

The League (FXX) September 4
See above, except substitute “fourth” for “ninth.”

American Horror Story (FX) October 9

The first season of American Horror Story was amazing, it was easily one of the best shows in recent memory. The second season, let’s just say that the second season started out disastrous but ended up…interesting? Here’s hoping that the third season of American Horror will be more like the first than the second.

Raising Hope
Raising Hope

The Walking Dead (AMC) October 13
Watching The Walking Dead can be a grind. Sometimes it’s a satisfying grind, but a lot of times watching the show is a slog to get through the episodes where little happens to ones where stuff does happen. I get the feeling that if each season of TWD were six or eight episodes long it would be a much tighter series rather than what we got with the last 16 episode season that felt like a lot of filler.

Raising Hope (FOX) Fridays “Late Fall”

Raising Hope enters its fourth season after having seemingly been on the  verge of cancellation for all four of those seasons. The comedy, once a staple of Fox’s Tuesday nights, has now been relegated to Friday nights. Regardless of what night it airs on, I’m a sucker for Raising Hope and the whole Chance family.

Doctor Who
Doctor Who

Doctor Who (BBC America) Christmas

The final season of Doctor Who with lead Matt Smith starts right where the last one ended, with John Hurt (Alien) being introduced as a connection to the Doctor’s past.

Sometime after the new year

The Americans (FX)

The Americans
The Americans

The more I think about The Americans, the more I miss this show about Soviet sleeper agents operating in the early 1980s in Washington DC. I think where this series works is that it’s also about the home lives of the Soviets as well as all the other secret agent action stuff.

Community (NBC)

Dan Harmon is back as the creative head of Community for one more season, the last of the series. Will Harmon usher Community back to greatness, or will it be a misstep that critics will be talking about for years to come? Regardless, I’ll be watching!

Game of Thrones (HBO)
The fourth season is usually when genera series begin faltering; see Lost, The X-Files, Battlestar Galactica, et al. It’ll be interesting to see if Game of Thrones is able to buck this trend.

Hannibal (NBC)

Hannibal
Hannibal

I feel like there are about 10 of us out there watching Hannibal on NBC. I’m guessing it’s one of those shows where people will discover it long after it’s gone and wonder why more people didn’t watch it when it was first on? It’s brilliant!

Mad Men (AMC)
Is the upcoming season of Mad Men the last season of the series, or does Mad Men creator Matt Weiner have more seasons of the show in mind? Only time will tell.

Illustrator Dave Dorman releases book of G.I. Joe art

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heroIllustrator Dave Dorman, probably best known for a series of comic and book cover illustrations of the Star Wars universe in the 1990s, is releasing a self-published book of artwork he did for the design of G.I. Joe action figures.

Between the mid 1980’s thru the early 90’s I had the great pleasure to work with Hasbro toys producing art for in-house use helping create the design of GI Joe action figures. This work was for production only and not intended for reproduction, promotion, or packaging. I have had many fans over the years ask about this art. Because there is continued interest to this day to see these unpublished pieces, I have taken your wishes and decided to publish some of these in a small book. While there have been a few articles in collector’s magazines and online interviews about this work, and a few scattered publication of a couple of pieces, this will be the first real collection my Hasbro work from this period.

The art featured in the book will be full color paintings produced to make the GI Joe toy figures look as if they would in real life. I will also feature some of the pencil preliminary work that went into my painting preparation. The art covers both Joe and Cobra and some variations of uniforms not produced.

The book retails for $20 + $5 shipping.

Mob City (aka LA Noir) premieres 12/4 on TNT

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The long awaited first LA Noir then Lost Angels now Mob City is set to premiere December 4 on TNT.

The epic battle between a determined police chief and a dangerous mobster inflames 1940s Los Angeles in TNT’s eagerly anticipated television event Mob City (formerly known as Lost Angels). This powerful drama comes to TNT from Frank Darabont (The Walking Dead), who wrote and directed the pilot and serves as executive producer on the series. Based on the critically acclaimed book L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City, by John Buntin, Mob City opens in post-war Los Angeles, home to glamorous movie stars, powerful studio heads and returning war heroes. But it’s also a city caught between a powerful and corrupt police force and an even more dangerous criminal network determined to make L.A. its West Coast base.