"Rich & Shameless" is a collection of seven premium films produced by TNT and Raw. The series delves into the lives of individuals who have achieved enormous wealth and the ups and downs that come with it. The films offer a glimpse into the realities of extreme wealth, something that most people never experience.
Each film in the series tells a true story, capturing both the successes and failures of the individuals involved. Viewers are taken on a journey that explores the thrills and miseries that accompany such immense wealth. Through this series, viewers gain a better understanding of the complexities that come with a life of luxury.
The series provides a unique insight into the lives of the wealthy and famous. It reveals the harsh realities of their experiences, which are often glamorized in popular culture. With "Rich & Shameless," viewers can gain a deeper appreciation for the complexities of wealth and the struggles that come with it.
"Bob's Burgers" re-opened on Main Street in its imaginary town just in time to fill a gap and restore the life in Fox Network's Sunday-night "Animation Domination" line-up. For at least three seasons, the animation had remained, but the domination drained away. "Bob's Burgers" brought back the disaffected viewers, immediately scoring excellent ratings and even better reviews. Of course, local restaurateur Bob has a troubled family; who doesn't? Unlike the Simpsons, your favourite family guy, and the folks in Cleveland's neighbourhood, however, Bob's family doesn't even put-up a pretence to reconciliation and love. Why would they? They are far funnier when they fight. Each character is as flat as the simple drawings that bring the people to life: Bob's wife Tina idealizes marriage. Daughters Louise and Linda are a trouble-maker and a freak respectively; and son Gene is the avatar of all things loud and obnoxious. The simple stuff works because the writers and animators have talent and skill to play it to the max. "Bob's Burgers" has the right ingredients in the right proportions"”spectacular writing combines with simple-but-engaging animation as expert comedians deliver the lines even better than the writers intended. One critic, pointing out the characters' "lovability," noted, "Two minutes into the second episode, countless winning jokes already have hit the mark." Wow, an animated series that actually delivers what the viewers crave? What a concept!
Fox's latest venture into the dysfunctional family sitcom is Raising Hope. It features young adult man, Jimmy Chance (Lucas Neff). The shiftless Jimmy works as a pool boy and commensurate with the stereotype, has a one-night stand with Lucy (Bijou Phillips). He finds out later she is a wanted felon and has had their baby while in jail. Jimmy is given custody of the baby and takes her home to his "˜family'. If grandmother, "Maw Maw" (Cloris Leachman) is an off-the-rocker type who lives with Jimmy, his mother Virginia (Martha Plimpton), father Burt (Garret Dillahunt), and his coz Mike (Skyler Stone). With a family that knows nothing about good parenting or how to take care of a baby the comic zaniness of caring for the baby, Hope, begins. As the family struggles thorough the difficulties of "Raising Hope", they learn about themselves and each other, with plenty of laughs thrown into the mix.
It's a long-long way from flying nun to matriarch of a powerhouse television family. Sally Field has landed in a very good place, anchoring a powerful cast on ABC's award-winning "Brothers and Sisters." The "Brothers and Sisters" plot undoubtedly fits together for viewers who have remained faithful from the very first episode, in which William Walker, pater familiae and founder of Ojai Foods, drops dead. Kitty, his wife, mourns properly and just as properly takes charge as her grown children and their families gather around her. Mourning grows complicated as William Walker's deep-dark secrets come to life, and family life heats up as different family members cope with different secrets in different ways. From five family members come forty possible combinations and recombinations, and from those possibilities spring infinite plots"”even before writers and producers add significant others and children. "Brothers and Sisters" can hold its exalted Sunday night place indefinitely. Unlike some riveting family dramas, "Brothers and Sisters" does not show bitter, fierce, destructive sibling rivalry. For the most part, these big kids like one another, and their mother loves them all. Of course, one is an Afghan war veteran with a drug problem, and another is a gay lawyer, the favourite son and heir has both financial and marital difficulties, but the real odd-ball is the daughter who breaks the family's liberal tradition and takes-up with the likes of Ann Coulter and Mike Huckabee. Did we mention that "Brothers and Sisters" has the stuff to go on indefinitely?
Either the CIA is just not that cool and relevant anymore, or Seth Macfarlane and associates are still mining the mother lode of 1970s humour as they develop episodes of "American Dad!" for Sunday nights on Fox. Television historians claim animated series have replaced sit-coms as television's principal source of informed social commentary; and "The Simpsons" have replaced "All in the Family" as the nation's premier satire, the weekly litmus test of American values and expectations. "American Dad!" shows little sign of aspiring to that lofty standing. Most episodes set the standard simply at "amusing." CIA agent and uber-patriot Stan Smith, the "American Dad!" anchors a predictably diverse, dysfunctional just-beyond-the-beltway family. Francine, his wife, appears to atone for her wild youth by remaining vacant, mostly boring in contemporary life. Hayley, Stan's college-aged radical daughter, naturally acts-out all the standard forms of late adolescent rebellion and family insurgency. And Steve, not surprisingly, enters puberty eager to live-up to Dad's expectations but congenitally incapable of coming even close. Holding its own in Fox's Sunday night animated line-up, "American Dad!" has improved in its several seasons on the air. Translation: "American Dad!" has evolved from "mediocre" to "not bad" as it has outgrown its abject dependence on cliches and stereotypes, freshened its subject matter and treatment, and drawn sharper edges on its characters. Still, the premises for "American Dad!" showed promise in 1973; in the new millennium, they seem a little tired.
"The Chicago Code" has nothing to do with deep-dish pizzas or the cruelly cursed Cubbies. "The Chicago Code" openly, unabashedly, plain and simple, is all about good versus evil. The good guys following "The Chicago Code" are very very good, and the bad guys breaking the code are very very bad. The windy city itself, definitely a critical element in the drama's development, lives somewhere in-between. Chicago may be "the second city," but it stands out as America's number one oxymoron. "Hog-butcher to the world," Chicago also brought us Hemingway and Frank Lloyd Wright. Home to Picasso's breathtaking artistic monument, Chicago also has been home to some monumental con artists: Rod Blagojevich comes immediately to mind. "Blaggo" is to Chicago scams as the Picasso is to the city's art and architecture. More to the point of "The Chicago Code," in just over thirty years, thirty-one second city aldermen have been convicted of violent crimes or corruption. In Chicago, graft greases the wheels and gets your streets ploughed. Although corruption may be common as camel-hair coats on the Magnificent Mile, Chicago cops still want to collar the bad guys. "The Chicago Code" attempts to dramatize how and why they do it, and it packs a pretty good punch for a network production. Critics and home-grown Chicago viewers strongly suspect "The Chicago Code" would achieve its completely gritty potential on cable, but it's hard to complain about Jennifer Beals, still fit and fabulous all these years after Flashdance, going balls-to-the-wall against the bad guys in Monday night primetime.
With a controversial plot and an exceptionally talented cast of young actors, "SKINS" is a top quality television program to watch and be entertained by. Residing in Bristol in South West England we observe a group of teenagers as they explore modern issues including mental illness, dysfunctional family life, death, drugs, sexual identity crisis, and eating disorders. The amateur actors along with some youthful writers pull together a thoroughly enjoyable program that is often hard hitting and relevant to everyday life. Season one finds Nicholas Hoult (Tony Stonem) to be a popular, intelligent boy. An attractive young man, he finds it easy to manipulate those around him into doing what he wishes and this makes him entertaining just to see what he can get away with next. He has a best friend Mike Bailey (Sid Jenkins), who is entirely opposite him personality wise. Tony also has a girl friend that gets upset with him and his self centered ways but can't seem to stay angry with him. Another young girl has an eating disorder she hides and parents with a new baby that seems to take over her parent's attention completely. Thoroughly entertaining story and music make SKINS a winner.
Once upon a time MTV was all about music videos but ever since they began producing their own television series like The Hills they have evolved into a powerhouse in TV entertainment. The Hills is about the lives and ongoing happenings for several young women who reside in Los Angeles, California. Lauren, a young woman striving for her own independence, moves to LA with best friend Heidi and meet up with Audrina. Lauren interns with Teen Vogue, a teen magazine and becomes interested in the fashion industry. When her ex-boyfriend follows Lauren to LA they decide to get back together, which complicates her life. This show has the "reality TV" formula that is popular and gained The Hills some high accolades from the entertainment industry and spawned quite a few copy cat programs. While the young women have their romantic partners each is trying to make it and become successful, especially in the magazine and fashion industries that drew them to LA in the first place. As this is a show based on reality it's sometimes difficult to determine where reality leaves off and drama simply takes over. Still The Hills is fun to watch each week.
Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks already had saved Private Ryan and had shown the relatively tame exploits of a brotherly band in the Pacific Theater when they bravely took-on the challenge of recreating the bitter, brutal battles that made Pacific Islands household names in the darkest hours of World War II. Most Americans can trace the broad outlines of the Allies' liberation of Europe, but few can recall the highlights of American Marines' fierce struggles over "tiny specks of earth that we have never heard of." HBO's ten-part mini-series, "The Pacific," retrieves the war against Japan from the threshold of obscurity. Based on survivors' accounts of the battles, and rendered as vividly as the small screen will allow, "The Pacific" tracks three Marines' odysseys from Guadalcanal through Cape Gloucester to Peleliu and ultimately to the epic battle for Iwo Jima. Testifying to "The Pacific's" intense realism, the mini-series collected Emmy Awards for Art Direction, visual and sound effects. More amply testifying to "The Pacific's" overwhelming genius and power, however, the Television Academy awarded it the 2010 Emmy for Outstanding Mini-Series.
"Bored to Death" seems so completely and consummately the work of Larry David it ought to come with some kind of designer label. Its characters show the same seen-it-all New York brusqueness that distinguished the most memorable characters on "Seinfeld," and the characters sleep-walk through their lives with the same un-self-consciousness as their cousins on "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Not surprisingly, therefore, David scored a prestigious nomination for a 2010 Writers' Guild Award. Based on a delectably quirky premise, "Bored to Death" stars Jason Schwartzman as Jonathan, a writer in search of meaning, adventure, and consolation has he struggles through a pretty routine midlife crisis. When his long-time girlfriend dumps him, walking roughshod all over his delicate ego, Jonathan becomes a Craig's List private detective. The New York Times explains, "One of the charms of "Bored to Death" is that the hero, a pothead and screw-up, secretly moonlights as a man of action" at least as much action as missing skateboards and cheating boyfriends can trigger. Ted Danson co-stars as George, a profligate publisher and socialite, who encourages Jonathan's new endeavor. Not surprisingly, Danson shows a marked tendency to steal all the scenes in which he appears. Mid-life man's marginalization probably is the well-spring of Larry David's most exquisite ironies.
Fiercely reminiscent of Lord of the Rings and at least as complicated, HBO's "Game of Thrones'" chronicles the genuinely epic story of seven noble families' struggles over control of Westeros, their mythical homeland. Observing all the properly epic conventions, and developing truly epic heroes and villains, "The Game of Thrones" was adapted for television from George Martin's fantasy novel, Song of Ice and Fire. The ten-episode series weaves together seventeen major characters' political and sexual schemes, mixing-in plenty of knightly sword-play and lots of nightly trysts. Mark Addy, Peter Dinklage, Iain Glen, Jennifer Ehle, Lena Headey, and Sean Bean lead a powerful cast. Shot entirely on location in Ireland, "Game of the Thrones" is as beautiful as it is complex and treacherous, and the landscape lends itself to The Game's mystic and horrible undertones. While the Lannister and Stark families challenge the Baratheon family's rule, "an ancient evil awakes," and only a band of renegade knights errant stands between Westeros and "the horrors beyond the realms of men." Somehow, in "Game of Thrones'" far away medieval realm, civil war and imminent apocalypse look a lot more noble, sexy, and glamorous than they appear in the post-modern world.
