Happy Fourth of July, my foolish friends. I’m not going to spend too much time ranting about the campaign rally/authoritarian display of military might that our “president” is throwing for himself today, in yet another attempt to wrap up the self of Donald Jerkoff Trump so tightly in the flag that he and the concept of the United States and patriotism become inseparable. But I will note that 1. we have no idea how much this bullshit is costing us, though some estimates come in around $92 MILLION, 2. one of the things that this $92 MILLION does not include are the fireworks which will be provided for free — which is great until you learn that the guy donating the fireworks recently lobbied the White House to remove fireworks from the list of Chinese goods to be tariffed and 3. the Republican National Convention was passing out VIP tickets for donors and Trump backers — but Kellyanne Conway insists that you not politicize the “celebration.”
OK.
Anyway, I’ll be sitting out this year’s holiday as I have a bunch of binge-watching and Bachelorette recapping to catch up with, and honestly, what could be more American than that? Have fun and try to not blow a hand off.
It’s a very specific kind of person who wants to know how The Walking Dead comic series ends who avoids spoilers out there in the wilds of the internet but then chooses to click on a link in this little blog, but if you are that person, here you go.
ABC is trying to slap down those rumors about Meghan McCain leaving the series. We’ll see. (But meanwhile, I somehow missed that her co-host Sunny might be the source of some of the negative stories about Meghan to the press? OH DAMN.)
In your “No Shit, Sherlock,” news, Netflix will lose customers if it introduces commercials.
Y’all need to cut it out with the smoking in your TV shows. As a parent, I find this much more appalling than gratuitous sex or violence, quite honestly.
Ooh, AppleTV+ might use bad words after all. Be sure to have your smelling salts at the ready.
Haha, Donald Trump has scheduled a rally on the evening that Mueller is going to testify to Congress on the Teevees, I guess to scream, “NUH-UH!” and “NO OBSTRUCTION, NO COLLUSION” at a bunch of MAGAites who won’t have watched anyway?
Older News
Oh damn, Michael Chabon, the novelist, is going to be the showrunner for Star Trek: Picard.
One of my favorite stories from while I was gone was that a bunch of Christians were so mad about Amazon’s Good Omens series that they created a petition to try to force Netflix from streaming the series. 20,000 dummies signed it. Neil Gaiman thought it was pretty funny:
And Amazon and Netflix responded hilariously:
Speaking of: HAPPY STRANGER THINGS DAY!
Riverdale’s season four premiere episode will pay tribute to Luke Perry.
The Rick & Morty guys defended the Game of Thrones ending — sorta. One of them actually made the same argument I did, that they rushed the ending. I mean, he’s nicer about it, and says that he wanted “more episodes” but that’s just saying the same thing as they rushed the ending.
Oh, hey, while I was gone they announced some of the Bachelor in Paradise cast, but obviously not all of it because Luke P. is missing. (But he’ll be there, trust.)
Ha ha ha, Trump and Vladamir Putin joked about “Fake News” when they met at the G20 last week. Good joke! Very funny!
Just a side note on how insane our current situation is: I was out of the country for two weeks, and obviously a lot of batshit insane things happened while I was gone: Trump set foot in North Korea, a new woman accused him of rape, it was announced Mueller would testify publicly to Congress, the President fought with the Women’s World Cup soccer team, the President trolled us with a tweet suggesting that he would never leave office, his daughter played Princess of the USA at the G20 — like, any one of those things would drive the news cycle for weeks if not months under any other administration. So yesterday, my son and I were catching up with Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and on the episode from 6/24, he opened with the story of Trump calling off strikes on Iran at the last second — AND MY SON AND I HAD BOTH FORGOTTEN THAT THIS STORY HAD EVEN HAPPENED. I mean, yes, we were on vacation and away from the American 24-hour news cycle, but we were aware of this story, and it had just completely been wiped clean from our memories because SO MUCH OTHER CRAZY SHIT HAD HAPPENED IN THE PAST TWO WEEKS. It’s exhausting. Anyway, Happy Fourth of July! Let’s hope we see another one!
Renewals
- The Good Witch has been renewed for a sixth season at Hallmark.
- Absentia has been renewed for a third season.
Older News
- Total Bellas has been renewed for a fifth season at E!
Cancelation
- Ransom has been canceled at CBS after three seasons.
In Development
- The Lord of the Rings series on Amazon will be directed by Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom‘s director J.A. Bayona.
- The A List has been picked up by Netflix.
Older News
- Last Cowboy, an unscripted series from the creator of Yellowstone, has been ordered by Paramount.
- Masters of Doom has been ordered by USA.
- Final Fantasy, a series based on the video game, is in development.
- Anima, a short film for Thom Yorke’s album directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, is coming to Netflix.
- The Oval, a drama from Tyler Perry, has been ordered by BET.
- The Impossible Live and Volcano Walk Live have been ordered by A&E.
Casting News
- Marlee Matlin will star in Life and Deaf for CBS Studios.
- Catherine Bach will return to Young and the Restless.
Older News
- Demi Moore has joined the Brave New World series on Hulu.
- Kid Cudi and Big Boi are joining Creepshow on Shudder.
Mark Your Calendars
- The Terror will return on AMC on August 12.
- Wu-Tang: An American Saga will debut on Hulu on September 4.
- Greenleaf will return on OWN on September 3.
- Scream: Resurrection debuts on MTV on July 8.
- Say Yes to the Dress will return on TLC on July 20.
Older News
- Our Boys will debut on HBO on August 12.
R.I.P.
Arte Johnson, Comedian and actor, star of Laugh-In
Jared Lorenzen, Former NY Giants quarterback
Older News
Randall Christensen, Costume designer for Dancing with the Stars
Brian Taggert, Writer on V and many TV movies, including adaptations of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Omen V
WATCH THIS
Stranger Things: SEASONTHREE. Netflix
Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular: Luke Bryan, Khalid, Maren Morris, and Brad Paisley perform. 7 p.m., NBC
Star Wars marathon: You could just spend all day inside rewatching the Star Wars movies. I won’t judge you. 9:50 a.m., TNT
| THUR | 7:00 | 7:30 | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 |
| ABC | Holey Moley (new) |
Family Food Fight (new) |
Reef Break (new) |
| CBS | The Big Bang Theory (repeat) |
Young Sheldon (repeat) |
Mom (repeat) |
Life in Pieces (new) |
Elementary (new) |
| CW | iZombie (new) |
In the Dark (new) |
News/Local |
| FOX | MasterChef (new) |
Spin the Wheel (new) |
News/Local |
| NBC | The Wall (new) |
The Wall (new) |
Law & Order: SVU (repeat) |
Update on some older news: ANIMA started streaming on June 27. If you have Netflix and 15 minutes, you can watch the whole thing.
Oh, thanks — I should have checked the date on that one …
– T