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New True Blood Minisode: Sookie and Tara In a Catfight!

BuzzSugar — Tue, 11 May 2010 17:02:02 PDT

A girl has enough to worry about with vampires and voodoo, but what happens when her best friend doesn't seem to approve of her undead boyfriend? That's exactly what happens when Tara starts to question Bill's source of income, and things get ugly between her and a defensive Sookie. Watch their little tiff in this latest True Blood mini episode, including a funny Lafayette when you

New True Blood Minisode: Jessica Tells a Pastor to Shove It

BuzzSugar — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:00:00 PDT

As promised, HBO is giving us another bite of the upcoming season of True Blood with a second mini episode to piggyback on Eric and Pam. This one focuses on Jessica as she hunts at a local bar, until a pastor sneaks up and starts firing off hurtful accusations. She, of course, gives him a flash of her fangs and a good dose of public embarrassment (gotta love her moxie!). Check it out when you

Sneak Peek: The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Season 2!

BuzzSugar — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:30:56 PDT

Does reality TV have Jersey fever or what? Jersey Shore and Jerseylicious may have been satisfying our quotient in recent months, but on May 3, we'll return to the ladies who started the whole TV craze: The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

I've been dying to see where the drama picks up ever since last season's infamous Teresa table-throwing incident left my jaw on the floor. As you might expect, the women still haven't cooled their jets, and the battle between Teresa and Danielle rages on. In this new promo, we get a glimpse of the cat fighting that is to come. Danielle is not backing down, as she takes a few swings in a boxing ring and says, "It only takes one good smack to the head to make a person never walk again." Who turned this into the Jerry Springer Show?!

Also watch for a peek of the Giudices on a family vacation in Venice, Italy. You know that's just going to be a hilarious setup.

Check out this preview, and tell me if you'll be tuning in when you

Photo and video courtesy of Bravo

Sneak Peek at Scorsese's Boardwalk Empire For HBO!

BuzzSugar — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 14:30:59 PST

Rumor is that HBO's series Boardwalk Empire won't air until this Fall, but I'm already getting amped for its premiere. The show roster has talent in spades: Sopranos writer Terence Winter pens the script, Steve Buscemi plays a lead, and at its helm (at least for the pilot) is Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese.

Scorsese knows a thing or two about portraying hoodlums (Gangs of New York or The Departed come to mind), so he should be in his element here portraying 1920s Atlantic City during the prohibition and the gangsters who run it. While it's not known yet just how involved he'll be as the show goes on (besides serving as a producer, of course), I'm crossing my fingers that the show continues to reap the benefits of his influence. The cinematic feel of this trailer is just too darn good, and it should be - an inside source claims the pilot cost $50 million to make.

The teaser doesn't give away much, but I'm pleasantly surprised to see some familiar big-screen faces pop up, including Michael Pitt and Kelly Macdonald. Bonus - my choice for Golden Globes Best Actor, Michael Stuhlbarg, is in the cast, too. Seems to me like HBO has its next big hit. Watch the video and tell me if you agree when you

Photo courtesy of HBO

Sneak Peek at the New Season of Chuck!

BuzzSugar — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:30:39 PST

Not that you need a reminder, but one of your favorite returning shows is premiering this weekend - Chuck! NBC is running back-to-back fresh episodes of Mr. Bartowski on Sunday (and another new one on Monday in its regular time slot)! Since my recent chat with Zachary Levi and Josh Schwartz, I couldn't be more excited to sit my butt on the couch to catch all the action.

If you've caught any of the promos, then you know that the slogan for this upcoming season is "No More Mr. Nice Spy." Now that Chuck has gotten updates to step up his James Bond A-game, we'll be seeing more smooth moves along with that geeky Nerd Herd persona.

Here's an extended preview clip to get you pumped for what's in store as star Zachary Levi reveals some behind-the-scenes secrets. Check it out when you

Photo and video courtesy of NBC

First Look: ABC's Defying Gravity

BuzzSugar — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:30:34 PDT

From everything I've read about ABC's upcoming series Defying Gravity, it's apparently something like the lovechild of Grey's Anatomy, Battlestar Galactica, and Lost . . . in space. The show follows eight astronauts - four men, four women - from a variety of countries who go up into space and, I guess, get it on. Reportedly, though, there'll be more than just soapy space shuttle romance: "some sci-fi elements will be heartily sprinkled throughout, including side-effects that affect each astronaut differently and a mysterious power that controls their final destination."

The promo video for Defying Gravity makes me giggle, but maybe it's just a matter of getting used to weekly space sex? I don't know. The 13-episode run will start Aug. 2 with a two-hour premiere. To check out the video for yourself,

Check It: Season Five Preview For Lost

BuzzSugar — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:30:59 PDT

Here we go: a preview for the next season of Lost, which starts up in February 2009. The first part of the preview is a montage of certain plot points we've learned in the past, setting us up for some new footage we can look forward to in season five. After the fourth season with all the Oceanic Six stuff, the next season appears to deal with those six going back to the island:

Jack: "Everyone we left behind, they'd die too if I didn't come back."
Ben: "Well, thank God for second chances."

Want to check out the video and chat about it? Just

24 Prequel, "Redemption," Looks Intense, Scary

BuzzSugar — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 07:00:26 PDT

I've had a love-hate relationship with 24 for a long time, now. When it's bad, it's preposterously bad, but when it's good, it's one of the best things ever. Like, jumping off the couch yelling, kind of thing. But whenever I return to the "hate" side, I always hope there will be something to lure me back.

The preview for the show's two-hour "event" in November might be just the bait. There's more of the same ol' 24 antics (Jack enduring outrageous horrors, Jack screaming urgently at pretty much everyone, an astounding barrage of gunfire - none of which manages to affect our hero at all), but this time Jack Bauer is "battling an international crisis" in war-torn Africa. Meanwhile, our shady Tom Lennox (Peter MacNicol) chats with the new President of the United States who is, in 24's timely fashion, a woman.

The seventh season doesn't actually begin until 2009, but this two-hour "prequel" will air Nov. 23. To watch the intense preview,

Photo courtesy of Fox

TV Preview: True Blood

BuzzSugar — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:42:31 PDT

I don't think it will be a revolutionary statement that how one feels about Alan Ball's new HBO series, True Blood, will have a lot to do with how one generally feels about vampires. Me, they've never really been my thing; they're OK and all, but the mere mention of fangs wouldn't necessarily get me to tune in. This review, then, is for (and by) the vampire-agnostic.

So here's the takeaway: I don't doubt at all that True Blood could develop into a deeply fascinating series for people at all points on the vampire-fan spectrum. But in the two episodes HBO sent me, the vampire parts were something I just needed to get through so I could get back to Alan Ball's witty writing in the more human realm. The second episode is stronger than the first; I've heard from some critics who got a full batch of five episodes that each one gets better. But the fate of many a TV series has been determined in episode one, and in True Blood's case, that's cause for some concern.

True Blood's protagonist is Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), a Louisiana waitress with an unfortunate "gift" for reading people's minds that makes her daily life a struggle to tune out the thoughts of those around her. It's somewhat of a relief, then, when a pale stranger named Bill (Stephen Moyer) settles himself into her bar one night and asks for a drink of Tru Blood, the synthetic blood substitute that has made it possible for vampires to live among humans. Sookie can't read his mind but still quickly figures out that Bill's a vampire; "Am I that obvious?" he drawls in return. Why yes; you just asked for fake blood at a bar at night. It's not hard to guess. For more on the highs and lows of True Blood, just

What Ball has done best - in American Beauty, and then in Six Feet Under - is give a voice to people's unspoken fears: that intimacy is scary, that suburbia is soul-sucking, that death is really the end, or not the end. I'm not convinced that talent translates to the unspoken fears of the immortal. Bill's lines are the clunkiest, his characterization spotty. The second episode fixes that somewhat, giving Bill a set of chivalrous, 1800s manners, but in the first episode, I had a hard time understanding why Sookie was so attracted to this bloodsucker.

Part of that might be because of Sookie, who also could use a little more character development. Sometimes she's a Southern tart; sometimes she's a complete innocent. The second episode hints more at her family backstory, which was a relief; every little bit I learned about her helped. But in the first episode, I had such a hard time justifying her actions that finally I gave up trying to make rational sense of it.

The Sookie/Bill story gets some support from wild cast of supporting characters, some successful and some less so. To date, my favorites are Sookie's "My stars!"-saying grandmother and her sassy best friend, Tara, who can't stop running her mouth. Sookie's brother, the lady-crazed Jason, is introduced in a fairly odd way, but there's enough hinting at a dark past that I'm curious about him.

There's been a lot made of True Blood's sex and violence (or, maybe more accurately, violent sex), and it's true - there's a lot of it. There's definitely a spirit of abandon about the whole thing, which is something Ball's other shows have definitely lacked. It's more melodrama than drama, despite the occasional heavy reminders about how vampires are an oppressed class just trying to find their way in a world set on denying them their rights, and at times it's very, very enjoyable. But is it enough to - sorry, sorry - sink your teeth into? Well . . . that might well just depend on how you feel about vampires.

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TV Preview: Alan Ball's Next HBO Show, True Blood

BuzzSugar — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:30:03 PDT

At Comic-Con, I was lucky enough to catch some footage of True Blood, Alan Ball's (Six Feet Under, American Beauty) HBO adaptation of the book series by Charlaine Harris, and I was hooked. Now there's a trailer for the series, which premieres on HBO Sept. 7, so we can all discuss the show: whether or not it looks to be of the same caliber as Six Feet Under, how distracting the Southern accent attempts may be, how smitten we are or are not by Anna Paquin in this role, etc.

In the series, Paquin plays a telepathic waitress in a Louisiana town who meets a vampire when he walks into her bar and she discovers she can't read his mind.

Have you read these books? Does the show look like it will do the book series justice? To watch the preview for True Blood,

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