Before you suit up for tonight’s soon-to-be legendary 100th episode of HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER (trust us, we’ve seen it), why not take a trip to the mall down memory lane and reminisce with stars Josh Radnor, Alyson Hannigan and Cobie Smulders, who were kind enough to take some time just prior to last week’s Paley Center panel to reminisce about their most memorable HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER moments from the show’s first (yes, you heard us CBS, ‘first’) 100 episodes.
The Good: Fuelled by the continued success across FOX’s entire Animation Domination line-up (THE SIMPSONS, CLEVELAND SHOW, FAMILY GUY and AMERICAN DAD), solid showings from HOUSE, LIE TO ME and the surprisingly popular venerable BONES, plus the bona-fide break-hit that is GLEE, it appears as though FOX has finally found the formula for Fall by capping off November with their first sweeps victory ever among the highly-coveted 18-49 demographic.
The Bad: You mean aside from SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE’s universally panned new set and the fact that our iTunes wallet has taken quite the hit courtesy of GLEE? Although they gave it the old College try, Friday on FOX was no laughing matter with BROTHERS, ‘TIL DEATH and DOLLHOUSE arriving DOA. While FRINGE squandered one of the coolest season finales ever by failing to attract an audience in what admittedly is one of the most competitive time slots in television (Alas, advertisers don’t pay premium dollars for a 47% bump in DVR/PVR viewership.)
This afternoon FOX unveiled their 2010 midseason schedule. But fair warning — complete with disappointing surprise hiatuses (FRINGE, GLEE), two-night premieres (24, AMERICAN IDOL, HUMAN TARGET) and time slot-shifts (CLEVELAND SHOW, KITCHEN NIGHTMARES) — you’re most definitely going to have to be smarter than a fifth grader to decipher it. See for yourself after the jump.
Assuming the remaining forty-one minutes are as funny as the above three minute and thirty-one second trailer for the second installment of FAMILY GUY’s loving homage to STAR WARS titled, “Something Something Something Darkside” all is forgiven for the thirty-minute train-wreck that was SETH & ALEX’S ALMOST LIVE COMEDY SHOW. We swear.
BROTHERS, WAREHOUSE 13 and Jim Cameron’s upcoming Avatar. I suppose this would be one of those situations where when it rains, it pours? CCH Pounder: Yes indeed, but I think that the one thing that connects them all is different shades of rather powerful woman. A woman who has a great sense of who she is. Each of those roles, although they are completely different is showing not sexy, bumbling, vampy woman, but WOMAN. One is a mother [BROTHERS], one you can relate to as a boss [WAREHOUSE 13] and one who you can relate to as a Queen {Avatar]. And it just so happens that they’re all coming out — because AVATAR took two years to film a very short role — at the same time.
How much more do you know about Mrs. Fredrickson than the audience?
Nothing. I know absolutely nothing and that’s the way they [the writers] keep it. In fact, when we first started WAREHOUSE 13, everybody on our show was given a packet revealing “this is where you came from, this is your history.” For Mrs. Fredrickson all I got was from the writers is, “we are not disclosing anything!” We don’t even know what quality of life is in her, whether she’s real, whether she’s a hologram (which by the way, is my theory), whether she’s lived 100 years or a 1000 years, they won’t tell me anything. Which for this story, works. There’s something kind of fantastic about keeping the mystery of her. Mrs. Fredrickson is an absolutely mysterious woman when she appears and that part is fine, for any other role it would be difficult to not have some kind of backstory.
After 13 seasons on the brink of cancellation, one of television’s most underappreciated family comedies comes to a close with an hour-long finale (Sunday 8PM on FOX). The first half of which is actually just a new episode — the real goodbye is the second half, where Hank and his son finally bond over (in what only seems appropriate for KOTH) their shared love of beef when Bobby joins a meet-inspection team. If you’ve never seen this hilarious, often incisive telling of family issues and red state America, you’ve been missing a series that had more fully-realized characters, sense of storytelling, and things to say (and funny ways to say it) than half of the live-action comedies in the last decade, and you should definitely start catching the re-runs. The final scene is touching, bringing together the Hills and all the characters that made the fictional town of Arlen, Texas a destination long overlooked. Grade: A
It’s that time of year again. The time when the TV Addict spends two long days holed up in an undisclosed location surrounded by every FOX star under the planet. Yeah, we know, tough job but as the saying goes, somebody has to do it! So if you’ve got a question (or two) for any of the following FOX stars, please post away in the comments below and I’ll endeavor to get them answered.
BROTHERS’ CCH Pounder and Carl Weather; FRINGE’s Lance Reddick and Blair Brown; LIE TO ME’s Kelli Williams, Monica Raymund and Mekhi Phifer; THE WANDA SYKES SHOW Wanda Sykes; FAMILY GUY’s Seth MacFarlane; BONES’ Tamara Taylor, Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz; THE CLEVELAND SHOW’s Mike Henry and Rich Appel; HOUSE’s Peter Jacobson; DOLLHOUSE’s Eliza Dushku, Enver Gjokaj, Dichen Lahman and Tahmoh Penikett; GLEE’s Chris Colfer, Cory Monteith, Matthew Morrison and Jane Lynch.
Last week, Topless Robot published their take on the 20 greatest shows canceled by FOX before their time. Hundreds of comments later — followed by the obligatory internet uproar that just happened to echo the author’s thesis that “the FOX Network is the f*cking devil” — this TV Addict thought it might be fun to see how it feels to, just this once, defend the network that cancelled some of our favorite shows (including FIREFLY, THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES, BRISCO COUNTY JR, DRIVE) and ask: Are FOX execs in league with Satan… or paying the perhaps-inevitable price for thinking outside the box?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting that anyone should thank FOX for cancelling [insert your own missed, mourned and lamented series here], but rather that they should be applauding for taking some incredible risks (such as putting SEINFELD alum Patrick Warburton into a giant blue bug suit and giving us the quirktastic comedy THE TICK).
Unlike other networks who shall not be named (CBS, ABC, NBC) who pat themselves on the back for having the “cajones” to launch such creative endeavors as CSI: NY, NCIS: LOS ANGELES or yet another medical drama (Quick… which’ll be cancelled first: TRAUMA or MERCY?), FOX has taken risks, for better (ANDY RICHTER CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE) or worse (OSBOURNES: RELOADED).
The Good: Fuelled by the continued success across FOX’s entire Animation Domination line-up (THE SIMPSONS, CLEVELAND SHOW, FAMILY GUY and AMERICAN DAD), solid showings from HOUSE, LIE TO ME and the surprisingly 
BROTHERS, WAREHOUSE 13 and Jim Cameron’s upcoming Avatar. I suppose this would be one of those situations where when it rains, it pours?
How much more do you know about Mrs. Fredrickson than the audience?
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