Your TV News and Commentary for Monday 6/8/09
Check back here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (we hope) for your dose of important TV news and snark. No bullshit and no filler here.
Let’s get to it.
TVByTheNumbers.com is reporting that True Blood’s season 1 is selling like hotcakes, according to The-Numbers.com’s weekly DVD sales chart. Earning $17 million its first week and $6.8 mill during its second, the show is easily conquering first-week sales of shows like Weeds and Dexter, and it’s coming awfully close to shows like Lost. The ratings for True Blood’s first season weren’t terrible, but they certainly don’t point to this many sales. This could mean any of the following: the show is benefiting from a great deal of word-of-mouth advertising, there are thousands of fans of the show who aren’t HBO subscribers but use *other* means to watch, or there are a large number of people who wil pay top dollar to see Anna Paquin’s tits plus that one chick from Cloverfield. Either way, I’d say a season 3 pickup is likely, regardless of how the second season does. Look for a season 1 recap on this site sometime before the June 14th premiere.
“Good News, Everyone” indeed. Collider.com has an “insider source” who has reveled that Comedy Central is preparing to pick up Futurama for a brand new 13-episode run. The source even goes so far as to claim that “offices have already opened and that casting is about to move forward.” If true, this certainly seems like a no-brainer for Comedy Central, but I’m not sure about the fan reaction. After some hits and misses with last year’s Straight-to-DVD-and-TV-Movies, the Planet Express gang ended things on what seemed like a great final note, and these episodes could prove to be too much of a good thing.
Also looking at a potential 13-episode salvation is My Name is Earl. According to The Hollywood reporter, TBS is in early talks to aquire the show at a lower, cable-friendly budget. The show has a devoted fanbase despite being past its prime, but I was still watching it out of habit and I’d love to see it recieve a proper send-off. As long as it doesn’t stick around too long.
And finally, even if 24’s new season continues the downward trend evident in about the final third of the previous one, I’m not sure we’ll notice with all of the familiar faces on the cast. Joining the ranks of “Bubba” from Forrest Gump and the jackass TV host from Slumdog Millionaire, and Freddie Prinze Jr. is Battlestar Galactica’s Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff). She’ll be playing a CTU agent and, I’m sure, a huge bad-ass. Definitely a step up from Bionic Woman.