Hannibal & How to Live With Your Parents...I watched them

First up new this week was How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) which I recorded & was expecting to not like.  I'm not the biggest fan of Sarah Chalke to begin with but I do like Brad Garrett & Elizabeth Perkins so I figured I'd check it out.  I'm happy I did record this because I really enjoyed it...I even liked the kid which is just unheard of for me.  There were a couple things that I thought were stupid or confusing like at the beginning Polly (Chalke) and her kid arrive at the home of her mom & step-dad because Polly left her husband Julian so they need a place to stay.  They are in an old beat up VW Bug & both look a mess & they happen to catch the fun loving, always drinking, never serious parents in the middle of some one on one time.  The show flashes to 6 months later & Polly has a job at a smoothie place & a brand new VW Bug, the parents are exactly the same & the ex Julian is always at the house.  

If she can afford a brand new car then whey are they still living with the parents?  If she was leaving her husband then why he is always at the house?  It's only been 6 months & she's already divorced & dating...this was confusing to me because we all know that's never the case & if she is still so chummy with her recent ex-husband then why did they divorce?  It's pretty clear from the first episode that Julian still loves her & that she still has feelings for him too...not just because he's the father of her kid but because she always has.  All in all, this show is funny, the parents are the best part & I plan to continue watching it but it has the possibility of getting really old really fast.  I also wish the name were about 10 words shorter!

Next up is Hannibal...this show was beyond confusing for the first 20 minutes & well I guess was confusing all the way through.  First off I can't tell when this show is supposed to take place...theoretically it should take place in the 80's but I believe I saw a smart phone involved at one point so this must take place in current times.  I don't like these shows that are made from movies (which in this case were based on books to begin with) & change the time frame of things like Bates Motel...Norman Bates & Hannibal Lecter wouldn't have had iPhones...period.  So anyway, I thought this show was about Hannibal Lecter but really it's not, it's about a special agent/teacher named Will who has the ability to empathize with serial killers & put himself in their mind frame to figure out why/what they are doing.  This is the most confusing part because you think something is happening but really it's not, he's just thinking it so then the next time something awful happens you think he's just thinking it but it's really happening.  

In the first case they are on the trail of a cannibal & we see Hannibal cutting up lungs (which was unsettling & disgusting) & assume they are looking for him but no they aren't...they actually use Hannibal to assist with the case.  I"m assuming that he's not yet "Hannibal the Cannibal" or he would be in prison & not still seeing patients.  Apparently he's also being used to keep an eye on Will as a patient but it seemed to me like Will wasn't aware of this & neither were we.  As I sit here thinking about the episode I'm even more confused than I was watching it...I don't know why Hannibal is even on the show because it's not really about him, it's about Will.  Laurence Fishburne plays Agent Jack Crawford who in Silence of the Lambs was white & middle aged...now he's black & older than middle aged & it's 20+ years later?  Honestly, the time frame is the most difficult of all of this...they have taken characters we know & muddled them all together to make some TV show that doesn't relate to all of the other stories that we already read/watched decades ago!!  For instance, in Silence of the Lambs, Crawford was younger than Lecter and in this TV Show he's older...Silence was made in 1991...it's now 2013 & as I said the show seems to take place in current times.  

I think I might just be too much of a realist for this TV Show...I will give it 3 episodes like I do every show I try but based on just the 1 I'm not much of a fan yet.  The show is full of creepy & gross & some scary too but overall it's just full of confusion.

How to Live With Your Parents premieres tonight

Dateline NBC moves to 8:00 and then on EPIX it's a ninety minute special Lunarcy! and at 8:30 Suburgatory moves to a new slot on ABC.

Up at 9:00 on ID it's the 3rd season premiere of Motives & Murders, on Cooking it's the 3rd season finale of Not my Mama's Meals, DirecTV has the two hour series premiere of Rogue, and on BBCA it's the series premiere of Spies of Warsaw.

On ABC at 9:31 it's the series premiere of How to Live With Your Parents, at 10:00 on Oxygen it's the 2nd season premiere of Best Ink, DIY has the 10th season premiere of Desperate Landscapes, TV Land has the series premiere of Forever Young, TLC airs the 2nd season premiere of My Crazy Obsession, Discovery has the series premiere of Pot Cops, Showtime has the special 30 Days in May and on SyFy it's the 1st season finale of Stranded.

ABC Fall Premieres

666 Park Avenue is a drama about an apartment building that seems to have a dark hold over its residents.  Every need & whim of every resident is met by the apartment buildings mysterious owner & a new young couple who have just moved in have become the managers of the building without knowing the supernatural and dark forces that hide inside the building.  With a cast that includes Vanessa Williams & Dave Annable this one could last.

Another drama called Last Resort is about a submarine that is given orders to hit Pakistan with nuclear weapons & when the Captain questions the order he is relieved of his duties & replaced by another Captain who does the same thing & in return the sub ends up getting hit & falling to the ground.  The crew goes rogue & lands at an island where they all try to get home & figure out what is going on.  I hate to say it but this sounds really stupid & like another attempt to get the Lost thing back in motion.

Alyssa Milano is back in a drama called Mistresses that doesn't sound like it has anything to do with mistresses but rather is about four girlfriends who are all living different lives but leaning on each other to get through.  Sounds like maybe this will be a "replacement" for Desperate Housewives except this one doesn't appear to have any funny element as it promises betrayal, secrecy, self-discovery & excitement.

Nashville starring Hayden Panettiere is about a country star who has always been a big sensation but is starting to lose fans & momentum, no longer packing the stadiums like she used to.  Her people think a tour with a new country singer with an edge (Panettiere) will be a great thing to boost her back up & she also agrees.  Well, turns out the new girl is just trying to take her down...just like always...women can't trust women!

Red Window is about a woman whose husband was murdered as part of drug related business that he was involved in with her brother & some other partners.  The murder is also gangster related so Marta (the wife & a daughter of a gangster) decides that she needs to protect her children instead of living in fear & she takes on the FBI & the gangsters to get to the bottom of the story of the murder.

Now for something that covers the world & crosses time & is a bit paranormal, Zero Hour.  A skeptic who publishes a paranormal enthusiast magazine is married & his wife owns an antique shop from where she is abducted.  In one of the clocks the skeptic husband finds a treasure map that he has to decode & figure out how to save his wife & humanity.  He's of course fighting against time & being chased by some people who don't want him to succeed so this could be a suspenseful one.

Is anyone else noticing that ABC is anti-sitcom?

But wait...here's something funny!  A new series starring Sarah Chalke who is a divorced mom with a daughter & has to move back home with her parents...mom is played by Elizabeth Perkins.  Her parents are free spirits who still get it on while she is pretty uptight & conservative so it looks like they will have to figure this one out while raising the little girl too.  I almost forgot, the name of this one is How to Live With Your Parents.

Malibu Country is a show starring Reba who finds out that her country star husband has been cheating so once she finalizes her divorce she grabs her mom (Lily Tomlin) and 2 kids and heads for California.  Being a country singer herself she put her own dreams aside to support her husband but now that he's gone it's time for her to take her shot.

This show sounds so ridiculous that I had to grab the description I saw on The Geek Generation:

"THE NEIGHBORS

How well do you know your neighbors?

Meet the Weavers, Debbie (Jami Gertz) and Marty (Lenny Venito). Marty, in hopes of providing a better life for his wife and three kids, recently bought a home in Hidden Hills, a gated New Jersey townhome community with its own golf course. Hidden Hills is so exclusive that a house hasn’t come on the market in 10 years. But one finally did and the Weavers got it!

It’s clear from day one that the residents of Hidden Hills are a little different. For starters, their new neighbors all have pro-athlete names like Reggie Jackson (Tim Jo), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (Toks Olagundoye), Dick Butkis (Ian Patrick) and Larry Bird (Simon Templeman). Over dinner, Marty and his family discover that their neighbors receive nourishment through their eyes by reading books, rather than eating. The Weavers soon learn that the entire community is comprised of aliens from Zabvron, where the men bear children and everyone cries green goo from their ears.

The Zabvronians have been stationed on Earth for the past 10 years, disguised as humans, awaiting instructions from home, and the Weavers are the first humans they’ve had the opportunity to know. As it turns out, the pressures of marriage and parenthood are not exclusive to planet Earth. Two worlds will collide with hilarious consequences as everyone discovers they can “totally relate” and learn a lot from each other."

The Family Tools is a show about a slacker who is turned over his fathers handyman business after his dad had a heart attack.  He struggles with everything from the assistant to the rest of his family but with the support of his aunt (Leah Remini) and a couple others he just might be able to prove the rest wrong & make it all work.

For previews of all of these show check out my YouTube channel.