Hijinks Inc.

Category: Television

  • Saturday Shenanigans: Recent Entertainment News

    Here’s a little peak at the entertainment world now that Comic-Con has passed.

    Shark Week starts tomorrow night on Discovery. My favorite quote about Shark Week is Tracy Morgan’s from 30 Rock when his character, Tracy Jordan, is teaching Kenneth how to live life to the fullest. “You need to live every week like it’s Shark Week.” There’s something about that that is so simple and yet, so true.

    I guess Ellen Degeneres quit American Idol… if you care about that sort of thing. I hope that show dies a painful death, soon. (more…)

  • Hijinks TV Reviews: Leverage

    I debated going with the “What Dave’s Watching” title for this one because this show is in it’s 3 season and I’m just now getting around to it, but Leverage is a pretty solid show. I have this sick habit of having to watch everything in order from the beginning so that I have the whole story and even if I wasn’t there when it all started, I feel like I have been, and I haven’t missed anything along the way. This is where my habit of downloading everything I watch comes in handy, I’m able to do just that.

    So anyway, I’m only 6 episodes into the series, but I’m having a lot of fun, and I can see where the relationships will probably develop and turn into a good overall story. The show is delivered much like Burn Notice, where every episode can basically stand on it’s own, but there is an overall story arc that moves the show along from season to season. It’s also got all the fun and flash to go along with the bickering and showmanship that every con job show/movie requires.

    We’ll get into the the show a bit more after the jump. (more…)

  • Hijinks Reviews: Listal.com

    Do you have a large collection of DVDs, video games, books, or music and you wish there was a an easy way to track it all, preferably online so you can access it anywhere? Well, you could take the boring route and use a google spreadsheet, but what’s the fun in that? What if you could manage your collections, have all the information that IMDB offers, have user feedback and reviews similar to Rotten Tomatoes, have an enormous collection of images to sort through, and have Facebook integration to boot? Welcome to Listal!

    I’ve tried many of the collection tracking websites to catalog my substantial DVD collection, and I found something I really didn’t like with every website. Listal will track your collections, and complement it with a nice layout, both visually and for ease of use. It also incorporates a social network aspect, which excites some people, whereas it can be a total buzzkill for others. There’s pros and cons to this website and guess what, we’ll cover those after the jump! (more…)

  • Hijinks TV Reviews: The Good Guys

    I mentioned The Good Guys in my recent post as a show that I had downloaded but hadn’t watched yet. The debut season is now 4 episodes in and I took the opportunity to get caught up this week. I went into it with very modest expectations, because I hadn’t heard wonderful things about it, but I must say, I came away pleasantly surprised.

    The Good Guys is created by Matt Nix, the same guy who brings us Burn Notice. Although this is a bit of a different show as it is more in the buddy cop vein, whereas Burn Notice is more spy vs spy. You get the occasional laugh from Burn Notice, but overall, it’s a bit more of a serious show, it’s a lot of fun, but not really in the ‘comedy’ sense. The Good Guys is definitely out for the laughs.

    Bradley Whitford and Colin Hanks are the stars of the show, playing Detectives Dan Stark and Jack Bailey respectively. Dan Stark and Jack Bailey… pretty basic straight-forward detective names. One of them is more by the book and the other breaks all the rules… pretty straight-forward roles. They open each show with the climax of the episode and then flash back to how we got here, again, pretty standard fare here. Long story short, The Good Guys is nothing you haven’t seen before, it’s all been done a million times before, but it’s done well enough, and with enough funny stuff thrown in that it’s worth the ride. (more…)

  • What Dave’s Watching: TV

    I know I was brought in here to review movies and games, but I’m big into watching TV shows as well. I download torrents of some old stuff, watch some on DVD, and when my wife was on maternity leave we signed up for Netflix to stream over the Xbox.  I don’t have cable or even rabbit ears, so my whole lineup of shows comes from what I can find online (usually btjunkie). Here’s where I’m currently spending my time, for this edition we’ll start out with TV shows I regularly download to watch:

    Burn Notice : This show first grabbed my attention because Bruce Campbell was in it. C’mon, you gotta love Bruce. However, I didn’t get started until late in the 2nd season. It’s a really fun spy show that doesn’t take itself TOO seriously. In case you’re interested, it airs on USA on Thursday nights. Rating: 8 out of 10 (more…)