What's on TV tonight: "The Office," "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia"

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's back!  Tonight NBC's "The Office" is finally returning for its fifth season.  With this and the return of "Heroes" earlier this week (what a great premiere!), this is been a pretty good week for TV addicts like me.

To get ourselves ready to return to Scranton, PA and Dunder-Mifflin, let's go over what happened at the end of season four.  The office team threw a goodbye party for Toby, and signs of a possible romance between Michael Scott and Toby's replacement Holly were made pretty evident.  That is, until Michael ran into his ex, Jan, and discovered that she was pregnant.  Meanwhile, Jim had been planning on proposing to Pam during a fireworks show, only to be cut off by Andy, who stole the moment by proposing to Angela, who accepted.  However, we discovered this relationship may not last long when Phyllis walked in on a passionate sexual rendezvous between Angela and supposed-ex Dwight.  Oh, and the now big-shot cokehead Ryan got arrested.  And, partly because of Dwight, Karen thinks Kevin is mentally handicapped.

Whole lotta drama.  So, were do things begin in tonight's premiere?  I only know one thing, and it's not much of a spoiler: Pam is now in art school.  She's no longer working at Dunder-Mifflin, and she and Jim are still together (although what state their relationship is in is unknown).  So yeah, I'm looking very forward to the return of this series.  It returns at 9pm with an hour-long episode on NBC.

And after the show ends at 10, I strongly recommend you turn to cable channel FX and watch "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia," a series that I have very recently fallen in love with.  If you've never seen it, the series revolves around the antics of Dennis, Mac and Charlie, three lifelong friends who run a bar in Philadephia, PA.  The main cast also includes Dennis's sister Sweet Dee and their father Frank (played by Danny DeVito).  The series has been described as a mash-up of "Seinfeld"-type humor and "Arrested Development" style.  I'd also add stuff like "South Park" and "Family Guy," as a lot of episodes deal with potentially offensive material (but as long as you have a relatively open sense of humor, you should be fine).  One of the nice things about this series is that most episodes are self-standing, so a newbie can check out the series anytime and be able to get into it (unlike, for example, "Arrested Development," where you really need to start from the beginning to get all the jokes and references).  The fourth season premiered last Thursday (and I'm incredibly sorry for not listing it in my Fall TV List), and for some reason they're premiering two new episodes at a time, so you'll get double the pleasure at least for now.

So take my advice and watch "The Office" and "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia."  You're not gonna find a better way to spend two hours in Philadelphia on a Thursday night without a cheese steak.

Pop culture headlines (8/13/08)

Hey guys. I recently realized that I haven't posted any actual news items on this blog in a long time (if ever...), so I figured I'd devote today's post to exactly that. So, let's go to the "Matty G's Pop Culture 101" newsroom for the latest headlines:

• Actor Rainn Wilson, aka Dwight from "The Office," has a new film called "The Rocker" coming out in the coming weeks, and he's come up with an interesting way of promoting it: by kidnapping fellow Office co-star Jenna Fischer, aka Pam! According to a message that he has posted on her MySpace page, he has her tied up in the trunk of his Firebird and will, once "The Rocker" has grossed 18.7 million dollars, he will free her and give her a peach smoothie. There's even an official website called "FreeJennaNow.com" that provides up-to-the-minute information on the tense situation as it develops. Somewhere, Mike Myers is kicking himself for not coming up with a similar idea for "The Love Guru."
• You know how there are some movies that most people agree just shouldn't be remade? And you know how there are also always some people do just can't seem to understand this? Yeah, well now there reportedly is a remake of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" currently in the works. Yeah... Now, I am admittedly not one of the biggest fans of the original film, but I can still appreciate that it is pretty much perfect the way it is. It's hipness comes from the fact that it dealt with some pretty taboo subjects back in the day (a gay transsexual alien!??!? Come on!). Nowadays the whole thing is pretty tame by today's standards, so what're they gonna do? It probably won't surprize anyone that MTV is one of the major players behind the remake either.
• Who knew "Breaking Dawn," the last book in the Twilight series, would be so divisive between fans of the series? Indeed, it seems that what started out as simple disagreements between Twilighters on each side is quickly turning into an all-out war. Last Friday the popular fansite Twilight Lexicon was hacked by angry anti-"Breaking Dawn" Twilight fans who essentially wreaked havoc on the site. Part of the anger stemmed from the fact that the site had only been allowing posts from fans who liked the novel, which really urked the people who didn't like it. No word yet on whether the hackers have realized they are freaking out over a silly vampires vs. werewolves book and have attempted to get actual lives...
• King-Geek Joss Whedon has yet again denied rumors that there is going to be a sequel to his "Serenity" film anytime soon. "Serenity" itself was a sequel to the cult science fiction-meets-western television series "Firefly," which was quickly cancelled by FOX but became a major success on DVD. Despite constant vocal wishing from fans, former cast members, and even Whedon himself, he has continually repeated that there are no current plans for another film, seeing as how there are no interested studios and/or people with $50 million who are talking about it. But if the possibility for another film became a reality, Whedon has said that he would "do it in a heartbeat." (quote taken from MTV Movies Blog) Joss, if I had an extra $50 million I would totally hook you up.
• And finally, if you haven't seen the video of James Franco and Mila Kunis acting out a scene from MTV's "The Hills," you definitely should: it is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Check it out here: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/56c2d6a703