Tag Archives: Dan Byrd

That Final Pour. Saying Goodbye to Cougar Town.

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I’m sad.  Sad enough that i’m contemplating arranging a buffet of sad binge food (cheese, bacon, cheesecake, cheese etc) and buckets of wine to gorge myself on on Tuesday night during the final ever episode of Cougar Town.

Cougar Town quickly became my go-to show for watching whenever the time called for it.  It was my FRIENDS replacement show, a show that I could watch over and over and over and over again.  Having trouble getting to sleep? I’d grab some midnight snacks and break out season two and watch away.  Have a Sunday afternoon with nothing to do?  Season 4 works great there!

I’ve followed and loved Jules Kiki Cobb and her group of drinking buddies right from the go with Cougar Towns’ overtly sexual beginnings on ABC to it’s new home on TBS, the disappearance of side characters (Barb…where’d ya go?), mugs of M&M tea and multiple deaths of wine vases to the introduction of Grayson’s mysterious surprise child (Tampa is like the best name ever), the tipping of imaginary top hats and the welcoming of Tom (Bob Clendenin) to the group and even the departure of Bobby Cobb…..I’ve been there.

I’ve watched Jules (Courteney Cox) grow from a clumsy and sexually clueless divorcee willing to do anything to please those around her to a clumsy, happily married woman to neighbor Grayson (Josh Hopkins) willing to do anything to please those around her.  The blossoming romance between her son Travis (Dan Byrd) and close friend Laurie (Busy Philipps) seemed cute at first – then a bit gross when it happened – then sweet when we became used to it.  Ellie (Christa Miller) and Andy (Ian Gomez) and their son Stan (that didn’t seem to age for four seasons), showed that copious amounts of wine, snarkism, sex cards and a short stint of being town mayor, all contribute to what constitutes a happy marriage.  Then there’s Bobby Cobb (Brian Van Holt) who showed that no matter how much life gets you down, what you do with your surroundings and those around you can be worth more than what any amount of money could provide.

I’ve been there when new relationships bloom then suddenly explode from truth bombs – wine seller slash awesome singer songwriter Sara (Sheryl Crow), last-name-first-name and first-name-last-name Smith Frank (Ryan Devlin), tiny pants unicorn Jeff (Scott Foley), tomboy Riggs (Maria Thayer) and I don’t know why we’re singing Kirsten (Collette Wolfe).  Guest stars that popped in along the way – Dodgy therapist Glenn Carolyn Hennesy (Jennifer Aniston), bitchy skin care queen Dr. Amy Evans (Lisa Kudrow), needy therapist Lynn Mettler (Nicole Sullivan), snarky wine seller Wayne Gibbons (Michael McDonald) and smooth romancer Sam (Matthew Perry) were all welcomed visitors to our home in Gulf Haven.

As I sit here typing away and remembering all the large and small things from Cougar Town, I can honestly say that there has never been an episode I have never liked or not laughed with and through all the dime eyes quips, games of Penny Can! and bug hooker books, I will miss Cougar Town.  So it’s here I say thank-you to Bill Lawrence, Kevin Biegel, Courteney Cox, Busy Philipps, Christa Miller, Brian Van Holt, Josh Hopkins, Dan Byrd, Ian Gomez, Bob Clendenin and the rest of the Cougar Town cast and crew.  To TBS, thank-you for seeing the potential in the show and picking up our winos and continuing on their story.

In the end, if there’s only one thing I can walk away with from 6 seasons and 100+ episodes, it’s not that friends and family are the most important thing in life but that no matter the occasion or time of day, a glass of wine is more than fine.

Change approved!

Drink Up! Cougar Town Returns to Seven on Sundays

Dan Byrd and Busy Phillipps return for more fun on Cougar Town
Dan Byrd and Busy Philipps return for more fun on Cougar Town

It sure has been a long time in between drinks!  One of my all-time favorite ensemble comedies and one that is highly underrated (and suffers from bad show name syndrome) is back on Channel 7, although at a rather poor time slot.

The very funny Courteney Cox led Cougar Town is back on Aussie TV’s, starting from season 5 (which finished airing almost 12 months ago in the US) filling the Sunday night 11:30pm time slot.

I somehow managed to miss this news (or actually never expected 7 to bring the show back) as Cougar Town started last Sunday night (Dec 5th) but fans will be happy to know that this weeks episode will see the appearance of Cox’s former on-screen husband, Matthew Perry, guest starring.

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The 13 episode series 5 focuses heavily on the budding romance between Jules’ (Cox) son Travis (Dan Byrd) and one of her best friends Laurie (Busy Philipps) and Jules’ struggle to accept the inevitable.

Cougar Town continues Sunday nights at 11:30pm on Seven.

More Wine Time for Cougar Town Fans

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It’s somewhat bitter-sweet news for Cougar Town fans with the announcement that TBS have renewed the Courteney Cox led comedy for a sixth bottle of wine –

But this sixth drink will be the shows last.

Complete sad face at an empty bottle right?

 

Like last season, Cougar Town’s sixth season will run for 13 episodes, which will put the show into the magical syndication number of 100 episodes!

Season six is expected to focus on Laurie (Busy Phillipps) and Travis (Dan Byrd) as they head into first time parenthood.

Cougar Town, Season 6 will air on TBS in January 2015

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Cougar Town Pregnancies, Wine and Season 6?

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TBS comedy Cougar Town closed out it’s fifth season with it’s usual flair of positive messages, friendships, wine and screwball comedy with an added twist of a surprise pregnancy!

During the season 5 finale, the main story line saw Jules (Courteney Cox) use Laurie’s (Busy Phillipps) urine to pass a physical examination (Ellie slipped Jules some happy pills) at her doctors only to be told she is in fact pregnant – well not Jules, but her best friend Laurie, who is also dating Jules’ son Travis (Dan Byrd).

Now granted, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Laurie and Travis hooking up…I thought I wanted it, but when I got it…I realized I didn’t want it, but as this season has progressed, the Laurie/Travis relationship has grown on me, and the pregnancy should add a new element to what has already become a tight and well rounded comedy.

But the news of a sixth season is still yet to come.  There’s been no hint from TBS either way of a cancellation or a renewal and the only indication of a move comes down to ratings.  When Cougar Town moved to TBS for it’s fourth season, it became the network’s top original primetime series ever (2.8 million viewers) with both total viewers and the 18-49 age bracket however as the show moved into it’s fifth season, ratings began to dip into the 1.5 million mark.

Personally, i’d love to see a sixth (and probably final) season to allow a proper send off for our cul-de-sac crew!

Binge Worthy TV Shows

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I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about ‘binge TV viewing’ lately and it seems, every list, is as different from the other.  We all have our favorites, those we recommend to others and those we keep to ourselves as guilty pleasures.  With quite a few shows now on hiatus or heading into break, you may need something to keep your eyes on the screen so here’s my choice picks for ‘binge worthy television shows’.

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Breaking Bad: Without a doubt, Breaking Bad makes every binge worthy list.  It should.  It’s ridiculously good.  I never watched Walter White and Jesse Pinkman when Breaking Bad originally aired….yes I know that makes me a bad television blogger, but it was one of those shows I had to be talked into watching…and watch I did.  I binged on the entire series of Breaking Bad over the space of 2 months and am somewhat glad I was able to take in the entire story-line in one sitting.  Made me appreciate what was on offer and experience the build-up to that last season without beak.

Stars: Aaron Paul, Bryan Cranston and Anna Gunn

Seasons 1-5 available on DVD

The Comeback: Season 1

The Comeback: Lisa Kudrow (post Friends) as a faded and jaded actress named Valerie Cherish who has allowed cameras follow her and her journey to reclaim her former spotlight.  A show that was well before it’s time and only really appreciated after it’s demise. Great to hear talk of a possible comeback for The Comeback!

Stars: Lisa Kudrow, Malin Ackerman and Kellan Lutz

Series one available on DVD

Melrose Place 2.0: Season 1. Bringing back the iconic apartment building with a handful of original tenants, Melrose Place 2.0 offers a rather guilty pleasure for binge viewing.  There's only 18 episodes in this single season that works around a whodunit murder of Sydney Andrews (Laura Leighton) where most of the tenants currently residing in Melrose Place, plus those from her past, Michael Mancini and Amanda Woodward, are all suspects.  Season One available to buy on DVD via Amazon or you should be able to find a copy floating around eBay.

Melrose Place 2.0: The beauty here is that fans of the original series like to claim this re-boot never happened but for those new to the series, we’ve got an 18 episode single season that follows a       who-dun-it murder mystery of Melrose’s junkie landlord Sydney Andrews. Everyone is a suspect and it’s great to watch while playing drinking games (that mostly involve guzzling your wine anytime Ashlee Simpson appears to act or whenever a character from the original series pops up!)

Stars: Laura Leighton, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Calabro and Ashlee Simpson.

Series One available on DVD (from Amazon or eBay)

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The Chicago Code:  Jennifer Beals post The L Word as tough as nails Teresa Colvin, Chicago’s first female police superintendent who plans to bring to light the mass of political corruption currently polluting the town.  There’s connections to the Irish Mob, undercover cops, and this accents all-round.

Stars: Jennifer Beals,  Jason Clarke and Matt Lauria

Availability:  None as yet  😦

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Tim Daly and Laura Leighton. Source Provided

EYES: Tim Daly as a smarmy and cocky Harlan Judd, who is the head of J.R Investigations, a risk management firm that will bend all aspects of the law to get results.  His company is in financial crisis, his competitor wants to buy him out, there’s a mole within the company, his staff have secrets of their own and his love interest is a do-good lawyer who has issues looking the other way.  ABC shamefully only ever aired 5 episodes of this 12 episode first series back in 2005.

Stars: Tim Daly, AJ Langer, Laura Leighton and Natalie Zea

Series One is not available on DVD but can be found on YouTube.

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ORPHAN BLACK:  Fast paced sci-fi thriller that looks into the world of human cloning and accelerated human evolution through the eyes of young mother Sarah who’s world comes crashing down when she discovers she’s not as unique as she originally thought. Edge of your seat stuff that keeps knocking out reveals and epic scenes.

Stars: Tatiana Maslany, Jordan Garvais and Dylan Bruce

Season one now available on DVD.

miranda_2433175bMiranda: Britt comedy at it’s best, Miranda Hart is an unlucky in love, bumbling and fumbling joke shop owner/operator who manages to give the crazy that goes on inside her head a life all it’s own and spreads it among those around her including her highly posh and overbearing mother, her vertically challenged best friend and co-worker and the man of her dreams who works down the road.

Stars: Miranda Hart and Tom Ellis

Seasons 1-3 available on DVD

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Dawson’s Creek: You can’t have a binge list that doesn’t include Dawson’s Creek.  It’s the mega 90’s teen drama that gave us James Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams.  Joey has feelings for Dawson but Dawson is too interested in his movies to notice Joey, that is until new girl Jen Lindley comes along while Pacey is having secret meetings with his teacher.  Drama, ugly crying, teen sex…this has got it all.

Stars: James Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson.

Seasons 1-6 available on DVD

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Nip/Tuck:  Christian loves drugs, money, women and sex.  His professional partner Sean McNamara loves his son, his wife and his professional career.  It’s the lives of two plastic surgeons trying to rule the roost, deal with their inner demons and still come out on top regardless of who they end up hurting.  One of the greats to come out of the 90’s/00’s period.

Stars: Julian McMahon, Dylan Walsh and Joely Richardson.

Seasons 1-6 Now available on DVD.

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Cougar Town:  Bad title, good comedy says it all.  Cougar Town feels very Scrubs with it’s humor (created by the same team) and as you watch through the seasons, you’ll see this great show evolve from it’s ‘cougar’ story line into a very tight and funny comedy around friends and family.  Don’t judge this show by it’s title!

Stars: Courteney Cox, Busy Phillipps, Christa Miller and Dan Byrd.

Seasons 1-4 now available on DVD.

Top OMG TV Moments of 2013

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There’s no denying that there has been some shocking and incredible “OMG” moments this year on television.  From Game of Thrones to The Walking Dead and Pretty Little Liars, these moments immediatley incur bouts of crying, laughing, anger, yelling and everything in between.  Check out my list of my top OMG moments from 2013!

RICK SENDS CAROL PACKING: The Walking Dead

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After admitting to Rick (Andrew Lincoln) that she was the one who killed Karen and Dave, Rick takes it upon himself to tell Carol (Melissa McBride), while out on a supply run, that she is no longer welcome to stay with the survivors within the camp grounds.   We’ve seen Carol, who has been a member of the group from the beginning, emerge as a strong player this season and Rick’s decision and her subsequent absence split fans right down the line.

TRAVIS AND LAURIE KISS: Cougar Town

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Travis (Dan Byrd) and Laurie (Busy Phillips) have always had a fun and flirty kind of relationship, but it’s always been that one where the guy likes the girl more than vice versa but when Laurie decides to explore her growing feelings for the teenage son of her best friend, it results in a rather awkward feeling kiss between the two.  We’d all been hanging for Travis to finally get his, but now it’s happened, most of us were wishing it didn’t.

THE BIG TWIST: Homeland

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Well were we all not played for fools!  Here we all are bitching and moaning about how bad Homeland had become.  We couldn’t figure out why or where such a great show had gone wrong.  Brody (Damien Lewis) was MIA and Saul (Mandy Patinkin) had Carrie (Claire Danes) committed to an asylum and we were getting too much focus on Dana only to have it all turn around and be revealed that Saul and Carrie were in fact working together all along in a bid to draw out a foe that could become an ally.

ASHLEY MARIN HITS DETECTIVE WILDEN WITH HER CAR: Pretty Little Liars

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Poor Ashley Marin (Laura Leighton) found herself on the receiving end of some unwanted harassment from an overly inquisitive Detective Wilden (Bryce Johnson) who demands that her daughter Hannah (Ashley Benson) keeps quiet about an indiscretion she witnessed involving him and a young lady.  never one to listen to demands, Ashley finds herself in a screaming match with Wilden before suddenly putting her foot to the pedal and throwing him over the bonnet of her car before speeding off!

THAT TAMPON SANDWICH: Orange Is The New Black

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New inmate Piper learnt the tough way not to piss off the lady who rules the prison kitchen!  When word get’s back to prison chef Red (Kate Mulgrew) that Piper (Taylor Schilling) has been less than impressed with the food on offer, Red takes it upon herself to ensure that Piper will never make comments like that again by serving her up a bloody tampon sandwich!  The scene itself was highly unsettling and intentionally confronting.

DEBRA MORGAN DIES: Dexter

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In the series finale, we knew someone was going to die.  Most of us expected it to be Dexter, or even Hannah, perhaps Quinn…it was never meant to be Dexter’s sister Deb.  After being involved in a shoot out with Oliver Saxon, Deb is wounded and is rushed to hospital.  The doctors all seems to think all should be ok but complications following the surgery lead Deb to have suffer a massive stroke leaving her in a permanent vegetative state.  It’s here Dexter lands the final blow, removing Deb off her life support effectively killing her.

RAYMOND DENIES BEING LIZ’S FATHER: The Blacklist

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It’s the theory that everyone seems to have – Raymond Reddington (James Spader) is actually Elizabeth Keen’s (Megan Boone’s) birth father.  It’s been hinted at right from the get go…his selecting her to be the only one he deals with, his wanting to know more about her life, his knowing certain things about her husband, but in the closing scenes of the final episode of the first series, Liz flat out asks Red over the phone “Are you my father?” to which Red replies “No.”

THE BOMB: Home and Away

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Known for it’s annual end of year shake-up, Home and Away offered up one heck of an explosion involving fan favourites and unexpected faces and leaving us not knowing who has survived.  After continuously butting heads with her boss Bianca (Lisa Gormley) and Bianca’s husband Heath (Dan Ewing) Jade (Tasma Walton) decides to get her revenge in the form of a bomb placed inside Bianca’s laptop bag.  We then spent the whole episode wondering when the bomb will go off as the bag changes hands numerous times before going off inside the hospital in which pregnant Ricky (Bonnie Sveen) is being treated.  Irene (Lynne Mcgranger), Bianca, Heath and Doctor Nate Cooper (Kyle Pryor) are also there when the bomb goes off.

HELENA CUTS OFF OLIVER’S TAIL: Orphan Black

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Things got a bit weird when it was revealed Neolution club owner and believer in self-directed evolution Oliver (David Richmond-Peck) was actually sporting a real life tail.  After coming to Sarah’s (Tatiana Maslany) aid while in a fight with Oliver, psychotic clone Helena wins the upper hand and swiftly chops Oliver’s tail off…then makes her way back to the dancefloor to partake in a rather ghastly dance with said tail still in her hands.

TULLY CHEATS ON HER GIRLFRIEND: Big Brother

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Fun and funky social media expert and lesbian Tully quickly turned into a sullen and sobbing mess after entering the Big Brother house.  She missed her girlfriend Tahlia but thankfully she had housemate Drew to lean on and talk to.  Quickly though that talking turned into sleeping in the same bed and sharing sneaky kisses when suddenly the two swapped secret “I love you” bombs leading to Tahlia to make a very public break-up via twitter.

MATT AND KIM’S FIRST ROOM REVEAL: The Block

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Not ones to be left hidden among the pack, West Australian couple Matt and Kim had planned to something controversial when it came to styling their first room – the guest bedroom.  Their inspiration?  Artist Jackson Pollock, he of the abstract expressionist movement (or paint splash era).  While the final result was clearly shocking, it was more ‘kids gone wild’ than Pollock admiration.

THE RED WEDDING: Game Of Thrones

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I don’t watch Game of Thrones, but even I found myself on YouTube watching the events that led to THAT video going viral showing fans reactions to the wedding as it aired.  While I may have no idea who was who or why everyone was being killed, but the red wedding sure stuck to it’s name after half the people in the room celebrating were slaughtered, including a very heavily pregnant woman!  “May the rivers run red with the blood of the non-believers.”

Cougar Town Back on 7 for Fourth Season

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Cast of Cougar Town

It’s the show that Channel 7 boss David Leckie once famously claimed was a ‘shit show‘ and was shamefully given a post 10pm time-slot two weeks after it’s prime time premiere, but comedy Cougar Town is back on 7 with a brand new season.

Cougar Town has evolved effectively over the previous three seasons distancing itself from the original premise of a 40+ yr old woman on the hunt for a younger man after the break up of her marriage, into a funny, witty and grossly entertaining comedy focusing more on relationships between friends and family…..oh and wine.

The shows title has become such a stigma that between seasons two and three, show creator Bill Lawrence (the genius behind Scrubs and Spin City) hit twitter to ask permission of co-creator Kevin Biegel to change the name. Now in it’s fourth season here (Season 5 starts next year in the states), the title remains the same but now comes with the added fun of piss-taking itself in the opening credits with a different statement created on a weekly basis.

So what can we expect from season four? The show was picked up by TBS in the states after ABC decided not to renew the show after its third season and creator Lawrence took a step back from the show but this has done nothing to ruin the flow of each episode.

We’ll see more stories involving the newlywed Jules (Courteney Cox) and Grayson (Josh Hopkins) and should-they-shouldn’t-they relationship between Jules Cobb’s son Travis (Dan Byrd) and best friend Laurie Keller (Busy Phillipps). There will be a death of a loved one, a gold digger and Jules’ father pops back in for a visit. This season also features an incredibly funny flashback episode that treats us to the backstory of Jules and Bobby moving into the cul-de-sac.

Yes it’s called Cougar Town and yes, it’s a funny as shit show.

Cougar Town airs Thursdays at 11pm on 7