And Now For Something Completely Random

This should keep your mind off eagerly anticipating the new episode of Miami Medical tonight. Beware, though, it’s oddly catchy…

Miami Medical: A Few More Executive Producer Teasers

“What’s the first thought that comes into your mind when you drive by an accident?”

Well? What's your answer? Clock's ticking.

The question, posed by Jeremy Northam’s Doctor Proctor in the teaser for Golden Hour, Miami Medical’s fifth episode, apparently starts a guessing game that we’ll be able to participate in during the show.

The teaser:

News of this upcoming guessing game comes from Jeffrey Lieber, who has a new post up at the Executive Producer’s Blog for the show on CBS.

Personally I love Lieber’s little clues and hints that he drops before each show, so this one — coming a bit later than the ones in past weeks — is most welcome.

I suppose, even if it’s not the most empathetic thing, my first thought would be “thank God that’s not me,” followed by “what can I do to help.”

But I gather we’ll learn more about whatever the official answer is tonight at 10 p.m.

In the meantime, here’s what Lieber said in the blog:

Welcome to week #5 of the show. (Pull up a chair… grab a soda… we’ll be serving free appetizers for the next few hours. You MUST try the shrimp toast… its fantastic.) Lots of cool stuff this episode.

First… there’s Mike Ferrell… AKA Captain B.J. Hunnicutt from of M*A*S*H. From the very first pitch, M*A*S*H has always been in the DNA of Miami Medical and so we were determined to make a link between then and now. For a short while we were also plotting to bring Radar O’Reilly, Father Mulcahy, and Maxwell Q. Klinger (sans dress) into this episode, but then logistics got the best of us. We’ll revisit in season #2.

Mike was fantastic and the scenes with him and Jeremy are wonderful. Next, there’s a patient who goes missing during the course of the episode and where he’s found… (no, you have to wait for that)… fun story behind that one.

There’s also a guessing game in this episode… Dr. Proctor poses it in the teaser… I’ll be interested when people figure it out. If YOU do (and you’re first)… send a little tweet to our twitter page – CBSMiamiMedical – and we’ll give you MAD PROPS in next week’s blog.

Finally, we want to thank Lana specifically for her work in this episode. She gets… well… ABUSED over the course of the hour. When we looked at the final script and realized that she gets XXXX and then XXXX and then XXXX we wre momentarily worried she might take us to the woodshed. Instead she was a trooper… and is fantastic all the way through.

So, enjoy… this one has some curveballs… and – as always – let us know what you think,
Jeffrey

Get your TVs warmed up — looks like tonight’s show will be a good one.

Cheers,
-SueVo

Update: Also, Gill over at The Jer Blog has a little post up on this, too. Check it out: Miami Medical, The Golden Hour, I’m just too excited…

Criminal Minds: Twitter Brings Out More Cast Chemistry

So it’s been about a week since I first noticed the Twitter-fest going on amongst the cast of Criminal Minds — and watching them interact with each other remains both fun and fascinating.

It looks like these guys have a blast together. The show really does have great chemistry, and maybe that’s why.

The actors are also very cool with fans. I think Thomas Gibson has about 20 or so tweets from the past few days just saying “hellloooooo” to people in various ways.

If you want to follow the Twitter fest, here are addresses for the five actors on the site so far:

Paget Brewster (who plays Emily Prentiss): pagetpaget
Thomas Gibson (who plays Aaron “Hotch” Hotchner): gibsonthomas
Matthew Gray Gubler (who plays Spencer Reid) : GUBLERNATION
Kirsten Vangsness (who plays Penelope Garcia): Vangsness
Joe Mantegna (who plays David Rossi): joemantegna

I decided to copy a bit more of the past few days’ conversation with the actors talking to each other and to their fans here so you guys can check it out and see what I mean.

HERE IT IS:

April 25, GUBLERNATION: (w/ pic of Gubler golfing with a scarf on) I lead a life of extreme leisure

Golfing Gubler

April 25, GibsonThomas: @GUBLERNATION ok, a scarf…whew…wait, a scarf, really? On the driving range?

April 25, GibsonThomas: @GUBLERNATION @starz_hollow aha! The golf bug has bitten! Is that a tie? Is it one of Hotch’s….??!!!

April 25, GibsonThomas: Goob has inspired me to go to the driving range, scarfless however…

April 27: Retweeted by JoeMantegna: Felixisa: @JoeMantegna : a gift for Shemar (Shemar Moore, who plays Derek Morgan): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuWUJh2OWOU (YouTube video of Gubler montage with Love Boat)

April 27, GUBLERNATION: Since Shemar won’t join Twitter I have decided to Twitter for him until he does. Here goes…”yo yo yo waxin my abs and pluckin my brows”

April 27, GUBLERNATION: Another Shemar tweet “yo yo yo my fav actors in the world are Billy Dee Williams, the captain from the love boat, and Matthew Gray Gubler”

April 27, GUBLERNATION: Blowing stuff up while keeping my neck warm (w/ pic of Gubler with scarf and gun)

Gubler at the range

April 27: Pagetpaget: “Yo yo, Shemar here, I just gave my dog a wedgie!”

April 28 PassionForMusic: @JoeMantegna so it’s my 18th birthday today, do you think i could get a quick hello or something? 🙂

April 28, JoeMantegna: @PassionForMusic Happy Birthday!

April 28, JoeMantegna: (apparently answering somebody’s tweet) It may sound corny but my favorite park of working with them is that we are like a family. Not only the cast but the crew as well.

April 28, JoeMantegna: (apparently answering somebody’s tweet) Yes I’ve been to Quantico a couple of times. The last time with Thomas Gibson. I think I have a photo.

April 28, JoeMantegna: Thomas and I with Jim Clemente, a real BAU profiler. (w/ pic of them at Quantico)

Mantegna and Gibson

April 29, Vangsness: (perhaps apologizing for not being on much) While manipulating the actual universe I forget the twitter one at times

April 29, Pagetpaget: When I type Gubler, my iPhone corrects it to “Giblets”. Perfect.

April 29, iUnapologize (Retweeted by GibsonThomas): @Gibsonthomas Are you going to upload a cast picture for the last day? I would love it. And are you watching the Spurs tonight?

April 29, GibsonThomas: Ready for summer school! (w/ cast pic minus Vangsness)

The cast sans Vangsness

April 29, GibsonThomas: And are you watching the Spurs tonight? /via @iUnapologize GO SPURS!!!

April 29, Rum1sGone : What a great group picture … aren’t you missing @vangsness

April 29, GibsonThomas: @Rum1sGone standby!

April 29, GibsonThomas: The gangs all here! (w/ full cast photo)

The full cast

April 29, Vangsness: (Retweeting GibsonThomas’ picture) One more day until vacay it’s bittersweet

It just makes you want to hang out with them, doesn’t it? Tres cool, guys. And the show is still the best!

Cheers,
-SueVo

Burgerville: Beefy Goodness

Today I’m waiting for an appointment to finish up the sale of my Albuquerque house so that I can get on with the rest of my life.

While waiting, I took a stroll down to the mecca of all Portland burger chains: Burgerville.

My local Burgerville, amidst green things that I think are referred to as 'trees'

The restaurants, which populate Oregon and Washington, are fast food but also very local, almost good-for-you fast food.

The burger I had today was 100 percent Oregon vegetarian-fed and antibiotic-free beef. The bun was lightly toasty on the inside. The veggies fresh without a hint of the typical McDonalds wilt.

Yum

This place is all about sustainable, local food, which you can easily tell from the taste.

Beyond that, Burgerville is also into recycling and generally keeping as much evil as possible at bay:

This is not something you'd generally see when leaving a restaurant in New Mexico

But don’t worry, there’s plenty of evil to be had down the street. Rumor has it Portland has the most strip clubs per capita of any American city.

You can even have beef with your strip club:

Hot girls and steak, eh?

For my part, though, I think I’ll stick with Burgerville.

Cheers,
-SueVo

Miami Medical To MASH It Up In The Golden Hour

The next episode of Miami Medical, The Golden Hour, promises to be part disaster-fest, part Jeremy Northam showcase and part M.A.S.H. tribute. What more could you ask for?

First off, it looks like troubling times for the team when a roof collapse wreaks havoc:

Express elevator from the top floor, going down...

Then we have a bleeding Doctor Warren (played by Elisabeth Harnois) — although we’re not sure how she got that way:

Wonder where that blood came from? Watch the show Friday.

And Doctor Zambrano (played by Lana Parrilla) looks like she has problems of her own as she’s threatened by a gunman:

Where'd he come from? At least let her put her shirt back on before you shoot her.

Executive Producer Jeffrey Lieber, on his unofficial Miami Medical Facebook fan page, said this of the disaster-fest: “missing patients, concealed firearms and vomiting nurses… oh my!”

Looks like we’re in for an interesting ride.

Our beloved Doctor Proctor (played by Northam) gets to take a turn at public speaking in the episode, when he is forced to give a presentation that proves how vital his team is in the first minutes after a trauma.

Doctor Proctor suits up for this episode

I am a little worried though, because Doc Proc appears to have been digitized in the CBS promo for the show. Does the speech turn him into a pod person a-la The Invasion? Probably not. But you never know.

Digital Jeremy Northam. Soon he will live in your computer.

Also coming to this episode is Mike Farrell, of M.A.S.H. fame, who guest Stars as Doctor Carl Willis, a hospital administrator. It looks like we’ll see Farrell and Northam play off each other in a few scenes.

Northam and Farrell, chilling by the elevator

According to Lieber, M.A.S.H. was a big influence on him as he developed Miami Medical.
In this great interview with Gill over at The Jer Blog, Lieber talked about the M.A.S.H. ties:

“The original fast pitch of the show was, ‘A domestic M.A.S.H unit in an American paradise.’ And I LOVED the original series when I was a kid. Now the old M.A.S.H TV show had the politics of the war in addition to the medicine (and for a while a laugh track), but the use of gallows humor to try and cope with the bare humanity of the job was my initial in to the show. At one point during the season we conceived of an episode where a bunch of the old M.A.S.H doctors were in one episode, but the logistics got to be too overwhelming and so we cut it down to one… Mike Farrell… who was a pleasure to work with.”

Here’s hoping this episode, which seems jam packed with goodies, will pop the Nielsen ratings back up.

The data for All Fall Down, last week’s episode, indicates that the number of viewers is still dropping. According to this story from HitFix:

“CBS’ “Miami Medical” … with its audience falling to just over 6 million and its demo rating falling to a 1.0 rating. The CBS freshman drama has declined in viewers and the demo every week since its premiere.”

If you look at all the data so far, you can see the steady drop: Miami Medical opened with Pilot at 7.54 million viewers, its second episode, 88 Seconds, netted 7.14 million viewers, the third, What Lies Beneath, had 6.78 million viewers and the fourth, All Fall Down, had just over 6 million viewers.

It’s a shame that while the show keeps getting better, the viewership keeps declining. I thought All Fall Down was the best episode yet.

Hopefully more people will discover the show and get hooked before the end of the season. There’s still time to keep it going.

As Lieber told us in his interview with me at Exploding Egg:

“CBS has been great about understanding that a show with our launch circumstances will need time for the audience to find us and incorporate us into their viewing habits. So, if you like the show… tell a friend. If you really like the show… write CBS an email. If you REALLY, REALLY, REALLY like the show… keep buying TVs until someone offers you a Neilson box and then get all your 18 year-old friends to watch.”

Here’s the promo video for The Golden Hour:

And here’s the CBS Press release for the new episode:

AFTER DR. PROCTOR IS FORCED TO GIVE A SPEECH AT A FUNDRAISER, HE CHALLENGES HIS AUDIENCE TO UNDERSTAND THE TRUE MEANING OF “GOLDEN HOUR,” ON “MIAMI MEDICAL,” FRIDAY, APRIL 30

Shari Belafonte (“Hotel”) Guest Stars As Kimberly Davis, A Hospital Donor

Mike Farrell (“M*A*S*H,” “Providence”) Guest Stars As Dr. Carl Willis, A Hospital Administrator

“Golden Hour” – In order to show the importance of their facility, Dr. Proctor is forced to give a speech proving just how vital he and his team are in the minutes following a major accident, on MIAMI MEDICAL, Friday, April 30 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Shari Belafonte (“Hotel”) guest stars as Kimberly Davis, a hospital donor. Mike Farrell (“M*A*S*H,” “Providence”) guest stars as Dr. Carl Willis, a hospital administrator.

SERIES REGULARS

Dr. Matthew Proctor ………… Jeremy Northam
Dr. Chris Deleo……………………….. Mike Vogel
Dr. Eva Zambrano…………………… Lana Parrilla
Dr. Serena Warren……………. Elisabeth Harnois
Nurse Tuck Brody ……………… Omar Gooding

GUEST STARS

Kimberly Davis……………………. Shari Belafonte
Dr. Carl Willis…………………………. Mike Farrell
Hunter Stephens………………………. Kevin West
Jackson…………………………………… Tim Guinee
Eric……………………………………… Kavan Reece
Katherine…………………………… Marisa Ramirez
Leslie………………………………………. Lisa Waltz
Scott……………………………… Michael Graziadei
Agniska…………………………… Monica Bugajski
Bolek…………………………. Radick Cembrzynski
Nurse Abigail…………………………… Gena Shaw
Nurse Graceffa………………… Shanola Hampton
Paramedic Kleebus……………. Jonathan Runyon

DIRECTED BY: Matt Earl Beesley
STORY BY: Jeffrey Lieber & Scott Shapiro
TELEPLAY BY: Jeffrey Lieber
GENRE: DRAMA, MEDICAL

Cheers,
-SueVo

I’ll Take A Router, Some Eggs And An Octopus?

OK so one of the cooler things about living in Portland is that I can now shop at Fred Meyer.

These are the weirdest supermarkets — sort of like a super Wal-Mart on steroids, only without the evil.

When I arrived in Portland early this week, I quickly discovered that my router didn’t survive the drive from Albuquerque. Sad, but I suppose there could have been worse casualties — like the computer, which fortunately still worked when I unpacked it Monday.

So replacing my router, getting some groceries for my barren fridge and locating a cat toy or two gave me a fine excuse to head on over to Freddy’s this morning.

I found them all, and then I saw this thing, sitting innocently enough in the fish display case:

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore

It’s, um, an octopus.

This is not anything I’ve ever seen in a grocery store before — not in New Mexico, certainly, and not in Boston, at least not that I can remember.

Sure, I’ve eaten octopus occasionally as sushi, but look at those tentacles. The clerk probably thought I was a bit odd because I whipped out the camera so that you, too, dear reader, could enjoy the spectacle.

That said, though, at $18.99 a pound, I wasn’t about to buy my ink-spewing friend. I left him for a more adventurous shopper.

I’m still unpacking and working on getting my house in shape, so I apologize for not having any juicy new Miami Medical or Criminal Minds posts so far this week. I’ll try to put something new together on that front soon.

In the meantime, I just wanted to pass on to you all that the Oregon sea life says hello.

Cheers,
-SueVo

Albuquerque to Portland, Tribune Style

Everyone who worked at The Albuquerque Tribune during my tenure from 2000 on knows and has spent quality time with the green foam football, which is known now by its official title “The Football.” It was an almost daily companion for all of us.

We used to toss it down the office’s long hallway and occasionally, when the boss wasn’t looking, across the entire newsroom. We got caught a few times, pun intended, but the paper had such a nice family atmosphere that the boss was a good sport about it.

During power failures, The Football would always come into the parking lot with us for some “go deep” pass and catch games.

When I left to work at the Santa Fe New Mexican, just before The Trib closed in February 2008, I signed the football and gave it to Mark Holm, generally awesome guy and The Trib’s photo editor.

Mark took the football with him to his new job in New Hampshire, where he worked for a short while, and then to Colorado to the Rocky Mountain News, which itself folded about a year ago.

But The Football’s journey is far from done. So before I took off for Oregon, Mark signed it and gave it back to me so it could start its next adventure.

Here, then, is a chronicle of its journey…

The Football in Albuquerque at my old home

The Football chillin and drinking a beer with my nephew Corey

The Football and the fams -- Ian, Corey and Kathleen Bardwell, Mark Wooldridge and Leo Bartnik -- on a UHaul loading break

The Football gets to Colorado, and thinks to itelf, in an anthropomorphic way, 'haven't I been here before?'

Leo and The Football: 'Listen Football, if you ask me 'are we there yet' one more time, I'll throw you out of this car!'

Somehow the trailer went flat overnight in Provo, Utah. The Football tried to cheer us both up. Here it is with Leo.

Leo, handy guy that he is, called the UHaul folks and got us back on the road in no time. The Football waited patiently with me here while he called.

The Football, hanging out by a sign to prove it was in Provo, Utah

The Football in Idaho, a state with a significant stinky cow population. On a more positive note, though, even the truck stops there have good mashed potatoes.

Finally, The Football gets a chance to relax and hang out with its friend, sweatshirt, at our new home in Portland, Oregon

Now that its journey is done, The Football plans to take a few days to recuperate and help me unpack. It wanted me to tell everybody to come visit, so we can toss it around in the park down the street.

Cheers!
-SueVo

Miami Medical: All Fall Down Steps Up

It’s been a full day of packing up everything in my house and loading it into a U-Haul, which I couldn’t have even remotely survived without the help of some very good friends that I just love to death. So thanks guys, you know who you are.

My friend Leo is here from Portland to help me drive everything I own from Albuquerque to The Rose City over the next couple days — so sorry kids, I won’t be able to hunt the Web for any new Miami Medical tips until at least Monday. If you get any, though — please share them with me in the comments section. I love juicy Miami Medical gossip, as you know.

Leo’s a good sport though — and while our 40-ish knees and backs are sore as hell, he sat with me and watched my day’s dessert, the new episode of Miami Medical — on my TV that is sitting on the floor waiting to be packed early tomorrow morning.

And a fine dessert it was.

First of all, the episode had a nice hearty dose of Jeremy Northam’s Doctor Proctor, which is never a bad thing. And he’s back on the roof in it, holding court, which is something I really missed in the last episode.

Sorry gals, no shirtless Mr. Northam in this episode, but at least he's on the roof again.

I’ll try not to give too much away, because I know some of my friends across the pond won’t get to see the episode for a day or two. But let me just say that the story of what happened between Proctor and Doctor Zambrano, played by Lana Parrilla, isn’t unveiled quickly.

And a note to Gill, my friend over at The Jer Blog, you were right about that part.

In the last episode, What Lies Beneath, we see Zambrano, naked, in bed at what appears to be Proctor’s house — and Proctor walking in with two cups of coffee. Whether they actually slept together or not, though — well I’ll let you watch All Fall Down and find out for yourselves.

Jeffrey Lieber also made good, once again, on his cryptic clues from the past week. Boudica, Blathnat, and a re-spelled version of pheo lead us to more interesting information on the mysterious Doctor Proctor’s past.

The show has its usual big traumatic bang at the beginning, and the pacing and medical procedures move along nicely — with two main medical stories working as sub-plots along with the interaction of our weekly cast.

I think so far, of all the episodes, I like All Fall Down the best — the characters are really starting to come together, the chemistry is getting good. We’re seeing hints of what the team will become and what sort of leader Proctor will be.

And, for you Mike Vogel fans out there — there’s a little shirtless Doctor Deleo beach scene that will make you happy.

Can’t wait to see what happens next.

But for now, it’s time to collapse — Leo and I have a big day of driving tomorrow. I’ll try to post a little bit about the move tomorrow for my friends reading this, if we land in a place with Internet service.

Cheers. And I’ll see you all on the flip side when I start my new life in Portland, Oregon!
-SueVo

Criminal Minds: More Twitter and Chat

There’s even more good news for us fans of Thomas Gibson and Joe Mantegna. The Criminal Minds Fanatic blog, which is a truly great resource for all things about the show, is sponsoring chats with both actors early next month.

Thomas Gibson

Thomas Gibson will be in the site’s chat room on on Tuesday, May 4th at 10 p.m. EST: Click Here For More Details

Joe Mantegna will be in the site’s chat room on Tuesday, May 11th at 10 p.m. EST: Click Here For More Details

The Web site also links to a Twitter page, where you can get more information and updates on upcoming chats: criminalminds

Five of the cast members are also Twittering with fans and each other. If you want to follow them, they’re here:

Paget Brewster: pagetpaget
Thomas Gibson: gibsonthomas
Matthew Gray Gubler: GUBLERNATION
Kirsten Vangsness: Vangsness
Joe Mantegna: joemantegna

Gibson’s been great about saying hello to fans during what appear to be breaks in shooting. I even got a couple replies from him myself, which was a huge thrill, even for a jaded former reporter like me.

It’s wonderful that these guys are willing to share a little of their lives with all of us. What a great cast — all very talented.

Keep up the terrific work!

Cheers,
-SueVo

Update: And before the digital ink is even dry, the blog announced another chat, with Scott David, Casting Guru for the show.

Scott David will be in the site’s chat room on Wednesday, April 28th at 10 p.m. EST: Click Here For More Details

Miami Medical: A Final Clue Before The Big Show

Jeffrey Lieber has yet another clue for us for tonight’s show on his unofficial Miami Medical Facebook page — “pheo.” This one follows two others:

Boudica — who “was a queen of the Brittonic Iceni tribe of what is now known as East Anglia in England, who led an uprising of the tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire,” according to Wikipedia.

Blathnat — a figure in Irish legend, whose father is either Mend of Inis Fer Falga (identified as the Isle of Man), Iuchna or Midhir, the fairy king of Brí Léith (located in County Westmeath), according to Wikipedia

So we have a warrior queen, a fairy and now this…

Of course, pheo might not actually be pheo. On Jeffrey’s site it says “our final clue… in word jumble form… ‘pheo.'”

Hmmm….

In a medical dictionary, “pheo-” is a combining form meaning brown, dun or dusky. And Miami Medical is a medical show, after all.

Pheo, eh? What the heck is a Pheo?

If you mix the letters around, though, you get “hope,” which may be what patients in the trauma unit are doing.

Or perhaps the docs are taking a trip to Hepo, China?

Then again, it could be that the Pueblo Indians are going to hang out with the warrior queen and fairy — if the spelling is Poeh, anyway.

Or the docs could have a deep discussion of energy saving with the Office of Home Energy Programs, or OHEP.

All will be revealed tonight, of course, when the new episode All Fall Down airs.

See you all there,
-SueVo