With television coming back from its “winter break” lets take a look at some new television and webTV news.

Over at the Television Critics Association’s press tour this morning, FOX revealed that they renewed Bones for a ninth season. They implied but did not outright say that it would be the final season of the long running crime drama, I guess it depends on the rest of FOX’s future slate of shows. The series stars Emily Deschanel as doctor  Temperance “Bones” Brennan, a “socially inept” forensic anthropologist who uses her unique skill set to solve long cold cases along with her partner FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, portrayed by Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s David Boreanaz.

Bones joins a bunch of other shows that the network has already renewed, including American Dad, Bob’s Burgers, Family Guy, The Simpsons, and The X Factor. The only show I actually care about on FOX at the moment is New Girl, which stars Emily’s sister Zooey. New Girl keeps getting better and funnier with every episode. Hopefully they announce a renewal soon.

Well it took longer than expected, but it looks like Prospect Park is pulling through with its revivals of canceled ABC Soaps One Life to Live and All My Children. News was leaked last month that the company had closed deals with the DGA and SAG/AFTRA. Now comes word that PP has hired Executive Producers on the shows,  Jennifer Pepperman on OLTL and Ginger Smith on AMC, both of whom worked on the shows in the past, and the two show’s creator Agnes Nixon has signed on as a consultant. A few AMC cast members have signed on to the show, including Lindsay Hartley, Vincent Irizarry and Debbi Morgan. Even more interesting is the new plan for airing the soaps. Both OLTL and AMC will be half an hour long and air four days a week on The Online Network, with recap shows every Friday. Production begins in Stanford, CT in February. Maybe we’ll start seeing episodes as soon as March? Keep your fingers crossed!

While on the subject of soaps, lets shift online where the third and forth episodes of Lenox Avenue have been released over on its official website. The series is described as a “sexy soap-opera-style drama” that follows three male friends, Owen (Al Thompson, “A Walk to Remember”), Sellars (Dorian Missick, “Southland”), and Vaughn (Ryan Vigilant, “Gossip Girl”), who are navigating the complex dating scene while dealing with the pressures and messiness of their careers and friendships. The series is set in and spotlights the beauty of Harlem. In the third episode, Owen encounters a mysterious new woman while Sellars learns some stuff about his wedding. Then in the forth episode Vaughn learns that the single life is not nearly as easy as expected.   Find out more over on the show’s Facebook page.

Sure, there are more than a hundred Troma movies that have been uploaded and are ready to watch on their official YouTube page, but how do you know which ones to actually watch? They are all gross, inventive, disgusting, entertaining, sick, etc. Here are three suggestions of movies that are not necessary worth your time, but are a great way to kill some time.

THE TOXIC CRUSADERS
Growing up I absolutely loved the animated series Toxic Crusaders, which was part of the early 90s Fox cartoon block. It only lasted for 13 episodes, but that didn’t stop me from watching them over and over on taped VHS tapes and buying the board game based on the series. It was not until much later did I track down the original Toxic Avenger movie that the series was based on and get scarred for life… I still can not believe that they allowed a company to make a family friendly animated series out of a movie that I’m still shocked to this day was allowed to be rated R and not NC17. This was also my gateway into loving Troma films and for a few years in the late 90s I tracked down as many as I could get my hands on (this was not always an easy process). The Toxic Crusaders movie was a few of the television episodes compiled together. I have not actually watched in the past 15 years, but I’m sure it is as good as I remember as a kid… right? Right??

Official Description: THE TOXIC CRUSADERS, led by Toxie, a creature of superhuman size & strength, are America’s favorite environmental heroes! The TOXIC CRUSADERS wage an ongoing war of laughs against crime, corruption and chemical waste. In order to save Tromaville and the rest of the planet, the TOXIC CRUSADERS must thwart the plans of the evil Dr. Killemoff, a mutant pollutant from the planet Smogula, and his hoards of heinous henchmen. Watch The Toxic Crusaders Online for Free!

MACABRE PAIR OF SHORTS
This Troma gem comes from 1996 and was directed by Scott Mabbutt (he would later follow this with such b-movie fare as Predators from Beyond Neptune and The Daughters of Darkness). Macabre was Troma’s answer to horror anthologies such as Tales from the Crypt and Creepshow, which a comedic twist. The quality is not the greatest with you get multiple stories and doses of Troma along with an appearance of David Boreanaz before he was Angel! Sure, he is just an extra in the Dinner, but if you look quick enough you will not miss him!

Official Description: In the tradition of “Creepshow” comes the Macabre Pair of Shorts! This horror/comedy spoofs everything from “The Twilight Zone” and Dr. Seuss to “Die Hard” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” One fateful Halloween night, two employees of a certain motion picture equipment house discover a very unusual film. They decide to thread it up, and the rest becomes a very memorable Halloween indeed! Filled with vicious female vampires and an assortment of creepy characters, The Macabre Pair of Shorts “fits so tightly, you might find it hard to breathe.” -Don Murphy. Watch Macabre Pair of Shorts Online for Free!

NOT ANOTHER B MOVIE
Last but not least I choose Not Another B Movie, a movie making spoof directed by John Wesley Norton (who also directed Space Daze for Troma). I picked this one because it is actually a pretty recent movie (released in 2010), it pokes fun at the movies that Troma makes and how they make them, and it throws in some zombies- and who doesn’t love low budget zombies? As the tagline says, “Just because you can make a movie, doesn’t mean you should…”

Official Description: An adept spoof of cinema’s behind-the-scenes experiences, NOT ANOTHER B MOVIE combines frightening and disgusting zombies with frightening and disgusting hack directors to tell a hilarious story! With a cast that includes Ed Asner, Joe Estevez and David Faustino, it’s an insightful romp through the horror film industry and the horrors of the film industry! Watch Not Another B Movie Online for Free!

Check out these horror movies for purchase…

I can’t even begin to describe just how angry I am about the just announced Buffy the Vampire Slayer remake. First lets take a look at the official press release:

Atlas Entertainment announced today it is rebooting the beloved franchise, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Warner Bros. Pictures. Atlas’ Charles Roven and Steve Alexander will produce the feature film alongside Doug Davison and Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment (The Ring, How to Train Your Dragon, The Departed). Whit Anderson is writing the script.

Warner Bros. Pictures optioned the rights from creators Fran and Kaz Kuzui, and from Sandollar Productions (Sandy Gallin and Dolly Parton), for Atlas and Vertigo to produce. Buffy the Vampire Slayer first appeared as a film in 1992, subsequently becoming a cult hit and spawning the wildly popular television series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz, among many others.

“Whit approached us with an exciting idea about how to update Buffy,” said Roven. “There is an active fan base eagerly awaiting this character’s return to the big screen. We’re thrilled to team up with Doug and Roy on a re-imagining of Buffy and the world she inhabits. Details of the film are being kept under wraps, but I can say while this is not your high school Buffy, she’ll be just as witty, tough, and sexy as we all remember her to be.”

There is so much wrong with this news.  First, Joss Whedon is not involved with the remake. Joss is Buffy. Without him they should remove the name and try their own thing. Why in the world would they cut Joss out of the mix? He has stated for years that he’d love to bring a Buffy movie to theaters and both Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz have also said they’d reprise their roles for a theatrical version (others have also expressed interest as well, including James Marsters, Nicholas Brendon, and Anthony Head). That “active fan base” that is “eagerly awaiting this character’s return to the big screen” is not eagerly awaiting a remake. They want to see the Buffy they grew up with. They want to see the Buffy that defeated the Master, fell in love with a vampire with a soul, had the best friends anyone could ask for, found a father figure in Giles, that died saving the world (twice!), and that shared her power to make the world a safer place. They don’t want to see a carbon copy of her, because guess what, she WILL NOT BE as “witty, tough, and sexy” as our Buffy.

The new reboot is remaking the movie, so at least this horrible idea will not be able to feature Willow, Xander, Giles, Angel, Spike, Oz, Tara, and everyone else we fell in love with over the course of the series. Nor will it be able to be set in Sunnydale, a fictional city that truly was the heart of the show. Characters the movie can (and will likely) use? Luke Perry’s Pike, Donald Sutherland’s “watcher” Merrick, Rutger Hauer’s villainous vampire Lothos, and of course Paul Reubens’ one-armed vampire Amilyn. What were some of the other differences with the big screen Buffy? Well, the movie’s vampires didn’t “vamp out”, nor did they turn to dust, and one of Buffy’s super powers was cramps.

Let’s just point out exactly what this reboot is. This is two greedy SOBs named Fran and Kaz Kuzui, who are mislabeled in the press release as Buffy “creators” when they just own the rights, that are trying to milk the fan base of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer to make a quick buck and are trying to capitalize on the Twilight vampire “craze”. By rebooting the series they do not have to pay the true Buffy creator Joss Whedon, nor do they have to pay the cast from the TV series (I’d imagine both Gellar and Boreanaz would be pricey). They can hire someone like Whit Anderson, a background actress with no writing experience, at what is likely scale pay to write a crap script. They are going to push it right into production and try to get it into theaters as early as 2011. The director will likely be a straight-to-video hack or even more likely, a music video director who will be making his first feature.

As a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer who owns every season of the show (and spinoff Angel) on DVD, all of the comics that have been published, T-Shirts, video games, and yes, even the original movie, I will not be supporting this reboot in any way. I will not see it in theaters, nor will I buy it on Blu-Ray when it comes out. I will not be wasting any of my Netflix orders on it, or even wasting my time watching it when it comes to basic Cable. Fuck you Fran and Kaz Kuzui.

I will, however, continue to “eagerly await” the next issue of Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 comic book that comes out the first week of December.

This guest post from Doris Dillon.

Bones is my favorite crime show. I think the cast is young and cool, and they have an intelligent type of humor that is both rare and funny. Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz play the two lead characters, Bones and Booth. The most intriguing thing about the show is the relationship between the two of them. I love the way they play off of each other. He’s a tough but sensitive law enforcement officer, and she’s a brainy anthropologist. The audience is occasionally teased with bits of romance between Bones and Booth, and this adds another layer to their relationship.

The concept of the show is also intriguing. I love how they use science and logic to solve each case. I also appreciate that the show is not the same as other procedural crime dramas. The characters are well-rounded and interesting, rather than flat. Unlike other crime shows, Bones focuses on the lives of its characters outside of work, and we understand them as people and not just as detectives or scientists.

I watch Bones on Fox via my direct tv. The show is currently in its sixth season, and I’ve watched it since season 1.

I think the problem with writing and making a comic book film is the material itself. The thing is if you take the original comics with all that camp-ness and so on, nobody is going to want to watch it. We’ll end up with a endless supply of Batman and Robins. In theory, Superman Returns should have been an awesome film. With it being a pseudo sequel to the Richard Donner films and that series, but it just never came together right. It was so freaking boring. I’d rather  have seen Tim Burton’s Superman Lives with the all weird stuff he was adding because at least it would have been something new to watch and from recently released test pictures it would have been very different which sometimes isn’t a bad thing.

Batman Begins was a great Batman film. It was good to finally see his full origin on the big screen. To be honest, I don’t like Christian Bale as Batman. I don’t even think much of him as an actor. I would have preferred Angel‘s David Boreanaz in the role. Everything was good about the film. In contract, I thought that The Dark Knight was just plain awful. The only parts that worked for me were the action scenes. I honestly believe, and I mean no disrespect, that this film wouldn’t have garnered the attention, money and great reviews had it not been the fact that Heath Ledger tragically passed away. His Joker didn’t work for me.

Trying to make DC Comics on film for Hollywood has never been a easy task. Hopefully that will change starting with Green Lantern and once they get Nolan and Bale finished with Batman and move on with a new actor and director. So we’ll finally get to see a long awaited Justice League of America film. Zack Snyder on Superman is a genius move and I long to see this film get made, so here’s hoping that us DC fans will finally get the movies we so longingly have wanted.

Check out these Green Lantern related products…

One of my favorite shows ever, Joss Whedon’s Angel, is currently on sale from Amazon with a killer price. All 110 episodes of the series for only 50 bucks, a value worth over 80 dollars of savings.

Spinning off from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel (portrayed by David Boreanaz), the vampire with a soul leaves the love of his life and heads to Los Angeles where he does his best to help the helpless. He is join with a few familiar faces from his days on Buffy, including Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter) and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Alexis Denisof), and gets visited by Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Oz (Seth Green), and Spike (James Marsters), among others.

I doubt this deal will last more than 24 hours, so pick it up while you can!

Last week saw the releases of Iron Man 2, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, and Get Him to the Greek, but this week we don’t have many “new” movies. Regardless, we have a lot of new Blu-Rays to sink our teeth in.

The Karate Kid
I just finally saw this remake starring the little Smith and Jackie Chan. I gotta say, I actually really dug it. Very well done, and while keeping the spirit of the original, it wasn’t a direct rip off. They made it feel fresh. My only gripe was the bizarre and unneeded “dark side” of Chan’s character. It came out of nowhere and was forgotten just as fast.

Baseball: The Tenth Inning
Also new this week is the PBS documentary from directors Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that takes a look at baseball between 1992 and 2009. “As the tumultuous twentieth century is drawing to a close, and a new millennium begins, baseball continues to reflect the complicated country that created it.” I haven’t seen this one, but the reviews have been pretty positive. If you are a fan of baseball, you’ll likely dig it.

Bones: The Complete Fifth Season
I’ve been a big fan of David Boreanaz since his Buffy/Angel days, but I just haven’t been able to get into this series. Boreanaz is a special agent, who teams up with Dr. Temperance Brennan, portrayed by Emily Deschanel, to solve murders based on bones that are discovered. With over 100 episodes under their belt, there are fans of this series, but I doubt you’ll be getting this unless you are already a fan.

In addition to our new movies and TV, we have some firsts to Blu-Ray, including:

• Beauty and the Beast
• The Last of the Mohicans: Director’s Definitive Cut
• The Maltese Falcon

And new to DVD:

• The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Seventh Season

What will you be picking up?