There are many reasons people love entertainment--for fun, for escapism and for love. When times are hard, sometimes watching your favorite show can feel like like a hug your soul needs and the best way to give a stressed mind a break, and a weary heart a reason to soar.
Right now, everyone needs a proverbial shot of love, so what better way to do it than by checking in with our new and favorite TV ships from shows like Pitch, Empire, The Flash, and more...
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Something revolutionary happened during last week’s episode of Pitch. The FOX sports drama about the first woman to drafted to Major League Baseball quite literally took a bat to the dangerous Strong Black Woman Trope that television has sustained for decades.
I am happily navigating the ocean of new television searching for my next fangirl island. One of them happens to have a baseball field on it. Fox’s much-anticipated new series, Pitch, and is a grand slam.
Starring Kylie Bunbury, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Michael Beach, and with a big assist from Major League Baseball, this emotional and riveting sports drama follows the fictional Ginny Baker, the first woman to play professional baseball. Here are 5 reasons you should catch this Pitch—one of the best new shows of the season.
A lot can happen in a year. A television show can backslide from addictively fun and action-packed to shark-jumpingly unwatchable (I’m not naming names, but a certain superhero show totally missed the bullseye last season. Oh, and it was Arrow). The movie you’ve been dying to see since pre-production began can finally be released and blow your friggin’ mind (Captain America: Civil War)! And I, your faithful Small Screen Girl, can embark on a journey to start on her television and pop culture blog, write a ton of articles, watch even more hours of television and learn priceless lessons along the way.
September 13th marks the first anniversary of this website, and while roughly 12% of me is shocked that it’s still going strong and gaining followers, the remaining 88% is inherently proud of the work that I’ve done and the fun that I’ve had while doing it! In the coming year, I want my little corner of the internet to get bigger and more inclusive! I want to write more episode recaps and movie reviews. I want to share more of my millions of opinions on pop culture minutia. And I’d love you guys to do the same! Pop over to the right of your screen and like and follow me on the different social media thingies and let me know what you think of the site! You can also email me at smallscreengirl@gmail.com! So birthdays usually mean cake—and trust me there will be cake or at least donuts—but they also mean you get to make wishes. I'm a little greedy, so I grabbed as many birthday wishes as I could and I'm using them for the greater good of entertainment! If you've come here even once, thank you so much for visiting and I hope you find something here that brings you back! Here are some of my biggest wishes for the upcoming television season, movies and more! When I was a little girl, The Cosby Show more than just appointment TV, it was sacred viewing. Our chores and homework had to be done, and my sister and I had to be ready for bed before it aired. Despite the dozens of rape allegations surrounding Bill Cosby, those memories of being piled on the couch in my fluffy pink robe with my family laughing at the squeaky-clean shenanigans of an affluent clan in Brooklyn are some of my most cherished.
I was reacquainted with that unabashed night-before-Christmas joy in the days leading up to the premiere of Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey's Queen Sugar (the two-night premiere brought in record-breaking ratings for the OWN Network). Unlike Bill Cosby’s wholesome sitcom, this multi-generational drama loosely based on the novel by Natalie Baszile methodically focuses on the cracks and imperfections of a dysfunctional, but loyal family as they grapple with tragedy, trials of life, and the maddening realities of being black in America. Like the Huxtables, the saga of the Bordelons will redefine standards and expand the confining limitations of black television.
Despite months of skepticism, the Summer Olympics turned out to be a heart-pounding, heartwarming, and heartbreaking spectacle of sport, strength and sacrifice. Like millions around the globe, I watched from my couch, trying not to feel like an underachieving beached whale as the world’s best athlete’s swam, sprinted, tumbled, fenced and rowed into Olympic glory.
There was an undeniable star of the games, and it wasn’t Michael Phelps or the Tongan Flagbearer or even Rio’s stunning beaches, it was Black Women. Diversity in entertainment has been a blisteringly hot topic for years now. And while the movie industry progressing so slowly they're being lapped by hypothermic turtles, television is at the forefront of making meaningful strides. This fall, Fox is debuting 24: Legacy starring Straight Outta Compton's Corey Hawkins and Pitch and a series imagining the black and female MLB pitcher. NBC heaps on the family feels with This Is Us. The OWN Network is also making a power move to steal broadcast eyeballs with Queen Sugar created by visionary director Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey.
Meanwhile, CBS will roll out six new shows...all starring white men. Say it with me, y'all: #CBSSoWhite. Thankfully the media and frustrated television viewers have loudly voiced their distaste with CBS's problematic programming practices. During their network panel at the Television Critics Association press tour last week, CBS entertainment president Glen Geller offered a pitiful and ham-fisted response to the pointed questions about the network's glaring lack of diversity. "We need to do better and we know it...We showed you some photos of 16 new series regulars, 11 of them are diverse. I know they’re not leads, but 11 are diverse and that is our commitment to diversity," Geller said, according to EW.com. Translation: Inclusion is awesome for supporting characters whose only purpose is to serve the white leads, and can be killed off to evoke white pain come sweeps. See Yvette Nicole Brown's role as Oscar Madison's assistant in The Odd Couple reboot. And Taraji P. Henson's late Det. Joss Carter in Person Of Interest. Since I sincerely believe CBS's heartfelt promise to do better and that it's not a half-assed rationale of their casting methods, I decided to do the heavy-lifting for them. So next season, there will be no excuse for the stars of their shows to look like the audience of a Donald Trump rally. Here are 8 diverse actors who are long overdue for their own television shows…
With just a few weeks into summer and a promising stack of new and returning summer shows just beginning, is it a little TV-greedy to petulantly whine: “Is it fall yet!"?
Not if you’ve watched the recently released and stirring teasers for HBO’s Insecure and OWN’s Queen Sugar. These new series are made by and for black women, and look like the TV shows I've been fantasizing about for years...
Since I think of everything in terms of television, I could help but wonder about my favorite television papas. I've watched everything from the original Lassie (for you youngins, it's an old TV show about a beautiful collie that rescues an accidental prone little boy) to Empire. Narrowing down a list of favorites is almost as hard as finding the perfect "Thank you for giving me life" present for my own stubborn father.
Here are my 7 Favorite TV Fathers...
On Saturday, a miracle happened. The entertainment community took a break from their collective and purple grief over the sudden death of music legend Prince, and turned to HBO witness a special event, another coronation of a queen who already has a closet full of crowns--Beyonce's Lemonade.
The hour-long special isn't so much an extended promo for her new visual album, which simultaneously dropped on Tidal (and later iTunes), as it is a cinematic diary, a textured and stunning stream of free-form expression from a talented musician, a wife, a mother, a black woman, and an icon. |
Small Screen GirlI am an unabashed pop culture and TV-aholic with no plans to ever seek treatment. Explore this blog and see just how deep my obsession goes. Categories
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