Sons of Anarchy Premieres Tonight On FX

It seems like the 2008-2009 Television season is really going strong now as more and more new shows are starting every day. Tonight, Wednesday, September 3, sees the extended series premiere of Sons of Anarchy on FX. I don’t know too much about Sons of Anarchy other than its premise and that it has a really varied and talented cast, which includes Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Katey Sagal (Married With Children) and Drea De Matteo (The Sopranos).


Truth be told, I pretty much give any show on FX a chance because of their amazing track record of original programming (Dirt being the lone exception, I knew that was going to be horrible right from the start). If you aren’t watching FX’s stable of gritty dramas, you’re really missing out on some amazing cable television!

According to the show’s website, Sons of Anarchy is an adrenalized drama with darkly comedic undertones about a notorious outlaw motorcycle club intent on protecting their sheltered small town against encroaching drug dealers, corporate developers and overzealous law officers. The club is equally determined to protect their ruthless and illegally thriving arms business.


I kind of see this show going one of two ways. It is either going to be awesome and quasi-realistic (ala The Sopranos and Rescue Me), or it is going to be a horrible caricature of what the show envisions a biker gang involved in illegal activities would look like. I’m hoping for the first option but wouldn’t be surprised if we got the latter. If you're interested in learning more about the show, here’s a good review of Sons of Anarchy from the Houston Chronicle's Tim Goodman that has actually got me pretty excited for tonight's episode.

Sons of Anarchy airs every Wednesday night on FX at 10/9c.

Upper Deck Kobe Bryant GOLD Lithograph by Shepard Fairey (OBEY Giant)

A little over two weeks ago Kobe Bryant added the missing piece to an already amazing resume, winning an Olympic gold medal for the United States of America in Men’s Basketball at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. The reigning NBA MVP from the Los Angeles Lakers is already a three-time NBA Champion, ten-time NBA All-Star and two-time NBA All-Star MVP and he can now proudly add gold medalist to his list of sterling credentials. To commemorate this gold medal winning achievement, Upper Deck is adding a third limited edition lithograph to its series of Kobe Bryant Lithographs by Shepard Fairey.


The newest lithograph, entitled GOLD, comes in two autographed editions and can be purchased framed or unframed. The Kobe Bryant and Shepard Fairey Dual Autographed GOLD Lithograph is limited to just 100 pieces and sells for $1,299.99. The Dual autographed litho also comes with Kobe’s added inscription of “USA GOLD '08.” The Shepard Fairey Autographed GOLD Lithograph is also limited to 100 pieces and sells online for $349.99. Both lithographs can be found at the Upper Deck Online Store and are available to ship on October 17, 2008.


As much as I love this Kobe Bryant/OBEY Giant collaboration, the prices of the two lithographs are a little too high for The Blot. Neverthelss, if you think you might want one or both of these highly sought after collectibles act now, because both should sell out rather quickly. Both editions of UD’s first two Kobe/Fairey lithographs, KOBE and MVP, are already practically sold-out.

90210 Series Premiere

Ok it’s time to come clean…who was sitting in front of their TV’s last night watching the season premiere of 90210? The Blot is man enough to admit that I made sure to watch all two hours of 90210: The New Class and let me tell you, it was horrible!


Yes, I loved seeing Jennie and Shannen’s, I mean Kelly and Brenda’s, return to West Beverly High, but the storylines were predictable and the cheesiness made me sick. I understand it was a series premiere so they had to explain every character’s back-story through dialogue but it was just not well executed. What I want to know is, is the show really this bad or am I just too far removed from the show’s target demographic?

For an old timer like me the highlights were seeing Joe E. Tata’s Nat back behind the counter of the Peach Pit and the shout-outs the original series, like including Andrea Zuckerman’s daughter Hannah Zuckerman Vasquez as a student at West Beverly (and the anchor of the West Beverly Blaze) and having Kelly Taylor and David Silver’s little sister Erin “Silver” Silver as one of the show’s main characters. I thought Jessica Stroup as Silver was actually one of the show’s bright spots.

Another highlight of the new show was Tristan Wilds as Dixon Wilson a.k.a. Brandon Walsh. As opposed to most of the “students” at West Beverly, his character didn’t seem as forced and his storyline was somewhat believable. I was surprised to see how much of the show focused on the adults in the extended cast. I know Cindy and Jim Walsh were an intricate part to Beverly Hills 90210, but it felt like Harry and Debbie Wilson (Rob Estes and Lori Loughlin) were actually stars of the show. I guess this new version of 90210 is taking a page out of The O.C.’s playbook.

I can’t say for certain that I’ll be watching another episode of The CW’s latest masterpiece, but if I do it’ll be interesting to see how the show balances such a large extended cast, including three holdovers from the original series. It seems like almost too many characters for a show trying to establish its footing and gain an audience on a struggling network. Now if they could only give us an Ian Ziering appearance maybe they could get some of Dancing With The Stars’ audience to tune in!

But don’t just take my word on how bad 90210’s first episode was. Just check out all of these great reviews on what a train wreck series premiere was!

90210 airs every Tuesday night at 8/7c on The CW.