Articles by Ryan Berenz

About Ryan Berenz

Member of the Television Critics Association. Charter member of the Ancient and Mystic Society of No Homers. Squire of the Ancient & Benevolent Order of the Lynx, Lodge 49, Long Beach, Calif. Costco Wholesale Gold Star Member since 2011.

Where To Watch The NBA Finals

June 3, 2009 Ryan Berenz

By Ryan The NBA Finals tip off Thursday, June 4 at 9pm ET on ABC, with Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic taking on Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers. It’s not the Kobe vs. LeBron series we were all expecting, and it’s likely a lot of viewers will dismiss it. Nobody even seems to care about this matchup — they’re all still fixating on LeBron’s media and handshake snub. Obviously, the “Can Kobe win one without Shaq?” storyline will dominate. There’s also debate about ESPN/ABC analyst Jeff Van Gundy being on the broadcasts with his brother Stan being the […]

About That Stanley Cup Finals Schedule…

May 28, 2009 Ryan Berenz

By Ryan The NHL has plenty of TV issues they need to deal with. Maybe they should start with this one: Set a date for the Stanley Cup Finals and stick to it. It’s not hard. We’ve known for months that the NBA Finals begin June 4, and they have the same playoff format as the NHL. It’s likely that the NHL fears getting hammered in the ratings by the NBA, and they want to get in as many games as possible before the NBA Finals tip off. The NHL had originally set June 5 as the date for Game […]

Where To Watch The Indy 500 And NASCAR Coca-Cola 600

May 21, 2009 Ryan Berenz

The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend has become the best day of the year for auto racing. There’s the one IndyCar race people still watch, followed by the early evening NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte, N.C. Here’s the TV schedule of events for both races: Indianapolis 500 Sunday, May 24 on ABC 12pm ET — Prerace Show. The one-hour prerace show will include interviews with many of the 33 starting drivers as well as four special features, including a look at the roller-coaster year of polesitter Helio Castroneves; the special relationship between Danica Patrick and […]

Spelling Bee Finals Live Blog Announcement!

May 20, 2009 Ryan Berenz

By Ryan For the third year in a row, we’ll be doing our live blog of the Scripps National Spelling Bee Finals. My colleague johnnysweeptheleg (renowned for his blogging of Lost and The Office on this site) and I have a good time covering this event, and there’s always some good-natured ribbing of the bee geeks participants. The Bee finals are Thursday, May 28 at 8pm ET, live on ABC. This year, we’re going to do something different — the whole live blog will be done via Twitter, not here on the Channel Guide Magazine blog. We’ll be sending out […]

Farewell To “Earl” … At Least On NBC

May 19, 2009 Ryan Berenz

By Ryan First heard about on Ethan Suplee’s Twitter feed, and confirmed by Zap2it today, My Name Is Earl isn’t on NBC’s 2009 fall schedule. I guess we’re disappointed, but not totally surprised. As a follower of the show from the beginning, and a blogger of the show for the past two seasons, I’ve observed the show’s steady decline. But it always felt like Greg Garcia and company still had plenty of list items left in them, and I was hoping that getting back to simpler stories of a guy and his list in Season 4 might spark a comeback. […]

“My Name Is Earl” Recap: Dodge’s Dad

May 15, 2009 Ryan Berenz

Darnell is getting ready for Career Day at Dodge’s school, the day in which the dads come in to talk about their jobs. Crab Man is all ready for his presentation on crabs, but Dodge wants to have his real dad there instead of his stepdad. The problem: Joy hasn’t told Dodge that Earl isn’t his real dad. Since Earl ruined Dodge’s 2005 Career Day (he stole some X-Ray equipment as posed as a doctor), he goes to school to talk about his career as Chief List Maker/List Doer. Some of Dodge’s classmates wonder why Dodge doesn’t spend weekends with […]

Cincinnati Bengals To Be On HBO’s “Hard Knocks” For Some Reason

May 14, 2009 Ryan Berenz

By Ryan Good news: HBO is returning another season of Hard Knocks in August. Bad news: It’s going to be about the Cincinnati Bengals. Good news: It can double as a season of COPS. HBO Sports, NFL Films and the Cincinnati Bengals will team up for an all-access look at what it takes to make it in the National Football League when Hard Knocks: Training Camp With the Cincinnati Bengals debuts Aug. 12 at 10pm ET/PT on HBO (HD). It is the show’s fifth season. Other seasons have followed the Dallas Cowboys (twice), Baltimore Ravens and Kansas City Chiefs.

“The Haney Project: Charles Barkley” Recap: On My Own

May 14, 2009 Ryan Berenz

By Ryan So it’s been a while since we’ve seen Sir Charles swing the golf bats on The Haney Project. The last episode, “Lights, Camera … Hesitation?” aired nearly a month ago. So the show gives us a little recap of what we’ve seen so far, and it’s a video montage interspersed with words pulled from those motivational posters: OPTIMISM… HOPEFUL … FRUSTRATION… RECOMMITTED… It’s been 30 weeks since Charles began working with Hank, and after the debacle that we saw in the last episode, Charles is going to go back to work and fully commit himself to fixing his […]

NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race XXV On SPEED Channel

May 13, 2009 Ryan Berenz

By Ryan The NASCAR All-Star Race is an event that gets tinkered with so often, fans might need Digger the NASCAR on FOX gopher to explain the current rules and format in layman’s terms. But for the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race XXV, May 16 on SPEED Channel (HD), you only need to know two things: 10 laps and $1 million. This year’s race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.H., will feature a 10-lap shootout with a $1 million prize as its final segment, something that has provided some of the event’s most spectacular finishes, including Dale Earnhardt’s 1987 “pass […]

“E:60”: UFC President Dana White, Binghamton Bar Brawl, Matt Steven, And Sports Gambling In Delaware

May 12, 2009 Ryan Berenz

Features on the Tuesday, May 12 (7pm ET) edition of ESPN’s sports newsmagazine series E:60: UFC President Dana White — At 39, Dana White, the president of Ultimate Fighting Championship, is both czar and star of one of the world’s fastest growing sports — mixed martial arts. He is at the epicenter of an enterprise that has moved from spectacle to sport in less than a decade. Mostly, White is outside the box, and at times, out of control. E:60 had unprecedented access to White over a four-month period, following him to UFC events in the United States and Canada. […]