'Masters of Sex' Season 2 Trailer: Mixing Business With Pleasure (VIDEO)

Common wisdom states you should avoid sleeping with your coworkers, but if you're both renegade researchers in the field of sexuality, well, things are gonna get pretty confusing.



The second season of Showtime's "Masters of Sex" is almost upon us, and if you haven't been watching this smart and sexy show, this teasing trailer might do the trick. Lizzy Caplan and Michael Sheen star as researchers Virginia Johnson and William Masters, and as you can see from this tidbit, it seems they've become their own best test subjects. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as they'd like to believe to divest your heart from your body, as we can see from these less-than-clinical trysts between the two scientists. And this is just the tip of the iceberg!



Although HBO's "Game of Thrones" and "True Blood" still dominate and saturate the media, Showtime's "Masters of Sex" and "Penny Dreadful" are definitely snagging some eyeballs.



The second season of "Masters of Sex" kicks off Sunday, July 13, at 10 PM EST.











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Whoopi Goldberg Is The Last Woman Standing at 'The View'

The future is looking foggy at "The View," and it's not clear when the clouds will lift. The show suffered a blow in May when its co-creator and head honcho Barbara Walters retired, leaving Whoopi Goldberg as the lone voice of reason duking it out with nutty co-hosts Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd. Now it seems that Goldberg will be the last one standing, as both Shepherd and McCarthy are leaving - or were gently ousted, depending on who you believe.



According to TheWrap.com, Shepherd and the network couldn't agree on contracts terms, whereas ABC didn't renew McCarthy's contract. "The View" is on hiatus until July 7, but it's expected that both will stay on the show until this season ends in August.



It sounds like some serious ch-ch-changes are in store at "The View," which might include a male co-host and possibly the exit of exec producer Bill Geddie. However, as long as Whoopi keeps us posted on all the comings and goings of her cats Oliver and Vinny, all will be right in the world of daytime talk shows.







Image courtesy of Associated Press







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'Transformers: Age of Extinction' Review: Hey, It Could've Been Worse

Summer blockbusters are far from an exact science, but for the most part, there are two constants you can rely on year in and year out: Michael Bay loves to blow things up, and critics love to take down his movies. But much like Optimus Prime and the Autobots continuing to fight for humanity after swearing off it in every single "Transformers" movie, we just can't seem to help ourselves from coming back to these movies again and again.



And so, "Transformers: Age of Extinction" marks the fourth film in Bay's blockbuster franchise and the start of a whole new trilogy starring a new human cast. Picking up four years after the events of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," Decepticons and Autobots alike are being hunted down by a CIA Transformer death squad called Cemetery Wind (apparently all the cool black ops names were already taken). But the tides turn when broke robotics engineer Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) and his teenage daughter (Nicola Peltz) stumble across a beat-up Optimus and help bring him back to life. At least until an even bigger threat shows up that could spell the end for the Autobots and humanity as we know it. You know, if they didn't already have another two sequels planned.



And since, let's be honest, any movie that features a giant robot riding a fire-breathing robot dinosaur is pretty much critic-proof, instead, let's play devil's advocate and point out some of the positives from Bay's latest blockbuster blow-'em-up:



It could've been even longer.

Yes, 165 minutes is an awfully long amount of time to spend watching giant CGI robots pound one another. But even though "Age of Extinction" is 11 minutes longer than the already-bloated "Dark of the Moon" and the longest of the franchise to date, Bay's made longer. Lest we forget "Pearl Harbor," which clocks in at an epic 183 minutes. So he's never exactly had a thing for brevity. Plus, it's hard to cut down on runtime when every other shot is filmed in slo-mo.



It'd be more forgivable here if Bay had a complex, intricate plot to set up and/or work through, but in reality, "Age of Extinction" basically translates to our characters chasing a MacGuffin that doesn't even show up until the second half. That means the rest of the time can be used for crucial "character development," which is really just code for more lingering shots of Peltz in short shorts, endless bickering, and added explosions.



It only features one painfully racist caricature this time.

Give Bay a little credit: he heard your complaints, he just may not have understood them. Because after famously offending viewers with two walking, talking blatantly racist stereotypes in Mudflap and Skids in "Revenge of the Fallen," this time, Optimus' ragtag team features Ken Watanabe as Drift, complete with samurai armor, broken English and a habit of calling Optimus "sensei." Oh, and there's also a fat, e-cigar-chomping Autobot voiced by John Goodman (yes, really), but at least he's only offensive for other reasons. Apparently the vague hints of self-awareness that pop up in "Age of Extinction" (like poking fun at Hollywood's love of sequels) didn't extend to its characters. Then again, this is a director whose idea of giving a blockbuster "international appeal" involves demolishing Hong Kong once he's done with Chicago.



It could've starred Shia LaBeouf again.

Make no mistake, Mark Wahlberg is a serious upgrade as the main (human) protagonist here, even if he's significantly more believable firing a giant alien gun than as a down-on-his-luck inventor. He's not given much more to work with in the dialogue department than Shia's Sam Witwicky was, but thanks to Wahlberg's built-in action hero chops and charm, it's somehow easier to buy him giving pep talks to Optimus and going toe-to-toe with evil alien robots. The only thing missing is Wahlberg reprising his "Boogie Nights" rendition of the classic "Transformers" theme "The Touch," but maybe they're saving that for the next one.



It's actually intentionally funny at times.

Credit the casting director for this one, but between T.J. Miller as Yeager's dim-witted assistant and Stanley Tucci as a pseudo-Steve Jobs type building his own army of Transformers, "Age of Extinction" features some honest-to-goodness comic relief to go along with the usual cheesy one-liners. Granted, 99 percent of that is likely ad-libbed, but the few genuinely funny lines offer a welcome respite during the sensory-assaulting dullness of all those overstuffed action set pieces. There's a lot you can question about this latest "Transformers" installment (like pretty much the entire third act, or why they thought a statutory rape joke made for a hilarious "gag"), but the decision to swap out the entire human cast was a smart one.



It's even possible to tell what's going on during some of the fight scenes.

Not all of them, of course, but again, it's an upgrade from the disorienting CGI mayhem of the last few movies. And even if Bay's still taking a kitchen sink approach, packing every frame with as many fireworks and as much clashing metal as they can handle, he at least slows down the action at times to make sure the movie gets the most out of those expensive money shots. Of course, the increased coherence isn't always a bonus: during one early-movie car chase, the pursuit improbably cuts directly from the Yeager homestead to a cornfield, then back to the Yeager's lawn, and seconds later, onto their Texas town's main streets.



And while Optimus pays a lot of lip service (do Autobots have lips?) to his oath to never take a human life, apparently that doesn't extend to CIA officers or the ridiculous amount of callous collateral damage the nearly 30-minute long final fight causes. So instead of being thrilling and awe-inspiring, the extended CGI, pyrotechnic and product placement onslaught just gets exhausting after a while, and you wish Bay & Co. would just hurry this whole thing along. But wait, isn't the point of all this eye candy that it's fun to watch? Somewhere along the way, this franchise seemed to forget that part. Oh well. Maybe the fifth time's the charm?



"Transformers: Age of Extinction" is now playing in theatres.

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​This Week in TV: How Will Diane Sawyer's Departure Change TV News?

Diane Sawyer's September departure from her nightly anchor desk at ABC News, announced on Wednesday, is clearly a major event that will change -- or rather, lay bare -- the face of TV news. How to explain the multi-rippled impact of Sawyer's stepping aside? Use a phrase that was once applied to her old boss, Richard Nixon: "Follow the money."



In the short term, of course, ABC may save some money by having young pup David Muir (who's 40 and has decades less seniority than 68-year-old Sawyer) take her nightly seat. Meanwhile, naming morning mainstay George Stephanopoulos as "Chief Anchor" for breaking news seems a largely cosmetic and cheap way to keep the daytime news star happy without actually promoting him or increasing his duties much. And keeping the morning crew happy is, in a way, what this move is really all about.



After all, Muir's version of the nightly newscast is supposedly going to be more like "Good Morning America," perhaps with more live interviews and less gravitas. And having "GMA"'s Stephanopoulos on board in whatever capacity will also reinforce continuity with "GMA." For it's "GMA," not the evening "World News," that is now ABC's flagship news program and its cash cow.



For the first time in 16 years, "GMA" is handily beating NBC's "Today" among morning viewers. Those hours of programming every morning mean big ad dollars, in contrast with the aging, shrinking audience for the nightly newscasts. The nightly network news is just not the glamour job it was when every TV journalist aspired to be Walter Cronkite or Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings. In the zillion-channel cable universe, the network's nightly newscasts are largely seen as fading anachronisms, a last bastion of boring high-mindedness from an age when a network's TV news division was still considered a public service and not a revenue generator like everything else the network aired.



In recent years, old-school pundits decried the ascent of Sawyer and Katie Couric from the morning news shows to their network's nightly anchor chairs as moves that would somehow soften (read: feminize) the newscasts and make them less serious. The truth is, however, that the nightly newscasts were always personality-driven, defined as much by the personal style of a Cronkite or Brokaw as by the actual editorial content. That Sawyer's duties will be split between Muir and Stephanopoulos shows not only that she leaves big shoes to fill, but also that the anchor job is no longer the glittering prize it once was. The fact that Sawyer can so casually walk away from the desk after less than five years there shows that as well.



Of course, now that Sawyer is leaving, nightly network news is once again the preserve of middle-aged white guys. Whatever experiment Couric and Sawyer were launching was short-lived, and now it's back to the way things were for decades before they came along. (Sure, there's still Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff running the nightly news hour on PBS, but does PBS count?) Especially after Barbara Walters' departure from "The View" last month, ABC News is going from having TV journalism's two most celebrated women in prominent daily posts to looking like every other white-guy network. (Sawyer and Walters, who is 84, have both said they'll continue to do prime-time interview specials, but it's hard not to see their respective resignations from their day jobs as anything but easing gently into retirement.) It's hard to see how having Muir or Stephanopoulos at the desk will help ABC differentiate its newscast from those of Scott Pelley at CBS or Brian Williams at NBC.



The paradox is that ABC seems to want to make its nightly news more closely resemble golden goose "GMA," and yet a big part of that morning show's success is its appeal to women, who are the primary audience for daytime TV and (to hear the sponsors tell it) for TV in general. How is losing its most recognizable women going to help ABC News recapture the evening like it did the morning?









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'TGIF' Shows: A Definitive Ranking (PHOTOS)

Do you remember the days when Friday night was all about ABC's delightful block of family-oriented programming? Perhaps you rushed to your couch after dinner or piled in front of a set at a slumber party throughout the '90s, all so you could catch your favorite sitcoms play out from 8-10 PM as the weekend settled in. The phenomenon was its own decade-long version of tween-skewing must-see TV.



One of its breakout sitcoms was "Boy Meets World," which is being revived through the Disney Channel fifteen years after its finale through a spinoff appropriately titled, "Girl Meets World." The show premieres on TV screens Friday, June 27th (it's been streaming online since earlier this month) but has been making headlines ever since the concept was announced. The new effort surely hopes to tap into the nostalgia of now 30-somethings and capture a new generation of youngins looking for friendly, coming-of-age programming to get hooked on.



As we prepare for this beloved series' fresh iteration, we thought we would take a look back on the shows that brought the joy of watching awkward first kisses, wacky neighbors, "very special episodes," and plenty of memorable life lessons being learned.



Here is our definitive ranking of the TGIF shows, from the worst to the very best.







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Amy Adams Gives Her First Class Seat to a Serviceman, Wins Our Hearts

Flying is a total pain in the keister these days, but little gestures go a long way. Amy Adams went above and beyond on a flight from Detroit to Los Angeles on Friday by giving up her fancy first-class seat to an American serviceman. ESPN's "Numbers Never Lie" Jemele Hill spotted the Oscar nominee (and former Army brat) leaving her seat before the flight took off.

Just saw actress Amy Adams do something incredibly classy. She gave her 1st class seat to an American soldier. I'm an even bigger fan now.

- Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) June 27, 2014

"I think she must have said something to the flight attendant, because before we took off she had vacated her seat and the flight attendant brought the soldier to her seat," Hill told TODAY.com. Little did Hill know that her tweet would make the news around the country in so little time. News travels fast -- especially when you're not using in-flight WiFi.



It seems likely that Adams was in Detroit to film "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice," which is currently in production in the area. The movie will be out in 2016.



Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images







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The 'Fantastic Four' Reboot Will Probably Have a 'Found Footage Feel'

While we all know that Josh Trank, director of the giant new "Fantastic Four" movie for Fox, got his start on the relatively smallish found footage thriller "Chronicle," there was still something of an expectation that the new film would have scope and resemble a real-life movie, at least as we traditionally understand them. But not so fast.



In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter (via Film Drunk), Emma Watts, the president of production at Fox, was asked if the "Fantastic Four" reboot, featuring young whippersnappers like Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell (from AMC's sensation "Turn"), would feature the same found footage feel that characterize "Chronicle," Watts responded that, yes, that would be a part of it.



"It's Josh, so it can't not have that feel," Watts said. "That's his talent, that's what he does, and that's what excites him about it. It is a really interesting young cast, and he is the magnet that's brought them all together."



To which we have to let out an exasperated groan. This is not the kind of property that will benefit from a cheapo shaky cam aesthetic, and it also calls into question Trank's talents in general. Does this mean that his "Star Wars" movie is going to be more "Troopers" (the early, fan-made "Star Wars" spoof that took on the look of "Cops") than "The Empire Strikes Back?" We certainly hope not.



There is, of course, the outside possibility that Watts was simply mistaken and misspoke. Maybe she just means that Trank is adopting some of the more roughhewn style for the multiplex-worthy "Fantastic Four." Or maybe not. Either way, we'll get our answers closer to the movie's March 6^th, 2015 release date.







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