Earlier this year, in a move that had both the fans and the cast of Criminal Minds up in arms, a bombshell was dropped: AJ Cook would no longer play Jennifer “JJ” Jareau in season six. On top of that, Paget Brewster, who plays Emily Prentiss, would have less screen time. With that move, Criminal Minds would effectively lose one female role and cut down a second by half — out of three women. None of the four male leads would change.

In a show that, despite being incredibly procedural, has a great cast and great characters that made the fans care enough to tune in week after week, this was unacceptable. Both AJ Cook and Paget Brewster expressed their disapproval of AJ being let go and Paget’s reduced screentime on their twitter accounts, making the fans at least feel like we weren’t alone.

Tonight, in their second episode of season six, Criminal Minds aired AJ Cook’s final episode, appropriately titled “JJ.”

From the get go, the episode started off on a wrong note, with the defense department wanting JJ to work for them. She’d previously turned the promotion down, happy where she was and with her job. In the end, the decision came from on high, with Hotch stating they liked to pull moves like this, as it “makes them feel like they’re in control.”

If there was any consolation in this episode, it was that it was obvious nobody involved wanted this. Not the writers, and not the cast. JJ’s final farewell was incredibly self aware, but incredibly respectful of AJ Cook and the role she’s had on the show for the past five years.

It’s not enough to make up for the fact that the show will be one and a half women short this season, but it softened the blow. I still cried my eyes out for the last ten minutes, though.

Thank you for five wonderful years and one of my favorite female characters on television, AJ Cook.

I kind of have a problem when it comes to my cell phones. Over time, I make and collect such a huge amount of ringtones that I can never settle on a single one for any long period of time. The longest I’ve ever had a ringtone has been for the last month. The song? The 90’s X-Men animated series theme. Everyone knows it, everyone loves it, and I find it hard to change.

I’ve also collected a few different text message/email alerts, ranging from video games to TV show sound bites. I’ve uploaded my favorites of all, the ones I use more often than the others. These are in no way a comprehensive Best of the Best Geeky Ringtones; they just happened to be my favorite geeky ringtones.

Battlestar Galactica

Cylon Eye

Inception

Edith Piaf, “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien”

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Charlie: “Wild card, bitches! Yeeee-haw!“

Dennis and Charlie singing “Day Man”

Theme Song

Mass Effect 2

Male: “I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store in the Citadel.”

Female: “I’m Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite store in the Citadel.”

Monty Python

Lumberjack Song (‘high heels, suspenders and a bra’ verse)

Sassy Gay Friend (link)

“What are you doing? What, what, what are you doing?”

Star Trek TOS

“Live long and prosper.”

Star Wars

Imperial March

Wookie yell

True Blood

Pam: “Blah blah, vampire emergency, blah.”

Enjoy, and check out some more ringtones from our friends over at All Things Fangirl! If you want to add these to your phone, Myxer is your best bet. (I just add the mp3s to my Blackberry by USB and set them as ringtones, though.)

Last night, I emailed Xbox Support with a question about my account – namely, how to downgrade from Xbox LIVE Gold to Silver because I’m poor, but is that labeled clearly anywhere? No, of course not. Why give people the option to stop giving you money? I see what you did there, Xbox.

When I checked my email today, I got an obvious form letter personalized by someone called Joyce. (The name is important, because it makes the following even worse.) The form letter didn’t bug me. Their roundabout answer with a simple link to billing online didn’t bother me (even though I wanted my credit card completely out of their system). Oh, no. This is what bothered me:

Hello Chantaal,

Thank you for using XBOX Customer Support online! I am Joyce and I will be helping you today with this issue.

As I understand, when your son tries to sign in to Xbox LIVE, [redacted]

I know how disappointing it is when your son cannot enjoy the Xbox Live service due to this matter.

Really, Xbox? REALLY?

For the record, I said nothing about having a son (because I don’t) or about this being a boyfriend’s account (cause he has his own). I simply put in a request about my account, and I get a form letter assuming I’m doing this for my son. When I mentioned this on twitter, I got a friend saying she’d gotten the exact same assumption in her responses. I know why Xbox would make the assumption, but I can’t imagine why they’d go ahead and say it so blatantly in their response when no indicators were given. It’s horrible PR.

I would love to cancel my account outright, but I kind of like not losing all my achievement points. No more money for you, Xbox LIVE.

EW.com’s Ausiello had the answer today.

According to Ausiello, Shonda Rhimes has at long last agreed to release Heigl from her contract. While speculation was that Heigl would appear in the current season’s final five episodes, this seems to be no longer true. Expected back on set on March 1st to begin filming said episodes, Heigl has yet to return to the studio to film anything.

In fact, it seems entirely probable that Izzie’s final appearance on the show has already aired.

Let’s review that closer then: after Alex realizes he deserves better than Izzie’s flouncing off in a childish temper tantrum the likes of which we haven’t seen from her since she got upset Callie was stealing her toys, Izzie tells Meredith that she’s leaving. Without explaining that Alex has asked her to, she informs Meredith that there is nothing left for her in Seattle — that, in short, Meredith and the others are no longer her family.

And that’s fair in some respects. George is dead and, let’s be honest, George was always Izzie’s anchor. Without Alex to hold onto, Izzie’s left with Meredith and Cristina, and Cristina has never been Izzie’s biggest fan. Meredith might always have been closest to Cristina, but she and Izzie haven’t been without their share of moments, from Izzie’s hate-filled chocolate cake and epiphany of Meredith’s love for Derek all the way back in season one to Meredith holding her hand and telling her she’s not alone after Denny’s death at the start of season three, all the way up to Meredith giving Izzie her wedding.

They’re family. Izzie might have been in a bad mood that day, dropped (however deservedly) by her husband like so much dead weight, but surely Meredith deserved better than that, especially given that, after all these years, Izzie knows full well about Meredith’s issues and how that must have hit home for a woman who has been abandoned again and again. The family Meredith built is falling apart.

It seems unlike Izzie not to come back eventually and end things on better terms before an eventual departure. While characters will and must grow and change over time, she’s seemed largely unlike herself for much of this season, with a few small exceptions. Whether that can be chalked up to her long-term absence from the show or the effect George’s death and her illness have had on her is up to you as a viewer. Either way, whatever you attribute the change to, whether you’re eager to see her gone or not, this exit lacks closure.

But then, given that we’ve spent this last season as strung along as Alex, watching Izzie reappear every time we start to get over her (or, as the case may be, forget she exists) again, I guess a lack of closure is Shonda Rhimes’ specialty.

Glad to see Izzie go or already missing Heigl? Is it the end of an era or just a case of good riddance? Tell me what you’re thinking.

Our friends over at All Things Fangirl put together the first ever Fangirl Awards, and a few of us here at PCR were part of the fangirl academy. There are all sorts of awards, ranging from the ever popular Best Actor and Best Picture awards to fun stuff like Best Fan Outreach and Epic Fail.

You can view the Minor Awards here and the Major Awards here. Have fun!

His madness was divinest sense to a discerning eye.

“In such a short career, Alexander McQueen’s influence was astonishing — from street style, to music culture and the world’s museums. His passing marks an insurmountable loss.”

His shocking designs were known for their brilliant, vivid colors and bold cuts. He was equally as famous for his runway shows, which were often more performance pieces than your standard catwalk affair, and he brought a fearlessness to the scene which London fashion desperately needed. Love them or hate them, there is no doubt that McQueen’s work had an impossible to ignore effect on the fashion industry. Known to some as l’enfant terrible of fashion, the vibrancy of his pieces and his relentless push toward the cutting edge and beyond was tinged with a rich romanticism that made it easy to see why his work was favored by the celebrities who sought him out. The best known of these is perhaps Lady Gaga, who debuted her single “Bad Romance” at his Spring 2010 show in New York last fall.

Lately, he was only growing more famous, his career a seemingly constant ascent to brighter and greater things. His presence will be missed and his contributions to fashion never forgotten.

See McQueen’s work in action:

It's like Rome and 300 had an illegitemate child.

I enjoyed the hell out of it anyway.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand is the Starz movie network’s newest venture in television, and it’s every bit as ridiculous as you’d imagine. It’s as if the network took everything they liked about 300 and HBO’s Rome (we’re not even going to mention Gladiator, they don’t occupy the same solar system), stirred it up in a pot, added a little to much BAM! and ended up with this. The CGI is laughable so the gore has little impact, nudity is rampant, the sex plentiful, and the plot…well, let’s just say if you’ve watched any movie or television in the past, you can see the twists coming a mile away.

There’s something about it, though. The part of me that loves 300 and revels in the drama Grey’s Anatomy provides was completely engrossed in it, even though I did spend half the time laughing. It’s a good time waster, popcorn television to take your mind off life when you need it.

Lucy Lawless and John Hannah are always a joy to watch, bringing an extra spark to their roles. They can do better, but any mediocre performance from the pair is better than the rest of the entire cast, so they get a pass. Even when they have bizarre sex scenes that involve them watching each other be pleasured by slaves as they talk about the wealth and power they think will rightfully fall into their laps.

Alan Whitfield gets the titular role, seemingly playing to the best of his abilities with a script so spare and obvious. There’s nothing surprising about this, not from his start as a Wild Thracian, losing his wife to the Evil Roman Commander (played by Craig Parker) and, finally, defeating four men at his own execution and winning the crowd’s approval, thus sealing his fate when John Hannah buys him as part of his new batch of gladiators.

Seriously, there’s nothing new about this.

Then there’s the rampant nudity and sex — yeah, I get that people went around naked like it aint no thang back then, but I really did not need to see a row of gladiator penises in a dimly lit room, nor did I need to see a bunch of naked slave women making out at a party. Come on, Starz. There’s a better way to appear edgy.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand is comparable to a teenager trying to seem grown up: obsessed with sex and violence and screaming for attention, with none of the substance or depth. Hopefully, like all kids, that will change as the show goes on — and it will realize it needs to stop trying to live up to 300 and Rome.

Watch the trailer:

Spartacus: Blood and Sand airs Fridays at 10pm EST on Starz.

I’ll admit, I had my doubts about this production, the first stage show Keira Knightley’s ever done. Would she be as wispy and ineffectual as reviews claimed? In her role as a twenty-two year old American starlet, was it merely a case of art imitating life? And how would her American accent stand up? In a show about a playwright (Alceste, played by Damian Lewis) whose hatred for the hypocrisy of social convention and celebrity culture, who falls in love with a shallow, backstabbing Hollywood beauty, it seemed as if the show’s producers might well be cashing in on the very love of celebrity the play disdains by casting Knightley as Jennifer.

Apparently I had forgotten that she can also act like nobody’s business. The script, written largely in uneven verse, so often calls attention to its own clunky rhyme scheme that it is often only Knightley’s and Lewis’s inflection which saves it from itself. Meanwhile, Knightley’s facial expressions and passion save Jennifer from being a skin-deep parody of Knightley’s own success. She becomes, before your eyes, a young and vulnerable girl who, at the end, is left suddenly, deeply aware of just how much she’s staked on a losing bet — not because of Crimp’s writing, but because of the stark and silent pain on her face.

Lewis, meanwhile, carries entirely the opening scene, a long and winding back and forth between Alceste and his friend John which lays out Alceste’s moral and philosophical stand. It could easily have been incredibly dull, but such is Lewis’ charisma that he not only kept it interesting, but kept this viewer, at least, both delighted and enthralled.

Much of the rest of the cast, unfortunately, is entirely forgettable. Tara Fitzgerald, playing Jennifer’s erstwhile drama teacher, Marcia, is more shrill even than Knightley’s New York film star, and while there are times this works in her favor, at other times it’s grating to the point of being boring. It’s difficult to know how or even why any of these people know each other and notably absent is any explanation of how a second-rate playwright like Alceste ever met someone like Jennifer to begin with.

Alceste himself, with his continued insistence that Jennifer forsake the world she knows and the career she’s worked for in favor of a man who’s only proven himself jealous and abusive, is frequently unsympathetic. While he might blame this on his predilection on truth telling, it seems clear that Alceste is willing to be honest with everyone but himself. In the end, The Misanthrope is a show in which everyone is wrong, even the title character this script supports. The decision to move the action from the original to the present day is interesting and effective, true to Molière’s belief that comedy should reflect the contemporary, but the use of verse is trite and often feels forced. Despite the absorbing philosophical debate it presents, with less gifted leads, this show would have been better worth missing.

A return to Disney's former glory days?

I’m a child of the 90’s. I was a Disney kid. Sure, I remember the day that my mother gave us the ultimatium: you can keep The Disney Channel or the Sega Channel and we chose the snazzier, more interactive option, but regardless, I was at just the right age during the era fondly known by some as “The Disney Renaissance.” I remember singing “Hakuna Matata” on the way home from the movie theater after “The Lion King” and I couldn’t tell you how many times I rewound my VHS tape of “The Little Mermaid” so that I could memorize the words to “Under The Sea.”

But as much as I loved those films, and as colorblind as I was to them when I was a child, I can still remember my mother express her disappointment upon seeing trailers for “Aladdin.” The film featured some of the first Disney characters with darker skin, and they weren’t what she considered ‘black’. Of course, “Aladdin” was (and still is) an amazing movie, and I still respect the film for what it is, but as a child, Disney had yet to get around to creating a Disney Princess who looked like me.

And then Disney stopped making traditionally animated movies altogether. When Dreamworks started churning out Shrek movies and Pixar enjoyed year after year of both critical and box office successes, Disney’s contribution to the market were films like “Chicken Little” and “Meet the Robinsons”. While they were still decent kid movies, for me, the name Disney no longer brought to mind yearly mini-musicals, chock full of as much thinly veiled adult humor as kid-friendly sight gags.

That is, until about a year and a half ago, when I caught wind of “The Princess and the Frog.” With Disney now under the creative control of Pixar’s John Lasseter, and the news that the movie would be helmed by Ron Clements and John Musker, the team responsible for “Aladdin”, I was looking forward to the movie before I even knew the cast, the plot, or that Randy Newman would be creating the music. Even as the inevitable racial controversies emerged over the title of the film (then, “The Frog Princess”), the heroine’s name (then, ‘Maddy’) and station (then, chambermaid), and the fact that a ‘black princess’ had coincidentally emerged just as America embraced their first black President (though some people forget that animated movies take far more than year to make it from conception, to script to actual theatrical release…) I had faith that Disney had the right pieces in place to become the creator of quality and classic animated film that I remembered so fondly from my childhood.

“The Princess and the Frog” is, at heart, a story about need versus want. The heroine, Tiana, is a strong-willed girl with a dream of owning her own restaurant, taught early on about the value of hard work. In sharp contrast, Prince Naveen of Maldonia, who is new to New Orleans, is free-spirited and used to having everything handed to him in life. Recently cut off by his parents (who are foreign royalty of course), he is tricked by the slick and mysterious Shadow Man with the promise of easy wealth and a future life of leisure. Tiana needs to learn the value of family and friends, Naveen needs to learn the value of true love. When Naveen’s futile attempt at reversing his curse ends with Tiana turning into a frog herself, the two are forced to work together to find a way to become human again. Along the way, they’re joined by Louis, an alligator with a talent for jazz trumpet and Ray, a love-sick firefly.

Louis and Ray are no Timon and Pumbaa, and Tiana and Naveen definitely aren’t Aladdin and Jasmine, but “The Princess and the Frog” has ensemble of characters with a unique chemistry of their own, both funny and touching in the Disney tradition. For people like me, who grew up on these kinds of films, their compelling characters and catchy tunes, they’re all a welcome return to the style of the “Disney Renaissance.”

I’ll admit, the first half of the film had a bit of a hard time hooking me, apart from Keith David’s number as The Shadow Man, “Friends on the Other Side”. It brought to mind the likes of Ursula and Jafar, and if I hadn’t already spent the week prior listening to it on repeat on my ipod, I’d be hunting down the soundtrack just for it right now. But by the time the The Shadow Man’s true motivations were revealed and Tiana and Naveen began to set aside their differences (as always happens in these sorts of films) I was completely sucked in. This was the film I imagined when I first heard about Disney’s return to traditional animation, and I was both relieved and delighted to find that I two years of anticipation over the film weren’t in vain, but completely and totally justified.

Prince Naveen gets more than he bargains for from the Shadow Man.

Yes, the film is still going to undergo scrutiny (even today, I heard complaints from my aunt about the fact that Tiana is from New Orleans and has a southern accent), and I’m already awaiting the backlash when it comes to the film’s ‘voodoo’ elements, but there’s nothing worse than what I remember from the likes of “The Little Mermaid.” If I recall, Ursula was her own brand of witch, and her garden of poor, unfortunate souls was just as creepy as The Shadow Man’s “friends on the other side.” Perhaps it’s hard for people to make comparisons to Disney films over ten years ago, when I don’t think American society was searching through children’s films with such a fine-toothed comb, but I, for one, am willing to take the movie for what it is. Regardless of how Disney presented the first black princess, there were always going to be those who found issue with Tiana. Because she’d rather follow her dreams than find true love, she’s “sassy”, but if she were chasing after princes like her best friend Charlotte (coincidentally one of my favorite parts of the film), she’d be “shallow” and then there’d be some kind of uproar over her needing a “white man” to help elevate her. (Though, it should be noted that Naveen is not technically “black” or “white”; his name is traditionally Indian and his accent sounded more French to my ears than anything else.) The film, while side-stepping most racial issues, does manage to at least allude to the difficulties that would arise from a poor girl from the south opening her own business, but there’s nothing at all heavy-handed about it.

I realize I’ve gotten a bit long-winded here, so I’ll just be brief. “The Princess and the Frog” is never going to replace classics like “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King”, and while I did feel like the first bit of the movie (aside from the opening sequence) dragged a bit, I absolutely loved it. Maybe it was the fact that the theater I saw it in was populated mostly by young black girls who I know will all be asking for Tiana dolls for Christmas, or maybe it’s because I never got to see this movie when I was in the target age group, but I’m not ashamed to say that I teared up a few times. Go see this movie. Then see it again. This is the Disney magic I remember.

X-Factor’s next issue is being renumbered to 200 (counting this and the previous two volumes) and there is some great art coming out for it. The variant covers are great, and this amazing team spread will be the main cover:

X-Factor 200

I love the team redesign. I love that after 10 issues apart they’re finally back together in New York again. I love that they all look badass, I love the new costumes, I love that they match, I love it all. What I don’t love is Siryn’s redesign.

The previous issue (#50 before the renumbering) used this spread as a teaser for issue 200, and I loved it then. Nix and I spent at least half an hour talking about how much we love it. I loved it so much I had to take a picture of it on my webcam so I could shove it in my friends faces and tell them how much I loved it:

Notice anything different?

Of all the things to edit, why did Siryn have to lose half her shirt? Monet’s got enough sex appeal to cover all three women, and it’s in character for her to show that much skin. Considering what she’s just been through in the past month or so of comic book time (from having her baby, losing her baby and finally facing Jamie, even though he was a dupe), it’s almost inappropriate for Siryn to bare  so much. Not that I’m saying a woman can’t show whatever she wants if she’s comfortable, but historically, Siryn’s shown just cleavage. She had a bare midriff for a very short time in X-Force, but that costume was lost to the ether when she lost her powers and left the book.

So, what gives? Layla gets to keep her body covered (though she used to be 15, so that’s probably for the best), but to counteract all the testosterone in X-Factor they have to give Siryn less? Was the cleavage in her original X-Factor costume not enough? Should I stop asking questions, because I’m just another woman complaining about the way women are dressed in comics?

(That’d be a no.)

I think what bothers me most is that the Marvel higher ups obviously vetoed the original design and asked them to edit Siryn’s new uniform. Which is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard off, because she is a pure (and sexy) badass in the redesign without showing  any skin.

Oh, and let’s not forget: she flies. So not only is she dressed in half a shirt, but she’ll freeze when she’s in the air. Great thinking there, Marvel.

It’s not too much to want my favorite character be treated properly, is it?