Welcome to the Saturday edition of Channel Guide in which Merrill Barr takes a look at an episode from that past week in the world of television that really stood out above the rest. If there isn’t a good episode, well there’s always plenty of back logged TV to be brought into the spotlight for you to check out. There are very few television shows that actually improve over time. Usually nothing ever comes close to matching the magical discovery of who a show’s characters are, and how they interact than what takes place in that first season. The season where everyone is fresh faced and bright eyed before their lives take a one eighty with either tragedy, comedy, action or all of the above. One could probably count on two hands the shows that really surpassed their first season. Well now we can add another show to that list: Parenthood. And there is no greater proof of that than in the season 2 finale “Hard Times Come Again No More.”

A straightforward romantic comedy about bringing a know-it-all author to his knee’s, director John Hindman’s first film is surprisingly charming and incredibly well-written. As if we should have expected any less…

In addition to the announcement of the competition film slate for 2009, the Sundance Film Festival also provided us with a bunch of images from some of the films that will be featured. We begin our preview with some higher profile pics.

I wouldn’t say that the new film Flash of Genius is terrible. It’s actually not that bad. However, it could have been so much better.