After I made a big case for the virtues of Boardwalk Empire‘s languid pace and subtle payoffs, this week nearly had me snoozing.  Plenty was set up, though —  “Bone For Tuna” was all about Nucky’s alienation, the stage for which was set with the opening dream sequence that melded together his feelings for Billie and his feelings about Jimmy.  Gillian artfully tells a tale out of school to Gyp Rosetti regarding Nucky’s alienation (what kind of revenge might she have planned for him?), that “his own brother wanted him killed.”  Rosetti replies with a comment about what a person has left once they no longer have their flesh and blood.  “Nothing,” Gillian replies knowingly. “You have nothing.”  For more on Nucky’s fall from grace, hit the jump.

The Fall 2012 TV season began in earnest this week, with most shows having their series/season premieres.  Here’s a brief glance at the highlights:

• CBS’ Sherlock Holmes update Elementary debuted strong with a 3.1 rating in the 18-49 demo for 13.41 million viewers.
• Also at CBS, The Big Bang Theory scored its highest rated season premiere ever with a 5.0 rating and a solid 15.66 million viewers.
• Things weren’t all rosy at The Eye, however, as Hawaii Five-0 was way down with a 1.8 rating.  That’s a significant drop from last year’s season premiere rating of 3.4 in the coveted 18-49 demo.
• NBC’s J.J. Abrams-produced drama Revolution saw an unsurprising drop in viewers from last week’s season premiere, though the 3.4 rating with 9.21 million viewers shows a healthy hold from last week’s 4.1 rating.
• Unfortunately, ABC’s excellent pilot for Last Resort debuted to a slightly disappointing 2.2 rating with 9.31 million viewers.

Hit the jump for the TV ratings for the week of September 23 – 29, including New Girl, Parks and Recreation, Grimm, Fringe, South Park, Sons of Anarchy, Castle, and much more.

For reasons unknown there seems to be a difficult balance between a show that’s too slow versus the kind that roars by so fast that the myriad plot points are lost as we try to lay catch up while collecting our jaws off of the floor. In the first camp you have series like Mad Men, Treme and Boardwalk Empire, which all take a great deal of time in character study, something that can make viewers impatient, especially if there are ambivalent feelings about the characters in question.

When someone asks a Mad Men fan what the show is about, there’s usually silence. What is it about? What even happens? Compared to Breaking Bad or Sons of Anarchy, nothing really happens … yet so much happens in ways that are difficult to describe. I once heard Mad Men described simply as a postcard from the 1960s, which seems accurate but too simple. Similarly, Boardwalk is about Prohibition and bootlegging in Atlantic City, sure, but it’s about so much more than that. While Nucky’s story is always tied into that theme, many of the side-narratives are not. Some of them are successful in keeping us interested and, occasionally, some are not. But “slow” doesn’t have to mean boring. For more on that and why you should never trust a man you can buy off in five minutes of meeting him, hit the jump.

At long last, Collider is finally starting up a weekly TV ratings feature.  Each week we’ll be posting a rundown of how your favorite shows are doing on both cable and network television.  Things are a bit light this week since the Fall 2012 TV season is still getting started, but here’s a brief look at the highlights:

• The new J.J. Abrams-produced genre series Revolution launched to 11.7 million viewers, making it the highest rated network drama debut since ABC’s V back in 2009.
• HBO’s Boardwalk Empire started its third season with 2.9 million viewers, on par with the season two premiere.
• Glee co-creator Ryan Murphy’s new sitcom The New Normal was down 12% from last week with 6.2 million viewers.
• The Office kicked off its final season with its least watched series premiere in the show’s history with 4.28 million viewers.

Hit the jump to check out the ratings for the week of September 16 – 21st, and be sure to leave your feedback in the comments concerning our latest feature.

It doesn’t feel like a year since we last visited Atlantic City, but then again, that could just be because Season Two’s shocking finale left some viewers — myself definitely included — in deep and almost unforgiving mourning.  But now it’s 1923, and with that new year comes the chance at a fresh start for Nucky (Steve Buscemi), his cronies, and us.  Boardwalk Empire is a complicated show, both emotionally and when it comes to keeping up to date on who is double-crossing who, why, and how, and Season Three doesn’t take a breath before throwing us right back into the series’ world. As the promos have teased us, “you can’t be half a gangster,” and Nucky seems to be taking the advice of another morally gray character, Mike Ehrmantraut from AMC’s Breaking Bad, who preaches “no half measures.”  For more on that and why Carrie Duncan should spread her legs and leave the spreading her wings to her husband, hit the jump.

This month, New York City’s Bottleneck Gallery will debut their latest show, a celebration of premium cable featuring brand-new artwork from some of Limited Paper’s favorite artists:  guys like Mark Englert, New Flesh, Godmachine, and Todd Slater all have new pieces dropping at the show’s opening, and we’re pretty impatient to see what the full lineup looks like.  Luckily for us, Bottleneck Gallery has agreed to share a few images from the show with us…and they’ve also given us the go-ahead to tell you about a few of the surprises that await those who hit More Than You Imagined when it opens September 7^th.

Wanna know more?  Of course you do.  Meet me after the jump, my fellow limited paper enthusiasts.

Along with True Blood and Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire stands as HBO’s current marquee series, which means they pull out all the stops when it comes to their Blu-ray releases. With the third season fast approaching, the beautiful second season set hits shelves to help the uninitiated catch up. There’s no better way to enjoy what has become one of the best shows currently on television. Hit the jump for the full review.

A new trailer for the upcoming third season of HBO’s drama series Boardwalk Empire has been released.  I’ve only ever seen the first season of the show, but I’m aware of how last season ended and it looks like things will be decidedly dark when the show returns.  The trailer also teases the new character played by Bobby Cannavale, but it’s sadly light on Michael Shannon.

Hit the jump to watch the trailer.  The third season of Boardwalk Empire premieres on HBO Sunday, September 16th at 9pm.

This week on Blu-ray, a couple of this summer’s theatrical releases are already hitting home video, and the most recent seasons of a few well-loved television series get the Blu-ray treatment in anticipation of the upcoming fall TV premieres.  Briefly:

• Battleship (Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet)
• Darling Companion
• The Lucky One (Movie only+UltraViolet)
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Three-Disc Combo: Blu-ray 3D / Blu-ray / DVD)
• Starship Troopers: Invasion
• Think Like a Man (+ UltraViolet Digital Copy)
• Boardwalk Empire: The Complete Second Season (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy)
• Homeland: The Complete First Season
• Sons of Anarchy: Season Four
  
• The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season (Limited Edition)

Hit the jump for more details.

The 2012 Emmy nominations are here, and there are plenty of predictable results, a few pleasant surprises, and a slew of snubs (I hear you, Parks and Rec and Community fans, I hear you!).  I mentioned in my piece on underrated series and performances this year that there were plenty of shoo-ins from shows I shouldn’t even bother mentioning, most especially Justified and the aforementioned comedies.  Apparently I was dead wrong.  But there were a few nice additions, including Michelle Dockery for Downton Abbey(what’s with all of the Downton noms this year?  It had a lackluster second season aside from Dockery) as well as Christine Baranski for The Good Wife and Mark Margolis for Breaking Bad (ding ding ding!).  For the list of nominees, hit the jump.

HBO has set the dates for two of its acclaimed returning series this fall, both of which will be starting in with their third seasons - Boardwalk Empire (starring Steve Buscemi), which will air Sunday, September 16, and Treme, which will start Sunday, September 23.  Treme, which will return for 10 episodes, usually premieres in the spring, but HBO chose to start Game of Thrones earlier than last year, and pair it with two new half-hour series, Girls and Veep rather than the New Orleans-based drama.  Still, the wait for fall may benefit the series, which will now be running after perhaps a more appropriate intro in Boardwalk Empire.

Treme will also be adding two new characters in its third season – Sam Robards (The West Wing) will portray a restaurant investor (hopefully for Janette!), and Chris Coy (True Blood) will be on board as a character based on reporter A.C. Thompson.  Hit the jump for more on Treme’s upcoming season, along with some scoop on the season premiere of Boardwalk (spoiler alert for the latter, though with ample warnings).

You’re driving down the street, and it’s suddenly blocked off.  You notice these weird yellow signs with nonsensical letters or numbers.  There’s unusual glow lighting up a neighborhood you can’t usually see from your house.  What you might have here is a film company shooting in your town.  It happens a lot, and you never know where they might pop up…until now.

The following is a semi-comprehensive list of films currently shooting, what they’re shooting, and where they’re shooting.  We’ll be telling you where you might get to see the very famous, the kinda famous and (if all goes well) the soon-to-be famous. While we can’t list every single movie, television show, or student film in production, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what the heck is going on where all those people are buzzing about.  Want to know where in the world are Matt Damon, Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Woody Harrelson, and Leonardo DiCaprio? Hit the jump for more.

The other night, The Academy of Television and Science hosted an exclusive panel with the cast and creator of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. Boardwalk recounts the rise of the duplicitous Nucky Thompson torn between the political upheaval and criminal birth of the Prohibition.  His rise is cast against the downfall of his surrogate son, Jimmy Darmondy, a War Veteran scarred by his time over there.  It is the tense interplay between the two characters that gave Boardwalk Empire much of its dramatic heft during its first two remarkable seasons – which is probably what made Season Two’s conclusion so… surprising.

During the panel, Steve Buscemi and Michael Pitt discussed the controversial finale, costar Michael Shannon lamented always playing “the crazy person”, and creator Terence Winter previewed Season Three, among many other topics of conversation.  For highlights from the panel (which also included costars Kelly Macdonald, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Kenneth Williams, Vincent Piazza and Gretchen Mol) hit the jump.

With the second season premiere of Game of Thrones (read my review here) putting all eyes on HBO, the network has been busy promoting all their forthcoming shows with new teasers for True Blood and the Aaron Sorkin-scripted drama The Newsroom showing up. Now we have another quick tease for the third season of Boardwalk Empire. There’s no footage from the new season, but an intimidating voiceover from Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson which promises some big changes this fall. Watch the teaser trailer after the jump!

We’ve got a couple more TV casting stories to share with you today. First up, casting for David E. Kelley’s (The Practice) new medical pilot Chelsea General is moving quickly. Just yesterday Alfred Molina signed on to star in the series which centers on “the lives of five surgeons as they push the limits of their abilities and confront their personal and professional failings,” and now Ving Rhames has been added to the cast. Deadline reports that Rhames will play “a physically imposing former professional football player who now is the most celebrated trauma chief in the country.”

Additionally, Stephen Root has signed on for the impending third season of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire. The Live Feed reports that Root is set for a recurring role as “a forger, swindler, and murder suspect who became a Special Investigator for the US Department of Justice.” No word on whether or not his character has the potential to become a regular. Hit the jump for news concerning two recurring characters being promoted to series regulars on Showtime’s Homeland.