Posts Tagged ‘ TV-Archived ’

There’s plenty of things to do with little ones in Manhattan – like, I don’t know, parks, museums, boat rides, subways, etc etc etc – but I do have soft spot for the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. Not only is it a full five floors of activities that keep small minds occupied but, much more importantly, it’s very well air-conditioned.

And so it was that at the height of summer I found myself there on a hot weekend with the Better Half and Jack. As the Better Half went to check the stroller, I headed downstairs to the restroom to change Jack’s diaper. When I returned to the entrance level, Better Half was nowhere to be seen. Rather than put Jack – who was a bit put out and doing that thrashing-around-from-the-waist thing that only toddlers can really do when you’re holding them – down, I stood outside the big room on the first floor, which was full of screaming kids and harried parents, dialed her and propped the phone under my ear.

So picture this if you will: a thrashing, screaming child; a sweaty, harassed me holding said child, a fetching feminine changing bag and my wife’s handbag. And standing next to me, looking at me pityingly, was Laurence Fishburne.

There was a moment, just a moment, where I thought of saying hello. Then Better Half’s phone started ringing inside her handbag that I was holding, Jack started thrashing some more, and a big bead of sweat dribbled down the back of my neck. He looked away. The moment passed, which is probably for the best since all that was running through my mind was how badly The Matrix had aged, how much I hadn’t liked him in CSI, and how incredibly bad he’s been in Predators – although he’ll always be Furious Styles to me.

Anyway, I caught up with Better Half upstairs (at the other restrooms, where she thought I’d taken Jack) and told her about my close-ish encounter. Her first reaction? “Does that mean Gina Torres is in here somewhere?”

Once a Browncoat, always a Browncoat.

EW has the first photo of Adrianne Palicki in costume as Wonder Woman from the new pilot.
(Now clickable in hires thanks to Bleeding Cool)

Now, I like Palicki, and I think she has the acting chops to pull this off – but I’m not too sold on the costume here. Maybe it’s one of those things where I have to see it in motion.

If you add a leather jacket it looks kind of familiar (well, with some extra pants detail)…

…and possibly just in time to be out of sync with the comics again.

That said, it could have been a lot worse…

Edit: Actually, you know, this costume is really growing on me.

Mid-season TV dramas are a mixed bag; for every good one there are half a dozen that you wonder how they made it to the screen at all. Luckily, Shawn Ryan’s The Chicago Code, which premiered last night on Fox is one of the good ones. In fact, it’s the best new show I’ve seen in a while.

Ryan’s had a good track record of morally ambiguous shows and characters. Vic Mackey and his Strike Team in The Shield; Hank and Britt in Terriers; hell, he even ran Tim Roth’s creepy lie guy in Lie to Me for a season. And, of course, he had Angel feed a bunch of lawyers to Darla and Drusilla because he just couldn’t seem to care.

The Chicago Code – so far at least – seems a little more cut and dried. Jennifer Beal’s crusading Superintendent Colvin is a straight down the line cop intent of rooting out corruption in the city. Since the corrupt Alderman Gibbons (Delroy Lindo) controls the department’s budget and refuses to fund her program for obvious reasons, she ropes in her former partner Detective Jarek Wysocki (Jason Clarke), sticks him with a brilliant young partner Evers (Matt Lauria), and sets him to work off the books. Just because every network show needs more than four main characters, Wysocki has a niece on the job, Vonda (Devin Kelley) who has the hots for her reckless partner, Joiner (Isaac Williams). Oh, and there’s an undercover agent in the Irish mob, too, played by Billy Lush, who’s trying to get close to Gibbons.

Every character’s motivations seem pretty much clear and its easy to see which ones are on the side of right – but it doesn’t matter; the stakes are high, as illustrated by the perfectly-timed gunning down of two major characters before the end of the episode. Lindo oozes more oilskin than John Shea, chewing up every scene he’s in with insincerity, while Beals is reliable as the steadfast straight arrow cop. Clarke has the more showy role as the honest but tough streetwise detective, but it’s Lauria’s performance as Evers that I was really impressed with; he was good in Friday Night Lights, but he’s really good here.

The show is off to a great start – and I’m looking forward to the next twelve episodes. You can catch up with the pilot on Hulu here.

Fringe is back in a timeslot which is definitely not death for it, honest, and Fox have released a music video recapping the season so far to a song called Echoes by a band called Klaxon. I think they released it a few weeks ago, but whatever.

The first Friday episode, oh-so-wittily entitled ‘Firefly’ airs tonight on Fox.

You have to give the Fringe team credit (and Fox too, if this is actually a real trailer) – they’re not about to shy away from people’s reactions to the show’s new Friday scheduling…

Via

Just because I could. And because I amuse myself sometimes…

According to MTV Splashpage (who link to a Variety story I can’t see because of the paywall), DC Entertainment and the CW are developing a Raven TV show.

Raven’s a Teen Titans staple and I suppose it makes sense from a certain perspective – the character was featured in the animated Teen Titans Go! show of a few years ago, and having a high school age protagonist with a lot of angst over her demon father certainly fits in with the kind of show that the CW tends to go for.

That said, I don’t believe that they could possibly have gone for a more boring character to adapt. She’s never had a storyline that wasn’t concerned with her demon father, is pretty much a cipher, and has never worked well as a solo character.

Personally, I think that if DC wants a female character to front a teen show, there are more interesting ones to use – such as Wonder Girl, Ravager, or even Bombshell. Now that I think of it, actually, I’d pay good money to see a Ravager show. But maybe that’s just me.

The project may not even come to fruition – much like The Graysons, which was announced a few years ago but never made it to air. Early days.

There…are no words.

Thanks to Citizen Tim for finding this!

Well, rediscovers in the sense that he’s shown them for a TV show, not in that he found them tucked away in the attic. Strangely wonderful:

Stephen J Cannell passed away today aged 69 after a battle against cancer.

You may not recognize the man, but chances are you know some of the shows he had a guiding hand in…

Cannell last appeared – well, I last saw him onscreen anyway – in the first season of Castle as Stephen J. Cannell, one of Castle’s poker buddies:

Rest in Peace, Mr Cannell

I’m confused.

In season nine of Smallville, Cat Grant showed up as Clark’s blind date and went on to become the host of Good Morning Metropolis played by Emillie Ullerup.

In this week’s episode, a second Cat Grant is showing up in Metropolis as the Daily Planet’s newest reporter replacing Lois, played by Keri Lynn Pratt.

Why bother have two different characters named the same, even if that name is from the comics? I know they hinted at that with Jimmy Olsen’s younger brother, but really, are there that many Cat Grant fans waiting for her to show up and stick around for a while?

Not playing Cat Grant in Smallville (although the way things are going, she’ll show up as Cat II’s mother or something):

And, just because I still really love this panel:

I’m a little (read: very) embarrassed by how much i like Stargate Universe, especially given I had no time for any previous incarnation of the franchise.

However, a top notch cast – led by a borderline crazy Robert Carlyle, who I’m just waiting to go all Begbie on someone – and a few things lifted from the Battlestar Galactica and Deep Space Nine (and, er, Voyager) playbooks have really made it good, strong sci-fi.

There are still some things that irritate me – Ming Na’s character and the communication stones, for example – but by and large, this is surprisingly strong.

I’m a little peeved it’s shifted to Tuesdays though – I kind of liked it on Fridays. Ah well.

…or it should be this anyway.

Made by Daniel Kanemoto and set to the eels’ “Fresh Blood”, these are simply awesome.

THE WALKING DEAD “Opening Titles” from Daniel Kanemoto on Vimeo.

AMC, use these!

I’m out and about today and unlikely (and, well, unable) to blog.

But Fringe was good, wasn’t it?

According to NYMag, NBC has picked up the JJ Abrams-produced pilot about two hitmen, played by former Lost sparring partners, Michael Emerson and Terry O’Quinn.

I seem to recall reading somewhere about the mooted show being about two retired hitmen living in suburbia taking the occasional assignment – which fits with the Odd Jobs working title the pilot had, but damned if I remember where.

In any case: the two best actors on Lost together again? Sign me up!

I’m not sold on The Event, NBC’s big fall offering. Not yet, anyway.

It’s not the cast, although I have some issues with a few of them. It’s not the pacing, although the first half of the pilot had me bored to tears at times – not a good sign. No, it’s the fact that for me at least, I don’t know what the show is about.

But I’ll get to that.

The Cast

Jason Ritter (Sean Walker) – despite his disconcerting tendency at times to look like he was grown in a petri dish as a genetic mix of his father (the late John Ritter) and James Marsden – is a likable lead, even if he maybe isn’t quite ready to bear the weight of the whole show on his shoulders. Never the less, he’s more Matthew Fox than Joseph Fiennes.

Sarah Roemer – Sean’s girlfriend Leila – is, again, likable. She seems competent enough, but we haven’t really seen too much of her beyond acting all lovey-dovey and looking good in a bikini. Time will tell if she can handle tougher scenes now that she’s been kidnapped.

Ian Anthony Dale, as Simon Lee, some kind of secret agent (or possibly secret service agent) (or possibly just agent, who knows), had only a couple of scenes. In one he was trying to stop…something from happening and was suitably grim faced as he did so – although he did veer dangerously close to smell-the-fart acting. In the other he was interviewing Laura Innes’s character and, let’s face it, that probably made him raise his game. It’ll be interesting to see if he can develop his character beyond Generic Tough Guy #1.

Gilmore Girls‘ Scott Patterson, as Leila’s father Michael was a surprising weak link for me. I’m not sure whether his character is supposed to be ill, or whether Patterson himself has had some surgery that went a bit awry, but he seemed pasty and ill at ease much of the time – even before things went tits-up at his home. After the death of his wife and kidnapping of both his daughters I can understand the character not being too happy so maybe I’m being uncharitable. Even so, I was a little disappointed by his turn here.

Taylor Cole handled the role of Vicky Roberts pretty much perfectly but brought nothing new to it. It’s obvious to anyone who’s seen a TV show before (or A Perfect Getaway) that you should never trust the overly-friendly strangers you meet on vacation. Ever. It’ll be interesting to see how Cole handles the other side of Vicky once her obviously duplicitous motives are revealed.

There’s not much to say about Bill Smitrovich and Zeljko Ivanek’s performances here. Both are seasoned pros, and both brought personas we’ve seen before to their characters of Vice President Raymond Jarvis and Director of National Intelligence Blake Sterling, respectively. They’re both pretty much background characters in the pilot with only a couple of key scenes but given their pedigree and experience, I expect them to move into the forefront relatively quickly – especially Ivanek, whose character is clearly central to whatever the hell is going on.

Speaking of background characters, Lisa Vidal had precious little to work with as First Lady Christina Martinez. Maybe if she gets more than a couple of lines she’ll be able to bring the character to life a bit.

Ah, Blair Underwood, forever in Jimmy Smits’ shadow for me. He followed in Smits’ shoes as the resident heartthrob in LA Law and now this. Every line he spoke as President Elias Martinez had me wishing that The Event’s creators had simply transported Smits and his West Wing character, President Matt Santos over from that show. Sorry, Blair – nothing about your performance here as the ethical President stood out for me.

Make no mistake: Laura Innes is The Event‘s secret weapon. The ER vet’s shadowy Sophia, leader of the prisoners at Mount Inostranka, is by far the most powerful presence in the cast, simply owning every scene with just a look. It helps that she has the most interesting character (and the one the mystery of the show would appear to revolve around) but there’s no denying that Innes has the potential to be the Terry O’Quinn of the show.

The Show

I drew a few comparisons to Lost above, and it’s not by mistake. NBC seems to want to capture that show’s audience, and pull in the people who miss 24 at the same time (even using the same font as 24 if I’m not mistaken). The problem is, the pilot of both those shows set up very clearly what the show was about – even if that changed as time went by in Lost‘s case.

Lost was about crash survivors banding together to survive on an island where there was clearly Some Weird Shit happening.

24 was about Jack Bauer, a government agent who had 24 hours to stop a huge terrorist strike in real time.

Nice, simple, easy. You know what you’re getting.

With The Event there’s no easy definition of the show.

It’s a love story between Sean and Leila.

No, it’s about how far a father will go for his daughter.

No, it’s about really bad CGI vacations.

No, it’s about a man whose identity seems to have been ‘disappeared’ along with his girlfriend.

No, it’s about a group of people (well, non-Americans and I’m assuming that they’re people) imprisoned by the US government for some shadowy reason, and the president who wants to set them free.

No, it’s about a conspiracy that want to stop the people being released.

No, it’s about a counter-conspiracy that wants to stop the people who want to stop the other people being released.

No, it’s about super powers and planes that vanish Langoliers-like and maybe about aliens and maybe about something else.

Oh, and it’s about an event, but we’re not going to find out if it’s an event that happened in the past that changed the 97 people who ended up imprisoned in Alaska, or the vanishing of the plane, or some future event, or maybe something that happened in the myriad of flashbacks.

Arrrrghhhhh…

There’s no easy one sentence definition of the show, and that will probably work against it. The pilot jumped around between so many characters and timelines and plots that it felt disjointed. It also felt heavily reminiscent of other shows besides Lost and 24 - Nowhere Man, for instance (and why did Sean run? File that under ‘stupid decisions characters make because otherwise they wouldn’t have any reason to do X in the next scene’).

Speaking of timelines, I think most viewers used up their tolerance for flashbacks a while ago thanks to Lost - but if you watch that pilot (like I did here and here) there are only three brief flashbacks to Jack, Kate and Charlie on the plane and only one of these happened in the first hour.

The Event jumped from the opening scene to a scene 23 minutes earlier (hey, a Lost number), to another scene eleven days earlier – and that was just in the first two minutes. It felt a little desperate, a little out of control, and a little like the creators wanted desperately to hook people in. It didn’t quite work – but I’ll watch it next week, at least, if only for Innes and the Langoliers…

Ack. Running late on this, but today’s Lost from the Start post is up (well, the episode is – more to come later).

This week it’s the Sawyer-centric episode 1×16 – Outlaws, in which Sawyer faces a boar with a vendetta, Charlie copes with murder, Locke and Sayid tell stories, Kate reveals too much in a drinking game, and Sawyer shoots a man in Sydney just to watch him die.

For my money, this episode contains two of the best scenes of the season – Kate and Sawyer having a drinking game, and Sawyer and Christian Shepherd’s scene in the bar. It’s certainly one of the stronger episodes since the pilot, and Josh Holloway’s best performance in the series to this point.

Hop on over!

As promised Lost from the Start is back from it’s two week hiatus with Damon Lindelof’s least favorite episode of the entire series, Homecoming.

It’s not the worst episode if you ask me, but the flashback is pretty awful even though it revolves around one of my favorite characters, Charlie. The on-island stuff is pretty great, though, with a couple of deaths, a maniacally violent Ethan and one of our regulars stepping up and killing someone in cold blood. As usual, there’s some Q&A and some quotes up, and the character pages and other stuff (including the timelines which are lagging behind by a few episodes at this point) will be updated shortly!

Head on over!

I know I was away from the internets for a while, but how on earth did I miss this image of Doctor Who’s David Tennant as Peter Vincent in the Fright Night remake?

What would Roddy McDowell say?

More importantly, why isn’t there a collection of Tennant’s increasingly manic “What?”s on YouTube?

Put aside four or five minutes, watch this, then count the days till the October premiere.

via

I had no idea that Lennie James was in the pilot – that guy just brings class to everything.

AMC also have a bunch of character images online (and there’s a gallery below).

Aside from an oddly-airbrushed Sarah Wayne Callies, they look good!