People bills this as Mad Men‘s Elisabeth Moss Marries SNL‘s Fred Armisen. While Moss’s role on Mad Men is currently more significant, her role as President Bartlett’s daughter on The West Wing is more interesting when connected to Armisen, who often portrays Obama on Saturday Night Live.
January in Rome–January Jones that is. She has always had that Grace Kelly look. Oprah’s magazine even took advantage of this for a photo spread on how to get the Grace Kelly look (example above).
This was even more apparent than usual in this week’s episode of Mad Men in which Don and Betty Draper went off to Rome. Who would have guessed that Betty Draper speaks Italian?
There was a notable contrast in the episode between Betty Draper traveling in Rome and her usual life as a housewife–but she still looks far more like Grace Kelly than Donna Reed even at home.
I think January Jones was fortunate to get the role of Betty Draper in the 1960′s. While there’s no question that she looks remarkable in real life as above, Hollywood has a tremendous number of beautiful aspiring actresses. There is the possibility she might have been lost among them normally, but few, if any, could pull off the Grace Kelly look like she does.
At the end of last season of Mad Men, Don Draper showed remorse as to the disrespect he showed his wife Betty on the many ocassions in which he cheated on her. This season began with Don going out of town on a business trip and spending the night with the stewardess at the head of the table.
We often root for characters on television who exhibit conduct we normally wouldn’t condone. Even Don Draper is a boy scout compared to J.R. Ewing or Tony Soprano. Nurse Jackie even extends such behavior to a female lead. Katie Baker considers why women love Don Draper:
Why are we so wild for Draper? By any measure, the character’s a cad. He constantly cheats on his wife. He skips town for weeks and won’t write or call. He doesn’t talk much, and anesthetizes any feelings with copious amounts of booze. He’s an enigma, a locked box of a man who resists, maddeningly, easy explanation. And yet he excites an attraction among women—particularly ones my age, women in their late ’20s and ’30s who were born after the era that Mad Men portrays—that seems unmatched by any leading man on television today, with the possible exception of Lost‘s con artist, Saywer (another strapping scoundrel with a deeply troubled soul). We describe our obsession in words that, like the show itself, are somewhat retro. “He is a straight-up man. He makes me feel like a woman via the TV.” “He’s a throwback to a time when men were men. “It’s the thickness of his body.” “Shoulders to cry on and a jaw that causes women to swoon.”
A man’s man. A virile man. A masculine man. Strong terms. And ones that would make our postmodern gender-studies professors blush. After all, we’re the generation of women who grew up beating the boys in math class, reading Judith Butler (by choice or by force), celebrating “Grrl” power. Traditional male-female roles were going out the window while we were still toddlers. And maybe that’s why we feel a little guilty when we stop to admit to ourselves why Draper excites us. Because we’re not supposed to be using those terms anymore to describe our desires. Those words threaten a backsliding—they hint at some deep, unspoken turbulence; that, as if by saying we want a “real man,” we threaten to erase all the gains our mothers made in terms of equality in the workplace and the home. After all, we don’t believe in that evolutionary “me Tarzan, you Jane” nonsense anymore. We’re supposed to want men who are sensitive and respectful; men who emote and help around the house, and talk openly about their feelings. And we do want these things. Don’t we? So then why are we fantasizing about Draper rather than Jim from The Office?
“Would I want to marry him?” one acquaintance—an executive assistant at a high-end financial firm, and the dictionary definition of “independent”—asked rhetorically. “No. But he has that whole ‘strap a sword to me, I’ll cut down men and then ravish you’ thing.” We have to clarify this matter, you see, lest men misunderstand us (or, worse, lest we misunderstand ourselves). So we lay it out very clearly: we don’t want to wed Don Draper. We know madness that way lies. We see how Betty Draper is drowning in loneliness, one more beautiful woman trapped in her suburban prison, desperately trying to pull devotion out of Don. We see how she’s had to resort to silent fury to make him come around again. And we’re cynical about this next season, for Betty’s sake—sure, Don wrote her a letter saying he can’t live without her. Sure, she let him back in the house. But a baby’s on the way, and nothing says ball and chain like a newborn. And men like Don Draper don’t change their spots. Already in this season’s first episode, he’s undressing a stewardess. My mother’s generation—who had to live with such men, whose hearts were broken by such men, and whose careers were stymied by such men—don’t seem to have much interest in Don Draper. They know all too well the downside of a man’s man. And they made sure as hell to raise us differently.
In honor of the start of the new season of Mad Men last night, this is a good time to look at advertising. What better way is there to get attention for an ad than to have Keira Knightly topless? Don Draper couldn’t have done better (and the ad is pretty good too). I’m not sure if this ad will do more for Chanel or for the popularity of suspenders.
Update: I knew there was something familiar about that ad. Keira Knightly posed in a similar manner with suspenders in the December 2007 issue of Interview magazine. So much for originality.
While I’ve been intrigued by Dollhouse, especially as we saw more of what Joss Wheden had in mind, there was always one thing which bothered me about the premise. The show shows advanced technology but it is used for fairly trivial purposes. They have the ability to imprint the memories and personality of a person into the body of another but use it primarily to create experts who could have been hired without this technology and create prostitutes who believe they love the person hiring them. We got a hint of the greater potential of the technology in an episode where someone comes back from death by having their memories which were stored shortly before her death be restored but she only returned to life temporarily. The ramifications of the technology was finally considered much further in Epitaph One.
Epitaph One was created when a clip episode was suggested in order to have an inexpensive thirteenth episode. Rather than doing a conventional clip episode Whedon wrote an episode which takes place ten years from now. While it has not yet been aired, the episode was included on the DVD set for the first season. (Spoilers included here).
The episode begins in a post-apocalyptic world ten years in the future. The Dollhouse technology has become widespread and it has even become possible to wipe people’s memories and imprint them remotely. The Chinese used the phones to create an army in the United States and the country was reduced to warfare between those who answered the phone and those who did not. Mind wiping was also being transmitted and a group decided to flee underground where they could not be reached.
While trying to get as far underground as they can, the group found the Dollhouse. They found memories which were stored and used them to find what had occurred over the preceding years. Even before remote implanting was being used as a weapon there were signs of the dangers of the technology with some people permanently taking over the bodies of others in an attempt to obtain immortality. There were suggestions of a possible defense against being imprinted and Caroline/Echo had left her memories to be used to guide people to a possible Safe Haven.
There is talk that the episode will still be aired. The episode would then provide viewers with knowledge of a general outline of what will transpire. Unlike the Terminator series, viewers will know of the terrible future but the actual characters will not. Whedon did leave himself with some wiggle room if he wants to vary from some of the memories reviewed. At Comic-Con he did note that these memories, as with all memories, might not be completely accurate.
While Epitaph One gives a look at where the story might be going long term, Joss Whedon provided some information on what will occur next season in an interview with TV Guide. This includes information on Echo, played by Eliza Dushku (seen above in a recent picture from FHM). Here is a portion:
What’s your answer to those who are queasy with the idea that the Actives are basically prostitutes since they have no power over who they sleep with?
I never thought of that! No, I did. I think it’s a little more complicated than that. But there is that element of they have sex with people sometimes. We always deal with what it does to them psychologically. What good can come of it and what terrible can come of it and how are the people who are manipulating them feeling about what they’re doing. You get into the area of sex at all in America and it’s a touchy subject. Our response is to come at it head on and so we’ll see a lot of the consequences of what’s been going on with the Dolls over the next 13 episodes.Who feels the consequences? The Actives aren’t self-aware.
Well, Echo has been reaching toward a kind of awareness and we’re going to be sending her further along that journey. She’ll start to form her own ideas about what’s going on.Will she hide that from her handlers?
She sure will!So what will happen as Echo starts to get her identity back?
That’s just going to make her life harder. We’ll also get to see more of Victor and Sierra and where they came from. And we’ll discover what got everybody there. We know Boyd is a moral guy; he was a cop so his presence here is a little incongruous. We want to tease that for a while and then actually explain it.What is the former Fed Paul Ballard up to signing on to the Dollhouse? He was a good guy last season.
He’s going to definitely be more intimately connected to the house but that doesn’t mean that he’s completely lost his way. Yet.Are you implying that he’ll be so deep underground that he’ll start to identify with what he’s enmeshed in?
Umm-hmm.Is Paul working with any entity or agency this season?
At the beginning he’s solo, but he’ll form an alliance inside the Dollhouse—with whom I’m not saying.Will Echo get enough self awareness that she could be Ballard’s in-house ally.
She m-i-ight. [Laughs.]Why did Paul demand November’s freedom rather than Echo’s, since Echo, aka Carolyn, is his obsessive reason for bringing the Dollhouse down?
That is an essential question that comes up as well. Was November the girl he wanted to free because he had had a relationship with her and he felt worse for her? Or was he just getting rid of her because her being there would make him feel guilty for his obsession with Echo? It’s either the noblest thing he’s ever done or it’s the other thing. That question will come up early on.
The Television Critics Association has chosen Battlestar Galactica as Program of the Year. True Blood won as Outstanding New Show and Mad Men was chosen for Outstanding Achievement in Drama. The Big Bang Theory won as Outstanding Achievement in Comedy. The cast of The Big Bang Theory was also featured on the cover of TV Guide during Comic-Con. A video made at the time of the photo shoot appears above.
Russell T Davies has hinted that he might be creating a new set of characters when Torchwood returns. Captain Jack left earth at the end of the third season mini-series and John Borrowman might not be available next season. He is being considered for a role on the next season of Desperate Housewives.
TV Guide has some information on the next season of 24:
24 star Kiefer Sutherland says the new season, premiering in January 2010, is “the most realistic storyline I think we’ve done since season one. It centers around peace conferences taking place at the UN between the president of Iran and the President of the United States, which I believe is possible within the next few years. Obviously there will be a lot of people who will want to fight that. This is about fighting off that threat to peace.”
More information from Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe O’ Brian)–and note who will be playing her boss:
“Chloe is not up to speed in the new CTU, which is very different for her. Katee Sackhoff plays my new boss (Dana Walsh), and she kind of pats me on the shoulder and says, ‘Don’t worry—you’ll catch up,’ which is the worst moment for Chloe ever. Everything’s changed at CTU and my bosses are looking at me like I’m not doing it right. But then something happens in the story where I think I know some information which pits me at odds with my bosses.” Mary Lynn adds that the new New York City-based CTU looks “kind of like
a spaceship. It’s sleek with a lot of glass, and underground with a tunnel you drive through to get into it. I feel kind of like Batgirl. And our computers are under glass and there’s a huge screen with all the information on it that everyone can access.”
SciFi Wire has information on The Plan–an upcoming Battlestar Galactica movie told from the point of view of the Cylons which will air this September:
Edward James Olmos, who directed the upcoming DVD movie Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, told an audience of fans that the film will deliver exactly what they expect it to: The Plan shows the Cylons’ perspective on their attempted genocide of humanity.
“I gotta tell you, not to give anything away, it is exactly what you think it is,” Olmos said in a panel discussion Thursday night in Hollywood as part of the Los Angeles Times series The Envelope. “You see the complete opposite of the first 281 days of what we went through, … seen through the eyes of the Cylons, and it is breathtaking. It’s fantastic. It’s not fun, but I will say that you will sit there [gasping].”
Perhaps The Plan will also drive sales of BSG complete-season DVDs. “Basically, you will go back to see the series again,” Olmos said. “I couldn’t have imagined this kind of a situation happening at the end of a show, where you would actually start at the beginning. That’s a masterful piece of understanding, Ron [Moore]. Genius. Because after you see The Plan, you’ll want to go back and view the whole series again.”
The DVD release of The Plan will feature more than 30 minutes of additional Cylon perspective than will air in the version that will air on SCI FI. “The Plan is 2 hours and 6 minutes long the way you’re going to have it on the DVD. When you see it aired, it’s going to be 88 minutes.
I wish they would release the DVD the same day as the television version, if not earlier. Otherwise it becomes necessary to either hold off on watching when it first airs or watch a repeat of much of the show to see the extra material. My bet is that there will be a delay so they can maximize ratings and then make money off the DVD sales. Obviously there’s no reason why they could not air the entire show on television other than the desire to pick up the extra DVD sales.
New Scientist has an interview with Kevin Fong, lecturer in space medicine at University College London, on the science of Battlestar Galactica.
When Steven Moffat takes over Doctor Who next season he is going to restore a tradition for the original series which was dropped in the remakes. Traditionally the opening of Doctor Who included a picture of the current Doctor with the time vertex swirling behind. This was dropped when the series returned, but next season Matt Smith will be seen in the opening.
Ron Moore’s pilot episode of Virtuality was originally planned to air around the Fourth of July holiday but Fox has moved it up to June 26. The show is about a space ship on a ten year mission in which the crew uses virtual reality to keep sane, but a virus gets into the system. It sounds like a cross between the old holodeck episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Life on Mars. The show is currently being aired as a made for television series with the hope that Fox will pick it up as a series. That way fans can get more involved in the show before Fox pulls the plug.
ABC is spending the summer showing the final episodes of shows which didn’t make it during the regular season (as NBC is also doing with Kings.) Variety reports that there will be new episodes of one series which is returning. Six unaired episodes of Better off Ted will be aired on Tuesdays starting on June 23. Thirteen episodes will air next season as the series is paired with Scrubs. Scrubs is returning with Zach Braf to appear in six of the episodes to tie up the old story lines and transition the show to a new format.
I have bad feelings about a long running show which tries to change its format in such a manner. Even spin offs are variable in their success. NBC did well with Frasier as a spin off of Cheers but this was largely successful as it was a totally new show where viewers did not see it as missing the other characters from Cheers. The two characters from Better off Ted in the picture above both show different examples of NBC failing in their attempts to replace Friends. Andrea Anders was previously in Joey, the failed spin off. Jay Harrington was in the US version of Coupling, which was seen as a replacement for Friends but failed to pull off the excellence of the BBC show it was based upon. (Coupling incidentally, was written by Steven Moffat, who is taking over as show runner of Doctor Who, tying into an above item).
Besides the mostly failed shows to air on the networks this summer, there are several cable shows to look forward to. This includes True Blood which returns next week, with a promo above.
AMC will be airing Mad Men starting in mid-August with a promo above. They are saying little about what will occur next season but reportedly it will take place some time after Betty’s child is born. They have confirmed that that Don Draper is the father despite Betty’s brief affair (in retaliation for Don’s many affairs). While the Cuban Missile Crisis provided a backdrop for the second season there is speculation that the new season will occur at the time of John F. Kennedy’s assasination. Series creator creator Matthew Weiner has stated in interviews that this has already been done on many shows and expressed reluctance to deal with the topic again.
As Revolutionary Road just came out before a national audience this weekend I won’t say anything to spoil the story (except maybe for those who want to know absolutely nothing about a movie before seeing it). I had rather mixed feelings of it. The scenes of the 1950′s helped a bit with my Mad Men withdrawal. It does take place about eight years earlier but the offices, including treatment of secretaries, didn’t change much between the two.
It was also good to see Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet back together. They both gave excellent performances, but perhaps this also increased the aspect of the movie I felt uncomfortable about. One might come out of the pair of movies staring DiCaprio and Winslet thinking it is preferable to go down with the Titanic than to live in American suburbia. I’ve lived in suburbia. While some criticism might be valid, it is infinitely better than being on the Titanic.
Part I reviewed the return of Battlestar Galactica and Part II featured information on Lost. I will conclude this expanded version of SciFi Weekend with briefer comments on additional shows, as usual moving beyond science fiction.
There is some information available on the next Doctor Who special, which will air around Easter.Tardis and Torchwood Treasures previously posted this information:
The name of the next special is Planet of the Dead and the episode itself has been written by both Russell T Davies and Gareth Roberts. It is expected to air around Easter and filming for the episode will begin on the nineteenth of January next year. The episode will feature two characters called Malcolm and Christina and U.N.I.T will also be making an appearance. Rumours also suggest that parts of the episode will be filmed abroad in Tunisia.
Additional information was provided by Russell T. Davies, who also says it is time to introduce new monsters after the last two episodes involved Daleks and Cybermen:
“After the events of Journey’s End and The Next Doctor, I think it’s time to get away from the past and have an adventure with lots of new elements. And lots of fun too! The next Special should be a nice antidote to Christmas, with a bit of sunshine if we’re lucky. And with not one but two alien races that you’ve never seen before.”
American viewers of Doctor Who either must wait months after episodes are broadcast on the BBC or illegally download the episodes. The third season of Torchwood will consist of only five episodes to be broadcast this summer on consecutive nights, but they have finally figured out the only way to reduce illegal downloads. BBC America will broadcast the episodes a few hours after they are broadcast in the U.K.
24 returned but despite the decision to shut down CTU and move the show to Washington, the show rapidly returned to a similar format with Jack teaming up with Tony, Bill Buchanan, and Chole. The twist is that they are working on their own due to conspiracies in the goverment which have infiltrated the White House and the FBI. There is more question this season as to whether Jack’s use of torture is right or wrong.
Sometimes viewers take the show too seriously, forgetting that it is only a television show. Media Matters notes that some conservatives even have tried to use a fictional show to justify their support for torture. On the other hand, I sometimes receive comments that I should not cover 24 due to its portrayal of torture. While liberals who argue this do have a point, they also must remember this is fiction, and that hopefully most people can still consider the real issues surrounding torture. Not even all conservatives blindly believe everything they see on the show. Conservative blogger Rick Moran has discussed the question of whether this television show increases the use of torture, and of whether torture works:
Jack Bauer may be the first fictional character ever to be accused of inspiring real life war crimes. This charge was not made by some obscure left wing blogger but by U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, along with several senior FBI and CIA agents who have conducted thousands of interrogations in their careers. Their verdict was simple and straightforward; the torture scenes in the show were affecting the way that cadets at West Point as well as troops in the field were approaching the interrogation of prisoners.
Finnegan said that he’d like to see a show “where torture backfired.” All the experts agreed that torture, even when used in the show’s “ticking bomb” context, would never work. They pointed out that the fanatics, knowing that the bomb would go off soon, would simply hold out, secure in the knowledge that their suffering couldn’t last much longer.
They also pointed out that terrorist prisoners actually looked forward to torture as the first step towards martyrdom. An interrogation professional would never use it and would, instead, take the opposite tack of trying to build a relationship with the prisoner, drawing him out gradually by gaining his trust. Besides, the “ticking bomb” scenario itself was totally unrealistic and would never happen in the real world.
It is a dubious proposition that a fictional TV character would cause our soldiers to forget their training and their upbringing just to imitate Jack Bauer. The evidence is purely anecdotal, presented by people with an obvious agenda. But that doesn’t mitigate the fact that they felt compelled to speak out against Bauer’s almost casual approach to violating the law and their concern that people get the wrong idea about the best way to interrogate prisoners.
As the show questions the fantasy of torture being effective, it also might even question the ultimate fantasy of the show–that Jack Bauer is invincible. Kristin reveals that there might only be one additional season of the show, there might be a movie after the eighth season, and that they might even blow up the whole world, and Jack Bauer with it.
24 might not be the only show which concludes with movies. A movie version of Jericho is in the works, and if it is a success perhaps the show will be brought back once again. Jericho was canceled after the first season but returned for a second season after protests from fans. Moonlighting might be returning as a television movie for its 20th anniversary. Bryan Fuller is also hoping to have a movie of Pushing Daisies to wrap up the show. Meanwhile, fans of Pushing Daisies, Dirty Sexy Money, and Eli Stone will have to wait until summer to see the final episodes of these canceled series.
Heroes returns with a new chapter, and after problems with the last chapter Tim Kring is hoping viewers will return. The next chapter. Fugitives, was written so as not to require knowledge of previous stories. Fringe is also returning, and Sci FI Wire has some spoilers on the conclusion of the season.
Previously Mad Men had been renewed but series creat0r Matthew Weiner had been holding out on returning. After months of negotiations a deal was reached in which Weiner will return for two seasons for a seven figure deal.
Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls will be returning to television. Entertainment Weekly reports:
We’re one step closer to getting another weekly TV date with Gilmore Girls‘ Lauren Graham. (Pause for cheers. And… we’re back.) Though we were under the impression NBC was developing a comedy for the actress, Variety reports that ABC has greenlit production on an untitled half-hour pilot in which Graham will play “a self-help guru who teaches women how to live a stress-free life — but struggles to follow her own advice when her boyfriend dumps her.” The show, which features Will & Grace‘s Alex Herschlag and Arrested Development‘s Mitchell Hurwitz among its exec producers, sounds promising, right? I know we can’t let our Gilmore love lead us blindly into TiVo season passes (see: Amy Sherman-Palladino’s ill-fated The Return of Jezebel James), but this set-up could give us Lauren the way we like her: smart, supportive, sarcastic, self-deprecating, slightly neurotic, seriously funny, and above all, at the center of the story. In movies, she’s been “the wife.” On stage, she’ll be “the girlfriend.” (She’s expected to make her Broadway debut as Miss Adelaide in a spring revival of Guys and Dolls.) But on TV, she’ll always be “the star.” Make her self-help guru a fast-talking pop-culture connoisseur, and it’s my favorite show.
Hilary Duff also returns to television in Barely Legal. It sounds like the concept is something along the lines of Lizzy McGuire goes to law school so she can sue Doogey Houser.
Several characters from Veronica Mars are being reunited in Rob Thomas’ new series Party Down, and Kristen Bell might even make an appearance.
Last week I noted that the conservative publication Human Events named Sarah Palin the conservative of the year. Today Crooks & Liars announces that Palin has been chosen as Wingnut of the Year. While one obviously sees the award as going to someone they have a favorable view of, and the other is awarding it based upon an unfavorable opinion, they do agree on Palin’s significance. Like her or dislike her, Sarah Palin deserves both awards.
Palin was the conservative who received by far the most publicity this year. This is an unfortunate fact for the conservative movement. If conservatives in general are separated based upon rationality versus being a wingnut, Palin also deserves this more than any other conservative this year.
While there are vastly different types of views lumped together under the conservative label, Palin represents conservatism of the worst type. She lacks any understanding of civil liberties as guaranteed by the Constitution, as well as any respect for individual liberty. Instead her views are heavily influenced by the religious right on social issues and by the neoconservatives on foreign policy.
Consistent with the social conservative roots of her political views, Palin promotes the anti-intellectualism which is now dominating the conservative movement, including a denial of evolution. Palin’s views are totally inconsistent with the libertarian ideas, as well as respect for intellectualism, which has often been seen in conservative thought in the past. Unfortunately some libertarians, clearly thinking with an organ other than their brains, ignore the authoritarianism of Palin’s views and consider her one of their own. If all it takes is a hot woman with a gun to get their support, they’d be better off drooling over January Jones (Betty Draper of Mad Men )after the first season episode entitled Shoot. Here are the choices:
Sarah Palin clearly deserves to be named Wingnut of the Year. The tragedy is that, while some conservatives do see through her, so many other conservatives see her as their new leader. Republican voters see Sarah Palin and fellow social conservative Mike Huckabee as their two preferred choices for 2012. Red State has announced a war against Republicans who have not supported Palin. This will make it much harder for the Republican Party and the conservative movement to move beyond the fringes.
After months of speculation, David Tennant has announced he will leave the role of The Doctor after the upcoming series of four Doctor Who specials are completed. BBC News reports:
Tennant stepped into the Tardis in 2005, and will leave the role after four special episodes are broadcast next year.
He made the announcement after winning the outstanding drama performance prize at the National Television Awards.
“When Doctor Who returns in 2010 it won’t be with me,” he said.
“Now don’t make me cry,” he added. “I love this part, and I love this show so much that if I don’t take a deep breath and move on now I never will, and you’ll be wheeling me out of the Tardis in my bath chair.”
‘I’ll miss it’
Three years was “about the right time” to play the role, he told the BBC in an exclusive interview.
“I think it’s better to go when there’s a chance that people might miss you, rather than to hang around and outstay your welcome,” he said.
His stint in the show had been “the most extraordinary time, it’s been bewildering, life changing, very exciting”, he said.
“And just so much fun, such a great show to work on.
“That’s one of the reasons I think it’s right to take a deep breath and bow out when it’s still fun, when it’s a novelty.
“I don’t ever want it to feel like a job, so I want to move on when it still feels exciting and fresh and that means I’ll miss it.”
Liz Lemon to date Don Draper? Tina Fey and Jon Hamm will have something in common besides both appearing on Saturday Night Live recently. Jon Hamm of Mad Men might appear in a multi-episode arc of 30 Rock as Liz Lemon’s new love interest.Video of two of Hamm’s skits on SNL were posted here.
With all the subplots on Heroes, a lot has happened, including the return of Kristen Bell as Elle. Perhaps the most interesting development was seeing Sylar’s role get even more complex as his father got him to turn on his mother, but he still decided to save his brother Peter’s life. His character is certainly different from previous years when he was motivated by little more than killing others with super powers in order to obtain their powers. Ultimately we saw him as a pure family man in a possible future shown earlier in the season.
There might be an unexpected benefit from the bad economy. I’ve often felt that, compared to several years ago, television shows are canceled too quickly if they are not doing well in the ratings, not giving them a chance to build an audience. The Hollywood Reporter believes that the bad economy might be responsible for some shows such as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles being renewed:
Industry observers say the recent cluster of low-rated shows granted full-season orders might have something to do with network executives watching the plunging Dow rather than their shows’ falling Nielsens.
No execs would talk on the record, but the economic crisis, combined with the cost of marketing a new series, the lack of new programming inventory because of the WGA strike and the anticipated difficulty of locking down new advertiser commitments, has networks inclined to play it safe.
“Most years there would be more cancellations than there have been to date,” said John Rash, senior vp/director of media negotiations at Campbell Mithun. “But the dual dynamics of schedule stability keeping ad dollars in place is combining with delayed programming development from last season’s writers strike.”
NBC’s “Knight Rider,” ABC’s “Private Practice” and Fox’s “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” recently received orders for an additional nine episodes apiece. Such a move typically indicates a network’s confidence in a show’s performance and signals the inclination to keep a series on the air for the duration of the season.
Life on Mars at least has received well deserved improvements in the ratings. Last week Sam came to the assistance of his mother, learning far more about her than he probably wants to know, and also got the opportunity to meet Jim Croce and Joe Namath (Joe the Quarterback?). In upcoming episodes he gets involved in his father as well as someone who was/will become his mentor.
Bradley Whitford of The West Wing and Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip is producing and staring in a sitcom for NBC named Off Duty about a once-legendary police detective (Whitford) on his way down who complicates the life of his new partner, both on duty and off.
Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls will be appearong on Broadway as the female lead in a new revival of Guys and Dolls.
J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, is working on a script for a remake of the 1956 classic Forbidden Planet.
And finally, the planet Vulcan might have been discovered.
All the surviving actors who have played The Doctor are reportedly going to appear together in a Doctor Who will return for a special mini-episode for the Children In Need charity night. Last year Peter Davison appeared with David Tennant in Time Crash (video here). Comic Book Resources has some rumors about Doctor Who, including Tom Baker returning to a role on the show and a possible name for the next Doctor:
My last couple of Doctor Who leaks were fairly solid — Neil Gaiman to write 2010 “Doctor Who” and Tom Baker returning to the series proper in an unnamed role. Both have been bubbling under ever since. The next one is not so tied down. It’s still rather up in the air. But it’s quite a possibility.
The sixth series of “Doctor Who” (2011) will star Paterson Joseph as The Doctor.
Previously playing Roderick in the “Doctor Who” episodes “Bad Wolf”/”Parting Of Ways,” Joseph is known for fine upstanding and terribly-well-spoken-dontcha-know roles as Johnson in “Peep Show,” the Marquis De Carabas in “Neverwhere,” Space Marshall Clarke in “Hyperdrive,” Lyndon in “Green Wing”…
…and more importantly Benjamin in “Jekyll.” Written and produced by upcoming “Doctor” Who showrunner, Steven Moffat.
If true, it’s a great call on Moffat’s part. A damn fine call. Paterson has a very British Authority approach to many of his characters, comparable with Jon Pertwee. It’s not a traditional choice, but then neither was Christopher Eccleston. And, like I say, it’s bloody brilliant.
The upcoming Star Trek movie made the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Considering how far Star Trek has fallen in recent years, the reboot by J. J. Abrams is probably our best shot of reviving the series. Still, I have reservations about how he will go about it. These reservations were increased by this passage:
Plus, at heart, Abrams is still more of a guy. ”All my smart friends liked Star Trek,” he says. ”I preferred a more visceral experience.” Which is exactly why he accepted Paramount’s offer in 2005 to develop a new Trek flick; creatively, he was engaged by the possibility of a Star Trek movie ”that grabbed me the way Star Wars did.” That meant a bigger budget and better special effects than any previous Trek film, plus freedom to reinvent the mythos as needed. ”We have worldwide aspirations and we need to broaden [Trek's] appeal,” says Weston. ”Doing the half-assed version of this thing wasn’t going to work.”
Star Wars type action would do better at the box office, but that is not what Star Trek is about. If Star Trek is turned into this type of mindless entertainment it is not worth reviving. Still, having a major movie might lead to a revival as a television series. Star Trek has always been at its best as a television series, and a revived series has a far better chance of being true to Gene Roddenberry’s vision than an individual movie. There is also some hope for the movie as the paragraph after the one quoted above goes on to say:
Abrams says he was also drawn to the project because he believed in — and wanted to evangelize — Trek‘s unabashed idealism. ”I think a movie that shows people of various races working together and surviving hundreds of years from now is not a bad message to put out right now,” says Abrams, whose infectiously upbeat energy and disdain for cynicism are among his most marked attributes.
There are some spoilers regarding the plot of the movie:
Star Trek‘s time-travel plot is set in motion when a Federation starship, the USS Kelvin, is attacked by a vicious Romulan () desperately seeking one of the film’s heroes. From there, the film then brings Kirk and Spock center stage and tracks the origins of their friendship and how they became officers aboard the Enterprise. In fact, the movie shows how the whole original series crew came together: McCoy (Karl Urban), Uhura (), Scotty (), Sulu (), and Chekov (). The adventure stretches from Earth to Vulcan, and yes, it does find a way to have Nimoy appearing in scenes with at least one of the actors on our cover — and maybe both. The storytelling is newbie-friendly, but it slyly assimilates a wide range of Trek arcana, from doomed Captain Pike () to Sulu’s swordsmanship to classic lines like, ”I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” More ambitiously, the movie subversively plays with Trek lore — and those who know it. The opening sequence, for example, is an emotionally wrenching passage that culminates with a mythic climax sure to leave zealots howling ”Heresy!” But revisionism anxiety is the point. ”The movie,” Lindelof says, ”is about the act of changing what you know.”
The message of Star Trek is also tied into this year’s presidential election:
Is the world ready again for Trek‘s optimistic vision of the future? Some involved with the film suspect the may have a dramatic effect on how Star Trek will be perceived. ”This is a franchise that offers hope for unity — and so does ,” says Quinto, who has stumped for the Democratic presidential nominee. ”When this movie comes out, and Obama is president, hopefully there will be some parallels.” Perhaps, but the elder Spock knows that moments of unity can be fleeting. ”My only regret is that the movie can’t come out sooner,” Nimoy says. ”I think the world could use it. Don’t you?”
Life on Mars hasn’t been doing too well in the ratings but has been receiving excellent reviews. The second episode, like the first, was based pretty closely on the BBC episode, with the show reportedly going to begin diverging more. The potential science fiction aspects of the show are maintained by having Sam consider the various possibilities as to how he is now living in the past. His theories include the eventual explanation in the BBC version, which I won’t mention to avoid spoiling the series. For those who are aware of the explanation on the original, there have been reports that the American version might wind up with a different explanation. This week’s episode also also included brief connections between past and present, from messages in the clouds to a small robotic character.
We had a major advance on the plot, and a major revelation, on Heroes. It appeared that Linderman (Malcolm McDowell) hired Daphne (Brea Grant) to steal the formula, except it turned out that Maury Parkman (Alan
Blumenfeld) was responsible for both this appearance of Linderman and Nathan Petrelli’s visions of Linderman. This was orchestrated by Arthur Petrelli (Robert Forster) who is on the opposite side of the battle from Mama Patrelli.
The second half of the season will be entitled Fugitives and will add a new member to the cast–Zeljko Ivanek, who won an Emmy for Damages. He will appear as a character named the Hunter who presumably wind up hunting the other heroes, making them fugitives.
On Fringe, Olivia Dunham has visions of John Scott (Mark Valley). While his appearances turned out to solely be in her mind (perhaps similar to Six in Baltar’s mind on Battlestar Galactica.) While only being in her mind, his messages had too much bearing on current concerns to be written off as mere hallucinations. Walter provides a possible explanation that a previous experiment connecting her to Scott’s mind may have imprinted her with his consciousness, experiences, and thoughts.
Is a few brief news items, nine more episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles have been ordered to complete the season this year. Mad Men has been renewed for a third season. The concluding ten episodes of Battle Star Galactica will begin airing on January 16.
And finally, there are science fiction connections to the candidates this year. Gawker reports that Sarah Palin appears in Tales From the Crypt (cover above.) We also learned of a science fiction/comic connection for Barack Obama. At the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Obama joked, “Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth.”
Life on Mars premiered last week with the initial episode being virtually identical to the first episode of the BBC series it is based upon. Future episodes will diverge with different stories. The basic idea is the same in both. After being knocked unconscious Sam Tyler appears to have been transferred back in time to the 1970′s while sometimes hearing sounds from around his unconscious body in the present.
The American setting did allow for for some slight changes which worked well for the remake. There are some lines reminiscent of Back to the Future, such as surprise when Sam asks for a Diet Coke. One line in the U.S. version worked slightly better than in the British version. In the original Sam runs into a local police officer and says he needs his “mobile” with the police officer asking “mobile what?” The American version works better with Sam saying he needs his “cell” and the police officer of the 1970′s misunderstanding and questioning what Sam wants to sell. In both cases the scene is in an area which has yet not been built up in the 1970′s but the scene is more dramatic in the American version by showing the World Trade Center’s twin towers n the background.
Recently I began watching Mad Men which includes scenes showing the type of sexism which occurred in an office setting back in the 1960′s. In this show portraying the 1970′s things are not much better as a female police officer is nicknamed No-Nuts by her co-workers.She is also limited to doing what is thought of as woman’s work, including talking to the nutty new cop who thinks he came from the future.
The two Monday night science fiction shows, Heroes and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, both dealt with the future in the last episode. The Sarah Connor episode Goodbye To All That was reminiscent of the movies as it dealt with terminators from the future being sent back to kill everyone they could find named Martin Bedell. One of the Martins is a small child who Sarah protects. Another Martin is to later help John set up the resistance and he is also saved.
The Heroes episode, I Am Become Death, shows a possible future in which anyone who can afford it purchases super powers, Claire is a killer who shoots Future Peter and Sylar has given up use of his powers and is shown as the father to a young child. Having his son get shot makes Sylar literally explode, similar to the explosion which destroyed New York in some alternate realities. Peter from the present now must prevent many of the events of the future. Meanwhile in the present, Hiro continues to try to recover the secret formula and winds up digging up Adam.
E! Online has a Lost spoiler on the reason Ben said all the members of the Oceanic Six must return to the island for any of them to return:
Well, remember what Michael Emerson recently said about Ben’s statement that if any of them are to return to the Island, everyone who escaped has to go back too? He said, “I think [that dictate is] a scientific condition of the mechanism by which the Island operates. I don’t think it’s an esoteric or spiritual issue, I think it’s science.”
He wasn’t just talking pretty. What I’m hearing is that the reason Jack, Kate, Sayid, Sun and Hurley need to reunite is because the Oceanic Six need to fan out to a group of Dharma stations.
Even more intriguing? According to my source, these stations are not on the Island, but in other locations, and these off-Island stations are believed to be the ticket to getting back to the Island.
(Remember, the Island moved in the finale. The Island may have gone to another place…or it may have hopped into another time.)
So how does this all work? And where in the world are these stations? We’ll have to tune into what is looking like an exciting fifth season in order to see.
In the meantime, my source hints that we have seen at least one of these powerful places before.
Remote Access has a guess as to where we have seen one of these places before:
My guess is that’s the Antarctic listening station with those Portuguese-speaking dudes who worked for Penny (and detected the electromagnetic pulse that helped her track Desmond to the island). Another guess is that all of the Sixers will have to turn some kind of mechanism or fail-safe key—much like the one Desmond used before the hatch blew—at the same time.
Variety reports that ABC is considering a remake of V, using aspects of the original with an updated story:
The original “V” served as an allegory for the Holocaust and Nazi Germany. Peters said he won’t duplicate that concept, except that the new “V” will still focus on what happens when the masses have blind faith in their leaders.
In this case, the new “V” will center on Erica Evans, a Homeland Security agent with an aimless son who’s got problems. When the aliens arrive, her son gloms on to them — causing tension within the family. As in the original “V,” several storylines will unfold simultaneously.
But even without the same storyline, the original “V’s” bones will remain: As in the ’80s version, the show will open with an enormous army of spaceships hovering over the world’s major cities. The visitors say they’ve come to help Earth, but their motives are nefarious (in the original, they wanted to steal the world’s water supply).
Tonight will be the final episode of Battlestar Galactica to air until next winter. I will avoid any other discussion on the show to give everyone a chance to see the episode. Instead this week will deal with Ron Moore’s work, but look back at his work on Star Trek.
TrekMovie.com has a lengthy interview with Moore and I will just highlight a couple of points. One frustration in writing the show was that everybody was to be perfect–reducing the potential for conflict:
TrekMovie.com: Piller used to refer to the ‘Roddenberry box’ as in the Gene rules that there is no greed, people are perfect, etc. Did you find the ‘Roddenberry box’ limiting as a writer?
Ron Moore: I think we all did. I think there was a general consensus in the writers room in every season that we always chaffed at the notion that there were no petty jealousies and greed and all that. We railed against that on a daily basis, found ways to get around that, found ways to get through it with varying degrees of success. It was a constant problem that we just sort of gnashed our teeth about. It never made any logical sense or any dramatic sense. It just didn’t feel like it was a logical sense of where the Star Trek universe was going. I was always saying ‘the Original Series was never like this, the Original Series has plenty of problems with humanity, plenty of with jealousies and bickering and even racial prejudices are alive in the 23rd century.’ In “Balance of Terror” Stiles is overtly prejudiced against Spock just because he is Vulcan. And that isn’t the only instance of that. It made for drama and it made for conflict. It made the world work.
So when you tried to take all that out it just made it very difficult to tell stories that had much meaning to them, or any teeth to them, because you had to keep going back and make people much nicer and people couldn’t have true conflict and it made it hard to write the show in any kind of dramatic sense. And we were always bitching and moaning about it. And my personal theory was that Gene sort of started to believe in himself as more of a visionary than a writer at a certain point. He started to believe the stuff that he was creating a utopian future and wanted The Next Generation universe to be reflective of the utopian universe that so many people had told him he had been creating for all these years. So it started to become less about the drama, less about making a television show, and more about servicing this idea of what utopianism was going to be and how perfect humanity was going to be in the future as an example of how to live our lives by, as opposed to making a great television series.
