I hope Saturday Night Live gets Tina Fey to come on tonight and play Sarah Palin doing a book interview (perhaps with Katie Couric).
I hope Saturday Night Live gets Tina Fey to come on tonight and play Sarah Palin doing a book interview (perhaps with Katie Couric).
Tina Fey has won an Emmy as guest actress in a comedy series for her portrayal of Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. In accepting the award Fey said, “Mrs. Palin is an inspiration to working mothers everywhere because she bailed on her job right before Fourth of July weekend. You are living my dream. Thank you, Mrs. Palin.”
Several video clips of Tina Fey have been posted in the past. These include Fey and John McCain last November, Fey with Will Ferrel in October, Fey with the real Sarah Palin, Fey portraying Palin in the vice presidential debate, Fey’s second appearance as Palin which included comments from the Katie Couric debate, and Fey’s initial appearance with Amy Poeler who portrayed Hillary Clinton. This is the one which includes the classic lines including “And I can see Russia from my house” and Poeler as Clinton saying, “it is never sexist to question female politicians credentials. Please ask this one about dinosaurs. So I invite the media to grow a pair. And if you can’t, I will lend you mine.”
Despite the humor, there was considerable truth in Fey’s sketches. I would hope that most Americans would have figured out the danger of electing Palin even without Tina Fey, but Fey’s impersonations certainly were helpful. You betcha, this is a well deserved award.
The second season of True Blood is approaching its finale. Help is needed to defeat Maryann and they turn to the Vampire Queen of Louisiana. Reportedly this means more hot vampire sex–in this case between Queen Sophie and Sookie’s cousin, Hadley Hale (Lindsey Haun). Ausiello has additional spoilers about the season finale.
True Blood has been a success due to excellent writing, interesting characters, a compelling plot, and a lot of nude scenes with Anna Paquin. She discussed this in an interview with Nylon:
Anna Paquin, on her Nude Scenes:
“I don’t think a naked body is particularly shocking or interesting… It’s not the culture I was raised in. I was not brought up in the United States. I don’t share the [attitude] that you can have graphic violence, but – God forbid – you see someone’s nipples.”On Going Blonde for Sookie:
“I don’t look like a Barbie doll, and probably never will. People are incredibly literal in how they view you. You have dark hair and pale skin? You must be brooding. The second you dye your hair blonde and get a spray tan, people treat you as if you’re a bit stupider and happier. Suddenly, it’s like you’re hot and sexy.”On TV Acting:
“It never occurred to me that one form of acting was better than another. I think if you approach your career like that you’re limiting yourself to a very boring path. For me, it’s about the material.”Epilogue: Stephen Moyer, on Vampire Sex:
“The thing about vampirism is that it taps into a female point of view – you have an old-fashioned gentleman with manners who is a fucking killer… it’s an interesting duality, because in our present society it would be an odd thing for a woman to say, ‘I want my man to be physical with me.’ How, as a modern man, can you fucking work that? It’s one thing to be polite and gentle… But when do you know it’s OK to crawl out of the mud and rape her [as Bill does in one scene]?… It’s difficult stuff for a bloke, but a vampire gets away with it…. I think that’s the attraction of the show – it’s looking back at a romantic time when men were men, but they were still charming.”
Liz Lemon doesn’t do any nude scenes on 30 Rock, but she has frequently brought science fiction into the show. Io9 has put together a clip with the scifi scenes from the show. The post also includes scifi clips from other television shows including Veronica Mars, The Big Bang Theory, The Office and How I Met Your Mother.
IO9 Has also put out their list of The Top 100 Science Fiction/Fantasy Shows of All Time. The original Star Trek tops the list. Doctor Who is runner up.
BoingBoing interviewed David Tennant and Russel T. Davies following the filming of their last episode of Doctor Who together–video above.
Stills are being released from the second season of Dollhouse, with an example above. As expected, now that Summer Glau is available, she will have a recurring role in the show, along with a couple of actors from Battlestar Galactica. From the press release:
Summer Glau (“Firefly,” “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”) reunites with Joss Whedon when the actress joins the cast of DOLLHOUSE this fall in a recurring role as BENNETT, a Dollhouse employee who shares a past with ECHO (Eliza Dushku). The second season of DOLLHOUSE premieres Friday, Sept. 25 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX.
Additional guest stars appearing throughout the upcoming second season include Alexis Denisof (“Angel”), Jamie Bamber (“Battlestar Galactica”), Michael Hogan (“Battlestar Galactica”) and Keith Carradine (“Dexter”). DANIEL PERRIN (Denisof) is a U.S. senator leading a witch hunt to track down the underground organization. Mysterious, charismatic businessman MARTIN KLAR (Bamber) is Echo’s new husband. BRADLEY KARRENS (Hogan) comes to the Dollhouse hoping to stop a psychotic family member’s killing spree, while MATTHEW HARDING (Carradine), a nemesis of Dollhouse leader ADELLE DEWITT (Olivia Williams), stirs up trouble. Additionally, DR. CLAIRE SAUNDERS/WHISKEY (Amy Acker) and MADELINE/NOVEMBER (Miracle Laurie) return this season in multiple-episode arcs.
J.J. Abrams made things simpler for himself in developing an alternative timeline, but this makes the overall Star Trek universe more complicated. Above is a view of the timeline, with the Abrams timeline included (click on image to enlarge). Star Trek Online discussed the significance of the two time lines:
In the movie, two characters travel back in time from the year 2387. When Nero arrives in the year 2233, he disrupts the time continuum, creating an alternate reality from the point of his arrival. Star Trek (the new movie) takes place in this alternate reality. This is explained in the film in a conversation between Uhura and Spock on the bridge of the Enterprise.
Star Trek Online is set in the “prime” Star Trek reality. This is the timeline of the five television series and the first 10 movies. It is the world in which the Gorn attacked Cestus III, Kirk fought Khan in the Mutara Nebula, Picard explored the galaxy, the Federation fought the Dominion War, Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant and Captain Archer and the crew of the NX-01 showed us how it all began.
Events in the movie that happened in the prime timeline (the destruction of Romulus, and the disappearance of Spock and Nero) have affected STO. You can learn more about the aftermath of these events in the Path to 2409 and in STO itself.
So how can the movie and STO be in different realities? When working on Star Trek, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman referenced the theory of quantum mechanics, which allows for the simultaneous existence of parallel timelines and universes. Parallel universes are self-contained, separate realities that exist as a consequence of different choices and outcomes. This concept was explored in the TNG episode “Parallels,” in which there were thousands of alternate timelines (and thousands of Enterprises!). It also is seen in the Mirror Universe, which is a darker take on the world of the Federation.
There are many, many stories to tell in the prime universe. The fallout of the destruction of Romulus and the upheaval that causes in the Alpha and Beta quadrants creates storytelling opportunities that we at Cryptic didn’t even imagine when we first began working on STO. We’re excited by the possibilities, and fans should be as well. The best is yet to come.
Star Trek has been inconsistent in its handling of changes in the timeline. In many episodes involving alternative timelines, when something changed the timeline the timeline we know was obliterated and the episode centered around restoring the original timeline. Other episodes, as in those of the Mirror Universe, showed the alternative timelines as existing in parallel to the one we know. The new timeline created in the last movie is clearly intended to represent an example of a timeline in parallel to the one of the television series and previous movies.
If we are to have a totally different timeline, there is another way that I would like this to have been done. Previous Star Trek shows existed in a timeline different from our own as the history presented in Star Trek is inconsistent with late 20th century history. If we must have a new timeline created for a new movie series, I would have had the difference from the original timeline occur in the 20th century to create a timeline which includes both our history and a Star Trek universe.
If we are looking at science fiction timelines, Dan Meth has made the above timeline of multiple science fiction movies. In discussing this project he wrote, “This is by far the geekiest thing I’ve ever done.”
Olivia Munn of G4’s Attack of the Show has a role in Iron Man 2. She will also appear in Date Night with Steve Carrell and Tina Fey. In addition to additional movie roles Munn has made the cover of Playboy (picture above).
While Olivia Munn wears a bikini in some of the pictures and doesn’t reveal much in Playboy, another Olivia revealed more. Olivia Wilde, who plays Thirteen on House, posed topless in Maxim.
The beginning of summer also seems like a good time for a picture of Kristin Bell (Veronica Mars and Heroes) in a bikini. There’s no good reason for including this picture, but is it really necessary to have a reason to post a picture of Kristin Bell?
Despite days of planning for the rally, numerous RSVP’s, and months of preparing to go after Letterman by the right wing, the Fire Letterman Rally (picture above) didn’t come off as planned. There were estimates of only 15 to 50 people who weren’t satisfied with Letterman’s apology showing up.
The rally might have been a flop but Letterman still was able to make numerous jokes about the attacks on him during the monologue. The show started with an announcement that “CBS would like to apologize in advance to everyone Dave insults tonight. He means well but but he’s just an idiot.”
The monologue began with instructions for everyone in the audience to come forward when Dave calls their name to pick up their apology. He promised to get through this as quickly as possible so everyone could get to the Fire Dave Rally and he said his son is telling everyone at school that his father is Conan. While the jokes were primarily directed at himself he did make some jokes about Sarah Palin saying that Palin accepted his apology and “she also accepted a $500 gift certificate from Lens Crafters.” He said he was nervous about the apology to Sarah Palin so to get his confidence up he rehearsed by apologizing to Tina Fey.
Letterman also presented the Top Ten Things Overheard at The Fire David Letterman Rally:
10. David Who?
9. Well, it was nice of CBS to provide the catering.
8. We should have done this years ago.
7. What idiot turned Broadway into a pedestrian mall?
6. Isn’t there always a crowd demanding Letterman be fired?
5. March around the potholes, people.
4. Can we also get CBS to bring back ‘Gunsmoke’?
3. When does Cheney get here with the waterboarding gear?
2. He should apologize for that hairpiece.
1. Thanks for coming, Regis.
What would things be like if John McCain had won the 2008 election? Walter Shapiro takes a look back at the imaginary first 100 days of the McCain presidency:
Asked about his testy relations with Congress during his lone prime-time press conference (which scored near-record low ratings) in late February, McCain retrieved one of his musty jokes from mothballs as he cracked, “To quote Chairman Mao, `It’s always darkest before it’s totally black.'” The beleaguered McCain congressional relations team printed up T-shirts, which they still periodically display on trips to Capitol Hill, with the inscription, “Is it totally black yet?” It is ironic that McCain, the first president elected directly from the Senate in 48 years and a legislator known for his willingness to work with Democrats in the quest for compromise, is well on his way to becoming the most veto-prone president since Harry Truman, casting 13 during his first 14 weeks in office.
Even if McCain had won the White House with a clear majority –– instead of becoming the second successive Republican president to take office after losing the popular vote –– he probably would have been hard-pressed to find common ground with congressional Democrats on the economy. The ideological fault lines have been deep, from the size of the economic stimulus package (McCain’s original $420 billion proposal prompted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to brand him “President McCheap”) to the administration’s laissez-faire attitude toward a looming General Motors bankruptcy and the almost certain dismemberment of Chrysler (the Detroit Free Press headlined, “McCain to City: Drop Dead”).
There’s a lot more, including what became of Sarah Palin and Meghan McCain:
Sarah Palin was, in theory, supposed to be McCain’s emissary to the Republican right. Instead, the Tina Fey lookalike spent most of her time negotiating with the tabloids, as the breakup of Bristol Palin’s engagement to Levi Johnston made OctoMom seem publicity-shy. In contrast, Meghan McCain has played against type, avoiding any unplanned appearances in the gossip columns, limiting herself to tweeting about visiting Girl Scout troops at the White House and announcing plans to write a book (all the proceeds will go to charity) about how young voters naturally gravitate toward grandfatherly presidents.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-95wkCMeUkk]
I hope Tina Fey agrees to return to Saturday Night Live to satirize the latest interview (video above) given by Sarah Palin. Besides trying to shift the blame for her own failings to Fey and Katie Couric, Palin tries to drag Caroline Kennedy into this:
Gov. Sarah Palin (R-Alaska) believes Caroline Kennedy is getting softer press treatment in her pursuit of the New York Senate seat than Palin did as the GOP vice presidential nominee because of Kennedy’s social class.
“I’ve been interested to see how Caroline Kennedy will be handled and if she will be handled with kid gloves or if she will be under such a microscope,” Palin told conservative filmmaker John Ziegler during an interview Monday for his upcoming documentary film, “How Obama Got Elected.” Excerpts from the interview were posted on YouTube Wednesday evening.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out and I think that as we watch that we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here also that was such a factor in the scrutiny of my candidacy versus, say, the scrutiny of what her candidacy may be.”
Class issue? Class has nothing to do with it. Nobody cares about the class differences. If anything, being upper class might subject Kennedy to more scrutiny than someone in the upper middle class such as Palin. Her problems came about because of her lack of thought about the issues and inability to answer questions, not her socio-economic class.
Besides Caroline Kennedy hasn’t exactly been receiving very good press. Reviews of her interview with The New York Times were hardly favorable. The press has been full of stories counting how often she says “you know.”
There are also tremendous differences between the two cases. Kennedy is hoping to be appointed Senator while Sarah Palin hoped to be one heartbeat away from the presidency. The standards for VP are much greater than for a Senator. Nobody cared that Dan Quayle was an intellectual lightweight until he went from the Senate to become vice president. We don’t worry that one day a Senator will be handed the nuclear football.
Caroline Kennedy has been underwhelming in her public appearances but she still comes out far ahead of Sarah Palin in terms of essential knowledge. Kennedy has written books on privacy rights and the Bill of Rights. Sarah Palin has shown that she doesn’t even understand what the First Amendment means.
Palin is simply showing that, despite her other limitations, she has learned the first rule of conservative argument: when all the facts are against you, ignore the facts and just start attacking other people.