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My favorite thing about Eureka is the fun gadgets and inventions. Like S.A.R.A.H., the sheriff’s house.
That the people and relationships are well-drawn is just the icing on the cake. The first-season finale was heartbreaking. And last season’s finale had the shocking side effect of making me like Nathan Stark for the first time ever.
Very minor spoilers ahead, but I felt I should warn you.
I first “met” this actor in Battlestar Galactica, in the pilot episode.
He played Leoben Conoy, trapped with Cmdr. Adama until he’s found out to be a Cylon and killed by the commander’s hand, in the pilot miniseries.
We saw him again, now and then, over the course of the first couple of seasons, but really got to know him in Season 3, when he kept Kara captive in an apartment designed to look like hers back on Caprica. She kills him over and over and over again, and he just is reborn and goes back to her – with full knowledge of her murder of him.
By Season 4, he was full fledged crazy, but cool, convinced Kara was the answer to the question of life the universe and everything – and the question wasn’t “What is six times nine?”
I’d never seen Rennie before, but then I saw him again in one of the few almost decent episodes of the Bionic Woman remake. He was in an episode of Supernatural, which I just caught up on over the fall. He’s been in this, that and the other thing.
Then, just two weekends ago, he shows up in the very last minute of Harper’s Island, playing the really bad John Wakefield. He did it so well that I didn’t even recognize him until my husband pointed it out, as we were watching “The X-Files: I Want to Believe.”
I was stunned at how crappy this film was. And that Rennie was playing some menacing guy with a bad Russian accent.
Oh, Callum, how could you do this to me?
OK, it’s not your fault, really. I’m sure you agreed to do the film before you realized how awful it would be and then just didn’t want to go back on your word. Right?
I totally love it when my favorite shows start combining DNA.
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I reported earlier that BSG’s Katee Sackhoff is going to join 24 for its New York season next year. Now, I found out, via Michael Ausiello’s blog, that Jacob is joining Supernatural AS LUCIFER.
Yeah, that’s what I said.
The man who played Jacob last season in Lost (and next season, of course), Mark Pellegrino, has signed on to play Lucifer in SPN.
If you recall, Lucifer was unleashed from his underworld in the season finale, but we never saw the evil dude himself.
I’m thinking that Lindelof & Cuse would never have signed up Pellegrino without ensuring he’d be around to the end. Or at least until the end they had planned for Jacob. And Ausiello points out that Pellegrino’s not signed on as a regular cast member for Supernatural, but rather a “recurring” cast member.
He’s had guest appearances in a whole bunch of shows, from Burn Notice to Prison Break, and even had a recurring role as Debra Morgan’s boyfriend on Dexter.
This was one of those rather introspective episodes of Torchwood, where we really spent some time with various team members seeing a side of them you don’t see when they’re running after aliens and ghosts and the like.
Basically, the rift opens and three people tumble through from the 1950s: a female pilot in the vein of Amelia Earhart, a young woman on the verge of adulthood and a middle-aged family man.
I’ve fallen rather behind both in my television viewing and in my blogging, so I thought I’d catch up with a few things today, seeing as I don’t have access to HBO this weekend and can’t watch True Blood until tomorrow, at the earliest.
First up: Reaper.
I did so love this show.
I’ve said about 8 gazillion times how perfectly cast Ray Wise was as Satan, so I’ll try to keep that to a minimum today.
But I absolutely am going to miss seeing him with those piercing blue eyes, impeccably combed hair and blinding white smile, making mischief in people’s lives now that Reaper’s off the air.
Like most of the shows I watch these days, I caught up with most of Season 2 in marathon viewings on my DVR. Over three, maybe four nights, I watched the entire season and enjoyed it as much as ever.
Can’t wait! Here’s the trailer for the Battlestar Galactica telemovie airing this fall, “The Plan.”
Looks fraktacularly awesome, naturally:
(Hat tip to i09, where I originally saw it posted.)
And there was, indeed, plenty of blood in Sunday’s season premiere of the closest thing to porn aired on Sunday nights.
Look, I enjoy True Blood a lot. But, man, do they love showin’ the sex. And now Sookie’s totally a fangbanger. I think she enjoyed the love bites more than the sex. Though, in her defense, she wouldn’t let just any vampire bit her. She’s a one-vamp woman.
But this is what I find interesting about the show: It’s become a metaphor for civil rights and is playing that card heavily.
The coming showdown between the vampires and their supporters and those who believe vampires are all that is evil should make for rather compelling television.
Jason Stackhouse is an idiot and easily swayed and has never liked hte vampires anyhow. He liked ingesting their blood, sure. But the actual vampires? His better nature threatened to rear its head more than once, but he always got sucked back into being an idiot.
I’m quite late in posting my review on Sunday’s ep, I know, so I’m not going to go on at length.
Suffice it to say that it’s returned strong as ever, with the love, the intrigue and the mystery – Ensign Ro is a witch? She had sex with Sookie’s boss back in the day?
The freakiest part is the dungeon Lafayette is stuck in. First, I just wanna say I’m SO glad he’s not dead. Unfortunately, I have a feeling he’s not gonna be the same Lafayette by the time he gets outta there. Obviously, these are vampires who are keeping food in the basement, but what the hell? They’re gonna get in so much trouble.
Honestly, I usually get a little tired of the shows where it seems little more than a veiled excuse to show relatively hardcore sex. But True Blood has such good acting and fun side plots that I’m sticking around for season 2. The premiere gave me no reason to change my mind.
I’m on my fourth episode of In Plain Sight off the DVR and am pleased to report it’s at least as good as Season 1 – possibly better.
I braced myself for disappointment, recalling the less-than-stellar sophomore outings of Burn Notice and Kyle XY.
Would Mary — after having been kidnapped, nearly raped and killed in the first season finale before she managed to kill her would-be killer and save herself, never mind the FBI crusade against her and her family because of what her long-missing father may or may not have done and her sister’s involvement with a big-time drug dealer — remain the strong-yet-vulnerable tough-as-nails funny-as-hell Mary we’d grown to love in Season 1? And if she did, would it be as if the rough end to Season 1 never happened?
No need to worry. Four episodes into Season 2 and despite Mary’s return to work and Jinx’s stint in rehab, the house is still trashed from the tossing the FBI gave it.
Mary was followed around for one episode by a psychologist who — rightfully, redeeming generations of TV psychologists — deemed Mary’s work the one thing in her life that kept her sane and decided she needed to be back on the job. In fact, I liked the psych quite a bit. She put up with Mary’s hostility exceptionally well and actually gave Mary some good advice: “Cut yourself some slack.”
Somehow, the creators of this show and actress Mary McCormack have managed to craft a character who is funny, smart, sexy and scary – let’s face it, you do NOT want to cross Mary Shannon – all at the same time.
Add to that her fabulous partnership with Marshal Marshall (hee!), her usually adversarial relationship with cop Bobby D, her completely selfish yet evolving baby sister Brandi, her fresh outta rehab for booze mom Jinx, her sensitive refusing-to-call-it-love relationship with Raphael, her fatherly boss Stan and her inability to cope with Eleanor, the new alpha female in the office – well, then you’ve got some kind of a show.
Now that’s more like it.
I really felt like BN got back into its groove tonight. It felt all Season 1 all over again. And the addition of Moon Bloodgold as a cop on Michael’s tail (so to speak) was a nice little twist, to keep Michael on his guard.
But you know what? It’s about time someone wondered why things have been blowing up so much in Miami. I mean, sure, it’s Miami. There’s more bizarre murder and mayhem than in your typical American city. But there aren’t explosions every day.
Since Michael came to town, there sure as heck have been.
That promises to be a rather … interesting relationship. And I like that in contrast to Fiona, she’s actually wearing a decent amount of clothing.
So, things I liked about tonight:
I’ve been thinking altogether too much about Battlestar Galactica lately. Not sure why.
Maybe because news has come out about The Plan telemovie. Maybe because Katee Sackhoff was cast in Season 8 of 24. Maybe because the Season 4.5 DVD drops next month. Maybe because I have the Caprica DVD sitting on the piano, mocking me for not having watched it yet.
Maybe just because I haven’t been able to cope with the fact that the series is over and it was just that frakkin’ good.
But I was thinking to myself about all the ways the new series was better than the old, and I realized that the old series doesn’t quite get its due among fans of the reimagining.
So I thought I’d do an old-fashioned matchup and see how the two stack up:
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