TV Tyrant

Lost + Deadwood? Be still my heart!

August 23rd, 2009 | by | deadwood, eastbound and down, hbo, lost

Aug
23

It’s no secret that I love cross-pollination of my favorite TV shows.

And my love for Lost has no boundaries.

IFCs Independent Spirit Awards After Party - Inside Add Deadwood, the best show ever taken off the air too soon to the mix and I just might keel over with joy. John Hawkes, who played Sol Starr on HBO’s Western drama, is joining Lost for its swan season. The Hollywood Reporter said casting breakdowns of “Lennon,” the character Hawkes will play, described him thusly:

Lennon is the scruffy, edgy and charismatic spokesperson and translator for the president of a foreign corporation who is far more powerful than it seems from his position.

I wonder if he works for Sun’s father’s company? What other foreign corporation has been prominent on the show? Would they add another major player in this late in the game? Entirely possible, but I’d imagine this seems more likely. The Luxury Lounge In Honor Of The 2008 SAG Awards - Day 1If you can’t quite remember who Sol Starr was, I’m sure you’ll remember his partner, Seth Bullock, played with a quiet intensity by Timothy Olyphant who has become quite the sensation.

But Hawkes was excellent as Starr, the Jewish businessman who became mayor of the South Dakota frontier town. My only regret is that we didn’t get another season of the show, which was one of the best shows ever aired. Ever.

EVER.

Glad we’re getting to see more of Hawkes, though. We got treated to more of him in the first season of HBO’s Eastbound and Down, and he looked and acted so different that I didn’t even realize he was Kenny Powers brother.

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Looking forward to Supernatural’s fifth (and maybe last) season?

August 19th, 2009 | by | supernatural, tv shows

Aug
19

Supernatural‘s fifth, and perhaps last, season premieres soon. Very soon. Sept. 10 soon, in fact.

supernatural

There’s been lots of news tidbits here and there over the summer, but the most exciting of all, IMHO, came out of Comic-Con. Warning, there are some spoilers, but nothing that should spoil your viewing enjoyment, I think. Even so, be forewarned.

Sci-fi uber-site io9 talked to producer Sera Gamble and showrunner Eric Kripke at Comic-Con last month, and they confirmed that Season 5 is a big ol’ stew of apocalypse. We ended last season with Satan himself escaping from Hell, thanks to a completely duped Sam Winchester.

I would imagine, however, that the Devil is not quite as we might expect, given the twists SPN writers have given us on the angels and demons to this point. Though, to give Dean credit, Ruby was pretty much a horrible, evil demon who was using Sam. There is that.

Anyway, Gamble said Lucifer would be “very nice and likable.” Which actually makes sense. Because how else do you think he could get people to follow him? Through fear? It has seemed to this point that the God in the world of Supernatural is the one who rules through fear.

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More thoughts on Battlestar

August 14th, 2009 | by | battlestar galactica, science fiction, telemovie

Aug
14

A friend of mine finally finished watching Battlestar Galactica, thanks to his Netflix membership and wrote me to tell me how much he and his wife loved the ending – and asking me a couple of questions about the finale.

I think about the finale often, I’ll admit, and I haven’t erased it off my DVR yet, though I haven’t watched it more than twice. I’ve gone back and forth from loving it to being disappointed in the last few minutes of it.

Battlestar Galactica

But as I wrote back to my friend, whom I’ll call S., I realized it really was the perfect ending. It is what the show was about all along. Fate. Destiny. Faith. Whatever the personal belief of the viewers, this is what the show was about.

The belief in the one true god was a dividing line between human and cylon from the miniseries itself. Not the only thing that separated them, but it wouldn’t be the first time religion exacerbated a rift between two cultures.

As I wrote, I realized I was putting an awful lot of thought into my answers, so  I thought I’d share his questions and my answers here, too. I’d love to hear what others think.

• First, S. wondered why Cavil killed himself. His wife thought it was because he believed he’d be resurrected on the base ship, but he disagreed. “I thought there was no further opportunity for resurrection. That’s why he agreed to let Hera go, after he was promised that the Cylons would re-create resurrection.”

He’s right, in fact. There was no further opportunity for resurrection, at least not until the Cylons figured it out again, and that seemed highly unlikely.

Cavil killed himself, I believe, because he saw that his time was at an end. I think he killed himself almost BECAUSE there was no resurrection, rather than it spite of there being no resurrection.

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Yay! Zombies are coming to TV!

August 13th, 2009 | by | walking dead

Aug
13

I never watched zombie flicks growing up, but in my more mature adult years, I’ve grown to love the undead.

I know there are debates over the old-school shuffle zombies so prevalent in George Romero’s pioneering films and the super-speed mutants of more recent gorefests like 28 Days Later. Some even claim the latter aren’t truly zombies, but I’m just not going to get into that debate here.

So imagine my surprise and joy when I read an article in Variety that said none other than AMC — AMC! The network that brought us Mad Men! — is about to sign a deal for a series based on “The Walking Dead” graphic novel series by Robert Kirkman.

Walking-Dead

I’ll admit right up front that I haven’t read these books. But I love the concept, in which the traditional zombies eating brainnnnnnnnzzzzzzzz is turned on its head and instead the zombie survivors are seeking out a safe place to live.

Here’s the description from the graphic novel’s website:

An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV.
Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.

No cable TV?!?!

I kid, I kid.

But it looks really interesting, and AMC is definitely known for quality television. It seems like every season, I watch more and more shows on “basic cable,” and less and less on the traditional broadcast channels.

Sure, some of the cablers are owned by the old networks (NBC/Universal, for example, owns SyFy and USA, among others), but they take risks on these outlying networks that they’d never take on the traditional networks.

So long as there’s cable TV, though, I guess that’s OK.

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V is for Visitors — and Victory

August 11th, 2009 | by | v

Aug
11

I can’t even begin to guess how many times I watched the original V miniseries.

A big part of it was that it was science fiction, and I’d been a sci-fi geek for as long as I could remember.

And a smaller, though not insignificant, part was this massive crush I developed on Marc Singer. Oh, how I was jealous of Faye Grant every time Singer rushed to her rescue.

Seeing him shirtless in Beastmaster? Made up for the craptacularness of the movie. I even watched If You Could See What I Hear multiple times just to see him.

But nothing held a candle to V.

The story of an alien race coming to earth, seeming to seek friendship but in reality seeking to strip the Earth of all its natural resources was compelling.

The parallels to the Holocaust – the Visitors’ symbol, the Holocaust survivor (grandfather of a collaborator) – took it up a notch. (As all the best sci-fi touches on importantissues, topics and historical events.)

Even though the follow-up miniseries V: The Final Battle had more bad special effects than the original Star Trek series (but came nearly 20 years later, so it didn’t have the same excuse), I also recorded that on VCR tape and watched it time and again. I did wish every time, however, that the actress playing the hybrid girl could, well, act.

It all made sense a few years ago when I realized the second miniseries (and the craptacular regular series that followed) had no input from the series creator, Kenneth Johnson.

And though he’s not directly working on the new series, set to premiere this fall, he is being credited as a creator and has only positive things to say about it, so that’s good, anyway.

The new show originally was planned as a midseason replacement, but ABC decided not to bury it and to premiere it instead at 8 p.m. Nov. 3, taking over from the venture capital summer hit, Shark Tank.

Add to that Elizabeth Mitchell – Juliet from Lost – as the female lead? Puh-lease. Like you could keep me away.

If I could program my DVR that far ahead, I would.

Image courtesy of Kenneth Johnson.

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Fringe + Leonard Nimoy = Awe.Some.

August 9th, 2009 | by | fringe

Aug
09

Heard some awesome news this weekend – Leonard Nimoy is going to reprise his role as William Bell as much as he wants to in Fringe’s second season.

The show started a bit slowly, but built up to an incredibly astoundingly jaw-dropping finale that blew my mind not one, but TWO times.

Part of that, of course, was Bell’s office, with a lovely view of the Twin Towers. And the recognition that Bell was in another universe, a parallel universe where history took a slightly different route.

Most of the season, show creators said at the TCA panels last week, will take place in the universe we know. But some will take place “over there,” and events in both universes will affect the others.

Wonder what happened to the version of Walter Bishop in the other universe? If he could bring Peter back from Over There to here, what does that mean about Peter’s family Over There? Did Walter Bishop and his wife die? Did he just snatch Peter from them without telling his doppelganger?

Hmmm. Something tells me the answer to this question is not going to be simple. Of course.

Nimoy’s already shot one episode of Season Two.  w00t!

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Dollhouse: Galactica?

August 7th, 2009 | by | battlestar galactica, dollhouse

Aug
07

It was rather shocking to most, not least of all Joss Whedon, when Fox picked Dollhouse up for a second season.

Dollhouse

It never really got the ratings needed to get picked up. They weren’t soooo far off, however, so it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that it wouldn’t be picked up. It’s just that shows in this situation usually don’t. I think Fox was being penitent for having killed Firefly years ago.

We hadn’t watched it from the start, but had six or eight episodes already on our DVR by the time we started watching.

We plowed through them, and I was glad we watched it that way.

The first couple of episodes had a lot of background to lay down. Instead of having to wait weeks to start picking up the pace, we got there in a couple of nights.

Part of what started getting really good was Tahmoh Penikett’s character, the FBI agent, whose obsession with The Dollhouse began to ruin his career. He didn’t have the support of his co-workers and superiors, and he, eventually, is suspended.

picture-31

Penikett is a personal favorite of mine, having portrayed Helo on the late lamented Battlestar Galactica. So imagine how pleased I was when I found out through an article by my friend, Jennifer Wagner, that not one, but two other BSG veterans would be making appearances on Dollhouse in its surprise second season.

Jamie Bamber (Lee “Apollo” Adama) and Michael Hogan (Col. Saul Tigh) will have guest spots this season.

Joss Whedon had this interview with Access Hollywood to talk, in part about Bamber’s stint on the show. Apparently, it was the mutual admiration society.

As well it should be.

I’m loving the DNA mixing between my favorite shows. This can only result in great things.

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Learning more about the Lost universe

August 5th, 2009 | by | lost

Aug
05

I love Lost.

OK, that’s no shocker, but it’s not just because of how awesome the show is.

Lost banner

The show creators have been so, well, creative, in their efforts to keep the buzz alive between seasons. Their marketing, frankly, is brilliant.

Lost fans are like no others in their desire to learn every little tidbit they possibly can about the universe of Lost. But not silly stuff. Intellectual stuff. I read Mystery Island by Jules Verne solely because it was mentioned by Shannon in Season 1.

Cuse and Lindelof created the Dharma Initiative, giving fans apoplexy a couple of years ago, trying to decipher hints left online, in telephone messages and in commercials. And no matter how many times we swear off the message boards and the activities, we get sucked back in.

So here we are with the Dharma Initiative series, which is far better than the mobisodes from a couple years ago, which were a little puzzling.

But the first segment connects the Dharma Initiative with Area 51.

“Why should a veterinarian be profiled in the same manner as a psychotic killer?” the narrator asks, after talking about the psychological tests given to all Dharma job applicants.

I had trouble loading Segment 2 and watching it (it was released yesterday), so I won’t be able to report on it until I get to see it. But it looks great. Done like an old-style documentary.

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Nice: HBO renews its summer slate

August 3rd, 2009 | by | entourage, hung, true blood

Aug
03

Let’s hug it out, bitches – in a congratulatory kinda way: Entourage, Hung and True Blood each are getting another season.

So said HBO today, according to Backstage.

For those who are counting, that means Season 7 for Entourage, Season 3 for True Blood and Season 2 for Hung. All well-deserved.

Picture 2

Let’s face it, the Entourage boys are fun. How could you not be happy for Turtle that he’s dating an honest-to-goodness Hollywood starlet? And how could you not be touched by Turtle’s deep-seated friendship with Johnny Drama that he was even willing to ask Jamie-Lynn to do a makeout scene with Johnny on his TV show?

I was even feeling badly for Vince that he’s all alone, kinda. And E that he’s bored at his work. Though his little girlfriend was totally right – why was he bothering with that when he doesn’t have to? Especially when it isn’t really working out.

Picture 3

As for Hung, well, that show is a winner. It’s not what I expected, except it is exactly what I expected – something funny and whimsical and smart from HBO. HBO has rarely disappointed. And even when it’s not quite hit (John From Cincinnati), it’s still been … interesting.

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