Catching up: Reaper, Kings, Harper’s Island

June 21st, 2009 | by | harper's island, kings, ray wise, reaper

Jun
21

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.

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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.

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Kings & Jericho: More in common than the Biblical references

April 27th, 2009 | by | tv shows

Apr
27

I was chatting with a friend on Twitter yesterday about the crime that is the all-but-certain cancellation of Kings.

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I first met Dan during the (partly successful) fan uprising to keep Jericho on the air.

For those of  you unfamiliar with the late, lamented CBS show, here’s the basics in a nutshell:

A tale of a small Kansas town and its residents in the aftermath of a nuclear attack on most of America’s major cities, Jericho debuted in September 2006 to decent ratings, which it held onto through the fall before going on an unannounced winter hiatus.

By the time CBS brought it back in the spring, many people had forgotten about it; some thought it had been canceled. The network didn’t really publicize its return, either, leaving some fans happily surprised to stumble upon it.

It ended its season with OK, if not stellar ratings, but a very passionate fanbase, who were stunned when CBS announced, after the finale aired, that the show would not get a second season.

Harkening to a line spoken by Skeet Ulrich, who played the lead character Jake, in the finale, fans started sending peanuts by the truckload to CBS headquarters.

After receiving enough peanuts to feed every elephant in the world for the rest of their lives, CBS relented, somewhat and greenlit a short second season as a midseason replacement.

Again, the network stumbled, and waited to put it on the air until after the writer’s strike was over and new programming was once again finding its way to the airwaves. In the end, Jericho was canceled a second and final time, though it has found an extended life on The CW and Sci Fi (now SyFy) networks and its creators are still pursuing the possibility of a movie.

An undercurrent to the entire ordeal was this: Jericho did great on DVR ratings and online viewing. The regular old Nielsen ratings weren’t measuring the show’s true viewership, fans argued. The network didn’t listen.

What does any of this have to do with Kings?

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Kings: A prince among paupers

April 19th, 2009 | by | ian mcshane, kings

Apr
19

When I first heard the premise for Kings – a modern-day interpretation of the David v. Goliath tale from that old chestnut, The Bible – I was intrigued.

I love it, frankly, when there’s a modern-day take on a classic tale – biblical or not.

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One could argue, of course, that almost everything is a modern-day take on a classic tale if you look at it hard enough. But that’s an issue for another blog post entirely.

picture-4Beyond that, however, was the opportunity to see the great Ian McShane in another role. McShane was the incredible Al Swearingen on the late, great, truly lamented Deadwood.

Hell, if he were in a car commercial, I’d watch it.

McShane as King Silas is brilliant; every time you think you hate him (much like Swearingen), he does or says something that makes you realize he’s more or less a product of his circumstances and is pretty much an alright kinda guy, for what he is.

Add to that you have a hotshot supporting cast – note Miguel Ferrer as the general from Gath? Macaulay Culkin as the king’s nephew-in-law? Maqua from Last of the Mohicans (known in real life as Wes Studi) as the Gilboan general?

So of course it was with no surprise that I read that Kings was kinda sorta canceled. It wasn’t really; just moved from Sunday night to Satuday night.

That’s pretty much the death knell, of course, seeing as no one watches television on Saturday nights. Of course, you’d think that a show wouldn’t have to get good ratings to survive on a Saturday night.

As I’ve said in the past, however, a short run of the show might not be such a bad thing.

But one season for Kings? That seems almost criminal.

I think the powers that be at NBC should be banished to Port Prosperity, just before the turnover to Gath.

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