Month: May 2008 (Page 10 of 17)

It’s full speed ahead for “Caprica”

May 13, 2008 /

After some time on the Sci-Fi Channel’s backburner, Ronald D. Moore’s “Caprica,” a spin-off to “Battlestar Galactica,” has been cast. They’re starting with a two-hour pilot, and I guess they’re going from there.

From its IMDB page…

Two families, the Graystones and the Adamas, live together on a peaceful planet known as Caprica, where a startling breakthrough in artificial intelligence brings about unforeseen consequences. A spin-off of the Sci Fi Channel series “Battlestar Galactica” set 50 years prior to the events of that show.

Was originally pitched to NBC/Universal by Remi Aubuchon as an independent series with no connection to the “Battlestar Galactica” (2004) franchise. NBC/Universal read the pilot (an allegorical story about slavery with robots) and suggested Aubuchon meet with Ronald D. Moore and David Eick (who were considering a Battlestar Galactica spin-off series at the time). Aubuchon, Moore and Eick met and within a couple of months the “Caprica” series was born.

Esai Morales (“Jericho,” “NYPD Blue”) will play Joseph Adama, the father of Will Adama. Morales is inherently watchable and should provide a great cornerstone for the series. Paula Malcomson (who played Trixie on “Deadwood”) will play a surgeon who is also a double agent, while Eric Stoltz (“Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Mask,” “Pulp Fiction”) will play a wealthy computer engineer whose work will give birth to the Cylons. I’m fans of both Malcomson and Stoltz as well, so I’m pretty pumped about this cast.

Battlestar Galactica, External Entertainment, External TV, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

“Reaper” renewed for second season

May 13, 2008 /

“Reaper” fans can breathe a sigh of relief. The CW is bringing the show back for another season.

“Reaper” will return for 13 episodes midseason and will likely be paired with “Supernatural” on Thursday nights after “Smallville” concludes its run.

The network made the decision Monday, going down to the wire on whether to pick up the series before the CW’s “upfront” presentation to advertisers the next day.

“Reaper,” which stars Bret Harrison as a young man who’s a bounty hunter for the devil, has a devoted fanbase but has struggled in terms of ratings. Most recently the show averaged about a 1.0 rating among adults 18 to 49. The show initially impressed critics with its strong pilot directed by Kevin Smith (“Clerks”), then seemed to stumble creatively. Recent episodes, however, have fans saying the show is back on track with a more serialized storyline and sharper wit.

The article is dead on. After a quick start, the show floundered a bit midseason and fell into a “freak of the week” routine. That, combined with the constant tease of Sam and Andi’s relationship (as well as Sam’s decision to keep Andi in the dark about his second job), made some of those midseason episodes predictable and a bit frustrating. But over the course of the last six or eight episodes, the writers have changed the landscape of the show and introduced a serialized storyline to keep things moving from week-to-week.

The nice thing about being on one of the smaller networks (like CW, USA, FX, etc.) is that those networks aren’t going for a home run in ratings. They’re happy with a single here and a single there, so good writing will generally get you another season to build your audience. (R.I.P. “Journeyman”) With veteran shows like “Smallville” and “Supernatural,” along with newcomers “Gossip Girl” and “Reaper,” the CW keeps hitting singles.

External Entertainment, External TV, News, Reaper, TV, TV Action, TV Comedies, TV Sci-Fi

Stargate: Infinity – The Complete Series

May 13, 2008 /

This short-lived animated spin-off from the “Stargate” franchise has received the kind of abuse from sci-fi fans generally reserved for Rick Berman’s work on “Star Trek,” but as they scream about abuse of continuity and how things have been dumbed down from the original source material, they’re forgetting something: it’s a freaking cartoon. Taking place 30 years after the original film, “Stargate: Infinity” focuses on Major Gus Bonner, a longtime member of the Stargate team who, as the series opens, is on trial as a result of a mission which led to the death of several members of his team. (Wow, the acknowledgement of death in a children’s cartoon? Nice!) In a quick set-up, however, we’re witness to Bonner being framed by an alien infiltrator disguised as a Stargate scientist, which leads to Bonner taking a trio of cadets – R.J, Seattle, and Samantha – and an alien technical expert named Teal’c through the Stargate. Although they aren’t readily able to return to Earth, they’re able to visit various other planets, so Bonner bounces the team to various places he’s already visited, helping to educate the young cadets until they can get home. The animation isn’t great, and the scripts inevitably have heavy-handed lessons shoehorned in, but the characters are interesting and, despite the complaints from the “Stargate” obsessives, “Infinity” is actually pretty enjoyable as kids’ sci-fi cartoons go. A word of warning: the series ended with no resolution to the team’s space-lost situation. Hey, maybe they’ll pop up on “Stargate: Atlantis”! (Yeah, let’s place bets on that, shall we?)

Click to buy “Stargate: Infinity – The Complete Series”

External Entertainment, External TV, TV, TV Action, TV DVD Quicktakes, TV DVDs, TV Sci-Fi

Twelfth Night

May 12, 2008 /

This little-known 1970 TV production of Shakespeare’s comedy is a real find. For you non-English majors, “Twelfth Night” is one of many of the Bard’s lighter works built around mistaken identity and gender confusion. This is basically a two-tracked story, one a rom-com involving a shipwrecked woman (Joan Plowright), pretending to be a male (a eunuch, technically) and falling in love in the process; the other involves drunken noblemen Toby Belch (Ralph Richardson) playing a cruel practical joke on Malvolio (Alec Guinness), a puritanical buzz-kill of a head servant. Helping Sir Toby along are various miscreants, including Feste (Tommy Steele) — a sort of clown or jester.

This somewhat shortened, fast moving production zips along joyfully, and the joy is largely thanks to its amazing cast. Dame Plowright, still a familiar face to PBS and BBC-America viewers and best known as the last wife of Laurence Olivier, gives a sensitive and funny performance in the lead — actually a kind of triple role. Alec “Please Don’t Call Me Obi-Wan” Guinness, one of history’s best and most understated actors, cuts loose and steals the show in one of the broadest performances of his career. He’s not quite Sir Alec, but it’s nevertheless Tommy Steele — a strong performer who began his career as England’s answer to Elvis Presley, or perhaps Bobby Darin — who gives this production a slightly off kilter late sixties edge, providing a contemporary, not-quite hippiesh, spin to his puckish character by performing folk-pop settings of Shakespeare’s songs. Steele gets the musical last word here, and it’s very nice.

Click to buy “Twelfth Night”

Actors, Actresses, Reviews, TV Comedies, TV DVD Quicktakes

The Fire Within

May 12, 2008 /

About thirty minutes into this austere but humane 1963 drama written and directed by Louis Malle (“Atlantic City, “Au Revoir Les Enfants“), protagonist Alain LeRoy (Maurice Ronet) calmly examines his military issue pistol and decides that the next day will be his last. Separated from his American wife, he has spent the prior evening making love to a visiting friend, but he finds little joy in it. Afterwards, Alain returns to the cozy sanitarium where he has been undergoing a primitive but so-far successful treatment for alcoholism, which is not his worst problem. He decides to make one last visit to Paris. Accompanied by the haunting (but, through no fault of Malle’s, now over-familiar) strains of composer Eric Satie, he spends his day with some old flames and carousing buddies, including nouvelle vogue It-woman Jeanne Moreau (“Jules and Jim”) as a lively dissipated painter. It becomes clear that many people love Alain, but as he keeps telling us, he is sure that he can’t quite feel or return that love. Maybe he expects too much. Or perhaps, a good pal suggests, he’s simply too terrified and selfish to get on with the business of growing up. In any case, finding a reason to make the effort seems impossible. This visually perfect, superbly acted black-and-white adaptation of a novel by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle clearly depicts depression in a way that those who’ve seen it will recognize, possibly much too accurately for many. Still, truth really can be beauty, and “The Fire Within” is bone-deep beautiful.

Click to buy “The Fire Within”

Actors, Actresses, Movie Dramas, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movies, Reviews

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