Author: Will Harris (Page 173 of 261)

Well, if we have, it’s only that if we’re gonna try to create a television show that blends a family drama about a casino in Laughin, Nevada, with singing, you’d better at least have a major star or two in the cast in order to up the “must see” factor…which might well explain why “Viva Laughlin,” CBS’s new “dramatic television show with music” (choice of phrase courtesy of producer Bob Lowry), features recurring appearances by Hugh Jackman and Melanie Griffith…and while I haven’t seen the pilot yet, in the clips we saw before the panel, we bore witness to the former making his entrance by way of The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy to the Devil,” while the latter cooed Blondie’s “One Way or Another” through a seduction scene.

I’m not saying there isn’t a certain amount of curiosity there. I’m just saying, when the curiosity factor has passed, will the series be able to maintain that level of interest when that responsibility lands on the shoulders of the show’s regular cast?

Maybe that’s why Lowry is, at least to a certain extent, trying to downplay the level of music in the series, throwing out the stat of “two and a half to three” when asked how many songs he was anticipating to appear per episode. “The way I get the fraction out of it,” he explains, “is sometimes we use a reprise.

“What I love about this show — one of the many things that I love about this show — is we always have about four balls in the air,” explains Lowry. “We always have the grounded stories in the casino franchise. We have a murder mystery which we need to have in the air. We have a family drama, we’re juggling that. And how these three areas interweave with our characters and how they play off of each other within these three different dramatic elements. And then, fourth is music. So music doesn’t really outweigh the other three. It’s a question of balance. And I think if we were excessive with music or if music weighed more heavily in these four elements that I’m talking about, then it would be perceived more as a musical. When we’re approaching these stories, we’re telling story first. And I tell them what we are doing is addressing all of these stories as if music did not exist. Because if you were to remove the music, we still want to have a very entertaining, dramatic piece, so we need to have solid story to tell. And then, the music we use to enhance that is sort of an emotional soundtrack of our characters and to support the essence of the scenes.”

As far as song selections, don’t be expecting any Beatles; they simply aren’t down with licensing out their songs for…well, much of anything, really. (Just ask the producers of “The Singing Bee.”) And don’t go looking for Pink Floyd’s “Money,” either. “We wanted to use (‘Money’) because we’re about a casino, and we were simply denied the song. But,” shrugs Lowry, “there are a lot of songs about money.”

As far as how often we’ll see Mr. Jackman pop up during the proceedings, Lowry says he appears a few times during the first few episodes, but “he’s doing a movie in Australia now with Baz Luhrmann, and he has a terrific feature career, and his availability is purely limited to us. I hope we will be able use him more and more up until our 22 episodes, even though we don’t have a pickup for 22. I hope that we will go to 22 and (that) we will use him more.” (Adds star Lloyd Owen, “I think if he sees me getting too many good songs, he’ll start making more appearances.”)

Fortunately, the Tony Award-winning Jackman won’t have the pressure to do all the show’s singing…which, given his apparently rare appearances, stands to reason, really. Even so, star D.B. Woodside acknowledges, “I believe we can all carry a tune…which is good!”

As someone who monitors the release of TV series on DVD, however, I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows when Lowry admitted that he had no idea if, in fact, the songs in the show were licensed for DVD release purposes. I mean, I wouldn’t bet on this thing being the big fall hit, but crazier things have happened…and if it IS a success, can you imagine what a let-down it would be for fans to discover that, hey, sorry, we can’t actually do it. You’d like to think that people have learned their lesson after the issues with shows like “The Wonder Years” and “WKRP in Cincinnati,” but I guess we’ll see…

Any similarities you may find between the two series, both of which are produced by David Greenwalt and are about a vampire who – ho, ho – moonlights as a detective, are, of course, complete coincidence. Right…?

Says Greenwalt, “My agent said in May, “You’ve got to read this ‘Moonlight.’ It’s fantastic. And I read a couple of pages and discovered it was (about a) vampire detective, and I said, ‘Not only am I not going to read this, I’m going to sue them. This is my show!’ But he kept talking to me and, eventually, I did read it, and I did fall in love with it.

“It’s vampire 2007. It’s a new ball game. You know, it’s certainly a genre show. But just some tiny examples. You know, there are no other demons, there’s no other monsters. You know, it’s not that supernatural of a world. It’s a sleek modern world, Los Angeles. And literally the vampire makeup is different, the mythology is different, and it’s a world where they really live among us. And there’s not that many of them. And the show has all my favorite things. It’s got deep heart, and big love, and funny, which I am attracted to.”

Actor Alex O’Laughlin, meanwhile, is just plain attracted to playing a vampire, so he’s quite psyched about scoring the lead role of vampire detective Mick St. John. “I’ve been kind of obsessed with the genre since I first discovered it,” he admits. “I discovered Anne Rice when I was sort of late teens. And I read the first five or six books of “The Vampire Chronicles” twice, actually, which was a little obsessive. But I loved her character development, (and) I learned so much about the mythology of vampires through her storytelling. Also, I grew up in Australia with American TV and American cinema, because we didn’t really have that much of our own, so I grew up with all of the films that you guys did; ‘The Lost Boys’ was a huge film for me when that was made, and the ‘The Hunger’ was also something that I really loved. So, yeah, I’ve always sort of wanted to play a vampire!”

Basically, what fans of Greenwalt’s previous show should be aware of is that this is a very different universe from the one in which Angel and company reside. There are comparatively few vampires in the world of “Moonlight” (“Maybe there’s a thousand or two in all of Los Angeles,” says Greenwalt, “(so) it’s a small thing”), and, as it stands right now, there aren’t trolls, demons, and whatnot wandering around.

A closing note: during the “Bones” panel, someone asked David Boreanaz if he was planning to do a cameo on Greenwalt’s new vampire-turned-detective show. “Yeah,” he said, with a laugh. “Maybe I’ll show up as the guy who kills the vampire.”

Okay, I know, I totally jumped the gun earlier by posting James Woods’ obscenely witty comments during the informal “Shark” panel, but, dammit, it was funny, and I really wanted to share them with you. So now let’s get back to the series itself and mention a few more highlights of the panel…

* In Season 2, James Woods and Jeri Ryan will be working far more closely together than ever before. Says creator Ian Biederman, “In the construct of their world, she was a district attorney and, as opposed to that, she was ostensively his boss. So he was able to bring her in on cases every once in a while, but this year she lost the election for assistant district attorney at the end of the last season. She will be coming into the team at the beginning of this year, so she will be a partner on the team.”

Yeah, yeah, whatever. When are they gonna sleep together?

“Jimmy and I are negotiating on the amount of money it will take for that to happen,” says Biederman. “If the check clears, yes, there will be a torrid love affair.” More seriously, he adds, “I think the potential is there. It will always linger there. There’s an attraction between these characters on a number of different levels. So we will just have to see how it goes. I would think it’s something that’s interesting. We’ll see how it goes. As much as Jeri is begging me, I’m going to try to be patient.” (Says Woods, “I’m working for scale this year, just on the hope.”)

* The cast is being adjusted a little bit. Actor Samuel Page, who played Casey Woodland, “had a movie he wanted to do,” said Woods, “and he had the option to stay. And Sam, he’s phenomenal. This very morning, I called Oliver Stone to ask him to see Sam for the ‘My Lai’ movie because I think he’d be great in it. It’s one of those things where he could have not taken the movie or he could have gone with us, and I said, “Sam, do what you have to do.” We can bring him back. It was written in the first episode that he’s running his father’s campaign for governor, and so on, and so on. So we have the option to have him come back as much as we want, which I’m sure we will do. And he can still pursue his movie career. Honestly we are such a tightknit family, that it was one of those things, it just worked out perfectly for him. He’s got a big career, a big career shot, and, hey, let him take it, but also will you come back to us, and he can come back and forth.

“And,” adds Woods, “we have a new addition on a regular basis, which is more of a challenge for me, like we need a new character who can come in and kind of stir me up. This young man named Kevin Alejandro, who’s terrific. We’ve had a couple scenes together so far and he’s terrific.”

* Billy Campbell, who played Wayne Callison in two episodes during the first season (including the gripping season finale), will be almost certainly be back, says Woods. “we want to keep Billy around as much as we can because — it’s just one of
those characters that’s not just a thorn in Sebastian’s side, but there’s so many issues that you bring up — miscarriage of justice, how, you know — I’m sure the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will find a way to let the guy off, but, hey, he only murdered about 15 women. But he does have his rights, so, you know, I’m sure that will be an issue that will come up. Just get that Thelton Henderson in there and I’m sure he’ll get out and get elected president.”

“Just a little joke, guys,” clarified Woods. “Come on…!”