Category: TV Sci-Fi (Page 22 of 81)

TCA Tour: The Vampire Diaries

January 17, 2010 /

What is it about the pilot episodes for vampire series that leave me generally indifferent to them? I’m a sci-fi and fantasy guy from way back, so you’d think it’d be like shooting fish in a barrel for a show about the undead to win me over, but I was underwhelmed when I first screened CBS’s “Moonlight,” and although the feeling wasn’t quite as intense, the sensations were definitely similar after I checked out The CW’s “The Vampire Diaries.” More surprising, however, was that my wife – a dyed-in-the-wool fan of both “Twilight” and “True Blood” – felt the same way I did. I had been resigned to the fact that we’d be adding it to the TiVo queue no matter what my opinion of the series might be, but, no, it didn’t earn much more than a shrug from her, either. It’s clear that neither of us are arbiters of taste for the nation as a whole, however, as the show recently took home the award for Best New Drama categories at the People’s Choice Awards.

Hey, fair enough: I gave “Moonlight” a second chance when it came to DVD, and I’ll do the same with “The Vampire Diaries.” When it comes to TV, I’m always ready, willing, and sometimes even hoping to be proven wrong.

Given that I have no particular frame of reference to the goings-on in the show, I’m having to kind of guess what information that emerged during the course of the show’s latest TCA panel is of particular interest to fans, so here’s hoping that you’ll appreciate some of these facts:

Are we going on see the cork being pulled from the church basement bottle, as it were?

“Oh, you mean the tomb?” asked Kevin Williamson, the show’s executive producer. “Well, you know, quite possibly, yes. I mean, that’s the fun of the back nine (episodes). Yes, Damon has an agenda. He’s going to save Katherine. He’s going to do everything possible he can to get to her. And so, yeah, that tomb is still in play.”

When are you going to explore more into the teacher? Is he a Van Helsing-type, or is he a vampire? Because there’s definitely something with him.

“Yes, there’s definitely something with him,” agreed Williamson. “We’re going to have fun. He just sort of has blown onto the scene, and we haven’t had a chance yet to sort of explore his background and stuff, but in the upcoming episodes, we’re actually going to learn more about him. We’re going to see some of what his past was like and what brought him to Mystic Falls, and we’re going to see what his little agenda is…because, you know, everyone’s got a little agenda.”

“We’re going to meet his wife in flashbacks, played by Mia Kirshner,” revealed Julie Plec, Williamson’s fellow executive producer.

Is Vicki really dead?

“Vicki is dead,” confirmed Williamson. “I’m so sorry. She’s gone. However, she will live in spirit and stuff, and it’s going to take a long time for Jeremy and Matt and his family to truly get over Vicki and maybe possibly start learning the truth about what happened to Vicki. That’s something, I think, Jeremy is going to struggle with. Of course, we now have Matt’s mother coming to town, so Vicki will still be talked about, but, unfortunately, Vicki left us. She was our very first vampire casualty.”

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External Entertainment, External TV, Interviews, News, TCA Blog 2010, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

“Fringe” producers, what were you thinking?

January 13, 2010 /

If Monday’s episode of “Fringe” is still sitting unwatched on your DVR, you may want to skip this post for now, and come back when you’re thoroughly confused. In fact, I’ll give this a good ol’ **SPOILER ALERT** for those who skim intros instead of reading them.

Anyway, Monday’s episode of “Fringe” started like any other episode of the series — with some sort of strange or creepy event. This time, it was a young girl who was considered brain dead and was about to have her organs harvested for donation when she woke up and started spewing military codes to the surgeon.

Fine, no problem. But then something strange happened — Charlie Francis appeared on screen! And it didn’t seem to be Shapeshifter Charlie (the one who looks dastardly no matter what he’s doing), it was the actual Charlie Francis. I paused the show and had the following conversation with my wife:

Me: “Wait, isn’t he dead?”
Her: “Yeah, didn’t she shoot him in the alley?”
Me: “The shapeshifter guy killed the original Charlie, right?”
Her: “I thought so.”

My guess is that some form of this conversation happened in millions of living rooms around the country during the first 15 minutes of the episode. I hit play and pulled out my trusty laptop, determined to find out what exactly was going on.

Can zombies do math? Find out on the next episode of “Fringe.”

As it turns out, this episode (“Unearthed”) was an unaired episode from Season 1, before Charlie was replaced by Shapeshifter Charlie. Why the producers would decide to air this episode as the first of 2010 is beyond me. Wouldn’t it be better not to thoroughly confuse your audience as you try to retain all those viewers that lived just fine without “Fringe” during the holiday break?

I don’t mind the unaired episode (I guess), but how about reshooting the scenes without Charlie? Or, at the very least, how about a graphic that says “15 months ago” or somesuch thing? Better yet, let’s have Kirk Acevedo (who plays Charlie) introduce the episode by telling people not to be alarmed when Zombie Charlie appears out of nowhere.

For their part, Fox put out the following press release before the episode aired:

While the girl’s mind-bending condition intensifies, Walter dusts off some old lab videos and hypothesizes the unthinkable, sending Olivia and Peter to investigate the bewildering case in an original “Unearthed” episode of FRINGE and here’s another mystery: is it an unaired episode from Season One or is it from an alternate universe?

Wait…what?

This sounds like a half-baked justification of airing an old episode in the middle of a new season. Normally, that would be somewhat acceptable, but what percentage of the audience was aware that this was an unaired episode (or one from an alternate universe–oooh) before they sat down to watch it? One percent? Two percent?

“Fringe” producers, what were you thinking?

External Entertainment, External TV, TV, TV Action, TV Sci-Fi

TCA Tour: Lost

January 13, 2010 /

Let us begin our coverage of ABC’s “Lost” panel by giving all due props to Jonathan Storm, TV critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, who kicked things off with the following statement: “Hello, I’d like to ask each one of you to tell exactly what happens in the final season.”

Nice try, Mr. Storm.

Fortunately, Storm had a back-up question ready to ask of the panel – which consisted of Emilie de Ravin (Claire), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, Terry O’Quinn (Locke), Michael Emerson (Ben), and Jorge Garcia (Hurley) – once the laughter stopped: how are you feeling as this comes to an end?

“As we were walking out onto the stage and this montage was playing, I was whispering to my cast members, ‘I am going to cry like a baby when this show ends,'” said Lilly. “It’s become so nostalgic for us to look back over six years and have grown up together and grown up in front of all of you together. It’s been so intense that for it to come to an end is going to be life-changing.”

Garcia instantly agreed. “Certain places that we shoot, it’s, like, ‘Wow, I haven’t been here since season three,'” he said. “Right now, it’s very appreciative and precious.”

“There’s a lot of camaraderie on set now,” acknowledged Holloway. “It feels…a lot of magic, like the first season. It was an incredibly magical year, and the whole experience, of course, has been incredible, but this last year, everyone’s really getting that sense of camaraderie and nostalgia, and it’s just been fabulous.”

“You know, personally, I’m just feeling a tremendous amount of gratitude,” said Lindelof, “and the idea that we’re getting to end something while anybody still cares and while we still kind of love each other, as opposed to everybody saying, ‘It’s about time.’ This is sort of a once-in-a-lifetime or once-in-a-career experience, for a show that’s still performing, for the network to allow us to end it, is a tremendous gift. As Evangeline was saying, as I was walking onto the stage, I was sort of experiencing a sense of, ‘I can’t believe they’re going to actually let us get away with this.'”

When asked how long the conclusion of “Lost” had been determined, Cuse acknowledged that there really wasn’t a definitive answer to that question. “We came up with the final image of the show a long time ago back when we were first plotting out the mythology in the first season, then we started adding elements to that as we went along…and, really, between the first and the second season is when we cooked the mythology,” he said. “We kind of knew what the end point was, but as you move towards the end point, you add elements. Obviously, the end is not yet written, and there are certain sort of mythological, architectural elements that are intact for that ending, but a lot of character stuff will get worked out as we go along. I mean, that’s part of the discovery process of writing. For instance, Michael Emerson wasn’t on the show at that point. It’s a fun process because we sort of have a concept of where we’re going to end the show, but there is still the process of actually executing it and there still is the process of discovery, particularly on a character level, that will come into play as we finish the show.”

“So if you guys have any ideas,” said Lindelof, “we’re open-minded.”

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External Entertainment, External TV, Interviews, Lost, News, TCA Blog 2010, TCA Press Tour, TV, TV Action, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

10 “New” TV Series Which In No Way Matched The Shows That Inspired Them

January 5, 2010 /

Since we offered up a “New”-themed movie list to kick off the new year, it seemed like a reasonable idea to put together a TV-related list as well, but when we looked back and saw the number of series which featured the word “new” in their title, we noticed a recurring theme: many of the “new” series didn’t come anywhere close to living up to the standards set by the shows which inspired them. These are but ten examples, but rest assured that there are many more which could’ve made the cut.

10. The New Leave It To Beaver (1985): You may recall that this show was entitled “Still the Beaver” when it premiered as a Disney Channel original series, but when it transitioned over to TBS for its second season, that’s when the “New” title kicked in. It’s possible that it doesn’t really belong here, since it’s been ages since I last saw it (the rights to the series are sitting in limbo at the moment, which means that we won’t be seeing it in syndication anytime soon, let alone on DVD), but my recollection is that, although the TV movie that inspired the show was pretty great, the show itself often wasn’t. Still, while “The New Leave It To Beaver” may not come anywhere close to matching the perfection of the original series, it deserves a certain amount of credit for being the most successful series revival / sequel of all time, bringing back virtually every single surviving member of the cast: Tony Dow (Wally Cleaver), Barbara Billingsley (June Cleaver), Ken Osmond (Eddie Haskell), Frank Bank (Lumpy Rutherford), and, of course, Jerry Mathers as the Beaver.

9. The New WKRP in Cincinnati (1991): Given the success of the original “WKRP” in syndication, it’s no wonder that someone had the idea of bringing the show back, but while the new version did manage to corral a few of the old cast members – Gordon Jump (Mr. Carlson), Frank Bonner (Herb Tarlek), and Richard Sanders (Les Nessman) all came back – the folks who opted out of the series were replaced by tepid new characters who couldn’t hold a candle to those whose shoes they were filling. Given how disappointing “The New WKRP” was, it really should be higher on this list, but I’m keeping in this slot because the show did manage to convince Loni Anderson (Jennifer Marlowe), Tim Reid (Venus Flytrap), and Howard Hessman (Dr. Johnny Fever) to make guest appearances at various points.

8. The New Avengers (1976): Fans tend to be split about the merits of the return of John Steed with two new partners, Mike Gambit (Gareth Hunt) and Purdey (Joanna Lumley), but you can hardly blame them, given how iconic a figure Emma Peel was. It’s said that the reason Steed had a pair of partners this go-round was that producers weren’t entirely confident that 54-year-old Patrick Macnee could hack the work regiment anymore, but he managed to pull it off pretty well, all things considered. Nowadays, it’s no wonder that the original series is the one which stands the test of time best: “The Avengers” had a look which helped define a decade, whereas “The New Avengers” has a look which is defined by its decade. Mind you, it doesn’t exactly help that you can’t look at Purdey without thinking, “Hey, it’s Patsy from ‘Absolutely Fabulous’!”

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External Entertainment, External TV, TV, TV Action, TV Cartoons, TV Comedies, TV Dramas, TV Sci-Fi

Doctor Who: The End of Time Part Two

January 3, 2010 /

Last week, when writing about the first part of the Tennant/Davies swansong, I talked about not making any predictions, as well as the possibility of expectations not being met. On the predictions front, I’m glad I didn’t bother (although one of the few that I did make may actually be true – more on that in a bit), because there’s really no way I could have predicted the bizarre manner in which this tale concluded. The narrative meat of this episode – the stuff involving the Time Lords, Gallifrey and the Master – was quite frankly difficult to wade through on the first viewing; a second viewing alleviated some of that, and yet I’m still not convinced it all makes perfect sense. Perhaps I’m looking at it too deeply, and wanting more than there is?

I’d also be lying if I said I went into this episode without any expectations – I mean, how can you not? Many, if not most of them weren’t met, although there were plenty of other treats on display that made up for that. Indeed, this episode was hell bent on subverting expectations. “The End of Time” as a whole, which is how it should be judged, is a landmark slice of “Doctor Who,” even though the writing isn’t as tight as the intricate standard set by “The Waters of Mars.” Oh well – based on previous finales, I didn’t really expect it to be, and on that level it can’t be called a letdown. It’s so steeped in the mythology of Davies’ vision of “Who,” that it’s difficult to imagine it could possibly work as a piece of standalone drama for anyone unfamiliar with the past five years of the series. But that also can’t be a criticism, since what it really is is a jagged love letter to everyone who’s been paying attention during that time. Davies really backed himself into a corner with this one, because “Journey’s End” very much felt like the end of the era, only it wasn’t. So this proper ending, which feels more like a coda or an afterward, had to be a horse of a different color, and it most certainly was.

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Doctor Who, TV Sci-Fi

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