Why settle for Will Ferrell when you can have a jolly good laugh with the real thing?
Category: TV (Page 388 of 595)
This week’s installment of “Journeyman” was really hard to follow. There was so much going on, from pretty much every angle of the series as presented thus far, that unless you’ve been following the show from week to week, you’d have no idea what was going on. Yes, faithful viewers, the series has finally entered “The Continuity Zone.”
And that’s fine, because a series with a setup like this needs to go down these roads sooner rather than later. What’s frustrating is that the questions an average viewer has aren’t being answered: What’s Livia’s function?; Who’s behind Dan’s travels?; Is Dan restricted to traveling within the last 30 or so years?
The biggest problem with this episode was that it attempted to do so many things at once, and as a result left something of a hole in its core theme: The relationships between brothers. Dan found himself dealing with two brothers in the past that echoed the current gap in his relationship with his own brother, Jack. Aside from that, we saw references to the money stash last week, Katie trying to reignite her TV anchor career – which seems inexplicably ballsy given the life she’s been thrust into, and the assertion from a genius that time travel isn’t even possible. What does it all mean?
I did a little surfing and found an interview with creator Kevin Falls that was conducted last week. Go check it out by clicking here and then come back and see what I have to say.
Kevin Falls said: “Alex Graves and I are two guys who don’t believe in time travel, but we have a great respect for that genre.”
This hit me harder than anything else in the interview. Only the most involved of scientists and theorists are qualified to comment on the possibility of time travel, but I think the reason the genre survives is because of the romance that surrounds the premise. Why, as a showrunner, would you point out that you don’t even believe in the basis of your series? Do you at least believe in it insofar as the concept of the series allows? In qualifying your disbelief, does that inform viewers as to what they should expect as the series moves forward? I may be reading too much into Falls’ statement, but I can’t help but wonder what it means for “Journeyman” as a whole.
Kevin Falls said: “I think we owe it to the audience to find who Livia is, and who Dan is. I mean they were dating, and they are time travelers – why those two? That’s what we’re going to address in sweeps. You’ll know by episode 9, or actually 7 or 8 who Livia is. Then we’ll get into Langley and who he is up until episode 12, then god willing, towards the end of the season we’ll get into what this is all about in a global sense.”
So there’s a plan – a plan that involves the numerous elements we’ve been exposed to thus far. The Livia questions could be answered within the next two episodes. Langley, as I predicted, will be a major force. This is all great to know ahead of time, because there’s nothing worse than investing time in a series that ultimately fails to deliver. But frankly, statements about sweeps give me the cold shivers, even though I understand that’s how showrunners have to think.
Kevin Falls said: “I never watched ‘Quantum Leap’. I read the first 50 pages of ‘Time Traveler’s Wife’… “
Despite my constant comparisons to “Quantum Leap”, this doesn’t surprise me. But I think Falls and Graves could learn a lot by going back and checking out old episodes of THE series that did something of the same oh so successfully. My biggest criticisms thus far of “Journeyman” have been that I feel uninvested in Dan’s journeys outside of how they affect Dan and those close to him. Dan needs to be affected by those he comes into contact with and his journeys should mean more to him than “Another week, another leap”. That was always something “Quantum Leap” excelled at: You felt the weight of the travels on Sam Beckett’s shoulders.
Oh, don’t get me wrong – I love “Journeyman”, but you’ll not find a more critical time travel devotee than the guy who’s trying to guide you on these journeys [i.e. me]. When all is said and done, I expect this show will deliver, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried that it might not. Luckily, Falls seems to indicate that NBC loves the series, so here’s to hoping that they continue to stay behind it.
I’m working my way through the new “Twin Peaks” set, and during the feature-length documentary on the creation and history of the show, I was made aware of a tribute / parody that I’d never heard about: “Twin Beaks,” which aired as part of Cookie Monster’s “Monsterpiece Theater.”
Wow. Just…wow.
You know, this might well explain what’s wrong with today’s generation: they grew up watching stuff like this.
So Claire’s back, but Kristen Bell’s nowhere to be found. Is there some sort of ruling that the two can’t appear in the same episode? And as long as we’re asking questions, did cheers get dumber since I was in high school? I mean, they were never Shakespeare to begin with, but are they really busting rhymes about planting trees now…? Claire is so prone to being swayed by peer pressure…or, specifically, the words of one cute boy…that it’s a wonder she hasn’t been captured and utilized by The Company by now. Her avenging angel is clearly a man who’s in love with his power, but despite her concerns about his plan to get her onto the cheerleading squad, you can’t argue with the results.
HRG and Brother Voodoo are off chillin’ in the Ukraine, and it’s like Starsky and Hutch reunited. HRG is back to his bad-ass ways…and, worse, he’s intimidating the man who trained him in the first place. You know the guy’s not screwing around when he’s threatening to have Brother Voodoo removed all of his most treasured memories…and he starts with the day the guy met his wife! I like the ongoing comparison between Claire and HRG and how neither of them are being truthful to the other. And speaking of a lack of honesty, did anyone really think that Ivan was being truthful when he said that the company had changed…? Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now, after that “oh, shit” moment when HRG popped a cap right into Ivan’s forehead. (“That’s a hell of a powerful gun,” said my wife, when Ivan went flying backwards after the shot.)
Mohinder’s really between a rock and a hard place when the fate of Monica’s abilities are placed in his hands, but the big revelation is that Bob (Stephen Tobolowsky) isn’t just a bad-ass; he’s a DICK. When Mohinder finally snapped, I think it was fair to say that no-one believed Bob’s sudden recanting of his earlier threats toward Mohinder; Tobolowsky’s just too damned good at playing a complete skeeve, and Nikki’s appearance at the end of the episode was suitably ominous.
Sylar’s trying to sway Maya over to the dark side, but Alejandro’s not having any of it. To watch Sylar seem to soak up Maya’s power, though, was to witness sheer evil bliss, and his speech to Alejandro was downright chilling.
This feels like a complete cheat of a Scare of the Day, but yesterday was a long damned day, and, frankly, I went for the shortest thing in my pile that was even remotely appropriate to the concept: a screener of the new Starz documentary, “Bloodsucking Cinema,” which – shocker! – offers up an hour-long history of the vampire as portrayed in motion pictures. (Given the title, I’m sure you in no way saw the subject matter coming.)
Unfortunately, the first reaction that the documentary is likely to inspire is the realization that there have been a lot…a LOT…of not-great vampire movies in recent years. It’s all but a universal truth that flicks like 1922’s “Nosferatu the Vampire,” with its uber-creepy performance from Max Schreck as the title character, and Tod Browning’s 1931 version of “Dracula,” which proved to be the defining moment of Bela Lugosi’s career (not to mention the albatross around his neck for the majority of his life), are all-time vampire classics. Unfortunately, it’s not like any of the principals from those movies are still among the living to discuss their experiences…but, hey, Uwe Boll and Kristanna Loken are chomping at the bit to chat about “BloodRayne”! Same with Len Weisman and the “Underworld” flicks, Stephen Sommers and “Van Helsing,” and Stuart Townsend and “Queen of the Damned.”
Not exactly on the same level, is it?
On the flip side of the coin, though, the conversations with Cheech Marin reminded me that it’s been too long since I last saw “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn,” and the interview segments with John Carpenter and John Landis and the clips from their respective vampire films – “Vampires” and “Innocent Blood” – made me think that I should give those flicks another chance, that maybe they’re better than I remember them. (In particular, the moments I saw of James Woods’ performance in “Vampires” during the special made me wonder why the film doesn’t stand out for me; he seemed to be having a ball, and yet I can’t for the life of me recall a thing about the flick, even though I know I’ve seen it.) I’m still not convinced, however, that watching Francis Ford Coppola’s “Dracula” again from start to finish wouldn’t leaving me feeling like a week had gone by, but, dammit, I was almost tricked into thinking otherwise. It was also nice to see Joel Schumacher reminiscing about “The Lost Boys,” though seeing Corey Haim only served to remind me how awful “The Two Coreys” was, and as a comic geek, I took great enjoyment in seeing an on-screen interview with Marv Wolfman, co-creator of “Blade.” (Oh, yeah, and writer / director David Goyer shows up to discuss those films as well.)
To give credit where credit is due, however, “Bloodsucking Cinema” does offer a bigger-picture view of the vampire film, even if its talking heads tend to represent sub-par examples of the genre. It does indeed stretch all the way back to “Nosferatu,” then moves forward, stopping long enough to speak of Lugosi, Christopher Lee’s portrayal of Dracula in the Hammer Studios films, the underrated Mexican vampire films which served to inspire “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn,” and even offers brief mentions of comedies like “Once Bitten” and Mel Brooks’ “Dracula: Dead and Loving It.” The differences in the vampire mythos from film to film are compared and contrasted, and by the end of the special, things have gotten downright philosophical, with Carpenter musing about how he would deal with the curse of eternal life.
“Bloodsucking Cinema” actually premiered on Friday night, but it’s being re-run on Halloween night at 9:00 PM EST. I know, it’s hard to accept that anything involving clips from “BloodRayne” is worth seeing, but this is worth catching. It’s certainly not all-inclusive (what, no “Blacula”?), but given the financial limitations inherent in cross-studio clip borrowing, they do they best they can, and the results are quite enjoyable.
FOLLOW US!
CATEGORIES
© 2026 Premium Hollywood
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑