It’s that time of the year again, where studios are warming up for next year’s TV season, producing pilots they hope will become the next big hit. Somehow some of these pilot always turns up on the internetz, be it intentionally or not. I’ll try to review the ones I come across, giving feedback if it’s worth watching next fall or not.

The first is The Mentalist, a CBS produced police drama, starring Simon Baker (The Guardian). He plays Patrick Jane, a consultant for the California Bureau of Investigation (CBI), who uses his remarkable skills of observation to help solve cases. Five years ago Jane was a TV celebrity psychic, who was involved in the hunt for the serial killer Red John. On TV he (falsely) claimed he could feel Red John with his paranormal abilities and Red John responded by killing Jane’s family. Since then he’s stopped with the psychic angle, admitting his powers were fake, and started working as a crime consultant. Jane is known for his lack of protocol and his unusual method of solving cases, infuriating his senior agent Teresa Lisbon (Robin Tunney) and the other members of the team (Owain Yeoman, Amanda Righetti and Tim Kang).

When I heard the premise of this series, I thought it would be a Psych/Monk rip-off. It’s not though, not at all. Where Psych and Monk are both pretty upbeat and funny, The Mentalist is more darker and serious than those two series. It has a bit of the same base story, but in the execution they’re nothing alike. The character of Patrick Jane can be funny at times, but his circumstances and background are painted more seriously, giving him a rougher, more realistic edge.

Patrick Jane is the type of person who knows he’s the smartest person in the room and will remind you of that very fact. He’s arrogant and slightly annoying to most of the people he shares the screen with. In another actor’s hands this could have turned out bad, but Simon Baker makes it work; you actually start liking him. He’s a great lead and you’re straight away rooting for his character. 

Robin Tunney, who I typically find quite annoying, is decent enough as Jane’s supervisor. The other supporting characters are all okay, even though we don’t get to see much of them in this pilot. It’s great to see Owain Yeoman again on TV, but his track records with new series haven’t fared that well (both The Nine and Kitchen Confidential were cancelled after 13 episodes). And the same counts for Amanda Righetti (Reunion got cancelled after 13 episodes too). Fingers crossed The Mentalist doesn’t go down that same road.

The Mentalist is an interesting new series that doesn’t require too much effort to get into. Most episodes will be stand-alone and I’m guessing the light season story arch of Red John will not frighten off the occasional viewer. Additionally, it’s an easy series to commit to; there’s no real mystery and mythology to get hooked by, and if the series does get cancelled, there won’t be too many never-to-be-solved loose ends. I’m not sure if they’ll stick to this pilot; there’s always the chance they’ll recast, rewrite and reshoot certain stuff. I liked it though, and it’s going on my to-watch for this fall.

A couple of months ago I told you all about Joss Whedon’s during the strike created web show called Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Well, now it’s almost about to be launched!

Dr Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) is a super villain, just not that good a one. His arch nemesis Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion) keeps beating him up and he’s too shy to talk to the cute girl from the laundromat (Felicia Day). It’s a comedy and it’s a musical, so it’s going to be silly, funny and oh so sing-alongable.

I loved Buffy’s musical episode Once More With Feeling (I’m not ashamed to admit I know all the lyrics of those songs), so I have high hopes for Dr Horrible. The casting of Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion to me is just a great added bonus. Even if they weren’t in it I would have adored this, but with both of them it just makes it a bit more special. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, check it out:

Teaser from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo

The idea is to have three acts (episodes) of about 15 minutes debut online on DrHorrible.com in the next couple of days. Act 1 will be launched tomorrow (Tuesday July 15th), Act 2 on Thursday (July 17th) and Act 3 on Saturday (July 19th). All three acts will be available for free online till Sunday midnight (July 20th). After that they’ll be downloadable for a small fee and eventually also released on DVD.

There’s also a mini comic book story that serves as a preview called Captain Hammer: Be Like Me!. It’s not that important to the story, but it’s a great little extra marketing. I so hope this whole setup is going to work, but if there’s one guy out there who can make it happen it’s Joss Whedon. 

So don’t forgot! Tomorrow is the first installment of Dr Horrible. Will you come along to see evil take over the world?

Episode 10: “Because the lives of the wicked should be made brief”

Tonight is the London premiere of Sweeney Todd (even though the actual UK release date is 25th of January) and for that reason I’ve got this video. It’s a short clip with Johnny Depp commenting on his performance and shows a scene with him singing. I love the look and feel of the movie, but while I am a musical fan, I’m not sure I really like this music. Guess I’ll have to wait till the 25th to know for sure. 

I clearly remember the first time I played Soul Calibur II. It was a couple of years ago at a friend’s birthday party and I was playing with Ivy. At the time I didn’t like fighting games that much. I didn’t dislike them; I had played Mortal Combat and Battle Arena Toshinden on the PSone and then Dead Or Alive and Virtua Fighter a lot on the PS2, but that was more about winning from my brother and sister, then really finding it a great, good game. The first thing I noticed of SC was it’s fluidity; the game play was so smooth and graceful. It felt like watching a perfectly choreographed scene from a movie. Then instead of the standard “everybody uses their hands and feet and kicks and punches”, here everybody had a specific weapon: swords, staffs, katanas, etc. So, the first time I was playing I had Ivy. Now, for those of you who don’t know the game, Ivy’s weapon is kind of peculiar. It’s called a snake sword and with the right button the basic sword can actually turn into a whip. Imagine my surprise when that happened the first time!

When Soul Calibur III came out, I was amazed again. You could make your own complete characters! Plus their was a RPG-like mode added to it, so you could level up your characters and collect more items (weapons, clothes, extras). I spent hours trying to get further in the game, but alas my gaming skills aren’t that great. At a certain point, I just wasn’t good enough to beat the computer (I know I’ll be able to do it with enough effort and training, but I really don’t have the time for that). Anyhow it remains one of the best “beat your friends”-games (btw, I love Cassandra and Sophitia).

So, why I am I going on about these old games? A new trailer for Soul Calibur IV has come out during CES and it looks extremely wicked. A lot of the regular characters were alreayd confirmed to be back (Astaroth, Cassandra, Ivy, Mitsurugi, Nightmare, Raphael, Siegfried, Sophitia, Taki, Tira and Volvo) and one new character had been revealed, Hilde. The new info though? The PS3 and the Xbox360 both have special (unlockable) characters, namely…drumroll please… Darth Vader and Yoda! Don’t believe me? Take a look at some of the images below (via 1UP.com) or at the trailer. More images here and here.The downside is though that Darth Vader will be only in the PS3 version and Yoda only in the Xbox360 version. So we won’t be having any great Darth Vader vs. Yoda fights. However, 1UP.com is expecting some more surprises:

…we suspect that Namco Bandai still has plenty of stuff up their sleeve. Given their recent Ace Combat 6 shenanigans, we wouldn’t be surprised to learn that additional Star Wars characters are paid-for downloadable content. It’s unlikely that the company would go through all these negotiations with LucasArts to obtain the rights to only two characters, so expect more announcements as we get closer to SCIV’s release date.

Now there’s finally a reason for me to get a PS3!