Episode 77: “You sound like a poodle”

I’m a huge fan of Joss Whedon and for me it all started with Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I was 13 when that show began and was immediately addicted to it. I still think there isn’t any other show quite like Buffy.

Sometime during the run of the series, the idea for an animated series came up. It would be set during Buffy’s high school years, but in the alternative where Dawn exists. Because of a whole bunch of problems, the series never got produced (read more here). However, a 4-minute promo was once made, which now finally after 4 years has cropped up:

It doesn’t completely feel right for me (the dialogue doesn’t seem that polished), but I would have loved to see this series. Thank god, we now have Season 8 though, right?

It’s only a couple more weeks/months until the new TV season, so promos and clips of the upcoming shows have been appearing online. Some of them are familiar old shows with clips, showing us what may happen to our favourite characters. Others are completely new, whose fate beyond the pilot may not even be decided yet. 

Gemini Division
This will be a new NBC produced web series, starring Rosario Dawson. She plays a New York cop who uncovers a global conspiracy involving the creation of simulated life forms, Sims. At the moment 50 episodes, each around 6 minutes long, have been planned, with a possible extension to 100 episodes. [Website]

Caprica
There’s been talk about this series for the past two years and now finally they’ve gone ahead with it. It’s a prequel of sorts to Battlestar Galactica, showing the creation and rise of the Cylons. The premise sounded really interesting to me, but after seeing this promo I’m not so sure. It somehow doesn’t feel sci-fi-y enough, only drama.

Fringe
I’ve actually seen this pilot already (review will follow) and it looks quite okay. It’s a new series from JJ Abrams (he of Felicity, Alias and Lost), focusing on fringe (pseudo) science.

 
Heroes
Unlike last year I’m not all that excited for Heroes. I was just so disappointed after last season; they had so many options and possible cool story lines, and instead it all turned out so, so… average. I’ll still watch it, but I’m hoping it will get better.

Life on Mars
The original Life on Mars was great, so why go and ruin it with a US version? This looks so bad and completely unnecessary. I’ve also heard rumours, they won’t be sticking to the original’s storyline, but want to make it a “deeper mystery”.

Pushing Daisies
I love Pushing Daisies, but this promo is worthless. You don’t even get to see anything from the new season!

Chuck
Now they know how to make some cool promos! First the Hellboy one and now these; I can’t wait till Chuck is back on TV.

Dollhouse
The new Joss Whedon series! I’m watching this no matter what, but as I said before I find the humour strangely lacking in this trailer. Where’s the funny, Joss? The clips of the episode shown in this trailer will actually be the second episode. Whedon just announced that his pilot was slightly confusing and jumping into the story straight away, so they’ve decided to keep that episode as the second and create a new episode in front of that, acting as the pilot.

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 67: “We deserve fans, man”

I hate trailers that give too much away and if possible, would rather forgo them completely. That’s why I love these type of promotional videos for movies; they show the spirit of the movie without spoiling anything (the Wall-E and the vacuum cleaner/magnet/etc set is another good example). The video shows Hellboy (the titular character of the upcoming movie) and Chuck (from the tv show Chuck) together playing a video game:

I love how they combine these two worlds! There’s also a second one:

I haven’t been watching Doctor Who for that long; I only jumped in at the end of season 2, but since then it only seems to be getting better. Last week I decided to watch all the episodes I hadn’t seen and watched the first two seasons, so now I’m kind of on a Doctor Who high. I loved last Saturday’s Doctor Who episode, the penultimate episosde of this season (The Stolen Earth) and just had to take some time to theorize about the finale. I don’t want to spoil anything, so: beware, spoilers after the pic!

Beware: Here be spoilers! 

If you’re reading this I assume you’ve seen the episode I’m talking about and the major cliffhanger at the end: the Doctor starts regenerating! Seriously, was anyone expecting that? The moment he got shot, I of course had the feeling that would happen, but before that? No way. And now what? How will this be resolved? Reports are that David Tennant has signed on for the three specials of next year and has even started filming some of it. But can we actually trust these sources?

I think there are 5 possible situations that could happen:

1. The Doctor regenerates into a new actor and stays that way.

If this is the case, I have to applaud the makers for keeping this secret. In this darn age it seems an impossible mission and if they actually managed not to reveal this major spoiler… freaking amazing. I don’t think I’d be that happy though with this option, cause that means no more David Tennant! I’m sure whoever they’ll get to replace Tennant will be great and we’ll warm up to him, but still let us keep Tennant a few more seasons.

2. The Doctor regenerates into a new actor, but turns back into Tennant.  

In this scenario there are two things that could happen. First one is that this new form the Doctor turns into is a one time appearance. He changes back into Tennant and this form is never seen again (with some mumbo-jumbo that time has changed so the next time he regenerates it won’t be into that form). Second thing that could happen is that this is a preview of the next Doctor. Whenever Tennant leaves the show, this is the actor who will take over.

3. The Doctor “degenerates” into a previous incarnation and stays that way.

Ehm, well, it is a possibility, right? But, yeah, highly unlikely.

4. The Doctor “degenerates” into a previous incarnation, but turns back into Tennant.

I could see this happening. I wouldn’t put it pass Davies to bring Christopher Ecclestone or an earlier Doctor back for a moment, only to “fix” it and continue with Tennant. It also wouldn’t be too difficult to have kept secret; a couple of scenes with the previous Doctor on a closed set, pretty easy to keep quiet.

5. The Doctor tries to regenerate, but is stuck in his current form.

I think this would be the most boring option; something goes wrong, so the regeneration can’t be completed and they have to find some other way to heal the Doctor or something like that. After all the big fuss, it would kind of feel like the easy way out and I would really be disappointed if they do this. It has to be something “grander” than this, don’t you think?

The first situation would be the most shocking and sure to go down in TV history, but I don’t think it will happen. With what we’ve heard about Tennant, I truly think he’ll be back for future episodes. I’m hoping it won’t be the 5th option, but from the others I’m not sure which I’d rather prefer.

So do you think I’ve covered every possibility? Or will Davies do something even more ridiculous? Any other possible scenarios you can come up with?

Episode 60: “And I’m commando too, they shoot me from here up.”

These videos are almost from a year ago from the SciFi Digital Press Panel with the Battlestar Galactica cast, featuring Aaron Douglas, Michael Hogan, Jamie Bamber, Grace Park, Tahmoh Penikett and executive producer Harvey Frand. It was during the shooting of the episodes we’re watching now, but they’re mainly talking about their experiences with (famous) fans and the evolution of their characters (so no spoilers).

I still am surprised every time I hear Jamie Bamber’s accent, even though I first saw him as Archie in Hornblower. And Aaron Douglas is hilarious! He is so different to his character on the show. It’s a long video (about 46 minutes), but if you’re a fan, it’s worth watching.

Episode 53: “What?”

A couple more days and Lost will be back with more episodes. Lost can be pretty confusing and this video only highlights this even more:

From Wikipedia:

Shipping

Derived from the word “relationship”, shipping is a general term for fans’ emotional and/or intellectual involvement with the ongoing development of romance in a work of fiction.

I have to admit I am a bit of a shipper: I always have some preference to who has to end up with who. I hate all those Brangelina like type of names though and I refuse to use such monstrosities on my beloved TV and book and video games friends (Brangelina is allowed though, those are celebrities, not real people). So who have I shipped for in the past? Veronica and Logan, Buffy and Angel, Buffy and Spike, Sarah and Grissom, Delenn and Sheridan, Ivanova and Marcus, and many more.

One of my favourite “they’ve always been hinting, but never actually went there” couples were Samantha Carter and Jack O’Neill in Stargate: SG-1. Throughout the entire series they never actually even kiss (right? tell me if I’m wrong, I might be forgetting something here), but there was always the feeling there was more between the two. The writers of the show seem to agree with me: in a blog post Stargate writer Joseph Mallozzi shows a scene that was cut from an episode of Stargate Atlantis (episode 4×16 Trio to be exact):

Carter: So…you seeing anyone?

Keller: What?

Carter: Around the base, you seeing anyone?

Keller: I dunno…I had a moment with – with this…guy. He’s not exactly easy to read so…I guess the short answer is “no”. You?

Carter: Well, I’m the boss, so I can’t really…

Keller: Right Anyone back home?

Carter: Uhm…

Keller: Un-huh, I thought so. Give it up.

Carter: Well, it’s complicated.

Keller: Show me a relationship that isn’t.

Carter: He’s in Washington…I’m here.

Keller: Ouch. Long distance relationship.

Carter: He’s going to retire soon, so maybe –

Keller: Really! Retire? So…an older man, huh?

Carter: Not that much older.

Keller: Washington, older man…is he like a Senator or something? Someone famous? Would I know him?

Carter: Probably not.

Too bad the scene was cut from the episode. It also gives a good explanation to why Keller almost kisses Ronan the one week, then suddenly asks Rodney out the next week.