Television

[Jacq]

I stopped watching Smallville around season 7 (I bought the boxsets because I had no cable at the time and it was a great way to wind down from homework.) I was pretty sad when they killed off Jonathon kent (bo duuuuuuke *drool*) and then for a while it was like a bunch of Scooby Doo episodes (with all the JLA kids showing up out of the woodwork) and I lost interest.

House it still awesome though! I'm sad about what happened last night.

[Kathy Li]

Ok, how silly was it last week that Criminal Minds started with a Terry Pratchett quote? That they made singularly unfunny by taking it in completely the wrong context? [headshake].

[Kathy Li]

Welp, the slaughter's over, and the new fall season's set. I lost a few: Reaper, Life, Valentine, Crusoe, My Own Worst Enemy, Pushing Daisies, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Eli Stone, Eleventh Hour, and Cupid are all dead. Oh, and Medium got cancelled by NBC, but will (hopefully) get picked up by CBS. And I'm still marvelling that Dollhouse survived (and Castle).

If you want to read all about it, the upfronts (which is when the networks present their fall slates for the advertisers) were this week, and thefutoncritic.com has all the press releases and announcements. I personally just look at the big score card.

[Lazy Leopard]

Ok, how silly was it last week that Criminal Minds started with a Terry Pratchett quote? That they made singularly unfunny by taking it in completely the wrong context? [headshake].

*sigh* Some folks just don't get it. They miss certain aspects of a story or situation; the humour, irony, or satire. I'd say it was strange, but it seems to be very common, so I guess it's just sad...

[Birdhead]

Losing Life about killed me. Such a good, thoughtful, watchable show - so unfair.

My favourite thing about Dollhouse coming back is the absolute SHOCK of all the punters. I lost count of the number of articles I read that were flailing around trying to justify it (my favourite explanation is that they just didn't want to deal with the email campaign cancelling it would cause - although it's possible that they actually learned from Firefly! Miracles do happen.)

What new shows are we excited for? I am SUPER excited for Glee - I liked the pilot and I am an enormous musical geek so. In Joss alum news, Morena Baccarin is [s]type[/s]cast in V (which looks.... um, kind of awful) and Michelle Trachtenberg is going to be starring in Mercy, which is great - I love her (and can't wait for her stint on Gossip Girl next season.) I am totally going to watch Eastwick through my fingers for Paul Gross - who I love, but man, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to take the silly. Not a lot of new fantasy that I'm really excited for - I guess I can go and read The Vampire Diaries series (LJ Smith) to try to be excited for the show, but really Joss has ruined me for vampires.

Finally: I can't believe NCIS is getting a spin off. COME ON, someone come up with a new idea for a flippin' change.

[kk]

Kathy: Medium got canceled? Oh no! It's such a fun show... I got my family addicted a while ago. At least some websites still have the older episodes archived online.

I've been watching a lot of Monty Python's Flying Circus recently, though on DVD. I know I used to see an episode or two of it on BBC America, but now I can't find a channel that has it on. Does anybody know of one?

[Kathy Li]

Tui, just as I do not see the point of the Terminator franchise without James Cameron involvement, I do not see the point of a V remake without Kenneth Johnson input. (Hey, I watched the original when it was on). The success of Battlestar Galactica has a lot to answer for. I think the new show I'm most looking forward to is Human Target, with doubtful maybes for Eastwick and Flash Forward. But the crop of pilots is unusually thin of interest for me. Weirdly, I liked the Sons of Tuscon trailer. Wasn't expecting that. And yeah, I'll miss Life but it was starting to seem like they were never actually going to bother developing the arc they'd set up of Charlie getting to the bottom of things. And that irritated me.

BTW, the thing about V is that it isn't about green lizard aliens who eat humans. It's about totalitarian regimes, resistance fighters, and fifth columnists. I can still remember the incredibly cheesy ripoff they did of a scene in Casablanca. Similarly, Alien Nation wasn't about aliens who dissolved in salt water and had no hair, but it was really about Russian Jews who'd survived the Holocaust and emigrated to the United States. Kenneth Johnson was the guy who was responsible for a lot of the shows I was addicted to growing up in the '70s and '80s: The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman, The Incredible Hulk, V, and Alien Nation. It was kitsch, but it was good kitsch that taught us to be fans.

Although, for me, I think the jewels of '80s SF television would be Max Headroom (where the hell are the DVDs?!!) and The New Twilight Zone (which unlike the New New Twilight Zone had actual SF writers--folks like George R.R. Martin, Harlan Ellison, Rockne S. O'Bannon (y'know, the Farscape dude), and Alan Brennart--writing for them, and adapting folks like Zelazney, Clarke, Bear, Bradbury, and King (oh... "Gramma" [shudder]). And the actors they got...! OMG. Helen Mirren, Danny Kaye, Bruce Willis...it's kind of amazing watching it now. I can highly recommend those DVD sets if you wanna see some SF from the era of big hair and legwarmers. And my favorite episode was Brennart's original episode, "Her Pilgrim Soul". The short story he adapted it into is almost as good. The companion piece that went with it, "I of Newton" is also a classic, and will show you Ron Glass in his post-Barney Miller/pre-Firefly days. As a demon. With sunglasses.

kk, no worries. CBS has picked up Medium. It's safe. It's just on a different channel, now. No idea if anybody's airing Flying Circus, but I can recommend the Monty Python website, Pythonline. And you can always find the movies (Life of Brian, Live at the Hollywood Bowl, Holy Grail, etc.) at the library or Netflix. Ahhhh... the classics.

[Birdhead]

The original series (hmm, IMDBing, it's a TV movie and a spin off series?) I obviously didn't see, because I wasn't alive, but I have to say - as a lit student - that one of the best things about remakes is the ability to contrast two different eras and their preoccupations - culty, pulpy SF is often really good for this. We express so many of our social fears in our SF and film/tv SF seems to often do this quite unconsciously. (I'd love to write a paper comparing, say, the original The Day the Earth Stood Still with its remake; seems like V could do a similar thing. Hmmm, now I really want to write this paper & have to think of a way to work it into my studies...) But anyway, yeah, it seems (from watching the trailer) that remade V is going to be concerned more with, say, religiosity, faith, trust, suspicion of charity and suspicion of outsiders. I wonder how that could possibly be related to the current American zeitgeist.

[Kathy Li]

To continue from what I posted in the Movies thread, another part of the Pixar rescue of Disney Animation is that Lasseter's instigated a short film program at Disney, similar to the one they have at Pixar. Short films are important because it's how someone can journeyman their way into directing or taking on a bigger role with more responsibilities, without having all the money/time/complexity of a feature film on their shoulders. It's also a good way for someone who just wants to try their hand at it, but not to be a features director to give it a try. The shorter length means a lower cost, and the ability to be more experimental.

Anyway, the first of the Disney short films kind of got bigger--it's now a half-hour (cgi) Christmas special that's going to air on ABC next Tuesday (Dec. 8) at 8:30pm. It's called Prep & Landing (warning: link goes to ABC website which is ad-laden and a bandwidth hog), and the clip they showed at Comic-Con this was hilarious. I'm really looking forward to it.

Disney's also doing an hour-long commercial, er, special to promote The Princess and the Frog, called "Dreams Come True: A Celebration of Disney Animation" on Friday, Dec. 4th, at 8pm, which is basically just going to be a lot of different people waxing nostalgic over the classic Disney animated features.

I am such the Disney fangirl.

[Kathy Li]

So, now that the Doctor Who finale is over and the Bowl games are calming down, shows will be returning next week, with a few to go missing soon (Dollhouse, Eastwick) and a few newbies to pop up (Human Target, Spartacus: Blood & Sand).

Anybody else excited and happy like me? Lie to Me and Castle have both been picked up for the back nine (i.e., they get full seasons, rather than being cut short like Dollhouse). The Cranford Christmas special is airing on Masterpiece (hosted by David Tennant. snicker). We're going to get the David Tennant/Patrick Stewart Hamlet on Great Performances in the Spring (apparently followed by a Patrick Stewart Macbeth). Chuck, Leverage, Project Runway and Burn Notice return. Human Target looks like it's going to be a blast. Spartacus: Blood and Sand looks, er... well, like a cheap thrill/guilty pleasure that I shouldn't discuss on a PG-13ish board (man, somebody liked 300).

Yes, it's a bummer we have to wait until April for more Glee, but you can't have everything.

[Birdhead]

I have to say, although I didn't like waiting so long for the most recent season of Project Runway (and then it was just. unremittingly. awful.) at least we get a new season so soon! I'm excited for this season, although, um, not sure why since, as I said, last season was not of the good. Very sad about Dollhouse going Very excited about Grey's coming back, since it sucked me back in in December. Also waiting on White Collar and Leverage, which are constantly warring within me for favourite Hustle rip-off, and The Big Bang Theory (back tomorrow!), cos everyone needs a sitcom in their life and HIMYM just hasn't been hitting the spot for me lately.

[Kathy Li]

Was that or was that not an amazing Project Runway this week?

Designer quits! Model quits! Both eliminated folks from last week are BACK! And look--Jessica Alba!

Woot. Excitement was definitely the call of the day.

All right. Kathy's usual stuff-coming-up post:

• 4/2. SyFy's started up series 2 of Merlin (meh. but the kids are cute and Tony Head always makes it worth my while)
  
• 4/4. Masterpiece Classic finally gets around to showing us the last Sharpe.
  
• 4/13. Glee is back!! And Joss Whedon's apparently directing one of the back nine (tv series are often ordered in half-seasons. The initial order's for 13, the second order if the show's picked up for a full season is for nine more episodes, which is called "the back nine"--cute, 'cause it's a golf term for the last nine holes of the course).
  
• 4/17. Doctor Who arrives on US shores, ala BBC America, not SyFy!
  
• 4/18. We see how SyFy slaughters Farmer's Riverworld. For the second time.
  
• 4/28. Great Performances delivers up the David Tennant/Patrick Stewart Hamlet from the RSC production. Not that anybody but me cares, but Penny Downie's Gertrude. It rocks.
  
• 5/12. The Good Guys (if its title hasn't changed again) shows up on Fox. It was known as Code 58 and then The Five Eight. This one is showrun by Matt Nix, creator of Burn Notice. Star Bradley Whitford (Josh on The West Wing).
  
• 6/3. Burn Notice is back on USA.
  
• 6/7. Lie to Me is back on Fox. Is this a demented time to start up the second half of a season or what?
  
• 6/16. True Blood returns to HBO.
  
• 6/20. Leverage is back on TNT.
  
• July. Eureka returns to SyFy.

Isn't it sad that I actually track all this?

[Stormwind]

Warehouse 13 starts around the same time as Eureka! At least I liked the show... And I can almost hear the sighs of "She likes that show?" I think it's one of the better shows SyFy has put on.... I didn't get any chance to watch Sanctuary this last season... but working Midnight shift can cause you to miss your favorite shows... I'm off work this week so will try to catch up on them....

[Birdhead]

Was that or was that not an amazing Project Runway this week?

Designer quits! Model quits! Both eliminated folks from last week are BACK! And look--Jessica Alba!

And Anthony had easily the most impressive got-booted-out-then-came-back-when-someone-else-quit return of the show to date, that I can recall anyway. I can't say he's my favourite contestant - I would rather have had Amy back, although her aufing was certainly well-deserved - but he did a good job this week.

I am really sad by how lacklustre Mila's been lately. She's the last woman left on the show - another reason I was sad to see Maya go; the other reason of course that I think she's really talented - and it would be nice if she could really represent, but she seems to have really lost her way lately, and I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd been aufed this week. As it is she might be bulletproof until the round before the finale but I'm not sure she deserves that.

re: your coming-up round-up: I always appreciate it, ftr. ALSO OMG GLEE COMING UP yayyyyy I missed it so! I was glad Bones was back last week too. What else am I watching... Trauma. Yeah, yeah, but it's Cliff Curtis so I'm patriotically required, and I'm finding it pretty good - although maybe this is because I recently gave up all my cop and medical dramas so it's filling a blank (Grey's broke up my OTP, Numb3rs is starting to drag for me, I finally decided the racism and sexism on NCIS is too much for me, never really took to Mercy even though I wanted to.) And Doctor Who, of course!

Any opinions out there on Southland? I was advised recently that it was a terrific drama and not your usual cop show...

[Kathy Li]

Argh. Five minutes into Criminal Minds, and I'm googling "Criminal Minds spinoff backdoor pilot". Man, could they have been any more obvious?! (A "backdoor pilot" is when they sneak in a trial pilot for a new spinoff show into an episode of the original show--like how CSI: Miami was introduced on CSI.