Showbits

I've been eager for developing news on the American TV series Life on Mars ever since it was first announced more than a year ago. Based on the British series of the same name, this local adaptation similarly tells the tale of a modern-day detective involved in a car accident who wakes up to find himself 30 years in the past. He must acclimate to the technology and procedures of that era's police force, all while questioning his sanity and the reality of his circumstances.

Finally, a trailer for this ABC series has surfaced, along with confirmation of it airing Thursdays at 10 PM this fall:

I'm a bit surprised by the casting — I'd been led to believe that Colm Meaney would have the lead role, which the Trekkie in me was eager to see. But I find the casting of Jason O'Mara (also an Irish actor) more believable, though that's based only on this brief preview, as I've not seen any of his other work.

It also seems odd that this trailer suggests an almost comedic element. A time-travelling cop hunting down a serial killer sounds like the Dennis Quaid movie Frequency, which had a certain element of incredulity and wonder to it, but humor was not its overarching theme.

As I don't have TV service, I missed the similar show Journeyman and will have to catch it upon its eventual DVD release. Life on Mars will probably come to me via a similar route, a year after everyone else has enjoyed its premiere. If my hopes prove true, it will be worth the wait.

(Hat tips to TrekToday and Den of Geek)

It's already two-week-old news that Secret Talents of the Stars was cancelled after one show. But it was just today that I found this commercial for the show:

Given the hindsight that the show was canned, I thought this commercial was a postmortem spoof; but given that it was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of CBS (license holders of both Secret Talents and Star Trek), I must assume it is authentic. Seems they didn't think very highly of their own property — or else they're just terrible marketers. Context aside, certainly anyone can exhibit the minimal talent Takei demonstrates in the above clip.

I never saw the show and cannot attest to how horrible it must've been to have met such a swift demise. The theory seems sound: if the American television viewing public is interested in seeing actors and athletes on the dance floor, why not see what else they can do?

But since I cancelled my television service just as the first season of Survivor was premiering, I've never really understood the whole "reality TV" concept.

One year from today, American television stations will cease their analog broadcasts, switching entirely to digital signals. This transition will eliminate the need for both signals, thereby freeing up half of the currently-used television spectrum for the FCC to auction. Any television sold since March 2007 already has the hardware necessary to accept the new, higher-quality digital signal. If your home theater predates that cutoff, you may need to prepare for a conversion.

Let me decipher the criteria for you. If you use an antenna to receive your programming for free, then you will definitely be impacted: "Analog television sets receiving free TV using an antenna will not work after February 17, 2009. Television viewers with these sets that are not connected to a pay TV service will need to take action before February 17, 2009, to ensure their TV sets continue to work." This information comes from DTV2009.gov, where you can apply for a $40 coupon toward the purchase of a digital-to-analog converter box. The FCC defines these adaptors as such: "converter boxes are for the conversion of over-the-air digital television signals, and therefore are not intended for analog TVs connected to a paid provider such as cable or satellite TV service."

In other words, you can buy one of three solutions: a new television; a converter box; or cable, satellite, or other pay service. But even if you get (or already have) that third option, you should inquire with your service provider how they will be handling this transition — just in case.

If you do buy a new television, you'll want to ensure it's backward-compatible with older peripherals you may not want to also replace. Wikipedia states that a television with only the newer ATSC tuner and not the traditional NTSC tuner "prevents older devices, such as VCRs and video game consoles with only an analog RF output, from connecting to the TV." In other words, it's probably cheaper to just stick with your current, tried-and-true television.

Although champions of this upgrade declare high-definition television to be a necessary and inevitable future, the two truths I am gleaning from all the above are these: 1) The upgrade will primarily affect the minority who receive free programming, who are being offered free converters; and 2) The FCC and its industry is benefitting more from this optimization than the consumers are. Of course, if those older wavelengths are repurposed to some useful end, then we all stand to gain — but that's too big an "if" to label it a motivation for this change.

With the live-action Justice League film on hold, it may be some time before we see The Flash, the fastest man alive, brought to the silver screen.

So in the meantime, satisfy yourself with the 1989 marvel that is The Wizard of Speed and Time:

Okay, so maybe it's not as good as the 22-episode live-action Flash TV series that premiered on CBS just a year after the above Wizard made his debut. Unfortunately, I was not a comic book junkie until 1996, so what Wikipedia calls a short-lived but critically-acclaimed series never registered on my radar. But now the complete collection is available in one convenient DVD box set. Anyone have any recommendations about it?

The writers' strike has left many Hollywood denizens with plenty of time on their hands. So, like the rest of us slackers, they're playing video games — except when they do it, it's newsworthy.

Jesse Alexander, co-executive producer of Heroes, was recently on Major Nelson's Xbox Live podcast. From time indices 1:51:06 to 2:32:15 of this 53-megabyte file, Mr. Alexander talks about his past writing video game scripts for Activision; why writers are king in television, but not movies; why the upcoming Heroes game won't suck like the Alias game did; and the similarities and differences between, and the convergence of the television and gaming media.

Personally, I'm not sure just how similar the two media are. They've been talking about "episodic gaming" for awhile, but we've not seen anything approaching 22 installments of one-hour weekly morsels. Though a single game might last longer than that, its cinematic experiences have been achieved only via pre-scripted, non-interactive sequences that take the player out of the game. It doesn't seem anymore effective going the other way, either: the interactive features offered by next-gen DVD formats are garnering little enthusiasm from consumers. It seems cinephiles want cinema and gamers want games. Astonishing!

Convergence overlooks the unique strengths of each genre. I enjoy television and games for different reasons and would hate to find them lost in a hybrid exhibiting the strengths of neither.

Though the following information already exists as various comments on existing threads, I perceived the pending premieres of a pair of popular pilots prompted promotion (phew!) — so to ensure our readers stay savvy and don't miss the return of these franchises, here's a timely reminder.

On Sunday, January 13th, at 8:00 PM EST, and Monday, January 14th, at 9:00 PM EST, will be Fox's two-part The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which attempts to bring the successful Terminator movie series to the small screen. The show features a strong cast that includes Thomas Dekker (Heroes) and Summer Glau (Firefly), as seen in this trailer:

Five weeks later, on Sunday, February 17th, at 9:00 PM EST, will be NBC's debut of what could be a new Knight Rider series. This two-hour movie is what's known as a "backdoor pilot": a stand-alone film that could conceivably lead to a continuing series. Trailers such as the following have not yet shown much actual movie footage, just teasers:

Each show is based on a successful license; what could possibly go wrong?

(Hat tip to Coming Soon)

Via Bonzer Web Sites comes TV Series Finale, a Web site that catalogs and reminisces about the conclusions of television shows, from black-and-white classics to recent cancellations. The site reports on all sorts of current events, such as DVD releases and actor updates, but most appealing are the features that focus on the final chapters of our favorite shows.

The two best finales of all time, IMHO, are Cheers and Quantum Leap, so those were the first two I looked for on this site. TV Series Finale does not have a listing for Quantum Leap, and its podcast on Cheers has scrolled off its iTunes Store archive, so I instead downloaded their audio report on another show from my youth: Gilligan's Island.

Though I'm not much a fan of audiobooks, I enjoyed this podcast. After a brief review of the origin of Gilligan's Island and the motivation behind its cancellation, the podcast's host recounted the events of not only the series finale, but also each of its made-for-TV movie sequels, as well as animated and reality TV spin-offs. The podcast closed by enumerating the activities and fates of each of the show's alumni. The detailed narrative and professional delivery was a fun trip down memory lane that offered trivia I'd never known.

The podcasts may likely be the site's best feature, as I had some trouble accessing its text. Navigation is a bit wonky; for example, if you go to the TV show index and click on Cheers, what you get is not a listing of articles specifically about the Boston pub-based show, but instead the results of a site search on keyword "cheers" — which may have little, if any, direct connection to the show in question.

But if you're looking to recall or learn the history of some classic shows, TV Series Finale's podcasts are an fun, easy, and free vehicle for doing so.

My siblings and I don't have many television viewing habits in common — and not only because I cancelled my service eight years ago. So I was surprised recently to receive this email from my oldest brother:

I know you don't watch TV per se, but you might find this past Monday night's NBC show Journeyman quite interesting. You can log onto NBC.com and watch previous episodes, commercial free. 

I don't know if perhaps he was familiar with my taste for Quantum Leap, but I agreed that Journeyman, along with Pushing Daisies and Reaper, would be shows I'd be watching this season, if I were able. (NBC.com's quality doesn't compare to a 36" TV with 5.1 surround sound!) But since I get all my shows, like Heroes (another interest we discovered we share), on DVD, it'll be awhile yet before I can watch this variation on The Time Traveler's Wife (coming soon to a theater near you).

Unfortunately, I was the one to break the bad news when I quoted to him from Wikipedia:

The initial order from the network was for 13 episodes, all of which were produced prior to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike by screenwriters. However, the series suffered from low ratings, and NBC allowed its option for a full season order to lapse by the 2007-12-11 deadline for renewal. According to trade reports, such an action effectively means a series has been cancelled. The final episode of Journeyman aired on Wednesday, 2007-12-19.

But I was quick to point out the variety of precedents that suggest no show's death is final. Family Guy was cancelled twice but came back based on strong DVD sales. Sliders and Buffy switched networks, with the latter written to a series conclusion, should the show not survive the transition to a new network. Firefly came back as the feature-length Serenity, while Futurama and ReBoot both received direct-to-DVD movies.

So though Journeyman's travels appear over for now, there's always hope for the future… but should this truly be the end, at least picking up the complete series on DVD ought to be a cheap affair. In the meantime, we have the time-travel series Life on Mars to look forward to, along with news that Early Edition is finally coming to DVD. Good things come to those who wait!