Showbits

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!

I was finishing up the second season of Quantum Leap on DVD last night when the opening credits for the episode "Sea Bride" revealed a John Hertzler. Suspecting that he would become better known by his initials, I did not keep an eye out for a face I wouldn't recognize without extensive makeup, but an ear open for an unmistakably gruff voice. Sure enough, there he was — the man better known as Deep Space Nine's General Martok.

In the above shot, he and Scott Bakula share a victory; below, they toast their glory with a mug of bloodwine.

His characters are surprisingly similar, with almost interchangeable lines. You'd expect the following retort to come from Star Trek — but it didn't:

TVShowsonDVD.com has the news that the Sci-Fi Channel's recent original mini-series, Tin Man, will come to home video in a two-DVD set on March 11th. This modern adaptation of The Wizard of Oz stars Zooey Deschanel, who I've not yet seen enough of to offer judgment. She played Lady Larken in 2005's direct-to-DVD release of Once Upon a Mattress, a musical comedy version of the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea — though I was so fascinated by the performance of Tom Smothers that no one else left an impression. I do remember not being overwhelmed by Ms. Deschanel's performance in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though, and a friend's review of her acting in Tin Man was equally unfavorable.

The greater draw for me is the show's plot. Tin Man premiered on the closing night of a local community theater group's production of The Wizard of Oz, which I was not drawn to see; it and Annie are probably my two least favorite musicals. (In either, take away the kids and the dogs, and what's left?) Compared to that saccharine origin, the Sci-Fi Channel's darker retelling holds stronger appeal, and the review on Showbits reader GeneD's blog has me eager for the home video release.

While we're on the subject of podcasts, allow me to applaud Scientific American's Steve Mirsky for this recent installment of his daily podcast, excerpted here:

I'm not a fan of reality TV — I've never seen Survivor or The Amazing Race or any of the other programs that get big ratings. But here was real reality TV, including a real survivor — Daniel Tani, an astronaut who had made it through multiple levels of tests to get chosen in the first place, who had then undergone years of rigorous training and who was at that very moment performing incredibly dangerous work in outer space! And that left me a bit baffled. How is it that staged reality TV shows attract tens of millions of viewers, but the televised exploits of people risking their lives in space are pretty much ignored?

A good question — one to which I don't have an answer. I cancelled my TV service in early 2000, four months before Survivor debuted, which in my consciousness kicked off the modern trend toward so-called "reality TV". I narrowly escaped ever being exposed to this new genre of game show; the closest I've come was auditioning for the first season of Beauty and the Geek. (When they invited me back for the second round, I bowed out — and from what I've heard from people who have since seen the show, I made the right choice.)

Though I cannot offer an informed, hands-on opinion of reality TV, I know it's more than a semantic argument: it encapsulates and symbolizes much of what frustrates me about television in general. Though DVRs do away with many of those limitations, such as fixed scheduling and commercials, they don't change the fact that millions of viewers are consistently absorbed into vicariously experiencing other people's lives. It's a less interactive but similar addiction as MMORPGs, which has prompted the question: "Why get a Second Life when you don't have a first life?"

Understand that I wish to neither disregard television as a medium nor alienate half my readership by dismissing their favorite pastime; otherwise they would need look only as far as this blog or my DVD shelves for ample evidence of my hypocrisy. What confounds both me and Mr. Mirsky is the preference for fiction over fact. That definition could be loosely applied to music, games, theater, art — almost all entertainment is escapist in form. But television, and especially reality TV, seems to me the least productive alternative, and the one with the least bearing on real life.  Or perhaps it's not the medium, but the tendency of some — not all, but some — viewers who do not engage their programs, but use turning the TV on as an opportunity to turn themselves off.  I think we can all agree that this world could stand some more thinking.  So why not think outside the box?

All good things must come to an end — but as sad as it is to see our favorite casts and crews disperse, it gives them and their fans new opportunities. Yet it's the old collaborations that seem to generate the most excitement, heralding a return to the golden days of yore; observe the success that is RiffTrax, born of the genius that brought us Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Another such project featuring the talents of Michael J Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett is Max the Hero, a 12-minute animated cartoon currently playing online and at various festivals. Though all three actors lend their voice talents to this short, most comical is Bill Corbett playing the title character with the same blasé arrogance that made Crow T. Robot so irascibly lovable. Once Max's main plot starts to play out, there are some good lampoons of superheroes and fanboys, making the crude animation and somewhat crass opening sequence worth getting through.

Tip of the hat to deep ape, an all-MST3K, all-the-time blog. Surf over there, and to Satellite News, for news of other recent projects, revivals, and spin-offs featuring the stars and characters of Mystery Science Theater 3000 — including one that goes live today!

It was ten years ago that I first became aware of The Daily Show with Craig Kilborn. The political commentary and satire that are the show's hallmarks provided welcome relief from the doom and gloom of daily newspapers and evening news. The show lasted only a short time with its first host but has enjoyed great success with Kilborn's successor, Jon Stewart.

Now the entire archives of the Stewart era are available for free online viewing at the show's official Web site. Comedy Central's library features an easy-to-use slider for calling up specific days, months, and years of episodes, as well as offering a standard keyword search. It's easy to find and watch classic interviews such as with Scott Bakula or Jeri Ryan, or more recent episodes such as an aforementioned critique of Representative Wu's analysis of the White House administration:

(Hat tip to Slashdot)