Quickies this time:
You all picked up Prison Break Season One, right? Okay, me neither. Hopefully I'll have a little money left over on Saturday.
Speaking of PB, creator Paul T. Scheuring said his plans for Patricia Wetting (VP Reynolds) are to "wait and see" if ABC's Brothers and Sisters is successful before deciding on what to do with the character. Hey, it worked for Charles ("C-Note") Dunbar, who had little presence in early episodes due to his commitment on Head Cases, which lasted all of two episodes. By episode 8, C-Note was a featured player.
You can read the rest of Scheuing's interview at http://www.tvguide.com/news/insider/. Be sure to check Tuesday's Insider as the link probably won't bring you right to it in a few hours.
Want to help choose an alternative to the Emmy's (which, somehow, really screwed up nominations this year), then head to http://www.mediavillage.com/fanawards/ and vote for the actors/shows that MediaVilliage lead critic Ed Martin nominated. I'll tell you, it's hard to pick just two in every category, but he sure got more right than the Emmy's.
Comedy Central has greenlit Jon Stewart's Three Strikes, about a minor league baseball team.
And, while I hate to even mention this waste of oxygen, I just wanted everyone to know that Paris Hilton has announced she's staying celibate for one whole year. I think she may just have reached the top of the Media Whore mountain.
All the above stories-- and tons more-- can be found on TV GUIDE online's news section (my mandatory daily check) by Matt Webb Mitovich. The link is http://community.tvguide.com/forum.jspa?forumID=700000044
Until next time...
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Monday, August 07, 2006
Make A Break For It
As I mentioned in a previous post, the Prison Break Season One DVD set goes on sale tomorrow. It comes highly recommended. There were only three shows I HAD to watch the night it aired last season, and Break was one of them.
I hate the cliche of it being a roller coaster ride, but it really was. Twists and turns abound. Every epsiode ended in some sort of cliffhanger (and the pilot ended with one of the coolest things I've ever seen on TV).
I will admit the twists got to be a little too much as the season wound on (I think it was due to the fact that the creators/network had no idea the show would actually make it though an entire season), and I wasn't a big fan of the conspiracy that raised its ugly head, but that is all minor compared to the pluses of the show.
The first plus would be the sheer imagination of the scripts. Yeah, sometimes the season drug on (usually during the scenes outside the prison), and other times things happened that made me say, "Oh, come on!" but those were pretty infrequent-- and there was always something to hold onto during those times that still made this the coolest show on TV last year.
The actors, led by Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell are fantastic, and the supporting actors are excellent as well. Special notice has to be made for Peter Stormare, who plays mob heavy John Abruzzi, and Robert Knepper, who plays psychotic-scary Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell. Each time those two were on screen was magic. When they appeared together, it was as if the TV Gods smiled down on fans and said, "Hey, check out how great TV can really be." Yeah, that last sentence was over-the-top-- so what?
I see most places are advertising the show between $36 & $40, so catch it now before it goes up to insane 24-level prices: $60.
Just shut your head off, strap on the seat belt, and enjoy the ride.
I hate the cliche of it being a roller coaster ride, but it really was. Twists and turns abound. Every epsiode ended in some sort of cliffhanger (and the pilot ended with one of the coolest things I've ever seen on TV).
I will admit the twists got to be a little too much as the season wound on (I think it was due to the fact that the creators/network had no idea the show would actually make it though an entire season), and I wasn't a big fan of the conspiracy that raised its ugly head, but that is all minor compared to the pluses of the show.
The first plus would be the sheer imagination of the scripts. Yeah, sometimes the season drug on (usually during the scenes outside the prison), and other times things happened that made me say, "Oh, come on!" but those were pretty infrequent-- and there was always something to hold onto during those times that still made this the coolest show on TV last year.
The actors, led by Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell are fantastic, and the supporting actors are excellent as well. Special notice has to be made for Peter Stormare, who plays mob heavy John Abruzzi, and Robert Knepper, who plays psychotic-scary Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell. Each time those two were on screen was magic. When they appeared together, it was as if the TV Gods smiled down on fans and said, "Hey, check out how great TV can really be." Yeah, that last sentence was over-the-top-- so what?
I see most places are advertising the show between $36 & $40, so catch it now before it goes up to insane 24-level prices: $60.
Just shut your head off, strap on the seat belt, and enjoy the ride.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
A Disturbance in the Force
The books I read tend to be non-fiction. I'm not quite sure why; probably because it takes less imagination and concentration (in general) to follow along with "real" things than imagining the fantastic elements of fiction.
I had troubles with the first few Star Wars books released in the mid-'90s. Sometimes it was because of the fantastic elements (nearly everything had to be new since The Empire was gone), sometimes it was the feeling that Luke, Han, Leia, and the others had had their big adventure, and adding more just seemed unrealistic (like: don't these people ever get a break to enjoy their success?), and maybe a large part of it was because I was in college at the time, and I'd get to the book every few weeks.
Anyway, in the past few months, I've read a half-dozen Star Wars related books, and I've actually enjoyed them all. I'll probably get to most of them on a later post. The one I'll discuss now is the only one I read set after "A New Hope" and one I just finished: Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal, by Aaron Allston.
I picked it up because a post-er on newsarama.com mentioned that it had a killer ending, and even after I was 90% sure of what was going to happen a few pages in (I won't give any spoilers away here), I liked the ride.
The gist of the book is: The Corellians are making plans to secede from the Galactic Alliance. It's not overt, but Corellia is doing things behind the scenes-- and against GA rules-- to set themselves up for independence. This is troublesome for Wedge Antilles and Han Solo, who are Corellian themselves, but dedicated to the GA. Throw in Han's wife, Leia, their children, Han's brother-in-law Luke (Jedi Master and leader of the new order), and his wife and son, and there is large amounts of conflict. And a number of moments where the betrayal from the title happens.
While the parents are handling the "big", galactic-level parts, the kids (namely Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker) are charged with a betrayal of their own when they're sent on a mission to destroy a necessary component in the Corellian secession. After that assignment, they need to investigate common elements that look as if the Corellians are being influenced by an outside force. Again, elements of betrayal abound.
I'll leave the synopsis there and conclude by saying that Allston seems to have everyone's "voices" down. The book felt like a true Star Wars story. While it's been years since I read any post- "A New Hope" novels, I was able to follow along. This was especially nice since things really changed during the "New Jedi Order" series of books, of which this one was after. And, while I'm sure Allston hadn't acted alone in the decision for change, things do indeed change by the end of this book. I'm looking forward to reading what comes next.
My one complaint: the Star Wars universe has grown enormously, and it's essential to have some sort of timeline for people to be able to use to put events in relation to each other. But, I suppose they have the same problems they do in comic books: if they give an official timeline, things eventually won't add up. By that, I mean we'll know Han and his buddies are in their 60's at least, maybe even their 70's, and they're still flying around in fighter ships on missions.
But there's enough information given in the book that the most observant/loyal readers know where the story rests: about 15 years after the Yuuzhan Vong/"New Jedi Order" series. Now if I only knew how many years the Yuuzhan Vong War was after "A New Hope" ...
I had troubles with the first few Star Wars books released in the mid-'90s. Sometimes it was because of the fantastic elements (nearly everything had to be new since The Empire was gone), sometimes it was the feeling that Luke, Han, Leia, and the others had had their big adventure, and adding more just seemed unrealistic (like: don't these people ever get a break to enjoy their success?), and maybe a large part of it was because I was in college at the time, and I'd get to the book every few weeks.
Anyway, in the past few months, I've read a half-dozen Star Wars related books, and I've actually enjoyed them all. I'll probably get to most of them on a later post. The one I'll discuss now is the only one I read set after "A New Hope" and one I just finished: Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal, by Aaron Allston.
I picked it up because a post-er on newsarama.com mentioned that it had a killer ending, and even after I was 90% sure of what was going to happen a few pages in (I won't give any spoilers away here), I liked the ride.
The gist of the book is: The Corellians are making plans to secede from the Galactic Alliance. It's not overt, but Corellia is doing things behind the scenes-- and against GA rules-- to set themselves up for independence. This is troublesome for Wedge Antilles and Han Solo, who are Corellian themselves, but dedicated to the GA. Throw in Han's wife, Leia, their children, Han's brother-in-law Luke (Jedi Master and leader of the new order), and his wife and son, and there is large amounts of conflict. And a number of moments where the betrayal from the title happens.
While the parents are handling the "big", galactic-level parts, the kids (namely Jacen Solo and Ben Skywalker) are charged with a betrayal of their own when they're sent on a mission to destroy a necessary component in the Corellian secession. After that assignment, they need to investigate common elements that look as if the Corellians are being influenced by an outside force. Again, elements of betrayal abound.
I'll leave the synopsis there and conclude by saying that Allston seems to have everyone's "voices" down. The book felt like a true Star Wars story. While it's been years since I read any post- "A New Hope" novels, I was able to follow along. This was especially nice since things really changed during the "New Jedi Order" series of books, of which this one was after. And, while I'm sure Allston hadn't acted alone in the decision for change, things do indeed change by the end of this book. I'm looking forward to reading what comes next.
My one complaint: the Star Wars universe has grown enormously, and it's essential to have some sort of timeline for people to be able to use to put events in relation to each other. But, I suppose they have the same problems they do in comic books: if they give an official timeline, things eventually won't add up. By that, I mean we'll know Han and his buddies are in their 60's at least, maybe even their 70's, and they're still flying around in fighter ships on missions.
But there's enough information given in the book that the most observant/loyal readers know where the story rests: about 15 years after the Yuuzhan Vong/"New Jedi Order" series. Now if I only knew how many years the Yuuzhan Vong War was after "A New Hope" ...
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