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I’ve written elsewhere about my love for George R. R. Martin’s epic A Song of Fire and Ice fantasy series. HBO has held the television options for the series for some time now, and Martin has just announced that they’re moving forward with filming the pilot for A Game Of Thrones, the series’ first novel. As Martin points out, this doesn’t mean that an entire season’s worth of episodes will be produced, but it is an encouraging sign.
On a related note, does it make me too much of a geek if I admit I wouldn’t mind finding Longclaw waiting under the Christmas tree this year?
Despite what they claim, Fox must hate Joss Whedon. They moved Firefly to Friday nights, where it just sort of languished and fizzled. And now, they’re doing the same thing to Whedon’s new series, Dollhouse.
The “Dollhouse” shift to Friday is certain to provoke a despondent cry from Whedon fans, especially after having watched “Firefly” wither away on the same night. Fox could have given the series a premiere behind “Idol” before shifting it to Fridays—something the network has done a few times to boost sampling of new shows. And if that weren’t unlucky enough, “Dollhouse” premieres on Friday the 13th.
Dropping Heroes‘ Dead Weight Could Shock Show Out of Slump:
A TV show that posits a future where everyone has genetically engineered superpowers shouldn’t be recycling tired prime-time drama and resurrecting exhausted plots and left-for-dead villains. It should be blowing away expectations. After all, this isn’t ER.
But in the first part of Heroes‘ third season, it sure has felt like we’ve been lying on a gurney, waiting for last rites.
Note: the article does contain some season 3 spoilers, so consider yourself warned.
Here’s what the Academy recognized yesterday: The major broadcast networks have gotten out of the ambitious TV-drama business. And since drama is the creatively dominant genre in TV right now, that means the major networks have gotten out of the ambitious-TV business, period.
...while cable takes chances and breaks ground with shows like Mad Men and Battlestar Galactica, broadcast TV is in a holding action, filling its hours with competent, just-good-enough-to-be-safe dramas like Eli Stone and Life. Its few truly ambitious dramas are legacies. If this fall season is any indication—and hoo boy, just wait for Knight Rider—the major networks are no longer interested even in making the next Lost, let alone the next Sopranos.
Renae and I made the mistake of watching the Emmys last night, and it was a horrid experience. The hosts—the five nominees for “Outstanding Host for a Reality Show or Reality Competition”—were completely vapid and pitiful (which, based on their comments, I think pissed off some of the other attendees) and the highlights (Ricky Gervais, anyone?) were few and far between. Even with fast-forwarding through most of it—thank God for DVR—I found myself wanting to scrape out my eyeballs when it was all over.
DVD Talk reviews Spaced: The Complete Series:
The majority of the show is focused on the duo’s day-to-day existence, uneventful and otherwise, as they live their pop-culture-obsessed existences. Speaking like more current Quentin Tarantino characters, their language is steeped in Star Wars and zombie films and other cult/fringe media, and they think in the language of movies and television. Thus, there’s a huge number of references to geek culture, which, in the hands of a creative director like Wright, results in a show that moves in and out of reality at a rapid, yet smooth clip. At one point you have the guys playing video games, the next moment, it’s a frame-by-frame homage to Pulp Fiction or an awesome send-up of The Sixth Sense. To anyone with a love of comic books, movies or TV, it’s like hanging out with your friends.
[...]
The thing about the series that makes it so truly unique, besides the fact that the leads are also the writers, making for a “singular” vision, is, despite the fantasy visuals and occasionally bizarre plots, it is utterly realistic. From the depiction of drugs, which are taken recreationally, without moralizing; to the wardrobe, featuring clothes that are worn multiple times during the series (which is so unusually rare outside of cartoons); to the relationships, which are hardly healthy, yet work for the characters. It’s easy to believe that these people exist and that their lives don’t pause when the cameras stop rolling. Wrap them in a world of sci-fi and fantasy, and they become the customers at your local comic shop or the people you chat with online.
So when you have Daisy [Steiner], who is honestly your average girl-next-door in terms of looks, and Tim [Bisley], who’s also an everyman, it’s very easy to believe they can co-exist in a non-sexual way, yet there’s a subcurrent of attraction. We aren’t talking about two beautiful people who shouldn’t be able to keep their hands off of each other, pretending they can’t stand each other. These two are friends first, and anything else, perhaps later. That, plus the bro-mance between Tim and softhearted Mike, gives a somewhat cynical show about a pair of slackers (though, refreshingly, it’s the guy who’s more motivated this time) a sense of sweetness that makes it whole and entirely entertaining, as it comes to an ending that’s satisfying yet frustrating, because it makes great sense, but you don’t want it to stop.
The AV Club reviews Spaced: The Complete Series:
Spaced became a cult hit on both sides of the Atlantic in part because of those rapid-fire pop-culture references, and in part because it seemed to be drawn from the lives of its fans. But the show works even now because of Pegg and Stevenson’s peculiar balance of geek sensibility and chick-lit madcappery. It’s funny when Pegg tells the not-yet-26-year-old Stevenson, “You’d be dead in four years if this was Logan’s Run,“ and it’s funny when Stevenson tries to liven up a party with a mix-tape containing every overexposed rock and pop song of the last 30 years. It’s funny because—as another popular figure from the Spaced era used to say—we can feel their pain.
On July 22—this coming Tuesday—an event of cosmic proportions will occur: Spaced will finally be released here in the States on Region 1 DVD (order your copy here). And in preparation for the occasion, BBC America will air six episodes tomorrow, July 20, 2008, starting at 2:00pm CST. (I am curious, though, why they’re playing three episodes from Season 1 and three from Season 2, rather than a block of consecutive episodes, but ah well.)