TV updates

So a few days after writing my piece on Fringe one of the cast members has been fired according to his facebook page. The cast member in question is Kirk Acevedo who plays Special Agent Charlie Francis, who I really liked in this role and thought he had good chemistry with Anna Torv. All other parties have declined to comment so far but there is a casting call out for a female FBI agent, who I would assume would be taking his place. Hopefully an explanation will be given and there will be a decent reason as to why his character will be leaving the Fringe team.

    Other TV updates include the end of American Idol, I didn’t really watch it this year after being hooked for the first time last season but I was definitely surprised to see that Adam Lambert didn’t win considering how much exposure he has been getting (even getting his own Entertainment Weekly cover story).

    I have also finally started to watch the American Office and have now almost finished season 3. I’m thoroughly enjoying it and will write a longer post on it when I have finished season 3. Really love the random pop culture references especially from Dwight, one of my favourite so far being his Alias reference (season 3 episode 14):

“Jim: Have you ever seen a stripper before?

Dwight: Yes, Jennifer Garner portrayed one on Alias. It was one of her many aliases.”

    I am also awaiting the delivery of Friday Night Lights season 3 on DVD which came out this week, really looking forward to watching some more Panther action.

Fringe: There's more than one of everything

So, I am a little late on my review of the season finale of Fringe but, I also want to comment on the season as a whole as I think that it has become a really strong show as the season has progressed. This article will contain spoilers for the entire season so if you are not up to date then I would advise you to not read any further as I will be discussing some major plot points and what happens in the final scene of season one.

The strength for me in this show lies with Walter Bishop; from his crazy experiments, to his ramblings, to the relationship that has grown between him and his son Peter; he truly is the core of Fringe. John Noble has been terrific as Walter, not that the rest of the cast should be overlooked as everyone has really grown in to their roles. Anna Torv as Olivia Dunham had perhaps the hardest part, she is rarely allowed to smile and at first I found her hard to warm to, but as we have been given more information about the experiments that were performed on her as a child and that she definitely play a larger part in ‘the pattern’ I have found her to be a rather likeable character. The part of Peter Bishop has also expanded from cynical and sarcastic to a more balanced and patient role, yes he is still acerbic to his father at times but the compassion that was demonstrated in both the finale and the penultimate episode (The Road Not Taken) shows how much Peter has grown as a character. I have been a fan of Joshua Jackson since I had a massive teenage crush on him as Pacey Witter in Dawson’s Creek so I am glad that this role suits his tone but also lets him show other acting capabilities.

The supporting cast has now been given the chance to shine, mostly in the case of Charlie (Kirk Acevedo), and hopefully next season this will extend to both Astrid (Jasika Nicole) and Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick) who both have good chemistry with the three main characters.

So, the finale did what any great Bad Robot production does; answers some questions, fires another million in the air and has a cliff hanger that leaves you wanting more. For me the most compelling part of the finale is that we finally learnt part of the truth about Peter and why Walter has sporadically discussed his medical state throughout the season. It turns out Peter died in 1985 and that the Peter that is part of the Fringe team is likely to be a Peter from the different dimension (therefore the Walter in the other dimension has had his son stolen, it will interesting if we get to see the consequence of this next year). I loved this reveal and even though I had inkling as to this being what happened from the start of the episode the pay off was a good one and will hopefully lead to some interesting story lines next season.

The other major reveal occurred in the final few minutes with Olivia and us, the audience finally getting to meet the elusive but ever mentioned William Bell (wonderfully played by Leonard Nimoy). The slow reveal of it being another dimension by showing the New York Post with the headline ‘Obama’s move in to new Whitehouse’ was an inspired one, on closer inspection the paper also shows that in this reality JFK has not been assassinated. The even bigger reveal however is that Bell’s office resides in one of the World Trade Center buildings that are still standing in this world. This shot was beautiful and brilliant, and by no means do I think it was tasteless, it just appears that in this world it was the Whitehouse that was destroyed, perhaps by a terrorist attack. The subject of 9/11 is obviously still a raw one and I think that the programme makers handled this with care and caution. The possibilities that this leads to, I think, means that it will be stepping away from many of the X-Files comparisons, and I can honestly say that I am looking forward to this ride.

One thing I really do like about this show is that it does seem to take risks, in not only killing innocent bystanders with no mercy in episodes such as Bad Dreams (I really did not expect any one to fall from that building) and in this finale (cutting a child in two who is playing football) but in the possibilities that this new dimension brings to the storytelling abilities. It also seems to take pride in the special effects and make-up to gross viewers out, which is why I now have to remember to not eat whilst watching it (Bones has the same effect on me). I am also intrigued as to how the production move from New York to Vancouver will change the aesthetics of the show, will there be less city based mystery and more countryside ones, this will be pretty cool and the Vancouver location was one element that gave the X-Files a spooky edge.

I think overall this has been a great season and I am both looking forward to watching them again on DVD (one nitpick comes due to the scheduling, some of the gaps between episodes were too big and it did interrupt the flow) and to season 2.

Chuck renewed!

It has been announced that Chuck has been renewed for a third season! This news is awesome but has some unfortunate compromises that have had to be made to get this renewal to occur. These are financial cut backs which may mean that season regulars such as the Buy More crew will have fewer appearances, this does suck somewhat but I am happy to make this compromise to get another season. Another consequence of the budget cut is that two writers are being cut which is a shame as well. 13 episodes have been ordered so hopefully the ratings will improve or remain at the steady level that they are already. This type of renewal is similar to the Dollhouse one (which totally surprised me) in that budget cuts have had to be made to obtain another season. I am glad that I took part in the save Chuck campaign, bought the Subway, had the banner, let’s hope that this fan power will be evident next season and that Chuck will live on for many seasons to come.

No Chuck announcement and finale week central

So, I failed at my attempt to blog every day a couple of weeks ago but I will try to be a bit more consistent in my entries. The Chuck banner is still up due to the lack of a solid confirmation as to whether the show will return for a third season, however several sources including Michael Ausiello from Entertainment Weekly and Nikki Finke have both been very positive regarding it getting renewed which makes me super happy. Hopefully the news regarding next season will be announced sooner rather than later.

    It is a big week for several of my favourite shows as it is the season enders for Fringe, Bones and Lost. I am yet to see last weeks Bones featuring Stewie Griffin from Family Guy which sounds like the most bizarre TV show crossover yet, I will hopefully be seeing that tomorrow and so will give my thoughts then. Also from what I have heard about the Bones season finale that also looks like a departure from the normal structure and I have also heard that some old faces will appear which I am looking forward to.

    Regarding Fringe, I think that this is a show that has gone from strength to strength with each episode and I am particularly enjoying the dynamic between Walter and Peter Bishop. Yes there was some shameless Star Trek plugging in last weeks episode ‘The Road Not Taken’ which I didn’t mind and I liked the use of Clint Howard (definitely a ‘hey it’s that guy) as the Star Trek obsessed conspiracy nut. I am looking forward to how this season will end and whether any questions will be answered. It will also be interesting to see how next season will look different regarding the location of filming moving from New York to Vancouver, I hoping for some more countryside based action rather than the mostly cityscape scenes we have had for the first season.

    The season finale for Lost is a mixture of anticipation and of disappointment, anticipation as I can’t wait to see how they are going to end the season and with what inevitable cliffhanger they will leave us with. The disappointment stems from having to wait until next January/February to find out what is going to happen next, it always seems so far away. I’m not sure how they will top finales of the past, but Michael Emerson who plays Ben Linus has said that the finale will ‘make you eat your soul’.

    So this will be a good week of television hopefully as I anticipate that all three finales will be match how much I have enjoyed the rest of the season.

 

 

Review of the epic movie day

So after the epic movie day that was yesterday, I thought I would do a briefly review what I watched without hopefully including any spoilers.

    First up I saw State of Play which I would definitely recommend and has made me want to watch the BBC original. A friend that I saw it with and who had seen the original version said that the two were not really all that similar but was impressed with the new version. The reason for the lack of similarities is probably due to the differences in our political system and this new version was tackling issues that are prevalent to what is occurring at this moment in history regarding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Other subplots also grounded in this moment in time, an example being that the newspaper that Russell Crowe’s character works for is suffering financially; this is definitely evident amongst print journalism in this economic downturn that we are currently in. The resentment that his character feels toward blogger Rachel McAdams is one that I am sure is also representative of old school journalists versus the instant writing of someone online.

    Next up was Star Trek which I thought was a fantastic and fun film. I would consider myself a little biased as I am such a huge JJ Abrams fan and, as I am not a Star Trek fan I wasn’t worried about changes that he might make to the Trek lineage and mythology. However the big group that I saw it with, which included smatterings of Abrams and Star Trek fans all, seemed to concur that it was an excellent film and the general buzz afterwards was very positive. There were nods to other Abrams related creations and some familiar faces from his other projects, I won’t say who or what so not to spoil but it was an all round super experience. The cast were great and the action was well paced and well executed. I was also impressed at how many Star Trek references I got considering how I have never seen an episode and demonstrates just how far these references have stretched down in to pop culture.

    The final film of the day was Wolverine, which after watching two such fantastic films felt like a bit of a let down. The performances were all pretty solid although it felt a bit like one of those films where all the best bits were in the trailer. It was good to see Taylor Kitsch in a different role; however as the film was central to Wolverine the other mutant characters felt at times to be a bit rushed and under used. I would say it is still worth a watch, especially if you are a fan of the series however don’t go in expecting it to be as good as the first two X-Men movies.

    So that rounds up my slight deviation away from a television, although as noted yesterday there are elements of television with all three. Something odd that made me think of TV whilst the trailers were on was that the Terminator Salvation trailer had in bold writing ‘This Season’ which made me think that it sounded like a television phrase rather than the usual movie related ‘This Summer’ one. Not sure whether this was just me that made the link to TV but it definitely stood out to me as an odd phrase on a film trailer.

The return of Jeffster and a movie marathon with a TV vibe

Firstly, the finale of Chuck was most definitely awesome, I don’t want to say too much on the matter in case I spoil it for you but that really was a terrific hour of television and I’m looking forward to seeing it again. So much action, romance, comedy and drama all squeezed in, and to see the ‘To be continued’ title card at the end just makes me hope that it does continue and that all the hard work from the cast, crew and fans does pay off in a third season. I’m guessing we will find out the fate of Chuck next week, just gonna keep everything crossed until then. I also loved the return of Jeffster, hence the two videos and the end of this post.

    I’m having a bit of a movie marathon today, how is this relevant in a television blog? Well two of the films are adapted from TV programmes and the third film has had a cartoon series on television. I’m watching State of Play, Star Trek and Wolverine. I’m most excited about Star Trek, I’ve been lucky enough to get tickets to a preview show and I am a huge JJ Abrams fan, from the trailer this film looks like it will be pretty special. The early buzz seems to be pretty good as well so hopefully it will live up to these expectations. There is a nice smattering of TV stars in both Star Trek and Wolverine; Friday Night Lights’ Taylor Kitsch and my favourite hobbit turned rock star Dominic Monaghan in Wolverine, and Zachary Quinto as Spock in Star Trek. Original Spock Leonard Nimoy will also be staring in the season finale of Fringe which I also have high hopes for, it also sounded like him on the video tape at the end of last weeks episode which was pretty cool.

    Now I have to confess that I have seen neither the original State of Play nor Star Trek so I don’t have the original television versions to compare against, I’m not sure if it is necessarily a good thing to go in with a fresh pair of eyes but at least I won’t be disappointed if they aren’t as good as the original versions and I won’t get annoyed with elements that have been changed for these most recent versions. So tomorrow I will hopefully have some very positive things to say about all three films, until then I leave you with Jeffster times by two:

Save Chuck with a sandwich

    So in an attempt to be more productive I have decided to try and blog every day this week as some programmes are having their finales this week; the most important one for me being the Chuck which will also hopefully not be the final ever episode.

    Yes I have become a little ‘Save Chuck’ obsessed over the past few weeks but so have many as all the campaigns across the internet on fansites, facebook and twitter. I personally have not participated in a ‘save a show’ campaign prior to this one mainly because I have either come to a show after it has had premature cancellation (ie Arrested Development which I only started watching last year) or because I haven’t really been that invested in a programme to participate. However with Chuck I felt compelled to do something however small to join this internet campaign that has been gathering speed over the past few weeks because this show is too good to end up on a ‘cancelled too soon’ list on Entertainment Weekly or Television Without Pity.

    Whoever came up with the ‘finale and footlong’ Subway idea is pretty super, to demonstrate support for the show by giving money to one of the featured advertisers is such a good way to show why this is a financially profitable programme. Money is obviously (and unfortunately) the main reason why a show will get the green light or whether is will be cancelled and this campaign is talking through dollars rather than the usual bombarding the studio with show related merchandise (although there is also the sending of nerd sweets to NBC that has been occurring for ‘Save Chuck’ campaigns but nothing speaks loader than money for a corporation).

    This campaign got a kick start in the UK at a convention in Birmingham yesterday that both Zachary Levi (Chuck) and Adam Badwin (Casey) were at, when Levi led hundreds of fans to the nearest Subway for everyone to purchase a footlong (I’m guessing the Subway workers were super happy with that- though Levi did help behind the counter to get through the onslaught of customers). Here is an excellent video of the event:

 

 So go and buy a footlong, I will be.