Do or Do Not.

I have decided that in a show of support for the striking members of the Writers Guild of America, I shall not be writing any material either for television productions or motion pictures for the duration of the strike, as much as it pains me not to do so.  But I ain’t no scab.

(Want to know more about what’s going on with the strike and just what the writers are trying to accomplish?  Go read John Rogers and/or Brian K. Vaughan, among many, many others, for the skinny.)

Joss Whedon coming back to TV? Oh shit yes. And with Eliza Dushku in the lead? Even friggin’ better. Sadly, it’s not a Faith series nor even Buffyverse-related, but really, I don’t care — it’s Joss back as head writer and executive producer of a TV series, and that is honestly all I need to know.

The problem, of course, is that the deal (for seven episodes of Dollhouse, appearing possibly as soon as spring ‘08 — go read the link for more details) is with FOX, meaning they’ll air the eps out of order and cancel the show after the third one’s broadcast, but hey… it’s Whedon back on TV, where he belongs. No offense meant to Serenity or his comic book work, all of which I love, but TV is his essential medium of expression.

Pardon me while I go have a fanboy freakout now. omg omg omg omg omg.

Ben: so far, i’m doing a pretty good job of not picturing the actors when i read the books [the Harry Potter books, which Ben has only recently begun reading]
Allen: That’s difficult. It’s commendable you’re holding out. :)

Ben: alan rickman is tough to displace

Ben: though if i try really hard to forget he’s involved, then in my head snape looks an awful lot like doc cochran :-)

Allen: Now THAT would’ve been some casting.

Allen: Damn them and their British bias!

Allen: So does Snape sound like Doc Cochran when you read? “Harry F*!%ing Potter, you co%&!*@&er, who the f&!k do you think you are?”

Ben: lol

Ben: great, now i have an image of him mixing up anti-crotchrot potions for all the school whores

Believe or not, I don’t have a whole lot to say about this year’s Emmy nominations, which were announced this morning. Unlike last year, I didn’t get to watch them live, and I hadn’t prepped a blog post full of questions I wanted answers, so this year’s “analysis” is a bit off the cuff. That said, I did have a few tibdits I wanted to mention:

• I’m disappointed but utterly unsurprised to note that Lauren Graham managed to finish her exquisite tour of duty on Gilmore Girls 0-for-7 in Best Actress in a Comedy nominations. I’m going on record right now as predicting that she’ll get a nomination for her first season in whichever show she ends up anchoring in the 2008-09 season, assuming that show’s on one of the major networks. Please, Lauren, stay far, far away from The CW in the future, OK?
• Almost making up for Graham-lessness of this morning’s announcements was the nomination of The Office’s Jenna Fischer as Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy. Since I’d already given up hope of Graham getting any Emmy recognition, Fischer had become my she damn well better be nominated cause for this year. Her work as Pam Beesly alternated between endearing and heartbreaking, and she makes Pam into The Most Normal Person on TV (and I completely mean that as a compliment — she’s probably my favorite character on network TV right now).
• Also happy-making was the nomination of Masi Oka for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for playing Hiro Nakamura on Heroes. I’d have liked to have seen a couple of other nominations for the cast (especially for Jack Coleman), but I’ll take Oka’s nom — Hiro was far and away the most entertaining character on the show and Oka the breakout star, so bully for him.
• The Best Drama nod for Heroes excited me, too — Heroes was the only show I watched every episode of last year. After a slow start, it had reached can’t-miss status by the end of the season, and I’m already salivating for next year. Before two years ago, I’d have said that Heroes had no chance to pick up the award and that the nomination would have to suffice, but then Lost won for its rookie season it and shattered that belief. I’d think it had a better chance to win, though, if this weren’t the last chance for voters to give The Sopranos the Best Drama award.
• Can someone please tell me how Two and a Half Men could get four acting nominations (Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, Conchata Ferrell and Holland Taylor)? I know Ferrell and Taylor are both well-respected actresses, but I’m still having a hard time with this many acting nominations for this pedestrian a show. This fact more than any other from this year reinforces the notion that the nomination process rewards only the shows which are most-watched rather than those of highest quality.
• At the other end of the popular-versus-good spectrum, I was shocked to see Friday Night Lights not pick up any major nominations. After all of the critical praise heaped on that show all year long, I’d thought it would have gotten something, probably at least a nomination for Connie Britton. I’m glad NBC wasn’t waiting to see how well the show performed at the Emmys before deciding whether to renew it.
• I was not so shocked to see Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip shut out of the major categories, even if I thought a couple of the actors deserved some consideration, Matthew Perry especially. (Perry did pick up a nomination for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Movie, at least.)
• Last year, said I: “…including one for the always-excellent Alec Baldwin — I’m going to say right now I expect him to get a nod next year for his role on the upcoming comedy series 30 Rock.” And I was right, though last year I was expecting it for Supporting Actor rather than Lead Actor, but Lead Actor it was. Yay me.
• Miscellaneous other acting nominations which filled me with minor or major glee: Ricky Gervais, Extras; Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother; Minnie Driver, The Riches; Jamie Pressly, My Name Is Earl; Terry O’Quinn, Lost; Rainn Wilson, The Office.

Wow, lookit that — turns out I had a lot to say after all!

Those new episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip which are going to start airing on May 28? Enjoy ‘em if you can, because that’s the last you’ll see of NBC’s most hyped new drama of last year.Many of you might remember just how excited I was about Studio 60 in the months leading up to the 2006 television season. Hell, I was so geeked about it I created a new holiday in celebration. Aaron Sorkin has been one of my favorite writers for years, The West Wing remains one of my favorite TV series ever, and Studio 60 had a great cast lined up. NBC, behind even FOX in the network ratings, desperately needed a new hit and were prepared to give S60 a major push. No way this show could fail, right?

Yeah, well.

I gave Studio 60 a solid chance to wow me, both out of respect for the creators involved and out of sheer blind optimism. But it didn’t take long to see the magic Sorkin and company had brought to The West Wing hadn’t followed them to their new show. A few episodes managed to be really entertaining, but none hit more than a solid stand-up double as compared to the not infrequent home runs of Wing.

(Was it fair for me to so consistently compare these two series? Probably not, but I think it was also natural given the strong creative voice behind both shows. I’m wondering if many of us judged Studio 60 more harshly than we should have simply because it wasn’t The West Wing.)

(No, I’m pretty sure Studio 60 just wasn’t that good.)

I started writing my first “what’s wrong with Studio 60” post after the fourth episode had aired, though I never completed it because I figured it wouldn’t be necessary, that Sorkin would get the show on course. Silly me. Most of the problems I had with the show early on continued to be problems throughout, and even more weaknesses became clear as the show limped along. Here now, for your Five O’ Friday enjoyment, are five of the reasons I think Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip eventually didn’t quite work:

1. Studio 60 boasted a strong cast full of likeable actors which it nearly completely wasted. Matthew Perry played Not Chandler Bing really well. Steven Weber, who normally does charming and personable with ease, proved to be equally adept at playing an insufferable asshole. Bradley Whitford (though he seemed miserable most of the time), Amanda Peet, Timothy Busfield, the adorable Lucy Davis — this show had plenty of actors I liked, and frequently didn’t give them anywhere near enough to do. Whitford in particular, who was so fantastic on The West Wing, spent much of the series looking like he was waiting for someone to bring him something interesting to say.
2. Countering that last point about the great cast, though was the fact that Sorkin (or his designated casting flunkies) seriously miscast both of the show’s female leads. Never for a minute did I buy that Sarah Paulson’s Harriet Hayes was one of the most beloved comedic actresses in America — she wasn’t charming and she wasn’t all that funny. I also never believed Amanda Peet as a hotshot young television executive. Can I imagine that a smart, capable, talented woman shot up the corporate ladder to run a network by her mid-30s? Oh, sure I can… but the woman I’m imagining and Amanda Peet’s Jordan McDeere don’t have a whole lot in common.You know what I would have believed? Amanda Peet as one of the country’s most beloved comedic actresses. Peet is naturally charming and funny in exactly the way the stiff Paulson isn’t. I think Peet as Harriet would have worked much, much better (and probably made the Matt-Harriet relationship less grating) — and casting an actress somewhat older than the 34-year-old Peet would have made Jordan a more believable character, too. (Yes, there are plenty of actresses in their 40s and 50s who could have done determined, capable, accomplished and damn sexy — including Christine Lahti, who guested on several episodes of Studio 60 and just happens to be married to Thomas Schlamme, Sorkin’s creative partner.)
3. I never felt like Sorkin had a firm grasp on his characters. Most of the characters felt more like placeholders than people: the black one we can use to discuss issues of race; the Christian one we can use to discuss issues of religion and explain why Midwestern conservatives are clearly so, so stupid; the druggie one we can use to explain why Sorkin’s cocaine binges really aren’t all that bad. To continue with the unfair comparisons, the character development on Studio 60 paled next to that on The West Wing or on SportsNight, Sorkin’s first series; based on that history alone, I’d expected that the character development and interaction would be one of this show’s strengths, and was quite disappointed to discover that not to be true.
4. Sorkin just never seemed to really get what his audience wanted out of this show — honestly, I’m not sure he ever much considered his audience at all. The show felt like his way of explaining and excusing his own demons, which would have been absolutely fine had it been more consistently entertaining. When he made his course correction after the extended winter break, bringing the romance angle more to the front (and destroying most of Matt’s likability as a character in the process ,— yes, he “dumped” Harriet for good because, while single, she thought about sleeping with another guy) and the show became almost painful to watch.
5. I’m not sure the setup inherently allowed for that many compelling stories to arise from it — and many of them that did he’d already done on his previous shows. The A-plot of the second episode of Studio 60 was lifted whole from a similarly-themed episode of The West Wing (both centered on the stressful anticipation of a bunch of poll results/ratings which would determine the future course of the government/show). Much of the show’s drama came from a Matt-Harriet “relationship” that was never believable between two stars without much chemistry together (Perry and Whitford had plenty of chemistry, but that coupling might have been pushing the boundaries a bit far for NBC’s taste) or from Sorkin-serving “creatives versus suits” plotlines. Neither ever really connected enough to serve as the dramatic lynchpin for the show.
6. Bonus sixth reason: I know it’s been said to death by this point, but holy moley did those in-show skits suck major ass.

All of that said, I still liked the show and I’m quite sad to see it gone. I’m hoping that the experience hasn’t soured Sorkin on television for good, because when he’s at the top of his game, he’s one of the best TV writers around — if not the best. Unfortunately, Studio 60 was far from Sorkin at his best, and while that might still be better than most shows currently on the air, it wasn’t good enough. Expectations both creative and commercial were simply too large and the production buckled underneath the weight. I almost can’t believe I’m about to say this as it goes against so much of what I feel about the creative process, but: I hope Sorkin takes a few years away from TV and comes back with something a little less personal.

When the first TV ads aired for the new science fiction/western hybrid Firefly in the late summer of ‘02, the “from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer” hype FOX was laying on so thickly had zero effect on me.  At that point, the name “Joss Whedon” meant nothing to me — I’d never seen any Buffy (except the wretched movie). I wouldn’t become a disciple of The Way of Whedon for over another year.

No, what struck me was this:  “Hey, cool, Nathan Fillion’s on a new show!  Maybe I’ll have to check that out.”  (Though I didn’t, of course, until after Firefly had been canceled and released on DVD.) See, I’m now in my fourteenth year of Fillion Fandom™.  All you people who first discovered him as the roguish-yet-lovable Captain Mal Reynolds?  Pshaw.  Newbies, latecoming bandwagon jumpers, the lot of you.

Way back in the summer of 1994, I wasn’t taking any college classes and my 25-hour-a-week job at a record store mainly took up my nighttime hours, so during most days I was pretty free.  And with my afternoons unencumbered by anything resembling productive activity, what I did was watch soap operas — specifically, All My Children, One Life to Live and Days of Our Lives. [1]

One of One Life To Live’s main good guys during that summer was Joey Buchanon, played by, you guessed it, Nathan Fillion.  Joey was more in the romantic hero soap character mold than action hero or anti-hero, but heroic he was nonetheless. Most of the appeal of the character — to me, anyway — was from Fillion himself, who had an undeniable air of goodness about him. His Joey was very earnest and likable, even if I never could understand why he was so hung up on skanky Kelly, who was so full of bad news she might as well have been wearing a “Chico’s Bail Bonds” jersey.

Fillion might not have been the highlight of my soap-watching stint that summer — my mild man-crush on him was far eclipsed by the gripping lust I felt for Maria and Julia, the Santos sisters, who spent the summer bludgeoning me with their exquisite hotness on All My Children. But he left enough of a positive vibe on me that I noted every time he appeared in my pop culture field of vision over the next few years. I took it as a sign that his career was going somewhere when he played Not The Ryan You’re Looking For in Saving Private Ryan; I thought his career must be taking a step back when he signed on to the occassionally-amusing-but-not-particularly-noteworthy sitcom Two Guys And A Girl And At One Time There Was A Pizza Place But We Dropped It After The Second Season.

Have you ever noticed how some actors seem to exhibit certain characteristics so naturally and so frequently that you just assume that person’s like that in real life? (Well, OK… I do, anyway.) That’s how Nathan Fillion’s always seemed to me in regards to that aforementioned fundamental goodness most of his characters exude. Much of what made Mal Reynolds such a compelling figure was the contrast Fillion’s natural (or natural-seeming) good-guy-ness brought to him: for all of Mal’s law-breaking and Fed-shooting and doctor-yelling, there’s never any doubt that he’s a good man who’s fallen on hard times, a hero in a less-than-heroic situation.

Yes, I’m aware that Fillion’s an actor and if he’s any good at his job at all — and I believe he is — then there doesn’t have to be any connection whatsoever between the parts he plays and the man himself. But there’s undeniably something of a strength, morality and dignity underneath most of the characters he plays [2], and whether that quality has any basis in the man behind the characters or not, it makes him an appealing presence on screen.

I’m still hoping that quality someday makes him a huge star.

(Funnily/sadly enough, between the time I started writing this post Monday night and the time I finished it Wednesday night, Fillion’s newest show, Drive, was canceled by FOX… after three episodes. Nathan, if you are going to be a Big Huge Star at some point soon, I don’t think it’s going to be any thanks to the bastards at FOX.)

[1] I’ll talk more about my history with soaps some other time, but I firmly believe that watching Days with my mom when I was little probably helped foster in me the love for serialized storytelling I’ve still got today.

[2] The most notable exception to this tendency was his arc as the evil preacher Caleb in Season 6 of Buffy; there was no underlying streak of good to be found in that character, and because of it I think having Fillion, who’d just been de-Firefly-ed, play the part struck something of a wrong chord.

• I’m willing to grant everyone involved with the production of the kinda stinky Ocean’s 12 an Official Do-Over and pretend like Ocean’s 13 is the direct sequel to Ocean’s 11.  The trailer for O13 sure makes it look like it’s going to have all of the same qualities which made the first one so much fun — qualities which Soderbergh, et al. apparently left in their other pants when making O12.  This one’s now gone toward the top of my Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2007.  (Hmm, what’s that smell?  *snf snf*  Oh, yeah, I think that’s the smell of another blog post coming up!)
• Hey, fans of Firefly:  Yahoo! TV has a four-minute video preview of Drive, the new show from Nathan Fillion and Tim Minear.  (The video’s on the right-hand side of the page.)  I was planning on watching this anyway just because of the presence of Fillion and Minear, but after watching the preview I’m actually interested in seeing Drive on its own merits.  OK, yeah, what little bit we saw of the battered wife was pretty cliche, but the scene with Fillion was intriguing.  Time to TiVo up!
• Lee Iacocca has had enough from the current administration.   Yes, legendary industrialist Lee Iacocca expresses his outrage at the Republican White House — kinda says something, doesn’t it?  Iacocca rightly points out that the guys in office right now might be in charge, but they’re not showing a damn bit of leadership.  Big difference there.
• At long, long last, the final issue of The Ultimates 2 has gone to the printer, and Marvel was kind enough to celebrate by offering a preview of Bryan Hitch’s stunning eight-page foldout spread from that issue.  I’m not sure that any comic has ever needed an interior eight-page foldout spread in it before, but I’d imagine this one does, and that Hitch artwork is simply jaw-dropping.  Personally, I’m just glad this comic’s finally coming out since that gets us that much closer to a hardcover collection, which means I can get that to go with my hardcover of the first Ultimates series.
• The Inbox of Nardo Pace, The Empire’s Worst Engineer.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight #2
“The Long Way Home, Part II”
Joss Whedon, writer; Georges Jeanty, penciller

See, now, this is what I’m talking about. While I really liked the first issue of Joss Whedon’s continuation of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV series, it didn’t absolutely thrill me. I feel like I’m praising it with faint damnation when I say that, and I don’t want you to get the wrong impression about my take on #1. It was very well done — it had some typically entertaining Whedonesque banter and solid artwork — but it felt just a little bit, I dunno, slight to me. That was to be expected, I suppose, since that first issue was almost entirely setup. We only got to catch up with a handful of old characters and were dropped headlong into an entirely new status quo, so yeah, it wasn’t superb — but then again, the seven season premieres of the TV show weren’t necessarily barnburners, either. (The season finales, though? Oh, man.)

So in the end, the first issue of BtVS:S8 was really good if not spectacular.

The second issue, though… the second issue is pure Buffy.

Now we’re starting to get more of our familiar characters back — we have Giles now, we have Andrew! — and it’s almost like they’ve never been away. Ah, but that’s not quite true: they have been away, and they’ve been growing during their absence (some a bit more literally than others). The action in the second half of this issue, for instance, demonstrates just how capable the formerly useless Xander Harris has become at leading an international squad of Slayers. (Strangely enough, the character who seems to have grown the least during the gap since the end of Season 7 is the eponymous heroine herself, though I’m sure we’ll be treated to plenty of growth opportunities for her later.)

The one aspect of this issue which grabbed me most — and I can’t imagine this should come as much of a surprise — is the dialogue. The wonderful thing about Whedon writing these characters he created and worked with for so long is that he knows how they should speak better than any other writer, so it’s almost useless saying that Buffy, Xander and the rest sound the way they’re supposed to. It might be nearly useless, but I’m saying it anyway: the words Whedon puts into their mouths strike notes so perfect that I can hear the actors reading the lines in my head. I realize that for many of you, that distinction might not be particularly profound, but normally when I read (comics, novels, whatever), all of the characters’ voices sound, well, like mine. Jeanty’s art helps — the likenesses might not be photorealistic, but they’re suggestive enough of the actors that it makes hearing their voices that much easier.

We’re only two issues in, but there’s already questions aplenty to be answered: Who’s the floaty guy stalking Buffy (and her dreams)? Who is — or was — Amy’s gross, mysterious and so far unseen survivor of the collapse of Sunnydale? (Dollars to donuts both characters have Buffyverse histories, though I honestly have no idea who either is supposed to be just yet.) And one of the biggest questions I’ve got, one that hasn’t even been directly addressed as a mystery yet: where in the hell did Buffy and company get all the money to finance this massive operation? How are they affording all of this technology, room and board for several hundred teenage girls, and at least two separate compounds (since Giles clearly is somewhere other than Buffy’s Scottish headquarters)? When I watched the original series via Netflix, I usually didn’t have more than a couple of days to wait for new episodes. Knowing it’s going to be thirty days before even getting any more hints is going to prove painful.

If you’re a fan at all of the Buffy TV series, you need to be reading this comic (or at least need to pick up the collections once they come out). So far the series feels very, very similar in tone to the show, though now they’ve got the unlimited budget only comics can provide (just imagine the last page of this issue being done anywhere near as effectively on the small screen). As my boy Timmy B., a recent Whedon convert, said today: “I can’t believe that shmuck was wasting his time in TV.”

From the How the Hell Did I Not Know About This Before? Department:

Lauren Graham will be guest-starring on the next two episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip playing… herself.

Heroes - “One Giant Leap” (1.03)

Spoilers ahoy!

This episode crystallized something for me which had been nagging at me the last couple of weeks: 

Man, this show really doesn’t like women very much.

So far, Heroes only has two even remotely likable female characters:  Claire and the skinny chick who’s puppy-dogging Mohinder around.  Every single other female character on the show is presented in a negative light. [1]  And of those two almost-likable women, Indestructible Lass suffers an attempted rape this episode which ends very, very badly (and produced a hell of a cliffhanger for next week) and Skinny Chick, I’m absolutely positive, is allied with The Forces of Evil.  (More on her in just a minute.)

My main complaint with this show so far (other than the not-so-hidden misogyny) is the joylessness of it all.  Only Hiro displays any excitement whatsoever about his newfound abilities; admittedly, his infectious enthusiasm goes a long way toward making up for the moroseness of the rest of the characters.  (I suppose Peter is also excited by his powers, but since they only seem to work in the presence of his shithead brother, his enthusiasm’s been pretty thoroughly dampened.)  There’s very little sense of fun to Heroes so far; it’s certainly intriguing and I’m going to keep watching for a while longer, but the relenteless darkness is feeling a bit oppressive.  More Hiro and more Matt would go a long way toward lightening things up.

Time for a bit of speculation about the show’s Big Bad thus far, Syler:  we still know very little about him, but it seems that it’s possible he has all of the powers exhibited by the rest of our cast.  He certainly seems to be invulnerable and seems to be able to fly, plus whatever ability he’s got that allows him to perform grotesque murders with no sign of struggle (perhaps he has Hiro’s ability to stop or maniuplate time?).  So what I’m wondering is this:  could he also have shape-changing abilities?  ‘Cause I have this suspicion that Skinny Chick perhaps actually could be Syler.  It would certainly explain why Syler wasn’t home when they went to see him (not that that’s something that really has to be explained, but it fits) and how he knew to clear out of his pad afterwards.  Even if she’s not Syler-In-Disguise, she’s almost certainly One of the Bad Guys in some way, trying to get some more knowledge out of Mohinder that they weren’t able to get out of his father.  (Also:  expect Dr. Saresh the Elder to show up soon — the picture on the back of the book he wrote is of an actor I recognize but whose name I don’t recall, so I think it’s a safe bet he’s not really dead.  Maybe he’s also Syler?  That would be interesting, and more than a little weird, since it would mean he’d been threatening to make out with his own son.  Ew.)

Episode grade:  B-

[1] It occurs to me that this criticism might not be entirely valid, since most every person on the show is something of a jackass.

Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip - “The West Coast Delay” (1.04)

After a bit of an awkward start (c’mon, Harriet, you’re supposed to be an educated, intelligent woman — you mean to tell me you don’t recognize a freakin’ phone number when you see one?), “The West Coast Delay” ended up being the strongest episode of Studio 60 yet.  It’s still not West Wing-class, but I feel like it’s making progress:  for the first time, it felt like Sorkin and Co. were finding the show’s voice.  I knew that moment was coming, and I’m glad to see it only took them four episodes to start getting there.  We’re finally getting a little bit more screen time for some of the supporting cast and a feel for their personalities, and we’re getting some more interpersonal dynamics that don’t involve Sorkin’s meta-preaching.  I’m hoping that NBC will end up moving this show to a better time slot, preferably a night where it can air at 9:00EST instead of 10:00EST, in hopes that some of those people who’ve already ditched the show can give it another chance.  (Of course, I’m also hoping that NBC will actually pick up the full season, which they still haven’t done.)

Since Sorkin can’t educate his viewership about the political process and issues anymore (well, I suppose he could, but I think doing so would be a little awkward in a show about telelvision), he’s decided instead to educate us about the history of drama, or at the very least to give us homework, things to research on our own.  He’s already brought in Gilbert and Sullivan and commedia dell’arte, and this week we had several references to August Strindberg, mopey 19th-century Swedish playwright and star of the buddy comedy Strindberg + Helium.  While I’m glad that Sorkin thinks enough of his audience that he can throw these references out there, that he is indeed trying to raise the bar of what a network show expects of its viewers, I’m also wondering if maybe baby steps aren’t in order?  A Masters degree in Drama shouldn’t be required to get the jokes.

By the way, was I the only one to let out a little squee of delight when the totally adorable Lucy Davis (Dawn from the original BBC version of The Office) showed up in the writer’s room?  Is it too much to hope that maybe she might turn into a recurring character?

Episode grade:  B+