When CBS announced that it planned to air reruns of Jericho this summer in anticipation of the show’s upcoming midseason return, I had personally thought that they would re-air all of the season’s episodes starting at some point in June, perhaps doubling up on certain weeks in an attempt to fit in all 22 episodes before September came around. Well, CBS seems to think differently, and their official schedule features only 13 episodes from Jericho’s first season. And, well, I think it’s a good schedule.
The Jericho Summer Rerun Schedule
Friday July 6th
9pm EDT – Episode 1 – “Pilot”
Friday July 13th
8pm EDT – Jericho Recap Show (Eps. 1-11)
9pm EDT – Episode 12 – “The Day Before”
Friday July 20th – September
9pm EDT – Remaining Episodes of Jericho’s First Season
Firstly, this schedule will currently take them until September 21st, which would mean the final repeat would air after the official start of the fall season. As a result, a two-hour event here or there might well take place.
After learning this news, I first felt it was a bit of a copout. However, I’ve since decided that it is strong plan that makes a lot of sense for a variety of reasons.
Emphasize Your Strongest Features
The pre-hiatus Jericho was a slow-moving, never-ending post nuclear society struggling with food shortages and your regular post-disaster scenarios. The interest parts (Hawkins’ behaviour, the conspiracy rumblings) can be covered in the recap special, and the show can move into its strong post-hiatus period creatively.
Judy Greer is perhaps best known to television comedy fans for her stint as receptionist Kitty on Arrested Development. Rob Thomas is best known for creating Veronica Mars, the beloved UPN/The CW drama that was recently canceled. Combining these two elements seems like good science, and apparently all parties think so. A last-minute addition to the ABC Pilot lineup, “Miss/Guided” was seeking guidance and has found it in Thomas, who will lead Greer and Co. as showrunner starting at midseason according to E! Online.
This means a few things: first, yes, Veronica Mars is definitely canceled. However, I think that fans (and everyone else) should look on the bright side knowing that Rob Thomas is still in television. While I think that he has yet to prove himself a consistent showrunner over multiple seasons, and the fact that he hasn’t created the show is certainly going to make for a different experience, the first season of Veronica Mars was some of the most exceptional television of the decade. If Thomas can develop his vision and keep it from spiraling out of control, I believe that he is the right person for this job.
Second, I’m now that much more excited for Miss/Guided. I was happy to see it picked up, considering Judy Greer is both very engaging and very funny, but now the series has a great deal of potential. The show is certainly not all that original, actually seeming to play just a little bit like Ugly Betty in a public school, but I think that this type of fish out of water story is exactly the type of thing that Thomas is good at capturing. The best parts of Veronica Mars were when she was a total outcast, struggling not to fit in but to survive not fitting in. Much as Veronica developed her own way of doing that, I believe that Greer’s Becky Freeley can do the same.
So, while it is perhaps no consolation for losing Veronica Mars, I look forward to seeing what he is able to cook up for Miss/Guided. Perhaps with a creative resurgence the sitcom might actually get a timeslot confirmed; if it replaces Cavemen (Which better not succeed), I shall be most pleased.
Also of Note: Christina Applegate comedy “Sam I Am” is now listed as “Untitled” on ABC’s fall preview. Looks like changes are afoot on more shows than one over at ABC.
[In Week Two of Cultural Learnings’ 59th Annual Emmy Awards Nominations Preview, we’re looking at possible contenders for the Supporting Actress awards in both drama and comedy. Today, we present our fifth set of candidates. For last week’s Supporting Actor candidates, and an index of all candidates, Click Here]
Supporting Actress in a Drama
Patricia Wettig (Holly Harper)
Brothers & Sisters
Fans of FOX’s Prison Break will know Patricia Wettig from her stint as (Vice-)President Reynolds on the show’s first season before she mysteriously disappeared in its second, returning only for a brief cameo. Well, for those fans who might not be so interested in primetime family dramas and who skipped ABC’s Brothers & Sisters, it was the reason why she was absent. With her husband Ken Olin (A prolific director/producer on Alias) producing the ABC series, Wettig was drawn away from her presidential role for one somewhat different. And, while I’m sure it mucked things up over at Prison Break, Wettig made the right decision in the end. In Holly Harper, Wettig has a character with emotional depth beyond her introduction. Beginning as a volatile plot device from the Walker family’s departed patriarch’s past, Holly has since developed into an honest-to-goodness part of this ensemble cast. While some of the other supporting performances were perhaps more showy (Mainly Rachel Griffith’s turn), Wettig brought to Holly a sense of loss and independence worthy of Emmy contention.
Holly Harper was the other woman, the one that Nora Walker knew existed and yet didn’t believe was ever a real problem. The key theme of the season was Nora dealing with her husband’s past haunting her even after his death, and Holly was a big part of this. As she became an inheritor, and as she bought herself into the family business, Holly was a thorn in Nora’s side in a real fashion. However, Holly was rarely out to get Nora in the beginning. Wettig brought to the role a sense that she was willing to be civil, willing to be honest, willing to let things slide. Then, of course, things hit the roof and Nora couldn’t take it anymore.
Their tension was palpable, and it drove the show forward. As Holly battled with Sarah and Nora, she was often somewhat vindictive and it would be easy for Wettig to fall into that pattern. However, once Holly’s daughter Rebecca entered the picture, Wettig was given a more emotional side. We began to see the life she led without having to relate to this family, the life as the other woman with a daughter and a life to live. It is easy to immediately condemn the other woman, but I found myself warming to Holly by season’s end. Wettig brought to the role a sense of honesty, a knowledge of her sins and yet an acknowledgement of needing to move on from it. From beginning to end in her series run, Patricia Wettig embodied Holly Harper in a way that she could never have achieved with Prison Break’s cold-hearted president. Not only did Wettig make perhaps the best career move of the year, but she also delivered a performance worthy of Emmy consideration.
Episode Selection: “Grapes of Wrath” (Aired May 6th, 2007)
Holly is at her most vicious here, reeling from the news that her daughter has moved in with the Walkers and the tension between her and Nora is most certainly at a fever pitch. Wettig has a lot of fun seducing Nora’s date for the weekend, her creepy writing teacher, but the real kicker comes from an end of episode food fight that is both funny and yet evolves into something much more substantial. Holly breaks down after the fight, realizing that she still misses William (Nora’s husband, her lover). That breakdown is the first time I really looked at Wettig for this award, and I think it convinced me she deserved it. It puts into context Holly’s actions, Holly’s inability to move on, just as it did Nora’s inability to move on before she put William behind her at some point earlier. Actually, Holly’s actually better at moving on than Nora is. And Wettig makes this very clear, matching Sally Field line for line and delivering an Emmy-worthy performance.
There is something to be said for an actress finally finding the right role for them. Vanessa Williams has jumped around, struggling to find her role in the television and film universe. Outside of appearances in films such as Soul Food or Shaft, or her short-lived runs on Boomtown or South Beach (Which existed, believe it or not), she has never found a niche in the acting world. As a result, most people know her best from performing ‘Colours of the Wind’ in Disney’s Pocahontas and her other singing accolades. However, Williams is not happy just being another Pebo Brison; she appears to have been waiting for the right role to finally come along. And, well, come along it has: as the scheming Wilhelmina Slater, Williams has elevated her game with a conniving and devious performance that skirts the line between villain and hero so well that I’m still not sure where I stand. However, either way, Vanessa Williams has finally found the right role, and it is one worthy of Emmy Awards attention.
For those of you who realize that I am in fact Canadian, and that I spent a fair amount of time covering American Idol, you might be wondering why I have yet to even care to mention the recent launch of the summer programming juggernaut that is Canadian Idol. And, for those few of you who meet that description, I have this following explanation: it’s not at all compelling for me.
While the audition stages are always a huge draw for the American Idol audience, and for good reason, I believe that Canadian Idol has never quite figured out how to achieve the desired effect. On American Idol, the audition stages provide a glimpse into the future of the competition: with each episode you get an idea of a certain level of talent, and you connect with these people. I think a lot of it has to do with the judges: the dynamic that Simon, Farley and Paula have created is something consistent, set in stone. When people step before them we can immediately predict their reaction, or approximate it at the very least. This is, in actuality, a good thing: it allows the candidates to be judged on a fairly consistent set of standards.
I don’t know what it is about Canadian Idol’s judging panel, but I swear they’re all of them schizophrenic. They outright jeer certain contestants like an over-sized peanut gallery, but then fawn over others who are merely average. One second Farley’s Mr. Nice Guy, the next he’s destroying some poor contestant. Sass usually has nothing of import to say, and yet she can’t even decide whether she’s mean or nice in the process. Yes, I know most of this is purely natural behaviour: Zack isn’t a villain all the time, so why should be play one on this show? These people have to like people at some point, so what’s the problem?
When I blogged about the efforts to save Veronica Mars last week, they were fairly insignificant. There was no real momentum, no real content, no real drive, and it felt like an attempt to copy the successful campaign for CBS’ Jericho. However, while there is certainly inspiration to be found within Jericho’s triumphant defeat of network executives, the two situations are not the same, and Veronica Mars fans are likely fighting a losing battle. Despite what is perhaps a cynical perspective, I want to make something very clear: I believe that fan movements are never valueless. And as the campaign formed into an extensive Mars Bar, Snickers and Marshmallow Fest over the weekend, I guess I became a bit more nostalgic about it.
Stage One: Purchasing Mars Bars from The Indian Food Store, later becoming Snickers bars when Mars Bars ran out (Note: We in Canada have plenty, and they’re good. Really good). Later, deciding that Marshmallows tied in with the series, fans began to send the poofy treats as well.
Stage Two: Fans are instructed to order the show’s season finale, ‘The Bitch is Back’, on iTunes on Tuesday June 12th in an effort to raise it to the top of the charts and show support for the show. There are no current plans to bulk purchase David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars?’, but considering that it is both an awesome song and that international viewers can’t buy TV shows from the store, I think it might be cool.
There has been criticism that fans are “wasting their money”, or squandering their time; I would argue that this could never be the case. Television is a medium that people connect to in a way that just doesn’t occur with movies or books, and the result is often a sense of fan support that creates a community. That community is something that, for better or for worse, has been part of those people’s lives, and television is something you talk about. Chatting about an episode, a character, is something that brings people together with a common goal in a way that politicians can only dream of.
[In Week Two of Cultural Learnings’ 59th Annual Emmy Awards Nominations Preview, we’re looking at possible contenders for the Supporting Actress awards in both drama and comedy. Today, we present our fourth set of candidates. For last week’s Supporting Actor candidates, and an index of all candidates, Click Here]
Supporting Actress in a Drama
Kelly Bishop (Emily Gilmore)
Gilmore Girls
This year, for the first time, Gilmore Girls is submitting in the drama category. This decision will certainly benefit the series, I believe, as it more directly represents the show as a whole. However, at the same time, it will also directly benefit who is arguably the series’ most important supporting player. Kelly Bishop has portrayed the Gilmore matriarch for seven seasons with a sense of grace, but she was rarely given a chance to be “comic” by popular standards. Sure, Emily Gilmore can be hysterical, but it makes more sense for her to be considered as a dramatic performance. As a result, as the series shifts over, so too do Bishop’s chances of finally getting her due. In the show’s final season, Kelly Bishop portrayed Emily Gilmore as a powerful wife, mother and grandmother in a way that was always real despite her wealth and status. As a dramatic performance, Bishop deserves to be considered for an Emmy Award.
This past season has been an opportunity for Emily to come to terms with her own life, as opposed to that of her daughter. Her life changed when her husband suffered a heart attack, and all of a sudden she was alone in many things. That sense of loneliness sent the always on the edge Emily over the cliff, in a sense. Faced with a new reality, a change in her routine, it required a lot of dramatic range from Bishop. At that age, where retirement and everything else kicks in, people are faced with a change of lifestyle, and Bishop portrayed it with a subtlety and vulnerability that was in line with Emily’s past actions.
Perhaps most importantly, however, was that Emily’s journey felt complete. After seven seasons of tense relations with her daughter, the season ended with her attempting to ensure that her connection with Lorelai would continue even as Rory is graduating. Their strained relationship was always important to the core dynamic, and to see it resolved in the finale was perhaps the most important moment from my personal perspective. What Bishop always brought to the role was a sense that Emily held a grudge, but that she also very much loved and cherished her relationship with her family. In her finale season, Bishop lived up to that history and delivered a performance worthy of Emmy consideration.
Episode Selection:“I’d Rather Be In Philadelphia” (Aired February 6th, 2007)
A moment of crisis is always rife with drama: in this case, Emily is faced with her husband’s heart attack and struggles in the hospital to pull together. Her reaction is real, honest, and Bishop portrays her anguish with just the right amount of denial. While I think she had better performances, this is the one where she was placed in a tougher position. Remorse, anger, it’s all there. It wasn’t perhaps the most subtle of her performances, but I think it is certainly the one that might get a good amount of Emmy related attention.
I watched the first two seasons of How I Met Your Mother in the span of a few weeks, and in the process I warmed up to Cobie Smulders in a big way. I was, for the most part, ambivalent towards her as the seasons progressed, but over time I began to come to terms with her contribution to the series. While Alyson Hannigan is perhaps the bigger star, Smulders often has the more difficult role to play. Her relationship with Ted needed to seem worthwhile, honest, and it always did. She brought to the role a sense of comic timing that was always somewhat offbeat, and she always played the role of the outsider in the right way. And really, I’ll be honest: while I believe that her performance as a whole is deserving of attention, I’m really only listing her for one reason: Robin Sparkles.
So, the interwebs have been inundated with reviews of HBO’s new show, ‘John from Cincinnati’, that debuted tonight after The Sopranos Finale. Many lament that series creator David Milch exited Deadwood prematurely to helm this series about surfers. Others comment on how the language from his previous series is certainly back in full force. However, a majority of reviews have something in common: this is one screwed up show.
I was therefore heading into last night’s premiere with a certain perspective. On one hand I knew the series had a certain pedigree, and that some reviews were quite positive. On the other, however, was an underlying knowledge of how strange the series was purported to be. And, in the end, I find myself somewhere in between the two extremes presented: I think the series has some level of potential, but that its weirdness just seems that, weird. I don’t see any reason, any direction, within its premise. And yet, I want it to have direction and might follow it until it finds it.
I was up late at night trying to get to sleep and stumbled upon something on my snowy antenna reception in my dorm room that caught my attention: much as I had, months earlier, stumbled upon an episode of The Office (US) that got me hooked on the show, this series became of interest. That show was ‘The Loop’, a comedy that debuted on FOX last year to, well, not so great numbers despite an American Idol lead-in for a brief period. After catching up with the series, I found it to be an entertaining little diversion with an incredibly engaging lead actor in Bret Harrison. However, when it was surprisingly renewed for a 2nd season, there was talk of changes, and a fair amount of people worried that the show would lost its integrity when it airs two episodes tonight at 8:30 EDT and 9:30 EDT on FOX. I am not one of these people.
The reason I was unconcerned is that the reboot of the show maintains all of the elements I liked, and gets rid of elements to which I felt little to no connection. The show was designed as a young executive who, despite moving up in the corporate world, still exists in the world of his youthful friends. Thus, he was stuck between two worlds: it was a decent concept, let’s be honest, but the problem was that it was the corporate world that was the most entertaining. Philip Baker Hall was hysterical as his out of touch boss. Mimi Rogers was bitingly funny as his Milf co-worker, and most importantly his over-educated and resentful secretary was the source of the show’s most consistent comedy.
[In Week Two of Cultural Learnings’ 59th Annual Emmy Awards Nominations Preview, we’re looking at possible contenders for the Supporting Actress awards in both drama and comedy. Today, we present our third set of candidates. For last week’s Supporting Actor candidates, and an index of all candidates, Click Here]
Supporting Actress in a Drama
Julie Benz (Rita)
Dexter
Showtime’s Dexter is a fascinating character study, a drama that blurs the line between procedural and serial while investigating more its characters than its crimes. At the centre of that conflict, no doubt, is Dexter Morgan himself, but I have to hope that Emmy voters will be able to realize how important the supporting cast is to this series. Each of them portray a similarly damaged individual, just in different ways: there are no characters without some level of emotional distress, and they deserve to be considered. However, the nature of this series is that there is limited room, and decisions must be made. As a result, we shall consider Julie Benz, who portrays the emotionally damaged Rita. Attacked by her husband, raising her kids on her own, her relationship with Dexter is one of the show’s most important elements. As Rita’s own insecurities begin to evaporate, Dexter’s resurface. Benz matches the fabulous Michael C. Hall scene for scene, and the result is a powerful supporting performance worthy of Emmy consideration.
From the show’s very first episode, Rita’s character was clear: Dexter dated her because she was afraid of intimacy, having been assaulted by her husband. Benz brought to Rita a sense of insecurity that felt just as it needed to. She loves Dexter because he’s great with the kids, dependable, and an all-around good guy. She knows nothing of his vigilante justice, and that is what makes her character so powerful: she reacts to Dexter purely as a human being. But Dexter isn’t human, he’s damaged, and Rita is just an extension of that in his mind. This creates a gap: she believes them to be in one place, when inevitably he believes them to be in another.
As they came together throughout the season, eventually reaching much better terms, Benz remained the consummate supporting actress. Rita needed to be someone we can see Dexter loving, who we could see loving Dexter, and who we could see as someone damaged and yet trying to fight back. Benz managed to create someone who could be loved by a murderer, who could love a man who for some time could not show love, and who could be damaged at her core but hide it from her children. When she breaks down, it seems like she is shedding layers that she will pile right back on as soon as the discussion is over. Not enough people have seen Benz’s performance, perhaps, but more people need to be made aware: Dexter was one of the best new shows of the season, and Julie Benz was an integral part of the series’ dynamic.
Episode Selection:“Truth Be Told” (Aired December 10th, 2006)
While Dexter’s finale ended the season-long Ice Truck Killer mystery, it didn’t have room for a resolution for Rita. As a result, Truth Be Told was really the final hurrah for Rita within the season. And, for the most part, the episode provided her with a lot of dramatic movement: faced with a druggie ex-husband being framed by Dexter (Quite excessively, too), she has to balance her new relationship, her old one, and being a parent amidst it all. Unfortunately, I can’t use YouTube to show you that performance, but just imagine that it was powerful and vulnerable. It’s a good choice because there’s a torrent of frustration: her anger with Dexter never turns into a full-fledged fight, but their relationship is different from their happier moments. For the sake of something, here is one of those happier moments.
Most television characters without a first name are unlikely to make a dent in our collective memories. Being known as “Mrs. Ari” in Entourage‘s credits certainly hasn’t given Perrey Reeves any sort of fame boost, and for the most part I would say that she’s a marginal player at best. However, and this is a big however, when she is on screen it is fabulous to watch. While Jeremy Piven rants away, giving Ari a sense of insanity and fortitude so very powerful, Reeves always matches him. Her responses are just as sharp-witted, just as biting, just as strong. She goes toe-to-toe with Ari in a way that often seems almost unnatural. We see so little of her life: we rarely see the kids, and we never see “Mrs. Ari” on her own. However, as a supporting player in the life of an overpowering character, she always manages to get a word in edgewise where so many others would not. And, for managing to do so without even a first name, Perrey Reeves deserves Emmy consideration.
Forgive me, television fans, for I have most certainly sinned. Here we are, on the eve of the series finale of ‘The Sopranos’, and I must admit to you all that I’ve never watched a single episode of the series in its entirety. So here I am, as an intrepid television blogger, forced to be woefully ignorant on what is likely to be one of the biggest series finales of the past few years. Part of me always worries that Tony Soprano will abduct me and I’ll end up like the corpses in the above photo.
In a perfect world, I would have watched the series. I should, then, be writing all about how I feel The Sopranos was as a whole, I should be writing a review of the finale…but I can’t. But, I feel like I should nonetheless spend some time reminiscing about The Sopranos, although in a slightly different way. As a result, I present the five reasons why I never got into The Sopranos.
5. I Am But a Youngin’
Yes: I was but 13 years old when the series first premiered, so let’s just say that it wasn’t exactly standard viewing for someone in that age group. At that young age, I was fascinated that CTV was eventually able to pick up the series and air it censorship free considering its content. My only memory of the series from this period was flipping onto CTV, finding strippers, and being very confused. (Not by strippers in general, but by them being on CTV at like 10:30 pm on a Sunday, just to be clear).
4. Canada, eh?
Living in Canada means that HBO isn’t standard, and The Movie Network was a bit slow on the uptake with the series’ first season. More importantly, however, I don’t think we actually got The Movie Network at that point. This made it somewhat difficult to follow the series even as I grew older and more into the show’s audience range.
3. The Ridiculously Overpriced DVDs
The Sopranos, it seems, is not a series that HBO wants people to get caught up on. While the earlier seasons are now down to $40 American, new sets remain at ludicrously high prices. Considering that the TV DVD craze hit when it did, HBO remains a highly priced brand that makes it nearly impossible to catch up on their series without breaking the bank.
2. The Timing of my TV Revolution
With University came a new obsession with television, and it also meant catching up with old series I hadn’t quite watched on a regular basis. However, The Sopranos happened to be decidedly on hiatus during my first year of university. At the very time I was opening my world to other series (Such as The Office (US), Arrested Development, etc.), The Sopranos was not on the cultural radar enough for me to consider it an option.
And the #1 Reason I’ve Never Watched the Sopranos is…
When CBS announced that it planned to air reruns of Jericho this summer in anticipation of the show’s upcoming midseason return, I had personally thought that they would re-air all of the season’s episodes starting at some point in June, perhaps doubling up on certain weeks in an attempt to fit in all 22 episodes before September came around. Well, CBS seems to think differently, and their official schedule features only 13 episodes from Jericho’s first season. And, well, I think it’s a good schedule.
Supporting Actress in a Drama
Supporting Actress in a Comedy
For those of you who realize that I am in fact Canadian, and that I spent a fair amount of time covering American Idol, you might be wondering why I have yet to even care to mention the recent launch of the summer programming juggernaut that is Canadian Idol. And, for those few of you who meet that description, I have this following explanation: it’s not at all compelling for me.
Supporting Actress in a Drama
Supporting Actress in a Comedy
Supporting Actress in a Comedy
Cultural Learnings 