Regardless of all the shocked press stories about this year's Oscars, the producers of the show unequivocally supported Seth MacFarlane's performance. TVGuide reports Oscar producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan recently stated:
"We were really, really proud of Seth MacFarlane...He did the job at we wanted him to do. Seth is irreverent, he comments
on things that happen in our culture, and that's what he did and we
thought he did an extraordinary job."
I have to agree that this year's show was better than most, and the tongue-in-cheek "attack" on celebrities, as well as the supporting role played by William Shatner as a critical Captain Kirk, worked perfectly. Sadly, the media finds it more useful to pretend shock than enjoy the show for what it is - a partial roast of pretty people who take themselves far too seriously. While MacFarlane says he will not host again, I hope he reconsiders.
What would Alfred Hitchcock think of the return to television of his classic Psycho? His 1960 film caused quite a stir and it is somewhat surprising that a well worn tale could take on a new life on A&E's Bates Motel, but that is the plan starting tonight (March 18).
A&E wants to tell us the prequel to Pyscho so that we have a better understanding of what made Normal do the things he did:
"Bates Motel,” serves as a contemporary prequel to the
genre-defining film, “Psycho,” and promises to give viewers an intimate
portrayal of how Norman Bates’ psyche unravels through his teenage
years. Fans will have access to the dark, twisted backstory and learn first
hand just how deeply intricate his relationship with his mother, Norma,
truly is and how she helped forge the most famous serial killer of them
all.
Back in 1987, NBC tried a Psycho television pilot only to see it fail. And of course we have already had a Psycho II, III, and IV (the prequel), so this is not a new idea. So what can we expect? Alessandra Stanley in a tepid New York Times review noted:
On one level the series explores the twisted steps that led Norman to
his fate. The creators made “Bates Motel” less an exercise in “what if”
than an “if only” — keeping viewers wondering whether, with some
intervention or lucky break, the ultimate mama’s boy could come to a
different end. But the series has to keep the narrative going and needs
to add surprise turns that could affect Norman’s destiny...“Bates Motel” has a talented cast and a memorable back story that
guides, but doesn’t limit, the narrative, and at its best it’s
intriguing and enjoyably grim. But even more than Norman, the series
itself has a split personality, a Hitchcock classic grafted onto a much
more mundane brand of suspense.
What is even more interesting is that Hitchcock intended Pyscho to be a comedy, according to a recent story in England's The Telegraph. In 1964, Hitchcock stated:
"I
once made a movie, rather tongue-in-cheek, called 'Psycho'..."The content as such was, I felt, rather amusing and it was a big joke. I
was horrified to find that some people took it seriously."
So A&E has a lot of material to play with and now we have to see how it all comes together. With all the fluff vampires and werewolves running around, maybe the retelling of a classic tale will add some gravitas to the genre again. It's all up to Norman now.
If you were worried about Elisabeth Moss and her part as Peggy Olson on Mad Men since she left the firm, don't worry. She has shown up as detective Robin Griffin in New Zealand. And if you thought the people were interesting and odd in the 1950s, just wait until you meet these folks.
The new 7-part series Top of the Lake starts tomorrow (March 1th) on the Sundance channel. The show also stars Holly Hunter as a spiritual leader, Peter Mullan as the menacing father of a missing daughter, and David Wenhan as the more senior detective in the Queenstown Police Station.
From what I have read and taken away from the trailers, this is no longer the New Zealand of Lord of the Rings. In fact, I doubt the New Zealand tourist board is pushing this new show. Think of it as The Killing in another beautiful environment with less rain.
Here is the basic premise of the show:
12 years old and 5 months pregnant, Tui Mitcham walks into a freezing
lake ... then disappears. Detective Robin Griffin returns home to
investigate, but it's not a simple missing persons case. In this
breathtaking but remote mountain town, there are evil forces as powerful
as the land itself. And those who offer a glimpse of paradise also
provide a path to hell. Trapped where happiness and honest work are just
out of reach, Griffin must not only find the girl but also face her own
haunting past. With the men that she once left behind now standing in
her way, every step closer to solving the case unearths a dangerous
truth about herself.
Nancy DeWolf Smith in The Wall Street Journal noted the show's brutality in a recent review. pointing out:
...we soon learn that every character here is damaged in some way. Most
of the men are ignorant brutes who act like dogs that have been chained
in a yard all their lives. Most of the women are victims, addicted to
emotional or physical pain at the hands of men they recklessly pursue.
Among those trying to recover at the lake with GJ is a woman still in
shock after seeing her beloved chimpanzee kill one of her friends before
being killed himself. But wait, says one of the local louts, "Was the
chimp your boyfriend or a pet?"
Our Peggy is no longer in Manhattan.
Note: Interestingly enough, The Killing was filmed in Vancouver. According to The Seattle Times, the show's creator Veena Sud decided to use Seattle as the setting for a few reasons:
"The graphic beauty of Seattle was so compelling; it reminded me of
Copenhagen in the Danish series, incredibly brooding and tragic," said
Sud..."As I started to research more about Seattle, it became clear it's one
of the most liberal cities in America and one of the most literate ...
and yet it's also a city with a dark underbelly," she said. "It has a
huge runaway population that's very striking when you're a visitor to
the city and see so many of these lost kids."
Jerry Seinfeld has put together 10 interviews as part of his series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (go here for the promo and better digital output). I have enjoyed each one, but my favorites are Alec Baldwin in terms of pure fun and Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) for honesty. In the final episode with Michael Richards, Seinfeld brings up the incident from 7 years earlier where Richards fired racial remarks back at the audience, effectively ending his career. Richards discusses how the incident "broke him down" and he has not done any comedy since. He also thanks Seinfeld for sticking by his side during the turmoil that followed.
The good news is that Seinfeld has agreed to do a second season, this time with 24 interviews. I look forward to more fun and, at times, revealing discussions.
Note: It is hard to get the video to pull up on Crackle.com. Just go the main Crackle page, find the list of series videos below, and pull up the one you want to see.
I have always liked the way the CW's Supernatural cast and crew have a funny bone that does not take things too seriously. In this vein, Jensen Ackles leads Jared Padalecki and the rest of the team in the Harlem Shake. Check out the clip.
All one can say to its credit is that ABC's Zero Hour lasted one episode longer than NBC's Do No Harm, but that is not saying much when you are pulled after only three episodes. ABC cancelled Zero Hour not long after its premiere, which was reported to be the lowest-rated ABC premiere for a scripted show during the regular TV
season ever.
I had high hopes for Zero Hour after the first episode, but by the second episode I had already lost interest and decided a third episode was not worth my time. The story became too wacky with Edwards running around the globe followed by a multi-lingual FBI agent who never heard of the word sequestration. We have good people in government, but the bottomless budget supporting this over-talented agent was more incredible than the Catholic Church hiding a secret from the Nazis.
Would the show have worked as a two-hour television movie? Probably, but only because one would have felt invested (or too lazy) after an hour to change the channel. But 13 hours? In the end, I was not interested trying to follow the story of 12 clocks while pretending to care about the fate of Anthony Edwards' wife who we only saw for 5 minutes in the first episode. ABC asked us to invest too much time in a complex tale that started to go off the rails.
If you are still interested in the show, ABC will mostly likely show the remaining episodes over the summer. I think I will pass.
As I noted in an earlier entry, we will not see The Farm as a new series starring our friend Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) from The Office. Nonetheless, in The Office episode this Thursday at 9pm ET/8pm CT we can see the pilot and learn more about what could have been.
And if you are a Dwight fan, you have an opportunity to display it by wearing this "Schrute Farms Beets" shirt available at NBC. Dwight also has some final words on the Schrute family in this clip from NBC. Can you imagine 10 little Schrutes running around? It is too scary to imagine.
If the premiere of Vikings is not enough to keep you satisfied this Sunday (March 3), you may want to check out these new shows instead:
-- The Bible, History Channel: This is quite an adventure covering both books of the Bible and just in time for the approach of Easter. This 10-part series started as a documentary and morphed into a drama. The Christian Science Monitor, in writing about the series producers Mark Burnett and his wife, Roma Downey, opined:
Burnett and his wife have produced a mini-series that is not only "not
disappointing," but actually rises to the top of the "Wow" scale.
Attempting to take on the whole Bible in 10 hours is pretty much an
impossible task for just about anyone, but apparently not for the
Burnetts. They really have produced something of epic proportions.
-- Red Widow, ABC: This is a remake of the Dutch series Penoza. This can be good or bad, depending on the quality of the effort. In the case of The Killing, Shameless, and House of Cards it was a great success. The new show sounds like a grittier version of Showtime's Weeds. Here is the plot from ABC:
Marta Walraven seems to have an idyllic life. A stay-at-home mom in tony
Marin County, just north of San Francisco, she is devoted to her three
children and her husband. Behind this perfect façade, however, is a more
complicated story: Evan, Marta’s husband, supports the family by
exporting marijuana. Marta is familiar with the world of organized
crime: her father, Andrei Petrov, and his loyal bodyguard, Luther, are
Bratva – Russian gangsters – in San Francisco. It’s a world from which
she and her sister Kat always wanted to escape, though they never quite
did.
But
when Evan is brutally murdered in their driveway, everything changes.
Marta’s first concern is to protect her children – and yet when FBI
Agent James Ramos promises Marta justice in exchange for her
cooperation, she cannot go against the Bratva code. She refuses his
help.
Slowly, the truth about her husband’s murder begins to
emerge: Evan’s business partners – Marta’s scheming brother, Irwin
Petrov, and their best friend, the hapless Mike Tomlin – were involved
in the theft of millions of dollars of cocaine from the formidable
international crime boss, Nicholae Schiller. Evan paid with his life,
but as far as Schiller is concerned, his debt is not clear. It falls to
Marta, as Evan’s widow, to navigate the criminal underworld in order to
repay this debt – in whatever way Schiller sees fit.
Hounded by
the FBI on the one hand and by Schiller on the other, while also trying
to raise three grieving kids on her own, Marta discovers a tenacity she
never knew she had. As she hunts for the truth about her husband’s death
and struggles to keep her children safe, she’ll rely on her
resourcefulness, determination and her Bratva DNA like never before. But
just how far is Marta willing to go in order to beat her adversaries at
their own deadly game?
I will probably watch Vikings, record The Bible, and hold off on Red Widow until some later time. Who knew Sundays could be so busy?
Update: I think I chose my viewing schedule well. Vikings turned
out to be an excellent choice. While I was worried in the first few
minutes when I saw Odin lifting bodies from the battlefield, the story
quickly came together and the acting was fine throughout. The Bible,
on the other hand, did not work at all. Seeing Ninja angels in Sodom
was a little too strange. And while the show may work for the
thoroughly devoted who know their bible stories backward and forward, I
do not see the show bringing on any new followers. Maybe doing a
documentary with some acting in the background would have been better.
Finally, it seems Red Widow was off to a slow start in the ratings and may not last too long, so I am glad I did not become committed to this new show.
What happens when the channel that brought you the award-winning Hatfields & McCoys (History Channel) joins the creator of The Tudors and The Borgias (Michael Hirst)? Hopefully, you will get another great show and we shall see if that is the case with the new series Vikings, premiering on March 3rd. This will be the History Channel's first scripted series and it is already ready to commit to three more seasons should the premiere go well.
Here is a quick summary of the show from the History Channel:
Vikings transports us to the brutal and mysterious world of Ragnar
Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel), a Viking warrior and farmer who yearns to
explore—and raid—the distant shores across the ocean. His ambition puts
him at odds with local chieftain Earl Haraldson (Gabriel Byrne), who
insists on sending his raiders to the impoverished east rather than the
uncharted west. When Ragnar teams up with his boat builder friend Floki
(Gustaf Skarsgard) to craft a new generation of intrepid ships capable
of conquering the rough northern seas, the stage is set for conflict.
But for all its warfare and bloodshed, Vikings is also a story of
family and brotherhood, capturing the love and affection between Ragnar
and his wife, Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick), a respected warrior in her
own right. It is the tale of Ragnar’s brother Rollo (Clive Standen), a
fierce fighter who simmers with jealously; of Earl Haraldson’s wife
Siggy (Jessalyn Gilsig), a dutiful beauty who may be less than loyal;
and of the monk Athelstan (George Blagden), whose Christian morals clash
with the Vikings’ pagan society. As ambition and innovation rattle a
civilization, these characters will be put to the test—and their way of
life will never be the same again.
You may remember Australian Travis Fimmel from his time on A&E's The Beast, a Chicago cop show also starring Patrick Swayze (who died before a second season was possible). At that time I wrote how Fimmel reminded me of a young Brad Pitt. As a result, I have high hopes for his part in this new series. I am also interested in seeing the acting chops of Sweden's Gustaf Skarsgard, brother of Alexander Skarsgard (True Blood). If he is anything like his brother then we have quite a set of actors on our hands.
In an interview with ManJr, Fimmel describes his character Ragnar:
Well Ragnar is based on a historical character. He is very adventurous
and he is one of the first people to sail west and discover England and
do what Vikings do when they discover places. Say good hey to the ladies
and beat up people...He is so curious. He thinks he is a direct descendant from a god named
Odin, who was a god of slain warriors and curiosity. Legends say that
the god Odin killed himself just to see what death felt like. Ragnar has
that same curiosity about stuff. Nothing is good enough for him. He
wants to know what is out there. It is not just for the raping and
pillaging stuff. He wants to learn about people and the gods they
worship, what the look like, and their customs. He is just a curious
person and his curiosity doesn’t end.
The nine episodes of season one were shot in rustic Ireland. From the few scenes I have watched, the setting and production values are terrific. And I look forward to seeing the viking longboat in action. We shall see if it all holds together as another great TV epic.
