Sunday, May 31, 2009

Incoming: Earth 2100


ABC is looking to scare the crap outta everyone this Tuesday evening. At 9pm the network will air an ABC News Special entitled Earth 2100. The two hour special is said to feature the world's top experts talking about what could become the human population by the year 2100 without a significant shift in our attitudes about global warming and the environment.

The main description put forth by the network, "Experts say over the next hundred years the "perfect storm" of population growth, resource depletion and climate change could converge with catastrophic results.", is just the intro to a three page press release that reads a lot like an essay.

The special will revolve around segments featuring a fictional character by the name of "Lucy", who will experience each of the disasters first hand. Lucy is born June 2, 2009 and the stories are told by her, at age 91. The segments are drawn in a graphic novel style, which does actually look kind of cool.

These fictional segments will be joined by the experts interviews and some user created fictional videos. You can get a better idea of what I'm talking about and a peak at the artwork with this video (damn you ABC for not allowing embedding!):

Nature's Edge: 'Earth 2100'

The user created videos, while professional looking, and maybe accurate for all we know, come off as overly dramatic and disturbingly desperate. Like B-Rate apocalypse films. I think it's the voices, mainly. One well done piece, about a mega virus that finally kills off the majority of the human race could be considered kinda cool, until the narrator, probably the user who created it, ruins it all with his overly dramatic, extremely terrible voice acting.

It's not all his fault,though, as beside him there are two other actors with speaking parts in the short piece and they're both terrible as well.

We knew it was only a matter of time that a major network would create a show like this. The World Without Us, a great book by the way, was published a couple of years ago and History channel followed that up with their Life After People special (which was a great way to get around having to pay the author) a few months later, which has spanned into it's weekly Life After People series that starting airing a month or two ago.

Don't get me wrong, as I said I liked the book and watch the show weekly. I enjoy apocalyptic books, films and tv shows, but I'm wondering if this should be network news territory...Actually, I'm really not wondering. A network documentary special, maybe, but not a news special.

I'm also not looking forward to hearing the conservative reactions. They'll come around the next day, like they did when The Day After Tomorrow was first released with their claims of liberal scare tactics and what-not and all the major news sources will follow up with experts of their own to backup which ever side they choose.

Sounds like a pretty good deal for ABC, though, doesn't it?

You can read the press release/essay, read some related stories and watched a lot of video clips from the show on the ABC News website.

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120 Minutes Flashback


I'm pulling this week's first 120 Minute Flashback from the week of May 25, 1997. The first choice, That Dog's (the official name of the band was that dog. - all lower case and with the '.') Never Say Never is a super catchy power pop track that reminds me of a small pocket of time there in the mid 90's when I suddenly discovered a love for female fronted pop bands of all styles.

The band made regular appearances, along with notables like Luscious Jackson, Helium, Liz Phair (remember, this is mid 90's Liz Phair), Red 5 and others. This song came along a few years after I first heard the band and, if I recall correctly, they split up not long after releasing it.

If those synthesizers sound familiar, though, it's because a certain someone from That Dog went on to join Matt Sharp's reformed Rental's line-up. She became a friend P, indeed.

Selection two this week is Tricky's Christian Sands. This is an amazing track, if you haven't heard it. I've created literally thousands of videos of this song in my head throughout the years. I think it's because it's such an awesome song - Tricky's throaty garble, the slow beats, the continuous rhythm. After watching the official video for the first time in so many years, though, I'm starting to think it may be due to the...slight boringness of this video. It doesn't quite fit the song.

This song, though, opened up the world of Trip Hop to me and I discovered bands like Portishead, Massive Attack, and DJ Shadow. The reason I even bother posting weekly tributes to a show from 15 years ago is because that was a weekly occurance for me. This show shaped my listening habits more than anything by opening up new genres and sounds to me. This was in the days when most people didn't have the internet at home and, if they were rich and/or lucky enough, it was dial up and there was no music.

120 Minutes was my internet.

That Dog - Never Say Never


Tricky - Christian Sands



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Preview: Survivors


As I posted earlier, BBC America has some good shows returning this summer and some new ones debuting. Of them all, the one I'm looking forward to the most is Survivors.

The show revolves around the premise that 99% of the human population is killed off by a virus and a small group of people who survive. It's basically the show I've always wanted to create.

BBC America hasn't announced a premiere date yet. Their website simply lists the show on the 'Coming Soon" page. The show, of course, aired on the real BBC and is already over, but it makes note that they're at work on a new series.

Series Overview


Actors Talk About Their Characters


Episode 1 Preview (Sound & Video Out of Sync)





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Saturday, May 30, 2009

Better Off Ted & Samantha Who? Set To Return In June

ABC has six episodes of Better Off Ted's first season left to air. Since Surviving Suburbia bombed so badly, the network is throwing in the towel and replacing it with Ted. The remaining six will begin airing Tuesday June 23rd at 9pm.

That same week, the network will begin running the final seven episodes of Samantha Who? on Thursday June 25th at 8pm.

Better Off Ted will return mid season next year for a 13 episode second season. I'm hoping the show really catches on this month as there's not much else to watch.


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Friday, May 29, 2009

Preview Showtime's Nurse Jackie At Landmark Theaters

Showtime and Landmark Theaters are teaming up for a free preview of Nurse Jackie.  They'll show the first two episodes of the new series and provide free snack and drinks for those lucky enough to live in one of the 10 cities they're doing this.  It's first come first seated and 18 and up only.  Here's the info:
 
Showing are June 3rd, Doors at 7pm, Show at 8pm
 
1. Atlanta - Midtown Art Cinema - 931 Monroe Dr
2. Boston - Kendall Square Cinema - 1 Kendall Sq Bldg 1900
3. Chicago - Century Centre Cinema - 28228 N Clark St Century Shopping Center
4. Dallas - The Magnolia - 3699 McKinney Ave Suite 100
5. Houston - River Oaks Theatre - 2009 West Gray
6. Los Angeles - The Landmark - 10850 West Pico at Westwood Blvd
7. New York - Sunshine Cinema - 143 E Houston St
8. Philadelphia - Ritz at the Bourse - 400 Ranstead St
9. San Francisco - Embarcadero Center Cinema - 1 Embarcadero Center Promenade Level
10. Washington D.C. - E Street Cinema - 555 11th St NW
 

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thirtysomething Coming TO DVD!!!

Finally, after nearly two decades, thirtysomething is to be released on DVD.  The first season, on a six disc collection including commentary and various extras, will be released by Shout! Factory on August 25th, so anyone that wants to preorder a copy as a birthday present for me, my 29th (oh the irony) birthday is August 12th. 
 
I'm certainly keeping my fingers crossed that all four seasons are eventually released.  The show was award winning and ground breaking and whatever else networks, producers and studios usually say.  Except in this case it's true.  The drama really was ahead of it's time, one of a kind and did win a whole mess of awards.  It also had a really great cast of virtually unknown actors who went on to star in some of TV's greatest shows.

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Thursday, May 28, 2009

Breaking My Promise On Nurse Jackie


No Nurse Jackie post as promised through my twitter feed earlier. I was given a link and a code to preview the pilot via Showtime's VIP Insider whatever program and was looking quite forward to viewing the show but it's not to be. Showtime's streaming system is a ridiculous bandwidth hog like you wouldn't believe.

Granted, my cable runs at a relatively low 54.0Mbps, but streaming sites like Hulu and other network pages like ABC.com and CBS.com don't seem to have a problem with that. Showtime seems to disagree for some reason. I made it through 7 minutes and 51 seconds, all of which I'm sure I would have thoroughly enjoyed if it hadn't taken nearly 13 minutes due to all the stop and start buffering.

For a stream that's not commercial supported you would at least think I could hit pause and wait a few minutes for it to load up a bit, but they won't even allow that.

I apologize for not following through and to the Showtime web crew I say "BITE ME."


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Doctor Who Returns and Being Human Debuts on BBC America


The BBC America summer schedule is finally coming out. The network is notorious for not bothering to release scheduling and programming plans so it's pretty good to get some news.

First off, the beloved sci-fi series Doctor Who will be returning. The network will broadcast the five Doctor Who specials, starting with the xmas one, on June 27th and the second slated for July. The others have yet to be scheduled.

Premiering on BBCA is a new six part series called Being Human. Not expecting the series to air here in the states I took a different route in acquiring the show, so we'll just say I've previewed it for you.

The show has a rather great premise: A werefolf, a vampire and a ghost walk into a bar...just kidding. A werewolf, a vampire and a ghost share a house together. All three battle their nature, the vampire trying not to convert humans, the werewolf trying to manage his monthly "outings" without hurting anyone or anything and the ghost girl battling loneliness and trying her best to be seen and heard.

It has a great mix of graphic humor and horror and I wholly suggest tuning in for it's July 25th premiere. You can see whole mess of previews and promos on here.

Also coming sometime, though no dates have been announced yet, are Survivors, a post apocalypse series following a group of people after a virus wipes out 99% of the world's population, and The In-Betweeners, a soapy show about the awkwardness of teen life.


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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Dexter's Fourth Season To Star John Lithgow

One of my top ten shows ever, Showtime's "Dexter", won't be returning for it's fourth season until Sept. 27th but word is out that John Lithgow will be starring as a serial killer who's been at it for nearly three decades called the Trinity Killer. 
 
The official character description: "an unassuming, mild-mannered suburbanite who has been living a dual life as one of America's most prolific and deadliest serial killers."
 
His nickname, the Trinity Killer, comes from the his method of killing in threes.  Lithgow's run, best known to me as the dad from "Harry and The Henderson's" is probably more well known for his lenghy stint on NBC's "30 Rock From The Sun", will last for 12 episodes and Dexter is gonna be rather envious of his ability to ellude suspicion for 30 years.
 
 

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Trailer For HBO's New Show Hung


Last night I posted about the announcement of Hung's premiere date and pairing with True Blood and today we have a preview!

HBO was pretty secretive with the premise of the show, letting the title speak for itself. I assumed the character would be a porn actor but this promo shows him becoming a male prostitute. It's HBO, of course, so I'm assuming this is gonna rule. Other than John From Cincinnati and Lucky Louie, I have not never been disappointed by the network.


Hung (Premiering June 28th on HBO)

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