Category: Television

Darabont exits WALKING DEAD

Series co-creator and auteur director and show runner Frank Darabont has stepped down from his day-to-day duties on the show he helped make a hit, the zombie-fueled WALKING DEAD, inspired by the Robert Kirkman comic book of the same name. While the too-brief, six-episode first season was, for Darabont, exciting, he apparently wasn’t as enamored of the marathon-like pace of series television, even though his show was fun and exciting, filled with plenty of cinematically spectacular scenes of massive numbers of zombies attacking people in need of air ambulance service.

As recently as the San Diego Comic-Con, Darabont seemed on board with the show, but apparently something changed. Current talk is that Darabont’s right-hand man, Glen Mazzara, who has experience running THE SHIELD, will replace Darabont on the day-to-day duties. While Darabont appears to still be involved in the dead, his role has been scaled back, according to most online reports.

Friday seems to be cure for Fringe

In case you’ve been taking too many sleeping pills and woke up recently wondering, “Where the heck did Fringe go? Did Fox cancel it?” well, the answer is, “No. And you’re in the minority.”

Why? Because the Fox sci-fi drama from Lost creator J.J. Abrams has moved to Fridays on the Fox schedule and is actually seeing its ratings improve to the point that Fox boss Kevin Reilly is talking optimistically about a fourth season. That’s great news considering the show is finally finding its grove, moving beyond its “weird crap of the week” roots and evolving the mythology of the show into something that’s become darn entertaining.

The complexity of the Olivia-Peter relationship has improved immensely, and now drives the show. The duality of the two worlds is intriguing and makes for some electric viewing. I had little hope for this show and stopped watching mid-way through the first season. Now that I see it’s surviving and is also flourishing creatively, I’m back, and I’m watching. With interest.

Palicki will be Kelly’s Wonder Woman

Even if she’s blonde instead of brunette, Adrianne Palicki, recently cast by David E. Kelly to be the star of his Wonder Woman project, fills out the Amazonian princess’ requirements in at least one way: she’s extremely tall. In fact, Palicki is just shy of six feet, standing five feet, eleven inches. Sounds like she won’t be in particular need of NC short term health insurance any time soon… the girl can take care of herself!

Wonder Woman is currently a pilot for NBC next season; Kelly is already calling the Peacock home for his well-received-so-far new legal drama, Harry’s Law. And though that show contains Kelly’s signature flaw of unlikely jury verdicts that serve the storyline rather than reality, he’s injected humor and wackines back into his work, rather than the dreary political rants that dragged down his last ABC project, Boston Legal.

No such worries with Wonder Woman, which will focus on super-deeds more than courtroom antics.

Season 6 of Dexter gets a green light

Michael C. Hall won’t have a chance to put away the work gloves of his serial killer role any time soon; Showtime this week renewed his series, Dexter, for a sixth season before the show airs its fifth-season finale this weekend.

Some in the industry thought the show wouldn’t be able to top its season four audience featuring a critically-acclaimed performance by John Lithgow; but this season, featuring star turns by Jonny Lee Miller and Julia Stiles, has managed to pull off that very feat.

It’ll be interesting to see how things shake out to set the stage for season six.

Caprica to return in October

The second half of Caprica’s first season has been moved up; originally scheduled to return to the air in January 2011, the season will now debut on October 5. Considering that many of SyFy’s shows are wrapping up their summer runs, this is good news because the original programming on the network was starting to make the netlet’s schedule look like the recipient of weight loss supplements.

Caprica was an appealing prequel to the smash-hit reboot of Battlestar Galactica. It tells the tale of how the Cylons came to be.

John Stamos to join Glee?

In the Glee season finale, Emma revealed to Will that she was over him and dating her dentist now. Spoiler alert, but rumors all around the internet are that former “Uncle Jesse” actor John Stamos has been pegged to join Glee next fall as said dentist.

Stamos should prove a worthy rival to Schuster; even if he plays the role with a hint of villainy and is closer in age to Sue Sylvester than Emma, he still comes off with the charm of a guy who’s spent hours in the gym after downing some particularly effective vitamin supplements.

Could a sing-off between the two suitors be far behind? This is Glee… what do you think?

Medium looking good for seventh season

The Patricia Arquette drama Medium is currently looking good, according to online reports, to be renewed for a seventh season overall, which would be its second season on CBS after NBC dismissed the show a year ago. The supernatural crime drama has improved the performance of CBS’ Friday time slot considerably this season, and is a consistent if not stellar performer.

While there is no need for wedding accessories for any of the kids on the show yet, a seventh season comes as welcome news to those who appreciate the show’s fine mixture of supernatural chills and real-world criminal menaces.

Although not as sparkling and witty as Fox’s BONES, MEDIUM is nevertheless a solid favorite for my wife and I, so we’re certainly glad to hear the show will be back for another season.

Comedy Central wimps out on Matt and Trey

Comedy Central often considers itself “brave” when it comes to offending Christians and Jews, even Scientologists and Algore’s zittoheads are vulnerable. But don’t ask them to stand up to Muslims… unless it’s a minor challenge involving foosball tables, maybe.

But some harmless comedy depicting the prophet Muhammad in a bear costume? Apparently that’s too risque for the Comedy Central “liberals when its convenient.” While Trey Parker and Matt Stone were unafraid when they created last week’s episode in question, it was the network that wimped out, bleeping out all references to the Islamic prophet, and even a “teachable moment,” end-of-show speech by Kyle about standing up to bullies.

Gutless, really… and doubly-ironic since failing to stand up to Islamic extremist bullies is exactly what Comedy Central is guilty of. I guess the moral of this story is, maybe Christians and Jews wouldn’t be quite so picked-on if they engaged in even a fraction of the terrorism they get accused of by Comedy Central…

…but at least Comedy Central’s actions speak louder than words when it comes to which “terrorists” they really fear.

America The Story of Us hits it big-time!

The History Channel has a big-time hit on its hands with the six-part special, America: The Story of Us. The debut drew 5.7 million viewers to the cable net, which makes it History’s highest-rated and most-watched special. Ever.

That’s pretty impressive; even more impressive than Acnepril, and it shows that there is still some appetite in the country for heady, historical programming rather than a lot of tawdriness of the Desperate Houswives variety.

Perhaps there’s hope for the culture yet!

Gaiman to penn ep of new Doctor Who season!

Legendary comic book writer, novelist and silver screen scribe Neil Gaiman has been snagged to pen one episode of the new season of British sci-fi show, Doctor Who. While many folks have worried about the direction of the show following the exit of scribe Russel T. Davies, who proved to be the Joss Whedon of Great Britain during his four-series-plus run at the helm of the legendary BBC TV franchise.

However, new showrunner Steven Moffat, who penned a well-received parody of Doctor Who about 10 to 15 years ago, when the show was on hiatus, has proven to be adept at drawing some of the top talent available to work on the re-configured show.

As everyone who follows Doctor Who knows by now, tenth doctor David Tennant is out, as are all of the companions that befriended the Doctor during Tennant’s run. In are new, eleventh doctor Matt Smith and an all-new companion, portrayed by Irish actress Karen Gillen, who will be known by the name Amy Pond on the show.

Smith’s Doctor is a dapper dresser more in the mode of Tennant, rather than an eccentric dresser in the mode of fourth Doctor Tom Baker or many of those who followed him. At least he won’t ruin the nice dramatic tone of the new show by carting around used golf balls or something wacky like that!

Anyway, in addition to Gaiman, some other talent Moffat has snagged for the new series of Doctor Who includes director Richard (Love Actually) Curtis, as well as Torchwood writers Chris Chibnall and Toby Whithouse. Still, in most people’s books, Gaiman is the biggest “get” of the new season.