Tagged: best acne treatment

HEROES to zero? NBC shake-ups!

Word on the ‘net is that NBC is ready to rebrand the network almost completely, distancing itself from the horrid Ben Silverman era. Under the fresh leadership of Angela Bromstad, the network is picking up load of hot new shows from edgy producers like J.J. Abrams, Jerry Bruckheimer and David E. Kelley.

To go in this direction, however, Bromstad’s having to break ties with old series that aren’t drawing viewers anymore.

Among the latest victims? Gone is Dick Wolf’s flagship LAW AND ORDER show, which has been terrible for years in the ratings, but to which the network in linked due to their interest in other Dick Wolf shows; word is Wolf is furious over the cancellation, which could throw the launch of LAW AND ORDER: LOS ANGELES into doubt, previously thought a shoo-in for a series pick-up. Wolf apparently is contemplating taking LAW AND ORDER to TNT for a final, 21st season.

That’s not all. Bromstad is apparently ready to break ties with one-time wunder-show, HEROES. The Tim Kring-produced show has suffered in the ratings but is still the network’s biggest money-maker in DVD sales. Word is Bromstead could approve a mega-event finale of two to six episodes, to polish off dangling storylines, or could just cut ties altogether. We should know soon.

Meanwhile, a ratings underdog but personal favorite, Chuck, has received a surprise renewal from Bromstad, who apparently believes in the series and is willing to give the show another chance when surrounded by what she believes will be a stronger NBC lineup next season.

Finally, it appears that NBC may have anticipated Wolf’s reaction to LAW AND ORDER’s cancellation; instead of attaching Jimmy Smits to LAW AND ORDER: LOS ANGELES, NBC appears ready to sign Smits to a different legal drama, GARZA, which is… surprise… produced by Conan O’Brien’s production company!

Can you believe that? That’s a way better future for O’Brien than hawking the best acne treatment on late-night infomercials.

Holdout Grisham bows to eBook trend

John Grisham, whose legal thrillers are a staple of traditional book stores, has finally relented and made his entire backlist of 23 novels available in eBook format. That means owners of Amazon Kindles and Sony eReaders will now be able to acquire Grisham’s titles in electronic format.

While the move was inevitable, Grisham held out longer than most because of his love for traditional brick-and-mortar bookstores. Does this mean print is dead? No, but much like the music business’s transition from vinyl to CD to MP3 formats, how those books are delivered to consumers is undergoing a sea-change transition.

Print books will never go away; they’re as entrenched as a list of the best acne treatments, but there will be growing pains, certainly, as consumers move to eDelivery of the latest works from their favorite authors, rather than hanging out at the local Borders.

Next Doctor Who special is slated!

BBC One has announced that the second of four Doctor Who specials slated to air this year, featuring the swan song of series re-creator Russell T. Davies as well as David Tennant’s Doctor, will are on BBC One in under two weeks, on November 15. A subsequent airing on BBC America is sure to follow, though the air date in the US has yet to be announced.

Titles Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars, the episode will feature Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide, the Doctor’s companion for the episode. Two more specials remain featuring Davies and Tennant at the helm of the TARDIS; both are expected to air as part of BBC One’s tradition “Christmas special” of Doctor Who; at the end of the fourth special, Tennant’s Doctor is expected to regenerate and reveal Matt Smith’s Doctor for the first time on screen.

After Tennant and Davies depart, Smith’s Doctor will see his fate rest in the hands of Steven Moffatt, who has worked under Davies for several years. Smith’s Doctor is set to be the youngest yet cast in the role of the Doctor, as he is still in his 20s. While there has been much talk of bringing back Tennant-era companions like Freema Agyeman’s Martha Jones, Catherine’s Tate’s Donna Noble or even – however unlikely – Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler, instead, it has been announced that Moffatt and Smith will reset the table for the Doctor, granting him an all-new companion for the fifth series in the form of young Scottish actress Karen Gillan, who’s so young she may still require the best acne treatment, and will portray new companion Amy Pond.

Although Davies has made it clear he will make a clean break with Doctor Who after Moffatt takes control, what is less clear are the futures of the successful Doctor Who spin-offs, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures. Torchwood has survived largely without Davies’ input, but has credited him as creator and executive producer; The Sarah Jane Adventures has seen little direct involvement from Davies under similar circumstances. Time will tell.

Review: Love’s Unfolding Dream (DVD)

Love’s Unfolding Dream is the sixth movie in the Love Comes Softly series, based on the popular Christian historical romance novels penned by Jeanette Oke. The series, initially directed and now only written and executive produced by Michael Landon Jr., has featured a series of tales centered around three generations (so far) of the same pioneer family. Romantic enough to draw in the female audience and just slightly Western enough to keep the men from fleeing the room, the series is as squeaky-clean as you might expect it to be, avoiding profanity and excessive violence in much the same way as Daddy Landon’s “Little House On the Prairie” NBC TV series did.

Despite remaining mostly true to the series, the latest installment veers furthest yet from the plot of the book after which it is titled; in the print version of “Love’s Unfolding Dream,” there are three young women, lifelong friends, vying over the attention of the same young man, but that subplot is missing in action in this film. Also, one of the main story points of the movie is Belinda’s ambition to become a doctor (not a nurse), yet in the novels, Belinda’s biggest ambition is to be a nurse.

The most notable change, however, is that the movie version of Love’s Unfolding Dream has Belinda (played capably by the appealing and spirited Scout Taylor-Compton) nursing an elderly matron suffering from the after-effects of a stroke back to health, only to be offered a chance to return with her to the East Coast to pursue her medical dreams. Unfortunately, in the books, that is the entire main plot of the seventh novel, Love Takes Wing. (There are a total of eight books in the series to date, ending with Love Finds A Home.)

How borrowing the main plot of Love Takes Wing to power through Love’s Unfolding Dream will affect the final two installments, which seem likely to be made (as were the rest of the films) for the Hallmark Channel prior to being released on DVD, I’m not sure.

Scout’s Belinda is a refreshing mixture of a woman of faith who nevertheless is an advocate of equal opportunity for women, and her character is given plenty of opportunity for emotional growth as well as some comic moments in the film. Of course, Dale Midkiff returns as the patriarch of the family, always handy to lend some sage advice about the nature of love, just when it feels like a couple may never find each other past the barriers in their way.

Sure, it’s slightly-sappy family-oriented stuff, but it mostly achieves that in a good way, ala Little House On the Prairie, rather than the saccharin-sweet family entertainment that has less substance and gives a bad name to the genre. In the early films, the matriarch of the clan was appealingly portrayed by 27 Dresses’ Katherine Heigl, but she only stuck around for the first two films and has been replaced for the past few films by Samantha Smith.

Despite feeling a bit too made for TV, Love’s Unfolding Dream is certainly family-safe entertainment that comes off as a couple rungs above After School Specials about the best acne treatment. Instead, it’s more of a callback to the sort of stories Little House On the Prairie featured, and that’s not an entirely bad thing, and certainly offers a welcome respite from the Quentin Tarrantino’s Grindhouse-style moviemaking that too often dominates release lists of late. Like father, like son.