Some links to get you through your Thursday:
Let’s be really clear here. 24 has seen better days, there’s no denying that. But any talk of continuing the franchise without Kiefer Sutherland on board as Jack Bauer is redunkulous. There is no 24 without Jack Bauer. There is no 24 without Jack Bauer. None, nada, zero. You’re talking about just up and replacing one of the 10 greatest TV characters ever, and that’s just not done. TV is an expendable market, you can replace just about anyone in any show (read: ER) but some of them you just don’t screw with. Jack Bauer is one of those characters.
This could be a good thing for Burn Notice. Maybe if the show does move, they could go somewhere more temperate so it won’t seem COMPLETELY IMPLAUSIBLE for Michael Westin to be running all over town in Miami heat and humidity in a suit jacket without breaking a sweat. Call it The Michael Schofield Corollary. New York? Chicago? I’d even be OK with Nashville, but I seriously doubt that’s the route the show would take. I’m starting to get excited for the third season, now a week away from the premiere. I didn’t think they did a really good job selling the whole rogue government angle, it seemed a little forced. But rule #8,561 in Hollywood is “When you bring in John Mahoney, your show immediately gets better.” So we’ll see how this one goes.
Soon, there is going to be a game that you can just sit and watch. Like watching a demo mode of Super Mario or something. Until then, there’s the lazy man’s band, Guitar Hero 5, coming this fall. If people spent as much time playing a real guitar as they did playing GT, we’d be a civilization of Clapton-level guitar virtuosos.
The funny part of this isn’t the discrepancy in the American Idol vote, although that’s pretty funny in and of itself. No, the funny part is that PEOPLE ACTUALLY CARE, which has caused me to go all caps twice in one blog. Now fans are off on some kind of bizarre fact-finding mission to find out that their votes weren’t tampered with. It’s like the Hanging Chad all over again, only if the Hanging Chad was over a couple of weird-looking teens who can barely talk but can carry a tune. All I can do is sit back and laugh at the whole thing.
Talk amongst yourselves, I’ll give you a topic: Terminator Salvation is neither Terminator nor Salvation. Discuss.
More sci-fi — looks like there is going to be a new Alien. Doesn’t matter to me, I could take or leave the original. But I know this is considered sacred, hallowed ground for whole mess o’ people.
If you liked the Glee premiere — and you should have, because it was great – than you might want to know who’s going to be coming up next season. The one that really looks good is Kristin Chenoweth, a singing-and-dancing vet. This seems like a good time to mention that Pushing Daisies will come back for its final three episodes over the next three Saturdays.
This is a pretty good look at all the time-slot fights in next season’s TV schedule. Looks like I’ll be regretfully abandoning Fringe to DVR The Office and 30 Rock. Sorry, ‘Liv. I was hoping to catch back up with Dollhouse over the summer, but since it’s on opposite Southland on Fridays, I probably won’t even bother.
How can anyone take this seriously with Martin Sheen making this seem like a high school civics project? He even sounds like my high school civics teacher Mr. McCardle. It’s bad enough that he’s smug and condescending, but the fact that he made me laugh out loud twice while I watched this kinda says to me that they should have ordered reshoots on this bad boy. If you’re not interested in the whole thing, just watch Sheen’s hysterical smugness at work (from the start to the 1:33 mark, then 1:47 to 2:21, and the one at 3:35 to 3:55 is probably my favorite). Talk about some huge star power on this too! When the prison guard from Shawshank highlights the cast along with Eddie LeBec’s other wife, you’re really talking about some Hollywood power players! All that said, this SAG thing is really weird. I don’t know enough about it, only little tidbits here and there. But it sounds like a pretty shoddy deal, from what I’ve read.
