Tag: Television

Fringe – Series Premiere

Spoilers ahead

I just got done watching Fringe, and I have to say that I liked it. There’s some potential here. I do find several things interesting, and they parallel the show LOST to some extent.

The first, and most obvious: A plane figured prominently in both series premieres.

The second, there’s a conspiracy. That was also a pretty obvious one.

The third, there seems to be a bit of “some bad things started a long time ago, and we’re going to try and correct it” parallel too. In LOST, it’s Dharma and the experiments. In Fringe, it’s the work that Walter Bishop did and the Massive Dynamic is working on.

I was surprised when I first found out that Lance Reddick (who plays Broyles) was on the show. If he looks familiar, and he should if you’re a LOST fan, he plays Matthew Abbaddon.

As for tonight’s show:

When Olivia first left the motel room, and Agent Scott got his phone call, I thought for a split second that he was in on some bigger plot that she wasn’t aware of. When he answered the phone the way he did, I quickly dismissed it. I was surprised as everyone else probably was when things turned out the way they did for him.

Looks like the Bishops and Olivia are going to be a team. Not bad. Oh, and that assistant of Olivia’s… Was there some reason she didn’t say thing when she was on screen until the first hour of the show had passed, and Olivia was in the tank? Was that weird or what? She was just there, not saying a thing.

A couple of observations:

Olivia meeting Walter was very reminiscent of “Silence of the Lambs”, that sensory deprivation tank was straight out of “Altered States”, and the dream thing reminded me of Harry Potter’s pensive.

That “Zeno” on the kayak… did that mean something?

Did you know there’s a Massive Dynamic website?

That final message from Agent Scott… “Ask yourself why Broyle sent you to the storage facility”. Well, either it was because he already knew Olivia and Agent Scott (darn it…what WAS his first name?) were involved and wanted Scott exposed, he wanted to get rid of Olivia, or as a test to see how far she would go to find out what was going on.

Nice touch with the bumpers on the show before the commercials… The leaf at the end is the “talk to dead people/brain connection” lab. Wonder what the others do?

That’s it for now. I’ll leave you to think about “The Pattern”, and feel free to post a comment below to say what you thought of tonight’s show.

Production of the Next Season of “24” Shuts Down


The production of “24” will shut down for more than 2 weeks, starting Sept 15.

The reason? The executive producer isn’t happy with the direction of the last six episodes of the season. They’re going to work on rewriting the scripts, and the show should be back in production by Oct 9th.

Via Variety

New Dharma Test – Broad Spectrum Knowledge Analysis

Just got this:


ATTENTION ALL RECRUITS
RE: BROAD SPECTRUM KNOWLEDGE ANALYSIS IS NOW LIVE

Namaste.

I am pleased to announce the release of the second assessment in the Dharma Initiative’s Volunteer Recruitment Program.

This new test is a broad-spectrum knowledge analysis.

It is a multiple-choice test covering a range of topics.

YOUR FIRST ATTEMPT AT THIS TEST WILL BE THE ONLY ONE THAT WILL BE RECORDED AGAINST YOUR OVERALL TEST RESULTS.

THE TEST WILL BE TIMED – DURATION WILL BE FACTORED INTO THE FINAL RESULT.

Be prepared before embarking on this assessment – there will be NO SECOND CHANCES.

I would also like to encourage recruits to take the opportunity to earn extra “Dharma” points. These points WILL contribute to your overall test results and the eventual position you will be assigned within the Dharma Initiative.

I trust you will find these new tasks sufficiently challenging and will embrace the opportunity to grow the Dharma Initiative.

I look forward to reviewing your results.

Hans Van Eeghen
Head of Recruiting
The Dharma Initiative
www.dharmawantsyou.com

(And thanks to Andy who also sent this in)

Heroes Comic Con 2008 Comic Book


Spoilers Ahead!

I received a copy of the Heroes comic book that was handed out at Comic Con 2008 as part of the Create Your Hero promotion. It’s not very long, but very enlightening. It contains some pre-season info on some of the new characters that are featured in the upcoming season (at least, the “live” picture ads show these characters).

An expanded version of this is online, so you can view the video if you like.

LOST: Daniel Filmed The Secret Dharma Video

The Dharma video that was shown at Comic Con 2008 was posted previously, but here it is again. Take a look. The man who finally reveals himself as “Pierre Chang” speaks to someone off camera. Listen to the guy who’s filming Pierre.

Maybe it’s just me, but this sounds a lot like Daniel Faraday.

What do you think?

LOST: Caesar and Ilanna


Entertainment Weekly is reporting about two new characters coming to Lost Season 5. One is Caesar, described as a man who is “as skillful at charming people as he is at killing them”. The other is Ilanna, a woman who’s very intelligent, but “also dangerous as all get out”.

No idea when they’ll appear on the show. Since the season is going to take place both on and off the island, they could show up anywhere. I’m betting these are people the Oceanic 6 are going to encounter.

Via EW.com

Fox’s Virtuality

Kali asks what I think about the upcoming Fox show from Ronald D. Moore (“Battlestar Gallactica”) “Virtuality”, starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Commander Frank Pike. The show’s about the starship Phaeton which is on a 10 year mission to a distant solar system. To keep the crew occupied, they use a series of modules that put them into virtual reality worlds. Everything goes great until a “bug” in the system starts messing things up.

(You can read further details at Reuters and at The Futon Critic).

Now this sounds like an interseting premise for a movie, and is very open ended for a show. It’s basically people playing around on Star Trek holodecks, although more like the Matrix, I suppose. At first glance the lack of direction for this show seems like it wouldn’t have a good focus, but remember this is coming from Ron Moore. A lot of people were surprised that someone would actually do a remake of “Battlestar Galactica” and even more surprised that it was a good show.

I’m still not certain. It has possibilities, but the open-endedness of this show really bothers me. Unless the show has a clear purpose, and it establishes it right from the start, I think people will be wondering where it’s headed. Trying to survive a 10-year journey doesn’t seem to be much of a premise.

I guess we’ll see.

(Thanks to Kali!)

LOST’s Dance With The Emmy Awards

If you were one of the producers of LOST, and you were told to pick ONE episode that best represents the show last year, what would you have selected to put in front of a panel of judges? Stumped? So were Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. So, they put together their own panel.

Lindelof thinks, in any event, that assembling a panel to prejudge another panel’s reaction was a canny move.

“(ABC Studios) put together a group of people who don’t watch Lost, and screened a couple of episodes for them,” Lindelof explained. “And they were able to determine for us which they thought was the best and most self-contained, and we moved forward with their selection. We’re really grateful, because they invested a lot of time and energy in this.”

The panel’s choice? The Constant, written by Lindelof and Cuse, which aired on Feb. 28.

I think that’s a very good choice. Let’s hope it makes it!

Read the whole article at The Vancouver Sun