I Am A TV Junkie

#FlashForward Video -- Great Moments in Parenting With #OliviaBenford; #JamesCallis; Christine Woods

Click above to see Olivia's outstanding mom moment for the week. Then keep reading.

So James Callis is awfully good as a savant, huh? New he would be, there's not one role out there I don't think he could handle. I think we are all lucky he's working in TV here and not on the UK stage where seeing him would require a hefty commute.

I love that he's been around Olivia all this time, always on the periphery trying to nudge her in a certain direction without being too noticeable which considering his developmental deficits must have been quite the chore.

Also, speaking of a different Olivia (Fringe's Olivia Dunham) I notice that Callis' American accent is really good, and good in a way that I don't think Anna Torv can wrap herself around. What I mean is that Callis gives his US voice some edge, some regionalism.

Torv can't seem to do that with her non-Aussie which is more like her speaking English with no discernible accent at all. Wouldn't she have some Florida panhandle running through her voice? I know she claims to have been a military brat, but considering the time and the intensity of the time she spent in Jacksonville, FL you would think we'd hear some of it.

Maybe something for her to think about down the road. She is more consistent these days and that's something.

Interesting patter on the blogs and forums about the military contractor in the show being named Jericho and the experiments on the savants happening at Ravenwood. Of course on the CBS series from a couple years ago called Jericho their military contractor was called Ravenwood.

From what I can tell from the IMDB pages for both shows, however, there's no writer overlap. Maybe they're just fans of the show? Maybe it's coincidence? I dunno.

 Really enjoyed seeing that Christine Woods' Janis has a compelling backstory and that it gets more compelling as we find out more. I also find it interesting that she goes from office attractive to party hot with just a little makeup and a slight change to her hairstyle. I'm always fascinated by that, sometimes it takes almost nothing to change how someone looks.

And I'm lovin' Lee Garlington (Everwood) as Janis' handler from the conspiracy group and her pet fish emporium and everything it entails. More of her and that, please.

Some of Callis' work from this past week in a clip you can see by clicking here.

A taste of Woods and Garlington in action after the jump. It's excerpted from the full episode embed from Hulu and after you watch it you can choose to watch the entire episode again by clicking appropriately.

Video -- V Exec Prod Scott Rosenbaum Sells His Show, Hard

I'm sure he's a perfectly nice guy and has the best interests of his management team and the network at heart, but watching this clip from Scot Rosenbaum posted by ABC on YouTube (click here) makes me feel like I'm buying a suit at the Men's Wearhouse from some underemployed Zig Zigglar-type just back from a seminar featuring Terry Bradshaw and our previous President.

Dude, calm down, we're watching. Okay, I should say we're still watching. I have issues with the show, but I'm watching.

I find it interesting though, with V and with FlashForward (clip from last week's show by clicking here), that both shows are ramping up the physical conflict after somewhat lackluster ratings  during their fall runs on the network. And of course, the operative similarity here is that ABC is the company giving both productions notes.

So will conflict save these shows? Do these two stories only require the addition of gunplay to transform into hits? 

I think the best of the genre stories ramp up the excitement with story and performance, not loud noises and blood.

What do you think?

Returning SciFi TV -- #Vseries and #FlashForward on ABC, #Fringe Back Tonight on Fox

And, I've now seen them all. So what did you think?

FlashForward is just frustrating. Just give me some sort of idea of where we're heading. Still don't really understand why Jeff Imada and pals (hey, Jeff, remember me from Inside Karate and Inside Kung-Fu magazines?) gunned down the agents or to whom they are affiliated. Don't know what those structures in Somalia are really supposed to do. Don't understand why Simon's last name is Campos, even.

(He doesn't look like a Campos. Know who does? Bruno Campos ... betcha he was available, should've hired him. Monaghan is fine I guess, which means I'm not a huge fan but I'll deal.)

Most of all I'm wondering when on FlashForward we'll find out that the multiverse is indeed in play, as I can't ignore that speech Lloyd Simcoe had with Olivia Benford (as opposed to that other Olivia smack dab in the middle of a multiverse story of her own, we'll get to her soon). You see, I don't think that they've all seen flashes of the future at all, I think they've seen an alternative history from another universe.

Which makes all the histrionics of Zoe (Gabrielle Union) moot. That's a shame, I like her and she shouldn't be relegated to the distraction storyline. You can watch her talk about her arc in a clip from Hulu by clicking here.

(Also, lot's of Zoe's in pop culture lately, is it a popular baby name again?)

Things are much easier to understand on V. There are lizard people, non-lizard people, and a very long-necked leader named Anna who apparently has a taste for big dumb-looking bodybuilder types who she mates with so that her many eggs, yes I said MANY eggs gets fertilized and then she eats him.

She eats him, not in the good way. Where'd all those teeth come from, anyway?

(Wanna see that? It's right at the end of the episode which you can watch right here by clicking this link.)

The stuff I don't understand on V is inconsequential. How does FBI agent Erica Evans, for example, afford this beautiful craftsman-style home in the NY Metro area on her salary?

There is some stuff from the return episode of the series Tuesday that was clumsy, though, like all the exposition that some secondary characters had to spew so that we could pick the story back up. And the arc with Ryan and his wife and her pregnancy is very ... Battlestar Galactica-esque, though I know Scott Peters would rather I reference his USA Network show The 4400 , which also had a hybrid baby story. You remember "Killabelle," right?.

And, frankly, none of this would be happening if Capt. Kirk had kept it in his pants. Damnit Jim, you're not just a penis in space, you're connected to an entire race of human beings.

Now, click over the jump and I'll have non-spoilery stuff from tonight's returning episode of Fringe, which the fine people and Fox Broadcasting PR (and not their obnoxious siblings at Fox Noise Channel PR, I hate those people) sent along a couple weeks ago.

Video -- Tonight's FlashForward Preview, And My Last Post Before Moving

Blue hand. Just keep thinking about the blue hand.

And, I'll by offline until Tuesday (possibly) or Wednesday (more than likely).

In the meantime, the clip widget thingy from ABC.com is after the jump and I'll see you on the back end of my move.

Video -- Hey, Remember the Day I Met FlashForward's David Goyer and Brannon Braga?

Well, this is what happened that day at No Good Television. Carrie and Shark (and a small crowd of very vocal fans, myself included ... though off-camera where I belong because I'm not quite TV-ready) experienced this, below.

(Don't even have to click over the jumperoo for it, so watch it.)

Thanks to Kourosh and the NGTV gang for yet another fun day west of La Brea and the best time I've ever had in Beverly Hills.

LINK

ABC's FlashForward -- Exactly Who Is Beilby Porteus Anyway?

You probably saw the scene in the second episode of FlashForward where the guy who bore quite the resemblance to WWE star The Undertaker quotes anti-slavery activist and Archbishop of London from the late 1700s Beilby Porteous.

Of course, I think the reason both the guy in the office of that doll factory in episode two who said, "He who foresees calamities, suffers them twice over" looks like The Undertaker (seen here to the right) as does that figure in the sports stadium that skulks around ominously during everyone's flash forward is because of the uniform.

I'm pretty sure the body in the shadows of that doll factory was wearing a black trenchcoat as was the Oxide Stadium observer which looks a lot like The Undertaker's duster which also looks like ... a black trenchcoat, as in the Trenchcoat Mafia (?!?) from ... well you know.

(So, ominous indeed. Thanks for borrowing that visual and making me feel all the more creepy about these people that gave people this 137-second long glimpse of their futures.)

And, what about this idea from the multiverse theory that every decision we make creates a slightly different version of our world and how will that play out when some people see their futures as needing fixing because of what they did (or in the case of Agent Noh) didn't see?

But, back to Beilby Porteus, there are a few sources on the web to start with, one being this Porteus family website (at this link, curated -- if you will -- by Bruce Porteus of Norwich, England) and particularly this page on the Archbishop, which provides a wealthy of background material.

Interestingly, this year on May 13 (but not April 29, which we know is a critical day for the show) is the bicentenary of the death of the Bishop.

Hmmmmm.

The bishop, btw, and obviously a number of other bishops are given the educational degree designation D.D., Doctor of Divinity, which I think might have something to do with the whole D.D. Gibbons thing. Possibly Thomas Gibbons? He was a contemporary of Porteus who like him had lived in England and in the Colonies before the American Revolution. Gibbons wrote about Calvinism and the Nonconformist churches of England who were looking to separate from the Anglican church right around the same time Porteus was advocating for that church to take a position on the horrendous conditions suffered by African and Carribbean slaves. He also worked in the House of Lords toward the abolition of slavery.

(Robert J. Sawyer, who wrote the book which the series is based on, is blogging about the show and his other projects and the world in general from his perspective at this link. Interesting, not spoilery so far, and I'm adding him to my links list to the right today. He lives in Mississauga, Ontario, home of Musclemag International, not that that means anything, it's just one of those random pieces of unremovable ephemera in my brain.)

I know, I know, I'm the king of digression. More about Porteus as we go forward. There are a few Porteus quotes with some real oomph to them not yet used, you can check them out at this link. Two preview clips for the next episode of FlashForward are in the widget from ABC.com after the jump.

NGTV FlashForward Preview -- In Which David Goyer Tells Me, Your TV Junkie, That I Don't Matter

And, though he's not quite right ... I do have another year to live inside the 18-49 demo ... you can't blame his logic. He's not speaking for himself, of course, he's talking for the network when he says that.

Goyer (The Dark Knight), who with Brannon Braga (24, Enterprise) created the ABC series FlashForward spent some time on Thursday with my friends Carrie Keagan and Shark Firestone (see image above) at the No Good Television studios in Beverly Hills (man, I hate the traffic on the west side) love the idea of making smart television for smart people and I love them for it.

Now, I don't wanna give away too much of what went on the in room, but it was a far-ranging and rollicking conversation that started with "No Joe, we're not going to tell you what happens" and then veered into a conversation about merkins, 80's straight porn (in which, thanks to college roommate Dave I'm pretty well schooled) to that mysterious kangaroo from the pilot.

(About the kangaroo, btw, I never did hear a definitive response on why the kangaroo ... hmmmm.)

Why 80s porn? Because it's No Good Television, of course. And we're always talking about 80s porn there, though in defense of the golden age of porn arguers (talkin' to you, Braga) I'd have to say that the mid 70s is the golden age of straight porn, what with The Devil & Miss Jones, Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door all being part of what I consider the 1939 of the X-rated movie business. Oh, and add the rest of the Mitchell Bros. stuff from up in San Francisco.

Of course the 80s, with the advent of video cassettes in one's home and the war between Beta and VHS being won by the latter because the porn industry embraced the format were the beginning of the power and money years for the industry.

Okay, I digress. Sorry. It's been on my mind ever since Thursday.

What so impressed me about the pilot (which is all I had seen at the time) was all the money they spent, especially on all the action that took place on and above the 101 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles. Goyer seemed particularly thrilled about having stopped traffic on the 101 in both directions for 20 minutes while they shot parts of that sequence.

When you see this interview in the next two weeks or so, and I'll have it right here for you, Goyer talks about getting texts from friends while on location there bitchwailing up and down at him for bringing LA to a standstill, and when you think about that it's quite the accomplishment.

More, including a full episode embed from Hulu of this past Thursday's show (US only, sorry) and a preview of next week, after the jump.

Just Back From Setting Up My TV.com Watchlist, Including FlashForward (and I have BIG news about that show)

It's a brand new feature at TV.com and I plan to make good use of it.

Watchlist is the most innovative way for TV fans to easily organize and navigate your favorite shows, discover new shows, and connect with your friends through what they watch. 

Check it out now at this link.

What it does is it compiles all your favorite shows and on one page you can click around, check out what's gonna happen this week, watch clips, read the latest about the show and the stars and ... saves you time.

Time that you can spend coming back here and leaving pithy comments under my snarky posts.

As you can see, FlashForward is on my watchlist, and tomorrow I'm headed up to No Good Television, invited by Carrie Keagan and the Big K (Kourosh, you rule!) to meet series creators Brannon Braga and David S. Goyer, so if you have any questions for them I'm here to be your conduit!

Send me an email (contact info in the third column) or leave a comment below. If you want to rewatch that pilot episode before you send in your voluminous queries, click this link.

US only. Sorry world, I have no control over Hulu.

Missed FlashForward? It's On Again Tonight (in moments in the East, in fact ... or watch it right here, US Only)

It's very good. Very very good.

Don't miss this. And not just for the bus ads for ABC's Desperate Housewives and the billboards for Lost airline Oceanic Air (I see what you're doing, you sneaky sons of guns).

You probably know the deal already, the consciousness of everyone on the planet flashes forward to 10:00 pm Pacific time this coming April 29 for two minutes and 19 seconds. What they flashed forward to is now the only evidence, as sketchy as that is, that the powers that be have that can lead to the following questions being answered ...

• Why that date?
• Why two minutes and 17 seconds (or, 137 seconds, keep that number in mind)?
• Who did this?
• How did they do this?
• What was their intent?

I'm just missing where and when questions. Do you have any?

Nice to see Brit Jack Davenport from Coupling (above right) still on the show (and getting to use his own accent).

"But Joe, whaddaya mean still on the show? It just started!"

More including a full episode embed from Hulu after the jump.

ABC's Flash Forward: Watch the First 18 Minutes Right Here Right Now

For me this is the most anticipated new show of the year.

Watch it now, it's after the jump just waiting for you.

I wish there was a screener in the mail coming my way, but I hear that screeners for this show are very very hard to come by. Still, if someone from ABC wants to make me happy (like you, Jeff Fordis), you can always drop one in the mail for me.

Premieres Sept. 24 at 8 on ABC.