Category Archives: TV

The Walking Dead finally gets its Lori Grimes

Posted on by Arleigh

It looks like Andrew Lincoln’s character of Rick Grimes for AMC’s upcoming horror tv series, The Walking Dead, has finally found it’s wife. According to Michael Ausiello of Entertainment Weekly the role of Lori Grimes has finally been cast with Sarah Wayne Callies (previously seen in the now-cancelled Prison Break). She joins Andrew Lincoln to form the husband-and-wife in the tv series adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s popular and critically-acclaimed zombie apocalypse comic book series.

I like this choice in casting not just because Sarah Wayne Callies actually looks like the character, but her previous role in Prison Break looks to have been the perfect practice role for the part of Lori Grimes. Rick Grimes’ wife Lori could only be described as very troubled and keeping secrets of her own during her time away from Rick at the beginning of the series. While I wouldn’t call the character as hysterical she does pose some instability in the group dynamics which Rick has to carefully navigate if he has any chance of keeping his small group of survivors from dying out.

As more and more names get announced as becoming part of the show’s cast it looks like the series (6-episodes ordered for the moment) continues to move towards it’s early summer production start date. The Walking Dead looks to be one of the 2010  fall schedule’s most-anticipated new shows and here’s to hoping Darabont and crew’s initial 6-episodes hit it out of the park and earn the show more ordered episodes.

Source: Entertainment Weekly

The Walking Dead finally gets it’s Rick Grimes

Posted on by Arleigh

The good folks over at The Hollywood Reporter have reported that Frank Darabont’s tv series adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic book, The Walking Dead, have finally found the actor to play the series’ lead protagonist, Rick Grimes. The actor chosen came out of left field as his name was never even one people were clued in on. Fan favorites like Peter Krause and Mark Pellegrino were not even seen or heard having tried out for the lead role. Other names like Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica’s Lee “Apollo” Adama) and Johnny Lee Miller (Eli Stone and Hackers) were also mentioned as having tried out for the role with the latter seen as the front-runner.

So, it’s seen as a surprise by many following the production of The Walking Dead to see the name Andrew Lincoln come up as the actor chosen to play Rick Grimes. The UK actor has worked in mostly shows and films in his native UK w/ Love Actually being the more recognizable of those he’s worked on. I think the choice was, and is, a good one. This is literally an unknown actor to US audiences so it will be easier for suspension of disbelief to be achieved for those watching.

While the reaction to this news is mostly one of guarded optimism there’s a very tiny but vocal group that seem to cry foul at this choice just for the fact that Andrew Lincoln will be a British-actor playing an American from the South. I think fans at times just think that dream choices for roles in their favorite stories should be the only ones chosen to play those roles whether they actually want to take on the role or not, or if they’re even good for the role.

For the detractors I say give the man a chance to get into the role before you put the man down. Oh yeah, one other thing…just be glad the show is actually being down and with strong creative people behind it. Put the fanboy/girl hat into storage.

Source: THR

AMC’s The Walking Dead gets KNB EFX

Posted on by Arleigh

It looks like Frank Darabont’s TV adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s award-winning comic book title, The Walking Dead, just got closer to it’s production start. Shock Till You Drop has confirmed with Greg Nicotero of KNB EFX will be part of the AMC horror tv series. Nicotero (w/ co-founder Howard Berger) and the KNB visual effects house has done many of the horror, sci-fi and action films of the past decade. They last worked with Frank Darabont in the 2007 film-adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, The Mist. They’ve also been the premiere visual effects house when it comes to bringing the classic Romero zombie look and gore on the big-screen. Romero’s last three zombie films having  been done by KNB.

This news makes me even more hyped to see how The Walking Dead translates onto the small-screen. With zombie films starting to reach a plateau when it comes to quality (Romero’s latest Survival of the Dead being mediocre at best) it will be interesting how a series centered around a zombie apocalypse and the travails of the survivors would be seen by the general audience. Having KNB EFX will at least appease the zombie fans who will flock to see this series. The question now is whether AMC will allow enough of the graphic violence from the comic book series to be shown. I’m guessing they will if their other critical-darling drama series Breaking Bad is a way to measure how far AMC will go.

Here are some of the films KNB EFX have worked on.

  • Kill Bill, Vol. 1-2
  • Land of the Dead
  • Hostel
  • Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
  • Bubba Ho-Tep
  • Vanilla Sky
  • The Faculty
  • Sin City
  • The Cell
  • Men in Black
  • Ray
  • Casino
  • Pulp Fiction
  • Reservoir Dogs
  • Serenity
  • From Dusk til Dawn
  • Dances with Wolves

Source: Shock Till You Drop

Felicia Day to be SyFy’s Re-Imagined Red Riding Hood

Posted on by Arleigh

News which may just strike some genre and geekdom fans blind with excitement it look like Dr. Horrible and The Guild star Felicia Day has been tapped to portray the descendant of Little Red Riding Hood in the SyFy Channel’s re-imagining of the Red Riding Hood tale.

SyFy has already done their re-imagining of the Wizard of Oz with Tin Man a couple years ago and have made it known that they will do similar re-imagining’s of classic fairy tale stories with Red their version of Little Red Riding Hood. Ms. Day will play one of Riding Hood’s werewolf-hunting descendants whose family shares the same proclivity to hunting the shapeshifting beasts. Her character of Red brings home her fiance to meet the family but who remains skeptical of their lineage and their werewolf-hunting sidejobs. That is until he himself gets bitten by one of the beasts and now must try to stay away from Red’s family who know what must be done. Red must try and save her man against his curse and her family.

While Ms. Day has had success starring in two of the web’s most popular and successful online series with Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible and her own The Guild, SyFy’s Red marks her first lead role in a production in film and tv. Here’s to hoping this is the sign of better things to come for the internet’s redhead darling.

Source: TV by The Numbers

International News Network Jack-Off Day

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Australia’s Channel 7 and our own glorious Fox News both featured a man flounder pounding on live television over the past day or two. Can you tell which is literal and which is figurative? I’m still not sure.

(Compliments to BBC World News for bringing the first to my attention. I’ve been reading them daily for a good many years now.)


You know, it would only be fitting to make Miranda Kerr the next hottie of the day…

Jay Leno on Oprah

Posted on by Arleigh

I am definitely on Conan’s side of the recent NBC-Leno-Conan late-night debacle. I pretty much spent most of my post high school nights watching Conan’s late-night show. I never got into Leno, but I can understand why many people did. He’s a safe comedian whose reputation for treating guests with kid gloves made him a favorite for stars to drop by his show. Stars on the show make people watch Leno’s show.

Leno’s reputation has hit a major low during the last month as he’s become the punching bag for fans of Conan and Letterman. Even Jimmy Kimmel and his followers have jumped on the beat on the Chin bandwagon. Kimmel’s surprise appearance on Leno’s 10 @ 10 show a couple weeks ago was one of the best things to come on late-night in decades. To say that Kimmel emasculated Leno would be the understatement of this young decade.

It’s now been a week since Conan aired his final Tonight Show episode and during that week we saw Jay Leno try to repair his battered image and reputation by going on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah’s daytime show has become the place to go to for people who either have been brought low by other people and need a place to find comfort and support or people who need to apologize about something bad they did. Leno’s appearance could’ve been the latter, but instead he tried to be the former. In choosing this path he might have damaged his image even more than he already has.

Leno doesn’t even make a serious attempt to place some of the blame on himself for what had occurred. Instead he tries to come off as being the biggest victim in the whole shenanigans of a debacle. While not mentioning Conan’s name he even takes a shot at “the other show” which he says was failing (despite numbers showing that after a slow and low ratings early on Conan’s show was steadily rising in ratings). Leno comes off even more fake and disingenious through the whole interview.  There were times as if he expected Oprah to be more supportive and throw him softball questions, but instead got something tougher and more probing. He even goes so far as to try and joke about the whole ordeal which just ends up looking awkward at best and pathetic at worst.

I hope Middle America who think Leno was the better host enjoy their bland, battered and bullshit of a Tonight Show host, because it definitely won’t be anything funny, engaging and surprising.

Conan’s Free Bird Farewell

Posted on by Arleigh

The end of an era just occurred at 12:35am on January 23, 2010. An era of Conan O’Brien on NBC late-night. First 16 years hosting The Late Night Show after the departure of David Letterman for his own late-night talk show on CBS. 2009 marked Conan’s inheriting the coveted Tonight Show from a “retiring” Jay Leno. This next stage of Conan’s career was suppose to last a long time, but instead a major blunder of immense proportions by NBC head honcho Jeff Zucker has ended Conan’s tenure as the Tonight Show host after only 7 months.

Much has been said, argued and screamed about the circumstances which has led to Conan O’Brien’s leaving the Tonight Show. People can find most of those easily on the net. This shall be my brief farewell and see you soon to someone who has made late night fun to watch. Wherever he lands (FOX, Comedy Central, internet show, etc.) here’s to hoping he does so to continue what he did best those 17 years as an NBC late-night talk show host: be funny, irreverent and, most importantly, down-to-earth.

7 months to wait til we find out where Conan shall land.

The Walking Dead gets the AMC greenlight

Posted on by Arleigh

AMC greenlights “Walking Dead”

Just in from Variety is the news that cable channel AMC has greenlit the pilot for the Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd produced adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s critically-acclaimed and popular zombie comic book series, The Walking Dead. The news in early 2009 that Darabont, Hurd and Kirkman have come to an agreement to pitch the series adaptation to AMC (home of Mad Men and Breaking Bad) was one of the big news for comic book fans and the industry.

The Walking Dead is about a band of survivors in a world which has undergone and succumbed to a zombie apocalypse. Police Officer Rick Grimes leads this band of people in search of a safe haven from the uncounted zombies which now roam the devastated American landscape. Author Robert Kirkman has written just under 70 issues of this on-going series, so far. Cast for the series have changed on a regular basis to illustrate the extreme danger of this new post-apocalyptic landscape. The danger doesn’t just come from the roaming undead but from other survivors as well as rules of civilization and society have crumbled away to be replaced by rules of survival.

The series is known for some exceptional writing with heavy emphasis on character dynamics and interactions. While the series does have zombies in it the highlight of every issue for fans and critics alike is Kirkman’s ability to posit moral situations on the survivors which sometimes doesn’t get the kind of answer we’re used to in our protagonists. I think this is what has drawn Frank Darabont and Gale Anne Hurd to the property. Kirkman has taken the societal commentaries inherent in all the great zombie films and stories and has created a series around it. As one guest commentator for one of the trade paperbacks have said about The Walking Dead, “The series picks up after the end credits have started in a George Romero zombie movie.”

With the pilot now greenlit by AMC the inevitable casting call rumors will start to ramp up. Fans of the series are some of the most loyal and have been talking of dream casting the series for years. I’m sure those dream castings will get brought back out into the light with fans arguing if actors chosen for the role are the right ones or not. The one thing this news doesn’t say is how much will AMC allow in terms of violence shown. The Walking Dead is not a superhero series with over-the-top violence. It’s violence is similar to Romero’s zombie films in that they’re brutal and extremely gory. While I can understand that some of the more extreme scenes in the film could be shortened and inferred, I do hope that AMC will allow for most of the brutality in the series to remain intact since they help in creating the tone for the series.

Now, all that’s left is the waiting game and wonderings of when the pilot will air on AMC.

Source Gateway: Horror-Movies.ca

Conan O’Brien Memo to NBC: WTF?!

Posted on by Arleigh

It looks like Conan O’Brien doesn’t want to make it easy for NBC’s plan to try and salvage it’s late-night line-up. With the Jay Leno Show now being removed from it’s primetime 10pm time slot NBC trying to compound it’s multimillion-dollar mistake with a plan to move it to 11:35pm with Conan’s The Tonight Show pushed back an extra half hour to12:05am. Jimmy Fallon’s show gets pushed back the same amount of time. This is like someone living in an apartment complex where their room is on fire and instead of calling the fire department they decide the solution it to move to the room next door.

I don’t seem to be the only who thinks this way as Conan O’Brien has decided this is a plan that’s retarded on so many levels no matter how one looked at it. He’s pretty much giving the plan two thumbs down. Will he resign and bolt from The Tonight Show in protest to how he has been treated? As the article below states he has 60 million reasons to stay one and force NBC’s hand. NBC should either just scap any plan to prop up Jay Leno on any show and support O’Brien’s show 100 percent while at the same time uncuffing him to actually do things his way. Or they could remove O’Brien from his hosting duties, put Leno back in there and give O’Brien the penalty fee and wave bye-bye to him as he bolts with those many reasons mentioned above to another network.

I think it’s unfair that O’Brien has been treated the way he has been. He’s not getting the chance to prove he can do The Tonight Show. Leno wasn’t such a big hit when he first took over as host from Johnny Carson, but in time he got into his groove and succeeded. I’m really hoping O’Brien sticks to his guns no matter what happens. If he gets let go then I am sure he’ll get calls from many networks thinking of doing it’s own late-night talk show and giving him free reign. I say HBO should pick him up and just let him go crazy on his own late-night show. O’Brien may not get the same sort of contract from HBO he got from NBC, but by then he’d have gotten a 60million severance check from the Dodo Network so money won’t be an issue. Who knows, I may even get HBO again if that happened.

Source: http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/conan-obrien-resigning-tonight-show/

The Pacific (HBO Mini-Series)

Posted on by Arleigh

HBO’s 10-part mini-series in 2001 adapting historian Stephen Ambrose’s best-selling book, Band of Brothers, was a hit and success with both critics and the general audiences. The book and the series detailed the life of members of Easy Company of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division during it’s campaign. A campaign which first began during training in Toccoa, Georgia then moving on to the Allied training in the UK before participating in some of the bloodiest battles of the Allied Western Front Campaign: Normandy, Operation Market Garden, Battle of Bastogne and finally the taking of Berchtesgarden and Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest.

The mini-series was known for it’s historical accuracy and attention to battlefield detail. Band of Brothers owes much of its visual and film-style to Stephen Spielberg’s (he was one of it’s exec. producers with Tom Hanks being another) WWII epic, Saving Private Ryan. The heavily washed-out color stock gave the series an almost black-and-white quality with just the sudden splashes of color like red and orange to highlight blood and fire. When it came to the battles the series set the bar quite high with Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down and Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan being the only two to match it in technical mastery.

The series has become a yearly staple comes Memorial and Veteran’s Day in the US. I could always wake-up on those two holidays, turn on The History Channel and see a Band of Brothers marathon. Easter has it’s DeMille The Ten Commandments and these two holidays celebrating the sacrifices of soldiers, living and dead, have their BoB.

It’s now 2010, HBO Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks go for round two with another 10-part WW2 mini-series simply titled, The Pacific. This second series will move from the European Theater of Operations over to the Pacific. Like the first mini-series, The Pacific will tell the story of the war from the eyes of a couple men on the ground. This time the men are Marines of the 1st Marine Division and through the eyes of some of these men we see WW2 fought in the Pacific and despite being fought in the same war it distinguishes itself for it’s sheer brutality. Audiences will learn such hallowed names such as Guadalcanal, Peleliu and Okinawa.

So, March 2010 people who enjoyed Band of Brothers should definitely tune in to HBO and watch it’s bookend series: The Pacific.

The Pacific Trailer

The Pacific Trailer 2

The Pacific On-Set Featurette