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Herc Looooooves Tim Minear's THE INSIDE!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
For at least six reasons.
1) Tim Minear is running this show!
When we posted our “New Shows To Watch List” last May, “The Inside” was a total non-starter. The record demonstrates we were more excited about “Dr. Vegas” and “Jack & Bobby.”
Here’s how we described “The Inside” on May 20, shortly after Fox announced it:
A distaff “21 Jump Street” about a 22-year-old federal agent who impersonates a high-school girl as part of an undercover operation. It’s from writer-producers Todd & Glenn Kessler (“Robbery Homicide Division”). It stars Rachel Nichols (“Dumb and Dumberer”), Peter Facinelli (“Fastlane”) and model Willa Holland. At the end of September, however, something great happened. “The original pilot didn’t wow execs,” reported Daily Variety. Tim Minear, the trade paper explained, would become the series’ new showrunner and create a new pilot.
Who is Tim Minear? Just a TV god, is all! Minear wrote and directed the best episodes of “Angel” series creator Joss Whedon didn’t write and direct. Remember the one that introduced The Groosalugg? The one that saw Team Angel move into Wolfram & Hart’s Los Angeles offices? So fabulous were installents like these that Whedon made Minear his co-showrunner on “Firefly.” So good was Minear’s work on “Firefly” that Fox hired Minear as showrunner on “Wonderfalls,” last season’s best new show.
2) Minear’s “Inside” is a different “Inside” than the one we've heard about.
It was reported in the trade press that Minear was “hired to write a new pilot script while keeping the premise.” The trade press lies, says Minear. “I agreed to do it if they let me dump the premise. ‘The Inside’ is totally retooled. It’s less ‘21 Jump Street’ and more ‘Silence of the Lambs’.”
Gone is the high school and any ongoing undercover operation.
The show is now about Rebecca Locke, a young special agent who joins the FBI’s Violent Crimes Unit (VCU) in Los Angeles. Having graduated from the FBI academy two years ago, she’s already made a name for herself at Homeland Security, where she demonstrated a knack for cracking Queda codes.
The man in charge of L.A.’s VCU, celebrated supervisory special agent Virgil “Web” Webster, recruited Rebecca, and she may be his biggest find yet. Quickly and unassumingly does she demonstrate that she’s better at what she does than the older, more experienced and highly skilled agents Webster recruited before her.
We also learn that a very dark chapter was written into Rebecca’s life long before she began training with the FBI.
“High school angle -- DEAD! This is not an undercover show,” emphasizes Minear. “When they asked me to do this I felt there were problems in the DNA.”
Rebecca’s new VCU teammates include irritable ex-marine Danny Coulter, big-brained psychologist Carla Thoms, and young family-man Paul Fatorre, who comes to fear that VCU boss Webster could eventually devolve Rebecca into something as dark and hardened as Webster himself.
The old “Inside” concept, Minear says, was “really good for an episode of a show, not a whole series. A procedural needs to be specific but broad at the same time. ‘CSI’: it's specific, they do the science. It's broad: it can be applied to any kind of crime/story.
“You can have an ‘X-Files’ episode about repeating a day, but you don't want to see Mulder doing that every week. Hence the overburdened concept of ‘Tru Calling,’ for instance. Rebecca will go undercover when I need or want her to. Other than that, it's about the triangle of Web, Rebecca and Paul -- Web and Paul both in existential battle for Rebecca's soul.”
“It's ‘Silence Of The Lambs’ by way of ‘L.A. Confidential.’ Paul sees himself as the one thing standing between Rebecca and Web's corrupting influence. It is a battle for her soul. If in fact she has one.”
Though Rebecca is after a serial killer in Minear’s pilot, the series concept doesn’t necessitate a “serial killer of the week.”
“Violent crime, serial killers, rapists, some terrorism,
adbudctions/kidnappings, arsonists, bombers,” is how Minear describes Rebecca’s workload. “We go to the sick, twisted and depraved place, but not always serial killers.” Will there be a “big bad” to haunt “The Inside’s” first season? Or perhaps the entire series?
Minear doesn’t say no. “Was Rebecca's abductor ever caught?” Minear asks rhetorically. “Um, good question. Is Web Jack Crawford [the Scott Glenn mentor character in ‘Silence of the Lambs’] or Hannibal Lector? Another good question.”
So if it’s a totally different show now, why not retire the old title too? Word leaked recently that the series might change its name to “Southland” [media slang for “Greater Los Angeles”], but Minear is doubtful that one will stick.
“Probably not ‘Southland,’ though it was my idea and I like it,” he says. “Seemed James Ellroy-ish to me. Start the show with the sound of a car radio spinning on the dial and ‘today in the Southland...’ kinda thing. But we’re still looking for a title. Something probably procedural-sounding.”
3) Get a gander at Minear’s writing staff!
Those inside “The Inside” now include:
* Jane Espenson! The best and funniest “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” writer not named Joss Whedon! She wrote the one about Xander getting the funny syphilis, the one about Buffy getting the funny telepathy, the one about Xander getting Xeroxed, the one with the Aprilbot, the one that introduced the Buffybot, the one in which Buffy fought the mummy hand, the one in which Giles terrified the Chinese potential with flashcards. Jane Espenson rules.
* Richard Hatem! Screenwriter of “The Mothman Prophesies,” Hatem created ABC’s woefully short-lived supernatural drama “Miracles,” one of the best series of 2003. He also personally scripted its gripping and thought-provoking four-star pilot. Hatem’s brainchild caused legions to scrawl the words “God is nowhere” on paper napkins. Richard Hatem rules.
* Rob Pearlstein, Ahmed Lavalis, Mark Fish, and Karine Rosenthal! I’ve no idea who they are! But they must be super-extra-talented talented if they get to work with Minear, Espenson and Hatem, right?
4) Look at the cast!
* The only holdover from the old “Inside” is its lead actress, the alarmingly cute 25-year-old 5’10” former Guess? model Rachel Nichols. She was going to play faux high-school student Elizabeth Worth in the old “Inside”; now she’s FBI superprofiler Rebecca Locke.
* The big news for “Firefly” fans is “The Inside” reunites Minear with Adam Baldwin, who played violence-prone mercenary Jayne Cobb in the short-lived spaceship series (and in Joss Whedon’s upcoming bigscreen spinoff, “Serenity”). “The Inside” has Baldwin playing Rebecca’s impatient and amusingly rude colleage Danny Coulter.
* Peter Coyote, last seen playing supervising government operative Dennis Ryland in “The 4400,” plays Rebecca’s dark mentor, Virgil Webster.
* Kimberly Scott, still memorable for her feature debut as country-loving Lisa Standing in James Cameron’s “The Abyss,” plays Carla Thoms, Rebecca’s only female teammate.
* Jay Harrington, last seen recurring on the WB’s “Summerland,” plays Paul, the FBI man trying prevent Webster from driving Rebecca to the dark side.
5) The scripts for the series’ first two hours? They rock. Very hard.
I haven’t seen a frame of footage, but I can already tell from the first two teleplays that I love this show. Its scripts give us exactly what fans expect from Minear: compelling characters, monstrous twists, rocket pacing and resonant dark humor. Rebecca, especially, is a great central figure, gifted, haunted and driven but also heroic and hugely likeable. The victims are sad. You’ll crave grave punishment for their detestable tormentors. And you will thrill to realize Rebecca has the means to destroy them.
6) There’s “Inside” stuff Herc’s forbidden to discuss.
In an early Minear pilot script, a serial killer leads the FBI to a fictional and abandoned Los Angeles hotel named the Hyperion. Sad to say, the hotel, known to fans of the Buffiverse as the former worldwide headquarters of Angel Investigations, didn’t quite survive to the final shooting script. “But look for a very specific ‘Angel’ reference,” promises Minear.
If you think that particular promise is cool, Minear has privately spoken also of tentative plans you’ll find 1,000 times cooler. Minear, fearful of jinxing, forbids us to say more, but I’m not exaggerating about the “1,000 times” part. Makes me giddy.
Fox has ordered 13 hours of Minear’s “The Inside.” They’ll likely start airing as early as March. I. Can’t. Fucking. Wait.
I am – Hercules!!
Looking for bumper stickers, plush toys and girls’ underwear covered with cartoon double-amputees? Visit The Herc Store!
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Hell, I've never done it. Thought I might be able to pull it off just this once.
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first
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Jan 13, 2005 2:06:44 AM CST
Given Herc's love of Buffy writers, will he post to let us know
by somethingreal81
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If someone forwards Marti Nozon's "Point Pleasant" pilot, I will gladly appraise it. Hasn't happened yet. But, and for the record, Tim Minear has never written any part of any "Buffy episode ever.
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Jan 13, 2005 3:01:52 AM CST
Since Peter Coyote is doing this does that mean the 4400 won't b
by thematarife
I thought the miniseries was pretty good, I really haven't disliked anything USA has done in a while except for some of their crappier minis and telefilms like that dumb Heidi Fliess one they did. I still haven't forgiven them for canceling Touching Evil though.
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by that I mean, hey, if Adam Baldwin is in it, if I see it flippin through the tube I may land on it for awhile. Not as any "appointment" TV, though, I already got Lost, 24, Ent. & new addition Alias to that lineup.
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am i the only one who gets annoyed by how herc kisses the ass of anything done by either joss whedon or anyone involved with any of whedon's shows? i mean come on. am i really supposed to believe that Buffy and Angel are two of the greatest shows of all time, let alone of the last few years? i've watched a few episodes. granted, the overwhelming majority of stuff being broadcast these days is complete crap, but being one of the turds that doesn't stink as much doesn't make those shows anything special. they're still shit. well, at least in my humble opinion. but does Herc still have to incessantly ramble on about how great shows are/will be mainly because he has a fetish for the Buffyverse? for example, i love Star Wars, and even though it has its flaws I enjoy Willow as well, but am i going to say that The Phantom Mennace is anything other than shit? of course not. remember Herc, don't judge a book by its cover.
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This sounds even less interesting now, which it wasn't to begin with.
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Last year, weren't we hearing about how folks like Jane Espenson and Douglas Petrie were working on Tru Calling, and so it'd be that incredible show? Now you've even got Minnear dissing it here. And isn't it kinda contradictory to tell someone a secret and then claim that telling the secret is going to jinx things?
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Jan 13, 2005 9:30:17 AM CST
"am i really supposed to believe that Buffy and Angel are two of
by hercules
Yes.
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I'm getting a little tired of reading, "________, the best writer," and "__________, the funniest writer."
Look, I get it. I really enjoyed the work of Fury, Goddard, Espenson, Noxon, Whedon, Minear, and all the other greats; but, just stop!
You don't need to fill your articles with such glaring editorial and superfluous comments. No one who already doesn't like the Buffy/Angel writers is going to read that and say, "You know what? Perhaps 'Life of the Party' and the 'Pee-pee' guy are really funny, I WILL watch more Alias this year!"
For the record, I love LOTP, so I'm not ragging on it, only Herc's insistance of masturbating any good tid bit of information he gets until it cums all over everyone, and is a mess to clean-up. -
...and Buffy was my favorite show of all time! Herc needs a new tune. Buffy was great, Angel was brilliant, Firefly was superb, but GET OVER IT.
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Hows about, instead of worshipping the long shadow of Joss, he judge a show on its own merits? I swear he gives every new show a how-close-it-is-to-Buffy rating. Wonderfuls, 80% Buffy. Veronica Mars, 60% Buffy. Desperate Housewives, 20% Buffy. Herc: "Gosh, I don't get Desperate Housewives. Not enough Buffy!" Puh-lease. -
and i'll watch all four episodes they air.
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wasn't that about 1000 agents around the world recruited by some chick? doesn't sound any more 'particular premise'-y than this tho.
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because of that stupid Pat O'Brien show "The Insider." Plus, the title is kind of lame anyway.
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there are other things on tv herc, and none of them are made by whedon. maybe whedon should just go around and talk to a staff member on every show ever, then herc would cover it. god damnit.
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Halfway thru the season we learn that it's set in the Buffy/Angelverse.
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I think we got less Whedon references when Buffy and Angel were still on the air.
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... then there's no fucking way I'm watching it. In fact, I'm not going to watch it just because it allowed Herc to incorporate another reference to that piece-of-shit show that got what it deserved. I have never in my life seen a show work SO DAMN HARD to create a tone.
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Jan 13, 2005 6:08:08 PM CST
Herc, seriously, do you have aspirations to be a scriptwriter, a
by jim jam bongs
I cannot fathom why you keep sucking up to those who wrote for the Buffy shows. So this is the only rationale explanation I can figure. I think they are good writers, actually, but there are many others in this field doing good work too, who have never penned a Buffy show. Minnear by the way has a rep (not too good, I might add) in the industry for being an unabashed "cheerleader" for whatever project you hire him to run. Every runner does this, but most ad buying agents simply tune him out when he speaks at the upfronts.
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This show sounds like it could be seriously entertaining. Not because of the "Buffy/Angel" crossover, but because of its own subject matter. I dig shows centered around dark thematic material; shows like "Millenium" and "Six Feet Under," though I know the latter also has its silly incendiary moments. In all honesty, I stopped watching shows like "NYPD Blue" and "CSI" because the characters bore me. Brutally sad moments that bring tears to your eyes are lacking, at least for me, and introspective character moments are often hackneyed and obvious. I hope Minear gives us something with more bite. And judging from his track record, there's a good chance he will.
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Jan 14, 2005 9:56:56 AM CST
Herc, this was one of your problems last year that I THOUGHT I
by rylrci
1) I shall not create entire columns about shows I have not seen.
Herc, you should know full well a great teleplay and word of mouth from THE CREATOR don't a good show make. Sure, I love Tim Minear. Sure, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is, in my opinion, the best show ever created. BUT- you have got to stop creating filler articles. There was almost NO information in this, except the new premise. Wait till you see the first few eps, then get back to us. Like Point Pleasent. Created by Marti Noxon (one of Buffy's showrunners) and guess what? It's going to suck hardcore. -
Tim Minnear decides to dump the original 21 Jump Street rip-off premise and replace it with...a rip-off of just about everything else on tv right now. Genius! Like Herc I weep at the mere mention of what these literary immortals from the "Buffyverse" are up to these days -- a spaceship movie! A Twin Peaks rip-off! And now an FBI show. Oh wait. And now an FBI show!! (must use Herc approved quotation marks). Jeez. Buffy and Angel are not only cancelled, they're for kids. Grow up. Watch the Sopranos.
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I think that the FBI in high school would have actually been fun. How did "threat matrix" go over? Do people really want to watch television about how little we can trust our government? I hope this does well. But it sounds too good for TV. To really succeed, it needs Al Bundy calling his wife a beeyotch and Kelly Bundy walking in in tight outfits. "Al Bundy, FBI". "Al, honey, did you miss me?" "With every sniper bullet so far!" (canned laughter)
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