Cool News
Two reviews of Kevin Williamson's "Wasteland" ((new series)) !!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Glen here...
...with a look at a new TV series brought to us by Kevin Williamson.
In the past, Williamson has given us such diverse films as Scream, Scream 2,, the
forthcoming Scream 3, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and he is also the
creator of Dawson's Creek. The one underlying commonality in all of these titles? A focus
on America's youth - coming of age in a world of crisis, etc.
What else does Willimason have up his sleeve? Can he break free of the age bracket &
target audience with which he has been obsessed of late, and head some new directions? Read the
following messages from PODKO and MS. LEONOWENS, and find out!
PODKO wrote:
Okay, last weekend I was flipping through the TV, and on our
local
(Tuscaloosa, AL) cable companies' own "community info" channel, they
were
showing "Wasteland" the new fall ABC series.
It was at like 2pm, so I'm
thinking it was maybe for a focus group or something. Strange, but true.
Anyway, taking into account that I missed the first few missed the
minutes
here's what I thought.
I know that Kevin Williamson is the Exec Producer, so I had high
hopes (hey, I LIKED Dawson's Creek, so sue me). 'Bout twenty minutes into
the show I'd pretty much given that hope up. The characters are all just
completely unbelievable.
First, the basic plot is that six people who all went to college
together are now living in NYC, in HUGE apartments, of course. I can't
remember all their specific occupations, except that one is a
semi-closeted a
gay soap star, one is a web desigener (her page is called "Wasteland")
and
Rebecca Gayheart is the prissiest homicide detective on the planet.
It
was
not until I saw a scene where she was actually in the police station, (on
the phone with her friends talking about their boyfriends, "Screw the
murder
victims, my friend needs a date!") that
I realised she really was a police woman, before I though it was just a
joke
I wasn't getting. Plus she does an awful southern accent (character is
supposed to be from Kentucky) and being from the South myself, few things
bug me more.
So, come fall, I won't be watching.
MS. LEONOWENS wrote:
I just saw the latest TV effort of
Kevin Williamson (Scream, Dawson's Creek?). Yes, ABC is trying to cash in
on
the disposable income of those not yet 30 (OK, I know... who isn't).
Being
someone just inches over that demographic, here's my take...
The premise of the show was very interesting - "What if there is a second
coming of age in your late 20s?" After all, a lot of us (me included)
spent
most of our 20s in college and grad school. We're still (or were)
supported
by our families, we're still cocooned in this sheltered little world...
you
get the picture. So, by the time we finally break out on our own, we're
not
18 anymore. Terrific premise.
That's where the originality ends...
So, lets meet the characters. They're all in their mid-20s and living in
NYC. Apparently, they all seemed to go to the same small college
somewhere
else, and "just ended up there" after graduation. I won't use character
names (because I don't remember them) and I won't use actors names (since
I
couldn't tell the male leads apart - please someone, a little creativity
in
the hair department?), but you'll get the gist.
Our virginal lead is just that - a virgin. She seemed to be in grad
school (my guess is social anthropology) since the premise of the show
was
expounded as a thesis topic. But, the ((profession of individuals deleted by Glen)) I spoke with
seemed
really really interested in her virginity. I smell a "will she or won't
she"
first season cliff-hanger.
We also have the "actor" - he's not struggling (brief relief from
that
cliche), but he's a closeted gay actor who plays a soap hunk on TV.
Imagine
the confrontations with past 1-nighters in the "soap hunk
calendar"-signing
line... (yes, that is a scene). The gradual outing should be excruciating
(the audience knows from the pilot). There's some real potential here,
but I
wonder if ABC will let them pull this one off with grace.
We have his agent - a brash (I can imagine someone pitching her as
"brash")-woman-of-the-world-with-a vulnerable-spot. She has an acid
tongue,
some nice dialogue, but we've been there before. She's the bitch.
We have the musician/social alcoholic/bartender - he serves no other
purpose that creating profitable (?) soundtracks and is the ex of our
next
introduction... Well, on the other hand, he could qualify as the
"struggling
artiste" cliche we narrowly avoided in the above.
The female cop with a Southern (and its a bad one) accent - all the
gentility of the stereotypical white South in a "hardened" female
detective.
Granted, the premise for this character is good - looks/sounds can be
deceiving. But, using a Scarlet O'Hara accent is not the right Southern
accent to tap here. I'll be floored if this particular accent makes it to
air.
OK, I'm missing someone... ah, yes, the EX-boyfriend - the slime from
the past who slept with everyone in college but our virgin, whom he was
dating at the time. Anyone wanna guess where this one is going?
So, there you have them. The entire pilot dealt with setting up the
characters (of course), and the premise of the show was completely lost.
It
looks like the "2nd coming of age" is just an excuse to peer into the
personal lives of a bunch of pretty people and listed to occasionally
witty
dialogue in contrived situations. This is a soap, and nothing more. It
should make oodles of money...
Glen
If you send a message to the above address & bounces back to you, HREF="mailto:glenoliver@hotmail.com">send mail to a back-up address!
Or call:
(512) 347-1992
Mail can be sent to:
Glen Oliver
P.O. BOX 160812
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
P.O. BOX 160812
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
Austin, TX 78716-0812
USA
USA
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+ Expand All
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May 27, 1999 5:09:49 PM CDT
The irony re: Rebecca Gayheart's "bad" accent: IT'S PROBABLY REA
by alexandra dupont
The irony re: Rebecca Gayheart's supposedly "fake" Southern accent is that she is, in fact, Southern, and "lost" said accent some years ago to pursue her acting career. One marvels that she can't convincingly portray this accent on-air anymore, but one marvels only to a point.
-
Every normal thinking person would expect a cool post-apocalyptic show...
-
Gurl's gotta go back home for awhile, talk with folks, hang around...trust me, a realistic drawl will come back.
And you're right, this title doesn't fit the show.
-
Damn ... with that title I had hoped it would be some sort of series based on TSR's old "Gamma World" roleplaying game, with mutant humans and animals scavenging the atom-ravaged ruins of civilization. Hey, worse series concepts have graced the airwaves ....
-- Conspir8or (the last Pure Strain Human) -
...OH how I love these self entitled genius creators, these wunderkin of media. Package crap, slam it on whatever boob network wants to show it and they say "O LOOK! I HAVE A NEW SHOW! I MADE DAWSON'S CREEK! LOVE ME!" Well I got news for you Kevin...Scream 2 blew, I Didn't CARE What You Did Last Summer, and I wouldn't watch any of your damn t.v. shows even if someone threatened to kill everyone and everything I love. THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR HELPING TO KILL OFF RANDY!
-
I'm sorta frustrated at the direction most of these so-called "youth epics" take. Some started out with enormous potential - such as with "Relativity" and "My So-Called Life." In the end, however, one aspect killed them. One word shattered their promising premises. Angst. This word is the devil-spawn sent to wreak havoc on youth-oriented programminig. It's latest victim was "Felicity." THis show started off as a college saga, and a DAMN good one! What happened? It gave in to the pressure of angst, and started bed-swapping its characters. A sad revelation, considering the fact that the characters themselves are very well-rounded. I was saddened by this, for I thought that show would be the one to break the cycle. And it didn't. "Wasteland" will be no different.
-
This series just sounds like a rehash of St Elmos Fire. Could it be that Williamson is now going to do a post modern tease on this and other brat pack movies?
-
I'm sorry but 20 somethings being friends in NYC was pretty much covered by the STILL immensely popular NBC sitcom FRIENDS. Adding an extra 30 minutes and making it a drama does NOT make it original. OR worth watching. (Oh and are there ANY minorities in this cast? At least THAT would make it marginally more original than FRIENDS) I'm tired of giving Hollywood a chance. I don't need to waste an hour of my life watching yet another crappy pilot from the networks to realize the show will suck. -peteski@spinninghead.com
-
Wait a sec. Aside from the fact that they want us to believe that these characters (let alone the show) are "original", they also expect us to buy into Rebecca Gayheart playing a convincing Detective? Hell, she wouldn't make a convincing Cadet. Now a spoiled girl living in NY on daddies money ... she could play that. Change the part.
-
One of the things I have always noticed with senior scream meister's material was that it was supposed to capture the teen essence through dialouge. I have always thought it does none of that, and he is actually not a particularly good writer at all. For starters he believes that just because the teens talk is graphic makes it fresh and new, please, trash talk is old the new slang is essentially the same stuff kids said in the 50's just with more cursing and maybe more creativity. However simple sex talk and frank conversations about masturbation do not equal a great writer, so I feel that this writer has always lacked any real honesty because he is only representing one side of the so called teen genre. With that said it remains to be seen why so many critics and fans alike adore everything this man produces when so far the only original thing I believe he has created was Scream. I will give him credit, Scream was a fresh take on a stale genre that need some livening up, but don't you think a young fresh, talented, creative artist could do something else, since that time he has just been recycling scream in a series of teen horror flicks with all the scream sequals and I know what you did last summer, and as for Dawsons Creek,well your listening to a guy that couldn't stand to watch the first five minutes of the opener show because I thought it was contrived bs. So whats my point. My point is that this guy is not all that he's cracked up to be, and until he comes forward and gives the audience a creative fresh experience, I think TV and Hollywood excecs alike should dump him. Then again his stuff still draws millions, (sigh) I guess money will continue to dominate this entertainment world, where so much crap squeezes out the truly enjoyable. Later
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