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Herc Has The Details On NBC’s New Sci-Fi Thriller DAY ONE!!
I am – Hercules!!
The mayhem visited upon Earth in the pilot of “Day One” is precipitated by invading aliens, NBC exec Angela Bromstad told those gathered for the network’s Wednesday TCA executive session.
I’ve read the “Day One” pilot scripted by series creator Jesse Alexander (“Alias,” “Lost,” “Heroes”) and have more details, nestled below in spoiler-cloaking invisotext.
Massive meteorite-like projectiles come crashing into the Earth from all around the planet. The projectiles then melt, reform and shoot out of the ground, beanstalk-like, to form bizarre towers twice the length of the tallest man-made skyscraper. A circuit-frying electro-magnetic pulse knocks out all electronics and communications, “War of the Worlds”-style.
The key to combating the aliens, strangely, may lie with the series’ main characters, all of them unknowing residents of a small Van Nuys, Calif., apartment complex. One’s a doctor (latter-day "Veronica Mars" vet Julie Gonzalo). Another’s a war vet just back from Iraq (latter-day "ER" vet David Lyons). Two more are the world's best-looking computer geeks ("24" vet Carly Pope and "Harper's Island" vet Adam Campbell). A reclusive resident of the complex named Lynne (she’s the bespectacled young woman seen at the end of the trailer below) appears to have been secretly manipulating her fellow tenants without their knowledge in anticipation of the threat. Some key dialogue:
TENANT: So you knew this was coming?
LYNNE: It’s all happened before.
Later we see Lynne talking to a non-tenant named Hugh, another fellow who seems to know too much. He tells Lynne she needs to cut and run.
HUGH: Your people haven’t been trained, Lynne. You won’t get them working together in time. (beat) We’ll try again. Somewhere else. But not here. It’s too late.
Some time ago we asked Alexander if Lynne would be revealed to be a time-traveler in episode two; he replied emphatically in the negative. (We also asked if, while Alexander was working on “Lost’s” first season, he knew that Hurley would be spending a good chunk of season five in 1977. His response: “Fuck no!” So somebody should someday ask Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse the same question!)
So far I like “Day One” better than I like ABC’s “V” (which also deals with alien invasion) and “FlashForward” (which also deals with worldwide mayhem).
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Readers Talkback
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hope it delivers...other than chuck I don't see much worth watching on NBC......
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so i'll just wait till it builds up an audience and gets cancelled and watch it on dvd? where the hell are the journeymen dvd's NBC??!?!?
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Leak it onto the torrents.. It worked for Heroes.
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Aug. 5, 2009, 7:29 p.m. CST
I'd like a crossover with this and It's Always Sunny in Philly
by BadMrWonka
right when they are just about to get humanity back on track, Charlie's illiteracy fucks things up yet again. Wild Card, baby!!
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...have someone just back from the Iraq War and too-sexy hot computer experts?
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"It's happened before." + Jericho influences...good to know what these guys have been watching...Eddie Olmos and Skeet Ulrich are gonna have fun with this.
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...is revealed to be a VR computer simulation happening inside the minds of the apartment complex dwellers who are in reality 1) astronauts on a long space voyage or 2) human captives being experimented upon by a) a machine intelligence or b) aliens. Yaaaawwwn!
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Are the writers all BSG fans or something? "It's..."
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Melrose place, Lost, a bit of War of the Worlds, put them in a bake and shake it up.
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I think I might give it a shot. Then again, NBC may not. They did send KINGS to an early grave with a terrible time slot.
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According to tv.com
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That is, if it's good. If it's shitty it will last forever. It IS on NBC after all.
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that's some shonky acting there. I don't think it looks half as good as V.
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I still have to say FUCK NBC for cancelling Journeyman.
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Just read that Anna Paquin and the guy that plays Bill Compton are engaged in real life.
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A well-planned and executed invasion, starting off with EMP to knock out electronics and communications ... yet cell phones still work?! They'd be the first thing to go. Who writes crap like this?
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Braga rubs another one off over yet another time related story
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As reported at Televisionary, Angela Bromstad, President of Primetime Entertainment, at a recent press conference in Pasadena, said NBC is thinking of Day One as "more of an event" than a regular series. In other words, a mini-series NBC doesn't expect to renew for a second season (although she did say they would renew it if the ratings were great.) So here's NBC telling us in advance they don't believe in the show. Nice work, guys. I predict that within three years, NBC primetime programming will consist of test patterns with the Star Spangled Banner playing in the background.
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Where are you guys getting this time travel stuff? It seemed like it was about aliens from another conquered world that were there to help.<br> <br> And yeah, fuck NBC. After their recent press conference, I wouldn't trust them enough to invest any time in a new show of theirs. If it truly is a miniseries with a real ending, maybe I'll torrent it when it's done.
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"the world is dead it just doesn't know it .......YET!" - does he toss his hair back and stamp his foot? I haven't seen an over-emphasised attempt at dramatics like that since some particularly bad silents.
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But ABC's V will get queued higher in the TiVo stack, as I have great affection for Elizabeth Mitchell and Morena Bacarrin.
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"Smart" Chick in Stupid Glasses: "Together, we're going to save this world." Hahahahahaahaha
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With the whole "people living in an apartment complex with the tools to fight the aliens' thing. Not that that's a bad thing. Shyamalan fucks all your mothers and they like it.
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I'll watch it. Big things towering into the sky are cool.
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is some Nathan Fillion.
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Hugh & Lynne are aliens (or at least aliens possessing human bodies). <br> The invasion is the aliens' standard M.O. We'll see if they intentionally choose planets with sentient creatures for some reason (their goal too is to possess humans, not eat them?). <br> The only real question is if Hugh & Lynne are another conquered alien race or dissidents from the invaders. My gut says the latter. <br> And as long as we're talking about other shows... I have a bad feeling about the 10/11 season. <br> I could easily see none of Day One / V / Flashforward making it into next season, Lost is intentionally ending, Heroes is probably going to get canned for ratings, the CW could get shut down for lack of profits, and Fringe is in a meat grinder of a timeslot. <br> Genre shows could easily only exist on cable next year (with Fringe being the most likely to survive).
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What do you want them to say? Seriously, with all the crap on TV from the neverending reality trash to stories with horrible plots, do you really want to whine about a show with an intriguing premise because of bad dialogue? Is it really even that bad? Seems pretty straight forward stuff, to the point. Plus it is a cut trailer; who knows what it will really be like?
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I can't wait for this to go down in a steaming pile of dog shit like every show NBC has put out in the past 18 months..
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how original. <p>and i bet it will happen again.
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Aug. 6, 2009, 10:51 p.m. CST
Lame invasion premise. ...and cancelled, as it should be.
by Stereotypical Evil Archer
Who was dumb enough to let this get past a pilot?<p>Give me an hour and I'd have a better pitch and a 13 episode run with a far better story.
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Aug. 6, 2009, 11 p.m. CST
Demographics doesn't sell shows. Good writing sells commercial t
by Stereotypical Evil Archer
You'd think a network would figure that out; but they're going to aim for demographics and lose as usual.<p>Silly networks. War of the Melrose Place is a stupid idea.
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That will die like Invasion, Surface, Jericho, etc?
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Sounds a lot like Lady In The Water indeed. Hope this one doesn't turn out to be a 'bedtime story'.
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Just give CHUCK 26 episodes for season 3 and bring it back in September.
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V is a remake of the greatest sci-fi miniseries in history, with real human characters and stories. This series looks like another Dark Skies.
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CHUCK is a midseason show cuz its ratings suck....because it ...sucks!...the misplaced love for that show amuses me.... V will be awesome
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I'd rather see a show called 'Last Year' where it's announced that the world has one year left before all human life, or all life on the planet, snuffs out and there's nothing we can do about it. No comet we can nuke. No aliens we give the flu to. The world just ends and we have one year to come to terms with it.
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that does sound quite interesting...tho it would be one season by default...lol
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I was thinking limited run series. Four seasons of three months each. If it were a really huge hit, like CSI, we could milk it for 12 seasons. lol
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Bill Clinton, Don Johnson, High Pitch Eric, the actor who played Urkel, George Wendt's brother-in-law, Sybil Danning, Jerry Seinfeld's valet, the late Sid Melton, et al. They'll perform comedy relief (tag line: "Lemme fix that for you."). Stallone's mom will probably be invited, too.
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She's an alien too. She's seen them do it to other planets, and for whatever reason, her job is to fight them. Her job is to start/recruit the resistance or whatever. Of course, if they have the tech to space travel, not sure exactly why they need puny humans to do the resistance. Maybe there's not many of the "good" aliens left or something.
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Singing career hasn't been what it used to be so she found a job helping some alien race save us.
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....just go.
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Day One, V, and Flash/Forward. They all seem to be like, inter-twined with one another, at least in the publics mind, even though they are all on seperate networks. It's really bizarre. It's also weird because I think Day One has the coolest premise/setup, but so far actually looks the least promising from the promos, which is typical of NBC. V, on the other hand, is a recycled story and not even a very unique one at that, and looks by far the most promising and has the most people excited. Flash/Forward is still the most mysterious at this point, but it has a decent concept and people seem at least open to it, but we haven't really seen much of anything, so who knows. I think it's a very good bet Day One will end up like Kings and V will end up another hit series on ABC's belt. Anyone else think this whole thing is a little weird?
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Remember Surface/Fathom on NBC, Invasion on ABC and Threshold on CBS?
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Is that you don't actually get any sense whatsoever as to the actual threat the aliens pose. All the destruction, etc. comes from their landing and these giant stalks growing. THere's no communications and no overtly hostile activities from the invaders, though we're told several times they're going to destroy the planet by Lynne and her buddy with the goofy hair. The pilot is entirely too talky and features storylines that are a complete turnoff. A teenage girl that lives in the complex has a thing with a Japanese kid who is a drift racer, and it's one of the most puke-inducing storylines I've ever seen on TV. Xander Berkely is her father and he does a great job of standing around looking concerned and answering the phone sounding concerned. Apart from that, he is given Jack to do. It's been almost a month since I've seen the pilot for Day One, so I'm sure I'll have other rambling thoughts about it later as they come back to me.
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Just fixing Razorback's typo.
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Oct. 1, 2009, 11:52 p.m. CST
Sounds like a quasi-continuation of X-Files mythology
by Bob of the Shire
Seriously. That chick is part of the alien resistance. Mulder and Scully are of on a sail boat somewhere so she's picked this apartment full of people to help fight the spread of this evil alien race. If this invasion occurs on 12/12/2012 then that'll just seal the deal: Jesse Alexander is trying to complete the X-Files.
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