Cool News

WEEDS!! THIRTYSOMETHING!! GRAVITY!! DAMAGES!! DAFFY!! BUGS!! BREAKING BAD!! Blu BATTLESTAR!! HercVault!!

Published at: Jan 19, 2010 6:01:18 PM CST

SPOILER ALERT !!

I am – Hercules!!

“Weeds” was my pick for the sixth best half-hour of the last decade.

Season five picked up right after Andy Botwin realized he loved his brother’s widow and Nancy revealed she was carrying a Mexican drug lord’s spawn. Nancy had to deal with vengeful rogue DEA agent Roy Till. Andy then went after both Nancy’s married sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Nancy’s gynecologist (Alanis Morissette), and also his brother’s old bank account and the General Lee. Silas and Doug teamed up to get into the dispensary business. Esteban’s daughter turned up. Celia went Single White Female. A stray bullet turned Shane a new shade of strange. And Esteban’s thugs were scary hilarious, perhaps the best kind of hilarious.

The fifth season comes in both DVD and glorious Blu-ray.

“thirtysomething” grew stronger as it soldiered on, and the emphasis shifted from navel-gazing and toward the characters dealing with the bigger crises that began to crop up outside their own heads.

The first half of season two followed the collapse of Michael and Elliot’s ad agency. The second half saw the introduction of David Clennon as ad agency boss Miles Drentell, for me perhaps the series’ most fascinating presence.

The second season also saw more episodes written by new writer Joseph Dougherty, whose name began to fall on a lot of the series’ better teleplays.

COMMENTARIES:

* 2.1 “We’ll Meet Again.” Writer-director Richard Kramer and director Scott Winant.

* 2.3 “The Mike Van Dyke Show.” Winant and writer Marshall Herskovitz.

* 2.8 “First Day/Last Day.” Writer-director Joseph Dougherty and director/star Peter Horton.

* 2.13 “Michael Writes A Story.” Dougherty.

* 2.15 “Be A Good Girl.” Kramer and star Melanie Mayron.

* 2.17 “Best of Enemies.” Dougherty.

OTHER EXTRAS:

* “Mad Ad Man: Miles Drentell” (15:53). Learn that Miles was not in the first draft of “Michael Writes A Story.” Hear Miles described as “the greatest boss ever created for American television.” Learn Clennon did not anticipate his character would stay with the series till its final episode (which he did).

* “The Metamorphosis of Miles” (13:20). This is a fascinating extra, a look at how the whole “thirtysomething” franchise nearly went off the rails due to one actor’s poor choices in one pivotal scene. Clennon shows old dailies of his first scene, playing the ad man as a twitchy and antic (and trail-mix-gobbling) character quite different than the Miles we all came to know and love. We’re then shown Miles’ first scene as it was reshot, birthing a much calmer, far much more compelling agency boss. Interestingly, Clennon was told the scene was being reshot not to adjust his performance, but to address some issues with the scene’s newly constructed set. Oddly, this extra is not mentioned on the packaging.

* “Inside The Outsider: Susannah Hart” (13:35). Learn Patricia Kalember’s stint as the title character on 1986’s “Kay O’Brien” put her off the idea of committing to another series (though she’d go on to do 122 episodes of NBC’s “Sisters”). Learn Polly Draper told Kalember she didn’t think anyone would be able to successfully play the part of Gary’s new romantic interest. Learn Kalember was pregnant while making “thirtysomething” but had to hide it because she was more pregnant than her character was.

* “W.G. Snuffy Walden On The Music of thirtysomething” (16:01). Learn “thirtysomething” was Walden’s first job working for a TV show or film. Learn Walden didn’t own an acoustic guitar when he got the “thirtysomething” job and had to borrow one for the pilot. Learn Herskovitz also plays guitar.

The second season of class-action legal thriller “Damages” had Ellen spying for the FBI, plus William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden and Tim Olyphant joining Ted Danson in the supporting cast.

COMMENTARIES:

* 2.1: Rose Byrne, Timothy Olyphant and writer-creators Glenn Kessler, Daniel Zelman and Todd Kessler.

* 2.8: Ted Danson, the Kesslers and Zelman.

* 2.12: Tate Donovan, the Kesslers and Zelman.

* 2.13: Glenn Close, the Kesslers and Zelman.

DELETED SCENES:

* 2.1: Thanks Pete (:50)
* 2.1: Retirement Suits You (1:44)
* 2.1: We’re in the Wrong Line of Work (:33)

* 2.2: What Did Patty Have To Say (1:37)
* 2.2: Cops Always Think It’s The Husband (1:18)
* 2.2: Let’s Make Some Adjustments (:37)

* 2.3: Katie’s New Boyfriend (1:54)
* 2.3: Construction Site Photos (:51)
* 2.3: You Don’t Get To Know Everything (:57)
* 2.3: Bugging Ellen’s Room (1:01)

* 2.4: Fill You in When I Get Back (:36)

* 2.7: Kendrick Berates Waiter (1:58)

* 2.8: I Will Pray For Him (:46)
* 2.8: Be A Good Girl At School (1:11)
* 2.8: Sell Your Stock In UNR (1:37)
* 2.8: He Woke Up (:26)
* 2.8: It’s My Fault (1:04)
* 2.8: The Wedding Gift (1:12)

* 2.10: Ellen in Bed With Wes (:54)
* 2.10: My Alarm Didn’t Go Off (:42)
* 2.10: Pell Meets With Nye (:44)

* 2:12: He Went To See Patty Hewes (:39)
* 2:12: She’s Too Smart, Too Lucky (1:12)

* 2.13: Ms. Hewes Flew Me Up (1:37)
* 2.13: You Knew This Was Coming (2:53)
* 2:13: Don’t Be Scared (1:12)

OTHER EXTRAS:

* “Season One Recap I” (8:33)

* “Season One Recap II” (9:16)

* “Character Profile: Patty Hewes” (3:53)
* “Character Profile: Ellen Parsons” (2:34)
* “Character Profile: Tom Shayes” (2:29)
* “Character Profile: Arthur Frobisher” (2:28)
* “Character Profile: Daniel Purcell” (2:28)
* “Character Profile: Claire Maddox” (2:40)
* “Character Profile: Wes Krulik” (2:20)

* “Season Two Post-Mortem” (4:27)

“Defying Gravity” might better be titled “Defying Momentum”; the plots of its first two episodes, airing tonight, advance so languidly you’d swear its producers were trying to stretch an episode worth of “Star Trek: Enterprise” story across an entire season.

A 13-episode international co-production about astronauts destined to endure a trouble-plagued six-year mission across the solar system, the ABC series was created by James Parriott, who also created “Misfits of Science” and “Forever Knight” but has more recently been toiling in such estrogen-soaked ABC hourlongs as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Ugly Betty.”

It stars a number of respectable actors, among them Ron Livingston (“Office Space”), Laura Harris (“Dead Like Me”), Christina Cox (“The Chronicles of Riddick”), Paula Garcés (“The Shield”), Malik Yoba (“New York Undercover”) and Florentine Lahme (ABC’s even worse astronaut miniseries “Impact”). Livingston, I’d wager, is trying to appropriate for his role the voice and mannerisms of “Space Cowboys” star Tommy Lee Jones. Not the worst strategy.

Though the pilot, set about 40 years in the future, is a mess in any context, it compares with particular horribilitude to Ronald D. Moore and Michael Taylor’s superb Fox pilot “Virtuality,” which aired about a month ago and also focused on a large-ish crew of astronauts assigned to a high-profile multiyear space journey. Both projects offer terrific space effects, sets and production design.

“Gravity’s” six-year journey, which involves visits to all of our system’s planets, is semi-secretly being manipulated by the mysterious and powerful Offscreen Something called “Beta,” which may be a computer, or an extraterrestrial, or an extraterrestrial computer, or a mutant, or something else entirely. Beta’s existence and involvement is hidden from most of the crew on Beta’s mission, which strikes me as a dopey made-for-TV strategy; perhaps viewers will one day discover the reasoning, but I suspect they’ll discover the reasoning isn’t sound.

The series’ dialogue is taxed beyond even what seems to be the ABC dramedy development department’s quota of standards-and-practices-friendly sexytalk; the female astronauts always seem to have just wandered off “Sex and the City” or “Oprah” as they cluck about “booty calls” and share tips on flirting with their male co-workers.

There’s a dollop of “Moonraker”-style zero-g space-boning. The crew’s funny-free “comic-relief” physicist is inexplicably forced to spend hours cracking a computer code to access his ship’s mammoth porn payload. (But if this guy can crack souped-up encryption, why isn’t he smart enough to just bring the porn aboard via the -- presumably super-tiny -- 2053 equivalent of an iPod or smartphone?)

There’s also a doofy subplot about a female astronaut needing to get “a guy” to perform an illegal early-term abortion (the Supreme Court appears to have momentarily overturned Roe V. Wade) -- as if government troops somehow tracked down and destroyed the formula for RU486.

The first two hours of “Gravity” are a mishmash of sci-fi clichés, watery characterization, and time-wasting who-gives-a-shit plot twists. Livingston’s character is the kind of idiot who starts throwing punches when, in the middle of a live news conference, he fields a reporter’s insulting but completely predictable questions about a famous decade-ago tragedy.

Its pacing infuriates as the show endlessly jumps to (generally disposable) pre-launch flashbacks full of leaden dramedy banter and lengthy plot-halting montages edited to ghastly power ballads.

One suspects the “Grey’s Anatomy” fans will be driven away by the technobabble, the Trekkies will be driven away by the project’s undernourished imagination, and this show will be remembered alongside the likes of UPN’s “Mercy Point” as one of the sadder chapters in the annals of televised sci-fi.

Entertainment Weekly says:

… The first ep feels ridiculous; maybe it's the fact that despite being on a futuristic space mission, everyone acts like they're on Private Practice (sample line: ''He's not my type. He left two people on Mars''). …

The New York Times says:

… has high-tech props and a spooky sci-fi mystery, but it is layered in feminine concerns and the mawkishly sentimental pop music that frames plot points on “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice.” …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… The budget has gone into the spacecraft -- the constructed interiors, the computer-generated exteriors -- and all the outer space, which looks good enough that you never think about it not being real. The human element can be less convincing, however, with many of the characters flat or opaque, the dialogue a tad artificial. Some bits are overstated, others feel undercooked. …

The Chicago Tribune says:

… so inferior to Fox's Virtuality that it made me glum …

The Washington Post says:

… The unfortunate truth of this mission is that you're going to need a whole lot of patience to get through even the first hour of it. …

The Newark Star Ledger says:

… "Virtuality" was interested in questions of how people would deal with the psychological pressures of spending years in the same confined space with the same small group of people, where "Defying Gravity" is just in a hurry to get to the zero-G sex scene. … The two-hour premiere has hints of a possible alien conspiracy behind the mission, but that's clearly taking a backseat to whether Livingston and Harris will hook up again during the trip. … feels too slight, or silly, to treat as anything but the cheap, disposable summer programming it is. …

The Salt Lake Tribune says:

… What "Defying Gravity" doesn't have is thought, a sense of wonder or an intriguing premise. Just as space has no atmosphere, the show is devoid of ideas, and viewers are left with the hope that the two most attractive people will have sex while space walking. At this rate, that just might happen. …

The Boston Herald says:

… borrows from another ABC hit, “Lost,” but bungles the execution. Each episode features flashbacks to the crew’s training days. The gimmick is already exhausted by the end of the two-hour premiere. …

The Boston Globe says:

… a perfectly decent bit of sci-fi soap - some cool “Star Trek’’ futurism, plenty of pretty “Grey’s Anatomy’’ ensemble melodrama, and a twist of eerie “Twilight Zone’’ mysteriousness …

Variety says: