ABC’s now joined NBC in providing us all with clips from their forthcoming Fall shows. Unlike NBC, however, they haven’t done the decent thing and put them on YouTube as well, so you’ll have to brave the ABC web site – and its geo-filter – to have a look at what’s coming up. Again, I don’t know if they’re going to work in the UK, so if someone wants to experiment, now’s your chance.
Of most interest for genre fans is Pushing Daisies, starring Lee Pace as a private investigator who can bring people back from the dead for a minute. it also stars Anna Friel, Chi McBride, Kristin Chenoweth and Jim Dale (as the narrator) and is written by Bryan Fuller of Heroes, Wonderfalls and Dead Like Me fame. Might be a little too whimsical for the viewing public, but you never know.
Most of the new shows, however, seem to focus on really rich people.
I was a little surprised by this particular finale. Normally, seeing the name Sunil Nayar, one of the show’s producers, in the writers’ credits is enough to put fear into your heart, given he’s written some of the worst crimes against humanity that CSI: Miami has perpetrated: nothing has been too stupid or offensive for our Sunil.
But this season’s finale was a relatively low key affair. There were few mind-blowingly dumb moments, just a couple; there were no cliffhangers, no massive plot resolutions, no lives imperilled. If it hadn’t been for the three-minute music video conclusion, you’d never have known it was a season finale. About the only real tension was from a few “will they, won’t they” moments between Calleigh and Eric.
To a certain extent, that’s because this has been a season without a long story arc: there have been a few two- or three-episode arcs, but nothing really to rival previous seasons’ gangs/brothers/hot forbidden fruit South American sister-in-law/marriage shootings arcs. Given the show doesn’t really need to work to bring the viewers in and it’s not a show that people watch to tax their brains or learn something about humanity, it’s more surprising that previous seasons have actually felt this need at all.
Still, even the Carusobot seemed unable to believe he was doing a Batman/Angel/Captain Jack on the top of a helipad for no adequately explored reason at the end.
So don’t be afeared, UK viewers, you can watch this episode without any worries, apart from potential brain damage.
NBC’s posted clips from a few of its Fall season series to its web site today. Now, if they’re like any other NBC video, UK residents won’t be able to watch them (I won’t be able to check until Thursday, for obvious reasons, but give it a whirl and see if it works for you, gentle reader.) but US denizens should have no problem. The videos are quite extensive, so worth looking in on if you’re curious.
UPDATE: Mark says they work for him in Wigan.
However, forward thinking old NBC has also posted a few of them to YouTube so the rest of the world can sample the goodies. Of most interest to UK viewers, in all likelihood, is the remake of The Bionic Woman starring ‘Enders‘ Michelle Ryan and putting in a surprisingly good turn.
Much of the focus is on how the show is going to be a metaphor about modern women needing to be superhuman to balance all the different aspects of their lives. But in keeping with the fact that BSG producer David Eick is behind the remake, it looks like they’re going back to the original for inspiration as well: not only are the physics of the bionic ladette’s powers completely screwed, if you’ll recall, Oscar Goldman was originally a bit of a bastard in the first two Six Million Dollar Man movies (and, indeed, Michael Caidin’s original book, Cyborg) and it looks like new Oscar, Miguel Ferrer, is going to follow in his footsteps. Still it makes you wonder just how many times he’s going to have to develop a Robocop before he realises it’s a bad idea.
Here are two clips: one of Ryan getting her bionic bits and another of her giving first gen bionic woman Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck in BSG) a good slapping. It’s worth mentioning that you don’t get to see some of the worst bits from the full NBC trailer, including Ryan’s relationship with her deaf sister.
As you may recall, last year I cast my reviewing eyes over the end-of-season finales for various US shows. The tissue-thin rationale I gave was “A good finale to a TV series can keep you watching even the biggest rubbish imaginable. They can be exciting, tense and a whole load of other things.
“Stress, of course, is a major health hazard. Therefore, so that UK viewers can brace themselves to an appropriate degree, I’ll be giving near-spoiler free guides to just how tense and exciting each of the major US TV shows’ finales were, starting today. US TV shows don’t end all at once: they’re spread over a period of three weeks or so, so there’ll be another couple of updates to come after this over the next week or so.”
Guess what. I’m doing it again this year using pretty much the same reasoning as I did last year. So here goes: there’ll be more to come over the coming days and indeed weeks.
Ha ha! My wife’s started watching Heroes and loves it. My cunning plan was to not ask her to watch it, but instead to leave all 21 episodes sitting around on the Apple TV for her. In my absence, she chose to idle her time away watching them. Hooray!
She’s now up to episode 12 and is worrying that Sylar has too many powers, making him too dangerous. I think she’d be watching the rest of them this evening, but Canada’s Next Top Model has just started and Project Catwalk‘s on soon, too.
So there you go: Heroes is loved by just about everyone who watches it, it seems. Let those of you who haven’t started yet see that as a testimony to its quality.
