Christopher Eccleston’s doing it already*, and now another sci-fi icon is joining the cast of Heroes. George Takei – Sulu on Star Trek – is to appear as Hiro’s dad some time in the very near future.
Tonight’s is the last episode before the Christmas break, I think. How will we be able to bear the wait?
* His agent never got back to me, but it’s been confirmed by Entertainment Weekly as well.
Sometimes I don’t get his jokes, so I might have misinterpreted this, but Michael Auriello, over at TV Guide, reckons Christopher Eccleston is joining the cast of Heroes from January. To save you having to read all the other spoilers for US shows (of which there are quite a few, some of them interesting), here’s the important paragraph:
Question: Your superpower is super-scoop. Save the world and give us some Heroes poop.— Sarah
Ausiello: Fanboys, prepare to piddle yourself. Christopher Eccleston — the original Dr. Who from the current Sci Fi/BBC series — is joining the cast in January in a really super (tee-hee) role. Speaking of cool pieces of casting, wait until you see who’s ******* ****’s ****. You’re going to flip.
He’s almost always right with his scoops, so UK viewers might have to watch the SciFi channel for something other than repeats for once: Heroes is to be one of the cornerstones of the channel’s 2007 schedule.
UPDATE: In a rare piece of actual journalism on my part, I’ve called Christopher Eccleston’s agent for a comment. She’s not in yet though. I’ll let you know what she says when/if she calls back.
UPDATE 2: No response. I’ve emailed her now. Let’s see if that works.
Justice, which I kind of liked but which I admit has been going downhill a bit since the first episode, has now been pulled from the Fox schedules indefinitely. Another one bites the dust, huh?
As well as US networks, this is all kind of disappointing for British networks since a number of their big acquisitions have already been cancelled. It might also be very disappointing for anyone who’s had to wade through my reviews over the last few months and had their hopes pinned on some of these shows appearing.
Here are the winners, though. UK viewers will see these trumpeted onto their screens from January next year for complete (and so far open-ended) seasons. Don’t forget, mid-season shows Raines and The Black Donnellys are still to air, so no one knows what’s going to happen to them yet.
ITV1/ITV2/ITV3/ITV4
Jericho (good to very good)
Friday Night Lights (okay to good)
Channel 4/E4/More4
Studio 60 (good)
Ugly Betty (very good)
Brothers and Sisters (absolute arse)
The Class (good to very good)
Five/Five US
Shark (below average to average)
SciFi Channel
Heroes (very good)
Living
Men in Trees (average to good)
FX
Brotherhood (good to very good. Already airing)
Dexter (outstanding)
There are a few stragglers whose fate is ostensibly still to be decided: Standoff (Fox/Sky One), Six Degrees (ABC/ITV), The Nine (ABC/Five) and Vanished (Fox/Five). But they’re all pretty likely to be hitting a dustbin/trashcan some time soon. Also Friday Night Lights’ fate is a little bit up the in air, but the smart money is on it getting a full season.
I’m getting worried. As you may (or may not) know, I do a “third-episode verdict” thing here. The general argument is that a pilot episode is always unrepresentative of a series, since it has a bigger budget, the format is still a bit fluid, characters might change or get recast and so on. So shows can often become completely different once they start their runs. Usually, though, the third episode is enough to see if the show is going to be worth sticking with.
Or so I thought. But now all the big new US shows are serials. They all have running themes. And they’ve all either got good or dropped off from around the fourth or fifth episode: Heroes, Jericho, Battlestar Galactica, even Men in Trees, apparently, although I’ve stopped watching, of course. Robin Hood, depending on whom you talk to, either got really good (a regular got killed) or really bad (Robin fires pies over Nottingham Castle’s walls) during the fourth episode.
What do you think? Should I change the system to “fifth-episode verdict”? It’ll be next to useless for British shows (“Here’s a show you should have been watching. You can catch the last episode next week”). There’ll be some delayed gratification. And it means I’m going to have to sit through possibly two additional episodes of rubbish for each new show, something I’m not exactly looking forward to if they’re all like Brothers and Sisters. But I’ll fall on that sword for you guys if you want me to.
I’ll put in my third-episode verdict on Heroes. I’m not sure if it’s technically the third episode or not, given that the first two episodes were the pilot episode chopped in half, but here it is anyway.
I am recommending this, particularly since NBC has booked the show for an entire season, unlike Kidnapped, of course.
It’s proving, so far, to be a pleasing mixture of comedy, drama and sci-fi. The show’s been going for a slow build since the first episode. But, as well as a catastrophic menace the emerging heroes will have to prevent in just under a month, we also have an adversary in the form of a super-powered serial killer who’s hunting them down. Worse for them still, this guy appears to have all of their powers, not just one of his own. So we certainly have something to look forward to.
We still have the thorny issue of their not knowing what their powers are, how they work or whether they’re just mental cases imagining the whole thing. Or if they’re going to use those powers for good or evil.
It’s not 100% compelling but still intriguing. Worth sticking with for a little while longer, anyway.
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