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The creative team behind Showtime's "Dexter" has only begun breaking story ideas for the killer drama's fifth season.
Production won't begin until June and viewers won't see episodes until late summer/early fall.
That's an easy explanation for why Thursday (March 4) night's PaleyFest2010 panel for "Dexter" wasn't exactly awash in spoilers, or even coy hints of how the show is planning on following up on the shattering shocker that concluded the fourth season. It's a lot easier not to give anything away when you don't have anything to give away.
Fortunately, between that Season Four twist and star Michael C. Hall's cancer battle and Golden Globe win, there were plenty of things to entertain the packed house at the Saban Theater on Thursday.
[I'm going to put in a page break here, just in case you happen not to have seen "The Getaway," that rare game-changing finale that really will change the game for Dexter Morgan going forward... Seriously, spoilers ahoy...]
Happy Wednesday, folks. It's time for another installment of The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast.
Next week's podcast may end up being epic, as we discuss "The Pacific," "Justified," ESPN's "Winning Time," FOX's "Sons of Tucson" and more.
This week? Still long, but in addition to our usual talking points -- "Idol," "Lost" and, to some degree, "The Office" -- we also talk "Big Love," "Life Unexpected" and, for the first time, pilot casting.
As part of our ongoing efforts to gradually improve this podcast and its availability, we now have a dedicated RSS feed -- Gracias, HitFix development staff! -- for this podcast.
So now you can take the feed -- http://www.hitfix.com/podcasts/fien-print.rss -- and you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. We're not in the iTunes store yet, because there are a few little tweaks that are being made, but hopefully we will be soon. Anyway, we think the feed is a big step towards added usability.
This week's podcast breakdown:
"American Idol" - 01:05 - 07:00
"Prime Suspect" and "Rockford Files" Casting - 07:05 - 18:00
"The Office" Baby Episode (no spoilers) 18:15 - 23:45
I don't quite get what the value of the "Parenthood" brand is to NBC.
It's a name associated with a 21-year-old feature film hit starring Steve Martin and also with a 20-year-old small screen dud starring Ed Begley Jr. That is to say that the youngest members of the key 18-49 demographic don't even relate to "Parenthood" as a pop culture title of note.
And even for people who care that "Parenthood" was a relatively well-received movie, even picking up a pair of Oscar nominations, there isn't even all that much connecting the new NBC dramedy "Parenthood" to either of its predecessors.
The 1989 film and 1990 television versions of "Parenthood" focused on a Midwestern brood named the Buckmans. The 2010 TV show is centered around the Bravermans, whose residence in the Bay Area seems to negate what was regionally distinctive about the brand in the first place.
I'm just wondering out loud why NBC decided to sell "Parenthood" around an old and somewhat unconnected title, rather than marketing a relatively winning show with a strong creative team and a tremendous cast. This is certainly a story about parenthood, but it's also a story about brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, but you don't see NBC attempting to glom onto those connections as titles. I can't imagine many viewers signing on for "Parenthood" because they liked something else with the same title a long time in the past, but I assume focus groups told NBC a different story (probably the same story they believed on brands like "Knight Rider" and "Bionic Woman").
A fuller review of NBC's new "Parenthood" -- beyond just its title, I mean -- after the break.
Jerry Seinfeld laughs his way through 'The Marriage Ref'
Credit: NBC
After plodding through the 30 minute preview of "The Marriage Ref" on Sunday (Feb. 28) night, will I be tuning in again on Thursday to inflict a full hour upon myself?
Hmmm...
I believe I'm going to steal the words of Danielle, the wife whose hubby wanted to give a place of honor to the stuffed corpse of his beloved dog Fonzie:
"I really... I really... I really... I really... I... I can't... I can't... I can't... I can't... I cannot. I cannot. Cannot. Have this in my house. Oh my God. I can't. Oh."
Lest one think that "The Marriage Ref" is the worst thing NBC has aired in the 10 p.m. hour this season, it is not. However, there wasn't a single second of the half-hour of forced mirth that gave me any desire to return for future enlightenment.
[A wee bit more thought on "The Marriage Ref" after the break...]
The first time the "Lost" team attended the William S. Paley Television Festival was March 12, 2005.
I vaguely remember that night because I was covering that packed panel, held at the Director's Guild Theatre.
One couple at the show's triumphant return to PaleyFest on Saturday (Feb. 27) night has an even better reason to remember that evening. They met standing in line for the 2005 event and, five years later, they're married.
After the audience emitted the requisite choruses of "Awwww!" and "Whooo!" "Lost" executive producer Carlton Cuse looked out at the woman and her husband and paused.
"I'm a little worried about what happens to you guys after May 23," he cracked.
Cuse, who I'm pretty sure was the only "Lost" representative to sit on both Paley panels, was kidding. Or maybe he was two-thirds kidding. Or possibly he was dead serious, but if he wasn't speaking in jest, the "you guys" in question could either refer to the relatively newlyweds, or else to the nearly 1900 fans who filled the Saban Theater on Saturday, many of whom were lined up around the block hours before and many of whom tweeted every second of the festivities.
I'm a little worried what happens to *all* of us guys after May 23, when "Lost" poses its last questions, delivers its final answers and wraps up its narrative in what nobody expects to be a neat and orderly package. In the interim, though, the show delivered a lengthy and entertaining PaleyFest2010 Q&A for the eager faithful.
[A full-ish report on the "Lost" panel from PaleyFest2010 will be after the break. In true "Lost" fashion, there are spoilers, but I figure they're vague enough not to offend most readers...]
In this "Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains" season, should the first castaway evicted from the Villains tribe be considered the most villainous of all or the least villainous?
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If it's the latter, then Thursday (February 25) night's Tribal Council only confirms what I've been saying about Randy Bailey since "Survivor: Gabon." Randy is surly and crotchety and terse and an assortment of other synonyms meaning the same thing, but he's not a Villain.Â
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He's just a prickly guy with high expectations for people around him and absolutely no filter when it comes to sharing that opinion, especially with the cameras rolling. In fact, most of the time, Randy's reaction to laziness, apathy and general listlessness from his fellow castaways is what I imagine my own reaction would be.Â
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So on Thursday's episode, the Villains voted Randy out for no good reason. It wasn't that they hated him or that he wasn't working around camp. He mostly got voted off because he wasn't Parvati and people like Russell and Boston Rob needed an excuse to keep the bikini-clad sylph around.Â
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But don't think Randy's bitter about it...
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Oh, who are we kidding? Randy's plenty bitter, which makes his exit interview with HitFix all the more interesting, as he pulls no punches about Boston Rob, Parvati and the rest...
We don't spend much time spotting trends in the adult film business, but thanks to reports on legitimate news shows, we know that TV parodies are all the rage in porn, whether they're lampooning "The Brady Bunch," "Saved By the Bell" or "The Vampire Diaries."
However, in what we believe to be an industry first, The CW's new reality series "Fly Girls" was beaten to the screen by its adult industry parody.
Probably it's important to be able to tell the difference.
Digital Playground's "Fly Girls" premiered on February 16 and features an all-star cast of adult entertainers including Jesse Jane, Sasha Grey, Jenna Haze, Evan Stone and Eric Everhard -- It's like the "Valentine's Day" of pornos -- and focuses on a group of fun-loving flight attendants being filmed by reality TV cameras as they make their ways across the friendly skies. It appears that the plot also borrows heavily from the comedy classic "Airplane!" and, if we're being completely honest, it looks sortta funny -- I laughed more times at the trailer for "Fly Girls" than at the three episodes of FOX's "Brothers" I watched -- and features special effects that aren't appreciably worse than what you'd see on "Human Target."
Check out this "Fly Girls" trailer. But not if you're on-the-job. Do you really need me to mention that this is NSFW?
In contrast, The CW's "Fly Girls" premieres on March 24 and focuses on a group of actual fun-loving Virgin America flight attendants being filmed by reality TV cameras as they make their ways across the friendly skies. It doesn't appear to borrow heavily from the comedy classic "Airplane!" nor from any intentional comedy classics. Its stars include Farrah, Louise, Mandala, Tasha and Nikole and its special effects seem to be negligible.
Meet Farrah. She's perfectly SFW.
[Note: It's doubtful that Digital Playground's "Fly Girls" is actually a full-on parody of The CW's "Fly Girls," since we don't know when the adult film's team of screenwriters would have been able to sneak a glimpse at the network version and then take the time to craft a witty and tongue-in-cheek (and, we suspect, other places) version of the story. Still, it seems a bit too big a coincidence to be a full-on coincidence, doesn't it? And, while we're at it, how bad a sign is it for an industry when porn scribes become too lazy to even bother coming up with "original" "ideas"? Whatever happened to the days of the innocent pizza delivery boy being seduced by the whole sorority? Also, remember when porn parodies used to have funny titles that were take-offs on the titles of the original works? Come on, Digital Playground! Not even "Unzipping Their Fly Girls"?]
Not surprisingly, The CW had no official comment regarding the potential for "Fly Girls" confusion this spring.
It's Wednesday, so it's time for another Firewall & Iceberg podcast, our fifth overall and our fourth consecutive week of relatively on-schedule podcasting.
We still don't have the iTunes thing down yet, but due to some technical silliness, I had to do a tiny bit of editing this week and I'm sure y'all will be able to hear each and every cut. I'll try to do better next time.
This week, we spent the bulk of our time discussing NBC shows -- the premiere of "Parenthood," the return of Jay Leno to "The Tonight Show," "Chuck" -- plus at least one NBC show that isn't on NBC anymore ("Southland").
We also discussed "American Idol" and "Lost," because that's what you do on Wednesdays.
Jackie Earle Haley can't stand the heat in 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'
Credit: Warner Brothers
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," William Shakepeare explained in "Henry IV."
The same might be said for the hand that wear the blade-equipted glove of Freddy Krueger. It isn't just that any subsequent Freddy Krueger will invariably stand in the significant shadow cast by Robert Englund's iconic performance through the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" film series.
No, it's more than that. Uneasy sit the hands that wear Freddy Krueger's gloves, because those darned things are heavy. And more than heavy, those darned things are dangerous.
It took only two episodes of "Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains" for the Villains to begin to look confident and heroic and for the Heroes to become fractured, verbally abusive and just a little villainous.
In Thursday's (Feb. 18) episode, things became so heated between James and Stephenie that all-time good guys Colby and Tom nearly came to blows with the Mississippi gravedigger to protect Stephenie's honor.
Of course, as any "Survivor" fan knows, Stephanie LaGrossa doesn't need help standing up for herself. The last Ulong standing in "Survivor: Palau" and the runner-up in "Survivor: Guatemala," Stephenie had a far shorter run on "Heroes vs. Villains," falling victim to Heroes in-fighting and pre-established alliances. But that doesn't mean she's lost her fighting spirit.
The morning after her ouster, though, HitFix caught up with Stephenie, who pulled no punches regarding James' behavior, why Cirie & Candice made the wrong choice and why All-Star editions aren't pure "Survivor" seasons.
At the dawn of the 21st Century, Daniel Fienberg came out to Los Angeles for grad school. He hasn't left. "The Fien Print" is a blog about television -- reviews, interviews, analysis -- but it's also about movies and the business of Hollywood. It probably won't be a blog about the Red Sox, though it might seem like that at times.
