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GUEST BLOG #75: Diane Holloway Looks Forward to the Oscars... But Why?
February 8, 2010 8:23 AM
[The Oscars are a month away and counting... and contributing critic Diane Holloway is counting. In her latest column, she tries to explain why...]
Remembering the Oscars,
from Rob Lowe and Snow White
to Billy Crystal and Barbra Streisand
By Diane Holloway
Oscar nominations came out this week, and even if you haven't seen half of the (way too many) movies honored, you've probably already marked March 7 on your calendar.
You'll either watch the Academy Awards' interminable telecast in the semi-privacy of your home, keeping a scorecard, or you'll attend an over-the-top Oscar party in your best finery. Either way, you know you'll stay up too late and drink too much for a Sunday night.
If ever there was must-see TV, the Oscar telecast is it. Even if the production numbers are excruciating (remember Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White?), or the host not-so-hot (I thought Whoopi Goldberg was much worse than David Letterman), we'll watch to the bitter end and talk about it for days after.
Watch the Oscar "Lowe point" HERE.
What's the big deal about rich people patting each other on their designer-draped backs and thanking their families, God and the entire universe? Simple answer: Movies are glamorous, and live TV is alluring. (TV itself is not considered glamorous, which is why the Emmys don't do so well.) It's unpredictable and sometimes even exciting. (How else to explain the never-ending runs of Saturday Night Live and American Idol?)
The drumbeat to the Oscars always includes whispers about who'll be wearing what and who'll run into whom. Will the brilliant but fashion-challenged Meryl Streep listen to her Hollywood handlers and learn to steer clear of peasant skirts and chunky Indian jewelry? Will Johnny Depp over-fix his hair, and will he go just a tad lighter on the eyeliner? Please?
The Oscar host plays a sizable role, too, and for years we were the lucky recipients of Billy Crystal's brilliance. We looked forward to his musical opener, and we awaited his friendly slaps at the towering egos in the audience. Click HERE for a taste.
This year, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are the odd-couple comedy duo sharing hosting duties. The co-stars of It's Complicated might play off each other brilliantly. Or they might try to upstage each other to the point where spectators feel left out. Click HERE for a fast taste.
Oscar devotees like me can recall specific moments from years or even decades back. Barbra Streisand in her see-through pantsuit. Billy Crystal making his host entrance as Hannibal Lecter. Halle Berry melting down with joy.
We always hope something unexpected will pop into the lumbering, nearly 4-hour marathon to make enduring the boredom worthwhile. The magic of live TV and the glamour of movies will merge once again, and even if they're less brilliant this year, we'll watch next year, too. It's must-see TV, whether we like it or not. It's the Oscars!
[If you haven't yet marked your calendar, this year's Oscars take place Sunday, March 7 at 8 p.m. ET in Hollywood and on ABC. The nominees list announced Tuesday can be found at the official Oscar web page, along with five years of red carpet photos and other video. See it all HERE.]
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Diane Holloway was the TV critic for the Austin American Statesman for 30 years, until the downturn in the newspaper business prompted her to take a buyout. She's now sniffing out other possibilities. Before newspapers, she worked in Washington for the Library of Congress, the American Film Institute and the National Endowment for the Arts. Maybe something entirely different is next. Or not.
"Undercover Boss": For CBS, A Smart Use of the Post-Super Bowl Slot
February 7, 2010 12:03 PM
After Super Bowl LXIV ends, and after the post-game interviews and final analysis, CBS will attempt to retain as many members as possible of that huge TV audience, and introduce them to a new reality series: Undercover Boss, a program in which the heads of corporation pretend to be new trainees, with cameras along to capture both their performances and their treatment.
As post-Super Bowl programs go, it's a pretty good fit...
The audience left, after a Super Bowl, is largely male and, to generalize a bit bluntly, largely drunk. Subtlety isn't exactly the best bait for this crowd. The best bait is something visual, something kinetic -- or, failing that, something extremely simple to grasp and comfortably easy to predict.
The ultimate post-Super Bowl offering may have been in 2003, when ABC presented a special episode of its series Alias, starring Jennifer Garner as a beautiful spy. For the Super Bowl crowd, this particular episode opened aboard a private jet, with Garner's Sydney going undercover as an escort, entertaining a rich client by sporting a whip and wearing nothing but panties, a bra and a stern expression.
Over the years, there have been more misses than hits in programming after th Super Bowl. The first game in 1967, before it was even CALLED a Super Bowl, was followed on CBS by an episode of Lassie. The first truly successful use of the post-Bowl slot was in 1983, when NBC launched The A-Team.
Since then, the Super Bowl has provided a launching pad to a few great TV series (ABC's The Wonder Years in 1988, NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street in 1993), but has spawned just as many instant flops (NBC's Brothers and Sisters sitcom in 1979, CBS's Grand Slam sitcom in 1990).
Mostly, what the time slot has done right is draw bigger audiences to already successful shows, as with the 1996 NBC "Super-Sized" episode of Friends and Fox's 2008 episode of House. But Undercover Boss, premiering tonight, is the first time the post-Bowl slot has been given to a new series since Fox presented a preview of Family Guy in 1999.
So how good IS Undercover Boss? The premise is perfectly timed in these days of economic strife: Let the big boss climb down from his executive suite, assume a series of menial jobs at the lowest level of his corporation, and listen closely as his trainers both explain and complain. Then, after the training period, comes the big reveal: the trainers are summoned to meet the boss, who rewards some and admonishes others.
What concerns me about this show, at least in the pilot episode shown tonight, is that the obvious presence of a camera crew -- explained to the participants as a documentary being made about the training process of new workers -- makes me question almost everything I'm seeing.
Even if the workers don't know they're dealing with an undercover boss, they ARE aware they're being filmed, and that their boss eventually will see it. So, quite possibly, they may be more patient as a result, or more pleasant -- or, in one case, invite the new trainee to their own house for a nice home-cooked meal. What we're seeing is entertaining. But, despite the name of the TV category in which the series has been placed, is it reality?
However, if you accept that caveat and watch skeptically, then Undercover Boss works nicely.. and stands a very good chance of being the first big new reality TV hit in years. If you stayed, and you watched, let me know what YOU think...
HBO's "Temple Grandin": The Best Telemovie in Years
February 5, 2010 7:40 PM
The latest offering from HBO Films, Saturday night's Temple Grandin (8 p.m. ET, HBO), isn't just a great telemovie. It's the best one in years, and a reminder about just how good television can be when all elements of a production are absolutely perfect...
Claire Danes stars in the title role, and just as she exploded onto the scene as a teenager in ABC's My So-Called Life 16 years ago, she vaults herself into another, Meryl Streep-like level in this new dramatic showcase. As Temple Grandin, a woman who battled and used autism while becoming an advocate for the humane treatment of animals and a designer of more gentle stockyard and slaughterhouse systems for cattle, she's nothing short of magnificent.
Of course, so is everything else about this drama, from the way writers Christopher Monger and William Merritt Johnson, working from two of Grandin's own books, shape her inspiring story, to the way director Mick Jackson helps us -- MAKES us -- experience the way Temple sees and hears the world. And the supporting cast is just as credible, touching and impressive as Danes. David Strathairn as Temple's sensitive science teacher, Julia Ormond as her persevering mother, Catherine O'Hara as her understanding aunt -- fabulous, each and every one.
But it's the fact-based story, above all, that's the star here. And instead of being overtold or oversold, HBO's Temple Grandin demands you accept it on its own merits -- just as assuredly, and effectively, as the real Temple eventually did.
The real Temple Grandin, by the way, is showcased on Friday's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, featured in a trio of interviews recorded with Terry over the years. And leading off the show, which I guest host, is my own review of HBO's Temple Grandin, complete with a clip that should sell you on both Danes and the telemovie. Listen to it, and read my Fresh Air review, by clicking HERE to listen, and HERE to read.
Temple Grandin is an amazing woman, and her story is told beautifully by HBO. Congratulations to everyone involved for a moving, unforgettable TV work of art. Don't miss it. You won't regret it -- and you won't forget it.
GUEST BLOG #74: Tom Brinkmoeller Wonders If "30 Rock" Is An Endangered Species on NBC
February 4, 2010 8:19 AM
[Bianculli here: Tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET, NBC presents a fresh episode of 30 Rock -- a delightful episode guest starring the equally delightful Jan Hooks. One week from tonight, NBC presents the final installment of the prime-time Jay Leno Show. Contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller connects the dots, and suggests that as Leno leaves for later pastures, 30 Rock should watch its back...]
Thrill of the Chase? Not When It's Chevy
By Tom Brinkmoeller
Is Tina Fey the next to go?
Like Conan, she and her 30 Rock are Lorne Michaels proteges. That seems about as healthy, in today's NBC environment, as a three-pack-a-day habit.
But there's more reason to worry she'll be canned. Hers is the only intentionally funny series left on NBC. The same NBC that for many decades gave shelter and encouragement to classic comedy series.
(It's also the same network that grew wonderful drama series, from St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues to The West Wing and ER. But since it has so badly botched Friday Night Lights, Heroes and Southland, and just abandoned high-end series like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, drama is deader than comedy there, and talking about its health is just moot.)
Community and Parks and Recreation are uselessly void of humor, and The Office ran out of gas a season or two ago.
ABC, which once produced as many laughs as a clown car full of Republican senators, now kicks butt with the season's best new comedies. CBS promotes and protects its reliably funny carryover comedies. But NBC only produces laughs when David Letterman talks about it in his monologue.
Which brings us back to Tina Fey and 30 Rock. Now that it's been shown, courtesy of Jay Leno, that a never-that-funny old guy can engineer a coup and retake the once-glorious nighttime palace, what's to keep the same from happening in prime time?
The threat, of course, is Chevy Chase, the gooey prototype for the later Leno model of the much ado about nothing product NBC now produces.
Chase, too, is out of place in prime time. He, too, once was anointed by NBC's executive wing of 30-watt bulbs as a cornerstone of its late night. Except for falling down a lot and coining the phrase "and you're not" (and I always was glad to hear that), he has no trophies to show for more than three decades in entertainment.
Chase, no doubt, has watched and drooled as Leno unseated O'Brien. And his attack, perhaps, is imminent. With Dick Wolf's many Law and Order offspring as his model, Chase just may use his leverage at NBC to spread even more Communities around the network.
After all, if a town has a fire engine and its own garbage trucks, it probably also is big enough to support a community college. Community: Altoona. Community: Toledo. Community: Cherry Hill. They all could be coming soon to TV listings near you.
And they'd be every bit as wonderful as the rest of the slop NBC now nurtures. And just think what they would do to improve unemployment prospects for third-tier actors.
And what about Tina Fey and 30 Rock? They'd not only be occupying a space which Community: Biloxi could use -- they'd be a too-painful reminder of the high quality NBC has flushed away. And who wants people remembering originality when the generic brand is so much cheaper?
Say goodbye to Liz and Jack and Tracy and the rest. The only long-term hope they have at NBC is to gain a whole lot of weight and try out for The Biggest Loser -- which, of course, is us.
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Disclaimer: Tom Brinkmoeller holds no financial interest in NBC-Universal (he's done some dumb things in his life, but nothing that stupid), and he has no interests in nor prejudices against this country's many fine community colleges. Nor does he find them inherently funny.
What Did YOU Think of Last Night's "Lost"?
February 3, 2010 2:55 PM
Once it's been broadcast, I feel, it's fair game for discussion. So what did YOU think of last night's episode of ABC's Lost?...
My thoughts are available on Wednesday's Fresh Air with Terry Gross on NPR, or available after about 5 p.m. on the Fresh Air website, which you can hear, and read, by clicking HERE. But basically, I liked it, and was thrown by it in all the right places, and can't wait for next week's episode.
It's too early to tell if the country felt the same way. Overnight ratings for Tuesday's Lost estimated audiences at 12.6 million for the first hour, and less for the second. That's much less than the series has drawn at its peak during the early years, but it is significantly more than the 10 million that watched last season's finale.
Besides, Lost is one of the most popular shows in the plus-three category and other rankings that measure DVR recording and playback. So its audience last night could be closer to, say, 15 million. But more important than how many watched, really, is what they thought as this final season began.
So what DID you think? Does having two Lockes, and two timelines, work for you? What was the best surprise? Whose return were you most happy to see?
Post your comments, and we'll run it here -- in our very own TV WORTH WATCHING Lost and found.
The Beginning of the End: ABC's "Lost" Is Back, For One Last Lap
February 2, 2010 9:25 AM
When last we saw a first-run edition of ABC's Lost, nine months ago, Juliet was banging a nuclear device with a rock, hoping desperately to trigger an explosion that would, in theory, disrupt the existing time line and throw the island's inhabitants back to a time before its magnetic and mysterious forces drew them in.
The season ended with Juliet succeeding in sparking an explosion -- a blinding, brilliant flash of white (shown above.)
It was a brilliant flash in more ways than one...
Don't worry, Lost fans. I won't be revealing what happens in tonight's two-hour final-season premiere (9 p.m. ET). I can't, because ABC didn't show it to TV critics in advance. We were shown, via a special Internet press site, only the first five minutes... and I won't reveal any secrets about THAT, either.
What I can and will say, though, is that it's a goose-pimply perfect way to start this last lap of one of TV's most ambitious, intriguing and often confounding shows so far this century. A lot of people have dropped by the wayside over the years, and given up on this series or watched it sporadically or only on DVD -- but if you were there at the beginning, you will be rewarded by being there for the ending, beginning tonight.
I'll have more to say tomorrow, here and on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, once the sixth-season premiere has been televised. Meanwhile, all I'll insist is this: Broadcast TV isn't likely to give us many more shows like Lost, so you ought to be watching. I know I will be...
Meanwhile, CNN.com has posted a column I wrote for them about Lost. Read it HERE.
GUEST BLOG #73: Tom Brinkmoeller on the New Installment of PBS's "Frontline"
February 1, 2010 8:42 AM
[Bianculli here: Tuesday's edition of the PBS series Frontline looks at the impact of the Internet and digital media. Contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller looks at it, too -- by not only previewing the program, but interviewing its producer...]
The Digital Revolution:
Good for Home Cooking, Bad for 'Moby-Dick'
By Tom Brinkmoeller
Some images from Tuesday's Frontline (9 p.m. ET, PBS; check local listings), called Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, that probably will stick in the minds of many who watch it:
Young South Korean teens who hang out for hours, sometimes days, at the country's computer parlors to play virtual-reality games -- and the camps that have developed in that country to detox those young people from game addiction;
Under-draft-age kids spending lots of time and not a penny at the Army's $13 million, 12,000-square foot Army Experience Center recruitment facility in Philadelphia, where simulation lets them play in fantasy war conditions in which they can kill aplenty with no risk of getting hurt;
The truly eerie sight of a largely vacant IBM park of office buildings in Westchester, N.Y., where technology, not the economy, has emptied the offices -- so many employees telecommute that one has to wonder how much all of this unused real estate is pulling down IBM's ledger.
The Frontline program is almost overloaded with information about what the massive changes in technology over the last decade or so have done to the "natives" who were born into it and the "immigrants" who have to stretch farthest to adapt. Experts speak about, and examples point to, the good and the bad effects of this digital nation.
Two schools, one in the Bronx and one in New Jersey, have bought into the revolution and administrators are more than enthusiastic about the wonderful results. MIT students, who are nonstop-wired to handhelds and laptops, talk about the ease with which they multitask during almost every minute of their non-sleeping lives.
Equally comfortable with the changes is an Army officer connected with the Philadelphia endeavor who explains, "Here in the Army Experience Center . . . video games are never going to replicate the real thing. But it is a sampling experience to pique your interest and maybe. . . encourage you to go learn more, just as Apple is trying to do" (in its retail stores).
From the other side, a researcher's tests reveal the way multitasking slows the brain and the UCLA author of a "Brain on Google" study uses the word "addiction" to describe the conditions. An English professor tells how it's now not possible to assign a book that's longer than 200 pages and another academic says those who proudly claim citizenship in this new digital nation "have done themselves a disservice by drinking the Kool-Aid."
Is what's happening good or bad?
Viewers looking for a verdict won't find one. Rachel Dretzin, who produced this as well as a 2008 Frontline look into tech effects, Growing Up Online, said she gauges the success of her efforts by their ability to cause people "to turn off the television set and argue about it for an hour. I want them to talk about it.
"It's neither a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down," she said. "It's way too complex to come to a conclusion like that."
By generating conversation, she said, people can better examine the issue to uncover the good and scary parts of what has and is happening in the digital world growing around us: to point out "what it is that's important, that we don't want to lose."
She said the digital shift "is as big as literacy," and it's the responsibility of "the last generation who remember a non-digital world . . .to tell (those who follow) what they may not know."
But it may be difficult to function as a herald of a cultural heritage, Dretzin points out, when the the would-be messengers "are wrestling with and dealing with (these changes)" at the same time. Anyone familiar with the carefully stodgy image IBM built for itself during the 20th century can only wonder what kind of shifts people who worked under that former paradigm must have had to make.
The program also shows Air Force personnel who, stationed at a Nevada base, pilot drone aircraft over targets thousands of miles away. Drone-mounted cameras relay images of people and objects to screens, and when the images are targets, the pilots fire on and destroy them. When their shifts end, these same pilots drive home to have dinner with their families.
The program also offers a fun example of a "native" helping an "immigrant" find her way through the Digital Nation. Bayla "Bubbe" Sher, 83, worked for a bank until she was 73. Today, thanks to the savvy and collaboration of her grandson, she hosts a popular Jewish cooking show on the Web, Feed Me Bubbe, from her home kitchen. Watch it by clicking HERE.
The grandson, Avrom Honig, talked proudly of his grandmother's adaption to change: "The Internet, really, I have to say, it added years to Bubbe's life."
But even in a digital revolution, an old weapon can pack considerable punch.
"They grew up with it." said Sher. "To them it's like second nature. And it's easier for my grandchildren to go into e-mail -- I get angry at them sometimes, I say I'd like to hear your voice! I know you e-mail, and they sit down and type you out a little e-mail, and it's wonderful. But call me on the telephone."
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Tom Brinkmoeller notes that the aphorism "The more things change, the more they stay the same" was written in the middle of the 19th century, making it even older than CompuServe.
STUDENT BLOG #3: An Anime Primer, and Pop Quiz: What Is "Moe"? (Hint: NOT One of the Three Stooges)
January 30, 2010 9:28 AM
[Bianculli here: All TV critics have their quirky specialties, and we here at TV WORTH WATCHING are no different. But I admit to being ignorant of, though curious about, the majority of Japanese anime programs. But one of my former college students at Rowan University, Rich Greenhalgh, is passionate about the subject, so I gave him a dare: Write a column about anime explaining what's hot, and why. He came through, and even provided links for us to become instantly anime-literate...]
Why Doesn't American TV Offer Edible Eyebrows?
By Rich Greenhalgh
2009's Japanese Anime season was a year no one saw coming. This year had the death and rebirth of an unstoppable God and the arrival of the all-girl "Beatles" of anime. Japanese anime is a genre mostly known for giant robots, cat girls, big guns, and samurais. What stole the hearts, minds, and money of many of Japans most fervent Otakus (Japanese for "Anime Geek/ Enthusiast"): four charmingly simple high school girls with a dream.
The past Spring's offering of K-On! simply followed the ingredients of the manga source material. All they needed was four female seiyuu's (Japanese voice actresses) who could also sing. Thus the female pop group "Sphere" was created specifically for the show (similar to the Monkees). Even the actresses themselves were still pretty new in anime. This show didn't have anything in its chamber but its obscenely excessive uses of 'Moe' (spoken 'Moh-Eh', short for 'Moekko' -- meaning blossoming girl) in its character design and episodic way of story telling.
What exactly is 'Moe'? It's an exaggeration on the importance of 'cuteness' in Japanese society. For example: American actress Summer Glau or TV's Kelly Ripa wearing cat ears is VERY Moe, whereas Christina Hendricks (Mad Men) or Olivia Wilde (House) is not. Others liken it to feelings of affection or devotion for a female without sexualizing them.
I have often stated that Dollhouse (on Fox) suffered a severe lack of Moe. Interestingly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in its first three seasons, used a lot of what is what is American Moe, even before it was properly defined. Archetypal females are often used in anime and right now the 'Moe boom' is huge.
K-On! (Keion) doesn't have gun battles, swordplay, mystery, magic, or excessive 'fan service' (scantily clad women) -- it just oozes pop music and oceans of Moe. Even the characters in the show tease each other about how insecure they are about being cute (which is like 'cute squared' in Japan). They are awkward, girly, lazy, teasing, and they're constantly eating desserts and wearing cute outfits while learning how to be a band.
Match this with a cute pop group and they became a license to print money. Both males and females got into this seemingly average show.
Each character has been merchandised to death on everything from guitars, apparel, figurines, giant pillows, and food products. The most popular is the practical yet shy bassist Mio Akiyama.
This show's music hit the top of Japan's Amazon music charts by the end of the first month after airing. It also broke a record for its Vol. 1 DVD, selling over 40,000 in a single day. Currently the first 3 volumes have sold over 8 million in US dollars (converted from Yen).
Click HERE to see the opening that started it all (Subtitled in English). The Moe characteristics will be VERY obvious.
And click HERE for a look at the real-life musical voices for K-On!, called "Sphere" (English Subbed).
How big is Moe marketing? The sales of the exact types of the musical instruments the girls play jumped and began popping up in display windows. The strangest yet? Tokai Tsukemono Corp will unleash pickled radish snacks that look like keyboardist character Tsumugi Kotobuki's (Mugi-chan) eyebrows, which are her most Moe trait.
Mio, on the other hand, has been officially endorsed by the Fender guitar company for being a lefty that rocks a vintage 62 Jazz Bass. The pop group Sphere has already released a second album, and season two of K-On! has already begun production, to the acclaim of fans and merchandisers alike. In this jaded age of Paris and Brittany, maybe America needs a little Moe. They will never be as big as The Beatles musically, but in musical anime, they might as well be.
The worst disaster of 2009 ironically comes from Kadokawa Shoten (who successfully started the original Moe boom back in 2004), in the form of the long-awaited (three years!) second season to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. Haruhi season one became an instant cult sensation (even in its dubbed English form) across the globe.
Its lead seiyuu, Aya Hirano (Japan's answer to Miley Cyrus) is iconic in Japanese culture for this role. The main focus is Haruhi Suzumiya, a girl who unconsciously changes and warps reality around her because a part of her never really 'grew up.' Haruhi's only goal is looking for aliens, time travelers, psychics, and anything strange.
Haruhi has no idea she's changing the world around her, so she is constantly guarded and observed by mysterious and magically gifted characters (created by her) that disguise themselves as students and collude in keeping her illusion of a 'normal reality' intact. Should she become bored or disillusioned with her quest, all these characters may cease to exist. They have one hope. It's a cynical classmate who can barely stand her, named Kyon, who mistakenly gives her the idea of starting a club to investigate all these strange things.
One by one these strange beings start gathering under Haruhi's nose. Haruhi is pretty, intelligent, adorable and obnoxious, with too much enthusiasm and too many dreams. Japanese girls all want to be her and all the guys want to date her -- but Haruhi could care less, because she is looking for aliens, time-travelers, and psychics! God help the world and reality if she ever learns the truth is right behind her.
The anticipation for season two was as anticipated in Japan as that for the final season of The Sopranos was stateside. What could possibly ruin this omni-powerful franchise? The story arc called "Endless Eight." Imagine 75 percent of the final season of The Sopranos being the same episode, eight weeks in a row. Why? Because the characters are stuck in a 'time-loop' created by Haruhi, and their August summer keeps repeating 15,532 times). None of the characters know how to stop it and Haruhi and the world aren't aware she's doing it.
By the fourth rotation, fans were pretty annoyed. By the fifth, the voice actors were apologizing to fans. By the sixth week, fans were burning down the anime forums. By the seventh, fans had given up. On the eighth week, the studio apologized, and on the ninth week, the story ended.
The remaining new five episodes were moderately well received by whatever fans remained. What was the most anticipated, highly secretive, sure-fire event of the year turned out to be the butt of jokes that, among anime fans, will last endlessly for the next eight years! Not even David Lynch from Twin Peaks would have tried something this risky with this powerful a franchise. The actors had to voice the same episode eight times with minor differences, and the animators had to draw it eight different ways! -- same story. The ending was worse than being all a dream, or a "snow globe."
Click HERE for an Eight-Panel comparison of all eight at once.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNfnUg7ZZE
Lost and Sopranos fans wouldn't tolerate this. The plans for season three appeared to be scrapped, but Kadokowa appears to have planned all along to make season three into a movie. Its running time is 150 minutes, which will cover "The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya" arc.
Otakus began pre-ordering tickets weeks in advance. A story from the English Otaku news site Sankaku Complex.com reports the story of one fan who proudly displayed his cache of thirty tickets (a whole row) he bought just for himself. These fans are devoted to their 'God' Haruhi. I can't imagine why someone hasn't made a live-action American version of Haruhi yet.
Click HERE for the short U.S. English-dubbed trailer for season one from Bandai Entertainment, so you can meet Haruhi for yourself. Season two will arrive in a few months.
And here's a clip of the Japanese actors doing a live stage concert as their characters. Click HERE to watch the packed stadium audience go total Fan-Crazy just to see them live. Mind you, these are 13-30+ year olds (It's subbed in English!).
Imagine if the cast of House or Lost did a live show?
Just when you thought American TV and its audience had issues, be glad you're not competing with Anime Idols and an obscene army of fickle Otakus, hell bent on worship. No one bought the hammer used in season four of Dexter, and no one knows the clothes and sneakers Dr. House is wearing. Japan's TV marketing would make Don Draper of Mad Men weep!
You can watch both these shows on YouTube by keywording their titles (adding English DUB or Subbed) or buy the season one collections at places like BestBuy.com or Amazon.com.
I could show you where to download them all for FREE... but you are not Otaku yet.
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Rich Greenhalgh is a student at Rowan University. He shares at least one trait with the professional TV critics here at TV WORTH WATCHING, in that he's way too obsessed with, and enthusiastic about, various forms of pop culture. Please let him know if his Anime 101 summary was to your liking.
Final Verdict on Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse": Regarding the Cast, Missed It By That Much
January 29, 2010 6:16 PM
As I type this, less than 90 minutes remain until Fox broadcasts the final, unpreviewed episode of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse. The fact that I'm anticipating it attests to the promise that Whedon brings to every project -- but at this point, at the show's final hour, I think I've isolated where his latest genre missed the mark.
It cast the right actors -- but not always in the right roles...
Dollhouse (8 p.m. ET) was inspired by, and created for, Eliza Dushku, who stars in the central role of Echo. Echo is an "Active," a Doll, who can be reprogrammed with any abilities, any memories, any personalities desired by her clients -- or her handlers. Hostage negotiator. Extreme sports enthusiast. Loving wife. Pop singer. Dominatrix. And as the series progressed, there was an additional chameleonic requirement as well: Beneath all the parts was one submerged whole, an activist named Caroline.
All well and good, especially as the series progressed and Echo, rather than erasing memories of each personality and encounter, began to secretly retain them. And Dollhouse really got kicked into a higher gear once Whedon ventured into territory that, when I interviewed him on Fresh Air prior to the show's premiere, he denied was in his initial flight plan. He began revealing, slowly, that certain other members of the Dollhouse -- staff members, not reprogrammed Actives -- were not what they appeared to be.
Some, like Amy Acker's disfigured Dr. Saunders, were dolls themselves -- in her case, an Active named Whiskey. Others, like Harry Lennix's Boyd, weren't puppets, but were marionettes, the hidden Big Bads in the playhouse. And still others, like Reed Diamond's Dominic, were a little of both.
With the story lines, especially in this shortened second season, Whedon and his writing team have delivered more than enough twists and shocks to justify allegiance to the series.
The shockingly sudden shooting of Summer Glau's Bennett by one of the activated sleeper Actives, for example, was a shout-at-the-screen "Whoa!" moment.
But where Dollhouse slipped, I believe, was in having supporting players that were stronger, and more compelling, than its leads.
Dichen Lachman, as an Active named Sierra, was more magnetic, and showed more range, whenever she adopted another identity than Dushku's Echo did. So did Acker's Whiskey, once she was revealed as another Active -- her alter egos were few, but impressively far between.
And Enver Gjokaj's Victor proved not only a talented chameleon, but also a gifted comedian and mimic. His "imitation" of Fran Kranz's nervous Topher, when Victor was downloaded with Topher's personality, was a spot-on, very funny impersonation.
Conversely, the hero of the drama, Tahmoh Penikett's Paul Ballard, and the just-revealed villain, Lennix's Boyd, were, like Dushku's Echo/Caroline, less dynamic than those around them. Olivia Williams as Dollhouse executive Adelle, Diamond's Dominic, Alan Tudyk's murerous Alpha -- all of them did more with their screen time than their more prominent co-stars.
A Dollhouse with some of the roles reversed -- starting with Acker or Lachman as Echo -- may not have experienced a different fate, but it may have made for a a more dynamic show.
Meanwhile, we have tonight's finale, the continuation of last season's flash-to-the-future season finale, which Fox never showed but which Whedon released as an extra on the first-season DVD. So there's closure, at least. And tonight's episode, like last season's "missing" futuristic episode, features Felicia Day (in photo at top above), who starred in Whedon's Internet sensation, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.
And best of all, there's more Whedon TV in OUR future. The man who wrote the episode and music for, and directed, the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and gave Neil Patrick Harris the title role of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, has been signed to direct an episode of Fox's brilliant Glee later this season, with Harris as guest star.
That show ALREADY has the right cast -- and, with Harris, a perfect guest star. With Whedon at the helm of that one, it's one to anticipate with... Glee.
Please Stand By: New Blogs Coming This Afternoon, Tomorrow
January 29, 2010 10:16 AM
Hi, folks. Today I'm in New York, moderating an industry panel billed as a "Hollywood and History Master Class." And my plans to have today's column, on Fox's Dollhouse finale, posted before I dove in to those duties, didn't quite work out.
So please return around 5 p.m. ET, or thereabouts, for my Dollhouse assessment. And come back this weekend, when our latest guest column provides a sort of master class of its own -- on the latest in popular Japanese anime...
