Basically, the Network and I had different ideas about what the tone of the show would be. They bought something somewhat different than what I was selling them, which is not that uncommon in this business. Their desires were not surprising: up the stakes, make the episodes more stand-alone, stop talking about relationships and cut to the chase. Oh, and add a chase. That you can cut to. Nothing I hadn't heard before on my other shows (apparently my learning curve has no bendy part) but frustrating as hell given our circumstances - a pilot shot, scripts written, everybody marching together/gainfully employed... and then a shutdown. Glad I was for the breathing room, but it's hardly auspicious. So back into the writer cave I went, wondering why I put up with this when I can make literally dozens of dollars making internet movies. Why I do put up with this is divided into three parts.

One: They're not wrong. Oh, we don't see eye-to-eye on everything, but wanting the first episodes to be exciting and accessible is not exactly Satanic. Being Satan is, but that's in their free time and hey, there's no judging in the Dollhouse. This kind of back and forth has happened on every show I've done, so if you liked those, chances are that was a part of why. And the need to focus on the essentials of what makes this universe tick - and which wire to cut to make it stop - really does bring up our game. So we as a staff have gone from blinking like unhoused moles to delving in with the same relish we had when we started. The show is really coming together now, in a way that I believe excites us and satisfies the Network. Of course, I have no idea if anybody else will like it, but I have the same faith in the staff, the crew and the remarkable cast that I always did. More, in fact. And what's more crucial:

Two: Nothing essential has changed about the universe. The ideas and relationships that intrigued me from the start are all there (though some have shifted, more on that), and the progression of the first thirteen eps has me massively excited. The episode we're shooting now I wrote as fast as anything I have before, not because I had to (although, funny side-note: I had to) but because I couldn't stop the words from coming. Because I can feel the show talking to me; delighting, scaring and occasionally even offending me. It's alive. Alive! Which is a far cry from how I felt a month ago. It's been hilarious trying to keep up with what's in, what's out, who's met whom and when - we've shot all of the first seven episodes out of airing order - but it's come together in a pretty thrilling way. My huge gratitude to our cast for their precision and patience.

*****

As for what's been changed, well, some things I obviously can't tell you. Some I can, for the record: The original pilot was in fact thrown out. Again, at my behest. Once it became clear what paradigm the Network was shooting for, it just didn't fit at all, even after I'd reshot more than half of it (see above re: despair). To get a sense of how completely turned around I was during this process, you should know there was a scene with Eliza and the astonishing Ashley Johnson that I wrote and shot completely differently three different times, with different characters in different places (actually I wrote it closer to eight times), and none of it will ever see air. Which is as it should be (though I'm determined to get Ms. Johnson back in the future). The scene just didn't belong anymore. Similarly, the character of November has fallen out of the mix, because the show simply moves too fast now for me to do what I wanted with her. Season three, anyone...? Happily, Miracle Laurie is still with us in a new role, playing against (and pining for) Tahmoh's character, Paul Ballard. Their chemistry is deeply nifty. The only other major cast shift is that the Dollhouse head of security, Laurence Dominic (played by Reed Diamond), who was written just for the now-defunct first ep, has stuck like fly-paper, and Reed is very much in the family for the present. (Most of my problems seem to involve my actors making themselves indispensable. This is the good problem kind.)

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Fox Picks Up More Episodes of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles



Fox announced that it picked up the back nine episodes of Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles. After all the rumors about low ratings, this one is a pleasant surprise. We love this show. In other, more perplexing news, Knight Rider has also been renewed. Knight Rider? That's just crazy. It's a terrible, terrible show. Even Val Kilmer can't save this clunker.

Posted on October 25, 2008
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Fringe Gets Full Season Pickup



Fox has ordered up a full season of Fringe.

Fox is feeling fine about Fringe, ordering a full season of the freshman series from creators J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The network has ordered nine additional episodes of the sci-fi thriller, for a total of 22. The Bad Robot/Warner Bros. TV-produced series has averaged a 4.2/11 in adults 18-49 and 10.7 million total viewers since bowing last month, making it the top-rated new show of the season to date in the key demographic.

"We're having a blast working on this show with this great team of producers," said Fox Entertainment President Kevin Reilly. "The series has really taken off creatively, and it's exciting to see that the audience is responding. We believe this is the first full season of many years to come."

Fringe is a very weird show, which is really growing on us. We especially like Joshua Jackson and Josh Noble's portrayals. Joshua is the brilliant son who must babysit his genius, certifiably nuts scientist father, played by Josh Noble. You will remember John for his amazing performance as Denethor in Lord of the Rings. As for the lead, Anna Torv, well, she's sort of growing on us too. But she's not who we would have cast in the role. But we do love seeing Mr. Abaddon from Lost as her mysterious boss. We're committed for the season.

Posted on October 9, 2008
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Eleventh Hour Trailer

Eleventh Hour is a new CBS show from Jerry Bruckheimer written by writer Stephen Gallagher (Doctor Who). You can find the show's website here. A Chicago Sun-Time story calls Eleventh Hour the "next X-Files-wannabee" and compares it to Fringe. Two X-Files wannabee shows is a good thing. The show premieres October 9th at 10PM est.



Posted on October 5, 2008
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AMC Moving Forward With Red Mars

AMC is moving forward with a tv series based on the novel Red Mars.

"Mars," a 1992 novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, chronicles the inhabitants of the first human colony on the planet. Hensleigh ("Armageddon") is the writer and will executive produce alongside Michael Jaffe and Howard Braunstein of Jaffe Braunstein Entertainment ("The Memory Keeper's Daughter") and Vince Gerardis, Ralph Vicinanza and Eli Kirschner of Created By ("Jumper").

"This fits in with our bigger vision of wanting series that feel like cinematic one-hour movies," said Christina Wayne, senior vp original series and miniseries at AMC. "We're always looking for big genres but to do them in slightly different ways so they feel fresh and new," she added, noting as examples the network's Western mini "Broken Trail" and crime-themed series "Breaking Bad."

Jeremy Elice, vp original programming series, added that the project will be character-driven. "It's not the spectacle of sci-fi that you typically see," he said.

AMC has another great project in the works: the remake of the 1960s classic, The Prisoner. The Prisoner stars Jim Caviezel and Ian McKellen. Ian McKellan is great. But....Jim Caviezel? The guy that freaked out when he had to shoot a love scene with Jennifer Lopez because of his strict religious beliefs? That's going to take some work on his part. Because Patrick McGoohan was awesome in the role.Perhaps he's loosened up a bit since then. And it's not like The Prisoner had a lot of love scenes, anyway. Lots of bit white bubbles chasing the hero, but not much romance. In any event, AMC has our attention.

Posted on October 4, 2008
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Fox May Cancel Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles

SyFyPortal reports that Fox is extremely unhappy with the rating drop off for Terminator: the Sarah Connor Chronicles and is ready to pull the plug on the show.

With ratings far below even the network's worst predictions, Fox could pull the plug on production for "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" as early as this week. The network has been disappointed by "Sarah Connor's" numbers so far this season, and some executives feel that the show is dragging down numbers for "Prison Break," which airs as a lead-out.

"Audiences just aren't responding to the show," a Fox source tells SyFy Portal. "Our biggest surprise are the 18-to-49s [a key advertising demographic], those numbers are in the toilet."

This would be bad news for "Sarah Connor," which had a strong first season despite airing just nine episodes in light of the Writers Guild of America strike. The show debuted at mid-season with an 11.1 rating/16 share -- the highest premiere of any genre show last season -- following an NFL playoff game, but quickly lost a good portion of its audience. By the time it was all said and done, "Sarah Connor" overnights averaged a 5.6/9, half of the premiere audience, with ratings reaching as low as a 4.5/7 at once point.

Getting a 4.5/7 could almost be a lifesaver for "Sarah Connor" right now, as the show hasn't even come close to reaching that number. After four episodes, the highest "Sarah Connor" has reached is a 4.1/6, and is averaging a 3.7. That's 34 percent off its audience average from the previous year.

The show is excellent: the writing, the acting, the intensity and the action are all feature film quality. The show lost its audience after the writer's strike -- just like Heroes did, although Heroes is faring better. You know how Fox is -- they cancel shows very quickly, there's little advertising and no chance to build an audience. Hey, we know it's kind of a depressing show, but we still like it. Once the Christian Bale movie version showed up on the radar, it became clear that there would be no way to stop Skynet from being created. But still...we're not happy to see it go.

Posted on September 30, 2008
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Joss and Eliza Talk Dollhouse

Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku get a little silly as they discuss their upcoming tv show, Dollhouse. We certainly hope the rewrites are going well. Not to be Debbie Downer or anything, but we're convinced Fox is going to wreck this show just as surely as they wrecked Firefly. We're just saying. Let's hope we're wrong.



Posted on September 25, 2008
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The WizardMaster Will Save the Day....Or Not



There certainly isn't a lot of room for humor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. We're dealing with the end of mankind here, so it's kind of grim. But we nearly fell off the couch laughing at one part of tonight's episode. The terminator Cromartie has taken the appearance of a B movie actor named George Lazlo. Well in one scene tonight we get a news clip about how a little seen movie called WizardMaster has become a cult hit after the actor went berserk and single handedly killed 20 FBI agents. The film plays in the background and it's a hilarious Beastmaster riff -- the hero wears a loincloth, orders tigers around and consorts with blond bimbos lurking in the jungle.

There's one problem with the addition of Shirley Manson to the cast as the shapeshifting terminator who is a wealthy CEO. She's so scary and efficient it's really hard to see how Sarah and John have any chance at all of stopping Skynet. Still, there's always hope we suppose.

Posted on September 23, 2008
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Dollhouse Shuts Down For Rewrites

Joss Whedon has shut down production on his new show, Dollhouse, for rewrites. The shutdown will last about two weeks and shouldn't delay the show.

Filming on "Dollhouse" stopped Thursday after wrapping episode three. It came upon request from creator/exec producer Whedon, who had had spent little time in the writers room lately, busy directing the first two episodes of the series. Not completely happy with the quality of upcoming scripts, he asked producing studio 20th TV for a timeout.

Production on the midseason sci-fi drama starring Eliza Dushku is slated to resume Sept. 25. The news follows Whedon's revelation in July that he was shooting a new "prequel" episode to serve as the show's pilot. Whedon said he opted to craft a new introduction to the series after meeting with Fox executives.

If Joss says the show needs rewrites, then it needs rewrites. And he's just the guy to get things whipped into shape.

Posted on September 11, 2008
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Season Two of Terminator: The Sarah Chronicles Premieres Tonight

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles returns tonight on Fox at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time and we can't wait to see it. There's a great interview at Wired with series creator Josh Friedman. He talks about the second season, casting news and comparisons with Battlestar Galactica. Friedman has a much bigger budget this year, which is exciting. And Shirley Manson, lead singer of Garbage, joins the cast as ZeiraCorp CEO Catherine Weaver. That ought to be interesting.

On kicking off Season Two with a bang: "Last year we were establishing the world and the rules of the world and bringing people up to speed. This year, we have a bigger budget, so we can give viewers more sense of the place and Los Angeles. We have some really cool action sequences and show more of the future sequences where the Terminators have completely taken over.

"We have an awesome episode where we get a good sense of Cameron's back story -- and what she was made for. That's one of my favorite episodes so far. We also will show more of Brian Austin Green's past, his point of view and where he came from. [Green plays Derek Reese, John's uncle who traveled from the future.]"

On parallels to Battlestar Galactica: "I'm a huge fan, I'm just behind a season. It's almost so good and so close to what we're doing, sometimes it's painful to watch. We have a writer on our show who was on BSG the first two years, and she serves at a checkpoint to make sure we don't cover the same ground. I don't know who the 12th Cylon is and I've threatened to fire people who tell me anything about that show. I like the idea that there are hidden Terminators ... but you have to be careful or else it becomes Where's Waldo?, and a cheap effect. There could be a Terminator that we discover along the way. I can't even remember how many there are on the show right now."

All we have to say is that Summer Glau's Terminator character better miraculously survive that car crash from the first season finale. Or we will be mightily displeased. Here's the season two trailer:



Posted on September 8, 2008
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Fringe Will Start Off Jumping the Shark

Wired has an article about Fringe, the new show from J.J. Abrams. Abrams says Fringe won't be like Lost and that it will jump the shark right from the start.

On Fringe's slam-bang setup: "When we did the pilot for Lost, we had the monster appear at the end of the first act because we wanted to say to the audience, 'We're jumping the shark now. We're not going to wait. We're doing crazy shit from the beginning.' On Fringe, we very consciously made what is in many ways a preposterous, front-end scientific story choice in order to say to the audience, 'This is what you're going to be getting on the show.' It may be more extreme in some episodes, less so in others."

On the Fringe mythology: "I'm drawn to overarching, long-term stories so there will still be a mythology through the evolution of characters and revelations about what 'the pattern' means. But we're writing the show so it is not as serialized as Lost.

"What made X-Files so great is that they'd do a number of shows that have nothing to do with the mythology. Fringe is closer to E.R. almost, where you have these ongoing relationships and story lines, and yet week to week, when the door bursts open, you're faced with the insane urgent situation of the week."

Science fact, not fiction: "Though you could say it's science fiction, the weird thing about Fringe is that a lot of the stuff is at least in the realm of possibility. It's not sci-fi -- it's just sci.

The show debuts on Fox next Tuesday, September 9th. We will be watching. You can see the Fringe website here. A few other articles about Fringe can be found here, here, here, here and here.

Here's a video with J.J. Abrams discussing Fringe



Posted on September 4, 2008
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Katee Sackhoff Talks About Battlestar Galactica Final Episodes

The last ten episodes of Battlestar Galactica will air in 2009. Katee Sackhoff talks about what fans can expect to see in the final chapter of the Battlestar saga. Katee Sackhoff says "it's a good solid ending." BuddyTV also has a post about what was revealed about the final episodes that will air in 2009 at Comic-Con. There are also details here about a Battlestar Galactica movie directed by Edward James Olmos that will air on Sci Fi after the tv series ends.



Posted on August 7, 2008
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Clip From Animated Buffy Series That Never Aired

Here is a short promo episode of what would have been an animated Buffy the Vampire Slayer Saturday morning cartoon series. Sarah Michelle Gellar reportedly passed on the animated series to focus on her film career. The voice playing Buffy in the animated series belongs to Giselle Loren. Several series regulars including Alyson Hannigan, Anthony Stewart Head, Michelle Trachtenberg, Charisma Carpenter and David Boreanaz did lend their voices to this animated series that never aired. This four-minute clip was all of the animated series that was ever made. (via Animation Magazine )



Posted on August 5, 2008
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Worst Star Trek Promotional Idea Ever

In honor of the Star Trek original series being remastered and put out on DVD, CBS did this lighhearted promo. All we can say is: Dumbest. Promo. Evah. Oh, and yes, CBS really created this. Either that or a ten year old boy snuck into the recording studio and made it. We're not quite sure.



Here's a straightforward promo clip for the newly remastered series on DVD which is available for a nice discount at Amazon.com.



Posted on August 1, 2008
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Eureka Premieres Tonight on Sci Fi

Another of our favorite shows premieres tonight on the Sci Fi: Eureka at 9:00 p.m Eastern/8:00 p.m. Central. Sci Fi has done a host of webisodes and other content in connection with the show, which centers around a secret town filled with brilliant scientists making state of the art discoveries. Sheriff Jack Carter (who was recruited from the FBI) must keep the town and its eccentric residents in order so they don't blow up the world and accidentally create an alternate timeline. Oh, wait. That happened in season one.

Here's an infomercial for the Made in Eureka company's new product, Snatch-It. No, it's not a real product. But it should be.



Posted on July 29, 2008
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Sneak Peek at Chuck Season Two

Kristin de los Santos of E! captured the screening at Comic-Con of scenes from the upcoming season two of Chuck. It looks amazing. No wonder we love this show.



Posted on July 28, 2008
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Vampire Dating Site and Blood Drink Promote HBO's True Blood

HBO has come up with a number of clever websites to promote their upcoming show True Blood which debuts September 7th. Here's a few of them.

• BloodCopy, a blog that chronicles the amazing days we live in as vampires attempt to integrate with humans.
• LoveBitten, a dating site that connects humans and vampires.
• Tru Blood, a synthetic blood nourishment beverage.

True Blood comes from the creators of HBO's popular Six Feet Under show. Here's a video from the BloodCopy.com blog about what the patrons of the Merlottes think about vampires.



Posted on July 27, 2008
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Dr. Who Fans Furious Over Fake Phone Number

Dr. Who fans are furious that the Dr.'s phone number flashed during the show numerous times didn't work at all.

Doctor Who finished its latest series on Saturday night watched by a huge audience of nearly 10million. But it was another set of figures that got some fans really worked up - the Time Lord's phone number. The digits had been flashed up on screen several times in the previous week's episode as the Doctor's sidekicks Sarah Jane Smith, Martha Jones and the Torchwood team contacted him.

More than 2,500 fans - whipped into a frenzy of anticipation after a cliffhanger ending in which it appeared that star David Tennant might be leaving as the Doctor began regenerating - dialled it before the last episode aired on Saturday. One fan complained: 'They showed that number so many times, as if they were asking for it to be called.' But their attempts to contact their hero on his personal number - 07700 900461 - came to nothing when they discovered that it would not connect.

Writing on the BBC's website, one disgruntled viewer said: 'Grrr - I phoned the Doctor's phone number but there was just an annoying network message. 'What's the point in showing a phone number if you're not gonna use it?!' Ofcom, the TV industry watchdog, said the number was simply one reserved for use in television dramas.

In the U.S., tv writers usually use the "555" prefix so everyone knows it's not a real number. How odd that the British register phone numbers solely for use in television shows.

Posted on July 11, 2008
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ABC Wants Your Future Predictions

ABC wants your visions of the future for a new show called Earth 2100. They want user-created videos for the show.

In an unprecedented television and internet event, ABC News is asking you to help answer perhaps the most important question of our time - What will our world be like over the next one hundred years if we don’t act now to save our troubled planet?

The world's brightest minds agree that the "perfect storm" of population growth, resource depletion and climate change could converge with catastrophic results.

We need you to bring this story to life - to use your imagination to create short videos about what it would be like to live through the next century if we stay on our current path. Using predictions from top experts, we will feed you detailed briefings from the years 2015, 2050, 2070 and 2100 - and you will report back about the dangers that are unfolding before your eyes.

Your videos will be combined with the projections of top scientists, historians, and economists to form a powerful web-based narrative about the perils of our future. We will also select the most compelling reports to form the backbone of our two-hour primetime ABC News broadcast: Earth 2100, airing this fall.

We are glad there are also going to be opinions from top scientists, historians and economists involved - you wouldn't want it all to be from the public. We are curious how outrageous ABC will let the public be in these videos? Will it be all gloom and doom or will there be some optimism as well? (via Gawker)

Posted on July 9, 2008
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When Hellboy Met Chuck

In one of a series of clever cross-promotions, Universal has created a hilarious video in which Chuck and Hellboy play videogames and grouse that the government doesn't let them out enough. Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens in wide release on July 11. Take a look at the promo:



Posted on July 4, 2008
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