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Television Notes

  • News
  • November 18, 2008

USA Network will air the eighth and final season of Monk during the summer of 2009. The beloved series’ concluding season will include 16 episodes. With luck, he will continue to live on in Lee Goldberg’s delightful novels.

CBS’s Gary Unmarried was blessed with a full-season order while the network ordered three additional episodes of Worst Week.

NBC has given Medium an order for a total of 19 episodes, six more than previously ordered and less than a full season. With the recent cancellations, the peacock network may be short of inventory.  A timeslot for the series’ return has not yet been selected although Monday’s at 10 p.m. following Heroes is most likely.
 

Miller & Gough to Rebuild ‘Robotech’

  • News
  • November 17, 2008

Smallville’s fathers, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, have been signed to adapt Robotech into a live-action feature for Warner Bros. No director, cast or production dates have been released.

The 1980s anime series ran in America courtesy of Harmony Gold USA and was one of the first noteworthy anime series from that era. It was actually the combination of three separate series created by Tatsunoko Prods. In order to satisfy the needs of American television syndication.

As a result, it became a “sprawling sci-fi epic, Robotech takes place at a time when Earth has developed giant robots from the technology on an alien spacecraft that crashed on a South Pacific isle. Mankind is forced to use the technology to fend off an alien invasion, with the fate of the human race ending up in the hands of two young pilots.”

The Hollywood Reporter notes that Akiva Goldsman and Chuck Roven will produce with Tobey Maguire and Drew Crevello. Lawrence Kasdan (Raiders of the Lost Ark) wrote a previous draft before the studio turned it over to the duo that has worked on Smallville and also did early drafts for Iron Man, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Spider-Man 2.
 

Could a Vampire be the Next Doctor?

  • News
  • November 17, 2008

robert-pattinson-2-5555547Add one more name to the Doctor Who sweepstakes: Robert Pattinson. The star of this week’s Twilight feature film told the Chicago Tribune’s Rob Elder, “That would be quite cool. I didn’t know [David Tennant] he was leaving. The Doctor is great…yeah, maybe. I did grow up watching it. I loved it when I was a kid. In fact, I met one of them the other day, Sylvester McCoy [the seventh Doctor]. He’s one of the few people I’ve asked for an autograph.”

Pattinson has been under the harsh glare of the publicity spotlight and he’s clearly been uncomfortable with it, preferring to just be himself. He’s proven to be a deep-thinker, obsessing about his character and his motivations almost to the point of paralysis on the set.

He thought Edward’s choice to remain in high school, for example, “was one of the most difficult things to figure out. You think he’d stay in college, or be a street kid. It’d be way cooler. But I think the whole concept of it is: He’s like an addict. I think he wants to make his life really, really, really boring. He always does all his homework. He just doesn’t want to get into a situation where he’ll kill someone.”

In addition to acting, he’s also a musician with a song on the best-selling soundtrack album.

Garry Trudeau Addresses the Troops

  • News
  • November 17, 2008

Garry Trudeau wrote a piece that ran in Stars & Stripes, commenting on the current military and their reaction to his comic strip, Doonesbury.

Noting that S&S began running the strip during the Vietnam war impressed him, he said, “the strip was unambiguously anti-war in outlook, it was a counterintuitive move on the part of the editors, and there were several campaigns to dump it. Fortunately, there was always a noisy cadre of readers who stood ready to support it, and the strip somehow survived.”

What prompted him to write was the tenor of the letters he’d been receiving from soldiers and related personnel who took issue with his depictions of soldiers here and aboard.

“Since I was first invited to visit with troops in Kuwait in 1991 (following an in-theater exhibit of my work that toured regional bases), I have talked with hundreds of military personnel. During my visit, I received Certificates of Achievement from both the 4th Battalion 67th Armor (‘For significant contributions to the morale of the United States Forces’) and the Ready First Brigade (For providing aid and comfort to the United States Forces’). More recently, I have toured military hospitals from Landstuhl to Walter Reed to Brooke, and VA hospitals and Vet Centers from Kansas City to Palo Alto, interviewing scores of wounded warriors about their experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI) and military sexual trauma (MST).

“I also maintain and edit a milblog called The Sandbox at doonesbury.com to which scores of active-duty military personnel contribute on a regular basis. A collection of their work was recently published, again to benefit Fisher House. In recognition of the strip, I’ve been honored to receive the Commander’s Award for Public Service by the Department of the Army, the Commander’s Award from Disabled American Veterans, the President’s Award for Excellence in the Arts from Vietnam Veterans of America, the Distinguished Public Service Award from the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and a special citation from the Vet Centers


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reaper-box-6238692

Review: ‘Reaper Season One’ DVD

reaper-box-62386922007 was a pretty big year for television, bringing us great shows such as [[[Pushing Daisies]]], [[[Californication]]], and [[[Chuck]]], and some duds like [[[Cavemen]]], [[[Bionic Woman]]], and [[[Aliens in America]]]. One gem that seemed to slip through the cracks you can now catch on DVD, in the ABC Studios and The CW’s [[[Reaper]]].

The show followed ne’er-do-well Sam Oliver (Bret Harrison) on his 18th birthday when he is told by his parents that they sold his soul when he was born and now must suffer the wrath of The Devil (Ray Wise). Turns out that the Devil actually likes Sam and proposes that, rather than go to hell for eternity, he takes the role as the Reaper, a bounty hunter capturing escaped souls and returning them to hell. Sam reluctantly agrees, tries to fight it, but eventually comes to the realization that this may just be the first thing he’s actually good at. Alongside Sam are his faithful companions Sock (Tyler Labine) and Ben (Rick Gonzalez), his girlfriend Andi (Missy Peregrym) and along the way they come across a cavalcade of TV favorites, including names like Patton Oswalt, Michael Ian Black, and Angel‘s Mercedes McNab. The show may be about demons and the different levels of hell, but at it’s core; the show is about the birth of a hero, and what it takes to balance the live of fighting evil, with a part time job at a home improvement store.

The show was bounced around more than once on the schedule, finally finding a home right after [[[Smallville]]] on Thursdays. Once the writers’ strike hit, the show suffered like many others, and went into a several week hiatus, but returned strong and finished off season one with a bang. Finally, you can catch all of the laughs and thrills of the season at your leisure as Lionsgate Home Video released Reaper Season One on DVD.

Along with all 18 episodes on 5 discs, you get a great collections of extras including audio commentary on the pilot episode from series creators Tara Butter, Michele Fazekas, and Debra Spera. Also included is a gag reel that shows just how much laughs go into making us laugh (running at 4:30) and a collection of deleted and extended scenes from the past season, which runs at 7:22. The packaging of the box comes together pretty nicely, with a lenticular cover and a plastic slipcover, it would be a nice addition to your DVD collection.

Overall, Reaper is easily one of the better things produced on TV over the past 2 years, and with another 13 episodes picked up for 2009, you are going to want to be caught up on this Network TV Gem, and you won’t be disappointed. 

Overall Rating: 8/10

Superman to go AWOL from ‘Action’

  • Uncategorized
  • November 17, 2008

dan-didio-2-2578111DC Executive Editor Dan DiDio told Geoff Boucher of the Los Angeles Times that he’s really excited by the titles coming out these next few weeks that wrap up long-running events including Final Crisis and Batman R.I.P.

“We did Countdown to Final Crisis and Final Crisis itself so this has been a long story for us. I feel we’ve accomplished a lot of goals and we created a lot of excitement. But more importantly it’s a point of change for us in DC Universe again. And once you know the ending is coming, it’s in sight, that’s when you start getting worked up about what’s coming up next. That’s what I really get jazzed about. We have two really big events that spin out of Final Crisis each in its own way and affecting our key franchises, Superman and Batman. The first thing we’re going to see is called Battle for the Cowl, that’s going to be a book that features nearly every member of the Batman family   

“We have a writer-artist team on this right now that’s scouring every book possible to see what they can include in these two-page spreads they want to build of all the characters that inhabit the Batman universe. So it’s a lot of fun for us. I always like those things because it’s a big noisy adventure book. And whenever you do one of those, the level of excitement is always right there on the page. You hopefully have people respond properly to that.”

DiDio revealed that one status quo-changing element will be Superman vacating Action Comics in the near future.  The only time he was absent from the book was during the months he was dead and others vied for the right to inherit the name.

“So this is a lot of fun for us,” he said with a laugh.  “I think that’s going to get people excited and scratching their heads and wondering what’s going on. In his own book, Superman, there will be a dramatic turn as the hero leaves Earth and it seems like he’s leaving for good. We’ll follow his adventures in space more so than his adventures on Earth, and that’s a big and exciting thing. We’re also bringing back one of the old-time favorite titles of DC Comics, Adventure Comics. It will be back with a new No. 1 and with new stars but old stars at the same time. It’ll be pretty easy to guess who will be the stars of Adventure Comics if you know who the title was most identified with…”

The title was the home to the Legion of Super-Heroes from issues 300 through 380 and with their title cancelled, they are the most likely feature. DiDio stressed the Legion will remain vital to the DC Universe once their current miniseries Legion of Three Worlds conlcudes in early 2009.
 

‘Xxxenophile’ Joins Slipshine’s Adult Offerings

  • News
  • November 17, 2008

Adult-only website Slipshine.net and Studio Zoe announced that Studio Foglio’s Xxxenophile will now be available at their website starting with the first volume and offering new stories each month.

Xxxenophile is a six volume masterpiece written and illustrated by award-winning creator Phil Foglio, originally released between 1988 and 2000, and has been acclaimed for it’s skillful storytelling as well as beautiful artwork. Xxxenophile has also been nominated for an Eisner award.

The seven year old aduilt website offers a variety of comics material with Xxxenophile the latest addition. Foglio’s own Studio Foglio has also announced they will soon be selling digital editions of the six volumes.
 

‘Ender in Exile’ Released

  • News
  • November 17, 2008

Tor Books has announced the release of Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card. After twenty-three years, this is the first true, direct sequel to the award-winning  Ender’s Game.

Published in 1985 with millions of copies sold worldwide, the New York Times bestselling Ender’s Game received acclaim and honors, appearing on Modern Library’s Best 100 Novels Reader’s List and winning both the Hugo and the Nebula Award. The New York Times Book Review has called it “an affecting novel full of surprises” and USA Today described the Ender novels “an intriguing combination of action, military and political strategy, elaborate war games and psychology.”

Marvel Comics has just begun a graphic adaptation of Ender’s Game with two issues in print to date.

Beloved by both adult and teen readers with some comparisons to Harry Potter, Ender’s Game has been cited by many as “the book that made me love to read” and used by schools and universities in courses ranging from political leadership to psychology. Cities and libraries have adopted it for reading programs, and earlier this year, Card accepted the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement in Young Adult literature.

Ender in Exile takes place with the main character Ender as a teenager. The original sequel to Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, took place many years later with Ender as an adult.

Ender’s Game had the world’s most talented children taken from their families and sent to an elite training school to fight a dangerous war on behalf of humanity. Ender in Exile begins after the life-changing events of Battle School, where these children”– now teenagers –must leave and readapt to life in the outside world. No longer allowed to live on Earth, Ender chooses to enter into exile and begin a relativistic — and revelatory –journey beyond the stars.

Marvel Releases Mutant Variant Covers

  • News
  • November 17, 2008

Marvel sent along the variant cxovers to two of the mutan ttitles tying in with the Bring On The Bad Guys company-wide event. The covers are to Uncanny X-Men #505 by series artist Greg Land, and Young X-Men #9, by Adi Granov.

Issue details are:
 
UNCANNY X-MEN #505
Written by ED BRUBAKER & MATT FRACTION
Pencils & Cover by TERRY DODSON
Villain Variant by GREG LAND
Rated T+ …$2.99
On-Sale—12/17/08

YOUNG X-MEN #9
Written by MARC GUGGENHEIM
Penciled by RAFA SANDOVAL
Cover by CHRIS BACHALO
Villain Variant by ADI GRANOV
Rated T+ …$2.99
On-Sale—12/17/08
 

Comic Strip Characters Pitch in India

  • News
  • November 17, 2008

The Wall Street Journal notes that comic strip characters are increasingly being hired in India as spokesmen for products such as Dilbert shilling for cell phone manufacturer Nokia.

“Using such characters as ad faces or endorsers is infinitely cheaper than using real-life celebrities, experts say, and also helps connect with consumers on a note of humor in an increasingly grim economic milieu,” the WSJ’s Live Mint blog noted.

Snoopy, the perennial Peanuts Pitchdog, continues to push insurance products overseas as well as for MetLife here in America while Mowgli, from the Jungle Book, can be seen in holiday-themed ads for Coca-Cola.

R.K. Laxman’s Common Man can be found pushing consumer loans for Asset Reconstruction Co. and Air Deccan.

“The premise for using popular comic-strip characters, experts say, is essentially the same as that for a brand picking a celebrity endorser,” the site notes. “There is an instant recognition, a familiar character connects better with consumers, and the values of that celebrity could have a positive rub-off on the brand.”

“Most comic-strip characters or cartoon characters are very well established,” says K.V. Sridhar, national creative director of Leo Burnett India Pvt. Ltd. “When you see them on screen, you know what’s going to happen. So in that sense, they telegraphically communicate what they are and what they stand for.”

Comic strip characters play better to consumers in India given their superior readership while the WSJ says comic book heroes resonate better for consumers in the United Kingdom and Japan. They’re also cheaper to obtain than living spokesmen. “In some cases, the amount could be a hundredth of what it costs to hire a C-grade celebrity,” Leo Burnett India’s Sridhar said.

“India is a very fragmented media market,” Patil of Amar Chitra Katha told WSJ.

“The creative objective was to visually depict people’s working environments and unique habits to show that Nokia works in the same way as they do,” Devinder Kishore, director (marketing) for Nokia India said. “Dilbert’s character has helped consumers connect with the devices in an engaging and ‘fun’ manner…it is unique and cool, and also a great clutter-breaking tool.”

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