If I tell you right now, before November sweeps, that CBS will renew NCIS: Los Angeles for a second season, you won't be surprised. The pre-season projections for this show were that it was a guaranteed success. It wasn't only that it was a spinoff from CBS's top-rated drama series, NCIS. No, it was programming. CBS slotted NCIS: LA in the hour right after NCIS. It had a very strong spot, a monster lead in.
My favorite James Bond is still Sean Connery. Second is Daniel Craig, Pierce Brosnan is third, and Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby tie for fourth. Roger Moore? He just didn't do it for me (though a lot of that was because he was a victim of the 70s - bad clothes, way too much humor, and Bond in space because of Star Wars). Now Moore is doing ads for the British post office.
The odd thing? This is pretty much how lively Moore was in A View To A Kill.
When you want to up the ante on a drama, create a great villain. To this day, the best James Bond movies have always been the ones with great villains. Fox's sci-fi drama Fringe is buying into that theory, because they've gone out and hired an actor who excels at playing evil. Fringe has cast Sebastian Roche in a recurring role as a new nemesis.If you saw Roche on General Hospital, you know he's brilliant.
His Fringe character doesn't have a name yet -- and least not one that they've released -- but the storyline is that he's from another dimension, not entirely human or android, and he's on a mission. He's a soldier who's supposed to collect data to open a "stable door to the other side."
Could it be an alternate universe? A parallel dimension? Some kind of time warp? The possibilities are wide open when it comes to Fringe.
Unlike his three older brothers who all died suddenly – and tragically – the late Massachusetts senator Edward M. Kennedy knew that his final days were upon him. In the time he had left, Teddy, as he was known by friends and family, took the time to enjoy his life. That included still getting out on his boat to sail despite being wheelchair bound, as well as viewing all the James Bond movies, as well as 24 action hero Jack Bauer.
What's really fascinating about the latter two facts is that Kennedy was clearly entertained by both Bond and Bauer, men of action who didn't – and don't follow the rules. Bond, for instance, is in the service of her majesty's secret service, but he's a spy with a license to kill.
I'm not a big Fourth of July person. You'll pretty much see me in front of the television as much as you'll see me in front of the television on July 3. I'm not a big cookout/parades/fireworks/beach type of guy.
Are you that way too? There are some marathons on TV tomorrow that you might like. A sampling:
Sci-Fi will continue their Twilight Zone marathon.
TCM has Fourth of July/historical movies all day long.
USA will have James Bond movies all day long starting at 9AM.
Discovery has a Deadliest Catch marathon at 9AM.
TV Land will have a Leave It To Beaver marathon starting at 11AM.
At noon, HGTV has a marathon of HGTV's $250,000 Challenge.
This piece of news is from The Sun newspaper in England, so as always when I relay information from that particular source, take it with a grain of salt. With that in mind, The Sun is reporting that ex-Bond Timothy Dalton is in talks to appear as a villain in one or more of David Tennant's remaining Doctor Who specials.
While obviously Dalton would not play the main villain of the piece (that role has already been cast by a returning arch-nemesis), he's exactly the sort that Russell T. Davies would have play an evil businessman. I suspect that is the plan.
I'd be more impressed with they had gotten Roger Moore or Sean Connery to play a role in Who, but I think that would be pushing it.
For you Dalton fans (and I just loved him in the 80's Flash Gordon movie), it's just one more reason to tune in to the specials when they are broadcast later this year. Damn you, Sci Fi and/or BBCA for not broadcasting these specials in the U.S.!
(S02E16) If you liked the beefcake on display last week, tonight there was a lot more of Barker, Cole Barker, and his hot bod. And it turned out that Barker was more than meets the eye.
Fortunately, there was also a lot more happening in Chuck's world as well, developments with Sarah, the Intersect, and his future roommate -- Sarah or Morgan. More on all that, after the jump.
(S02E15) Chuck was in a weird place last night. The character, that is, not the show. The show picked up on a storyline from a few weeks back and set up a future episode with a new character that seemed to me a nice contrast to the Casey-Sarah-Chuck triple play.
Remember "Chuck Versus the Suburbs," when Andy Richter's corpse was dragged away in a body bag? Well, he wasn't resurrected on Fringe, like one commenter suggested. No, he's dead and his body included a belt that contained some top-secret data, most importantly, the identity of the Intersect, i.e. Chuck.
The timing of the discovery couldn't be worse, though, because Chuck had just decided to "dump" Sarah as a fake girlfriend, feeling that they had no fake/real future. Of course, be careful what you wish for, Charles. More after the jump.
The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their latest musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:
The excitement for Watchmen continues to grow. Check out the latest trailer.
Writing for this site, I've had to deal with my share of rabid spoilerphobes. This video right here? It's enough to make their heads explode: 100 movie spoilers in 4 minutes.
The cute, indie Nick and Norah with their playlists and their hoodies wasn't the first Nick and Nora(h) to grace the big screen. Cinematical takes a look back at the Nick and Nora who started it all, from The Thin Man.
I'm very curious about the upcoming Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes. Jude Law, Robert Downey Jr.? Count me in. Find out more from Cinematical's set visit.
The new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, opens in theaters tomorrow. And tonight, Jimmy Kimmel will welcome stars Daniel Craig and Olga Kurylenko to his talk show. Kimmel is going to open the show with a spoof of 007, with himself as the secret agent. After the jump is a sneak peek at the scene.
Kimmel does all of the usual Bondian things in the clip, including bedding a beautiful woman, dodging assassins, skiing, and also flying away to escape the bad guys. It's not on a jet pack though, it's via a bottle of soda. In fact, the entire skit seems to be sponsored by Coca-Cola. No shaken or stirred martinis for this spy.
Uncle Frank, Veatrice, and Guillermo also make appearances in the short film, of course. This isn't the first time that Jimmy Kimmel Live has spoofed a big-screen spy. They did a video take-off on the Bourne films too, which even featured a cameo by Matt Damon himself (long before Sarah Silverman was f***ing him).
(S01E01) Watching My Own Worst Enemy is like deja vu. You feel like you've seen something like this before. Was it The Bourne Identity, Casino Royale, Minority Report, Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Or maybe it was something on TV, like that failed Ray Liotta series Smith or Jennifer Garner's Alias or The Bionic Woman or The Six Million Dollar Man or something else...
See, that's the problem with My Own Worst Enemy. It's familiar but not in a cool way. Rather it's derivative and not very compelling. NBC is already doing a double life, super secret spy thing much better in the ratings-challenged Chuck.
The obvious appeal of My Own Worst Enemy is two-fold: lots of action including cool gadgets, cars (thank you, GM), guns, blood and the mystery, combined with the charm and complexity of Christian Slater. Slater's a fun actor, a sort of Jack Nicholson only younger. I remember when he first started on Ryan's Hope! He's got something.
The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their latest musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:
Part James Bond, part Jason Bourne, all Jeffrey Donovan. That's the recipe for the coolest spy on TV today, Michael Westen on Burn Notice. Meeting Jeffrey Donovan recently, I was impressed with not only his charm, good looks and dedication to his craft, but also his determination to shoulder the responsibility and reward of his very own primetime series.
Nobody's handed anything to Jeffrey Donovan. He's been at it for a while, doing notable turns in CSI: Miami and Monk, playing recurring characters in The Pretender and Touching Evil, and practically stealing Hitch from Kevin James and Will Smith by playing a nasty S.O.B.
Like his alter ego, Jeffrey Donovan is a very cool customer. He never lets you see him sweat, even when he's got ever right to in the glare of the spotlight, the heat of the Miami sun, and the hardball questions of the media roundtable he was facing. Okay, we weren't all throwing hardballs, but as this Q&A shows, Jeffrey D. can handle himself in any and all situations.
When I first saw the commercials for ABC's Eli Stone, I didn't recognize Jonny Lee Miller. Then, after watching the first episode and liking him, I decided to find out who he was. Imagine my surprise when I learned that I had seen him, multiple times, in a variety of roles. And he was British! I was duly impressed and intrigued. Jonny Lee Miller was a helluva an actor, a chameleon who could be as convincing as a junkie named Sick Boy in Trainspotting as he was a San Francisco lawyer named Eli.
When you want to up the ante on a drama, create a great villain. To this day, the best James Bond movies have always been the ones with great villains. Fox's sci-fi drama Fringe is buying into that theory, because they've gone out and hired an actor who excels at playing evil. Fringe has cast Sebastian Roche in a recurring role as a new nemesis.If you saw Roche on General Hospital, you know he's brilliant.
Unlike his three older brothers who all died suddenly – and tragically – the late Massachusetts senator Edward M. Kennedy knew that his final days were upon him. In the time he had left, Teddy, as he was known by friends and family, took the time to enjoy his life. That included still getting out on his boat to sail despite being wheelchair bound, as well as viewing all the James Bond movies, as well as 24 action hero Jack Bauer.
Discovery's Deadliest Catch marathon continues all night.
I'm not a big Fourth of July person. You'll pretty much see me in front of the television as much as you'll see me in front of the television on July 3. I'm not a big cookout/parades/fireworks/beach type of guy.
This piece of news is from The Sun newspaper in England, so as always when I relay information from that particular source, take it with a grain of salt. With that in mind, The Sun is reporting that ex-Bond Timothy Dalton is in talks to appear as a villain in one or more of David Tennant's remaining Doctor Who specials.
(S02E16) If you liked the beefcake on display last week, tonight there was a lot more of Barker, Cole Barker, and his hot bod. And it turned out that Barker was more than meets the eye. 
(S02E15) Chuck was in a weird place last night. The character, that is, not the show. The show picked up on a storyline from a few weeks back and set up a future episode with a new character that seemed to me a nice contrast to the Casey-Sarah-Chuck triple play. 
The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their latest musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:
(S01E01) Watching My Own Worst Enemy is like deja vu. You feel like you've seen something like this before. Was it The Bourne Identity, Casino Royale, Minority Report, Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Or maybe it was something on TV, like that failed Ray Liotta series Smith or Jennifer Garner's Alias or The Bionic Woman or The Six Million Dollar Man or something else... 
The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their latest musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:
Part James Bond, part Jason Bourne, all Jeffrey Donovan. That's the recipe for the coolest spy on TV today, Michael Westen on Burn Notice. Meeting Jeffrey Donovan recently, I was impressed with not only his charm, good looks and dedication to his craft, but also his determination to shoulder the responsibility and reward of his very own primetime series. 
When I first saw the commercials for ABC's Eli Stone, I didn't recognize Jonny Lee Miller. Then, after watching the first episode and liking him, I decided to find out who he was. Imagine my surprise when I learned that I had seen him, multiple times, in a variety of roles. And he was British! I was duly impressed and intrigued. Jonny Lee Miller was a helluva an actor, a chameleon who could be as convincing as a junkie named Sick Boy in Trainspotting as he was a San Francisco lawyer named Eli.
The TV Squad Podcast: Linda Purl talks about The Office, we talk spoilers, and more
Ask TV Squad: Ghost Whisperer and more!
The TV Squad Podcast: Bill Scheft of The Late Show, Cake Boss, Mad Men and more
