TVSquad

Dear Rich,

You don't mind if I call you Rich, do you? I feel like I know you well. And it's not just because I watched you walking around naked on an island somewhere either. No, it's because you were on Survivor twice and in both those instances, you really impressed me with your game-playing. You deserved to win that first Survivor. You earned it, Richard Hatch. You outwit, outplayed and outlasted all the rest, including Sue who probably wanted to kill you.

So, now that you're out of jail -- hopefully for good -- I'm rooting for you to get your stuff together and move on with life. That means shut your mouth. Stop yapping about how the authorities are conspiring against you. Stop saying it's because you're gay.

The first thing you must do is pay the back taxes on the prize money you legitimately won. Surely, you know that's how they got Al Capone. Pay the IRS, man. Start a payment system, they'll accept that.

Ron Moore owes a lot to Richard Hatch for keeping the Battlestar Galactica franchise alive long enough for his marvelous reboot. So much so that he gave Mr. Hatch a significant role in his series (Of course his character did end up being killed in front of a firing squad. Make of that what you will).

With that in mind, I present to you the promotional trailer for the 1999 reboot of the franchise that never happened. Subtitled "The Second Coming", it was intended as a continuation of the 1970's series (I'm not sure whether it ignored the mistake that was Galactica 1980). The concept starred Hatch as the new fleet commander (with a cameo by the original Commander Adama, Lorne Greene) as well as a few other familiar faces from the original series. Sadly, it never got picked up. That's a shame because it was around the time of Babylon 5 and the explosion of CGI use on television. It looked more mature and less kitschy than its previous incarnation and might have made for fine television.


[via Topless Robot]

Just yesterday I posted the video of Richard Hatch's appearance on Today. Now just a day later the Survivor champ is in jail again.

Hatch's sister is saying that the reason why Hatch is in jail is because of the interview with Matt Lauer. There are no details yet on why he would be sent to jail because he talked to someone on a morning talk show (he did the interview from his home so he wasn't violating his home-confinement sentence) but his sister says that when the police came to take him, that's the reason the officer gave.

Richard Hatch, the winner of the very first Survivor, was sent to jail in 2006 for not paying taxes on his winning from the show (and a radio talk show gig) and also got time for perjury. But he says that's not the real reason he was sent to jail.

Hatch said in an interview today on Today that the court system in the United States is set up to be against gays, and he believes that if he was heterosexual he wouldn't have gone to jail. Hatch is currently out of prison and confined to his home. He's getting out on October 7 but wants to be released now.

Apparently first season winner Richard Hatch, who's serving the last three months of his tax evasion incarceration under house arrest, petitioned the court to try and get out early so he could participate in the forthcoming ten-year anniversary cycle of Survivor.

While CBS and Richard Hatch attempted to keep their efforts to get Hatch on the show private, apparently the U.S. Attorney's office wasn't so careful as Providence's NBC affiliate got their hands on the request and went public with it.

A week never starts off well without The Amazing Race on Sundays. I hate when shows get delayed or moved to Wednesdays because of basketball.The shows were all a little off this week: there was only one vote on The Biggest Loser, there was no vote on Survivor, and The Real World/Road Rules challenge ended with a cliffhanger.

Speaking of Survivor, it has to suck to be Joe, who had to be evacuated to save his leg. Alas, his life is probably more important than a million dollars. More odd decisions after the jump.

A panel I almost skipped turned out to be better than I think a lot of people thought was the 20th anniversary Battlestar Galactica panel. I think most people are holding out for the official BSG panel later in the 'Con, but I was glad I was able to sit in for at least most of this panel before I had to run to the next one.

In attendance: Richard Hatch, Tom DeSanto, Bear McCreary and Dr. Kevin Grazier.

For those of you attending Comic-Con in San Diego, my hat is off to you. After looking at the schedule for the opening day, Thursday, July 24th, it is a wonder that your eyes don't grow glassy and that vein on the side of your temple doesn't throb with all of the events listed for that day. For those of you not attending, you may be breathing a sigh of relief that you won't have to decide what to attend and what to miss.

Granted, we here at TV Squad are only going to Comic-Con to cover the television-related events. Still, there are quite a few of them going on Thursday, starting when the convention opens and ending as the next day creeps into the night. Panels cover the gamut: public television shows, show revivals, anniversary panels about shows that have been revived, and Robert Smigel. So, if you are going, bring some comfortable shoes, plenty of snacks, and a ton of questions.

If you are not going, but are still interested in seeing what's going on in San Diego, here is a list of TV-related events for the first day of the convention. If you are interested in the complete list of events you can go to Spout blog for Thursday's full Comic-Con schedule.

So, I was going to do a list about the most villainous women of reality TV but then I thought...wouldn't a list of bad-ass women be way more interesting? Being bad is overrated (almost as overrated as being good). But being bad-ass, now that's a tricky balancing act, one that is way more intriguing.

This list therefore is dedicated to the women of reality TV that make being bad look oh so good. And no, Omarosa Stallworth-whatever is NOT on the list. I'll explain why after the jump.

It's no secret that I'm a fan of the reality television genre. I think why I'm enamored with reality television on the whole is because I'm a people-watcher type of person. Sort of like Sylar on Heroes, I like to see what makes people tick. And what better television medium is there to watch them tick, scheme, plan, and more than the reality genre?

For me, the villains come in two categories -- the few whose appearances on the shows I've just outright loved because they were thoroughly entertaining even though devious and sneaky, then the ones who irked me to no end and I wanted them to go away.

I don't watch every show out there, but here are my sinister seven of reality television. After all, Spider-Man had his Sinister Six ... I want seven!

Finally, one of my wishes might come true: Survivor is seriously considering moving the show to a colder climate.

Canada, to be precise. Host Jeff Probst reveals that show creator Mark Burnett is thinking about doing the next season in Canada, because they're running out of jungle/island places to go to. They probably aren't really running out of places to go, but after a while all of these places start to look and feel the same.

Probst is worried that a colder place would a.) be worse for the bodies of the contestants and b.) you wouldn't have chicks in bikinis. Well, for the first concern, I think that's the reason to do it. Give these contestants a challenge the other contestants of other seasons never had. And for the second concern, I have the solution.

Hot tub!

Seriously, the show needs a kick in the pants, and a colder world would really reinvent the show a bit.

[via TV Tattle]

Battlestar Galactica listings, photos and more

Richard Hatch has been corresponding from prison with a Boston gay publication called Edge-- proclaiming his innocence and calling prison "torture" for an innocent man. He's serving four years in prison, remember, for failing to pay income tax on his Survivor winnings and related income.

In his letters, Hatch says that the first six months of incarceration were awful. There were reports he was being held in segregation for his own safety, but what the reports didn't say--and what Hatch claims--is that 51 other rapists, murderers, and pedophiles were segregated along with him from the general prison population. Now Hatch is in a lovely prison compound that kind-of sounds like Martha Stewart's camp cupcake. He's in West Virginia, in a wilderness setting where there is all sorts of wildlife. And he's teaching fellow inmates study skills and helping them search for jobs. Most of all, he's miserable without his spouse, Emiliano Cabral (they were married in Canada before the trial). "Emi", as Hatch calls him, has moved back to his native Argentina because his American visa only allows for six-month stays.

Hatch says he does plan to appeal his conviction and he also says the prosecuting attorneys lied about him on several occasions during the trial. The court is expected to decide whether to hear the case in 2007.

The will they or won't they saga of making a Knight Rider movie continues. Ain't it Cool has a collection of rumors about the latest goings on with the project. Here's the short version. The pics recently floating around that were touted to be the new K.I.T.T., shown here, aren't real. However, one tipster suggests that the concept Camaro from recent auto shows is a possibility.

The involvement of Orlando Bloom as Michael's son also seems to be false. It is explained as the result of a conversation between Bloom and Hasselhoff at an awards show. According to the tipster Hasselhoff has no official involvement in the movie and there is currently no part in it for him.

Maybe 'Naked Guy' doesn't fly in prison. Season one Survivor winner, Richard Hatch, has been moved to a federal prison in Oklahoma. He's serving a 51-month sentence for not paying taxes on his $1 million prize and other income. The judge was especially harsh because he believed Hatch repeatedly lied on the stand.

Hatch was doing time at the Plymouth County Correctional Institution in Massachusetts and he was inexplicably moved to the federal transfer center in Oklahoma and it's not clear whether he'll serve the remainder of his sentence there or be moved elsewhere. When he was sentenced, he requested to serve his time either in Rhode Island or Florida, to be near his family.