Cast from the Past: Battlestar Galactica

From time to time, a show comes along with a cast so stacked with talent that it actually hurts a little to think about. Deadwood was one (Ian McShane is the heavyweight scenery-chewing champion of the world), as was The West Wing. More recently, the rebooted Battlestar Galactica was excellent and entirely underappreciated. What made BSG all the more impressive was that it came from the SciFi network (back when the name made sense), the people responsible for SciFi Movies of the Week, which (in my experience, at least) are patently terrible.

Admittedly, I didn't start watching until the series was already over, in part because I knew how agonized my friend and roommate, hereafter known as J, was when she had to wait for new episodes. I wasn't going to put myself through that torture voluntarily. I still haven't seen Battlestar Galactica: The Plan because 1) I don't get SyFy (oy) anymore and 2) Blockbuster is kind of far away, man, get off my back. Once I did start getting the DVDs from my public library, I was immediately hooked. Not only was the series way better than anything on SciFi had a right to be, but the entire cast was, in a word, perfect. Of course Edward James Olmos is the world-weary, trustworthy commander -- what else could he be (apart from a Supreme Court justice on The West Wing, of course)? Jamie Bamber played his son, Lee Adama, with the perfect self-righteous, whiny, holier-than-thou tone and, eventually, a passable American accent. You'd never know that Katee Sackhoff is a girly-girl in real life after watching her the reckless, hard-drinking, cigar-smoking, completely unstable pilot, Starbuck. It's interesting to take a look at what the actors have been doing since hanging up their guns and (spoiler alert) sending their ships into the sun.

A few of the higher-profile actors from the series have landed on different TV series on a long-term basis. Tahmoh Penikett (Karl "Helo" Agathon) is an FBI agent on Fox's Dollhouse, which just got the axe. Much as I loved Helo, his mere presence wasn't enough to pull me in. The only episode I've watched was the one with Jamie Bamber (AKA Prissy Lee Adama), which I watched because Helo and Apollo were going to share the screen, however briefly. Grace Park (Sharon "Boomer" Valerii/Sharon "Athena" Agathon, Number Eight, etc.) was first on The Cleaner and now on the Canadian series The Border. The aforementioned Jamie Bamber is busy playing the Detective Mike Logan (Chris Noth circa 1990) equivalent on Law & Order: UK over in Britain (which is fantastic, from what I've seen). Aaron Douglas (Galen Tyrol) stars as a union leader in a Canadian series, The Bridge, debuting in 2010, while Katee Sackhoff (Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, of course) will be on 24.

As for guest appearances, the last few weeks have been unusually busy for ex-BSGers. The second episode of ABC's V featured President Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell)'s onetime assistant, Tory (Rekha Sharma), wandering through as an FBI agent (unfortunately, because of Tory's arc on BSG, I'm already suspicious of her FBI character being a secret underground alien -- but there's always hope that they won't typecast). Callum Keith Rennie (Leoben Conoy) was on FlashForward, playing a shady SOB (again, sigh, CKR) involved with the mysterious Blue Hand group. The always enjoyable Mark Sheppard (unscrupulous attorney Romo Lampkin as well as Firefly's Badger) was a Russian lit professor/pimp on the concluding episode of the much-hyped CSI "Trilogy" crossover, though his Russian accent -- by way of London -- left a little something to be desired. It's always nice to see them pop up on shows that have nothing to do with space or robots or aliens -- not because I don't enjoy sci-fi, but because it's always a little jarring to see them out of what I think of as their natural environment (but is really just the only setting in which I have seen them).

We haven't heard much from some of the major players: the Admiral himself, Edward James Olmos, hasn't been around much (his last major non-BSG credit is...Beverly Hills Chihuahua? That...that can't be right), while Michael Hogan (Col. Saul Tigh) has popped up on Dollhouse and Warehouse 13, apparently (and using both his eyes, I assume). Madam President Mary McDonnell is on The Closer, I guess? I don't watch it. Crazy Ellen Tigh, Kate Vernon, is due to turn up on Heroes, according to Greg Grunberg's Twitter, where she will undoubtedly pwn everyone in sight. So...could Michael, Mary, or Kate please coax Olmos out of whatever semi-retirement he's pretending to have so we can see Adama strolling across the small screen (or the big screen!) again? (Or better yet, kicking ass and taking names.)

Monday TV: Bits & Pieces

I've been remiss in my blogging duties, due in large part to having a lot of projects to juggle and not having learned to juggle, um, ever. I'll try harder from here on out...I think.

Highlights from Monday night's primetime lineups:

How I Met Your Mother followed up the Barney/Robin breakup with the rather lackluster "The Playbook," which saw Robin throwing herself into work and Barney throwing himself into women with renewed determination. Neil Patrick Harris and Alyson Hannigan were fantastic, as they always are when they're paired up in an episode, but I wasn't bowled over by the episode as a whole. It feels like the Barney/Robin relationship was cut short, and that they're not taking advantage of the mileage it still had in it. Hopefully they'll go back to it in the future.

The Big Bang Theory had a great storyline and a useless one. While Leonard, Koothrappali, and Wolowitz went camping to watch the Leonid meteor shower, Penny falls in the shower, dislocates her shoulder, and has to rely on Sheldon for help. Sheldon 1) feels Penny up, 2) drives a car, 3) takes a gander at the Chinese character tattooed on Penny's butt (it means "soup," apparently), and 4) sings "Soft Kitty" in a round with her. It was five kinds of hysterical, while the boys on their camping trip got high and were only mildly entertaining.

Castle had a solid episode full of ex-cons and call girls. There was a convicted felon-slash-wordsmith who wanted to go to locksmith school, ex-Law & Order: SVU ADA Kim Grayleck as a hooker, and a star prosecutor who turned out to be a pimp. There are some great twists in this episode, and enough comedy to balance out the few eye-rolling moments (courtesy of Scarlett, the call girl). Meanwhile, Castle is concerned because his daughter is keeping a secret from him--but she's willing to talk to Detective Beckett about it. I've said before that I don't generally like characters' teenage offspring (for the latest example, see Erica Evans' son on V), but Alexis Castle and Emily Lightman on Lie to Me are the exceptions: both are intelligent young women who are, more often than not, more sensible and mature than their fathers, and the grounding influences for men who could get big heads while being lauded as brilliant in their respective fields (crime novels and deception). If only all teenagers could be like these girls.

Dancing With the Stars did some sob stories about the semifinalists' lives pre-DWTS (Donny Osmond wasn't taken seriously as an ARTIST, Joanna Krupa's mother brought her to America for a better life, Mya's family didn't even know she could sing until she was 14 and then her parents got divorced, MTV and reality television got Kelly Osbourne addicted to drugs) and there was a lot of glitter and sequins and Bruno Tonioli being outrageous and Len Goodman being chagrined and Carrie-Anne Inaba being critical for no good reason. Then, Samantha Harris was irrelevant. So, really, it was like any other week.

Lie to Me saw Foster and Lightman colluding to do something behind their FBI liaison's back, which I always enjoy, and Loker trying to work his way back into a paying position at the Lightman Group. Torres was annoying, and there was a lot of teenage angst from Emily Lightman and Max, a sixteen-year-old fan of Cal's book who was convinced his parents had kidnapped him as an infant.

I hear House kicked Cameron to the curb, but I gave up on that show halfway through last season, so all I can say is that it's a shame, because I think they wasted Jennifer Morrison for most of seasons four and five.

Trauma was better than last week, which completely underwhelmed me, plus Rabbit not only delivered a baby (in the helicopter!) that came out feet first, but the kid's Hungarian parents named the kid after him. As in, they named the kid "Rabbit," not "Reuben." Marisa threw a hissy fit and then sulked. Tyler and Boone pulled a double and guzzled energy drinks, Nancy had lunch with her father (Christian Shephard of Lost) and brother (Sully of Harper's Island) and then commiserated about "the family business" with Dad. Probie Glenn and Intern Diana discovered they're both from Pennsylvania and they're so happy and giggly and nauseatingly adorable that I sincerely hope they end up together at the end of the tragically-short series.

Heroes finally answered the question that's been bothering many viewers: "Where's Mohinder?" Well, he's in a mental institution (thanks to Hiro), but it's better than where he was before, which was nowhere, because he was dead. Aptly named "Brother's Keeper," this week's episode featured a lot of brothers. The Sullivans (Joseph, deceased in the regular timeline, and Samuel, of whom we've seen a lot this season), in a flashback, frustrate Suresh and then kill him, except not, because Hiro went back in time and put a Kevlar vest on him? Yeah, it was that kind of episode. The Petrellis, meanwhile, find Nathan's dead body in a storage unit, find and save Matt Parkman/Sylar, and may or may not have reunited Sylar's brain with his body. Look, all I know is that Zachary Quinto and his hair have looked even more amazing than usual lately, so I'm all for him sticking around. There was some stuff with Claire and Tracy trying to control Tracy's freezing, but it was so boring that I can't justify wasting space on it.


I'll try out this around-the-dial approach for busy TV nights; comments, queries, suggestions, and criticism should be directed to the comment link below!

Criminal Minds: “What's a BFF?”

Full disclosure: I do, on occasion, refer to Criminal Minds' Supervisory Special Agent Doctor Spencer Reid (Ph.D., not M.D.) as “My Future Husband, Supervisory Special Agent Doctor Spencer Reid.” Last night's episode, “The Performer,” did absolutely nothing to temper my love for the good doctor, but rather made me giggle and clap like a kid at the circus. But more on that later.

“The Performer,” written by Holly Harold, centers around a series of murders in which the victims are exsanguinated via a pair of puncture wounds on the neck. Oh, that's right, folks, it's a VAMPIRE episode! You know, when I added a “cashing in on vampires” tag to this blog, I never expected to use it this frequently. That being said, I don't think CM is necessarily trying to cash in on vamps, since I can't imagine a way to make money off a single episode of a TV series that isn't available on iTunes or Amazon (yet). I don't think the show has dealt with vampirism before this, and it's an interesting psychological facet for the killer.

The titular performer is “Dante” a sort of HIM-like vampire rock star, played by – hey, that's Gavin Rossdale! Hi, Gavin Rossdale! Does Gwen know you're out in that makeup? He sings a cover of Joy Division's “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and then, because he's a real rock star, drinks straight from the bottle and smashes things backstage. Meanwhile, a concertgoer with really unfortunate hair gets murdered and dumped on a freeway exit ramp. Clip below:



Our intrepid team of BAU agents spends some time with a detective we last met, I believe, when Reid was getting up close and personal with a comely starlet being threatened by a stalker. Matthew Gray Gubler gets opening-quote honors this week, with a bit of Montague Summers (whose book on werewolves is sitting on my desk right now, actually). Supervisory Special Agent Doctor Spencer Reid is full of fun information about vampirism and cannibalism that makes me glad I don't have to visit crime scenes for a living. There's also the interesting tidbit that the sort of obsession with blood and vampires that characterizes this weeks "unsub" (suspect) is referred to as "Renfield syndrome," after the character in Bram Stoker's Dracula. During the course of the investigation, we get other vampire references, including one to that vampire megafranchise that's getting its second installment next week – the victim's computer password is “Cullen” – and, in my favorite moment of the episode, we find out that Reid doesn't know what Twilight is. Reid has never heard of Twilight and I love him a little more with each passing moment.

The Good: Gavin Rossdale does a decent job as the drug-addicted (I assume) rock star and murder suspect who hates his vampire persona. I thought he was much more watchable here than in Constantine. Of course, that may be because Constantine was kind of terrible (in a fun way!). He looks terrible in the vampire makeup, but I'm sure the same could be said of anyone in that getup. The writing was better than it is for most well-hyped celebrity cameos, and Rossdale does a surprisingly good job of delivering it convincingly. The team banters a little bit, talking about their favorite albums and musicians at the end of the episode, which goes a long way toward relieving the heavy violence and drama that is the trademark of a show about serial killers. Also, Reid's complete cluelessness when it comes to pop culture is always good comic relief.

The Bad: J.J. ignores warning bells (e.g. the kind of muttering only crazy people do) and walks into a situation with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever. Her lack of perceptiveness seems odd for an FBI agent, especially one who, while not a profiler herself, has worked with the Behavioral Analysis Unit for over five years now – what, she hasn't learned anything from either her training or from working with the other BAU agents? Besides, in addition to being an FBI agent, she's also a new mother, and while J.J. has never been afraid to put herself at risk when it's her job, she's always backed down when the others told her to consider her baby. You would think walking into a house that looks that crazy with someone who's acting that crazy might give her pause, even if she's not expecting trouble.

Verdict: Very entertaining and definitely worth a rewatch. Too bad it's not on CBS.com or iTunes or Amazon or Hulu. I'll be watching for this one during rerun season.

Movie Kitsch: Dracula, 1992

Flash from the past time.

I was seven years old when Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula came out, so I was barely aware that it even existed until a few years ago, when Gary Oldman had just been cast as Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and someone mentioned that included in his pantheon of Crazy Villainous Characters was Count Dracula.

The full feature film is available on Hulu (although you have to register and be over 17 to watch it), so I figured, why not?

Okay.

First of all, I'm not sure I've ever seen a Coppola movie before, but I was under the impression that he's regarded as a great, talented director. Did he lose a bet with Scorsese or something? Because this was...not what I'd expected. On paper, it sounds like an amazing movie: Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Gary Oldman (GARY OLDMAN!) with Anthony Hopkins (SIR ANTHONY HOPKINS!), Richard E. Grant, and the woefully underrated Cary Elwes (AKA Wesley, the Dread Pirate Roberts), back when he was still young and dreamy. Then you throw in Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder and everything goes to hell.

Oldman gnaws on the scenery with everything he's got, Sadie Frost makes her topless film debut, the women do lots of moaning and writhing and exposing of breasts, Keanu sounds like the Britishest dude in Malibu, and Tom Waits hangs out a window, screaming for his master. Then we get this moment of weirdness:



Maybe I'm just coming to this from the wrong generational viewpoint -- most of the reviews on Hulu are from people who saw the movie when it came out and are surprisingly laudatory, with criticism only for Ryder & Reeves -- but I only found Dracula entertaining because it was so terrible. I'm so used to Gary Oldman in his recent, subtler performances (and less evil, e.g. Potter's Sirius Black and Jim Gordon of the Batman movies) that this hissing, writhing, amped-up monster of a villain just seems silly. Speaking of silly, Keanu's accent is too God-awful to take seriously, much like the attempt to give him gray hair after his harrowing foursome with Dracula's three vampire wives. Keanu, darling, you're adorable, but perhaps you ought to stick to silent films or modeling. Winona's in a little better, but whenever she opens her mouth, I just hear Veronica's diary entries from Heathers ("Dear Diary...").

I did catch the line "You are my life now," which landed itself in Twilight a decade later, and managed to sound even creepier coming from Edward Cullen, and the whole long-lost One True Love thing turned up in The Vampire Diaries, I believe, which just goes to show you how little there really is to draw from when it comes to vampire lore. We're going to run out of innovative ways to make them compelling before too long (although I will love True Blood until its dying day) -- remember the zombie craze of a couple years ago? What happened to that? It's only a matter of time before the girls who started their adolescences in the Age of Twilight figure out that there are other (living, better-written) fish in the sea. As for the post-vampire heyday fantasy world, there have been some interesting theories put forward as to what the next craze might be.

In any case, I don't know where this movie went wrong, but it's a shame that something with such promise fails to deliver, and that after winning three Oscars (costume design, sound editing, & makeup), it isn't nearly as impressive seventeen years later. Sorry, Dracula, but I'm not a fan.



P.S. I just realized that Bill Campbell, the actor playing the poor, doomed American, Quincey Morris, is actually Billy Campbell, the dad from Once and Again and the unlikely abusive husband from that Jennifer Lopez movie, Enough. Huh. The things you learn from the internet.

Thank you, Community

NBC’s Community is one of my favorite new shows this season. On Thursday night, it got even better:



WHY HELLO THERE, JOEL MCHALE.

And thank you, Community, for that bit of naked man torso.

V: Return of the HBIC

Having missed the premiere of V on Tuesday, I had to wait until it showed up online this morning to watch it. A mere five minutes after watching, what sticks with me is this: what's with all the wacky camera angles? Behold:



It's like watching that student film I made my sophomore year of college. That, or a pale imitation of Bergman. Here's a hint for aspiring filmmakers: no one looks good when the camera's going up their nostrils. True story.

Apart from the weirdo camera work, it was a pretty solid pilot: good writing, interesting plot, and the effects were, for the most part, well-done as well. What drew me to the show was the handful of alumni from some of my other favorite shows. Elizabeth Mitchell, otherwise known as HBIC (Head Bitch in Charge) and Sawyer's One True Love Juliet Burke from Lost, is FBI agent Erica Evans, while Morena Baccarin (Inara Serra of Firefly) is the alien Visitors' leader, Anna. Another surprise Firefly alum was Alan Tudyk, playing Erica's FBI partner who...was not actually all that he seemed, alas. But can we please get this man a regular job on another TV show? We all (still) miss Wash. (In other news, ABC gets props for employing Captain Mal, Inara, Zoe--on FlashForward--and Wash.)

I wasn't thrilled with the subplot involving Erica's teenaged son, Tyler, and his obsession with the Vs. For one, how does he expect his little crush on one of the alien Visitors to pan out? Is he hoping to sex up a reptile here? I'm not sure how I feel about the interspecies love. Then again, I'm not usually fond of characters' teenaged children on any show, so this may be just my particular aversion to angst.

I'll keep tuning in, if only to see how they plan to stretch this out to more than one season. If I recall correctly, V is based on a miniseries (which I have not seen), which would seem to be a better format for this kind of not-what-they-seem-alien-invasion story. Then again, I'm perplexed by FlashForward as a regular, rather than mini-, series as well, so we'll see how both turn out.

Verdict: Gold star, V.

Kudos: NCIS

I'm not a huge NCIS fan, but my family watches during dinner on Tuesday nights (which is why I missed the V premiere), so I caught last night's episode, "Outlaws and In-Laws," written by Jesse Stern. I've never heard of Jesse Stern before, nor am I familiar with anything he's written, but the writing on this particular episode was fantastic. Snappy dialogue, sight gags, very funny moments, and good use of all the regular characters and the guest actors, as well. Kudos, sir, for a very entertaining hour of television!

Trauma: Everybody Loves Nancy

I've said it before, I'll say it again: I do love Trauma. It's officially not getting a second season (or a full first season, for that matter), so I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Spoilers abound below.

This week saw the continuation of the mildly irritating Nancyphilia that seems to go around. Not only is Nancy apparently an extraordinarily talented surgeon, she's also an object of desire for Glenn, Rabbit, and now Dr. Joe? Please. I know NBC doesn't have fourteen-year-old girls writing this show, so the Mary-Sue angle doesn't make a whole lot of sense here. It was nice to see the whole team together at the end, since we spend so much of each episode bouncing around between them (have Marisa and Nancy ever been in the same scene together before now?), and to see the genuine concern for one of their own (Tyler's anguish over having to leave Nancy to take care of the victims on the bus that hit the ambulance was particularly compelling), and to see Rabbit drop all pretense of his devil-may-care swagger when Nancy, his ex-partner and perhaps the only person who understands how much he misses Terry, is in danger.

The Good: Glenn redeemed himself a little in his scenes with Intern Diana, commiserating with a fellow newbie, and it was nice to see that in spite of Boone's homophobia during Halloween in the Castro, the friendship he's forged with Tyler over three years as partners is still there and still strong. I think Anastasia Griffith and Cliff Curtis have excellent chemistry, and they continued to do an outstanding job of playing the incredibly complicated relationship between Nancy and Rabbit.

The Bad: Nancy's father (AKA undead Christian Shephard from Lost) accusing Dr. Joe of being in love with Nancy. What? I've always assumed his affection for her is quasi-paternal, not anything skeevy--it's Jamey Sheridan, guys! Come on! Jamey Sheridan does not perv on your daughter! Also getting the thumbs-down is Rabbit's freakout on the Fat Guy At The Beach, having a Fake Heart Attack, Sorry Guys. The purpose of the scene was admirable--what Rabbit really wants is to be at the hospital with Nancy, but he has to come deal with your fake heart attack instead? Rage ensues--but I feel like it could have been done differently. Cliff Curtis did his best with what he was given, however, so kudos, Cliff.

Verdict: Good episode, though not as entertaining as last week's Halloween episode, and nowhere near as good as "Bad Day at Work." See you next week, Trauma.