Worst Robot Swordfight EVER!

We don't often steal from Attack of the Show, since they generally cover different stuff than we do ... but this time they uncovered this increasingly popular YouTube vid before we did, so ... kudos to them. But it is SO Rush-y: not just a sword fight, not just a robot swordfght, but possibly the worst robot sword fight ever filme, with dialoge that gives new meaning to the term "cheesy."  

Sit back and enjoy. Your robot sword fight perceptions will never be the same.

 

Fall TV: Here comes the new shows, just like the old shows

When it comes to the Rush stuff -- thrillers, fantasy, sf, etc. -- the new TV season (being gradually revealed this week by the various nets) is giving us very little to love, and even less that you could call 'new.'

Lost and latecomer FlashForward disappear, but here comes The Event, a big, vague, multi-thread show about a "regular guy" who discovers a "massive conspiracy that not even the President knows about."  Look for lots of ambiguous pronouncements and significant looks between characters that no one understands.

Heroes finally shuffles off -- Go with god, zombie-show! -- and here comes No Ordinary Family, about a superhero family starring Michael Chiklis of The Shield and The Fantastic Four. Been there, done that, too.

Then there are the spin-offs of Criminal Minds and Law and Order (even though NBC canceled the original Law and Order in the same corporate breath). Not to mention -- please! -- new shows about rogue attorneys fightin' for the people, and rogue doctors fightin' for their patients, and another set of shows from Bruckheimer and Abrams and on and on.

And where do we sign up to be Alex O'Laughlin? The barely recognizable star of Moonlight, the failed vampire cop show, and Three Rivers, the failed ensemble medical show, and The Back-Up Plan, the failed Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy career-revival film, gets another chance, yet again, in the CBS reboot of Hawaii Five-O.  Let's think about that: Doe-eyed, slim little Alex O'Laughlin as granite-jawed, "Book 'em, Dano!" Steve McGarret.

We give it six weeks.

Only two new shows on the horizon offer any glimmer of hope, and mostly because we don't know much about them yet: a reboot of La Femme Nikita, this time called simply Nikita, starring Maggie Q and produced by McQ and the guys from Chuck, and Steven Spielberg's much-mused-about hard-sf mid-seasoner Terra Nova, over on FOX. Not that Steve has had great luck with breaking into TV, but please, God, anything. We're talkin' port in a storm time here.

Let's just cling to the fact that Human Target and Stargate: Universe will both be back and new episodes of Leverage and Burn Notice are just weeks away. It's not so much the long, hot summer that worries us; it's the bleak midwinter. Or even the soggy fall.

 

Fox Gets It Right Twice: Human Target & Lie to Me Renewed

Let's face it: when it comes to smart action/adventure or thrillers on network TV, the pickin's are mighty slim. That's why it's especially good news that FOX has renewed the fledgling butt-kicker Human Target for a second year, and given Tim Roth a third year to be all sarcastic and omniscient on the underrated Lie to Me.

You have to wonder if FOX made the move because they've lost 24, their only reliable action show, and their other series with high cult potential have either been axed already, like Dollhouse, or are lying there twitching like Fringe (a musical episode already? Really?) But whatever the reasoning, welcome back Christopher Chance (now we'll get to see the second half of that cliffhanger!) and House-like Dr. Lightman.

 

Hart to Hart to Bartowski to Walker

NBC's been having much fun with these cute "Sneak Peeks" of their current series, showing up on the web and elsewhere, and this one's a keeper: a promo for Chuck that's an affectionate tribute to one of the great cheesy whodunnits of the 70's, Hart to Hart.

Enjoy ...

 

A New Rockford? No. Just ... No.

Let's be clear here: we have nothing against Dermot Mulroney. We can't actually can't remember anything he was in, except maybe The Family Stone and a couple of romantic comedies. Still, we're sure he's a perfectly nice guy. But ... Jim Rockford? 

There is only one Jim Rockford.  There were always only be one Jim Rockford. And he's not making TV shows or movies anymore.  He's in  graceful, modest retirement in his mobile home down in Crystal Cove, and we should just leave him alone.

Sure, there's an attempt to treat this "property" - ew! -- with respect. Alan (Dollhouse, Firefly, V) Tudyk will impersonate Dennis Becker; Beau (Do we even have to list them?) Bridges will stand in for the late Noah Beery, Jr. as Jim's dad, but it doesn't matter. There are certain stories that are unique to their times, intimately and irrevocably connected to a special time and place -- and a special face. James Garner and the folks who created the original show deserve to have that artifact left undisturbed. There are plenty of new ideas, plenty of "properties" that haven't been done or were done poorly the first time around. Go find them. Expand the world. Just don't mess with one of the brightest spots in 70's TV. Garner deserves better.  Hell, Mulroney deserves better.

Let Jim Rockford alone.

 

Stargate: Universe on its way back, and cooler than ever

... as if that's possible.  Yes, it's kind of the Battlestar: Galactification of the strangely cheerful and daffy Stargate Universe, but still: VERY cool. The "lost in space" story that Voyager only wishes it could have been.

It looks like many of the plot threads laid down in the first half of the season are picked right up without a pause when the second half of Season One premiere on April 4 on the SyFy Channel.  The trailer barely whets our appetite.  And we agree with the funny guy: in the Stargate universe(s), "We are 0 for 3 when it comes to close encounters." (If you don't count the ancients, and we don't.) Let's hope things pan out better for them this time. Or at least that they stay interesting.

Here's the trailer:

 

Woody and the Hatter: Separated at Birth?

In honor of the wide release of Alice in Wonderland, we bring you this post from last month ... 

 Images of Tim Burton's take on Alice in Wonderland have been leaking out for quite a while now, and yes, there has been something disturbingly ... familiar about the art direction.  Sure, sure, obviously the Queen of Hearts is a grotesque rendering of early Queen Elizabeth I with a dash of  Bette Davis, the White Queen looks like a marceled silent film star, and the March Hare resembles a pop-eyed, brain-challenged Senator from Sath Ca'lina.  We just couldn't figure out who Johnny Depp's Hatter most resembled ... until Rotten Tomatoes made the mistake of putting these two pictures next to each other:

Need we say more?  And -- wait, is that Pixar's attorney calling?  Hellewww....?

 

Bob from ReGenesis Returns (if only for a moment)

Once upon a time -- from 2004 to 2008, actually, there was a totally cool Canadian TV show called Regenesis. (Yes, we are well aware: using the words "cool," "Canadian," and "TV show" in close proximity is a rare and often erroneous thing, unless, of course, you're talking about Corner Gas.  Still, it's true.) The hour-long drama starred the remarkably intelligent and intense Peter Outerbridge as a brilliant viral investigator with an unlikeable, almost House-like temperament, running NorBAC, an international team of equally brilliant viral investigators who try to keep nightmarish outbreaks from occurring throughout the Americas. The show lasted for four seasons; the first two are particularly absorbing and complex, in no small part because of some creative and unexpected characterizations. (And best of all the first three seasons are available for free on Hulu. Start with Episode 1, Season 1. You won't regret it.)

Chief among the fascinating characters: Bob Melnikoff, Outerbridge's right-hand man and probably the only scientist on staff who was actually smarter than Outerbridge's David Sandstrom.  Unfortunately, Bob had a fairly serious case of Aspberger's Syndrome, and though he was thoroughly off-putting at first, fans of the show -- and there were plenty -- quickly warmed to the quirky but charming work of Dmitry Chepovetsky as Bob himself.
The show ended rather abruptly and unceremoniously, and one can't help but wonder whatever became of poor Bob, a great scientist but -- outside of this fictional facility -- completely unemployable.

Well, good news! Chepovetsky may not have landed another series -- yet! --, but Bob lives on! Under the obvious and embarrassing pseudonym of "James," Bob somehow made it all the way into the U.S. and over to California, where he apparently found a gig with an ill-fated biotech company outside Santa Barbara.  That's where Sean and Gus of Psych caught up with him, in a recent episode called "Death Is In The Air." (Also available on Hulu, as it happens.)

It really is kind of odd. It's the same actor playing essentially the same role, in an entirely different context. But it almost makes you feel like you're dropping in on an old friend, and it's nice to see that Bob's still lhanging in there (though, as you'll see from the clip, his muted delight at the prospect of the company "coming back" is particularly poignant with the backstory.

Anyway: here's a shout-out from The Rush to Bob Melnikov: HEY, BOB!

 

Reality Horror? Dahhh...

Sometimes we just don't know what to think.

Suicide Girls has been a strange punk/hip/sexy website for a long time. Reality TV has become a staple of broadcasting over the last decade or so. And horror movies are as old as movies themselves. But ... all three at once? In a single movie?

Here's the nearly inexplicable hook for Suicide Girls Must Die, opening next week:

"Twelve sexy, edgy, beautiful women from the famed SuicideGirls website shoot a pin-up calendar while staying at a remote cabin in Maine. One by one, the girls start disappearing, leaving the others scared and running for their lives. Seen through the eyes of both hidden and the girls' own cameras, this unscripted story captures the ladies - all non-actors and unaware their every move is being recorded - in the first reality horror movie of its kind."

Directed by ... ah ... "Sawa Suicide." Uh-HUH And starring  Amina, Daven, Evan, Fractal, James, Joleigh, Quinne, Rigel, Roza, Sawa  herself, and of course the ever-popular Roach.  

We will absolutely avoid any silly, punny titles like "The Blair Bitch Project" or "Pornographic Activity." Instead, we'll just share the trailer and take one of the girls' advice: "Don't wear glasses or have sex with anyone."

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RiffTrax: MST3K 2010

We loved Mystery Science Theater 3000.  It was the perfect marriage of bad science fiction and horror and syspense movies with the smart-assedness that got us into so much trouble all the way through high school.  And it was a sad, sad day when MST3K left the telewaves some time back.

But there's good news on the intertubes.  Mike Nelson,Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy --  Mike, Crow, and Servo from the affectionaltely remembered Satellie of Love -- are back doing damage in RiffTrax, a growing bunch of cool "commentary" MP3's that are, basically, MS3K in a can.  They regularly riff on everything from Halloween to Aliens; they've also brought in a bunch of guest riffers, from Weird Al Yankovich to Neil Patrick Harris and beyond.  And best of all the Riffs themselves are cheap -- like $3.99.  If you don't own the movie being riffed, you can Netflix it for pennies and enjoy the experience for mere centavos her giggle.

A small sample: here's The Boys speculating on a young John Carpenter coming home from a hard day of making the original Halloween ... illustrated, of course, by a scene straight out of Halloween.  

It's fun, it's inexpensive, and it makes everything old new again -- and even better.  Rifftrax rules.

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