Oh, SNAP! Actor Greg Grunberg (Heroes) can't get excited about his own network's new drama, The Listener, which debuts tonight on NBC. He dissed it in a Twitter post today, calling out the show for being unoriginal. The show follows one Toby Logan (Craig Olejnik), a young paramedic whose big secret is that he can hear people's thoughts. And he wants to use his special powers for good! It's like What Women Want as a Canadian drama staring a hunky EMT. So, eh, I'm saving my telepath enthusiasm for Sookie Stackhouse. (Besides, EW television critic Ken Tucker agrees with Grunberg and gave it a C-.)
What about you, PopWatchers? Are we all being too harsh, or will you be joining us on the No Thanks train?
Every geek has done it, at one point in their lives or another, posit hypothetical battles and try to decide who'd win. Would Superman beat the Hulk? Darth Vader vs. Gandalf? The U.S.S. Enterpise vs. the Battlestar Galactica?
Heroes star Milo Ventimiglia is looking to dramatize these "eternal" battles for a Web series called Ultradome, which would use THE AWESOME POWER OF SPECIAL EFFECTS (sorry, caps are really the only way to convey BOOMING VOICE) to pit fictional figures against one another in an arena environment. As Ventimiglia told the Hollywood Reporter: "My whole life has been spent engaged with friends in intellectual
debate...like whether Captain Kirk is tougher than Spock or if
Middle Earth is a more difficult place to live than Tatooine. With Ultradome, we can bring these debates to
the public and settle them in the most logical way possible:
through armed combat."
Cool, right? But here's the catch: You won't see, say, CG versions of Star Wars' Han Solo facing off against Firefly's Malcolm Reynolds. You'll see two two fans dressed up as the character they're championing doing battle. And suddenly I'm way less interested. Why? Because I don't necessarily want to watch anything that reminds me of this. I mean, I get it: The rights/licensing issues alone would make it prohibitively expensive for a TV series, let alone a series of webisodes. It just feels like something you'd see in a recessed corner of Comic-Con, with a gaggle of slave Leias cheering the combatants on.
But, hey, props to Milo for letting his geek flag fly. He walks it like he talks it.
(And, for the record, Superman would defeat the Hulk. As my friend John correctly reasoned, while the Hulk's strength is, theoretically, limitless -- given that it's based entirely on his level of rage -- Superman's power is will-based. He flies because he wants to fly. And will doesn't require leverage. Do not ask me when we had this conversation. All I will say is, it happened after we were both married.)
Man, some days, it's hard to be a geek. It's tough being the dude who cares about this stuff even if he doesn't want to. It's a calling, really -- like pulling a sword from a stone or being handed one of the Lantern Corps rings -- and you can't turn it down. You have to watch the season finale of Heroes, even if you've sorta stopped caring. To save you some time, here's the episode, and after the jump, the four spoilery things you "need" to know:
Heroes will be back for a fourth season. Does that prospect excite you? Bore you? Bounce off you like bullets off Superman's chest? Count me as being...well, if not exactly excited, then really interested. Even though I've been pretty disappointed with the season, I remain enthusiastic and fascinated by its premise and potential. Especially right now: I don't think the Big Theme of "heroism" has ever been more relevant. The whole idea of "sacrifice" -- the chief quality of heroism -- is certainly a tricky value to adopt here in these rough economic times. And then, there's The Dark Knight and Watchmen, big, bold movies that dare to give superheroes a makeover into more complicated, more flawed creatures. Will kids these days leave our current moment even believing in the concept of heroism? All of this makes for great dramatic grist for Heroes, which at its best isn't just fun, it has the ability to reflect back to us our of-the-moment attitudes about heroism. Of course, the show shouldn't be pedantic or obvious about it. The Monica/Katrina storyline in season 2 was a little too on the nose. (But I dug the actress, and I really liked the character's photo-memory power; I kinda wish the show could find a way to bring her back.) And the current national security/Homeland Security-themed storyline feels a little behind the times to me; "Fugitives" might have landed better in the first half of season 2.
Not that I want to try and give Heroes any more unwanted free advice than I already have. And not that I want the show to be all self-serious. This sentiment has been expressed before by others, but let me say it, too: When I was a kid, growing up geeky in Seattle and coming of fanboy age on X-Men by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, and Daredevil by Frank Miller, I dreamed that one day I'd be able to see stuff like what I was reading on TV. Those stories were just so cool, and I knew in my bones that if someone had the nuts to bring this stuff to the masses, mainstreamers would dig it, too. At its best, Heroes has done that, and I really see no reason why it can't do it again.
This is all to say that I'm happy to see that Heroes is getting another turn at bat, and I'm rooting for it to hit it out of the ballpark next year. But what do you think? Are you pumped that Heroes will continue? And what would you like to see the show do during its fourth season?
If the one thing in the world that would make you happy is the sight of Hayden Panetierre acting all naughty-saucy-haute-bitchy, then boy...do I have a trailer for you.
Now, what was going through my mind while watching this was not, Chris Columbus wouldn't have been my first guess as the writer director of a pseudo-raunchy teen comedy, but okay. Nor was it, Will kids getting hit by cars become the new shot-to-the-crotch? No, it was, If these dorks had created Hayden with a primitive PC while wearing bras on their heads, and then she led them on "the night that would change their lives," this would be Weird Science.
Not that reminding me of Weird Science is ever a bad thing. (Kelly LeBrock, why hast thou forsaken us?)
Are you on board for I Love You, Beth Cooper? Or do you, like me, think that if Hayden Panetierre's ever gonna shed those "save the cheerleader" shackles she'll have to take roles that erode her comfort zone. Like the stage version of Cruel Intentions that exists only in my head where she's smooching Sarah Michelle Gellar six days a week and twice on Sunday. TMI? Prolly...
You know what? Better. Much better. Heroes still isn't what it should be -- the last season and a half of mediocrity left NBC's super-power-hour at the bottom of a pretty big ditch -- but the "Fugitives" arc shows some promise.
Why? A couple of POTENTIALLY SPOILERY thoughts after the jump.
I can't be the only guy who wants to like Heroes again. I loved this show from the very beginning, when Peter Petrelli thought he could fly. Over the last couple of seasons, it seems as if Heroes has lost its way. Our senior writer Jeff Jensen has also been wrestling with both his feelings about the show and what, as a fan, he thinks Heroes needs to do to get back on track.
Me, I've been watching the show closely for the past two years in my role as Heroes TV Watch writer, and I've got two recommendations: Thin the cast and focus. There are too many characters bouncing around Heroes-ville, and not enough time to service them all. As a result, we don't get to know them. Hiro, Peter, Nathan, Claire, Sylar, Angela, Tracy, Ando, Noah, Micah, Daphne, Arthur, Maya, Mohinder, Elle, and Matt — all mere ciphers where real characters should be. And if you thinned that cast, you could spend time getting to know the ones who remain, instead of just visiting with them for a few minutes each episode.
What about you? Do you think Heroes is fine the way it is, or does it need an overhaul? What's on your fix-it list?
On last night's Heroes (read Marc Bernardin's episode recap here), we found out a surprising fact about the origin of Ali Larter's tightly wound political animal, Tracy. Now the ice princess has a season's worth of exploring to do. We caught up with Larter yesterday to try to pry some secrets out of her cold dead...er, find out what she likes about her new direction on the show. Read all about it -- after the jump!
Last week, Media Life Magazine reported on a new study from Marketing Evaluations, The Q Scores Company, which measured and ranked viewers' emotional attachment to broadcast TV shows during the '07-'08 season. ("Emotional attachment" was defined as how committed you are to continuing to watch a show.) This list of the 20 series that garnered the greatest devotion (I've included it after the jump) definitely got EW's TV department talking.
And that conversation got me thinking: Let's do our own informal poll for the '08-'09 season: Name the five broadcast TV shows you are most committed to watching this fall. (I know we all love our cable, so this may hurt a little.)
My list:
1. Fox's Bones (for those of you wondering where the PopWatch love has been, Abby West will be bringing it back starting this week)
2. ABC's Brothers & Sisters (I would happily marry into the Walker clan, if only for the wine; pictured, David Annable and Emily VanCamp) (Also: Slezak is recapping later today in PopWatch, fear not)
3. ABC's Desperate Housewives (for as long as Gale Harold is on, anyway; bonus pic of him with Teri Hatcher, after the jump!)
4. The CW's Privileged (it's like an ABC Family Channel original movie, only well-written!)
5. I was gonna say CBS' Ghost Whisperer — I've got to see where they're headed with David Conrad's character — but really, it's ABC's Boston Legal. They know it's their last season, which should give them plenty of time to plot an appropriately insane, verbose, and (above all) affectionate exit for Denny Crane (William Shatner) and Alan Shore (James Spader). In the season premiere, Alan took on Big Tobacco and Denny thought his penis had Alzheimer's — very promising.
Every geek has done it, at one point in their lives or another, posit hypothetical battles and try to decide who'd win. Would Superman beat the Hulk? Darth Vader vs. Gandalf? The U.S.S. Enterpise vs. the Battlestar Galactica?
You know what? Better. Much better. Heroes still isn't what it should be -- the last season and a half of mediocrity left NBC's super-power-hour at the bottom of a pretty big ditch -- but the "Fugitives" arc shows some promise.
I can't be the only guy who wants to like 
On last night's Heroes (
Last week, 
