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Highly Anticipated Sequel 90210 The CW, Tuesdays, 8 p.m. |
Stars: Shannen Doherty and Jennie Garth (Beverly Hills, 90210), Tristan Wilds (The Wire), Lori Loughlin (Full House)
The premise: It's been only eight years since the original 90210 went off the air, and now it's already back with a face-lift and a boob job. Too soon? Hell, no! As high school staffers, Doherty and Garth are now in their cougar prime, but the basic story remains the same: Blue-collar family moves from the quaint Midwest to posh Beverly Hills; various struggles with virginity and diet pills ensue. Still, the new version has some twists: The Brandon Walsh role has been filled by an adopted black kid who goes out for the lacrosse team (Wilds). Bonus: Watch an actor from The Wire play lacrosse!
They say: "This isn't C-Span, but we're telling real human stories," says executive producer Jeff Judah (Freaks and Geeks). Although the old audience will get nostalgia with the original characters, "we also have a contemporary spin: We're emphasizing the parents' story line, and parents nowadays had a lot of sex before marriage, experimented with drugs — they had a wilder experience in college. Now they're telling their kids, 'Don't do what I did.' "
We say: On the plus side, it doesn't sound as bratty as Gossip Girl. On the down side, it doesn't sound as bratty as Gossip Girl.
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Sexiest/Freakiest Drama True Blood HBO, Sundays, 9 p.m. |
Stars: Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer
The premise: It's a doozy, based on the series of books known as the Southern Vampire Mysteries: With the invention of a synthetic blood drink, vampires have revealed themselves to the world — and (mostly) stopped biting people's necks. And in small-town Louisiana, Sookie Stackhouse (a bleach-blond Paquin), a waitress with telepathic powers, is falling for a particularly alluring bloodsucker named Bill (Moyer).
They say: "After five years of meditating on the existential presence of death in all our lives, I wanted to have fun," says executive producer Alan Ball (Six Feet Under). "The show is really about the terrors of intimacy."
We say: Combining cliffhangers, black humor and freaky vampire sex, this is the fall's weirdest and most compelling show.
Clip courtesy of HBO
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The New Mulder and Scully Fringe Fox, Tuesdays, 8 p.m. |
Stars: Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson (Dawson's Creek), John Noble (The Lord of the Rings)
The premise: Torv's hottie FBI agent teams with a fresh-from-a-mental-hospital scientist (Noble) and his rebellious son (Jackson) to investigate a series of paranormal incidents known as "the Pattern."
They say: "It's the sort of show I would want to watch — inspired by David Cronenberg movies, The Twilight Zone and Altered States," says executive producer J.J. Abrams (Lost, Felicity, Alias). And you won't get, um, lost if you skip an episode: "You want the door to be open for viewers."
We say: It's about time for a new X-Files — and the sharply written, bracingly gory Fringe is our pick. Non-geeks can ignore the conspiracy and peep the Jackson-Torv chemistry — Pacey and Joey had nothing on this.
Clip courtesy of FOX
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Most Humiliating Comedy Worst Week CBS, Mondays, 9:30 p.m. |
Stars: Kyle Bornheimer, Erinn Hayes, Kurtwood Smith (That '70s Show), Nancy Lenehan (My Name Is Earl)
The premise: Bumbling magazine editor Sam Briggs (Bornheimer) wants to marry his pregnant girlfriend (Hayes), but her parents (Smith and Lenehan) think he's a schmuck. Every effort he makes to prove his worth ends in disaster, whether he's showing up on their doorstep in a giant diaper or using their cooking pot as a bedpan (don't ask).
They say: "This is one of the only shows doing broad comedy on TV," says executive producer Matt Tarses (Scrubs). "Watch Bornheimer. He's that rare guy who's great physically and with the talking stuff."
We say: Smith and Lenehan are excellent, but watching a man lose his dignity gets old. We see that enough in real life.
Clip courtesy of CBS
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Gossip Girls Made Good Privileged The CW, Tuesdays, 9 p.m. |
Stars: JoAnna Garcia (Reba), Anne Archer (Fatal Attraction), Lucy Kate Hale, Ashley Newbrough
The premise: After getting canned from her job as a New York tabloid journalist, librarian-hot Yale grad Megan Smith (Garcia) moves home to Florida to tutor snobby Palm Beach heiresses Sage and Rose Baker (Newbrough and Hale). If Megan helps the girls get good enough grades to get into Duke, their grandmother, Laurel (Archer), will pay off all her student loans.
They say: "Not all kids in high school are drinking scotch at two in the afternoon and sleeping with 17 guys a day," says executive producer Rina Mimoun (Everwood). "Our show is a reality check. We're trying to move forward and keep our panties on at the same time."
We say: Gilmore Girls fans will dig the whip-smart dialogue and literary references. (Jay Gatsby? Total closet case!) Still, the writers try too hard to develop Megan as a lovable, accident-prone nerd. Her penchant for saying "Okey-dokey" needs to go.
Clip courtesy of the CW
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Grittiest New Cop Drama Life on Mars ABC, Thursdays, 10 p.m. |
Stars: Jason O'Mara (Men in Trees), Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos), Gretchen Mol
The premise: After being hit by a car, present-day detective Sam Tyler (O'Mara) wakes up in 1973, greeting a world plagued by a gas crisis, a failing war and an unpopular president — basically 2008 with butterfly collars. Working alongside grizzled NYPD vets Gene Hunt (Keitel) and Ray Carling (Imperioli), Tyler faces a series of moral dilemmas: Should he stop all future murderers? Should he adopt his fellow squad men's Gitmo-worthy interrogation methods? And, more important, how soon can he jump into bed with his foxy co-worker (Mol)?
They say: "It's a satisfying cop story — there's a body or a robbery every episode — but there's also this mythological element that borders on the surreal," says executive producer Josh Appelbaum (Alias). "It's Sidney Lumet and David Lynch mixed into one."
We say: Judging by its A-list cast, Life on Mars sounds like the cop-show cure for our Wire withdrawal.
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Yet Another CSI Eleventh Hour CBS, Thursdays, 10 p.m. |
Stars: Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist, The Holiday), Marley Shelton (Grindhouse)
The premise: Based on a British miniseries, this forensic drama centers on Dr. Jacob Hood (Sewell), an eccentric biophysicist hired by the FBI to untangle hairy scientific crimes. Faced with a doomsday situation — say, a fetal cloning experiment gone awry — Hood chases leads as the clock ticks down. The government sends Special Agent Rachel Young (Shelton) to protect Hood, though she looks more likely to break a stiletto than a bad guy's arm.
They say: "Everyone's interested in scientific discoveries and how science is manipulated to make things happen that we can't explain," says executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI). Plus, there's Hood, the kind of guy who explains fertilization using a grape and a tweezer: "He's odd as hell!"
We say: Envelope-pushing imagery — there's a field littered with 19 dead fetuses — is cool. Cliché dialogue — "You can't have him back! He's dead!"; "She will die if I don't find her in time!" — is not.
Clip courtesy of CBS
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Funniest Leading Ladies Kath and Kim NBC, Thursdays, 8:30 p.m. |
Stars: Molly Shannon, Selma Blair, John Michael Higgins (Best in Show)
The premise: This U.S. adaptation of a hit Aussie comedy chronicles the adventures of Kath (Shannon), a saucy divorcee, and her obnoxious daughter, Kim (Blair). When Kim moves back into her mom's crib following a split with her husband, The Odd Couple-style hilarity and awkward, TMI situations — like Kim's kitchen run-in with Kath's mini-bathrobe-wearing boyfriend (Higgins) — ensue.
They say: "I think Kim is a spoiled brat; she thinks my boyfriends are losers and gets grossed out if I have sex," says Shannon. "It's a family story."
We say: With their celeb-mag obsessions, strip-mall sensibilities (Applebee's is their fine-food purveyor) and subpar IQs (Kim exclaims her marriage is "Over! O-V-U-R!"), Kath and Kim are basically the suburban-Florida version of Dina and Ali Lohan. Does that make for entertaining TV? Depends — how much Boone's have you drunk?
Photo: NBC
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The
Double Life of Christian Slater
How the star of NBC's new drama "My Own Worst Enemy" went from
Hollywood hero to real-life bad boy and back again
During August's summer games, when NBC cut away from Beijing, the next thing millions of American sports fans often saw was Christian Slater blowing up a building. The trailer for My Own Worst Enemy, featuring his first-ever lead role on a television series, played off the drama that had already been drummed up by the swim meets. "I have to tip my hat to Michael Phelps for keeping the Olympics exciting," says Slater. "I'm going to send him a nice fruit basket."
Premiering October 13th, My Own Worst Enemy follows Edward Albright (Slater), a trained killer working for secret agent Mavis Heller (Alfre Woodard), at a shadowy bureau called Janus. Every time Edward's wet work is done, Janus digitally deactivates his memory and uploads his alternate personality: Henry Spivey, oblivious suburban husband and father of two. Only now there's a glitch. Some very angry Russians have traced Edward back to his decoy life. As Edward warns Henry in a secret computer message, "Now for the fun part."
Almost 20 years after his breakthrough role as J.D., the sensitive psycho-rebel who tried to neutralize his high school with a suicide bomb in Heathers, Slater may have found his next perfect part. Or rather, parts. "I've always loved Jekyll-and-Hyde-type stories," he says. "I definitely relate these characters to the dark and light sides of my own personality."
Photo: Drinkwater/NBC
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The Double Life of Christian Slater Continued...
Slater has flirted with that duality before, most notably in 1990's Pump Up the Volume, where he was both Mark, the shy, bespectacled new kid, and his alter ego, Happy Harry Hard-On, a chronically masturbating, chain-smoking pirate-radio shock jock. And his offscreen life reflects that split as well. Raised in Manhattan as a prep-school-educated, theater-trained sophisticate, he made his Broadway debut opposite Dick Van Dyke in The Music Man at age 11. But any online mug-shot search will reveal he's also been a hellion. In 1989, he led police on a high-speed chase through West Hollywood. In 1994, he tried to bring a gun onto a plane. In 1997, he allegedly attacked his girlfriend and greeted pursuing cops by screaming, "The Germans are going to kill us all!" In 2005, he was accused of third-degree sexual abuse (charges were dropped) and later was allegedly tasered off the roof at Paris Hilton's Halloween party. (Police say he fell on his own.)
Slater acknowledges that he hasn't always known the best way to deal with his career and celebrity since the Nineties. "It's a ride," Slater says. "You strap in and take it all — and then you try to learn from your experiences." A decade later, his bad-boy reputation may give him the kind of gravitas that oft en sparks dramatic reinventions on the small screen. (See also: Seventies party boy Don Johnson on Miami Vice in the Eighties, Eighties party boy Robert Downey Jr. on Ally McBeal in 2000 and perpetual party boy Kiefer Sutherland on 24.) Slater's co-stars say he's brought a certain alpha energy to television. As Woodard puts it, "You get to have the prime rib right there in your den instead of going out to a restaurant to get it. And did I mention he's fine?" It's true the hairline might be higher and the torso slightly thicker since he gleamed the cube, but Slater has preserved well despite the carousing.
The title of My Own Worst Enemy seems fitting for the star: The pilot episode contains a sequence in which Henry searches Edward's apartment, poring over paperwork, clips and photos, agog with the details of his self-destructive side. It's impossible not to imagine Slater contemplating how his own demons may have led him from vying for parts with Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt in the Nineties to co-starring with Tara Reid in 2005's Alone in the Dark and appearing in the 2006 direct-to-DVD sequel to Hollow Man.
In 2004, searching for a kind of creative square one, Slater moved to London with his then-wife, TV producer Ryan Haddon, and their two kids and re-established his theater career. He had accepted an offer to appear as Randle Patrick McMurphy in the West End revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "It was the first time in several years that I made that selfish choice to have a real fulfilling experience," he says. (Slater and Haddon filed for divorce in February 2005.)
Strong reviews for Cuckoo's Nest led to a starring role in the London stage adaptation of the 1994 indie film Swimming With Sharks, which piqued the interest of network executives, who flew to England to discuss making Slater into a secret agent. "I'm a big fan of that genre," he says. "I watched Casino Royale a hundred times sitting in my hotel room. And I worked with Sean Connery [on The Name of the Rose] when I was 16. Now, I'm a secret agent."
My Own Worst Enemy leaves the absolute-good-and-evil, spy-vs.-spy games to early-Bush-administration dramas like 24. "Sometimes Henry is bad and Edward is good," Slater says. For some new Slater fans, it's already hard to tell them apart. "I was at a store the other day, and this mailman shouted, 'Henry and Edward!' " So which character does this reformed party boy and father of two relate to more? "To be perfectly honest," Slater says, "playing this Edward guy is pretty fun." MARC SPITZ
[From Issue 1061 — September 18, 2008]Related Stories: