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Walking Dead Season 2 Finale: A-mah-zing!

Last night was the Season 2 of AMC's The Walking Dead and it did not disappoint. The producers had been leading up to the final episode by killing off major characters in the last two episodes so that the audience was primed for a wholesale massacre of their favorites who have so far survived two season of living in a post-zombie apocalypse America. The producers have made it clear that basically every character in the show can potentially be killed (except for the main star) Rick Grimes played by handsome English actor Andrew Lincoln.

According to Nikke Finke's Deadline Hollywood TV the ratings for the finale were excellent:

Last night’s Season 2 finale of the zombie drama posted 9 million viewers and 6 million adults 18-49, hitting series highs in total viewers and all key demo categories. Vs. the Season 1 finale, The Walking Dead was up a big 51% in total viewers, 50% in adults 18-49 and 50% in adults 25-54 (5.3 million). The series  eclipsed its previous highs, 8.1 million total viewers, 5.4 million in 18-49 and 4.4 million in 25-54 logged by the second season premiere. Those 18-49 and 25-54 deliveries were the highest ever for a basic cable drama series. Now they will be replaced in the record book by last night’s deliveries. The Walking Dead ranks as the No.1 drama series in basic cable history in such key demos as Adults and Men 18-34, Adults and Men 18-49, and Adults and Men 25-54. For season 2, the series averaged 6.9 million viewers, up 32% vs. season one, 4.6 million in adults 18-49 (up 32%) and 4 million in 25-54 (up 32%). 

Creatively, the series also went to new heights, and many fans were thrilled with the introduction of the Michonne character, a samurai-sword-wielding Black female who has two armless zombies attached to her by chains as an undead retinue.

The main tension of the show is in the depiction of a group of people would manage the day-to-day details, travails and decisions of living in a post-apocalyptic world where basically all technology is non-functional, you are surrounded by flesh-eating zombies and it appears as if 99.99% of civilization is dead and gone. (The "walking dead" in the series title refers to the surviving humans, not the shaking, stumbling zombies.) Rick was a sheriff deputy (before the zombie apocalypse arrived) and is a strong alpha-male kind of guy so the group has generally gone with his decisions as Rick has tried to maintain a semblance of humanity and democracy. However, in last night's finale Rick revealed that he had killed someone (another one of the major characters) and that he no longer felt that the group should be run as a democracy, and whoever didn't like that siutation could leave.

It will be interesting to see how the group dynamics develop in Season 3, where apparently we will be introduced to not only the very strong Michonne character, but also one of "the most intimidating villains in recent pop culture history" in The Governor.

I am happy that the producers have not killed off the one Black character in the sea of milky whiteness (Glenn the nerdy Asian guy is hardly a deviation from the decidedly Republican demographic that is over-represented in the cast). It would be great if T-Dog outlived everyone, even Rick.

One quibble I do have with the series, and it's a relatively big one is that the producers are shockingly inconsistent in depicting the physical abilities of the zombies "walkers." Generally, they show most walkers not posing a real physical threat because they basically shamble along at a very slow pace, reacting to the stimulus of sound or light as a potential source of live flesh which presumably is their only source of nourishment. So, most humans can generally out-run and really even out-walk most walkers. But every now and then the producers will show a sudden lightning-quick attack by a walker, usually burying their teeth into the soft flesh of a living character, dispatching them to a horrible death and their undead career.

I understand the tension the producers have, they need to make the walkers threatening enough so that the characters are in constant danger from the walkers, but they can't make the walkers powerful enough so that any close encounter between a live human and a dead walker results in two dead walkers. My main problem is with the unfortunate inconsistency in the portrayal; it comes across as unfair and arbitrary instead of scary and threatening.

With that one caveat, I would still have to say that I am very impressed with The Walking Dead and I am in no way shape or form a horror fan, I like the show for its depiction of an alternative reality and its focus on the characters and their motivations and interactions.

Another One Bites The Dust: Terra Nova Axed

Stephen Lang (Avatar) and Jason O'Mara (right) starred in the
ill-fated Fox television science-fiction series

The Fox high-concept, big-budget, science-fiction family drama show, Terra Nova, has been cancelled. Many bloggers, yours included, are sad to see the show go, not because we don't think it should have been cancelled due to its numerous flaws and foibles, but because of the implications of the cancellation of a Steven Spielberg-executive produced science fiction drama will have for the viability of the genre in the medium.

The Other Half is a much more reluctant (and possibly discriminating) television watcher than I am. He watched the pilot, on my suggestion, but although that (allegedly $20 million budgeted) 2-hour extravaganza generally received strong reviews the problems became clear very quickly. Ostensibly, Terra Nova was a story about people from the future (25th century) on an environmentally ruined Earth being given an amazing opportunity to go back millions of years into the past to colonize a pristine paradise when dinosaurs ruled the earth and avoid the mistakes that had ruined the future. (The plot is surprisingly similar to the Julian May Pliocene Exile books of the late 1970s.)


The main problem was that Terra Nova was trying to be multiple shows simultaneously and many of these visions were anti-thetical to each other. For example, it tried to be family friendly by having a too-cute 5-year-old daughter be the focus of multiple plot points, as well as "tension" around teenage angst caused by the presence of a 17-year-old son with daddy issues and a 16-year-old daughter experiencing her first romantic crush. The attempts to try to attract the 18-49 demographic to the show were pretty extreme, such as having co-star Jason O'Mara show off his furry, chiseled torso as well having a group of rebellious teens caught in the forest and menaced by marauding dinosaurs. The structure of the Terra Nova colony was bizarre, with the benign dictatorship of the Stephen Lang character barely questioned, except by the rogue, non-conformists "Sixers" who preferred to live out in the jungle with the deadly dinosaurs instead of in the relatively safe confines of the Terra Nova complex. So the show had family drama, a teenage love triangle, a teenage first-love story, an insurgent war storyline, a police/scientific procedural AND there was an entire series-wide arc about the entire time travel mythology. Too Many Things!

Terra Nova also had very expensive visual effects (lots of people complained about the CGI dinosaurs, but my position was, hey this is TV not film, with proportionally reduced budgets and expectations of verisimilitude) and wildly uneven acting.

The point I'm trying to make here is that the cancellation of Terra Nova after Fox ate the tens of millions of dollars to produce the first few episodes (with ratings that were low but not disastrously so) chills the environment for other sci-fi flavored shows like Fringe and Alcatraz (both also on Fox) as well as, more importantly, future science fiction shows. There are so many amazing hard science fiction books that could be turned into well-done shows. It doesn't have to all be about the effects, one really just needs to be able to communicate a sense of significant difference from our current world.

I have been a longtime fan of Fringe which is now in its 4th season and is co-created by J.J. Abrams, the creator of Lost. Abrams has another new sci-fi-influenced show called Alcatraz which simply doesn't look interesting to me so I haven't watched it all.

It's interesting to compare the declining fortunes of science fiction on TV compared to the ascendant fortunes of its sister genre fantasy on cable (HBO). The new season of the critically acclaimed series Game of Thrones is starting on April 1 and HBO has committed to a huge investment in another fantasy series based on the work of Neil Gaiman called American Gods. 


I like fantasy and science fiction so I am happy about the success of Games of Thrones but still sad at the demise of Terra Nova.

Game Of Thrones Season 2 Teaser Trailer

This is the second trailer for Season 2 of HBO's Game of Thrones television series, which is based on the second book, A Clash of Kings, in George R.R. Martin's epic fantasy series A Song Of Ice and Fire.Bizarrely, the first trailer from December last year only has 1.6 million views on YouTube while this second one (which was only released a few weeks ago) already has well over 5 million views.
The second book is even better than the first, so I expect this season should blow us away!

Celebrity Friday: Paris Barclay, A Gay, Black A-list Director

Paris Barclay is a highly acclaimed, openly gay television director who has worked on many high-profile television series such as Lost, Glee, ER, House, Sons of Anarchy, The West Wing and Smash, among others. He is the most prominent openly gay, African-American person in Hollywood.

Karen Ocamb has posted an incredible profile of Barclay at her LGBTPOV blog:

But what makes Barclay so notable – more so than being prolific and fiscally reliable – is his determined, smart passion for justice and equality. That Glee Emmy nomination was for a Nov. 11, 2009 episode called “Wheels” that won him a DGA Award, a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting and the Visionary Leadership Award at the 2010 Shane’s Inspiration Gala for highlighting the abilities of people with disabilities. Glee creator Ryan Murphy called it “the turning point for the show.” And TV Guide named the “Hearts and Souls” episode of NYPD Blue (where Jimmy Smit’s character dies) and the “Three Stories” episode of House in their 100 Best Episodes of All Time.
[...]
But Paris Barclay doesn’t just integrate his passion for justice and equality in his craft: he lives it. In the Los Angeles LGBT and HIV/AIDS communities, he is known for his long commitment to improving the lives of others. He has raised funds for the Van Ness Recovery House, for Project Angel Food during the harrowing 1990s and the Black AIDS Institute, founded by his cousin, longtime HIV/AIDS activist Phill Wilson, among other HIV/AIDS and LGBT organizations. When Project Angel Food honored him with their Founders Award in 1998, Barclay said: “I consider my work for this organization my highest accomplishment….What’s the point of any success if you don’t give something back?”

That's why Paris Barclay is today's Celebrity Friday.

Today The Simpsons 500th Episode Airs

The Simpsons, regarded by many (including yours truly) as one of the best shows in the history of television, is now in its 23rd season and airs its 500th(!) episode today.

The Holloywood Reporter has a synopsis of the 500th episode:

The Simpsons' 500th episode, "At Long Last Leave," centers on the Simpsons family getting evicted from Springfield and join an off-the-grid community outside of town. But when Homer and Marge try to return to Springfield, their friends give them a hostile welcome. 

Fox has already announced that the show has been renewed for two more seasons, ensuring it will air on television for a record 25 years, longer than any scripted show in history. The Simpsons premiered in 1989 (I saw the the very first show when I was in college) and George H.W. Bush was president of the United States!

Glee does "I Will Always Love You"

Amber Riley from the hit Fox television show Glee covered Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" in Tuesday's show, in a serendipitous turn of events less than a week after the songstress untimely death in Los Angeles on Saturday.

It's a very faithful rendition of the classic song, and Ms. Riley can clearly sing all the same notes that Whitney did but I still think that Jennifer Hudson's tribute on Sunday night was a more compelling version. Amber's version is almost too technically perfect without the sheer beauty and emotional resonance of Whitney's original.

It's interesting to see how many other singers will attempt The Song now that The Diva is no longer around to hear them.

Hat/tip to Rod 2.0

Walking Dead Season 2 resumes this Sunday!

2012 Oscars: List of Golden Globes Winners

Meryl Streep won her record 8th Golden Globe on Sunday night,
 but is still  looking for her 3rd Oscar

The Golden Globes were Sunday evening in Los Angeles and there were some rather interesting results:

• Best Motion Picture — Drama: “The Descendants”
• Best Motion Picture — Comedy or Musical: “The Artist”
• Best Director — Motion Picture: Martin Scorsese, “Hugo”
• Best Actress — Drama: Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”
• Best Actor — Drama: George Clooney, “The Descendants”
• Best Actress — Comedy or Musical: Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”
• Best Actor — Comedy or musical: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist
• Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, “The Help”
• Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”
• Best Screenplay: Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”
• Best Original Score: Ludovic Bource – “The Artist”
• Best Original Song: “Masterpiece” — W.E., Madonna, Julie Frost, Jimmy Harry
• Best Animated Feature Film: “The Adventures of Tintin”
• Best Foreign Language Film: “A Separation” (Iran)

The first thing to notice is the surprising strength of Alexander Payne's The Descendants which will probably emerge as the biggest contender to try to stop The Artist from winning the whole shebang. 
Also, looks like Meryl Streep is making headway in her campaign to (finally!) win her 3rd Oscar. Interestingly, she ended her speech with a friendly shout-out ("Viola, you're my girl") to fellow nominee (and probably her biggest competition for the 2012 Best Actress Oscar) Viola Davis who was her co-star in Doubt.


The full list of winners (including some important television wins like Modern Family for Best TV Comedy Series and Homeland for Best TV Drama Series and Claire Danes for Showtime's Homeland, Idris Elba for BBC America's Luther and Peter Dinklage for HBO's Game of Thrones) is also available.

Hat/tip to AwardsDaily.

WATCH: Promo for Game of Thrones Season 2

Celebrity Friday: Zachary Quinto Comes Out

Zachary Quinto played Spock in J.J. Abrams' re-boot of Star Trk

Zachary Quinto, 34, is an actor best known for playing the hero/villain on the once wildly popular television series Heroes and inhabiting the role of Spock in J.J. Abrams re-boot of Star Trek (see my A- review).

But this week he makes news by revealing his long-rumored sexual orientation. Zach is gay!

Last year, the Times, in profiling him forAngels, noted that “the blogosphere is rife with speculation about his sexuality” but that “he prefers not to feed the rumor mill with either substantiation or dismissal.” That has changed. A little while later in our conversation, speaking of the cultural bipolarity that can see gay marriage legalized in New York in the same year that yet another gay teenager, Jamey Rodemeyer, was bullied and killed himself, Quinto says, “And again, as a gay man I look at that and say there’s a hopelessness that surrounds it, but as a human being I look at it and say ‘Why? Where’s this disparity coming from, and why can’t we as a culture and society dig deeper to examine that?’ We’re terrified of facing ourselves.”

Hmmm, I hope this doesn't impact his career negatively. (I doubt it will.) I'm also curious about his Star Trek co-star (who played the other pivotal role of James T. Kirk), Chris Pine, and has gone on to co-star in films with big stars like Denzel Washington in Unstoppable. Pine still has no "personal information" in his Wikipedia page, while Quinto's contains the fact that he is now out as a gay man.

2 Weeks Until Season 2 Of Walking Dead!

This show was my guilty pleasure last spring when I discovered it, in repeats on AMC. I watched the entire first season in about a week. Hopefully, the second season which starts Sunday October 16th will be just as good.

Lost Producers Confess They Made It All Up Ad Hoc

Damon Lindelof (left) and Carlton Cuse were the showrunners on Lost

As you may recall, I was a huge fan of the television series Lost and was verklempt when it went off the air Sunday May 23, 2010.

The story was so complex that there was always a suspicion about whether the writers and producers really knew what they wanted to do all the time and was the intricacy intended genius or unintended confusion.

One of the main executive producers, Damon Lindelof, now admits it was more of the latter:

"The biggest issue with a desert island show was the audience is going to get very frustrated that the characters were not getting off the island," he said. "My solution was, hey, let's get off the island every week. And the way we're going to do that is we're going to do these flashbacks. We'll do one character at a time and there's going to be like 70 characters on the show, so we'll go really, really slow, and each one will basically say, here's who they were before the crash and it'll dramatize something that's happening on the island and it will also make the show very character-centric."

Abrams liked the idea, and also had another: "'There should be a hatch on this island! They spend the entire season trying to get it open. And there should be these other people on the island,'" Lindelof recalled Abrams saying. "And I'm like, ''We can call them The Others.' And he's like, 'They should hear this noise out there in the jungle.' And I'm like, 'What's the noise?' And he's like, 'I don't...know. They're never going to pick this thing up anyway.'"

Lindelof said the idea to tell the story out of chronological order came in part from "Pulp Fiction," in which John Travolta's character is killed about halfway through -- and viewers learn only at the end that he had failed to heed Samuel Jackson's speech in the diner about the path of the righteous man.

"That sort of flipped the switch in me, and was something that I really wanted to do as a storyteller and 'Lost' was really the perfect opportunity to do it," Lindelof said.

The most amusing revelation is that Lindelof really just wanted to get a job on J.J. Abrams' hit show Alias (which I also loved) which is why he originally met with Abrams and then was offered his new show while Abrams went off to direct movies like Star Trek  and Mission Impossible 3.

2011 Emmy Awards: The Winners

Tonight was a big day in Hollywood as the Emmy Awards for excellence in television were announced.
I had previously blogged about the nominations and made my choices known.

Here is the full list of winners of the 2011 Emmy Awards:

 Outstanding Drama Series: "Mad Men," AMC.
- Outstanding Lead Actress, Drama Series: Julianna Margulies, "The Good Wife," CBS.
- Outstanding Lead Actor, Drama Series: Kyle Chandler, "Friday Night Lights," DirecTV/NBC.
- Outstanding Supporting Actor, Drama Series: Peter Dinklage, "Game of Thrones," HBO.
- Outstanding Supporting Actress, Drama Series: Margo Martindale, "Justified," FX.
- Outstanding Writing, Drama Series: Jason Katims, "Friday Night Lights," NBC.
- Outstanding Directing, Drama Series: Martin Scorsese, "Boardwalk Empire," HBO.
- Outstanding Comedy Series: "Modern Family," ABC.
- Outstanding Actor, Comedy Series: Jim Parsons, "The Big Bang Theory," CBS.
- Outstanding Actress, Comedy Series: Melissa McCarthy, "Mike & Molly," CBS.
- Outstanding Supporting Actress, Comedy Series: Julie Bowen, "Modern Family," ABC.
- Outstanding Supporting Actor, Comedy Series: Ty Burrell, "Modern Family," ABC.
- Outstanding Writing, Comedy Series: Steven Levitan and Jeffrey Richman, "Modern Family," ABC.
- Outstanding Directing, Comedy Series: Michael Spiller, "Modern Family," ABC.
- Outstanding Miniseries or Movie: "Downton Abbey (Masterpiece)," PBS.
- Outstanding Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Kate Winslet, "Mildred Pierce," HBO.
- Outstanding Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Barry Pepper, "The Kennedys," ReelzChannel.
- Outstanding Supporting Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Maggie Smith, "Downton Abbey (Masterpiece)," PBS.
- Outstanding Supporting Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Guy Pearce, "Mildred Pierce," HBO.
- Outstanding Directing, Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special: Brian Percival, "Downton Abbey (Masterpiece)," PBS.
- Outstanding Writing, Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special: Julian Fellowes, "Downton Abbey (Masterpiece)," PBS.
- Outstanding Reality-Competition Program: "The Amazing Race," CBS.
- Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series: "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," Comedy Central.
- Outstanding Directing, Variety, Music or Comedy Series: Don Roy King, "Saturday Night Live," NBC.
- Outstanding Writing, Variety, Music or Comedy Series: "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," Comedy Central.

The highlights for me are the husband and wife from Modern Family (Ty Burrel and Julie Bowen) winning Best Supporting Actor and Actress. The Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category was all four male leads from Modern Family  and Chris Colfer from Glee! Also, I'm very psyched that Peter Dinklage won for his portrayal of Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones, a role that could physically not be played by anyone else and is an amazing piece of writing by George R.R. Martin. I'm also glad that two other shows I just started watching, The Good Wife and the The Big Bang Theory had their lead actors, Jim Parsons (second consecutive year) and Julianna Margulies recognized for their excellent work.

I do not understand the obsession with Mad Men; to me it just looks some kind of Republican fantasy of life in the 1950s before all that damned "progress" of the 1960s (civil  rights for Blacks, equal rights for women and the gay rights movement) happened and "the good old days" were rocking. It's some kind of sick nostalgia fantasy for conservatives. The show has won 4 years in a row, every year it has been in existence. Even worse s The Amazing Race which has now won every Best Reality Series Emmy award ever, even though Survivor was first (and is still better).

Last but not least, congrats to Dame Maggie Smith. You, go, girl!!

Celebrity Friday: Cheyenne Jackson

Out actor Cheyenne Jackson (right) and
his newly married spouse Monte Lapka

Today's Celebrity Friday is about the civil marriage of out actor Cheyenne Jackson to his male partner Monte Lapka which was announced via Twitter last week. They tied the knot in New York, now that the state has legalized marriage equality.

Ab Fab, Sweetie Dahling!

All the gay blogs are a buzz with the news that nearly 20 year after the first episodes aired in the United Kingdom, the classic comedy Absolutely Fabulous starring Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley is shooting new scenes for a Christmas special episode.