Yes folks, TV Lowdown is descending into the technological dark ages of having no internet access.
Now, I know the ladies among you have probably swooned in terror, but pull yourselves together! It won’t be for long. The nerve center of TV Lowdown is relocating from London to Brighton and, while we get everything up and running, there may not be any updates for a while.
To keep yourselves busy you can always check out TV Lowdown’s friends such as The Park Bench, celebrating all things nerdy, or The Cinemaphiles for the film buffs among you. Those who love their leading ladies should visit Heroine TV, and I’d recommend you all to The Laverytory, the blog of international TV studies guru Dr. David Lavery.
Enjoy the rest of the week, and we hope to be back soon with all the latest on TV.
Alaina Huffman, the actress who plays medic Tamara Johansen on Stargate Universe, has announced that she’s pregnant with her third child. This obviously led to questions about whether her pregnancy would be written into the show. Her response?
“You have to watch. I think every actor on the Stargate franchise has had one or more kids. [The writers] know what they are doing, and they know how to deal with it. I can’t give away spoilers whether we are or are not going to entertain that possibility. You’ve just got to keep watching!”
I can see both the positive and negative aspects of writing her pregnancy into the show; on the one hand it would raise some very interesting problems for the crew and TJ by having a baby on board, but on the other hand, women with babies on television are too often reduced to only being mothers. If the writers could handle Johansen being pregnant in an interesting way, without it detracting from her development as a character, then it could be a good move for the show.
Of course, they may have already planned for this; we know from the pilot that Johansen was resigning from the military, so perhaps she had a bun-in-the-oven type of reason…
Dollhouse is leaving our screens. Yes, only for a month, but it’s probably just a taste of a much longer absence. Like, forever.
Fox have announced that following tomorrow nights episode, the apparently Sierra-centric 2×04, no more new episodes of Dollhouse will air during November sweeps, with repeats of House expected to take its place.
Instead, Dollhouse will return in December where it will be shown in double episode slots. Yep, looks like they’re rushing out the remaining episodes to honour their commitment, and then washing their hands of the show.
It’s a real shame; S2 just hasn’t yet followed through on the promise of late S1, and I wish Joss and Co. had taken a few more risks when they had the chance. Of course, I could be speaking prematurely, but I have a feeling I’m not…
I have to admit, I’m ambivalent about this one (given my somewhat troubled relationship with Glee) but word has spread that Joss Whedon will be guest-directing an episode. I’ll let Mr. Whedon explain…
Hey kids and parents of kids and super-old, like ancestor-old-but-not-dead-yet-type people, just poking my oversized head in to say that the rumors are true… unless something very odd happens in the next few months, I will have the privilege of shooting an episode of GLEE. Why GLEE? Because I love cops, serial killers and gritty urban drama (I haven’t seen the show yet). Why me? Because they’re struggling and can’t afford real directors. And to head off a few queries:
No, this doesn’t mean Dollhouse definitely won’t get a back nine. Our numbers mean that! But I kid. Okay, we’re not exactly saving all the good stuff for 14-22, but nobody’s closed the door. If D’House suddenly busts wide, huzzah, we’ll still bring it, and I’ll still go and direct an episode of Glee, because of my love of cops. These realities can co-exist. And possibly cross over, at least in fiction that I have wri – read. About.
What can we expect from a ‘Joss Whedon’ epsiode of Glee? An episode of Glee. God willin’ and the crik don’t rise, a good one. A television director’s job is, on some level, to be anonymous; to find the most compelling way to present a story without calling attention to himself. I had a wonderful time doing just that on The Office, and hope to again. A guest director can bring a huge amount to the party (we’ve had CRAZY talent on Dollhouse), but the party isn’t his. I just want to work with good people on a show that I like enough to have watched every episode several times. (I lied: I HAVE watched the show. And seriously, when do the cops show up?)
Whom will I kill? When will that go away? Is death really the only thing I’m known for? I’d hope not. You know how many people in the world actually die? ALL OF THEM. You know how many I’ve killed? Statistically, somewhat fewer. Can’t we focus on another element of my work? Having said that, probably Principal Figgins. (No! I kid! God.)
Anyway, I hope that clears things up. I’m going to do my best, and more importantly, I’m going to do my best not to gush like a fanboy for eight straight days on set. Don’t worry. I practiced with Bamber. I’m a pro.
Interesting news from the world of FlashForward; it has been reported that Marc Guggenheim, one of the showrunners, has made a hasty exit from the ABC drama.
Whilst there doesn’t seem to be any concrete reason as to why, there have been rumours that network executives were unhappy with the quality of episodes in the first part of the season. Obviously these executives still have faith in the show, as it was recently handed a full-season order, but it looks like it may progress under changed leadership.
Co-showrunner David Goyer is still in place, and it remains to be seen whether he’ll carry on solo or be joined by a new partner.
There are faint murmurings that Red Dwarf could indeed be returning for a tenth series to be aired on Dave, the channel which brought us the fairly poor mini-series Back To Earth earlier this year.
Whilst nothing has yet been confirmed, fans were excited to read this on the Twitter feed of Robert Llewellyn, who plays Kryten in the sci-fi comedy:
Series 10 of Red Dwarf announcement just been made at DJ 09. To clarify the scripts have been commissioned, wont be filming til 2010
However, Llewellyn very quickly clarified his comments:
Want to re-state that UKTV, aka Dave have commissioned Doug Naylor to write scripts, still a long way to go before it’s all official
Whilst this apparently hasn’t been confirmed or denied by Dave, it seems fairly unlikely that Llewellyn would be so specific unless there was some truth behind it, so it’s probably fair to assume that Doug Naylor is indeed writing scripts for a new series. Frankly, I’m not sure whether to be happy about this news or not. Yes, I’m one of those Red Dwarf fans who moans and complains that the earlier series were far better than the later ones. I just hope that if series 10 does come to fruition it’s a little less gimicky than the painfully self-referential Back To Earth.
In case you’ve somehow never encountered Red Dwarf, here’s a clip from back in the good old days of 1992, and the fifth series episode “Quarantine”.
Amy Sherman-Palladino, who created, wrote and executive produced the seven-season mother-daughter network show Gilmore Girls is taking her first steps into cable with a new project for HBO.
The as-yet-untitled dramedy will be written by Sherman-Palladino and focus on three adult sisters, all writers, living in the same apartment block with their domineering mother who lavishes her affections on their useless brother.
“It’s a story of love, hate, family — and finding the perfect opening line,” Sherman-Palladino said.
I have to put my hands up here and say that I’ve only seen about ten minutes of Gilmore Girls, so I’m not really in a place to judge whether Sherman-Palladino’s new project is one to be excited about. I know she has a reputation for snappy, fast-paced dialogue (which presumably on HBO would be rather more explicit than network!)
No word yet on when to expect this one to air, or whether they’re making a pilot or going straight to series.
His character Eli is apparently part of the Sullivan Bros. Carnival, which has been a major plot point this season, and will also have close ties to their leader Samuel (Robert Knepper).
At first my assumption was that he could be playing the supposedly dead brother of Samuel, but a little research reminded me that the deceased Mr. Sullivan was named Joseph. Any predictions, Heroes fans?
Dollhouse viewers can rest slightly easier today with the assurance that all of the 13 episodes currently ordered for Season 2 will indeed be aired. For the last few weeks rumours have been floating around that, due to the rather less than impressive ratings the first few episodes of the second season received, Fox may yank the show off the air completely.
Luckily, that won’t be the case. Preston Beckman, head honcho of scheduling at Fox, said: “We’re going to run all the episodes. We’re not saying we’re happy with those numbers, or accept them, but we don’t have to overreact. During [November] sweeps we might have to jack up the numbers a little [with other programming], but we plan on completing the order for this show.”
Hmm. “Completing the order for this show” does seem to suggest that a full-length second season probably isn’t on the cards, and that the show will draw to a close after just 26 episodes. Even Joss Whedon himself seems slightly resigned to the fact that they may have to wrap up the show shortly:
“We’ll definitely have closure, but will leave some doors open,” said Whedon, who’s currently shooting the eighth episode. “When we got our first numbers, which were bad, the first thing [Fox president of entertainment] Kevin Reilly said was, ‘You’ll have all 13,’ which was great. They’re not going to pull the rug out from under us.”
Still, at least this does mean that the writers have an opportunity to resolve some issues. I’m going to try and stay optimistic, but I think Dollhouse fans may have to begin preparing themselves for bad news.
In last week’s poll we asked which your favourite new shows of the Fall 2009 season were, and the results are in! Your top 3 were Stargate Universe (26%), Glee (23%) and FlashForward (16%). Well, two out of three ain’t bad, in my opinion…
Here’s how the rest of the shows stacked up.Now onto this week’s poll…
Showtime’s Dexter, telling the tale of a serial killer who only preys on those who “deserve it”, has been one of the more surprising successes of the last few years, and for good reason. It’s dark, witty, gruesome and engaging, with an almost perfectly cast group of actors and a glossy aesthetic. Whilst some episodes can be noticeably weaker than others the show is, for the most part, very consistently entertaining.
The question is, how much longer can that go on for? The premise of Dexter requires that the police department who employ Dexter never learn of the truth, and presumably the same could be said for his wife Rita and sister Deb. But is it feasible for the show to carry on much longer without (it has to be said) an increasingly sloppy Dexter making a fatal mistake and revealing himself to the wrong person?
The show is currently in its fourth season, and has already been assured of a fifth. Would you happily see the show draw to an end with the finale of its fifth season, or do you think there’s more mileage to Dexter’s story? I personally hope the fifth season is the last, simply so that the show can go out on top and not risk a decline in quality.
Yes folks, TV Lowdown is descending into the technological dark ages of having no internet access.
I can see both the positive and negative aspects of writing her pregnancy into the show; on the one hand it would raise some very interesting problems for the crew and TJ by having a baby on board, but on the other hand, women with babies on television are too often reduced to only being mothers. If the writers could handle Johansen being pregnant in an interesting way, without it detracting from her development as a character, then it could be a good move for the show.
Dollhouse is leaving our screens. Yes, only for a month, but it’s probably just a taste of a much longer absence. Like, forever.
Amy Sherman-Palladino, who created, wrote and executive produced the seven-season mother-daughter network show Gilmore Girls is taking her first steps into cable with a new project for HBO.
The prolific TV actor Todd Stashwick, 
Dollhouse viewers can rest slightly easier today with the assurance that all of the 13 episodes currently ordered for Season 2 will indeed be aired. For the last few weeks rumours have been floating around that, due to the rather less than impressive ratings the first few episodes of the second season received, Fox may yank the show off the air completely.
Now onto this week’s poll…