Monday, July 20, 2009

Glad to see me? I guess we're in the next life!

Howdy, folks. Had a fine time on vacation, including stops at Hershey Park (which, while fun, was sadly unlike The Land of Chocolate from Homer's dreams) and the Jersey shore, and randomly shared an elevator with the hilarious Ken Jeong (of "The Hangover" and "Party Down") at a remote Massachusetts hotel. (He couldn't have been more polite, by the way, even as the ride threatend to turn into an episode of The Chris Farley Show.)

I wasn't able to completely unplug, but for the most part, it was nice to be able to watch something like "Better Off Ted" without having to think about what to write about it, whether ABC had a photo or I'd need to make a screencap, etc.

Now I'm back, and after the jump we'll have a link to my latest column, and some other talk about how the next few weeks (involving Comic-Con and the TV critics press tour) will go.

The first order of business is to link to my review of "Torchwood: Children of Earth," which BBC America is running tonight through Friday at 9 p.m. As you can tell if you click through, I loved it, even though the ending was a bit rushed.

I'm aware that reaction to the final chapters was more mixed in the UK, where "Children of Earth" aired a couple of weeks ago, and it's at this point that I remind you of the U.S.-only codicil to the No Spoilers rule. I'm aware that this blog has some international readers, and/or readers who download shows that have aired in other countries rather than waiting for them to air here. And you're all welcome here -- just so long as you don't give away plot details about things that haven't aired here yet. Don't even try to cleverly hint at something; anything I see as over the line gets deleted.

I loved "Children of Earth" enough that I'm frustrated it's airing in a week that's being cleaved in two for me by travel (and was preceded by a vacation week). Ordinarily, I'd love to do in-depth reviews of each night, but that's not going to be possible here. Instead, look for a post to go live around 10:15 (when the eps are scheduled to finish airing) each night this week, possibly with a few thoughts from me, possibly just asking for your own thoughts. I'll try to do something slightly longer for the finale, but time will be a factor. And, again, I'm going to ask you to abide by the spoiler rule. If you've seen all five episodes but only one has aired here in America, talk only about things in that episode. Do not allude to stuff down the line. Got it?

Now, as for other stuff this week, it's up in the air. I have a lot of screeners to watch and other prep work to do before I head to California on Thursday. I've seen the next few "Nurse Jackie" eps, and I've watched the next episodes of "The Wire" season two and "Sports Night" for those reviews, but I don't know how much time I'll have to work on any of them. With ongoing shows like "Jackie," "Burn Notice" (which I watched last week but didn't write about because of vacation), etc., I may just wind up skipping episode reviews for the next few weeks, unless something's either really special or I have an unexpected pocket of free time. With projects like "The Wire" and "Sports Night," they'll get done when they get done, as I've been saying.

Gonna be a lot of playing by ear around here for a while, and that includes how I wind up covering Comic-Con (which I've never attended before) and press tour. I'm not sure what my technological capabilities are going to be at Comic-Con during the daytime, so the best I may be able to do is post a comment now and again on Twitter with my phone. (Though I imagine Schwartz and company will frown on that during the "Chuck" panel.)

And speaking of tweeting, this'll be my first press tour with an active Twitter account, but I'm not sure how much of it I'll be doing there. It's enough of a distraction as is to be blogging so much that if I was tweeting about every funny and/or newsworthy moment on top of that, I'd barely feel like I was present. A guy like Fienberg is wired to be tweeting, blogging and paying attention simultaneously; I'm not sure I am.

So, to wrap things up, I can't really give you a firm schedule for when posts will be up, how I'll be writing, etc. I just know I'll be writing things at various times. Wish I could be more clear, but I've never done Comic-Con before, Comic-Con has never been before press tour before (which means a lot of news may break at the con instead of the tour), etc.

Got all that?

34 comments:

sjml said...

What day(s) are you at Comic-Con, Alan?

Anonymous said...

The link to the Torchwood review doesn't work, at least not for me.

Alan Sepinwall said...

What day(s) are you at Comic-Con, Alan?

Friday through Sunday.

Alan Sepinwall said...

The link to the Torchwood review doesn't work, at least not for me.

Fixed. Thanks.

Faye said...

Welcome back Alan, glad you had a good break.

I don't trust myself to comment about Torchwood at all (British, so seen them all), so i'm looking forward to sitting back and seeing yours and everyone else's thoughts here. Trying to persuade a colleague to watch it I came up with 'Final arc Dr Who-good' as a level of quality. I'll be interested to help unpick my feelings on the latter sections as I haven't been able to discuss it in depth with friends yet, so i'm hoping this will help!

Anonymous said...

Alan, any idea about the Wire Season Two recaps?

I thought this past week's episode really kicked that season into high gear.

Alan Sepinwall said...

Read the post, anonymous. I talked about The Wire and Sports Night there.

Art Fleming said...

Welcome back, are you gonna be writing about the 13th dollhouse ep?

Anonymous said...

I spent my weekend watching a good chunk of my State DVDs, and then rented "Role Models" which I had no idea was a David Wain movie until I saw the opening credits. Ken Jeong was pretty hilarious in that one also.

Anonymous said...

Is today the first day that BBC America is in HD?

Norwegian said...

Unrelated question, but I keep missing open threads due to time difference.

Have you read A song of Ice and Fire? HBO is producing the pilot, and it just got official that Sean Bean and John Addy got cast, in addition to Peter Dinklage and the direction by Tom McCarthy, this seems inevitably good. Just wondering if you have any thoughts about it.

Thanks

Nicole said...

I hope those who did not like Torchwood for the first two seasons actually give this one a chance. It is finally written like the adult science fiction show he said it was supposed to be. Maybe it's the format of a five consecutive day showing, but I was eagerly anticipating each episode, which I can't say I have ever done for Torchwood before.

Outside of the Chuck panel, will you be interviewing other tv people? David Tennant is in attendance, or so I hear, so it would be great if you could get an interview from him about his time as the Tenth Doctor.

I see that you have seen the new Eastwick with Paul Gross. As much as I think he is a great actor, I fear that this will be Desperate Housewives with magic.

Timothy Holden said...

Wire Blog, Wire Blog, Wire Blog, People with no lives are waiting for the Wire Blog.

I'm crying, Alan. Are you happy? Do you like watching people cry?

Karen said...

Alan, bless you for reminding me that Children of Earth begins tonight! I've been intrigued by this, due to random UK [non-spoilery but anguished] tweets I've read, despite being fairly lukewarm on the series as a whole.

But your post inspired me to check my DVR, where I discovered that, despite having Torchwood on "series recording," the software didn't recognize "Torchwood: Children of Earth" as being of the same DNA. But now I've set up a separate recording for COE, which I'm very much looking forward to. And which I would have been sorry to miss.

bgt said...

You picked a good week not to write about Burn Notice. Unfortunately, worst ep of the season in my opinion.

Looking forward to Torchwood - has it been confirmed that BBC-A is showing the full British eps?

Alan Sepinwall said...

The episodes are running in a 75-minute timeslot (9-10:15), which would give them about 20 minutes of commercial time if they ran them uncut.

But I have no idea if the episodes are running uncut or not.

Anonymous said...

Anyone who enjoys Ken Jeung should kisten to this podcast from Adam Carolla. Good comedy. http://www.adamcarolla.com/ACPBlog/2009/06/19/adam-and-ken-jeong/

Alan Sepinwall said...

Someone at BBC America says they'll air exactly as they did in England, with the exception of some pixellation for a few brief instances of nudity.

Anonymous said...

My cable system here in Central Jersey (Cablevision) does not carry BBC America, much to my chagrin. Does anyone know if T:COE will be released soon on dvd? Or can one view it online at the BBC website?

Thanks!

Mac said...

"When driving drunk, it's important to not get noticed by the cops."

Matthew said...

While we're on the subject of the wider Doctor Who universe, have you seen the announcement from Torchwood's parent show. They've started filming Matt Smith's season, and have released a photograph of Matt Smith and Karen Gillan in costume.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/s4/misc/galleries/matt_and_karen_01

I quite like the costume. Having gone so damned young in casting the Doctor, I like that they costumed him like an elderly Professor. It doesn't feel like a costume like the old Doctors, but at the same time it doesn't feel quite as natural as Eccleston or Tennant.

Alyson said...

Alan, welcome back! Glad to hear that your vacay was restful, and I am looking forward to your Comic-Con coverage in whatever form you're able to provide on-site.

@Anon: 2:53 Amazon tells me that the T:COE DVDs are to be released next Wednesday.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Alyson! I appreciate it.

"Anon: 2:53"

Synner_man said...

"My cable system here in Central Jersey (Cablevision) does not carry BBC America, much to my chagrin. Does anyone know if T:COE will be released soon on dvd? Or can one view it online at the BBC website?"

It is being released on DVD and Blu-ray next week (7/28).

Hatfield said...

That's unfortunate that Donovan was driving drunk, but hilarious comment, nonetheless.

Also, to belatedly answer Alan's James Bond theme song question, I think "A View to a Kill" by Duran Duran has to be in the discussion too

HC said...

Nowhere to comment about this but here. I have really enjoyed the last 3 episodes of Kings.

I shouldn't have allowed myself to get sucked in.

Oh well, have fun @ Comic-con.

7s Tim said...

Alan, if you wanna get away with tweeting during the Chuck panel, just wear your Jeffster! shirt. Even without a vacation 'sache, it should buy you some cred.
(or would that be too much like Gutter wearing the t-shirt of the band he was going to see in PCU?)

Unknown said...

More detail on the Jeffrey Donovan arrest below... before this news I actually had a Burn Notice question for you Alan struck me a few episodes ago.

I was going to ask - Is Burn Notice the only show on these days that starts every episode straight into the credit sequence, and then starts the show a proper right afterward? I racked my brain and figured it seemed to be the only one that still followed this "old style" anymore - then bugger me if Hung didn't do just that in the last episode (and maybe ep 2 as well). Still there cant be many that go straight to title sequence any more - can you or anyone else think of any others?

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5idO_cybYnfVPNjYYFppVgAKtwwPwD99ICMGG3

"When trying to avoid running into the back of a police car, it's important to remember you are probably drunk and in all likelihood about to fail a field sobriety test. Under no circumstances should you submit to any breathalyzer test as a good spy has an exceptional tolerance to alcohol and there is every chance by the time they get you to the station you will be totally sober..."

Matthew said...

And you're all welcome here -- just so long as you don't give away plot details about things that haven't aired here yet. Don't even try to cleverly hint at something; anything I see as over the line gets deleted.

Just checking, what if we inserted a [spoiler alert] note? Is that fine? Or is your blog harder on spoilers than the NY Times?

(When I saw you mention the NYT review on the Twitter feed, I went and checked the review, wondering how bad a spoiler they could possibly reveal. And, I just do not know what he was thinking writing that. There's just no call for making that kind of revelation.)

filmcricket said...

Welcome back, Alan. Love the nerd banner. Can't wait for the reports from ComicCon; I need a Chuck fix, dagnabbit!

Unknown said...

This might link better!

Alan Sepinwall said...

Just checking, what if we inserted a [spoiler alert] note? Is that fine?

No. Not fine. Read the commenting rules.

Matthew said...

No. Not fine. Read the commenting rules.

I realise that. It was intended as a (badly worded) joke about the horror that was the NYT review than a serious question. (On reflection, I should have said something like "You mean we can't just use [spoiler alert]?" That might have been clearer.)

Bix said...

Alan, will you be reviewing Dollhouse 1x13 (Epitaph One) soon (and maybe the original pilot, too)?