The Remote Island : Eleventh Hour

Wake Up And Smile: If The Ladies Of The View Smoked Meth, There’d Be Some Stabbing

Bryan Christian — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:35:00 GMT

Member when Elisabeth Hasselbeck said she wasn’t leaving The View anytime soon? Well, if the rumors about backstage at today’s episode are any indication, you can file that under “Maybe” in the FiloFax of your mind. In the 1970’s desk of your soul.

Plus: NBC's surprising plans for Thursday nights, Little Britain's gay divorce shocker, a show that combines the talents of both It's Always Sunny... and Arrested Development (in space!) and the happy ending to Billie Piper's day-long labour. (Notice how we used the 'u'? Classy, right?)

-- Things are rapidly deteriorating for kind-of-cute right-winger Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View, where she has been booed by the audience two days in a row – and been threatened with being “burned down” by Joy Behar. Jesus, does everyone on that show think of people as trees?

-- How underperformy are ABC and CBS’s Thursday evening efforts (and the season as a whole)? So much so that after years of trying to shake it loose, NBC might want to keep ER around a little while longer.

-- Little Britain genius (and Little Britain USA perpetrator) Matt Lucas said “No, but yeah, but no, but yeah, but no, BUT NO” to his 18-month-long same sex marriage, making him the first and probably only gay divorced celebrity in his village. Um… I’m a lady!

-- Lest you think that there’s no hope for TV in the midst of this, the most crummy fall season season since man first remoted upright, think again: Buster Bluth is going to be starring in the It’s Always Sunny... guys’ work/space comedy.

-- And we finish today with best wishes to Billie Piper, star of Doctor Who and Secret Diary of a Call Girl, who underwent an emergency c-section Tuesday morning in London after a day-long labor. Mother, husband Laurence, and son Winston are all apparently doing fine. All the best, everyone, and Billie, we expect to see you in another season of Call Girl... scars be damned!

Wake Up And Smile: Obama's October Surprise Might Be A November "SNL" Cameo

Bryan Christian — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:26:00 GMT

Time for another Halloween party at the Clinton's? Maybe... plus the latest on David Duchovny, Sarah Silverman, Terminator, Dollhouse, the Thursday ratings battle between Life on Mars and Eleventh Hour, plus -- does someone die on both Gossip Girl and Heroes this November?

-- Seth Meyers may have let slip plans for an Obama guest spot on Saturday Night Live the weekend before the election. But, then again, the rightwinger guy who claims to have heard this from an unnamed aide to Governor Sarah Palin also claims to know that John McCain consulted Lorne Michaels about picking Governor Palin as his running mate, so, you know, moron.

-- A tennis instructor was claiming to have been involved in the conspiracy known as David Duchovny's humpin' around until she backed off those claims suddenly. She now claims to have been fucking the planet Venus.

-- "Great Schlepper" Sarah Silverman bombed big time in London earlier this week, in front of Brit comedy luminaries like David Walliams and the guys from The Boosh. Turns out no one in England knows what a vagina is.

-- Nerds webwide are rejoicing the full season pickup for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles... except the ones that believe it cost them Dollhouse.

-- Thursdasy night's ratings continue to get interesting, except for the part where the subpar and insulting Eleventh Hour is now beating Life on Mars. Maybe give Michael Imperioli a shave or something?

-- E! says someone is dying in November on both Heroes and Gossip Girl, but we hate spoilers, so don't call us unless it's actually a crossover and Suresh eats Chuck Bass or something.

Wake Up And Smile: Palin Not A Lock For "SNL" (Says Someone We've Never Heard Of)

Bryan Christian — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:29:00 GMT

Image via E! Online

Normally, we wouldn't print anything that had only one source, but considering supposedly adored hockey mom Sarah Palin got booed at a hockey game over the weekend, it's entirely possible that she's looking to get out of that rumored Saturday Night Live appearance. Not to worry, though: we've got much more thoroughly backed-up news on ER, Life on Mars, Eleventh Hour, South Park's Indiana Jones controversy, Star Trek, Star Wars, and the distinct possibility that a certain human-masked lizard alien miniseries is gonna get a remake.

-- Someone we've never heard of says that those rumors of Sarah Palin getting a chance to turn the SNL tables on Tina Fey in their 10/25 Jon Hamm-hosted episode are just that: rumors. Hey Jezebel, do you know something about "Bill Lucey" that we don't?

-- So... the second episode of outgoing medical drama ER beat the premieres of both Life on Mars and Eleventh Hour last Thursday in the all-important 18-49 demo. What's more, in the overall ratings, ER came in third with the other two shows basically tied. Yes, we believe we have identified the most interesting timeslot of the year.

-- No one will be going after Matt Stone & Trey Parker for South Park's angry (if reiterative) depiction of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas raping Indiana Jones. According to Nikki Finke, Viacom and Paramount, parent companies to Comedy Central and occasional partners to Dreamworks, just want the situation to go away. Not likely.

-- Someone may finally be following through on the often-rumored remake of V, the 1983 alien invasion miniseries that inspired a sequel series and weekly show that introduced us to Michael Ironside. Hey, any of you kids bothered to watch V recently? Wa bought a copy a while back; it's got way more WWII stuff in it that we'd remembered. Imagine Vichy France where the Nazis ate birds!

-- So let's get this straight: right when the Star Wars franchise is making the shift to TV, Paramount execs have decreed that Star Trek has to be more Wars-y -- which (from what we can tell, and what io9 suggests) means making it more movie-ish and, it seems, decoupling it from abject slavery to the TV franchises?

Remote Bryan Wants His "Eleventh Hour" Back

Bryan Christian — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Because we knew that Remote Ben was going to be typing up his notes on the Life on Mars premiere, we decided to stick around after CSI -- surprisingly good, btw, and not just for Warrick's strange and sad death scene -- and check out Eleventh Hour, Jerry Bruckheimer's gloss on the paranormal. Blecch, we say, and blecch again. Which do you like better? "Numb3rs + X(files) = Zero" or "CSI-Fi"? We went with option three for our headline, which is less funny perhaps, but ultimately got at the heart of our feelings. Particularly after we switched channels and caught the last few seconds of Life on Mars. Brilliant closing shot, guys. We'll definitely be catching the whole show on our DVR's this weekend.

So who will win in the ratings battle? Hard to say. We think they both could survive, actually, though Life on Mars might be the first to get reschedules if it's a draw or worse for them. As for Eleventh Hour, well, CBS is doing really well with Buckheimer-type stuff right now, so our bet is it'll get big numbers and be around for at least five years. Because Bruckheimer ain't just interested in a show that does well now; he wants something that TNT will buy in five years, and nets all over the world will buy today.

Well, good on Rufus Sewell, who's an actor we love and deserves a steady paycheck. And Marley Shelton, well, we'll always have Grindhouse.

Top Ten New Shows: #8 - "Eleventh Hour"

Bryan Christian — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:30:00 GMT

The new fall season is almost here. Starting next week, the cable and broadcast networks will begin rolling out their new shows to see if they take off like castaways on an island or singing casino managers. Here, then, are the top ten new shows we're most looking forward to seeing.

Here's what we know about Eleventh Hour: it's got Rufus Sewell in it, who's one of those weird, wonderful actors who manages to get us interested even in total shite. It's a remake of a failed British sci-fi show which couldn't find an audience even though it starred Jean-Luc Picard. And it's from the fine folks at Bruckheimer Industries, meaning that we were half-expecting to hear Roger Daltrey scream at the end of that clip up top.

So, basically, all signs point to, well, total crap. And yet, we're still curious -- the promos are stylish and appealingly inscrutable, we love Sewell, and we're tickled pink to have a big, expensive, probably trashy counterpoint to the similarly-themed, presumably more intellectually supernatural Fringe. Also: unless it gets trounced by Life on Mars (kind of a longshot), CBS probably has enough scratch invested in it to ensure that it's around for at least 4 years -- CSI: New York, anyone? -- so we might as well get comfy, right?

Eleventh Hour (Thursdays at 10PM EST) premieres Thursday, October 9th on CBS.

TOP TEN NEW SHOWS 2008

#1. "Fringe"
#2. "True Blood"
#3. "90210"
#4. "Life On Mars"
#5. "The Mentalist"
#6. "Sons of Anarchy"
#7. "Do Not Disturb"
#8. "Eleventh Hour"
#9. "Kath & Kim"
#10. "Knight Rider"