The Remote Island : John From Cincinnati

OMG, Luke Perry is that you?

Olivia Purnell — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 21:00:00 GMT

He looks good, no? As a pre-teen we adored him as the teenaged leather-jacket wearing perfectly coifed bad boy Dylan McKay. All pre-teens love that (see: all the recent Twilight twitterpation . . . Dylan was our generation’s hot vampire). And, while the years haven’t treated the 90210 franchise so well, Luke is lookin’ . . . . dare we say, decent.

In the spirit of full disclosure:
You may or may not know that we have an ongoing thing with/for Luke Perry. There was this semi-unfortunate chance encounter a couple of years ago in Los Angeles. We were wearing sweat-pants in public (regrettable, we know), he was eating brunch near us, we spoke . . . we hugged. But, nothing really went the way we would’ve liked it to.

Now when we see him . . .

(sigh)

We remember fondly the days of Dylan (again, who doesn’t love that wild cafeteria-desperado thing). We think briefly about the magnificent Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the ill-fated John From Cincinnati. And we plan in pre-teen detail what we’ll wear and how we’ll act when we see Luke again (oh, it’ll happen).

Until that fateful day, we’ll just have to soothe ourselves with the news that Luke is doing well. He’s got this new project on the horizon. He’ll starring in Uwe Boll’s The Storm. The Hollywood Reporter says:

In the apocalyptic thriller, [Lauren] Holly plays a dedicated wife and mother who must deal with the end of days scenario -- all heightened by the arrival of a mysterious stranger named Silas (Perry) who holds the key to the approaching doom. (thr.com)

We’re into it. And listen Luke, if you’re reading this and you need a date to the premiere, feel free to let us know. We clean up good. Real good.

Previously:

OMG, Neve Campbell is that you?

OMG, Carson is that you?

OMG, Ricki Lake Is That You?

Did "True Blood" Tank?

Ben Kallen — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:25:00 GMT

Fans of True Blood may want to start worrying. With 1.44 million viewers, the premiere of HBO's Louisiana vampire drama had half the viewership of the first episode of John From Cincinnati on the network a year ago. (Of course, that one followed the finale of The Sopranos.)

On the other hand, it's still a little more than watched the premiere of HBO's Generation Kill.

Meanwhile, creator Alan Ball says he tries not to think about ratings anyway. "My job is to do the best type of show I know how to do, and let other people worry about what it's going to do for HBO."

Previously:
True Blood: HBO Gets a Cool Adult Comic Book Show After All
True Blood: A Haiku Review

Top Ten New Shows: #6 - "Sons of Anarchy"

Bryan Christian — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 20:49:00 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.

We think it says something about how starved we are for a particular kind of show that we're excited to see Sons of Anarchy. Best case scenario: FX's new biker drama, which comes to us from a writer from The Shield, turns out to be a sort of Deadwood on wheels, with Ron Perlman -- an actor long deserving a juicy role of the non-latex-and-prosthetics variety -- as its scary, unpredictable, black heart.

Worst case, the show winds up more like that another David Milch/HBO production, John From Cincinnati: an aimless, gratuitous, sundrenched mess more in love with its own eccentricities than anything else. Or, it could surpises

Sons of Anarchy (Wednesdays at 10PM EST) premieres Wednesday, September 3 at 10PM EST on FX

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"

Salon Sez "True Blood" Might Be Pretty Good

Bryan Christian — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:33:00 GMT

Salon's Heather Havrilesky has seen a few episodes of True Blood, HBO and Alan Ball's new Southern fried vampire drama. And she's got good things to say about it. Also, she's apparently been snacking on mescaline while on hold with the phone company.

In other words, AT&T not only hires hot-tempered vampires to handle its phone lines, AT&T not only colludes with companies run by hot-tempered vampires, but AT&T itself is run by hot-tempered vampires -- which explains why the corporate behemoth aided the president in his nefarious eavesdropping activities. But look, don't get rid of your land line, because even though the hot-tempered vampires at the FDA keep assuring us that cellphones are safe, international studies have correlated excessive cellphone use with brain tumors, something we might've known a decade ago, if not for the hot-tempered vampire CEOs of most of our large corporations and the hot-tempered vampire lobbyists who work for them and the hot-tempered vampires taking over the House and the Senate as we speak.

Um, HUUUUUUHHHHH?

But even though the second episode of the season isn't structured very well, with lots of rambling talk about nothing, even though the show lacks the tightness and the natural momentum of "Six Feet Under" (and the weight and the intensity, for that matter), "True Blood" is still odd, unpredictable and off-kilter. And while the same might've been said for the ill-fated, rambling David Milch experiment "John From Cincinnati," the difference is that at the end of each episode of "True Blood," I want to see what happens next. Sookie and Bill are both good characters, and the setting and the story are both original and unfamiliar.

Oh, OK, thanks, Heather. Don't leave the house until you get some sleep.