Mar
12
Why must television shows end? Why can’t they go on forever and ever and ever? Well I was talking to my friend Jim the other day and we were talking about shows we want to bring back, and it got me thinking about how I’d bring back some of my old favorites. Here are some of my ideas, and note that they’re not remakes or reboots, they’re continuations. Just keep in mind, it’ll have spoilers for how these shows ended.
Show: Alias
Format: Jennifer Garner is a must, but I just don’t see her coming back for a weekly series. So I think a Torchwood: Children of Earth type five night miniseries would be perfection.
Premise: Last we saw them, Sydney and Vaughn were living happily ever after on some beach somewhere. I think it’s gonna take something major to bring them out of retirement, and unfortunately, as much as I like Dixon, I think his death would be just the thing we needed to get our superspy couple out of retirement. The conspiracy would start off small, but soon it would be revealed that Rambaldi and the Alliance were behind everything. And maybe – just maybe – Irina Derevko could be brought back so she could get a better send off than what we got in the original series finale. Oh, and no, their kids would not get kidnapped, or anything stupid like that. They’d be at the babysitters and never seen.
Show: Veronica Mars
Format: Made-for-TV or direct to DVD movie. I just don’t see anyone authorizing the budget needed for a theatrical movie or a completely new series.
Premise: Okay, so Veronica only stayed at Hearst for a year before going someplace else and finishing college then joining the FBI. She can even make a snarky comment about how much Hearst sucked, because let’s face it, Season 3 just wasn’t nearly as good as the others. I’m gonna say that Veronica hasn’t been back home in 10 years, and the thing that gets her there is the abduction of her father. What would happen then is a cooler version of The Da Vinci Code, where we find out her father was caught up in some crazy case, and he left behind a trail of clues for Veronica to find. Since it’s Veronica Mars, all the clues are hidden with pop culture references and Veronica and her new FBI world is forced to blend with her old Neptune life in order to find her father and stop the bad guys.
Show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Format: This ones a bit trickier to call because they’re writing the Season 8 graphic novels (I’m on Volume 2 so far, and they are awesome!) and we still don’t know how it’s all gonna end, so I’m thinking a standalone movie is the way to go. Preferably a $200 million production.
Premise: The graphic novels are canon, so we need to acknowledge them to a certain extent, but I wouldn’t want the movie to just be a recreation of them, so it would have to take place after Season 8. And since we don’t know how they end, I’d just like to say that as much as I enjoy the idea of an army of slayers, I’d want Buffy to be the only slayer again. There’s just something about that core group of actors and characters that is just so much fun watching them literally take on the world, and I think an army of slayers would take away from that. They’ve already faced the First, so what could happen that would warrant a movie? I’m thinking something biblical in nature. Buffy and the Scoobies vs. God! And God and the Devil will be played by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
Show: Strangers with Candy
Format: Strangers with Candy was made for short nonsensical episodes. It just doesn’t work in the longer format as seen in the Strangers with Candy movie, which was just okay. I think another season of 10 to 20 half hour episodes are just what the stranger doctor ordered.
Premise: Why mess with a good thing? Jerri Blank in high school being taught and trying to teach life’s lessons. What else do you need? And I think there have been enough changes in life (iPods, Facebook, etc) that there would be plenty of fodder for Strangers to tear apart. Oh, and I don’t care if he’s busy, Steve Colbert is a must.
Show: Battlestar Galactica
Format: No need for a new series, or big screen movie. I think a SciFi SyFy movie and DVD release just like they did with The Plan would be perfect. Except not The Plan, because that sucked.
Premise: I’m not crazy about the post series movies that just fill in gaps, but there is one big gap I would like filled. Wink. I want the story of the original Earth and the Final Five Cylons. Essentially the first Earth was a planet full of skin jobs who created their own cylons who overthrew them. Tell us that story. Tell us about the war between skin jobs and cylons. Tell us about the Final Five creating resurrection technology. Tell us about their journey to the 12 colonies, and their creation of the other eight skin jobs. Fill that gap!
Shows: Pushing Daisies, Firefly, Arrested Development
Format: Weekly series and more Firefly movies.
Premise: Everything stays exactly the same, and we all act like their previous cancellations were just a bad dream.
What show would you bring back, and how would you do it?
March 12th, 2010 at 7:39 am
I’m 100% behind your BSG idea there.
March 12th, 2010 at 8:11 am
Have you seen the Veronica Mars Season 4 thing they did? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG_dqD9RrKM
March 12th, 2010 at 8:25 am
I did. It was okay, but not as great as I would have liked.
March 12th, 2010 at 8:48 am
Hmm, well as per usual, I’ve not seen any episodes of any of these shows (well, i did see some Strangers With Candy, but not a lot of them).
What shows would I bring back and how would I do it?
Torchwood!
Capt. Jack returns from outer space, with Alonzo (the really cute guy also playing the werewolf in Being Human and who the Doctor hooked him up with at the end of that series) to fidn that Gwen continued Torchwood Cardiff in his absense. She dug up Martha Jones and Mickey, who are now apparently married and she also found some other really cute, slightly sassy, college kid who is as yet uncast, but who will throw a much needed boost of eye candy into the mix!
I’d also love to bring back My So-Called Life….but as all the actors are now into their 30’s, it wouldn’t work with them. And it’s a very character driven show, so just having other characters wouldn’t be the same either.
HUGS…
March 12th, 2010 at 9:39 am
Cool post, Craig, though the only ones of the shows mentioned above I’ve seen are Torchwood and Torchwood. As for the latter, according to the wiki article, Torchwood is going to have a fourth season of 13 episodes, so if that’s accurate, I don’t think we have to worry — sadly, Polt, I suspect they’ve already written the story so your ideas will have to wait for season 5
Like Will, I agree with your BSG idea. They’ve got a lot of gaps to fill in. For instance — why were the cylons willing to listen to the 5 in the first place? According to Ellen Tigh, it was the 5 who convinced the Cylons to end the war in return for Resurrection Technology and the ability to have human-type bodies. Why (a) would the Colonial Cylons have even recognized the Earth 5 as “Cylons” in the first place, instead of just as more human enemies, and why (b) were they interested in human bodies? Those things are non-obvious. Plus although we know that Brother Cavill had major “parent issues” — not to mention psychosis — and that his resentment at being given a weak human body that could feel pain was one of his motivations for wanting to overthrow the 5, but how did he convince the rest of the 7 models? Why would they all also have turned against their parents? And how did he arrange for all of them to forget their parents? Plus, why and how did they break the agreement to stop waging war on the Colonies when they had received everything they had (evidently) wanted — human bodies and resurrection? Why not just go off and explore space and leave the Colonies alone, or live on their own planet like the Kobol Cylons on Earth?
Personally, I also would *really* like to see the Kobol story fleshed out. They started doing so in the original 70s/80s series: the “Lords of Kobol” turned out to be beings of pure energy who floated around space in a “Ship of Light”, and one of their members, a character who called himself “Count Iblis” (Iblis being the Arabic name for Satan), had almost certainly created the Cylons (which in the original series were an alien race of robots, not the Colonists’ slaves). I can understand why they wouldn’t want to reveal the “myseries” of Kobol — especially given that unlike in the original series, they painted themselves into something of a corner by making the Lords of Kobol merely the Greek (and sometimes Roman) gods, instead of a composite of all our world’s religions and mythologies and cultures (one of the conceits of the original series was that the Colonists’ culture had aspects of Greek, Roman, Sumerian, Egyptian, Mayan, Chinese, etc. cultures and that Earth as the 13th colony had retained these cultural traditions without remembering where they had originated — it was an idea taken straight from Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods, which had been quite popular back then (though a piece of utter rubbish), and it’s why every episode of the original BSG began with the tagline “some of us believe that life here began out there”.
Lastly, one show I wish they’d bring back is Farscape. I know it was a nutty, goofy show. And I know it’s hard to believe a Sci-Fi show with MUPPETS in it for crying out loud could actually be good. But it really was good. And not just because Ben Browder is smokin’ hot or Claudia Black the kind of woman that could almost turn me straight. They did a great job of tying things up in the Peacekeeper Wars miniseries after the show was cancelled, but it was still sad to see it go. I wouldn’t mind if they brought back Moonlight, too — it was on for too brief a time, and although it was kinda lame and I wasn’t all that fond of their version of the Vampire mythos, I still was kinda fond of it.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Um, I’m with Polt except that I’ve never even HEARD of Strangers with Candy. Well, the TV show, my Mom always told me to stay away from those people when I was a kid. I think his Torchwood permise sounds great.
I can’t really think of any newer shows that have been cancelled that I miss dearly. Most seem to have ended at a good point and dragging on would have been annoying. I find if shows go on too long I lose interest, ER and shows that run for years and years get boring. I don’t watch much network TV so I likely miss lots of shows that come and go before I know they exist.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:50 am
My So Called Life but WITHOUT Jared Leto as Jordan Catalano. He’s not dreamy anymore, just douchey.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Totally off-topic (since I haven’t watched any of these) but an author I know posted a funny little essay on my friend’s site today I thought some of you here might appreciate. I thought of all of you first when I read it. Hmmm. What does that say … about your or about me?
March 12th, 2010 at 10:01 am
As I said, GoKitty, they couldn’t do MSCL with the same actors NOW, none of them look like they did (16 years’ll do that to a person), but at the TIME, back in 1994, Jordan Catalano was more than just dreamy, he was….sublime.
HUGS…
March 12th, 2010 at 10:17 am
As much as I love Buffy and BSG, I feel like I got closure from them being canceled. BUT PUSHING DAISIES?! That needs to come back! And so does Ugly Betty, even though it’s not gone quite yet.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Craig: You missed two that should have been obvious from yesterday: Terminator and Carnivale.
I agree that Pushing Daisies and Arrested Development should be uncanceled. Firefly would have to go to cable, because Whedon appears incapable of dealing with the constraints broadcast networks have.
I’m over BSG. I’m at the point that what you see as mysteries I see as plot holes.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:26 am
True. Totally forgot about Terminator. I’d at least like a final made for TV or direct to DVD movie to wrap everything up. But I don’t know enough about Carnivale to say what would be appropriate for it.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Carnivale was an incredibly rich story that ended on a cliffhanger. Some kind of resolution is called for.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:38 am
HAVE to go with Freaks and Geeks, or Undeclared. Judd Apatow at his best.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Alias, Buffy, BSG: I have seen most of these shows, but I always seem to miss the last 2-3 seasons. I am planning on a huge marathon viewing of them as soon as I can find time.
Firefly: YES! I am still pissed that it was canceled, almost as pissed as I am at Whedon for even thinking FOX would give the show a decent chance in the first place. He really should have made the SciFi channel pick up the show (but not SyFy, they are pretentious douchebags.) I am glad that the movie came around to tie up a few loose ends, even though they killed off Wash ::sniff::.
Terminator: They totally need a made for TV movie to tie the show into the begining of the T3 movie.
Carnivale: ::sigh:: adds another show to my NetFlix queue…
March 12th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
M Nico: I highly recommend finishing Alias. I watched everything after the fact, so I know people gave up during the lackluster Season 3, but watching everything as a marathon makes it better so it didn’t bother me as much. Season 4 is close to Seasons 1 and 2 in awesomeness and 5 is pretty good too and gives decent closure.
March 12th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Oh, Ryan, I’ve been “over” BSG since I think some time in season 2. And yes, they *are* glaring, offensively glaring, plot holes.
Shows like this — such as the original Prisoner, LOST, Twin Peaks — raise all sorts of cool, fascinating mysteries and you keep hoping they will tie everything up in the end. With some shows, like B5, the story arc was planned out in advance: you can tell that Straczynski made only very few changes as he went along (e.g., replacing Sinclair with Sheridan because the actor who played Sinclair left — this actually ended up making the story stronger, I think, than it would have been otherwise: he obviously intended Sinclair to be Valen from the beginning, since it was the discovery that Sinclair had a Minbari soul that ended the war). With other shows, they really had no plan and were making it up as they went along.
BSG was definitely of the latter kind. And what’s worse — much worse in my view than the plot holes — was the whiplash they performed on the characters. They really had no compunction in having characters do something completely shocking and out of character just because they could. Just “to mix things up”. It was offensive and irritating. One minute Anders says “you know what you have to do” about having Tigh murder his own wife — for what were honestly extremely weak reasons, as they were already being rescued, and her intentions had been to save as many people as possible — and it was out-of-character ENOUGH for Anders to be so cold-blooded let alone for Tigh to actually go through with it; the next minute he’s refusing to go along with the Star Chamber frontier justice meeted out by Zarek because *now* he’s suddenly re-discovered his compunctions. What they apparently took to be some sort of deep meaningful allegory of the Iraq war on New Caprica with Suicide Bombers etc was just lazy and facile. What they apparently took to be something deep and meaningful about democracy vs. security when Roslin attempted to steal the election was equally facile and lazy. And the way they left the sins of the Pegasus crew essentially completely unresolved: yes, the worst offenders got killed one way or another, but justice was never meted out in any way and they just left everything ambiguous. It was lazy. They didn’t want to take a moral stand on anything. DID they see doing things like raping and torturing prisoners — or shooting the families of civilians in order to force skilled personnel into the crew — as things that are beyond the pale or not? They seemed to think they were being “deep” by leaving it ambiguous and letting us make our own moral judgements but frankly it was just laziness in my opinion.
The whole thing ended up being just a big fat mess.
It’s just that the original miniseries was — and still is, in my view — quite probably the absolute finest science fiction I had *EVER* seen. The potential there was SO high that it made the ultimate failure in execution that much more of a disappointment. I would like to see if they’re CAPABLE of plugging those plot holes. I don’t think they are. I think they have the emotional / psychological / ethical / philosophical / politlcal depth of 14-year-old boys.
I’m waiting to see if they make as much of a mess of Caprica. So far I’ve been enjoying it quite a lot and I don’t have that creepy feeling in the back of my head that started growing almost from the beginning of the post-miniseries BSG series, that this just wasn’t going to be up to snuff.
Terminator? I haven’t watched any of the show. And I hated T3. I only really consider Terminator and T2 to be canonical. Everything else I’d rather forget ever happened.
Firefly — I still haven’t watched the series — just caught a few episodes, but I did think the movie was phenomenal. Even if I have qualms about their politics and ethics too.
I guess now I have to google Carnivale so I can even know WTH it is. I don’t even think I ever so much as *heard* of it
March 12th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Oh Bradford, how I could I forget those two???? They were great! I’ve got both on DVD. Watched F&G a few years back. Have had Undeclared for a bit, but not watched it again. I probably should do that soon. A little dose of Charlie Hunnan always picks me up!
HUGS…
March 12th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Charlie Hunnam, with an “m”, you mean, Polt old chum
I still haven’t seen the original British QaF. I admit that I kind of had trouble really getting into the American version. After a while I found I just really didn’t LIKE any of the characters, except maybe Justin. The rest of them just ended up being too morally deficient (no I’m not talking about sex — I’m talking about ethics, selfishness, just being a nice person).
Brian at least was honest about his amorality. And he pretty much ended up being the moral center of the show. Which really bugged me. I only made it through the first 2.5 seasons before I found I just really didn’t like the characters as people.
I first encountered Charlie Hunnam in a production of Nicholas Nickleby which I am absolutely in love with. He has a smokin’ hot (utterly gratuitous) shirtless scene. And Jamie Bell as Smike is absolutely incandescent as an actor. I happened to see that movie on Netflix just right as King Kong came out, where (an older and now legal) Jamie Bell played the young shiphand who (I believe) we were intended to identify with and empathize with as audience members. I was and remain extremely impressed with him as an actor, and I think it’s a shame his career hasn’t gone better. Oddly enough, I’ve still never seen Billy Elliott (though I saw the musical whilst in London — bleh). Nor have I seen Hallam Foe yet, or any of Jamie’s other films, though I followed the Hallam Foe production blog closely and exchanged several emails with the production assistant, who was a really cool guy. He was even kind enough to tell me about all the filming location sights in Edinburgh, *AND* about all the places where the cast and crew stayed/hung out, so that when I was in Edinburgh I took pix of all of the spots (after the movie had wrapped of course). Was kind of neat.
Sorry for the rambling post. Just rent Nicholas Nickleby for Charlie’s chest if nothing else. I think it’s a great movie on its own, though
March 12th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Justin: I’ve seen both, and the American version is better.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
I would LOVE to see Strangers With Candy back on the air! Maybe “Jerri goes to college?”
Its a little late, but I would have LOVED a Golden Girls reunion show! Roseanne would be another great show to see resurrected!
Come on, what about “Are you afraid of the dark?” one of Nickelodeon’s finest shows! And we need some good cartoons back, the Snorkels, AHH!!! Real Monsters and that show with the little gnome people in the tree and that other one with the koala bears..
March 12th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
A Roseanne reunion would be awesome! I think it would have to be an interview thing though since the finale left things totally turned on their heads for the characters and would be hard to do a follow up movie or something.
March 12th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Oh, and I never saw Are You Afraid of the Dark?
March 12th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
Benson. I want to know who won the election.
It does seem as if most cancelled shows of the past come back one way or another. Pushing Daisies is coming back as a comic. Hawaii Five Oh and The Rockford Files are up for remakes. And whenever a network is desperate for 2 hours of programming, a reunion movie is made, like Growing Pains and The Facts of Life.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
FDot, you, sir, are the one remaining Puntabuperson I have yet to succeed in making my FB friend. Plus you were at the Puntabumeetup. I intend to FB stalk you again.
Ryan — I’m kind of horrified that the American version was “better” than the British. Did you watch both series all the way through? Did you not find the characters (in the American version) rather amoral and unattractive as characters in the long run? Or was that just me (and my bff / platonic life partner / “Grace” to my Will, Lisa)?
March 12th, 2010 at 3:59 pm
“Strangers with Candy” is the only one of the bunch I’ve seen and agree on Stephen Colbert. Love him, and not only because he’s a fellow South Carolinian.
And I can’t believe nobody’s brought it up yet, but do please tell us, Craig, just how big your gap is that needs filling.
March 12th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
Wait, I was mistook. I’ve also seen and loved Arrested Development. Jason Bateman grew up to be so adorable (such sweet icing), but the whole cast of that show is just phenomenal.
March 12th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Coincidentally, I was ill this week and finally watched Firefly. It was almost worth the bug. I wholeheartedly agree that is was cancelled before it was even allowed to fully develop and was very promising. The only problem with bringing back shows like this and others mentioned is that they would probably try to make them really flash with all sorts of CGI and such, which would ruin the feeling of the whole thing. Swings and roundabouts.
March 12th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Bring back “Misfits of Science!”
When Cougar Town is cancelled, Courtney Cox can return to her first gig as a telekinetic with fabulous feathered hair. This show was AWESOME. )and probably awful, if I ever really was able to check it out again, but at least it was cancelled before it could reach the awful depths of “Heroes.” Ugh.
March 12th, 2010 at 5:52 pm
Wasn’t Courtney Cox’s first gig as (fake) “random audience member” in the video of “Dancing in the Dark”?
March 12th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
The British version of Queer as Folk was definitely the better one, the American version was just horribly done and bad acting, I gave up on it in its second season.
My Own Worst Enemy was canceled way too soon.
Even though its decades ago, Dark Shadows ended so abruptly that one of the writers had to explain what was to happen in a TV Guide article.
March 12th, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Andrew J: OMG! I had totally forgotten about Misfits of Science! Wow, that really takes me back.
March 12th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
I Love Strangers With Candy!
Especially the ones with mullets and ripped abs!
March 12th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
JoeyTrom – ah, Dark Shadows. Now *THAT* takes me back (I hope you’re thinking of the original, 60s version and not the brief horrible 80s reimagining).
Dark Shadows was probably my favorite show as a kid. Yes, I was a very weird little kid. I wanted to have a ring like Barnabas Collins. (Yes, I was a very faggy little kid.) I wanted to have vampire powers like Barnabas Collins. I *loved* the theme music. I remembered so many great vignettes from the show — the Hand of Count Pet?fi, the head of Judah Zachary, the various stakings, and blood-drainings, and vampires-disappearing-in-the-sunlight moments. Good times.
In the 90s, the SciFi channel began to run reruns of the series in its entirety. This in fact is what convinced me to finally pay for cable for the first time in my life. I had had cable “for free” for a few years because the cable company had never bothered to shut it off when the previous tenants moved out. Eventually some bright technician had the wherewithal to do so and I figured I would just do without. Boston has quite a large number of over-the-air stations and there wasn’t a whole lot that I watched on the non-broadcast channels anyway: LORD knows I never gave a hoot about sports, and AMC was really the only channel I missed (this was back before it started having commercials), and this was before channels like TCM and Encore and Sundance and BBC America and even before my cable provider got SciFi.
It was when we were vacationing up in Bar Harbor, Maine that I discovered that the SciFi channel was showing Dark Shadows. Many was the morning we drove the maids (and our dog) crazy waiting for us to get going with our day and go hiking in Acadia while we were watching Dark Shadows til noon. When I got back home, I found out my local cable provider had started carrying SciFi so I bit the bullet.
Of course, Dark Shadows when seen as an adult is quite a different experience. The writing is SO bad, the acting SO bad, the sets and effects so cheesy and tenth-rate, it’s quite hilarious. But it’s still a guilty pleasure. There’s a great episode I remember where some member of the crew runs in front of the camera and the whole set wobbles while one of the actors is trying to conjure up a spirit. And it wasn’t remotely unusual for you to see shadows of the crew/other actors waiting in the background or to hear some background noise, or see the boom. Probably the worst single actor was Grayson Hall (as Dr. Julia Hoffman and various other characters, including a hilarious gypsy witch). This despite the fact that she was an academy-award nominee. She routinely spent half of the time pausing so she could remember her lines.
I started collecting the series on DVD but the damn show goes on SO DAMN LONG that I gave up after about 8. I think they got up to about 30 boxed sets or thereabouts. I would love to have the Count Pet?fi and Judah Zachary plotlines especially.
Of course it’s hilarious now that Jonathan Frid (Barnabas) was **EVER** considered a romantic lead. Apparently women in the 60s swooned over him. It’s kind of ludicrous to think about now. One interesting and really very sad story though involves the life of one of the actors — and probably the only cute one — Tennessee-born Don Briscoe as Chris/Tom Jennings. He had an adorable slight hint of a southern accent and was really (I thought) very cute. But apparently IRL he got addicted to drugs and put on hundreds of pounds and became a recluse. I vaguely seem to remember reading somewhere that there were rumors he might have been gay.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
I saw the British QaF first, and throughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed the American version more. The main reason being they fleshed out the minor characters a lot more: Debbie, Vic, the lesbians, and of course, Ted’s character lived, as opposed to the British version.
I was extremely disappointed with the finale of the British version. And Charlie HunnaM
was much more convincing as a gay boy virgin than was the Justin actor…probably because the guy playing Justin was obvioustly NOT just coming out.
As QaF went on, I became a bit bored with it, because, while it had always relied on melodrama, in the final season espeically I felt like I was watching an afternoon soap opera with a nearly all male cast. But the second, third and some of the fourth season were pretty damn good.
I had small parties every Sunday night and anywhere from just me to five or six people would sit and watch the show. Oh, what fun.
Plus, with the American version, it was filmed in Toronto (go figure), my second home, and I LOVED seeing shots when they were outside and I recognized things on Church Street, or whereever!
But still, wasnt anyone in the American version to compare to Charlie Hunnam!
HUGS….
March 12th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Oh one thing about the American QaF — the way it made Pittsburgh look like some sort of Gay Mecca. There is a hilarious website about the Pittsburgh gay scene where they talk about how it reallllly is quite a bit more low-key than QaF made it out to be: tho Pittsburgh really *is* a great city — it has a bad reputation but that is thoroughly undeserved: it’s really extremely beautiful: hilly, full of big, old-growth trees, cobbled streets, lovely intimate neighborhoods with lots of walkable shops and restaurants, dramatic setting at the junction of three rivers, with the city skyscrapers suspended as if on the edge of a canyon.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:37 pm
I want Arrested Development to come back. Preferably in the form of a non-stop television channel that plays new episodes every hour.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:43 pm
I couldn’t read many of these since I haven’t seen them yet (I’m only on season 1 of Veronica Mars). But I have seen Buffy and would love to see a movie. Now that SMG has a baby to support maybe she’ll finally do a big screen Buffy. I agree with the one slayer idea.
A friends reunion would be good. I always thought a Chandler/Monica spinoff would have been fun. Too bad the Joey spinoff was so awful.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Michelle, um, you *do* realize that Buffy was a spin-off series *FROM* a movie, right?
March 12th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Justin: My opinion of the British version may be highly influenced by my strong dislike of the ending, the relative lack of depth of certain characters that didn’t have time to be fleshed out, my inability to see the Brian character as a sex god (Craig Kelly [the Micheal character] blows Aidan Gillen out of the water in terms of hotness), and possibly discomfort with the Justin character being 15 instead of 17.
Polt: What a coincidence that Charlie Hunnam just popped onto my radar last week when I was watching Green Street Hooligans.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Justin: I went to a conference in Pittsburgh last year. Liberty Avenue is definitely not like what it is shown to be on QAF.
March 12th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
hahaha Ryan seriously did you go to Liberty Avenue *hoping* for some QaF action?
I’m a little confused about “the Michael character”. Michael Novotny was the American Michael actor and he is extremely cute. The actor who plays Brian is … ok. He’s not really my type, but he’s not bad-looking. None of the other gay characters on the American QaF are really my type either actually.
Maybe the American background characters were fleshed out better but that didn’t make them more likeable. I liked Debbie (Michael’s mother) at first, but eventually she turned out to have a pretty nasty streak, as did Michael and pretty much every other character, major or minor. Justin was pretty much the only person who never (at least in as much of the show as I watched) didn’t develop a nasty streak, and the next least-dislikeable character was Brian himself, who simply revelled in his amorality.
Keep in mind about the British Charlie Hunnam 15-year-old character that the age of consent in England is 16, not 18 (unless you are in a position of authority over the youngster, in which case it is 18). So a 15-year-old in England is no more legally questionable than a 17-year-old here. Plus there are states in the USA where the age of consent is 16 as well.
In my opinion, these are all kind of arbitrary numbers: it’s not like all people at 18 are really all that mature and able to protect themselves emotionally and it’s not like all people younger than 18 are really all that immature sexually either. Not to minimize child abuse in any way but I think in this country we’ve kind of lost the ability to think rationally and dispassionately about this sort of thing. Lumping somebody who sexually abuses a 5-year-old into the same “monster” category as somebody who has sex with a 17-year-old is not rational, and there are edge cases of guys who have to register for life as sex-offenders for having had sex as 18-year-olds with girlfriends who were only a few months younger. Obviously we have to draw some sort of arbitrary lines where the law is concerns, but from a moral point of view, it’s much more nuanced IMHO.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Justin: I didn’t go looking for QAF action, but the hotel and convention center were a couple blocks over from Liberty Ave, so we spent a lot of time there looking for food.
I actually prefer Hal Sparks to Gale Harold, but I see them as close enough that the different levels of confidence could explain their different levels of sexual success. On the other side, Craig Kelly was super cute while Aidan Gillen is nowhere close.
I don’t think that differences between the UK and US matter here. I grew up in an age 16 state and Pennsylvania is also an age 16 state. However, I don’t think the legal matters matter as much to me as the way the two years push a questionable relationship into more of a creepy category.
I do agree with you that how we treat teenage sexuality tends to be somewhat messed up.
March 13th, 2010 at 3:28 am
Justin, um, yes I *do* realize that Buffy the television series is a spin-off FROM a movie : P. I was referring to Craig’s mention of a stand alone $200 million production.
Actually, the animation company I worked for did a short, Gahan Wilson’s The Diner which ran in some theaters before Buffy. We thought we had hit the big time.
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-01-19/business/fi-1628_1_american-film?pg=3
Too bad our company went bankrupt.
March 13th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Re: Pittsburgh – Lived there for 3 years with the no-good cheating cheater ex. In reality, the city’s about as antithetical to what they showed on QaF as you can get. Shook the dust off my sandals when I left and hope never to return. There are a few things I miss, but not enough that I’d ever consider going back.
March 13th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Mel by “antithetical” do you mean that it’s not as cosmopolitan and metropolitan and New York / San Francisco – like as in the show? Because yeah, obviously.
Or do you just feel that as a place to live it wasn’t as nice and liveable and pretty and everything as it seemed to me when I visited? And how long ago did you live there? I think the city has undergone a lot of changes over the past decade or so.
As for your earlier comments about Jason Bateman, I agree. He is aging *EXTREMELY* well. He “younged” well, too, but if anything I think he’s improving with age.
March 14th, 2010 at 5:08 pm
I would also like to add Will and Grace to the reunion show category.
March 14th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Hm. That’s an interesting thought. I really hated the finale. Especially since that show is a plagiarized version of my own life complete with verbatim arguments that sometimes made me think my house was bugged. Ok, a plagiarized version with much cuter / younger / thinner people, but who’s counting?
Would you want a Will & Grace reunion from after they’re 18 years older and reconnecting when they find out their respective kids are dating? Or do you want them to ditch the entire storyline of the finale (I do!) and just have them pick up where they left off, à la Sex and the City?
Speaking of which … that movie was … fun .. .kinda … mostly because it was just nice to see the characters again. But I felt it was a bit of a waste. It was just a re-hash of the storylines they had already done / resolved in the series and that disappointed me. I’m hoping the second movie will be better.
March 14th, 2010 at 8:19 pm
I will not rest until we get Ally McBeal back on the air! And when am I going to get my Jem and the Holograms remake (feat. Lady Gaga as the leader of the Misfits)?
March 14th, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Eek! Isn’t it enough that Calista Flockhart is haunting Brothers and Sisters?
March 15th, 2010 at 10:18 am
What? She is still around? I just assumed that a strong breeze had swept her off her feet and carried her to magical land where she was accepted as a member of the clan of the stick people who toil under the oppression of the evil queen who created them from pieces of firewood bound together with black widow silk and forgotten dreams…
…I have no idea what I am saying; it is too freaking early on Monday and my coffee hasn’t kicked in yet.
March 15th, 2010 at 10:42 am
Ohhhh, you know *exactly* what you’re saying.
Why do you think I used the word “haunting”? 
It doesn’t help that she’s now a frighteningly-aging stick person who plays a nutzoid Republican with a perpetual frown and the personality of Anne Coulter. 
!!!
March 16th, 2010 at 4:59 am
Justin: All of the above. I moved back to New England 5 years ago. I miss a few friends, the city skyline at night, the symphony and opera, and Penn Mac. That’s about it.
March 16th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Mel — Really? You don’t miss the Botanical Gardens (there was a wonderful Chihuly installation there when we went in 2007)? Neighborhoods with names like Squirrel Hill or Shadyside? All the restaurants and cafés and stores on Walnut Street and Ellsworth Avenue, such a wonderful, walkable neighborhood? (We were staying at a B&B on Nageley Ave and got a good sense of the neighborhood.) Caliban Books and all the other stores and cafés and stuff on Craig St down around CMU? All the other antiquarian bookstores peppered around the city, including a couple of great ones in the Southside Flats? The incredibly dramatic view when you drive from the airport and come out of the tunnel and the skyscapers look like they’re suspended over a canyon where the rivers meet? The almost-San-Francisco-like hills?
Granted, I never want to live in the midwest again (and I kind of consider Western Pennsylvania the eastern edge of the midwest) — I love being near the ocean too much, and I love the depth of history that New England has, and the church steeples and town greens and “suburbs” that are older than the USA. But if I had to live in the midwest, I’d probably pick Chicago first and Pittsburgh second, and it would actually be a tough choice between them.
March 16th, 2010 at 4:31 pm
Hey Craigers – you may get your wish on the BSG front.
From the Hollywood Reporter:
“More interesting is that Stern also told THR that Syfy is interested in yet another Battlestar show, saying ‘We’re looking for other ways to spin off ‘Battlestar’ beyond ‘Caprica. That world is so rich. We’re sitting down with (executive producer) Ron Moore and his team. It would not necessarily be a traditional series.
Stern also told THR that the new BSG spinoff would “mark a return to the franchise’s space-opera roots. It seems that the first Cylon war might be a possible place to start.”