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Big TV Week for SciFi Fans

This is shaping up to be a big week of television for fans of science fiction. Monday we started with the two hour premiere of Heroes, which returns for its fourth season. Last year’s storyline was far superior to the lame second season, so it will be interesting how the show develops, especially given its ratings plummet since the first season.  I know a lot of people have jumped off the Heroes train, but it’s still be enjoyable for me. 

Tuesday saw the season finale of the pretty good–if not quite great–original SyFy series, Warehouse 13. They’ve done a decent job of mixing the world-in-peril stuff with the comic relief stuff, and the cast is uniformly appealing.  Not unlike Fringe and Dollhouse, the show struggled to define itself in the early going but really hit a good stride in the second half of it’s run.  Given that it’s the highest rated SyFy show ever, we will see a second season and that’s pretty exciting.  Especially how the season wrapped up on a good cliffhanger.

Tonight at 8 on ABC is the series premiere of Flash Forward, about what happens after the entire world blacks out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds.  ABC has high hopes for the show and so far the previews have looked intriguing/promising. 

Following, on Fox, is actually the second episode of the second season of Fringe, a J.J. Abrams created series which is consistently intriguing and suspenseful and has one of the best characters on television. John Noble plays the goofably loveable (possibly insane) mad scientist, Walter Bishop. Again, an excellent cast throughout, in particular Anna Torv as a strong, yet vulnerable, FBI agent.  Now that the show is weaving a strong mythology into it’s weekly story arc, this one has become must watch tv for any lover of creepy sci fi.

For me, Friday is the cherry on the sundae. That is when we get the return of Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. Admittedly, the first season was a little uneven. The appearance of Alan Tudyk toward the end definitely “kicked it up a notch.” BSG’s Tahmoh Penikett manages to play FBI agent Ballard as earnest and stoic without making him boring; and, in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit I would probably watch Eliza Dushku reading the phone book.

Another Whedon Alumnus Finds a New Home

It looks as if Nathan Fillion has finally found a quality home after the ignominious loss (to us) of the brilliant Firefly. Since then–with the exception of Joss Whedon’s clever web vid. Dr. Horrible’s Singalong Blog, where Fillion did a great parody of the macho/heroic persona of Captain Mal–he hasn’t really had much to work with as an actor. Until this spring.

Castle was given a shortened (10 episode) first season, where it garnered decent ratings.

More importantly, it turned out to be good. Nathan plays Richard Castle, a wealthy and famous divorced novelist of murder mysteries, who manages to wangle his way into a squad of homicide detectives so he can observe the real cops in action. Stana Katic almost manages to out-Mariska Mariska Hargitay when it comes to playing the hard-assed and competent detective Beckett, who — just coincidentally, and often to her own frustration — happens to be heart-stoppingly beautiful. Of course, she finds the flirtatious Castle’s presence in the middle of her investigations to be a huge irritant; but, he’s a personal friend of the mayor’s, so what can she do?

Excellent cast of characters in support here, as well. Susan Sullivan is a kick as Castle’s mother, a one-time Broadway star. Molly Quinn is appealing as his pretty teenage daughter, who manages to be a good girl most of the time, while eschewing cuteness. Jon Huertas, Seamus Dever and Ruben Santiago Hudson are the other cops, who, to Beckett’s chagrin, all seem to enjoy having Castle around. I’m pretty confident that you’ll enjoy it, too.

Season premiere was last Monday, where it airs at 10 pm on ABC. You can also catch up with episodes on abc.com or Hulu.

USA Today reviews Nathan Fillion’s new show, which will hopefully, just maybe, quite possibly the charismatic actors big break (not counting Serenity, of course!). 

ABC’s Castle looks like another regular old procedural, with Fillion taking the Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote role as a mystery writer that, well, solves mysteries. 

He’s paired up with a NYPD detective and the two fight, flirt and solve murders just like Agent Booth and Brennon on Bones.  And it’s that chemistry that can make or break a show like this.

Such shows run on the appeal of their stars, and on that front, ABC has chosen well.

Like the best actors, Fillion has a gift for adding depth to what could have been a superficial character, letting you sense a layer of pain and grit right underneath Nick’s flightiness without diminishing the “bad-boy charm,” as his new partner puts it, of his fun-loving playboy.

It helps, by the way, that the writers have placed Nick in a household with his daughter and his mother, each designed to ensure he comes across as more sympathetic than annoying.

His bright-but-not-bratty daughter (Molly Quinn) provides support, while his Broadway star mother (an entertainingly grand Susan Sullivan) brings him back to earth and lets us see why being a better parent is one of Nick’s drives.

As for Katic, she may overplay her character’s stern annoyance at first, but she loosens up in later episodes. Plus, she’s an incredibly beautiful woman, which helps hold your attention until the wittier side comes to the fore and may distract you from the fact that her co-workers have yet to emerge from the bland background.

The plots vary in quality: A future story involving a dead nanny is a little better than tonight’s opener; another involving a body in a rug is a little worse.

None of the episodes is likely to keep you up at night puzzling out the intricacies of the mystery, but they won’t bore you or insult your intelligence. Castle exists to exploit the appeal of its stars and the amusing byplay between their characters, and it does that with admirable efficiency.

  Sometimes, that’s good enough.  I’m not the biggest fan of procedurals, but I can readily get sucked into them if the writing is passable, the quirks unique, and the actors willing to give it a go. 

Castle airs tonight on ABC at 10 p.m.  We’ll probably check it out tomorrow and give you a heads up if it’s worth your time. 

Also: If that wasn’t enough Nathan Fillion for one day, the AV Club has a pretty nifty interview with the actor.

But what the world really needs is for Nathan Fillion to find a project that is worthy of his considerable talents.  He’s got leading man chops, pulls off humor well and has that sly twinkle in his eye like Han Solo.  It’s just, well,  most everything he’s been in with the exception of Firefly has been the suck.

Okay that’s not entirely true.  Waitress was touching and so was Slither in that B-movie kind of way.  But you probably didn’t know he was in Saving Private Ryan or on the sitcom Two Guys, A Girl and  a Pizza Place with Ryan Reynolds.

Cameos in Lost help, and a role as Dr. Hammer in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog have endeared him to many, but this guy shouldn’t be slumming on Desperate Housewives or that FOX show Drive (starring alongside Emma Stone, no less).

Still, we’ll give any project he’s in the benefit of the doubt and the hope that it won’t be beneath him.  ABC has picked up his pilot for series Castles. In it, Fillion stars as a horror novelist who helps the NYPD solve crimes.  Ugh.  Really?  We don’t need another Murder, She Wrote.

I think at this point, that Fillion needs to get with Joss Whedon (still the only director to fully understand how to make Fillion a star and utilize his abilities as an actor) to create a vanity project along the same lines as Eliza Dushku’s Dollhouse.

The message boards on IMDB are saying the show is more comedy/banter than procedural show, similar to FOX’s House. Okay, that’s a good thing.  Others are saying it reminded them of several USA programs like Burn Notice or Monk. I can get behind that, if that is the case.

For those few readers that stick it out around here day to day, you probably have an inkling about my anticipation for anything and everything Joss Whedon. And when you throw in Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion into the mix for a superhero musical, well, my anticipation gasket just about blew.

We finally have a trailer for Joss’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. If you remember, “It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to,” Whedon says.

The goggles on NPR are perfect and as someone who has been to one of those Buffy “Once More With Feeling” sing-along musical episodes held at a theater (yes, dear internet you’ve taken my last shred of dignity), I can attest that Joss knows his musicals.

Look for this to hit the internet sometime this summer, broken up into three ten-minute chapters.

Uber geek Joss Whedon has given us another reason to want to bear hug him, as if giving us Buffy, Angel, and Firefly weren’t enough.

Seems that during an interview with AICN, Neil Patrick Harris (Is his resurgence one of the better things in life and proof God may actually exist?  It’s like he’s become the Roy Hobbs of Hollywood: a young promising start, fading away to obscurity and then getting one last chance in the big leagues.  We fully expect for him to figuratively shatter the field lights sometime soon.) revealed he was shooting a superhero musical titled Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog.

Joss then chimed in at his website Whedonesque:

“The bag is catless. During the strike I started writing a musical intended as a limited internet series, 3 episodes of approximately 10 minutes each.”

The interest spread and shooting began this week with NPH as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer and Felicia Day as Penny. Day starred in Season 7 of Buffy as the young slayer Vi. So what’s it about yo?

“It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.”

Sounds perfectly geeky. Though it woulda been nice to get Alyson Hannigan, because the FCC says it’s okay for her to get naked, we’ll settle for Day. By the by, I miss being able to go to Coolidge Corner to watch the Buffy musical episode sing-a-long. They should get that going in Stumptown.  Also, if this is as good as it sounds, then yes, we’ll concede that NPH just hit one so freaking far that lightening struck as he rounds the bases and glass rains down from the light poles.

Nathan Fillion, who got his start on the daytime soap One Life to Live, but has recently found cult success as a leading man in television shows Firefly, Drive and Lost (next fall he’ll be suiting up as a gynocologist in his biggest role to date for Desperate Housewives) and in such little seen movies like Waitress, Serenity and Slither. And even though it would seem he has no reason to return to daytime television, that’s just what the actor is doing, when he shot some scenes for OLTL’s 10,000th episode. His story arc will air on Aug. 16 and 17th.

“I guess a lot of actors don’t like to admit they once did soaps, but it was important for me to go back to where I got my start,” says Fillion, who played star-crossed lover Joey Buchanan from 1994 to 1997 on the ABC drama. “I will never forget what OLTL did for me personally and professionally.”

Still, the two-day stint was “bittersweet,” he notes, because he went back to bury his TV grandpa, Asa. The character was played by Phil Carey, the lovable crank who quit the show last spring in a contract tiff. “Phil didn’t like everybody but when he liked you, he liked you, and he was very kind to me,” Fillion recalls. “To honor him was a very big deal.”

Not sure why, but we love the humility and humbleness of such a little gesture. Lots of actors don’t enjoy reprising roles that made them famous, as they view such an act as beneath them. But not Fillion. We’re hoping this small gesture allows Karma to repay him and make him the successful leading man lots of people believe him to already be.

Gotta love a network that has no idea how to handle their best shows.  Someone should send the entertainment president a memo thus informing him that you can do more than cancel good televisions shows on the Fox Network.  Makes one wonder how in the heck Bones and House have survived this long.

With that as the backdrop, many of you know we had a certain fondness for the Tim Minear/Craig Silverstein produced show Drive.  It starred Nathan Fillion, who one day, and we hope like hell it’s not as a cast member of Desperate Housewives, will get his breakthrough role.  Regardless, the show was cancelled after like two episodes and Fox decided not to air the unaired episodes sometime this summer.

So for those curious about how the show might have ended or kept on keeping on, head over to this interview with the show creators.