Channel Surfing: 7.19.06

Covering "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Season Eight

Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch column managed to score a first look at an image that many Buffy fans have been waiting an eternity for.

Dark Horse Comics has released the cover image of the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic book, which will envision what might have been had there been an eighth season of the supernatural drama.

Like the series, which slayed its last vampire in 2003, the comic book will be written by Buffy mastermind Joss Whedon. Joss currently writes a little comic you may have heard of -- Astonishing X-Men -- and previously wrote a fantastic (if terminally delayed) Buffy comic spin-off called Fray and a three-issue mini-series that bridged the gap between his Firefly series and the Serenity feature. Pencils will be provided by Georges Jeanty, though I have to agree with Blog@Newsarama and say that the cover art looks suspiciously like the work of the talented Jo Chen (just check out the covers of Runaways).

Where did things leave off when Buffy left the airwaves? PopWatch offered the following precis:

"Well, you may recall the show ended with the creation of an army of Slayers. Now they're organized, and the tide has turned in favor of the good guys. Ah, but you know how much Whedon hates winners: Soon an 'old enemy' surfaces (Dark Horse is cagey on Big Bad's identity), and Dawn starts 'experiencing serious growing pains.'"

While the new Buffy series isn't slated for release until October, attendees at this weekend's Comic Con in San Diego (myself included) can pick up a copy of the first issue now.

Netflix Subscribers to Catch Sneak Peeks of NBC's "Kidnapped" and "Studio 60"

NBC announced today that it would offer a preview of the pilots of two of its fall drama pilots, Kidnapped (reviewed here) and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to Netflix's 5 million subscribers.

The Peacock hopes to fan the flames of, er, fandom by getting a leap on their competitors and allowing the general public to catch a sneak peek of their series, in advance of the scheduled fall premiere dates.

Netflix subscribers will be able to view the pilot episodes to Kidnapped and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, as well as sample trailers from some of other NBC's fall offerings, on August 5th.

"Aquaman" to Sleep with the Fishes; Its Star to Take Aim at Green Arrow

The CW has confirmed once and for all that it will not be ordering its Aquaman pilot to series, either for the fall or midseason or... ever. The failed pilot (reviewed here), produced by the creators of Smallville, starred Justin Hartley and Ving Rhames. (What's most surprising to me is that I learned about two weeks ago that the network actually paid for the entire project to be completed in the last few weeks, including instrumental score, even though it had no intentions of ordering the series.)

But this isn't the last that Aquaman's Justin Harley has seen of the televised DC Universe, as Dark Horizons is reporting that the actor has been cast as Oliver Queen (a.k.a. Green Arrow) for a multiple-episode arc on Smallville. Hartley is expected to appear in more than seven episodes next season and joins new cast addition Aaron Ashmore (Veronica Mars) as The Daily Planet's Jimmy Olsen.

In an interview with the July 24th issue of TV Guide, Smallville and Aquaman co-creator Alfred Gough discusses the next season of Smallville and the character of Oliver Queen/Green Arrow:

"He will start to form the nascent Justice League. He's trying to find like-minded people with special powers and put a more formal structure in place. Ultimately Clark will see the value of what he is trying to do but as he's gotten older, Clark has become more cautious. He will always be there to help out, but he doesn't want to be part of a formalized organization."

Smallville will premiere on the new CW network on September 28th at 8 pm ET/PT.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Rock Star: Supernova (CBS; 8-9:30 pm); America's Got Talent (NBC; 8-10 pm); Blue Collar TV/Blue Collar TV (WB); The One: Making a Music Star (ABC; 8-10 pm); So You Think You Can Dance (FOX; 8-10 pm); America's Next Top Model (UPN)

9 pm: Criminal Minds (CBS); One Tree Hill (WB); Eve/Cuts (UPN)

10 pm: CSI: New York (CBS); Law & Order (NBC); The One: Making a Music Star (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

10 pm: Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on BBC America (9 pm ET).

If you missed your Monday night fix of Gordon Ramsay, here's your chance to catch him again before this British import departs the U.S. airwaves (for now, anyway). On the season finale of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares ("La Gondola"), Gordon finds himself at the dreadful La Gondola restaurant, an Italian eatery trapped in the 1970s where the chef is one of the worst that Gordon has ever encountered. Seriously, after Hell's Kitchen, that's saying a lot.

10 pm: Project Runway on Bravo.

It might only be the second episode, but I am already obsessed with this reality show, hosted by Heidi Klum, the former object of desire of inbound Gilmore Girls showrunner David Rosenthal. I'm a little perturbed from what I heard about alleged fraud committed by one of the contestants but I'm dying to see what happens on tonight's episode.

Where Pilots Go to Die: "Aquaman" Drowns in Shallow Waters

I was planning on writing about ABC's new drama Six Degrees today, but last night I saw something so awful, so unintentionally hilarious that I needed--no, was forced--to share it with all of you. I looked into the darkness of the abyss where pilots go to die and the darkness looked back at me... and I laughed.

Yes, my friends, I am talking about the aborted CW pilot, Mercy Reef, a.k.a. The Reef, a.k.a. Aquaman, which recounts, as the tagline puts it, "The Legend of Aquaman." Helpful, that. Like Smallville before it, this pilot attempted to put a youthful spin on the origin story of another DC Comics superhero, this time the somewhat openly mocked Aquaman.

Let me begin by saying that I have nothing against Aquaman as a character. He's from the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, can swim really fast, and can communicate with sea creatures. I know all about how DC tried to toughen him up a bit and give him a rather, um, macho overhaul by having him lose his hand... which was soon replaced by a big harpoon and later a "water hand" (don't ask). I loved how Entourage's Vince was playing A.C. in a feature film directed by James Cameron last season. I even loved Aquaman in Mark Waid's brilliant series "Justice League: Year One."

That said, I have no idea why anyone--least of all Smallville's creators Al Gough and Miles Millar--would want to center a live-action television series around the swimming sensation. While I don't watch Smallville, I can definitely see the appeal of a teenage Superman. A teenage Batman? I'd love to see Bruce Wayne fighting crime as a wealthy, orphaned punk. As for others I'd sooner see ahead in the line of Aquaman? How about a teen version of Green Arrow or Green Lantern? Or hey, thinking on that tack, a version of The Bold and the Brave for the Noxema set? But Aquaman?

Mercy Reef/Aquaman (call it what you will) is bad... laughably bad. This version of the story of Aquaman brings us a nearly-twenty-year-old Arthur "A.C." Curry (Justin Hartley, who replaced Will Toale in the role), the survivor of a plane crash in the Bermuda Triangle that ten years earlier killed his beautiful and blonde mother (an underwater scuffle with a sea siren sort of sealed the deal). After the death of his mother and his rescue at sea, A.C. was raised by his rather gruff military officer father Tom Curry (Lou Diamond Phillips, slumming it here). Unaware that he is actually the heir to the throne of Atlantis (a prince called Oren), A.C. spends his time freeing dolphins and getting into trouble, that is, when he's not running the dive shop and bar he owns, called--snicker--The Old Man and the Sea. But his good pal Eva (Amber McDonald), who runs the dive shop/bar hybrid with A.C., tries her best to keep him out of trouble. But A.C. is no normal kid: he can swim--really fast--underwater and hold his breath for long periods of time and he has some sort of empathic connection with sea life.

But then weird things start happening: lights in the sky, big storms that don't show up on any conventional radars, weird, watery gateways to Atlantis open, and a stranger named McCaffrey (Ving Rhames) approaches A.C. and knows all about him. The military is doing some odd investigation into the Bermuda Triangle and some big muckety-muck assigns Air Force Lt. Rachel Torres (Denise Quinones) to do a fly-over (why?) but as she does, the weird gateway thingie opens and smashes her jet, causing her to fall into the ocean. Lucky for her, A.C. was swimming underneath her and he saves her life.

Meanwhile, a young man is found floating on a piece of flotsam and rescued by Tom Curry, but he has a message for Oren (that's A.C., remember): they're coming. And like A.C. and his dead momma, this kid has a rather cheesy seahorse necklace on too. The military determines that the kid is actually someone who disappeared 60 years ago in the Bermuda Triangle, but he hasn't aged... Dun Dun Dun! He's been in Atlantis the whole time but now there's some sort of danger he needs to warn the prodigal prince about and--guess what--trouble followed him to the surface world in the form of Nadia (the incredibly annoying Adrianne Palicki), the very same sea siren who killed his mother (who might just be Amelia Earhart--wait, what?). Nadia and A.C. scuffle and he's saved by the arrival of the mysterious McCaffrey.

McCaffrey is another Atlantean exile and he wants to teach A.C. about his heritage, but first they have to defeat the evil Nadia--who had just skewered Eva in an earlier scene and killed the poor Atlantean messenger--which seems pretty easy, considering she's a deep sea baddy with a hypnotic gaze and really big teeth and claws. Afterwards, McCaffrey invites A.C. to his lighthouse, where he'll begin training him. And his first assignment: read Shakespeare's "Henry IV." Damn, but A.C.'s "not much of a reader." They laugh and we're expected to believe that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Aw.

Besides for the fact that the script's dialogue is so atrocious, the pilot's big weakness is in its cast, which is truly awful. As the lead, Hartley is especially cringe-worthy and his delivery is so wooden that you begin to hope that that next scene would focus on someone else. While the vacant eyes and bare chest school of acting may have worked on Passions, it takes more than just beefcake to make a series lead. (Seriously, if Hartley is this bad, I shudder to think what Toale, whom he replaced, was like.) I normally love Ving Rhames. This guy is The Man. Tough, gruff, with a trademark deadpan humor, he added needed spark to all three Mission: Impossible features. But here, it's as though he's reading from a Teleprompter; all his lines are delivered in the same monotone fashion. And poor Lou Diamond Phillips seems like he's sleepwalking through his scenes. But the worst has got to be the little kid and the mom from the pilot's opening scene, which had me rolling on the floor. Note to all producers: if you're going to cast a child actor, pick one that can actually ACT and not just look like a younger version of the lead.

In the version of the pilot I saw, the special effects were unfinished but for the most part were well done and expensive-looking, more like something you'd typically find in a feature film than in a teen drama. The scene with A.C. swimming in the ocean with the dolphins was especially breathtakingly beautiful; that said, the effects in scenes where he swims really fast were terrible and reminded me of CBS's short-lived series The Flash. (There must be a better way to show his speed in the water.)

Ultimately, it's no wonder that Aquaman wasn't picked up to series. Between the lousy script and the even lousier acting, I can understand why the CW wouldn't pony up the cash for what would have proved to be a very expensive series. I get why a youth-skewing network would want to set a series in and around the ocean, but it should be for a better reason that just an excuse to have the guys walk around shirtless and the girls in skimpy bikinis. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, from a viewer's standpoint.) And while Superman and Batman have huge mainstream fan bases, Aquaman is a niche character that few people, beyond the character's comic readers, really have an affinity for. (Lest we forget, remember the fiasco that was the WB's Birds of Prey?) Supes and Bats are national icons, instantly recognizable by millions, whose stories have captured the imagination of countless people for nearly a century. Superhero TV series either need that level of visibility in order to thrive or need to subvert that dominant paradigm (Buffy being the perfect example of that: blonde cheerleader by day, super-strong vampire slayer by night).

But, unfortunately, I'm going to have to toss Aquaman back in the sea; this vapid pilot is simply no great catch.

What's On Tonight

8 pm: Gameshow Marathon (CBS); The Office/The Office (NBC); Smallville (WB); 2006 Scripps National Spelling Bee (ABC; 8-10 pm); That '70s Show/That '70s Show (FOX); Everybody Hates Chris/Love, Inc. (UPN)

9 pm: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS); The Office/The Office (NBC); Supernatural (WB); So You Think You Can Dance (FOX); Eve/Cuts (UPN)

10 pm: Without a Trace (CBS); ER (NBC); Primetime (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8-10 pm: The Office.

Oh, NBC, I take back all the awful things I said about you. Okay, well, not all of them. But it's a step in the right direction to schedule a mini-marathon of four back-to-back episodes of The Office. At 8 pm, it's "Fire," the episode where a fire breaks out in the Dunder-Mifflin office kitchen and forces the employees to evacuate to the parking lot. Next up at 8:30 pm, it's "The Client," the episode where Michael impresses Jan with his people skills in front of a prospective client. At 9 pm, it's "Performance Review," wherein Michael steals the employee suggestion box in order to impress Jan with his ideas. And rounding out the evening, it's "Email Surveillance," the episode where Michael begins to spy on the Dunder-Mifflin workers' email and somehow manages to upset everyone.

10 pm: 5 Takes: Pacific Rim on the Travel Channel.

New night, new time, new episodes. The 5 Takes gang returns with a new batch of episodes, this time from New Zealand. In tonight's installment ("Queenstown"), the gang sets out for the resort town of Queenstown, which coincidentally is the extreme sports capital of New Zealand. Hmmm, I predict Josh will enjoy some bungey jumping while Gabe samples some of the region's pinot noir.

10 pm-Midnight: Waking the Dead on BBC America (or 9 pm for you East Coasters).

The fifth season of one of my favorite British crime dramas continues. On tonight's episode ("Subterraneans"), the body of a missing millionaire businessman is found in an underground cellar, one year after he disappeared. In a rather odd twist, the kidnapper never made any demands and the victim appears to have committed suicide... Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.