Notes on Pop Culture: 'FlashForward' Retooled, 'Nurse Jackie'/'US Tara' Return and 'Wimpy Kid' Flick Premieres

*Warning, spoilers ahead from the latest episode of FlashForward.*

FlashForward Retooled

I wasn't among the FlashForward haters per say, but by the time ABC late last year decided to put FlashForward on hiatus until mid-March, I wasn't sure what that meant for the sci-fi drama's future. New creative folks were brought on board and I wondered if it was the beginning of the end for a show with a promising premise but which didn't consistently deliver and frequently got caught up in intrigue and complexity at the expense of character development.

I watched the two-hour FlashForward return last night -- while checking in on the NCAA tourney games, go underdogs! -- and was pleased by what I saw: Interesting people, thoughtful connections and more depth when it came to the characters. Plus a whole lot of answers. We were told who the guy in the baseball park was who remained awake during the blackout and why (some mysterious ring). We found out more about the flashforwards of Mark Benford, Simon "Charlie from Lost" Campos and Lloyd Simcoe. We learned that Simon's not as evil as he may seem but was instead being played by a sinister uncle who worked for a nameless, faceless sinister boss.

We saw the introduction of a group called Sanctuary -- run by a former window washer who didn't die on the day of the blackout because he believes he was saved by God (Gil Bellows from Ally McBeal) -- and we learned that perhaps Nicole Kirby (who plays Jane Sterling on Mad Men) didn't really see herself being murdered in her flashforward, drowned and punished for something, but maybe she was freaking out during a full body baptism. And that penny wall thing . . . cannot forget the penny wall being created by Nicole's mother, who lit a Bible on fire and wears angel wings over her bathrobe.

If the rest of the season is this intriguing, I'll be there.

Showtime's Nurse Jackie and United States of Tara Return on Monday

I completely bought Edie Falco as an ER nurse Jackie Peyton during the first season of Nurse Jackie. Fierce, strong, compassionate, smart, unfaithful and addicted to pain meds, Falco's former persona of Carmela Soprano quickly fell by the wayside as the episodes unfolded.

By the time the season one finale concluded, her lover Eddie had been fired from the hospital and found out that Jackie was married and had kids, visited Jackie's husband Kevin's bar and then made a drunken scene at the hospital. Plus Jackie had been experiencing adverse reactions to the copious amounts of illegally obtained meds she was consuming. (Paging Dr. House.) My guess is that we haven't heard the last from Eddie or Jackie's drug issues.

Airing after Nurse Jackie is the season two premiere of the United States of Tara, featuring the Emmy-winning Toni Collette playing Tara Gregson, a woman struggling with multiple personalities she can't control. The first season ended with her coming face to face with the person who sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager. This season starts with Tara having been alternate-personality-free for months.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie Premieres

My three kids are thrilled about the fact that a movie based on one of their favorite book series -- Diary of a Wimpy Kid -- is being released today.

Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+ and called it, "a jaunty and forthright production with a lively look reflecting the book’s illustrated pages, [the movie] does a great job of being in two places at once: In the head and gangly bodies of kids, and in the hearts of those of us who have survived grades 6-8."

However a Boston Globe movie reviewer gave it one-and-a-half stars (out of four), saying that the film makes the main character, Greg Hefley, an unlikeable jerk: "In his quest for instant fame, our hero treats his friend like dirt, trash-talks the school’s perfectly reasonable alt-girl (Chloë Moretz), ditches a group of kindergartners in a construction pit in the rain (and blames it on [best friend] Rowley), and otherwise behaves like a little Hun."

Wonder who's right?

Image credit: Craig Sjodin/ABC.

'FlashForward:' No New Eps 'Til MARCH

* Warning, spoilers from recent episode of FlashForward. *

After an uneven first half of the season, ABC’s FlashForward made up for it with its last handful of new episodes which have propelled the story forward in interesting ways, while sprinkling in some character depth along the way. By having two scientists admit publicly that their experiment MAY have caused the killer global blackout -- in which people experienced two-plus minutes of a day six months into the future -- the show has moved beyond the crazy mess and muck of the plotlines involving a Nazi, black crows and suicide societies, which is a good thing.

I was just about to delete FlashForward from my DVR’s scheduled recordings – as I did with Fox’s Fringe which just couldn’t keep me hooked, as much as I am a fan of J.J. Abrams – when I saw the seventh episode, “The Gift,” where a FBI agent committed suicide in order to avoid having his flash-forward come true: That he accidentally kills a mother of two small children. “Live your life,” the man wrote in a letter to the woman whose life he saved by taking his own. “Live every day. And know that the future is unwritten. Make the most of that.” Although this appeared during the Fight Club-like suicide society episode, the FBI agent’s suicide was the most dramatic and interesting part as it established that the flash-forwards folks experienced were not inevitable.

The final new 2009 episode, “A561984” -- where we learned that FBI Agent (Now suspended? Fired?) Mark Benford was the man seen murdering his partner, Demetri Noh, in a mysterious CIA-linked woman’s flash-forward – provided another welcomed and unexpected twists, in addition to Demetri realizing he has to be concerned about his safety around his (former?) partner. The violent abduction of the now-reviled scientist Lloyd Simcoe, which left his son in the custody of his doctor, Olivia Benford, was likewise a smart move, unavoidably binding Lloyd and Olivia together after they shared an odd moment where she realized she almost moved into the building where Lloyd’s wife lived when he first met her. (The side story about Demetri’s fiancé Zoey realizing that her flash-forward wasn’t of their wedding, but of his memorial service, nicely nurtured the emotional, human thread of the episode.)

FlashForward’s behind-the-scenes staff has recently endured a bit of a shake-up, and there was a brief production stop in late November ordered by ABC execs in order to “boost the writing.” What does this mean for the show once it returns in the spring? Will we be treated to a smart and compelling drama that makes viewers care about the characters, or will we go back to that bad place with the crows and the Nazis and I delete it from my DVR's schedule? I’m hoping for the first option.

Image credit: ABC.

What are the Chances of 'V' Returning in March? What's Up with 'FlashForward?'

ABC's sci-fi drama V concluded its first handful of episodes last night with the promise that it'd be back with new episodes in March 2010. But will it?

One TV critic reported that:

"The future of V is about as up in the air as one of those giant spaceships hovering over a major Earth city. The day that the show premiered, ABC announced that a new executive producer/showrunner had been hired to helm the series.

That's not a good sign.

Before that, the network had shut down production shortly after it began -- after the second and third episodes were filmed -- for creative retooling. Executive producer Jeff Bell left the show at that point, replaced as showrunner by executive producer Scott Peters, who wrote the pilot.

. . . After getting off to a very strong start with a very strong pilot episode, ratings fell 26 percent for Episode 2. Then they fell another 16 percent for Episode 3 as the show fell to third-place in its time slot."

Will Anna, the disarmingly attractive alien leader who has the ability to put all her followers into a blissful state by cooing to them over a special Visitor intercom thingie, live to see another day? Will Juliet Burke . . . I mean Erica Evans, the FBI agent who's trying to defeat the "Visitors" from trying to kill all of humankind succeed, with an assist from a local priest, WHILE tending to her work-life balance issues?

More bad news on the sci-fi front, the ABC high-concept drama FlashForward, which I think was just starting to get its footing despite declining ratings -- loved the episode about the man who actually changed his future, proving that the flash-forwards aren't written in stone -- has gone on a "temporary" production hiatus and no one seems to know whether this is an omen of certain doom, particularly when the reason for the hiatus was, according to an ABC spokesman, to "boost the writing . . . They want to maintain the high quality of the show, and this gives the writers the opportunity to do so."

Do you think V and FlashForward have futures? Do they deserve to air another day?

Image credit: ABC.

'V' and 'FlashForward:' Can These High-Concept Shows Go the Distance?

I watched the premiere of V last night on ABC, you know, that new drama about the aliens "visiting" Earth as their ginormous spacecraft hover over the world's biggest cities.

The pilot episode was intriguing, but I think I’m a tad biased because I'm a fan of Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet from Lost) who plays single mom FBI agent Erica Evans on V and has been convinced that the "visitors" want to annihilate humankind. She’s not as enthralled by the attractive, smooth talking aliens as, say Scott Wolf (Bailey from Party of Five) who’s been flirting with the alien's leader, Anna, and, as ambitious TV news guy Chad Decker, is benefitting from being the one journalist on Earth to whom Anna will grant exclusive interviews . . . that is if he agrees not to ask any questions that cast the aliens in an unflattering light.

So there’s a battle coming: The skeptics, like Erica Evans, plan to take on the aliens and subvert them because they believe there's at least one (if not more) sleeper terrorist cell of aliens -- who look human on the outside -- that has been on Earth for some time and whose members are bent on doing evil things. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Earthlings appear to be celebritizing the self-professed peace loving aliens -- who have the power to miraculously heal the sick -- as they entice young people into joining “ambassador” programs and training them aboard their ships. People are selling, "I Love Vs" T-shirts and bowing down reverently in the presence of the "visitors'" ships.

That’s all obviously good potentially dramatic material. On paper. But can the writers maintain the momentum and promise of the pilot, keep things fresh and not get bogged down with minutia and subterfuge too quickly?

Plus, there’s the odd decision made by ABC execs to air four episodes and then go on hiatus until 2010 after the winter Olympics. If V succeeeds in getting traction and ratings, all that will grind to a halt. If it’s stinking up the joint, will ABC just pull the plug? Why not just hold the entire series until 2010 so they could air the 13-episode run in consecutive weeks? This puzzles me.

Anyway, here’s a snippet from last night’s premiere. The scene features Wolf’s character prepping for an interview with chief alien Anna:



Over on ABC’s other cataclysmic/conspiratorial new show FlashForward – where (virtually) everyone on Earth blacked out for nearly three minutes and saw a glimpse of their lives six months into the future – six episodes have aired. As with V, I liked the pilot, but feel as though the show has lost some steam since then, gone creatively astray a bit what with tangents about the crows, a Nazi prisoner and bizarre congressional hearings.

What keeps me tuning in to FlashForward -- there've been a few times when I wanted to just delete an episode, unwatched, from my DVR -- is that I like the main characters and am eager to find out how they get from where they are now to where they are in the flashforwards. (Once that happens, I hope the writers have a logical plan as to what'll they'll do then. Hopefully not another global blackout.)

For example, Sonya Walger (Penelope from Lost) plays Dr. Olivia Benford who’s married to FBI agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes from Shakespeare in Love). In Olivia’s flashforward, she finds herself living in her same house but her daughter, as well as with another man she'd never met and his son Dylan. After they experienced the flashforwards, Dylan became Olivia’s patient and he remembered being in her house and seeing Olivia's daughter during his flashforward. FBI agent Mark is holed up in his office in his flashforward, back on the bottle (his drinking had caused a previous marital separation), and he’s investigating the cause of the blackout when he’s attacked by masked gunmen. Seeing how Olivia and Mark get from point A to point B is what has kept me watching through the nonsense about the crows and the inane power politics of Washington, D.C.

I’m also interested in the storyline for FBI agent Demetri Noh (John Cho), who doesn’t have a flashforward and assumes that that means he’ll be dead before April 29, 2010, the date everyone saw during their blackout. When Demetri posted his experience on a web site where others have posted the details of their flashforwards, he received a call from a woman who said she knows he'll be murdered.

However, as much as I was a fan of Dominic Monaghan when he was the self-sacrificing chap named Charlie on Lost, I can’t stand what I’ve seen of him in FlashForward, but then again, I’m not supposed to. Don’t like his whole sinister this-is-one-big-science-experiment-gone-wrong storyline. Don’t really care either.

The video below is of the man and his son Dylan at Olivia and Mark’s house on Halloween night; both the son and the father realized that this was where their flashforward took place:



While lots of folks like to knock Lost because it’s become so complicated in recent years, it wasn’t that way at first. It was a character drama where a group of strangers crash-landed on an island and were presented with constant, life-threatening situations. The storyline slowly unfolded by explaining the characters and their backstories so viewers felt they understood their present actions and what was motivating them. By the time the show got to the level of Easter eggs and requiring a PhD in Lost-ology in order to understand the episode threads, viewers had already bonded with the characters. Which is why I think it’s important that, while they advance the plot forward (which some viewers complained Lost didn’t do very well in its initial seasons), the V and FlashForward writers need to make sure that they make us care about what happens to the characters in their shows. Otherwise if they waste time with extraneous distractions, they could wind up being high-concept, high-profile bombs on their hands.

Talkin' Fall TV Premieres on Manic Mommies Podcast

I chatted up the Manic Mommies at the end of last week -- we recorded our discussion before I'd seen the Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives premieres -- and the subject was fall TV.

Shows discussed included: Mad Men, The Good Wife, Cougar Town, The New Adventures of Old Christine, House, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Parks & Recreation, Glee and FlashForward.

You can listen to the podcast by going to iTunes, then looking up the Manic Mommies page. The fall TV interview is their latest one, number 185.

Which Season Premieres Have Gotten Your Love (or Contempt) This Week?

There have been so many TV premieres this week that, despite the fact that I write about pop culture for a living, I haven't been able to see all of them. Sitting on DVR awaiting my attention are: FlashForward (pilot episode), Heroes and Curb Your Enthusiasm (actually I'll watch it On Demand). Medium, which will be dealing with the impact of Allison DuBois' brain surgery, premieres tonight on a new network, CBS.

I WAS, however able to watch a slew of other premieres, some of which entertained me, others which made me bored to tears.

Among the best:

The House season premiere was two hours long. And it used every minute, well, in a very un-House-like way. It wasn't your typical medical procedural episode (patient comes in with medical mystery, House & Co. argue over how to treat the person, they try a few things, they don't work, then something triggers a brainstorm in House's head and, five minutes before the episode ends, he figures it out). This was a purely character-building two hours, not simply seeing the dramatization of House's diagnostic capabilities, but of his internal emotional terrain as he spent weeks in a mental institution into which he voluntarily committed himself. We saw many different aspects of his personality: The scheming House, the wise-acre House, the good friend House, the rapping House, the besotted then heartbroken House, the scared House. Will this insightful trend continue or will the show return to a medical procedure next week?

Modern Family was kooky and fun in its pilot episode. (Favorite part was the dad shooting the kid with the BB gun, then accidentally shooting his daughter's boyfriend.) While some parts were over-the-top and a wee bit forced feeling, I think this has the makings of being a staple in my house. My fingers are crossed.

I hope that The Good Wife with Julianna Margulies as the cheated-on political spouse who gave up her job to support her husband's career and raise her family, which had a strong pilot, doesn't devolve into a legal procedural, a la a Law & Order. I'd really like to see a genuine peek-behind-the-curtains view of the lives of high profile women whose political husband have publically humiliated them. When I read in New York Magazine that Silda Spitzer recently threw her husband a birthday party, despite everything he's put her and their family through, I was intrigued about why she stayed with him. This show could provide a plausible explanation. Unless it becomes a ripped-from-the-headlines legal show, in which case, I'll be sorely disappointed.

The New Adventures of Old Christine premiere was silly and made me laugh out loud. All I could think of as I watched Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Christine attempt to fly to the Bahamas in an unsuccessful bid to help her friend Barb and, in the process, cause a series of scene on the airplane, was that Julia Louis-Dreyfus has become Lucille Ball.

Among the worst/mixed bags:

While I'm working on a column about Courteney Cox's Cougar Town, I have to say that, putting aside the odious, predatory "cougar" dating references, I found this show unfunny and painful to watch. If it weren't for the fact that I was going to write about it, I would've turned it off after 10 minutes.

Eastwick. Saw and liked the movie, The Witches of Eastwick. Never read the book. The pilot episode of the TV show only elicited a lukewarm response from me. However I'm willing to give it one (maybe two if I'm feeling generous) more episodes to establish whether it's going to be fun and light, or whether it's going to just be another mindless, crappy show.

What did you think of this week's premieres? Any favorites? Any ones you hated?

Image credit: Fox via this web site.

Fall TV Preview Plus 'Grey's' Releases First 5 Minutes of Premiere

It begins in days. . . the fall TV season.

Heroes premieres on Monday, Sept. 21 if there are folks who still care about the once sterling sci-fi drama. I'm still on board, despite the distinctly rocky roads it has traversed as of late.

Greg House will be in an asylum when House starts, also on Monday, Sept. 21.

ABC will try to hook us on a new Lost-like drama called FlashForward, with the fascinating premise: Everyone in the world blacks out and experiences a two-plus minute flash of themselves several months into the future. (Premieres Thursday, Sept. 23.)



Desperate Housewives will start its new season on Sunday, Sept. 27 with Lynette Scavo, who already has four kids, pregnant with twins, apparently trying to give Kate Gosselin a run for her money.

The Office returns to make us laugh with its uncomfortable awkwardness and news of Pam's pregnancy, as the health care debate makes us cry, on Thursday, Sept. 17. (I STILL miss the Michael Scott Paper Company.)



And then there's the Grey's Anatomy premiere on Sunday, September 24. We all know the behind-the-scenes casting stories. There are many of us -- including yours truly -- who felt manipulated by the season finale last spring when both Izzie and George coded and then met one another in that ethereal elevator scene. But, if you're like me, you're still willing to tune in for more abuse. In a surprising move, ABC has posted a sneak peek of the first five minutes of the season premiere on its web site and I've posted it below. It provocative to say the least, and I did tear up.



A couple of other new shows to which I'm looking forward to seeing include CBS's The Good Wife, the one about the betrayed political wife starring Julianna Margulies (premiering Tuesday, Sept. 22) and ABC's new comedy Modern Family, whose online clips have made me laugh (premiering Wednesday, Sept. 23).



My review of fall TV premieres which feature moms and families is up on Mommy Track'd this week.

What shows are you looking forward to seeing return this fall? Any new ones you're eagerly anticipating?