Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Old Is New

Who says there are no new ideas in Hollywood?

From varying sources such as The Hollywood Reporter and Variety...

CBS is set to make a remake/sequel to the 1960s hit "Hawaii Five-O." The new series would pick up with Steve McGarrett's (Jack Lord) son running the 5-0 unit in our 50th state. No word if this new McGarrett will say "Book him, Dano Jr."

Meanwhile, ABC is developing a TV version of "The Witches of Eastwick," based on the book by John Updike and the movie that starred the likes of Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon and Michelle Pfeiffer. NBC had tried to pull it off in the early 1990s, making an unaired pilot produced by Carlton Cuse ("Lost") and the late Jeffrey Boam ("Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"), the pair that made "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr," one of my all-time favorite shows.

No word when either series will get things going, but they join the likes of the remake of "Cupid" and the next generation of "Beverly Hills, 90210" as shows getting a new life because the networks apparently believe in recycling. And they wonder why they are losing their audiences to cable.

CASTING NEWS: According to the trades, Kim Dickens ("Deadwood") will appear on "Friday Night Lights" this season as the estranged mom of quarterback Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford).

Meanwhile, on "Heroes," the ever-growing cast adds two more with Breckin Meyer and Seth Green. That's in addition to the new cast members being added through the webisodes on NBC.com.

Speaking of "Heroes," you can now see the series' alternate ending for Season 2 - in which the Shanti Virus is unleashed - (albeit without sound) here: http://heroesspoilers-odi.blogspot.com/2008/08/heroes-season-2-alternate-ending-and.html

Without the sound, it's not really worth watching, but they also do show a separate clip in which we see Hiro's dad's (George Takei) power - and it's a pretty cool one. That clip also doesn't have sound, but because the scene is between him and Ando, it's done with subtitles. Both clips and more (presumably with sound) are supposed to be on the "Heroes" DVD set to be released next month.

TUESDAY'S BEST BETS: Olympics, of course (NBC, 8 p.m.), though nothing during the rest of the Games will compare to kicking French butt Sunday night.

The rest of the night is mostly reruns, perhaps most notably "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (Fox, 9 p.m.) as the network tries to catch people up before the series returns. If you missed it the first time around, I recommend it.

"Rescue Me" (FX, 10 p.m.) follows up with another new mini-episode, though I'm not sure they can top last week's, and it's followed by a new "30 Days" at 10:06 p.m.

Finally, "Nova" (PBS, 8 p.m.) discusses the history and significance of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, my personal favorite in terms of scientific theories.

2 comments:

Jonathan said...

The "Witches of Eastwick" thing is kind of interesting. It's a great book and a great movie. I'm not sure how they would turn it into a series, but I thought the same thing about Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so who knows?

"Hawaii Five-O," while an entertaining endeavor, does not seem to offer anything for a remake. I guess they didn't learn their lesson with "Dragnet." I hear you on "Brisco County" though; brilliant stuff.

Phillip Ramati said...

Of course, I didn't even mention all of the remakes the US networks are stealing from other countries, including Ugly Betty, In Treatment and Life on Mars to name a few.

I loved, loved, loved Brisco County, just a lot of fun.