NBC Breathes Life into Police Procedurals with New Shows This Fall
NBC is the only network that will be premiering new police procedurals this fall. But don't start rolling your eyes yet. Police dramas may be tried and true TV staples, but NBC is shaking up the genre more than a little bit this fall.
Grimm
You thought the Law & Order detectives had some great intuition? Check out Det. Burkhardt. Not only is he a great detective, he's just found out that he is the last in a long line of humans who can sense the presence of fairy tale monsters that live in our world today and commit horrific crimes. Burkhardt is a Grimm. Instead of relying on good, old-fashioned police work, Burkhardt will use his Grimm powers to track down killers. With more than a touch of the supernatural, this cop drama, just got a whole lot more interesting.
Prime Suspect
Of the three police shows that are coming to NBC this fall, this one most resembles a traditional procedural. Maria Bello plays the only female New York homicide detective in an all-male bunch. But that description makes this show sound much tamer than it is. Although Bello seems to come off like a badass in the trailer, it doesn't look like she'll be playing the cliched kick-ass female cop with masculine traits on this show. It's grittier and less emotional than you might expect, giving this cop drama a fresh twist.
Awake
It looks like NBC took a top-notch police procedural and threw it in a blender with LOST to create Awake. And the results look pretty cool. Det. Michael Britten is in a car accident with his wife and teenage son, and now he travels between parallel realities. In one reality, his wife survived the crash, and in the other, his son survived. And he doesn't want to give up either reality for fear of losing one of them. But as Britten goes about his work as a detective, the cases in his dual realities merge and combine in interesting and mysterious ways. There is nothing procedural about this cop drama, but that is what is going to make it so interesting to watch come this fall.
TV Goes Supernatural This Fall
Who’s up for some time travel, fairy tales, alternate realities, and paranormal activity this fall? You are. NBC, ABC, and FOX just released a slew of trailers for the new fall season, and in between the sitcoms, dramas, and animated series, there were a handful of intriguing gems that could fill the hole that LOST has left in all our hearts.
Alcatraz
Speaking of LOST, Jorge Garcia (Hurley from LOST) and J.J. Abrams are reteaming to create Alcatraz (FOX). Apparently, the famous prison didn’t close in 1963, that’s just when all the inmates mysteriously vanished. Now they are inexplicably appearing in modern-day San Francisco. Where did they come from? How did they travel through time? Who is behind this mystery? Get ready for some classic Abrams convoluted sci-fi mystery.
Terra Nova
What’s that you say? Steven Spielberg has created a show about people traveling back to the time of the dinosaurs to start the human race all over again? When is it on? I will cancel my plans. That’s right we all know Spielberg + Dinosaurs + Sci-fi = Awesomness. I don’t think I need to say anything else about Terra Nova (FOX).
Once Upon a Time and Grimm
Two shows this fall deal with fairy tales: Once Upon a Time (ABC) and Grimm (NBC). In Once Upon a Time, Jennifer Morrison (House) finds herself entwined in a modern-day world that parallels fairy tales. And Grimm is about a police detective who find out he is a “Grimm” and can see fairy-tale monsters—a power he uses to solve modern day crimes that resemble Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and others. Both are interesting premises, but are fairy tales really all that popular to warrant two new shows? We’ll see.
The River
The director of Paranormal Activity tries his hand at TV with this new supernatural/horror drama on ABC. The show is about a family searching for their father/husband who has disappeared somewhere along the Amazon—creaky doors, nail-biting suspense, and people being thrown into cameras by invisible forces ensue. If you’re looking to put a little fight into your night this fall, this show might be worth a look.
Awake
Remember when LOST did that whole parallel realities thing? Well NBC decided to make a whole show out of it. But instead of an island of castaways, Awake centers on a police detective who survives a fatal car crash. When he recovers, he begins to moves back and forth between two realities—one where his wife survived the crash, and another where his son survived. Now he doesn’t know which one is real, and doesn’t want to give up either one. But the reality switching has interesting implications for his police work, as his parallel cases seem to interact and blend into each other in mysterious ways. Is he awake, asleep, in a coma, or is he really traveling through parallel worlds? You’ll have to tune in to find out.
DISH Network Now Offering Blockbuster by Mail
DISH Network announced on May 19th that they are now offering a Blockbuster By Mail service that allows customers to have unlimited access to more than 100,000 movies, TV shows and games. Similar to Netflix, you can get these movies through the mail or exchange them at a participating Blockbuster store.
DISH Network purchased the bankrupt video rental franchise last month. They purchased Blockbuster for $320 ($180 million of which will go directly to Blockbuster's creditors) after making the highest bid in an auction. DISH Network bested other bidders including investor Carl Icahn and SK Telecom to ultimately win the rights to purchase Blockbuster.
After DISH officially purchased Blockbuster, there was a lot of speculation as to what DISH would do with the once-successful video rental chain. It is now clear that DISH plans to take full advantage of Blockbuster by starting a mail service. While this will put DISH and Blockbuster in direct competition with other successful video rental companies, they will have an up on the competition because they will offer new titles 28 days before Netflix or Redbox.
DISH Network is currently offering a Blockbuster By Mail promotion to kick off this new service. New DISH Network customers who sign up for service through August 10 will get three months of Blockbuster by Mail for free.
DISH CEO and President Charlie Ergen Relinquishes His Position
Charlie Ergen, the current leader of DISH Network that founded the company more than 30 years ago, recently announced that he is relinquishing his position as CEO and president of the company to Joe Clayton.
Ergen will remain in his role as chairman of the company, but will relinquish many of the day-to-day tasks associated with running the company to Clayton. Similarly to this move, three years ago, Ergen resigned as the CEO of EchoStar, a satellite technology company that emerged in 2008. Ergen will remain as the chairman and the main shareholder of both DISH Network and EchoStar.
The announcement of Clayton as Ergen's replacement does not come as much of a surprise. Clayton is the former president of satellite radio provider Sirius XM and has become a good friend of Ergen in the past few years. He has years of experience in the telecommunications industry and is said to have many of the same ideas and leadership qualities that Ergen himself possesses.
DISH Network as a whole will likely not change very much because of this leadership transition. Ergen will still be involved in the decision making process and will still be an integral part of the company. However, this transition does come at a critical time for DISH Network and the satellite industry as a whole when online platforms are stealing many customers away from traditional television programming.
How DISH (and Ergen) will deal with this is yet to be seen.
Moffat Shaking Up Doctor Who
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I'm a late-comer to the Doctor Who universe--the Whoniverse, perhaps? I'm American and, although I've been a sci-fi fan since I was young, I'd never met anyone who was a Doctor Who enthusiast. All I knew was that is was a British sci-fi show about a guy with a long scarf who traveled through time in a blue box. But a couple of years ago, on a whim, I decided to check out what all the fuss was about surrounding the 2005 Doctor Who re-launch. Then I was hooked.
I read up on the history of Doctor Who, rented classic episodes from Netflix and the local library, and even searched for bootlegged episodes online. Now, I am a full-blown whovian. I go around saying things like, "Allons-y," "Geronimo!," and put a fez on whenever I get the chance. But I feel like the Whoniverse is shifting. It's not a bad thing, but it's something I've definitely noticed, and I'm interested to see how it all plays out.
When David Tennant left the titular role of the Doctor, so did Russell Davies the man responsible for the 2005 re-boot and its subsequent smashing success. In Davies' place Steven Moffat, a long time writer for the show, took over as producer just as Matt Smith stepped in to the lead role. Moffat is credited with writing some of the darker adventures of the Doctor, including the creation of what are probably the most popular monsters to appear since the re-boot: The Weeping Angels.
And Moffat is taking the Doctor in a decidedly different direction. Recently, Moffat had this to say about Season 6: "Last year, in a way, was all about saying don't worry, it's still him, it's still the same show, and nothing's really been lost. Losing a leading man like David Tennant is seismic—unless you gain a leading man like Matt Smith. It's been the biggest joy to see him stride in and just claim that TARDIS for his own. But now he's really here, and the part is his, and the bow tie is cool, he's ready to lead us places we didn't know existed. Last year we reassured you - this year, to hell with that, we're going to worry the hell out of you. How well do we really know that man, or what he's capable of? We're putting the Who? back in the Doctor."
It seems that from a quote like that, Moffat wants to make a break with traditional Doctor Who tropes and really make the show his own. And I definitely felt the shift. The 2-part season opener, "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon," were grander, funnier, and more epic than any season opener since the re-boot. They were also darker and a little more muddled than was I used to with the Doctor's storylines.
For the most part, Doctor Who has relied on a "monster of the week" formula. Each week brings a new monster or problem that the Doctor has to vanquish or solve. And generally that issue is resolved within one episode or the occasional two-parter. The fact is large story lines were resolved and then we moved on to next week.
Moffat's Who is different. At the end of "Day of the Moon," the main questions of the opener were basically unanswered: Who is the little girl in the spacesuit? Who is the red-haired woman with the eye patch? Why is there a picture of Amy with a little girl in a broken down orphanage? Why did the Silence need to put a little girl in a spacesuit in the first place? How did she get out? Is that the same Tardis from last season's "The Lodger" episode? Is that little girl a Time Lord? And perhaps most importantly, what happened at the lake when the Doctor…? (I'm not going to say it out loud--spoilers.)
Never before has a Doctor Who episode left me with more questions than answers, to the point that it almost feels like Moffat is taking a page from the LOST playbook instead of sticking with the same Doctor Who story structures that have worked for so long. Although I'm with the Doctor all the way to the end of the universe (Matt Smith's Doctor has grown on me considerably, and I'm completely in love with Amy Pond and River Song), the remainder of the season will tell us if this new approach to Doctor Who will pay off or leave fans too confused to keep watching.
