Eric Close, who considers himself an honorary Wichitan because he's married to the former Keri Moyers, stars in CBS's "Without a Trace," which premieres at 9 p.m. Thursday (KWCH, Channel 12).
It's his fourth time up at bat as star of a major network series and he's beginning to feel a little like Robert Urich or George Clooney.
Urich starred in at least 14 series that lasted one season or less, although "Spenser: For Hire" (1985-88) finally gave him a franchise that turned into a series of TV movies.
"I'm more like George Clooney, who had lots of opportunities before 'ER' took off. I think he did 12 pilots," Close said during a conversation in California.
"I still have a ways to go before I catch up with that," he joked.
"I'm fortunate in that I have a good relationship with CBS. They believe that I will deliver so they keep bringing me back. I hope this goes for more than one season."
Close, 35, launched his career with "Keeping Secrets," then moved into "Santa Barbara" and into a recurring guest role on "Sisters."
That led to his starring role in the creepy sci-fi series "Dark Skies" (1996) about whether aliens assassinated JFK, the updating of "The Magnificent Seven" (1998) where he was a scruffy gunslinger and "Now and Again" (1999) where he played a middle-aged shlub whose brain was transplanted into a young new body following a terrible accident.
All of Close's series passed critical muster but none lasted longer because of faulty marketing and bad time periods.
"I don't feel any different about the quality of this show but I do about the time slot. This is probably the best one I've ever had," he said.
The lead-in is last season's phenomenal success, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." "Without a Trace," about an FBI team looking for missing persons, is a good, clever, investigative complement.
It's a classy drama with a more emotional payoff than "CSI" because there is the possibility of happy endings.
One catchy, signature technique shows FBI investigators in the same room with the spirit of the missing person, crossing paths as the latter leaves clues and the former then find them.
In the new series, Close plays Martin Fitzgerald, the newest member of the missing persons squad headed by Anthony LaPaglia (last seen as Daphne's slobby brother on "Frasier," for which he just won an Emmy).
Close's character has a background in investigating white-collar crime, so his new teammates -- Poppy Montgomery, Enrique Murciano and Marianne Jean-Baptiste -- consider him a lightweight who won't get his hands dirty in the field.
His first task, then, is to prove he can get down and dirty before he can get down to business.
"The thing about Martin is that he's very goal-oriented. He's eager. He has his sights set on achieving a lot of success and would love to run the Bureau before probably leapfrogging into politics," Close described.
His character's father is a high-powered lawyer connected with the FBI who can pull strings to get things done.
"That's a sticking point with Martin. He is trying to blaze his own path. He doesn't want success if it means riding on his father's coattails."
For the first few episodes, Martin seems like a stodgy straight arrow. Close is hoping the writers will give him some quirks for color.
"Martin is definitely a loner and a perfectionist. When he's not at work, he stays to himself. He probably goes home and cooks himself a five-star meal, pours himself a glass of good wine and then eats by himself," Close projected.
"He reads a lot. He builds model ships. He's a detail person. He gets involved romantically in the series but it always goes south. He's too focused on his work."
So, how much of Martin Fitzgerald is Eric Close?
"Martin's a loner and I'm not. I'm an extrovert. I like people and conversations," Close said. "He's also not a family man, which I definitely am. He puts career before family, which is definitely not me."
Speaking of family, Close and his wife, Keri (married in 1995), now have two daughters: Katie, 4, and Ella, 18 months.
"Keri is busy being a full-time mom. She's also teaching a parents-and-more course through our Presbyterian church and singing in the praise choir," he said.
The Closes live in the Brentwood section of the San Fernando Valley, the suburban bedroom community north of Los Angeles.
The couple comes to Wichita a couple of times a year to visit family. When they were here in May, Close's real life ironically crossed paths with his acting career and panicked him.
"I made a run to the pet store with my (then) 15-month-old daughter. I jumped up on a ladder to grab something and when I turned around, she was gone," he said.
"I ran to the front and asked them to shut down the store. It only took about three or four minutes (to find her), which seemed like an eternity.
"This brought home the reality of it, the weight and magnitude of what happens when someone goes missing. It's definitely an honor to be playing one of the guys that pour their lives into trying to help people get their loved ones back."
Doing double duty this season, Close will also appear in three or four episodes of the 20-hour miniseries "Taken," for the Sci-Fi Channel beginning in December.
"I play an alien who looks like myself because I have morphed into it from a little gray guy from outer space."
He's made a handful of movies: Edward James Olmos' acclaimed "American Me," "Alvarez & Cruz," "Liberty, Maine."
"A feature film career is what I always wanted when I started out. But life sometimes surprises you. If someone had told me 10 years ago that I would be doing series television, I wouldn't have believed them," he said.
"But now I'm glad. It provides a great living and I can stay close to my family while they are growing up."
CBS varies its formula by a 'Trace'
WITHOUT A TRACE. Tonight at 10, CBS. Three stars
'It's our job. It's what we do."
That's Anthony LaPaglia, star of the new CBS drama series "Without a Trace," in tonight's premiere episode at 10. He's talking about his high-tech missing-persons investigative unit -- but he could just as well be speaking for CBS President Leslie Moonves.
What network executives try to do is establish one powerful beachhead in t heir prime-time schedule, then expand on it. In recent years, networks have tried to do it the easy way, through repetition and imitation -- newsmagazines and "Law & Order" clones on NBC, scads of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" on ABC.
Now CBS has come up with its own low-risk, high-reward game plan and it revolves around "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation." That series begins its third season tonight, three days after its spinoff, "CSI: Miami," racked up strong ratings on Monday.
And following "CSI" CBS unveils a new drama that, in structure and style, is so much like "CSI" it ought to pay royalties. The difference is that it has a team of intense people working to find people who may still be alive, rather than clues about people they know are dead.
Otherwise, it's pretty much a straight steal, with a little "24"-style time-frame urgency thrown in. But "Without a Trace," however derivative, is a solid program, and ought to please "CSI" audiences -- and, in the process, launch the biggest threat to the dominance of NBC's "ER" since that show premiered nine seasons ago.
It's our job, Moonves might say. It's what we do.
In "Without a Trace," there are five team members. LaPaglia's Jack Malone heads the unit, Eric Close's Martin Fitzgerald just joined it, and Poppy Montgomery, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Enrique Murciano round out the clue-ferreting missing-persons squad.
LaPaglia, Close and Montgomery get most of the attention the first time around, and deserve it.
LaPaglia is his usual mixture of smoldering and intense, Close is charming yet mercurial, and Montgomery is no less beautiful and endearing here than she was as Marilyn Monroe in "Blonde." Her character's name, however, is unfortunate: she plays a detective named Samantha Spade. Sam for short.
Series creator Hank Steinberg and director David Nutter establish the show's urgent pace and visual vocabulary nicely. Malone and company work quickly to reconstruct the last day in the life of their subject before he or she disappeared (in tonight's pilot, it's a female marketing executive). It's "24" in reverse, but in one hour and all as reconfigured by a "CSI"-style team of resourceful investigators.
It's done so well that it figures to be a hit -- and to hit "ER" pretty hard.
Let's Hope This Crime Show Will Vanish
ROBERT PHILPOT
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
After the premiere episode of ``Without a Trace'' (9 Central, Wednesday on CBS), not much about the cast or the plot will stick in your head. But you will find Linkin Park's despairing hit ``In the End'' stuck there. The song plays at the opening and closing of the episode, and its simple and persistent piano intro is used over and over during the story.
The song is kind of incongruous. So is this surprisingly boring show.
Oh, ``Without a Trace'' makes a decent companion to ``CSI: Crime Scene Investigation'' (Jerry Bruckheimer is executive producer of both shows). It's another police procedural drama: We follow a Manhattan-based FBI Missing Persons Unit as they work on a case, much the way we follow the ``CSI'' team's work. And like ``CSI'' and ``CSI: Miami,'' it features a group of aloof, archetypal characters, each of whom serves a particular purpose on the job.
But at its best, the original ``CSI'' is tightly written and fascinating; on the opener of ``Without a Trace,'' creator Hank Steinberg's screenplay merely furnishes the show with standard red herrings, as ``Law & Order'' has been doing for more than a decade. And when team leader Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) makes a deduction, it often sounds more like an assumption, or worse, a leap to a conclusion. He tags one potential suspect as gay within minutes, and he breaks down an e-mail sentence by sentence in ways that don't sound at all convincing.
The debut episode smartly uses new investigator Martin Fitzgerald (Eric Close) as an entry point for viewers; Fitzgerald is quickly introduced to all the other characters by name, then learns about the elaborate charts and timelines they use to work a case. Not quite accepted by his colleagues yet, Fitzgerald makes smart moves and dumb ones in the opening episode, but he's the only investigator who doesn't seem to be moving with the precision of a nuclear clock.
The episode also introduces us to the series' shtick: A quick introduction to the missing person - in this case a young marketing executive (``The American Embassy's'' Arija Bareikis) who doesn't show up to work one day. Then subtitles tell us how long she's been missing, and flashbacks help us learn about her character (and give the talented Bareikis more to do than just show up in the intro). The show is also fond of gimmicky shots in which the vanished person fades away, or comes alive as Malone's mind goes to work.
Besides Close, who is moderately interesting, LaPaglia is supported by Poppy Montgomery as Samantha Spade, a character name that reveals not a ``Maltese Falcon'' tribute but a lack of imagination on the writers' part; and two other investigators, played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Enrique Marciano, who don't make any impact.
Neither does the show; unlike ``The Agency,'' which was moved to Saturdays because it couldn't hold onto ``CSI's'' audience, ``Without a Trace's'' core cast doesn't have enough eccentric actors to spice up its meat-and-potatoes structure. Its main purpose seems to be filling an hour for people who are burned out on ``ER.''
CBS: the Crime Broadcasting System?
KEVIN D. THOMPSON
Cox News Service
Maybe crime does pay.
CBS, or should we say, the Crime Broadcasting System, certainly hopes so.
Of the network's five new dramas this fall, four: ``CSI: Miami, ``Without A Trace,'' ``Robbery Homicide Division '' and ``Hack'' are crime-related. Two of CBS' more stylish, yet markedly different dramas are tonight's ``Without A Trace'' and Friday's ``Robbery Homicide Division.''
Why all the cops and robbers?
Les Moonves, CBS president, says it's a coincidence.
``There was no game plan,'' he says matter-of-factly. ``These were the best pilots that fit in best with our schedule.''
Sure.
Clearly CBS is trying to capitalize on the success of ``CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,'' the white-hot hit that zoomed past ``ER '' to become the nation's most-watched drama. That four new crime shows are on the network at the same time is far from accidental.
It's also obvious to anyone with working eyes that the sleek and fast-paced ``Without A Trace '' is a CSI clone. Instead of piecing clues to solve a murder mystery, hard-charging FBI agents piece together clues to find missing people.
Combining the best elements of ''24 '' (on-screen text that lets you know how long a person has been missing while ratcheting up the tension) and ``CSI '' (cool ``ghost'' visuals allow missing people to come in and out of scenes), ``Without A Trace'' is one of the season's best shows.
The show is also fronted by a top-shelf cast led by Anthony LaPaglia (``Frasier,'' ``Murder One'' ), as Jack Malone, a senior agent with uncanny deducing skills. He can read, for instance, a formal workplace e-mail and quickly surmise that the author was having an affair with the recipient. He can tell whether a man is gay just by observing a two-second glance.
Malone is the kind of detail-obsessed agent who barks orders like ``Run it down!'' and ``Let's get a complete package on this guy!'' to such dedicated staffers as his no-nonsense investigator (Marianne Jean-Baptiste); hot-headed agent (Enrique Murciano); fresh-faced rookie (Eric Close); and tough blondie agent (Poppy Montgomery).
In tonight's quick-moving opener, the team is on the hunt for a Manhattan marketing executive last seen arguing on the street with a man. It's an engrossing whodunit puzzler that tosses enough credible suspects your way - the married office boyfriend, the coke-dealing security guard, the once-estranged dad - to keep you guessing.
But are the producers concerned about all the other crime shows on CBS?
``I think we've got our hands full just trying to do this show without trying to worry about what everybody else is doing,'' says creator Hank Steinberg (''61,'' ``RFK'' ). ``The stakes are very high, but people are into mysteries.''
``Robbery Homicide Division '' is also a mystery, but it's unlike any other cop show on television. The hulking and always intense Tom Sizemore (``Saving Private Ryan'') stars as Sam Coleman, a hard-boiled detective who works the mean streets of Los Angeles.
The show, executive produced by filmmaker Michael Mann (``Heat,'' ``Ali''), is shot on high-definition video. The technique gives ``Robbery '' an immediate, almost documentary-like feel. When you see, for example, palm trees from 2 miles away silhouetted at night against amber-colored clouds, you'll feel as if you were in Coleman's seedy world.
Mann was also smart to film most of ``Robbery '' on various Los Angeles locations. Like Baltimore on NBC's ``Homicide: Life on the Street,'' Los Angeles is essentially another character on Mann's gritty show.
``This is not going to be `you are in the station house and everybody is talking to each other and there's all those interpersonal relationships,''' Mann says. ``I think contemporary L.A. is the most exciting city in the United States. We go to wherever our stories take us.''
Los Angeles might be a character on ``Robbery,'' but it's clear that the star of the show is Sizemore. Like Robert Goren, Vincent D'Onofrio's Sherlock Holmes-ish character on NBC's ``Law & Order: Criminal Intent,'' Coleman knows how to browbeat witnesses with humor and intimidation.
``You're a commodity, baby,'' he says to an undercover narcotics officer (Mario Van Peebles). ``And the value of your (butt) is declining.''
Coleman also knows how to size up a crime scene. His eyes dart anxiously, his head moves as if it were on a swivel as he quickly figures out how shots were fired and what really went down.
When two crimes are committed in opposite corners of the city - a shooting in Koreatown and a mass murder in a tiny suburb outside of Los Angeles - Coleman also discovers they're connected.
``He's a hunter,'' Mann says. ``It's a mental hunt and a physical hunt. He would never make the mistake of having a marriage, because he knows he couldn't maintain a marriage. The nature and thrill of his life is the action.''
Action is something you'll see a lot of this fall on CBS - the Crime Broadcasting System.
Sat Oct 12 09:00P SCIFI- Science Fiction
Sun Oct 13 03:00A SCIFI- Science Fiction
'Without a Trace' to Broadcast Information About a Real-Life Missing Person
Every broadcast of CBS's television series WITHOUT A TRACE, a fictional drama
about the missing persons unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
will feature a 15-second presentation asking the public for help in finding a
real-life missing person.
At the conclusion of each episode, a picture and descriptive information about a missing person will be displayed on the screen with a voice-over message recorded by one of the series stars asking viewers to call their nearest FBI office if they have seen the person or have any information relevant to the case.
The information about the missing person will be provided to CBS each week by the FBI. The Network and the FBI plan to feature a new missing person each week -- even when an episode of WITHOUT A TRACE is being rebroadcast.
"Viewers in Southern California and Texas have recently witnessed first hand how influential the media can be in assisting law enforcement's efforts in finding someone who is missing," said Martin D. Franks, Executive Vice President, CBS Television. "Given those recent events and the content of the program, it seemed appropriate to all of us at CBS, as well as to our partners at Warner Bros. TV and Bruckheimer Television, to offer our broadcast platform for this purpose."
WITHOUT A TRACE stars Anthony LaPaglia as the head of the Missing Persons Squad of the FBI. The sole responsibility of this special task force is to find missing persons by applying advanced psychological profiling techniques to peel back the layers of the victims lives and trace their whereabouts in an effort to discover whether they have been abducted, murdered, committed suicide or simply run-away. The series also stars Poppy Montgomery, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Enrique Murciano and Eric Close.
WITHOUT A TRACE is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Television in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Productions.
"Without A Trace"
THE new CBS cop show "Without A Trace" is about the FBI?s special task force
(aren't they all) that finds missing persons.
It's up to this team of crack investigators to reconstruct the whole day of disappearance (DOD) in order to figure out whether the missing person has been abducted, murdered or simply ran away to join the circus.
Heading up the special task force is Anthony LaPaglia - who, as always, is terrific - as Agent Jack Malone. (He looks as much like a Malone, however, as I look like an O'Reilly.)
His team is made up of Samantha Spade (whose real life name, Poppy Montgomery, sounds made up too!), Vivian Johnson (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, a personal favorite), Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano) and Martin Fitzgerald (Eric Close).
Now, this is all good. Too bad the premise doesn't feel real.
For one thing, have you ever tried to get the local cops, let alone the FBI, to open an investigation within hours of discovering that an adult has gone missing? Good luck.
In the premiere episode, a 28-year-old female publishing executive (Arija Bareikis) has been missing just over a day.
One clue that makes the feds realize she was "troubled" is that on the night she disappeared, she'd had dinner with an old friend at Carmine's.
"You don't go to Carmine's [with a man] unless it's Valentine's Day," says one of the crack investigators. Excuse me? They better investigate a little better.
Carmine's is famous as a family-style restaurant. If you did get taken there on Valentine's Day, you'd know for sure the relationship was o-v-e-r.
Didn't anybody bother to come to New York for the facts ma'am, just the facts?
Anyway, after using millions of dollars of FBI money trying to find the missing publishing exec, they discover what has happened to her. And not a moment too soon, either. It's not what you expect.
While the plot will keep you guessing and the acting is quite good (even if they have too many good looking people for one FBI field office), the set-up is kinda dopey.
Seems more of a stretch than Pavarotti's Speedo.
CBS crime drama leaves pleasing "Trace"
By Michael Speier
HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Sleek and satisfying, Jerry Bruckheimer's "Without a Trace" is a compelling peek into the FBI as it investigates the missing.
Rapidly paced and prone to tidy resolutions, each episode has a rhythm and a finality which bring to mind the exec producer's "CSI" (which airs before it) in terms of ensemble performances and crimefighting handiwork. The time slot is tricky -- it goes against "ER" -- but after this debut, CBS really will have shaped a terrific Thursday of its own.
Bruckheimer has obviously taken note of high-profile cop skeins that failed ("Murder One," "Big Apple"), realizing that viewers don't always want connecting plots and heavy discourse blanketed over long periods of time. However acclaimed that approach may be, "Trace," like "CSI," is simple, fast-food television that may not linger but crackles with mystery. It's formulaic television with a great formula: Take a crime, create some hunches, dust a few fingerprints and a perp will emerge.
Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia) heads the a Manhattan team whose job it is to find people by using profiling techniques. Squad includes attractive and assertive Samantha Spade (Poppy Montgomery), detailed and driven Vivian Johnson (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), intense Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano), and novice Martin Fitzgerald (Eric Close), a looker who has transferred over from the white-collar division.
Malone and company reconstruct a "day of disappearance" timeline that examines the 24 hours prior to a specific person's vanishing -- knowing that after 48 hours, odds are he has either been murdered or committed suicide. Night one focuses on Maggie Cartwright (Arija Bareikis), a drug-using beauty who scores blow from her doorman, sleeps with a married colleague, befriends a nerdy computer technician and once dated and international millionaire. Crew has to decide whether she staged her own kidnapping -- she had financial motive -- or was taken.
All of her close and recent acquaintances, then, become suspects, and Malone's cast gives them the third degree. And while the first episode, directed by David Nutter and written by "RFK" scribe Hank Steinberg, doesn't hide its hand, show should have no problem with intrigue because of three key elements: each victim's backstory; the actual inquisitions; and the efforts by which the squad unearths its minutiae.
For all of its strengths -- the puzzles, the prep -- the personalities could improve. LaPaglia should stop brooding and find a more likable trait than solemn machismo; Montgomery, who played Marilyn Monroe in "Blonde," seems, at first, there due to her looks; and Jean-Baptiste doesn't much hide a British accent as she's still finding her way.
Tech credits are sound across the board, with Peter Levy's in-your-face lensing and Stephen Mark's sharp editing giving weight to the intriguing study sessions. Considering "Trace" takes place in New York, however, execs should have left the confines of L.A. soundstages behind.
Jack Malone ......... Anthony LaPaglia
Samantha Spade ...... Poppy Montgomery
Vivian Johnson ...... Marianne Jean-Baptiste
Danny Taylor ........ Enrique Murciano
Martin Fitzgerald ... Eric Close
With: Arija Bareikis, Bradford Tatum, Bruce Davison, Rosemary Forsyth, Thom Barry, Taylor Nichols.
Filmed in Los Angeles by Jerry Bruckheimer Television in association with Warner Bros. Television and CBS Productions. Executive producers, Jerry Bruckheimer, Ed Redlich, Jonathan Littman, David Nutter; co-executive producer, Hank Steinberg; producer, Barry Waldman; director, Nutter; writer, Steinberg; camera, Peter Levy; editor, Stephen Mark; production designer, Peter Politanoff; music, Johnny Klimek, Reinhold Heil; casting, Ronna Kress, Tracy Kaplan.
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Adventure Inc.
Bride of the Sun
60 min.
Debut: A reknowned adventurer (Michael Biehn) leads his seafaring crew on
quests for various lost treasures. First up: Judson's after a legendary Maya
altar. But so is his former partner. Stefan: Steve Bacic. Mackenzie: Karen
Cliche. Gabriel: Jesse Nilsson.
Cast: Michael Biehn, Karen Cliche, Jesse Nilsson, Steve Bacic
Category: Action & Adventure
Release Year: 2002
The Fan
Lauren Bacall, Michael Biehn
Release date: September 24, 2002
Rating: R
Format: DVD
Amazon's Price: $18.74
Spoilers from TV guide for the October 3 episode of Without a Trace
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Without a Trace
Birthday Boy
60 min.
When a father takes his son to a baseball game for his 11th birthday,
the boy inadvertently gets on a subway car without his dad and
vanishes. As the case progresses, investigators learn the boy may have
wanted to disappear. Samantha: Poppy Montgomery. Jack: Anthony
LaPaglia. Martin: Eric Close.
Cast: Anthony LaPaglia, Poppy Montgomery, Marianne Jean-Baptiste,
Enrique Murciano, Eric Close
Rating: TV-PG
Content: Strong, Coarse Language
Category: Drama
Release Year: 2002
Show times
Thursday, 3 10:00 PM CBS
Networks Going Outside the Box to Promote Fall Schedule
GREG HERNANDEZ
Los Angeles Daily News
Passengers on American Airline flights are seeing a CBS Fall Preview program hosted by Mary Hart this month. Visitors to Disney's California Adventure theme park mingled with such ABC stars as Dennis Franz and Dylan McDermott in August. Baskin-Robbins customers are getting scoops about NBC's fall lineup along with their ice cream.
Welcome to the fall marketing campaigns for the major broadcast networks where corporate synergy, product tie-ins and Internet campaigns are being used like never before in an all-out effort to grab viewers. Networks will spend as much as $3 million on a promotional campaign for a single new show, according to Advertising Age magazine.
::snip::
CBS's fall marketing campaign is also being powered by the media resources of its corporate parent, Viacom Inc., with its new shows being advertised on Paramount Home Video releases and such Viacom cable channels as MTV, Nickelodeon and Nick at Nite, TNN, TV Land, VH1, BET and CMT.
Said CBS's Schweitzer: ``It changes every year because there is just more and more out there and we have to push ourselves creatively to find ways to break through, ways to make an impact.''
Among the new ideas this year is a promotion at Blockbuster video stores that features the distribution of CBS fall preview DVDs with a glimpse of such new shows as ``CSI: Miami,'' ``Presidio Med,'' ``Without A Trace'' and ``Hack.''
``It's something where we think we are reaching an entertainment-savvy consumer who comes to Blockbuster every day,'' Sweitzer said. ``It's a great place for us to distribute these DVDs.''
Inside Taken: Behind the Scenes Special SCI FI, Nov. 22
Take a peek behind the scenes of the biggest miniseries ever in this one-hour
special. The cast and crew of Taken talk about the making of the 20-hour epic
and about their personal beliefs on the alien abduction phenomenon. In a rare
on-camera interview, Steven Spielberg discusses his latest projects and how
Taken fits in with his film legacy. Inside Taken was produced by Mark
Feldstein and Brad Roth of Stun Creative.
Taken SCI FI, Monday, Dec. 2, at 9 p.m. ET
There's nothing mini about this monster miniseries from Steven Spielberg,
DreamWorks Television and the SCI FI Channel. The channel will air this "epic
sweeping drama" in 20 hours over 10 nights. Steven Spielberg presents Taken
tells the story of three families over four generations and how their lives
are touched by alien abduction and government conspiracy. Allie (Dakota
Fanning) is a young girl at the heart of Taken . The miniseries opens over
the skies of France during WWII and follows the characters for 60 years to
the present day, using historical events as backdrop for the events in the
film. The ensemble cast includes Joel Gretsch, Catherine Dent, Eric Close,
Michael Moriarity and Heather Donohue. All 20 hours of the film were written
by Leslie Bohem.
All That Viewers Ask for Is a Little Closure (Hollywood)
By Brian Lowry
LOS ANGELES TIMES
HOLLYWOOD -- Would you start watching a movie if someone said they couldn't promise you'd get to see the last 10 minutes? Read a book that might not have a final chapter? Buy a CD that ends in the middle of your favorite song?
If that sounds crazy, consider what the networks will do as the new TV season (insert sound of trumpets blaring) officially begins next week. Executives will ask people to commit to shows, embrace them, make an appointment to watch them.
Then they will abruptly cancel said shows, with no sense of resolution or closure for those viewers who bond with them. To some, the feeling is akin to having the show plucked away in the middle of the story, whether it was "Prey" in 1998, "Brimstone" in 1999, "Now and Again" in 2000, or Fox's "Dark Angel" and ABC's "Once and Again" a few months ago.
This upsets people. It causes die-hard fans to go a little nuts, based on the "save our show" campaigns that percolate on the Internet -- especially those involving series with a science-fiction component. (Attend a "Star Trek" convention, you'll figure it out.)
People devote considerable time to these efforts, raising money to place ads in the trade papers and doing quirky things like inundating networks with artifacts from the show, from bottles of Tabasco sauce on "Roswell" to plastic eggs -- a hallmark of one of the villains -- on behalf of "Now and Again."
OK, so some of these folks need to get a life. Yet just because they care about a TV show more than might be healthy doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong. Moreover, the fact that they will spend money on their cause suggests there is an untapped market out there that has yet to be addressed.
Despite all the technological innovations of recent years -- from video on demand to DVD players to personal video recorders like TiVo -- no one has figured out how to cash in on the passion that exists for canceled TV shows. A core group is clearly willing to pay to see these series reach a conclusion, only to have the product yanked from the shelves.
Most producers would welcome the chance to tie up the loose ends. "Now and Again" creator Glenn Gordon Caron said he still has "nutty ideas" about doing a graphic novel or movie or something to wrap up the show, whose stars, Eric Close and Dennis Haysbert, have moved on to roles in the CBS drama "Without a Trace" and Fox's "24," respectively.
Caron said he never intended to leave fans hanging with the first-season finale, produced with "a cockeyed optimism that the show would be back."
"I was stunned with how rabid the fans were," he added, citing the difference between the snail mail that dribbled in when he produced "Moonlighting" and the way Internet chat boards light up today as soon as the credits roll.
Of course, drawing conclusions from the few thousand souls conversing in chat rooms can be misleading in a business in which a program regularly consumed by millions of people is still deemed a failure.
In addition, the series that usually inspire such obsessive behavior when canceled are becoming somewhat endangered by recent viewing patterns, where the trend has been toward shows that offer self-contained episodes, like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and "Law & Order." Not only are these programs hits, but they also repeat better than serialized programs like "ER" during the summer and in syndication -- a major economic consideration.
View the new Star Trek: Nemesis trailer
From darkhorizons.com
Star Trek: Nemesis: Prevue Magazine talked with Dina Meyer about her
role as Romulan Commander Donatra and confirmed she was only on-set
for a week shooting four-hour days, a quite breezy schedule. It seems
"they shot all the Next Generation stuff first and then they shot the
Romulan stuff at the end of the production", and her stuff is "all on
the view screen. I worked with Tom Hardy and Ron Pearlman". Meanwhile,
photos and a rough video copy of the quite cool new trailer which just
aired last night after "Enterprise" is now up at Trekweb.
Shortly before taking flight with "Birds of Prey," Meyer filmed a small but pivotal role in "Star Trek: Nemesis," which will warp into theaters on Dec. 13. She plays Commander Donatra -- ironically, an officer on one of the Romulan vessels known as Birds of Prey -- in the latest, and possibly last, "Next Generation" adventure.
"Shinzon (Tom Hardy) is the main villain," Meyer says, "and he's in charge of getting the Romulans and Remans together to go up against the Federation and Earth and the Enterprise. I'm one of Shinzon's commanding officers.
"I don't really ever watch `Star Trek,"' she admits, "but I'm basically in charge of one of the Romulan Birds of Prey. I'm one of Shinzon's people, but there is a certain amount of redemption that happens for her."
Meyer reports that she enjoyed her time on the "Nemesis" set, though she didn't interact much with Capt. Picard (Patrick Stewart) or the other regular players. Instead, most of her scenes involved Hardy and Ron Perlman, who plays Shinzon's right-hand man, the Viceroy.
"My scenes with Picard are on the viewscreen," she says. "I worked with Tom Hardy. He's a sweetheart. What an incredible talent.
"Tom Hardy and Ron Perlman made my time there worthwhile," she says. "As if being in `Star Trek' and being in this fantastic franchise weren't enough, just working with Tom and Ron was a wonderful experience for me.
"Ron was constantly cracking jokes," Meyer adds, "and Tom is just this sweet kid from London. It was like kids in a candy store every day that we worked together."
DVD Release Signing for "Blade II" 9/7/2002
Rick Worthy will be on the October 3 episode of the new show Push, Nevada, at 9pm on ABC.
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Push, Nevada
Storybook Hero
60 min.
As the body count increases in town, Sheriff Gaines and Deputy Dawn
(Eric Allan Kramer, Liz Vassey) arrest Jim and charge him with serial
murder. Delilah: Alexondra Lee. Jamison Jones: Rick Worthy. Eunice
Blackwell: Nan Martin. Merle the Henchman: James Wellington. Ira: Gary
Grossman. Earl: Rob Elk. Cobb: Jonathan Schmock. Fisher: Carlos
Alvarado. Jim: Derek Cecil. Mary: Scarlett Chorvat.
Cast: Derek Cecil, Scarlett Chorvat, Liz Vassey, Eric Allan Kramer, Melora Walters, Raymond J. Barry, Tom Towles, Jacob Smith, Tom Gallop, Steven Culp, Larry Poindexter, Alexondra Lee, Gary Grossman, Jim Ortlieb, W. Earl Brown, Rick Worthy, Paul Ganus, Carlos Alvarado, Rosey Brown, Rob Elk, Nan Martin, James Wellington, Mary Stein, Jonathan Schmock, Christopher Moore, Kristopher Logan, Alex Douglas, Pablo Velazquez
Category: Drama
Release Year: 2002
Show times
Thursday, 3 9:00 PM ABC
Media Alert: Celebrity Presenters Including Jennifer Garner ('Alias'), Mya (Pop Star), and Jane Kaczmarek ('Malcolm in the Middle') Honor Five Local Students at The Children's Defense Fund 12th Annual Los Angeles Beat The Odds(R) Awards Thursday, September 26, 2002
Who: The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) President, Marian Wright
Edelman and guests will honor this year's recipients of the
Beat The Odds(R) Awards. The students being honored have
overcome tremendous odds to excel academically and in
community service.
Presenters include Jennifer Garner, Mya, Scott Foley ("Felicity"), Jane Kaczmarek and Carl Lumbly. NBC4 anchorwoman Michele Ruiz will emcee. Also in attendance are Co-Chairs: Katie McGrath & J.J. Abrams (creator/executive producer, "Alias"), Carol & Frank Biondi (former CEO of Universal, Viacom, HBO), Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Ruth-Anne Huvane & Kevin Huvane (CAA), and Laura & Casey Wasserman
(Owner, Los Angeles Avengers).
When: Thursday, September 26, 2002: 6:00 p.m. Media Arrivals;
6:30 p.m. Cocktail Reception, Terrace Garden; 7:30 p.m. Dinner
Where: St. Regis Hotel in Century City (2055 Avenue of the Stars)
Mama's new drama
Michelle Phillips continues to evolve.
The Mamas and the Papas- singer-turned-TV-villainess helped cast "Shut Yer Dirty Little Mouth," a dark comedy based entirely on the underground-classic tape recordings of two elderly gay roommates.
Phillips, 58, who will be at the film's N.Y. Indievision fest screening tonight at the East Village Cinemas (it's open to the public), told us: "It's about two old alcoholic queens."
The still-beautiful blond is as happy with her personal life as she is with her work. Engaged to Dr. Steven Zax, she presides over a large extended family that includes daughter Chynna, her husband, Billy Baldwin, and their two children, plus her stepdaughters, Mackenzie and Bijou Phillips. Bijou, who is dating Sean Lennon, "seems to have grown up," says Michelle. "She seems happy. Sean is a very sweet guy."
Pen Densham interview
In 1959, an anthology television show called The Twilight Zone began a five year run, leading viewer's on clever and bizarre flights of the imagination. Produced and hosted by legendary TV writer/producer Rod Serling, the groundbreaking series represented some of the finest television ever conceived. Four decades later, producer Pen Densham, who previously revived The Outer Limits, has brought a new version of the classic series to UPN. Broadcast Wednesdays at 9:00 PM, the show brings actor Forest Whitaker on as the host, as it seeks to blaze new ground in anthology story telling.
PREVUE sat down with producers Pen Densham and Ira Behr, a former executive producer on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, to find out the trials and tribulations of producing the new series.
PREVUE: So, how did the new series come about?
DENSHAM: I started off three and a half years ago, when I tried to persuade Les Moonves, who is the head of CBS, that it was really worth trying to reactivate the show. My own taste, Ira's, and I think many creative people, see it as one of the few shows that constantly allows you to explore your creativity. It's like making a series of miniature feature films, and constantly being able to use all your perspective and philosophies of storytelling to stay fresh. That was the experience that I had in bringing back The Outer Limits.
PREVUE: Why now?
DENSHAM: I worked very hard to try and convince Les Moonves then that it was the 40th anniversary of the show and it was worth CBS giving it a try. He gave it a lot of thought and I went back a year or so later with a very involved, elaborate, video presentation to try and persuade him, because I thought I had come so close the first time. In the beginning of the year, I noticed that Les was also taking on responsibilities for helping run UPN, and I was sort of feeling that he would think I was an idiot for going after him again, but my partner John said "Stick your neck out. What can you lose?" So, I sent Les a note that said, "Les, so help me, I swear I'll never talk to you again about The Twilight Zone, but how about considering it for a companion piece to Enterprise." That's where we started last January, and we've been running ever since. It's been just a fantastic experience.
PREVUE: What can you do now that couldn't be done 40 years ago?
BEHR: There are some obvious answers to that. If we choose to we can be somewhat more sexually provocative, we can push the envelope as to somewhat more uncomfortable material than they were able to back then. But you know what? The shows have to work as well written stories with a point of view that takes these characters into that strange realm known as the Twilight Zone. You put all the bells and whistles on that you want, but the only thing that really has changed for the better is that we will be much more racially diverse. You will see a lot more people on this show of various colors and ethnicities than they had in the original series. That is one of the few positive changes they have had in the past forty years in television. Outside of that, they did provocative stories for their time, the early sixties, and we have to do the same. Our show is not necessarily going to be better because we can flash a little skin, that's not going to cut it.
PREVUE: The original series tackled a broad range of issues ranging from the insanity of nuclear war to issues of aging and conformity. Will the new series deal as overtly with issues?
DENSHAM: I don't think we really like to play our hand as to what our subversive messages are. I think our goal is to do good stories about the human condition. We really admire what the original Twilight Zone was able to do. Not every story carried a message, but occasionally there was one that was just stunningly powerful. I think now and again we will hit on those kinds of subject matters, but most of the time we are just trying to get into the Jungian storytelling. We are trying to tell stories that capture that part of you that makes you fascinated to be a human being. What would you do if these situations happened to you? We're not seeing this as a medium to exploit our politics, but we are seeing it as a medium to exploit our humanity. Ira wrote this one called Shades of Guilt, which is a conundrum on what would happen if your skin changed color and you became a black man. And, the issues that raises are very profound for that character. We drove that, because it was a great way of creating a story about understanding. Not to be exploitive.
PREVUE: Who is starring in that?
DENSHAM: There are two gentlemen starring in it, because the character changes from one to the other. It starts off with Vincent Ventresca.
BEHR: The Invisible Man over at the Sci Fi Channel.
DENSHAM: And then he becomes Hill Harper. They give two fantastic performances.
PREVUE: What is your process for developing the stories?
DENSHAM: The way that the shows work is that the stories are fed into our story conferences. We have a group of writers, all of whom are fans of and admirers of what was accomplished by the original series. We will cross triangulate our own opinion and our own hopes, and we feed ideas around until like a snowball they pick up weight. That process is a collaborative one, which is very unique. So, we've got a lot of brains, a lot of good, good horsepower. We are all looking at what's the best way to fascinate a human being about another human being, using some kind of supernatural element, or science fiction element, or a twist of fate, or some mythological character. What ends up, as that story is broken out, is that the writer with the most passion gets to write it.
PREVUE: Not all the original Twilight Zones were scary. Sometimes they were whimsical or funny. Will there be humor in your show?
DENSHAM: Our premiere episode, with Jason Alexander, Ira had worked with him and took a run at him with the script, which was darkly funny.
BEHR: I enjoy putting in humor, and I have to be conscious of not putting in too much humor. I think if you ask most people, one of the few places the original series wasn't quite as successful as in other areas was in humor. But, we like it, and there certainly will be humor running through all the shows. A dark humor. We have some that are coming up that I would say are flat out humorous episodes. Obviously, if you do as many as we supposedly are going to be doing, if we actually do 44 half-hour segments a season, you get a little bit of everything.
PREVUE: Who are some of the guest stars you have lined up?
DENSHAM: We have Shannon Elizabeth and Adrian Pasdar. We have Portia de Rossi and Ethan Embry. Lukas Haas is in a segment called "Harsh Mistress."
PREVUE: Tell us about "Harsh Mistress."
DENSHAM: It's about a young wannabe who wants to be a rock star but doesn't have the talent. He discovers a guitar that may have been played by other major name stars who died in the past.
PREVUE: How about other episodes?
DENSHAM: Lou Diamond Phillips is in a segment called "Pool Guy." He's playing a pool guy who basically spends his life cleaning out other people's pools and being ignored. He discovers that he is being stalked by a killer that makes no sense to him. We also have Rory Culken, who's in Signs. He's just finished shooting a show for us called "Azoth the Avenger." It's about a little kid's imagination when one of his comic book model heroes comes to life to help him out in his real life.
PREVUE: What kind of commitment has UPN given?
DENSHAM: We have a thirteen episode order.
BEHR: Which means 26 half-hour segments.
DENSHAM: It's more than a season for a normal half-hour show.
PREVUE: How does UPN feel about the debut?
DENSHAM: We heard that our debut numbers were considered good by UPN, but we don't know if we will get a pick-up or not.
PREVUE: It sounds like it is more work to do thirteen The Twilight Zone shows than it is to do thirteen one-hour shows.
BEHR: It's twice as much work.
DENSHAM: It's a massive job. We literally had people sleeping in the editing room last week. We are doing a show in four days where normally we would have eight days to shoot a show. The lead times, therefore, are only four days to prep, four days to get the new cast, etc. The editing teams are working much harder, because there is that much less time to turn the shows around. It's like running a creative Swiss watch. We only hired people that were compatible, because we needed a team show. We had experience with an anthology series, and the individuals involved have to feel empowered to take risks without being second-guessed. We're not saying we don't guide them, but we don't believe in dictatorship.
PREVUE: What is the key to making an anthology series work?
DENSHAM: You tell good stories. In both cases, both with this and The Outer Limits, I was able to work with something that already had a brand. The issue of television is creating a habit. For a habit that is a pleasantly anticipated event, so you keep tuning in, you have to have some element that is continuity. With my dialogues with Les at the beginning, it was that the The Twilight Zone would probably have a better chance of succeeding than The Outer Limits, where we only had the control voice.
Even when we reengineered The Outer Limits, we considered giving it an on screen host. Not a real character, but a female robot that was sort of a Silver Surfer. It was going to be a CGI creation and have her introduce the shows. Then we went back to the traditional after I evaluated a bunch of different approaches and decided the control voice had to be the thing that would continue. Here we've got a human being. Forest Whitaker becomes the spokesperson for our stories. His gravitas, his artistic commitment -- the fact that he's both an actor and a director -- give veracity to the stories. Then the stories themselves have to pull an audience in. They have to work. Each one sufficiently that an audience is curious enough to stay with new characters. The style of our show must work in terms of good storytelling. If we don't do that, we don't live.
PREVUE: Clearly, it's a writer's show. You don't have a detective show where you have a star and the plot is superfluous.
DENSHAM: I think across the board, we see it as a writer/filmmaker show. We are sort of doing miniature feature films. We've tried to hire the best editors and the best composers. The guy who is our cameraman was our cameraman on The Outer Limits, and is really facile, and has an energy to do this different every week. That takes a certain temperament. Some guys would rather just sit on their laurels and just tweak a light. The reverse is what we are working with.
BEHR: I do think the scripts are what have attracted some of the talent we have. When I sent a script to Jason Alexander, Jason was about to start a TV movie in Toronto. He said, "Look, I'll do it for you, but I don't think I can do one now." I asked him to read the script and to let me know. He called me up and said, "You S.O.B., I've got to do this one!" Lukas Haas really was into his episode because he's really into music. They don't have to do these shows, they want to. It's a short commitment. They're up there for four or five days. And they get to play something they wouldn't ordinarily get to play. Hopefully, if the show does have legs it will build. Both Jason and Lukas have said that they will tell all their actor friends that it's a blast doing a Twilight Zone.
PREVUE: How do you see your role as the Executive Producer?
DENSHAM: Part of my job is to be a lightning rod for other people's anxieties. The show is so pressured, I see my role as helping people deal with this amount of workload and schedule pressure. I don't believe tight people create well. I believe that ideas are like small children. If you shout at them they go away. We need to keep this playful even when it gets stressful.
PREVUE: How is your budget for the show?
DENSHAM: Strangely enough, we would have a wonderful budget if we were doing a one-hour show without two sections. It would be quite generous. When we're down to these four-day turnarounds, it's not quite as flexible.
PREVUE: Tell us about the special effects for the show?
DENSHAM: We're working with Stargate. They do CSI and Dead Zone. As a team, they give all they can for the show. They're also doing Carrie for us over at NBC. Our goal for the show is that whenever possible the special effects should be almost invisible. They should look so real within the landscape of the character's world that they don't particularly call attention to themselves. We're not a hardware show. We don't want to see the effects on the screen for the sake of being there.
PREVUE: What is the difference between a Twilight Zone story and an Outer Limits story?
DENSHAM: What The Outer Limits always had to have was the science fiction logic for the character's behavior. We could have the alien, or mutated DNA. In The Twilight Zone, we are dealing with the arena of the imagination. We can deal with Jungian stories, I call them. That means we are able to tell a story about a man who dreams up a dream lover, makes love to her in his dream, and then when he wakes up, the same woman materializes and starts to become part of his daily life. That is very mythological, very Joseph Campbell in a way.
PREVUE: It's not just science fiction.
DENSHAM: It's a broad canvas. It's the paranormal, it's horror, and it's extrapolative stories. People discover worlds that don't really have parallels in science fiction. There's a belief among some people that all Twilight Zone stories have a twist. That isn't true. We're not so interested in a twist as much as a large sense of satisfaction at the completion of a story. When I first started making shows, we used to call it the orgasm. Your show should complete with a higher level of emotion. Sometimes that's a twist and sometimes just a great sense of accomplishment can be that.
BEHR: One of the directors, when we were discussing this said, "I get it. Each episode is a dream of loneliness." I thought that was really well put. In each episode, usually one character goes into the Twilight Zone and has this very profound, very strange experience. And it is like a dream of loneliness. It does free us from the constraints of science fiction. We really get to explore the mind with a kind of supernatural quality that frees us from having to spend a lot of time justifying it.
PREVUE: Are there challenges you are faced with that the original series didn't face?
BEHR: We only have 21 minutes to tell these stories -- a lot less time than the original series -- which had 26 or 27 minutes in length.
PREVUE: What do you have to do to tell a story in 21 as compared to 26 minutes?
BEHR: We try to turn it into a virtue. Nothing can be wasted. There are no scenes that can be filler scenes or connect the dot scenes. Every line is precious. Creatively, it's kind of exciting. There's no pausing for breath, because we have to make each line count.
DENSHAM: There's no filler, it's all meat, there's no fat in there.
PREVUE: Ultimately, what do you want the audience to walk away with when they've watched your show?
DENSHAM: You're asking us to get philosophical and I'm willing to go there. I think we lack new mythologies to adapt to our current lifestyles. I'm a big fan of Joseph Campbell. I really believe that the human animal absorbs stories in order to understand our place in life. For me, what I'm most interested in doing is finding those quirks of nature that allow us expand our sense of who we are and what we are.
Your next stop: The UPN 'Zone'
THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Tonight at 9, UPN
The classic Rod Serling CBS anthology series, "The Twilight Zone," easily one of the most significant and memorable triumphs of the so-called Golden Age of Television, is being revived for the second time.
The first time "The Twilight Zone" came back, on CBS and in syndication in the late 1980s, it didn't take. Neither did Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" about the same time - convincing many that the anthology genre was dead.
Sure.
Just like the sitcom, until "The Cosby Show," and the quiz show, until "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," and the talent show, until "American Idol."
It just takes the right show at the right time. CBS, which owns the title "The Twilight Zone," didn't think the time was right for years, because there was no guarantee another incarnation on its network would be more popular than the last one. Yet when CBS took over the reins at UPN, the project suddenly became a go: The same number of viewers that would be a failure on CBS would be a major success on UPN.
That's how "The Twilight Zone" came to arrive on UPN, launching tonight at 9, with Forest Whitaker as the host. This new "Zone" serves two stories each week; minus commercials, that's about 20 minutes per tale, and they move swiftly.
In the opener, Whitaker presents two solid stories. "One Night at Mercy," written by Christopher Mack and directed by Peter O'Fallon, stars Jason Alexander as a John Doe hospital patient who tells his doctor (Tyler Christopher) that he's Death personified.
"Evergreen," written by Jill Blotevogel and directed by Allan Kroeker, stars Amber Tamblyn (Emily on "General Hospital") as a rebellious teen whose family moves to a strict gated community.
The trademark "Zone" twists and turns are here, and are easy to see coming. Accept them as part of the form, though, like sonnets, and enjoy them as such. This new "Zone" is to be commended, not condemned, for capturing the tone and spirit of the original.
Besides, this gives UPN three series worth watching each week: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Enterprise" and now "The Twilight Zone." For this network, that's a personal best.
Tamblyn does fine things with her role here, and Alexander, in a cocky yet sensitive portrayal, turns in his best work since "Seinfeld."
Imagine, if you will, how good this new "Twilight Zone" could get if word got around what a fine and fun opportunity it was.
Vote in the poll:
Several new genre TV shows will debut in the next few weeks as the fall season kicks off. Which of the following new network series has the least chance of surviving?
Current Results:
The Twilight Zone
13%
Do Over
27%
Firefly
16%
John Doe
7%
Haunted
9%
That Was Then
16%
Birds of Prey
11%
