I watched the Big Shots pilot this weekend. It has Michael Vartan, so it was a given. :) The pilot wasn't brilliant but I didn't find all that horrible as critics made it out to be. This type of show doesn't have the goal to be deep - just light entertainment. And I was entertained, even if I raised my eyebrows at some of the lines.

While the dialog and also some of the storylines certainly need some brushing up, I thought it had also good parts - leading with the cast. The guys had great chemistry and while the women were mainly in the background, this seems such a great group of actors. MV did a great job and his chemistry with Nia Long was really amazing. I actually also like the concept of a group of (male) friends who are CEOs - do we really need another medical, lawyer or cop series?

I totally think this show can be made successful - most of the elements are there. The execution is mediocre at the moment. A bit better plotting and editing, and especially make the dialog more witty and less cliché and corny and this could be a successful companion to Grey's Anatomy. Let's hope they manage to improve it before ABC looses its patience.

I've also made high-res screencaps of the Big Shots pilot:

• 765 screencaps
• 1280x720 pixels

  
They can be found in my gallery here.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles (IMDB, The Futon Critic, FOX)

When:	Sunday, 9-10pm on FOX, Premiere: January 2008
What:	Based on the characters from the "Terminator" franchise, it follows Connor (Lena Headey) and her son John (Thomas Dekker) in present-day Los Angeles as they fight attackers from the future in a battle for survival of the human race
Key Cast:	Lena Headey, Owain Yeoman, Richard T. Jones, Summer Glau, Thomas Dekker
TPTB:	Andrew Vajna, David Nutter (Director Pilot), James Middleton, Joel Michaels, Josh Friedman, Mario Kassar

If you're looking for a pilot with lots of action scenes and great special effects, and you like the old Terminator movies, this is for you. Nice, entertaining action piece.

( More impressions – a little bit spoilery but nothing too bad )

The first fall pilot hit the 'net – FINALLY

I almost can't believe how long it took this year. Considering that more and more journalists get access to them early and the "scene" gets faster and faster, I would have bet that the fall pilots would show up much earlier in the year. But I'm glad that the first one is finally here, so I hope the others follow shortly. Pre-viewing the fall pilots is one of my favourite TV activity. I even watch pilots I would never watch during a regular season – I guess it has to do with having access to something which is not publicially available (at least not to the non-downloading, general public). While I watch basically all dramas I get my hands on, I do draw the line with most comedies; from that category I only watch what I'm really interested in, typically because of an actor or showrunner. Likely I won't keep them watching... for whatever reason I can't warm up to comedies. The only ones I like are basically light 30-minute dramas but not what I would consider a typical comedy or even a sitcom. Now let's get on to it:

Reaper (IMDB, The Futon Critic, The CW)

When:	Tuesdays, 9-10pm on The CW, Premiere: 25th September 2007
What:	Comedic drama about a 21-year-old slacker who becomes the devil's bounty hunter, retrieving souls escaped from hell
Key Cast:	Andrew Airlie, Bret Harrison, Missy Peregrym, Ray Wise, Rick Gonzalez, Tyler Labine, Valarie Rae Miller
TPTB:	Deborah Spera, Kevin Smith (Director Pilot), Mark Gordon, Michele Fazekas, Tara Butters, Tom Spezialy

A well done pilot which is a very good fit for The CW but not my thing. If you consider watching this show you should keep in mind that the tone is really more comedic than dramatic so don't expect any brooding but rather cheap jokes.

( More impressions – a little bit spoilery but nothing too bad )

Mainly for all creative people / Photoshop users on my flist

Do you know kuler? I never seen that site and tool before and thought I share (and hope that not everyone already knows it)

http://kuler.adobe.com

It's a cool sub-website about color themes. You can design your own theme or download the ones already on there. It's great if you look for a color combination for a new journal style or a website, or just for fun. You can play with different color rules / models to create a theme - it's quite interesting.

Particularly handy feature - you can download the color themes directly into Photoshop. If you open the color file it's automatically added to your color swatches in Photoshop (I think CS2 and higher).

Happy Birthday jenahville!

All the best and I hope you have an awesome day.

While I might not be up-to-date with my current tv shows, I have more or less been following the development season.

Next week are upfronts with NBC starting on Monday, ABC on Tuesday, CBS on Wednesday and FOX and The CW on Thursday. But like with spoilers, lots of info is leaking early and several shows have already been picked up. There are also many schedule drafts flying around and I do believe that some of them have truth behind them but they are just that – drafts. The networks will change the schedule until 5 minutes before the upfront presentation and likely even afterwards therefore I won't go into scheduling here. However, it becomes more and more clear what shows we are going to see next season.

Here are the pilots which have officially been picked up already (the list becomes longer and clearer by the minute... this is the status from Sunday, 13 May 2007 at 1pm CET (7am EST/4am PST).

( Currently picked up pilots for next fall )

One big, fat YEAH for Michael Vartan's pilot being picked up! We will have to see where it lands on the schedule but it's quite a accomplishment to get picked up in the first place and especially on ABC this year since they had many, many good drama pilots.

( And some infos and rumors on more pilots and returning shows from this season )

Personally, I'm looking most forward to the ABC dramas - they have really some promising shows. Of course, I will be watching MV's new pilot. Many time slots have been discussed for it - the only thing which seems to be fairly sure at the moment is that it won't air at 8pm (it'll be either 9 or 10 - both options are discussed). There are reports of it being after DWTS and not in fall but again, nothing is set. AT ALL.

It's all over the entertainment media but in case you haven't seen yet...

NBC U-owned Bravo TV buys TelevisionWithoutPity

According to the guys at TWoP it will keep editorial independence and remain just the way it is now but will expand it's content. More info: Bravo press release, Variety, Hollywoodreporter. I'm sure more will follow. I guess we'll wait and see. ;)

As a side note - due to the acquisition TWoP removed all private data from your forum account so if you have (or want to get) forum subscriptions or emails from other users you need to reenter it in your profile.

It has really become a trend recently - big websites or media organisations buy privately run (fan) websites to expand their portfolio. Just a few weeks ago TVShowsonDVD.com has been bought by TV Guide; TV Tome (now TV.com) was bought by Cnet not too long ago; Google, Yahoo & co expand their portfolio all the time with "hobby sites" - why didn't I start a good site as a hobby a few years ago? Anyway, if I would have to bet I would say the next candidate is the futoncritic - it's only a matter of time until that site gets bought as well.

I haven't seen last nights episode but I just read at The Hollywoodreporter that Battlestar Galactica was picked up for season 4. Yay!!

It seems the pick up in only for 13 episodes but it's good that it got renewed early so they can plan accordingly, and I have one less show to worry about.

ETA: Here is now the official press release from SciFi about the renewal. At least 13 epsiodes like mentioned and it's coming back in January 2008.

I've just seen the first four episodes of season 6 (they have been "released" to the Internet)

( 24: 6x01-6x04 – a few spoiler~y comments, no detailed plot spoilers though )

Following my entry from yesterday about JJ Abrams, here are the quotes from ASP on creating a show out of the book "Created By... – Inside the Minds of TV's Top Show Creators." Overall nothing new but I don't think I have read all those quotes exactly that way either.

With all the discussion and speccing about TV shows, I have inevitably also become interested in how shows are created especially if you take into account that this has normally a huge effect on the shows you love. I'm not obsessed with it but nonetheless I bought a book recently called "Created By... – Inside the Minds of TV's Top Show Creators". It promised background information from 20 or so successful creators (including JJ Abrams, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Joss Whedon, and many more) on creating, writing and producing a TV show.

While the book isn't "bad", it's a bit different from what I expected. It basically consists to 100% out of quotes from these creators to simple prompts which are involved producing a TV show. For each prompt (which equals a headline in the following quotes) a couple of the creators comment. I expected more from the book – I haven't read all of it, only a couple choice creators, but from what I could see there wasn't really a lot of inside information. At least not if you're already hanging out in the Internet fandom and read producer interviews from time to time.

However, I thought I'll share some of the producers comments with you. I've picked two of the most relevant ones considering the fandoms I'm involved with nowadays. Under the cut you'll find J.J. Abrams answers today and I'll do ASP tomorrow.

It's nothing groundbreaking or really new but given the controversy about JJ's shows I thought some people might be interested in what he said.  I'll be posting answers from one more (often discussed) show creator tomorrow: Amy Sherman-Palladino.

I'm more than fashionably late but I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and a few relaxing holidays. I was off from work but I still didn't manage to be around here more - I suck. Anyway...

I've been finally catching up on a few shows including BSG. I love this season although the earlier episodes were stronger than the later half imo. I'm glad they found back to the main story line after a few more standalonish ones in the last episode.

I've also had the pleasure of a water-mains burst in front of my house last week - 2 days without water and without warning. The water was turned off during the day only but when I got off the first day in the late morning to take a shower there was no water so I had to postpone my appointment. No fun!

I wish everyone a splendid Happy New Year. I'm now going to get ready and then I'm off to party into the new year.

( Gilmore Girls: Introducing Lorelai Planetarium )

I'm sorry that I haven't been around for a while and neglegted you all but work is still kicking my butt. While I can't offer anything insightful at the moment, I did however manage to complete the screencaps I've been wanting to make from the Rory/Logan scenes in 7x05 - The Great Stink over the last 2 weeks. They were just too cute. I haven't seen this weeks episode yet but I hope to get around to that this weekend.

( 560 Rory/Logan screencaps from 7x05 - The Great Stink )

I will try to catch up on my f'list this weekend. :)

I'm a week late, so I thought I put the reviews for both episodes in one post. You know, read one, get one for free.

( Prison Break: 2x01 – Manhunt )

( Prison Break: 2x02 – Otis )

Pimp Alert! Prison Break at 8pm tonight!

I can't wait for the Prison Break premiere to air tonight. I'm really surprised the episode hasn't hit the net yet - obviously TV Guide sent out a DVD with the pilots of most new shows from FOX and also the season premieres from Prison Break and House to a number of special "subscribers". I would have bet everything that I won't take more than a day or two for it to be available but at least I won't have to wait for it for weeks.

I got my season 1 DVDs last week and actually did watch/listen to a few commentaries this weekend. The DVDs have 10 commentaries for 6 episodes, most of them with a combination of producer/writer/director with some cast members. I thought they were really good - entertaining and fairly informative. In general the cast and crew seems to be a mutual admiration society and a fraternity. The only thing missing was Wentworth on the commentaries; I liked the creator Paul Schering quite a bit (although his every other word was "production value" - he didn't seem to get over it but it was adorable) and the cast members were entertaining. If I find time I'll post a few snippets and choice quotes. For all my US friends who haven't bought them yet but plan to: Best Buy, Target and ??? (a TLA with the word entertain in the long version) have a different additional bonus disc each so it might be worth going for one of those versions instead of a mail order one. More info on that can be found at TVShowsOnDVD.com or TWoP in the DVD thread.

At 9pm after Prison Break, Vanished will be launched. ( Not really spoilers, more general impressions )

And another fall pilot - this time Runaway which will air after 7th Heaven on The CW this fall.

( Runaway )

I have a question to all graphics people and everyone else who looks at or uses screencaps.

I have a couple native 1080i HDTV encodes (1920x1080 resolution) of Gilmore Girls and plan on making screencaps from them (no promise on a timeline though). All the highres encodes I've used in the past were all encoded in 1080x720 and crystal clear so it never was a question in which resolution to cap and save. The Gilmore Girls source though has significant larger resolution and is not so sharp and clear as the other ones I have.

So I'd like to get your opinions in which resolution I should save them. Below the cut you'll find samples in the native resolution (1920x1080) and a resized version (1080x720).

( Gilmore Girls screencap samples - click on thumbnail for highres )

I've watched the next 3 fall pilots - this time Jericho, The Nine and Shark; same spoiler warning as the last time - no big ones, more impressions about the show and character but stay away if you don't want to know anything.

( Jericho )

( The Nine )

( Shark )