Posts Tagged ‘Bill Harris’

Connor Jessup asks: Who’s more difficult, the aliens or the humans, in Falling Skies?

- June 14th, 2013

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As if the surviving humans in Falling Skies didn’t have enough to worry about, another race of aliens shows up for season three.

“Three’s a crowd,” said 18-year-old Canadian Connor Jessup, who plays Ben Mason. “So it’s a crowded season.

“As if it wasn’t complicated enough for these people. Alien threat grows, it’s sort of redundant.

“But even if the aliens disappeared, you still have to deal with humans, and we’re not easy.”

Truer words never were spoken. As the third season of Falling Skies debuts across Canada with back-to-back episodes on Super Channel on Sunday, June 16 (one week after its debut on TNT in the United States), it’s hard to tell who’s more bothersome and problematic, the aliens or the humans.

Executive produced by Steven Spielberg, Falling Skies follows the human fight against an occupying alien force that is plaguing the Earth. Noah Wyle stars as Tom Mason, father of Jessup’s character Ben.

“It really has grown in scale,” Jessup said. “If you go back and look at the first season, it really was just a story about a small group of people, very insular, fighting against a faceless, nameless enemy that we didn’t understand.

“But by the third season it has expanded, more people have joined up, we founded a society, new technology, new aliens, there are faces to villains, names to villains, there’s weird phraseology. It has become deeper in terms of the genre element and the sci-fi element.

“The show started out strongly attached to the American Revolution. And in many ways it still is. It’s following the path of, say, Tom as a George Washington figure, whose first concern is purely military, how do we win this? But as victory becomes in sight, the political questions arise. After victory, what kind of world do we build? That theme is entering the show, especially in the third season.”

Jessup’s character Ben, a former captive of the aliens, has become a translator for a group of rebel “skitters,” which is the term used to describe the invaders.

“Season two was all about walking this tightrope between alien and human for Ben,” Jessup explained. “There’s a transformation happening. It’s not resolved. He’s changing.

“Even though at the end of season two Ben fell more on the human side, it’s an ongoing thing. It’s a hard world for Ben to live in, because now that he’s not alone any more in having these abilities and people are starting to appreciate the contribution we can make, it’s still by no means easy.

“Again, it begs the question: After the war, will these things be so easily forgotten? The youthfulness we have now, that people appreciate us for now, when that’s gone what will be left? How will we recover?”

Trying to win the war leads to trying to win the peace. It’s a pattern that has been repeated over and over in human history, and the theme continues in Falling Skies, with aliens thrown into the mix.

“The war is not over by any means, but it has entered a different phase,” Jessup said.

“Wars unite disparate factions. People who would not normally be allies, it forces them to be friends. But after wars, those things are a lot more difficult.”

bill.harris@sunmedia.ca

@billharris_tv

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Jeopardy host Alex Trebek will retire when he wants to retire, dammit, and not a minute before

- June 11th, 2013

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Alex Trebek says there’s no need to phrase it in the form of a question: He has not set a retirement date for his job as the host of Jeopardy.

Asked on Tuesday how long he wants to keep hosting, the 72-year-old Trebek said, “It’s not going to be a long time, but I’m signed on for three more years.

“My bosses have told me that I can leave any time, I don’t have to fulfill the three years that are left on my contract. But as long as it’s fun, I will continue to host it.

“It’s challenging, it’s familiar in that it’s the same format all the time, but it’s new because we have new contestants and new material on every program.”

Trebek was in Toronto on Tuesday to take part in the annual CHCH upfront presentation. Jeopardy, of course, airs on various channels across Canada.

Trebek said all the retirement talk got started when he gave an interview last year.

“For the new season (2013-14), semi-good news, I am coming back as the host, and I know there was a lot of controversy,” Trebek said. “It started when I was interviewed and the person asked me, ‘You’ve been on the air for nearly 30 years, do you ever think of retirement?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’

“Well, that got blown all out of proportion. And it happened to coincide with the problems that Matt Lauer was having at NBC on The Today Show. So they joined those two stories together, and all of a sudden Matt Lauer maybe was being interviewed, or considered, as the host on Jeopardy.

“He wouldn’t take the pay cut, I’m sure.”

Trebek said he’s gratified to see that ratings for Jeopardy are up just about everywhere, especially among females.

“It appears that I have become a hottie to older women,” Trebek said.

“I know this for a fact, because 75% of the time when people approach me, the first words they say are, ‘My mother is your greatest fan. She thinks you’re hot, she thinks you’re cute, she thinks you’re bright.’

“Unfortunately, most of the time those comments are coming from people in their 40s and 50s. I would just love for a 10-year-old to come up to me and say, ‘My mom thinks you’re hot.’ We can wish.”

bill.harris@sunmedia.ca

@billharris_tv

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From Jon to John; Oliver takes over from Stewart at Daily Show desk

- June 7th, 2013

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All The Daily Show is doing is adding a letter.

From Jon to John.

John Oliver (pictured above left) is taking over as the host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, starting Monday, June 10 on The Comedy Network and CTV. Relax, not permanently.

Jon Stewart (pictured above right) is going to spend the summer directing a feature film. Oliver, a British comedian who has been part of the team on The Daily Show since 2006, is stepping in – or sitting down, as it were – for the big guy.

It’s funny, when I first heard about this, it made me think of an old episode of The Larry Sanders Show that involved Stewart, in a guest spot playing himself.

Larry (played by Garry Shandling) was a talk-show host, a la Johnny Carson or David Letterman. The setup was that the network was trying to work in Stewart – who at the time was a young up-and-comer who didn’t have The Daily Show yet – as a guest-host on Larry’s show.

But Larry kept nabbing all the good guests for the nights that he knew he was going to be working. Stewart was being left with people such as Sally Struthers, because, according to Larry, Stewart would be great “flirting” with her.

Larry commandeered certain guests under the guise of them being “personal friends.” When Stewart asked, “So, Hootie and the Blowfish are personal friends of yours?” Larry distractedly replied, “The Blowfish are. Hootie seems aloof.”

Tonally, there are a lot of similarities between The Larry Sanders Show, which aired from 1992 to 1998, and The Daily Show, which – as hard as it is to believe – goes all the way back to 1996 (Stewart took over from original host Craig Kilborn in 1999).

Oliver’s segments always have been among the funniest on The Daily Show. There is a barking certainty to his delivery that rarely fails to make me laugh.

Oliver also has played a semi-recurring character on the sitcom Community, and he has had a few standup specials as well.

Perhaps the funniest and smartest thing I’ve seen on TV in recent months was a Daily Show segment Oliver did about gun-control legislation. He went to Australia to interview people who had passed gun-control laws back in the 1990s, but were politically ruined because of it, even though the laws have worked remarkably well.

When they explained to Oliver that they had pushed for gun-control laws because they thought it was the right thing to do, and they knew if the laws passed it still might ruin their political careers, Oliver’s gap-jawed reactions were priceless. That would NEVER happen in the United States, he explained.

Being a correspondent on The Daily Show and hosting The Daily Show are two different things, of course.

Oliver has said – probably not entirely as a joke – that he knows the ratings are going to go down, first because it’s summer, and second because he’s hosting. His ambition is to not ruin the show completely. In his mind, that will qualify as success.

Privately, I’m sure he has higher goals than that. For fans, it’ll be fascinating to see another funny Jon – make that John – at the Daily Show desk.

bill.harris@sunmedia.ca

@billharris_tv

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Eva Longoria’s animated Mother Up! a good “draw” for Desperate Housewives reunion

- June 4th, 2013

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Eva Longoria‘s new animated series Mother Up! could be the perfect place for a Desperate Housewives reunion.

“That is a great idea,” Longoria said enthusiastically on Tuesday.

“Okay. I think I’m going to do that.”

Longoria was in Toronto on Tuesday to attend the annual Rogers upfront presentation. Rogers has purchased Mother Up! – in which Longoria voices the main character, and her company is producing it – to air on City.

Longoria, who played Gaby on Desperate Housewives, seemed keen when the idea was broached about an animated reunion with former castmates such as Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Teri Hatcher. And Longoria’s eyes really lit up at the thought of her Desperate Housewives buddies voicing characters on Mother Up! that go against type.

“Oh my God, you can do anything in animation,” Longoria said.

Animation has to be done so far in advance, though, that Mother Up! won’t be ready till next year. “That’s the hard part,” Longoria said.

Besides Longoria, the voice cast of Mother Up! will include Jesse Camacho (Less Than Kind) and Gabrielle Miller (Corner Gas).

Longoria also is an executive producer on the new series Devious Maids, which debuts later this month on Lifetime and was created by Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry.

bill.harris@sunmedia.ca

@billharris_tv

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Graceland moves to the West Coast – what would Elvis think?

- June 3rd, 2013

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The new series Graceland has nothing directly to do with Elvis Presley.

Rather, it focuses on a California beachfront house where undercover agents from three organizations – the FBI, the DEA and U.S. Customs – share accommodations.

The place got its nickname because it was seized from a drug lord who was a hardcore Elvis fan. Graceland, of course, is what Elvis called his mansion in Memphis, Tenn.

“I had gone through several titles – the working title was Safe House, which I thought was a little dull,” said Jeff Eastin, the creator and executive producer of Graceland.

“For a while there was going to be a big velvet Elvis hanging in the foyer, but we decided that wasn’t a good idea.”

Debuting across Canada Thursday, June 6 on Bravo, Graceland is inspired by a true story, or at the very least, a true living arrangement. It stars Aaron Tveit (pictured above left) as a brilliant but typically green FBI rookie and Daniel Sunjata (pictured above right) as a brilliant but typically mysterious FBI veteran.

Having just graduated at the top of his class, Mike Warren (Tveit) anticipates a traditional desk job in Washington, D.C. But he suddenly and unexpectedly is shipped to Graceland in California.

Immediately thrown into his first undercover assignment, Mike relies heavily on the guidance of would-be mentor Paul Briggs (Sunjata).

Mike’s posting at Graceland seems merely to be a temporary thing, as another FBI agent who had been living there was injured in the line of duty. Things might not be as random as they look, though.

“I don’t think this is typical television story-telling,” Tveit said. “As the arc of the whole season develops, a lot of things that you don’t necessarily expect to happen are going to happen.”

Tveit is known not only for his role as Tripp van der Bilt in Gossip Girl but also for the 2012 film version of Les Miserables, in which he played Enjolras.

“It has been a crazy year, actually,” Tveit said. “I got this job (Graceland) and I got ‘Les Miz’ two days apart last year. It has been really special to have both of them at the same time.”

Graceland also features Vanessa Ferlito as Catherine (Charlie) Lopez, Brandon Jay McLaren as Dale Jakes, Manny Montana as Joe (Johnny) Tuturro and Serinda Swan as Paige Arkin.

The five people living in the house when Mike arrives all are a little too cool for school, and at moments Mike is a tad too nerdy to be completely believable as someone who has gone through FBI training.

However, the pilot episode of Graceland gets better as it goes along, and once it moves from the personal to the professional, there are some intriguing “what would you do?” moments.

“Obviously if you get a bunch of ‘Type A’ personalities in the same room, especially living in the same house, that’s going to create conflict, and conflict is excellent television,” said Sunjata, who is best known for his role as Franco Rivera in Rescue Me.

“(Graceland) doesn’t just lay all the cards on the table immediately. It’s a house full of people who lie for a living, and whose very lives depend on their ability to keep their lies straight.”

In other words, think of Graceland as a show about people with suspicious minds.

Maybe it’s not too late to dig out the velvet Elvis.

bill.harris@sunmedia.ca

@billharris_tv

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