A Smattering of TV News(on a Wednesday)
EDITOR'S NOTE: FIRST UP...WATCH TV AND WIN VALUABLE PRIZES!
Crack the Code and Find "Treasure" on NBC
Variety reports that NBC is putting together an unscripted television show that will let everyday people search for their own national treasure by cracking the NBC's version of "The Da Vinci Code."
Producers Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz will produce "Treasure Hunters" for the network. The show will be an hourlong reality program that will send multiplayer teams on a global quest to unlock the secrets of an intricate puzzle.
Each clue will unlock another part of the mystery. Whichever teams puts all the clues together first will discover the location of an undisclosed treasure. EDITOR'S NOTE: THEY FINALLY GIVE US A TANGIBLE INCENTIVE TO TURN THE DURN THING ON, EH?!
STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE:
Fans of STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE to the streets in Los Angeles, New York and other cities Friday in an effort to urge Paramount to give the show a fifth season. EDITOR'S NOTE: PROVING ONCE AND FOR ALL WHAT PARAMOUNT HAS ASSUMED ALL ALONG....TREK FANS HAVE NO LIVES. (SORRY....GIGGLE) About 300 people marched at the entrance of Paramount Studios in Hollywood, Calif., to protest UPN's decision to
cancel the low-rated show at the end of the current fourth season.
Candice McCallie, a spokesperson for the fan group Trek United, indicated similar protests were scheduled to take place in New York, Tel Aviv and London. "Manny Coto [Enterprise's executive producer] and some of the writers and crew people came out and talked to us and to show their support," EDITOR'S NOTE: YES. CAUSE HE'S AFRAID OF YOU. she said in an interview. "The studio has not said anything to us at this point. I would assume they're thinking about whether to cancel the show or not. I would hopethat these protests would not go unnoticed."
Recently Trek United made headlines when it was reported that three anonymous donors had offered $3 million to help jump-start the organization's attempt to raise $36 million to pay for a fifth season of Enterprise.
"That donation is in negotiation, but it is not set in stone," McCallie said. "A group of people has contacted us about donating $3 million to our cause, but they wish to remain anonymous. EDITOR'S NOTE: LEST PEOPLE POINT AT THEM AND LAUGH. What I can tell you is that these are some of the same people who invested in the commercial space-flight industry." EDITOR'S NOTE: SO I GUESS WE'VE TAKEN CARE OF ALL THE FEEDING THE POOR, HOUSING THE HOMELESS, CURING THE DISEASES STUFF?
Fans have raised $49.720 toward their goal and also paid for a full-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 15. McCallie said that the protests and fund- raising are the fans' attempts to get Paramount "to wake up and fund the fifth season themselves, because they know the franchise makes plenty of money for them. We're offering to pay for everything, and
they would still keep all the rights. I realize we could give them the money, and they could still say no, but I think they would be fools if they did." EDITOR'S NOTE: I THOUGHT IT WAS PRETTY CLEAR THAT THE FOLKS OSTENSIBLY RUNNING THE TREK FRANCHISE ARE, IN FACT, FOOLS. I THOUGHT WE ALL KNEW THAT?
Enterprise airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT; the series finale will air in May.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I'LL TAKE SEXY BALD GUYS FOR 500, ALEX.....
O'Quinn Finds Belated Stardom on 'Lost'As mystery man Locke, Terry O'Quinn relishes his role on TV's hottest new show
As the mysterious Locke on ABC's suspenseful "Lost," Terry O'Quinn glories in his rich role. Locke, of course, was stranded on a tropical island with dozens of other passengers after their jetliner crashed in the opener. Since then, he has emerged as the series' mystical patriarch, a shamanic presence living his back-to-nature dream after a lifetime spent as a clerical schlub. Or is he just a nut job acting out a long Wild Man Weekend? Or a psycho ready to blow?
Don't ask O'Quinn, who "Lost" viewers first met planted on the beach silently gazing out to sea. While the camera rolled, "I tried to think of heavy things: `What does this mean?' That's what I thought. And `What the hell do we do now?'"
Months later, he is still not sure if Locke is sinister or noble, delusional or divine — or all the above.
And he was as surprised as anyone by perhaps the series' most electrifying episode. Locke, in a flashback before the flight, was revealed to have been a paraplegic. Then, seen in the present on the beach, he rose, almost biblically, to his feet: Somehow he was healed!
"I didn't even know that I had been handicapped until we shot that episode," O'Quinn says with a laugh.
What he does know is that "Lost" is a genre-busting smash (by turns thrilling, spooky and tantalizing) that, from its September premiere, had critics agog and viewers snagged. (It airs 8 p.m. EST Wednesday.)
He also knows that "Lost" is steady, challenging work for a journeyman actor who has waited 30 years for this kind of break.
A rangy man with a shaved head and a where-have-I-seen-that-guy? kind of face, O'Quinn has been around plenty. Films include 1984's "Places in the Heart," the "X-Files" feature, "Old School" and (in the title role) 1987's horror classic "The Stepfather." He has been on Broadway, and his scads of TV appearances include recurring roles on "JAG," "The West Wing" and the spy series "Alias," which was created by J.J. Abrams, the mastermind of "Lost."
But as 2004 began, O'Quinn and his wife, Lori, had logged "a couple of years from hell." An actor who has chosen never to live in Los Angeles and long ago took his leave from New York, "I was at home in Maryland, no work, nothing going on. I told Lori, `We gotta toughen up. We can fold, or we can lean on each other and play the cards that were dealt us.'
"Then J.J. called about `Lost.' I said, `I'll take it' — not a strong negotiation stance.
"He said, `You won't have a lot to do in the pilot, but it will develop into a more satisfying role.' I said, `I'll still take it.' I counted my blessings, and Lori and I flew to Hawaii."
On "Lost," O'Quinn joined an enormous cast of featured regulars who also include Matthew Fox (as a sexy doctor), Evangeline Lilly (a dishy jailbird), Dominic Monaghan (a rock-star junkie), Jorge Garcia (a fat guy who says "Dude" a lot), Naveen Andrews (a terrorist?) and eight others.
In all, there are supposedly 48 refugees trying to gain rescue and, in the meantime, forge some semblance of a civilized community.
Good luck. Desperation and conflict keep these castaways at odds. Spectral beasts and island cohabitants stalk them. And everyone, it seems, has secrets — secrets to which even the actors aren't privy until each script arrives.
Otherwise, O'Quinn reports, the show's producers "don't tell anybody much about what's going to happen, or has happened before. But I don't have any problem with that. I go on what I've got. It gives me the freedom to play things the way I want. Then, if they want it another way, I do it another way."
The series is filmed on Oahu, with five or six of each episode's eight shooting days spent outdoors, often at the beach location on the island's north shore.
The pilot was shot there a year ago. Then filming resumed July 15, which happened to be O'Quinn's 52nd birthday.
Revealing his bent for numerology, O'Quinn notes that five and two equal seven, and that July is the seventh month, then reels off other instances of seven looming large in his life.
"I told Lori, `Things are at a crossroads. And if "Lost" isn't the crossroads, it's the bridge to the other side.' I believe in fate."
Fate has been mighty good to "Lost" so far. But even a believer like O'Quinn has kept his head: "I'm always being the old warrior, telling everybody, `Don't buy a house. Let's be patient and see how it goes. Do good work — that's all.'"
A native of a small town on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, O'Quinn fell into acting in his teens, then, as his college graduation neared, "I didn't want to look for a real job. So I decided to see if I could make it as an actor."
He met his wife-to-be a few years later, when, appearing in a play in Baltimore, he learned he was cast in Michael Cimino's Western epic "Heaven's Gate." With a sudden need for riding lessons, he tracked down Lori, an instructor on her family's farm outside the city.
Then, when his play closed and he ran out of money waiting to be summoned to Montana to shoot his scenes, he struck a deal with Lori's parents to muck stalls in exchange for a room and more lessons. Three months later, in September 1979, he left to do "Heaven's Gate." In November he and Lori were married. "Heaven's Gate" was a legendary disaster. But they've been together 25 years (which adds up to seven).
Now, with their two sons off at college, "I feel like we're back to how we were when we first got together," O'Quinn says. On Oahu, they rent a house in the hills "with live boar outside our window and cocks crowing in the morning. It's paradise."
On the most recent "Lost," Locke declared that "Everyone gets a new life on this island." And that maybe includes the actor who plays him, a long-familiar face who might at last be a star.
"It would be nice to think about more doors opening, to be able to pick and choose roles," O'Quinn freely admits. "But I'm not anxious to go anywhere else right now. I could do this for a while."EDIITOR'S NOTE: FROM YOUR MOUTH TO GOD'S EARS. (AS MY PEOPLE SAY).
By his reckoning, at least seven years should be a Locke.
REVELATIONS:
A premiere date has been announced for REVELATIONS. The six-hour mini-series about a scientist's (Bill Pullman) and a nun's (Natascha McElhone) efforts to stop an apocalyptic confrontation between good and evil, will debut Wednesday, April 13.
It will close out the 2004-05 season in The West Wing's timeslot.EDITOR'S NOTE: SO WEST WING GOES BYE BYE SOON? (JUST FOR THE SEASON, I HOPE. THE JIMMY SMITS STUFF HAS REALLY GOOSED THE SHOW THIS YEAR. I WANT MORE!)
Crack the Code and Find "Treasure" on NBC
Variety reports that NBC is putting together an unscripted television show that will let everyday people search for their own national treasure by cracking the NBC's version of "The Da Vinci Code."
Producers Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz will produce "Treasure Hunters" for the network. The show will be an hourlong reality program that will send multiplayer teams on a global quest to unlock the secrets of an intricate puzzle.
Each clue will unlock another part of the mystery. Whichever teams puts all the clues together first will discover the location of an undisclosed treasure. EDITOR'S NOTE: THEY FINALLY GIVE US A TANGIBLE INCENTIVE TO TURN THE DURN THING ON, EH?!
STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE:
Fans of STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE to the streets in Los Angeles, New York and other cities Friday in an effort to urge Paramount to give the show a fifth season. EDITOR'S NOTE: PROVING ONCE AND FOR ALL WHAT PARAMOUNT HAS ASSUMED ALL ALONG....TREK FANS HAVE NO LIVES. (SORRY....GIGGLE) About 300 people marched at the entrance of Paramount Studios in Hollywood, Calif., to protest UPN's decision to
cancel the low-rated show at the end of the current fourth season.
Candice McCallie, a spokesperson for the fan group Trek United, indicated similar protests were scheduled to take place in New York, Tel Aviv and London. "Manny Coto [Enterprise's executive producer] and some of the writers and crew people came out and talked to us and to show their support," EDITOR'S NOTE: YES. CAUSE HE'S AFRAID OF YOU. she said in an interview. "The studio has not said anything to us at this point. I would assume they're thinking about whether to cancel the show or not. I would hopethat these protests would not go unnoticed."
Recently Trek United made headlines when it was reported that three anonymous donors had offered $3 million to help jump-start the organization's attempt to raise $36 million to pay for a fifth season of Enterprise.
"That donation is in negotiation, but it is not set in stone," McCallie said. "A group of people has contacted us about donating $3 million to our cause, but they wish to remain anonymous. EDITOR'S NOTE: LEST PEOPLE POINT AT THEM AND LAUGH. What I can tell you is that these are some of the same people who invested in the commercial space-flight industry." EDITOR'S NOTE: SO I GUESS WE'VE TAKEN CARE OF ALL THE FEEDING THE POOR, HOUSING THE HOMELESS, CURING THE DISEASES STUFF?
Fans have raised $49.720 toward their goal and also paid for a full-page advertisement in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 15. McCallie said that the protests and fund- raising are the fans' attempts to get Paramount "to wake up and fund the fifth season themselves, because they know the franchise makes plenty of money for them. We're offering to pay for everything, and
they would still keep all the rights. I realize we could give them the money, and they could still say no, but I think they would be fools if they did." EDITOR'S NOTE: I THOUGHT IT WAS PRETTY CLEAR THAT THE FOLKS OSTENSIBLY RUNNING THE TREK FRANCHISE ARE, IN FACT, FOOLS. I THOUGHT WE ALL KNEW THAT?
Enterprise airs Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT; the series finale will air in May.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I'LL TAKE SEXY BALD GUYS FOR 500, ALEX.....
O'Quinn Finds Belated Stardom on 'Lost'As mystery man Locke, Terry O'Quinn relishes his role on TV's hottest new show
As the mysterious Locke on ABC's suspenseful "Lost," Terry O'Quinn glories in his rich role. Locke, of course, was stranded on a tropical island with dozens of other passengers after their jetliner crashed in the opener. Since then, he has emerged as the series' mystical patriarch, a shamanic presence living his back-to-nature dream after a lifetime spent as a clerical schlub. Or is he just a nut job acting out a long Wild Man Weekend? Or a psycho ready to blow?
Don't ask O'Quinn, who "Lost" viewers first met planted on the beach silently gazing out to sea. While the camera rolled, "I tried to think of heavy things: `What does this mean?' That's what I thought. And `What the hell do we do now?'"
Months later, he is still not sure if Locke is sinister or noble, delusional or divine — or all the above.
And he was as surprised as anyone by perhaps the series' most electrifying episode. Locke, in a flashback before the flight, was revealed to have been a paraplegic. Then, seen in the present on the beach, he rose, almost biblically, to his feet: Somehow he was healed!
"I didn't even know that I had been handicapped until we shot that episode," O'Quinn says with a laugh.
What he does know is that "Lost" is a genre-busting smash (by turns thrilling, spooky and tantalizing) that, from its September premiere, had critics agog and viewers snagged. (It airs 8 p.m. EST Wednesday.)
He also knows that "Lost" is steady, challenging work for a journeyman actor who has waited 30 years for this kind of break.
A rangy man with a shaved head and a where-have-I-seen-that-guy? kind of face, O'Quinn has been around plenty. Films include 1984's "Places in the Heart," the "X-Files" feature, "Old School" and (in the title role) 1987's horror classic "The Stepfather." He has been on Broadway, and his scads of TV appearances include recurring roles on "JAG," "The West Wing" and the spy series "Alias," which was created by J.J. Abrams, the mastermind of "Lost."
But as 2004 began, O'Quinn and his wife, Lori, had logged "a couple of years from hell." An actor who has chosen never to live in Los Angeles and long ago took his leave from New York, "I was at home in Maryland, no work, nothing going on. I told Lori, `We gotta toughen up. We can fold, or we can lean on each other and play the cards that were dealt us.'
"Then J.J. called about `Lost.' I said, `I'll take it' — not a strong negotiation stance.
"He said, `You won't have a lot to do in the pilot, but it will develop into a more satisfying role.' I said, `I'll still take it.' I counted my blessings, and Lori and I flew to Hawaii."
On "Lost," O'Quinn joined an enormous cast of featured regulars who also include Matthew Fox (as a sexy doctor), Evangeline Lilly (a dishy jailbird), Dominic Monaghan (a rock-star junkie), Jorge Garcia (a fat guy who says "Dude" a lot), Naveen Andrews (a terrorist?) and eight others.
In all, there are supposedly 48 refugees trying to gain rescue and, in the meantime, forge some semblance of a civilized community.
Good luck. Desperation and conflict keep these castaways at odds. Spectral beasts and island cohabitants stalk them. And everyone, it seems, has secrets — secrets to which even the actors aren't privy until each script arrives.
Otherwise, O'Quinn reports, the show's producers "don't tell anybody much about what's going to happen, or has happened before. But I don't have any problem with that. I go on what I've got. It gives me the freedom to play things the way I want. Then, if they want it another way, I do it another way."
The series is filmed on Oahu, with five or six of each episode's eight shooting days spent outdoors, often at the beach location on the island's north shore.
The pilot was shot there a year ago. Then filming resumed July 15, which happened to be O'Quinn's 52nd birthday.
Revealing his bent for numerology, O'Quinn notes that five and two equal seven, and that July is the seventh month, then reels off other instances of seven looming large in his life.
"I told Lori, `Things are at a crossroads. And if "Lost" isn't the crossroads, it's the bridge to the other side.' I believe in fate."
Fate has been mighty good to "Lost" so far. But even a believer like O'Quinn has kept his head: "I'm always being the old warrior, telling everybody, `Don't buy a house. Let's be patient and see how it goes. Do good work — that's all.'"
A native of a small town on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, O'Quinn fell into acting in his teens, then, as his college graduation neared, "I didn't want to look for a real job. So I decided to see if I could make it as an actor."
He met his wife-to-be a few years later, when, appearing in a play in Baltimore, he learned he was cast in Michael Cimino's Western epic "Heaven's Gate." With a sudden need for riding lessons, he tracked down Lori, an instructor on her family's farm outside the city.
Then, when his play closed and he ran out of money waiting to be summoned to Montana to shoot his scenes, he struck a deal with Lori's parents to muck stalls in exchange for a room and more lessons. Three months later, in September 1979, he left to do "Heaven's Gate." In November he and Lori were married. "Heaven's Gate" was a legendary disaster. But they've been together 25 years (which adds up to seven).
Now, with their two sons off at college, "I feel like we're back to how we were when we first got together," O'Quinn says. On Oahu, they rent a house in the hills "with live boar outside our window and cocks crowing in the morning. It's paradise."
On the most recent "Lost," Locke declared that "Everyone gets a new life on this island." And that maybe includes the actor who plays him, a long-familiar face who might at last be a star.
"It would be nice to think about more doors opening, to be able to pick and choose roles," O'Quinn freely admits. "But I'm not anxious to go anywhere else right now. I could do this for a while."EDIITOR'S NOTE: FROM YOUR MOUTH TO GOD'S EARS. (AS MY PEOPLE SAY).
By his reckoning, at least seven years should be a Locke.
REVELATIONS:
A premiere date has been announced for REVELATIONS. The six-hour mini-series about a scientist's (Bill Pullman) and a nun's (Natascha McElhone) efforts to stop an apocalyptic confrontation between good and evil, will debut Wednesday, April 13.
It will close out the 2004-05 season in The West Wing's timeslot.EDITOR'S NOTE: SO WEST WING GOES BYE BYE SOON? (JUST FOR THE SEASON, I HOPE. THE JIMMY SMITS STUFF HAS REALLY GOOSED THE SHOW THIS YEAR. I WANT MORE!)
posted by QOTD (the Queen of the Dweebs) at 4:46 PM
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