The 2008 TV movie “Knight Rider”, an update of the classic ’80s TV show starring David Hasselhoff and his super talking car, is considered a “back door pilot” — that is, NBC wants to see how its return to the airwaves is received before they commit to a potentially expensive TV series. The new series stars Justin Bruening as Mike Traceur, a former Army Ranger who kinda inherits the talking supercar, this time a Ford Shelby Mustang voiced by Val Kilmer, the replacement voice who infamously took over for Will Arnett after the latter was pulled because of his ties to GM, a rival of Ford’s.
New York Homicide Detective John Amsterdam can’t die. You see, he’s immortal, given the ability to live forever by a tribe of Native American women in 1642 for an act of kindness. Now, Amsterdam works the murder cases of present-day New York City while waiting for his true love to enter his life, for only the woman who would become his soulmate can make Amsterdam mortal again. Such is the premise of the new FOX show New Amsterdam.
At first glance, the new comic “The Dark 48″ looks like a mish-mash of Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later” (they’re not really zombies, more like humans infected with a “rage” virus) and your standard zombie movie, with a group of survivors battling a zombie horde infestation. The comic book premieres as a two-issue limited series by writer Steven O’Connell and artist Daniel Indro, and colors by Joel Seguin.
When reviewing something as potentially dangerous (at least from a reviewer’s point of view) as a movie based on a popular novel by a very popular genre author like Jules Verne, it’s best to come right out and say it: I have never read the original novel, and I am not exactly well-versed in the works of Jules Verne. So there you have it, I have exposed my ignorance of the source material, and as such, you should judge my review of the movie version in that light.
The Sci Fi Channel is venturing out. No longer satisfied with just lame monster movies on Saturdays and recycled sci-fi flicks from the ’80s and ’90s, they’ve now gone into the comic book business by partnering up with Virgin Comics, which have been responsible for some pretty good comics in the last few years, including John Woo’s “7 Brothers”, which I really liked. The cable channel and Virgin’s latest effort is “The Stranded”, a sci-fi themed comic book series.
Okay, so it’s taken me three years to finally sit down and watch Joss Whedon’s big-screen sci-fi actioner “Serenity”. In my defense, let me just say that while I enjoyed the uncut pilot for Firefly, the TV series precursor to “Serenity”, that I saw a few years back, I did not fall in love with it. Then again, I only watched the pilot after the show had been cancelled by FOX, so in that respect, I suppose I didn’t exactly have any incentives to become attached to the show.
“Stargate: The Ark of Truth” is the much-anticipated first of two Made-for-DVD movies that continues the adventures of the “Stargate: SG-1″ team, with “Stargate: Continuum” being the second movie. But first, a caveat: The workprint version that I am reviewing runs a little long and is not the final cut. If “Ark of Truth” is scheduled to go straight to DVD, including a run on the Sci Fi Channel, then my guess is that at least 10 minutes, give or take a few minutes, will be cut for final consumption, although I didn’t find the version to be overlong at all. Having said that, this version doesn’t appear to be missing any key scenes, save for a special effects shot here and there, but is otherwise complete.
Obviously this review for the Stargate SG1 series finale, “Unending” is kind of late. Well, nearly a week late, actually, but nevermind that. It took me a while to get the blog back up and running, so this will just have to do. And anyways, it’s not like anyone has been clamoring for it… But where was I? Oh, right, my review of the Stargate SG1 series finale. Where to start? Here will do: The series finale ended the way the show went about business for the last 10 years: without fanfare.