Now, in a blipvert for Dentek Nightguard, we learn that each of our teeth has its own individual personality.
When we see people walking down the street talking to themselves, could they be having conversations with their teeth?BCnU!
Toby OB
Thursday, March 20, 2008
TODAY'S TWD: THE WHOLE TOOTH
In the TV Universe, various parts of our body are independently alive as well. We saw in that Super Bowl ad for CareerBuilder.com a girl's heart leap out of her chest and go in to tell the boss "I Quit!" Over in the Tooniverse, a man's stomach (with the voice of Gene Wilder!) engaged in a point/counterpoint debate with its "owner" in an ad for Alka Seltzer.
Now, in a blipvert for Dentek Nightguard, we learn that each of our teeth has its own individual personality.
When we see people walking down the street talking to themselves, could they be having conversations with their teeth?
BCnU!
Toby OB
Now, in a blipvert for Dentek Nightguard, we learn that each of our teeth has its own individual personality.
When we see people walking down the street talking to themselves, could they be having conversations with their teeth?BCnU!
Toby OB
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
COMIC BOOK HEROES
The comic book universe is gaining a new counterpart for a TV show from the TV Universe. 'Chuck', the series about the nerdly spy who works at the Buy More box store, will be getting its own four-color series in June. It will join the following shows which also exist in that other medium:
'Battlestar Galactica'
'CSI'
'The Night Stalker'
'Supernatural'
'The Prisoner'
'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'
'Angel'
'Doctor Who'
among many others, even 'Run, Buddy, Run'!
'Chuck' will be produced by Wildstorm which is a subsidiary of DC Comics.
BCnU!
Toby OB
'CSI'
'The Night Stalker'
'Supernatural'
'The Prisoner'
'Buffy The Vampire Slayer'
'Angel'
'Doctor Who'
among many others, even 'Run, Buddy, Run'!
'Chuck' will be produced by Wildstorm which is a subsidiary of DC Comics.
BCnU!
Toby OB
GUNZONK!
Soon after the 'Perry Mason' episode "The Case Of The Shifty Shoe-Box" begins, young Miles is seen watching TV. The audience back in the Trueniverse can't see what's on the screen, but the voices of James Arness and Milburn Stone can be heard.
The show isn't identified as 'Gunsmoke' during that 'Perry Mason' scene, but attentive voice-over agents should be able to identify the characters as Doctor Galen Adams and Sheriff Matt Dillon.
We could always say that Miles was watching something entirely different; that Stone and Arness were playing other roles. But they're speaking lines of dialogue that should be treated as historical fact from nearly a century before.
So it's easier to splain this away as a TV show - by any name, even 'Gunsmoke' - which was recreating the lives of real-life figures of the Old West, Doc Adams and Marshall Dillon.
(Well... almost any name!)BCnU!
Toby OB
TODAY'S TWD: WEATHER, CHANNELED
In the TV Universe, it rained on St. Patrick's Day in New York City. At least it rained during the evening; no idea if the parade was a soaker as that wasn't seen.At least, that's how it was shown in the first new episode of 'How I Met Your Mother' since the end of the writers' strike ("No Tomorrow"). There were no other new TV series to contradict that weather report, so that's how it is recorded for Toobworld on March 17, 2008. (And there's no getting around which St. Paddy's day it was - Ted announces the date as he tells the story to his kids.)
This is just another example of the differences between Toobworld and the real world. It never rained in New York City this past Monday, not even during the parade (which was broadcast, but doesn't have as much validity for inclusion in the TV Universe).
BCnU!
Toby OB
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
THE HAT SQUAD: ARTHUR C. CLARKE
Arthur C. Clarke, one of the most famous - if not the most famous - science fiction authors in modern times, died today in his adopted homeland of Sri Lanka. He was 90.Clarke is best known for his work on "2001: A Space Odyssey", the movie he co-wrote with Stanley Kubrick, as well as its sequel novels. The film's homicidal computer HAL has been an iconic figure in pop culture for the last forty years.
But Clarke also wrote for Television:
The Colours of Infinity (1995) (TV) (writer)
"The Twilight Zone" (1 episode, 1985)
- Night of the Meek/But Can She Type?/The Star (1985) TV episode (segment "The Star")
"Tales of Tomorrow" (1 episode, 1952)
- All the Time in the World (1952) TV episode (writer)
"Captain Video and His Video Rangers" (1949) TV series (unknown episodes)
But definitely it will be for the creaton of HAL that Clarke will be best remembered.
I can feel it, Dave.....
BCnU....
Toby OB
But definitely it will be for the creaton of HAL that Clarke will be best remembered.
I can feel it, Dave.....BCnU....
Toby OB
NEWS VIEW: "THE STRANDED" PILOT PROGRAM
In league with Virgin Comics, the Sci Fi Channel is going to make a TV series called 'The Stranded'. It's about a group of regular folks who find out that they're really aliens who have extraordinary abilities.It sounds like 'Heroes' but with a "credible" splainin for their powers.
The project was announced back in July of last year at Comic-Con, but it was only this Monday when the TV series aspect was confirmed.
According to a story in Variety back on July 23, 2007, "'The Stranded' will tell the story of five ordinary people living on Earth who, it turns out, are actually from a world called Standfire. Their past has returned -- not to haunt them, but to kill them."
Unless 'Torchwood' returns to the subject of their episode 'Sleeper', which was about alien sleeper agents on Earth, perhaps we can make a theoretical link between the two shows here at Toobworld Central.......
BCnU!
Toby OB
BCnU!
Toby OB
LIFE AFTER "NINE"
During that 'Pushing Daisies' panel at Paley Fest '08, Chi McBride admitted that his character of Malcolm was the one who planned the bank robbery in his previous series 'The Nine'.
Said McBride, "He had too many bills.... It's a long story."
It's nice to know what happens to characters on shows that are cancelled before they can wrap up their storylines, even if we can't actually see it play out. As most Toobworld fans know, Life in the TV Universe continues for the characters of shows that no longer are produced, but sometimes we'd like some confirmation of that.
Said McBride, "He had too many bills.... It's a long story."It's nice to know what happens to characters on shows that are cancelled before they can wrap up their storylines, even if we can't actually see it play out. As most Toobworld fans know, Life in the TV Universe continues for the characters of shows that no longer are produced, but sometimes we'd like some confirmation of that.
If you search online, you can find out the mystery behind the phrase 'Coronet Blue' and who Michael Alden really was; and you can learn how the murder case of 'Reunion' would have been resolved.
BCnU!
Toby OB
BCnU!
Toby OB
TELEVISIOLOGY 101: "PUSHING DAISIES"
There was a 'Pushing Daisies' panel at the Paley Festival this past Saturday night. (All of the cast save for Swoosie Kurtz was there - she had an ailing aunt to attend.)Several points came up which perfectly fit the concept of televisiology, "thinking inside the box".
1] The show's creator Bryan Fuller doesn't think Ned and Chuck could ever have a child together. "I think her egg would die when his sperm hit it." (Personally, I think she'd die as well.)
2] Fuller also confirmed that Ned the Piemaker is a vegetarian. That's because any meat he ate would probably come back to life one it made contact with his insides. And then it would "crawl out of him". (I would think the vegetables he ate would come back to life as well, but unless he ate Tybo the Giant Carrot from 'Lost In Space', it's not about to crawl out of him.)
BCnU!
Toby OB
TODAY'S TWD: ee cummings @ McSORLEY'S
It's Tuesday. Another episode of 'New Amsterdam' aired last night and that's always good for the daily Tiddlywinkydink look at History as seen in Toobworld.....
While getting to know Sarah Delane better in the episode of "Honor", detective John Amsterdam discovered that she liked the poetry of ee cummings. He revealed that even though cummings was a great poet, he was also a mean drunk. (It was said in such a way as to make one think that John had studied the life of the poet, but more than likely he probably knew cummings and quite often got drunk with him.)
From Wikipedia:
Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), popularly known as ee cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, and playwright. His body of work encompasses more than 900 poems, several plays and essays, numerous drawings, sketches, and paintings, as well as two novels. He is remembered as a preeminent voice of 20th century poetry, as well as one of the most popular.
A lot of that drinking with cummings probably took place in McSorley's pub down on East 7th Street here in New York City. (15 East 7th Street New York, NY 10003) It's the type of place where John Amsterdam could feel the sense of community, to watch this microcosm of his home, New York, grow up around him while he remained the same.
“Our nation was born in taverns. In colonial America they were places where people would go not only to eat and drink and pass the time but to argue the issues of the day, more and more vehemently as the gulf with Great Britain widened … On the one hand, our traditional Puritan ethic requires us to eschew wasting time in barrooms; on the other hand, tavern-going is in our genes, and a large part of tavern culture was handed down from our God-fearing but beer-loving forebears.
Others, however, find their tentative steps into the world of the American public house to be an encounter with world history, a chance to commune with ghosts: the traditions, legends, and, in some cases, the very locales that have played a vital role in the development of this nation.”
- Stephen Beaumont and Janet Forman, "Liberty Inn" (American Heritage Magazine, July 2003)
ee cummings wrote a poem about McSorley's in 1925, ("i was sitting in mcsorley's") and it was probably John Amsterdam's favorite watering hole since it opened back in 1854. (At least until his son Omar York opened his own bar & grill....)
In cummings' poem, he called the "snug and evil" McSorley's "the ale which never lets you grow old". Perhaps he noticed that pub regular John (whatever his name may have been back then) was not aging like the others around him, and ascribed the phenomenon to the drink.
John quoted a line from a poem by ee cummings: "for life's not a paragraph... and death I think is no parenthesis".
This is from the poem "since feeling is first", which could apply to the blooming relationship between John and Sarah, especially if it does turn out that she is "the One" who can make him mortal again.....
"since feeling is first"
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
and death I think is no parenthesis
If you ever get the chance to visit McSorley's, take a close look at the pictures lining the walls. You may spot ee cummings in there. And maybe John Amsterdam with him! (If so, you've just crossed over into the Toobworld Zone!)
You can learn more about "The Old House At Home" at the McSorley's website.
BCnU!
Toby OB
While getting to know Sarah Delane better in the episode of "Honor", detective John Amsterdam discovered that she liked the poetry of ee cummings. He revealed that even though cummings was a great poet, he was also a mean drunk. (It was said in such a way as to make one think that John had studied the life of the poet, but more than likely he probably knew cummings and quite often got drunk with him.)From Wikipedia:
Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), popularly known as ee cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, and playwright. His body of work encompasses more than 900 poems, several plays and essays, numerous drawings, sketches, and paintings, as well as two novels. He is remembered as a preeminent voice of 20th century poetry, as well as one of the most popular.
A lot of that drinking with cummings probably took place in McSorley's pub down on East 7th Street here in New York City. (15 East 7th Street New York, NY 10003) It's the type of place where John Amsterdam could feel the sense of community, to watch this microcosm of his home, New York, grow up around him while he remained the same.
“Our nation was born in taverns. In colonial America they were places where people would go not only to eat and drink and pass the time but to argue the issues of the day, more and more vehemently as the gulf with Great Britain widened … On the one hand, our traditional Puritan ethic requires us to eschew wasting time in barrooms; on the other hand, tavern-going is in our genes, and a large part of tavern culture was handed down from our God-fearing but beer-loving forebears.
Others, however, find their tentative steps into the world of the American public house to be an encounter with world history, a chance to commune with ghosts: the traditions, legends, and, in some cases, the very locales that have played a vital role in the development of this nation.”
- Stephen Beaumont and Janet Forman, "Liberty Inn" (American Heritage Magazine, July 2003)
ee cummings wrote a poem about McSorley's in 1925, ("i was sitting in mcsorley's") and it was probably John Amsterdam's favorite watering hole since it opened back in 1854. (At least until his son Omar York opened his own bar & grill....)In cummings' poem, he called the "snug and evil" McSorley's "the ale which never lets you grow old". Perhaps he noticed that pub regular John (whatever his name may have been back then) was not aging like the others around him, and ascribed the phenomenon to the drink.
John quoted a line from a poem by ee cummings: "for life's not a paragraph... and death I think is no parenthesis".
This is from the poem "since feeling is first", which could apply to the blooming relationship between John and Sarah, especially if it does turn out that she is "the One" who can make him mortal again.....
"since feeling is first"
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph
and death I think is no parenthesis
If you ever get the chance to visit McSorley's, take a close look at the pictures lining the walls. You may spot ee cummings in there. And maybe John Amsterdam with him! (If so, you've just crossed over into the Toobworld Zone!)
You can learn more about "The Old House At Home" at the McSorley's website.BCnU!
Toby OB
Monday, March 17, 2008
WISH-CRAFT: A "STRANGE" CROSSOVER FOR "TORCHWOOD"
Recently I've been watching 'Coupling'. Not going out of my way to catch it, or DVR it, or queue it up for Netflix. Just if I happen to notice while looking at the BBC-A sked that it's coming up, I'll record it. It started out because I wanted to see other productions written by Stephen Moffat, who has scripted some of the very best of 'Doctor Who' these last three years. But now I'm just enjoying the company of the six regulars. (I'm assuming the prevalent high concept description for the show is a "British 'Friends'".)
I'm especially enjoying the work by Richard Coyle as Jeff Murdoch, the resident goofball. A lot of his obsessions can match my own O'Bsessions. (Although I've never tried to shag the TV, much as I love it).
It was during his rant about celebrity nudity and the beauty of the word "naked", that it suddenly occurred to me that Richard Coyle might make for a very interesting variation as a future regeneration of the Doctor in 'Doctor Who'. (I know, I'm always coming up with actors to play the Doctor. I've probably got a tally of 20 actors by now if I listed them all!)So that was originally going to be the thrust of this blog-post: a Wish-craft advocating Richard Coyle to be a candidate for the next Doctor.
I went looking about the web for pictures to support my contention for Coyle's candidacy and found
some really good ones. There was an excellent one with Indira Varma from 'Whistleblowers' that really helped the suggestion. After all, it was Varma's portrayal of Suzie Costello that helped kick off the launch of 'Torchwood'. I believe the audience came because of Captain Jack Harkness (pun intended), but it was the story of Suzie Costello that convinced them to come back; that this would be something out of the ordinary each week.
So now I had 'Torchwood' on my mind, and the next picture led to a new Wish-craft suggestion.....
I found a picture that featured Richard Coyle, Samantha Janus and Ian Richardson for a TV series called 'Strange' from 2003. Here's a description of it from Ryan K. Johnson's excellent site of British TV shows, specials, and movies (from an American point of view):
Strange (3/03)
I went looking about the web for pictures to support my contention for Coyle's candidacy and found
some really good ones. There was an excellent one with Indira Varma from 'Whistleblowers' that really helped the suggestion. After all, it was Varma's portrayal of Suzie Costello that helped kick off the launch of 'Torchwood'. I believe the audience came because of Captain Jack Harkness (pun intended), but it was the story of Suzie Costello that convinced them to come back; that this would be something out of the ordinary each week.So now I had 'Torchwood' on my mind, and the next picture led to a new Wish-craft suggestion.....
I found a picture that featured Richard Coyle, Samantha Janus and Ian Richardson for a TV series called 'Strange' from 2003. Here's a description of it from Ryan K. Johnson's excellent site of British TV shows, specials, and movies (from an American point of view):Strange (3/03)
Samantha Janus and Ian Richardson star in this BBC pilot for a horror/fantasy series about a defrocked priest (Richard Coyle, 'Coupling') who hunts demons in this 'X-Files'-like series. Janus plays a former physicist now working as a nurse who encounters Coyleand his team of psychic investigators and comes to suspect her son may be hosting an unholy threat. Richardson is Coyle's nemesis, a church elder who opposes his actions and there are hints of diabolical association.
Take a look at this picture:
If that was to be his costume as the newly regenerated Doctor, it suggests Eccleston's garb as the Ninth Incarnation of the Doctor - simple and a bit street-wise. At least for the sake of my argument, Ms. Janus could be a new Companion, as would be Andrew Lee Potts - who could be seen as an upgrade for Adric without being so annoying. (In 'Strange', Potts played Toby, so I'm O'Bviously partial to him!)
And then there is Ian Richardson in that cowled cape.... What better villain to revive for this new regeneration than a new incarnation of that Time Meddler, the Monk? (Yes, I know Richardson is dead. I'm just saying this picture could be used to make the argument in favor of Coyle as the Doctor, and to bring back the Monk as an adversary - with another actor.)
I went looking for descriptions of this show 'Strange', for I never heard of it before. And after reading just two sites dedicated to it (one at the BBC), coupled with that picture of Coyle with Varda, a new idea came to me.....
Coyle's character of John Strange should be revived and brought on board 'Torchwood'.
And then there is Ian Richardson in that cowled cape.... What better villain to revive for this new regeneration than a new incarnation of that Time Meddler, the Monk? (Yes, I know Richardson is dead. I'm just saying this picture could be used to make the argument in favor of Coyle as the Doctor, and to bring back the Monk as an adversary - with another actor.)
I went looking for descriptions of this show 'Strange', for I never heard of it before. And after reading just two sites dedicated to it (one at the BBC), coupled with that picture of Coyle with Varda, a new idea came to me.....Coyle's character of John Strange should be revived and brought on board 'Torchwood'.
In the last week or so, I've read a rumor, - and it's just that so far, a nebulous rumor - that John Barrowman was going to leave 'Torchwood'. The loss of Captain Jack Harkness could very well cripple the series, unless something audacious was done to replace him. (At least we know they can't kill off Jack to get him off the show, even if it would be a ratings-grabbing one-shot. My guess? He'll eventually leave with Grey via the Cardiff Rift.)
I think bringing in this former defrocked priest whose specialty is battling demons would at the very least give the show a publicity boost from the press that would be generated about his previous Toobworld tenure, his revival, and the subsequent crossover. That same rumor about Barrowman leaving also suggested that Burn Gorman as Owen Harper and
Naoki Mori as Toshiko Sato might also be shown the door out of the 'Torchwood' hub. So even if John Strange wasn't being brought in to be the new leader of the Cardiff branch, this expert demon-hunter could at least be a valuable member of the team because of his specialized expertise. After that nearly disasterous battle with Abaddon in the first season finale, Team Torchwood could use somebody who knows his way around demons.(That rumor about the revamp of 'Torchwood' claims that Freema Agyeman would be brought back as Dr. Martha Jones to be in charge. You can read the full thing here.)
I've tossed around that 'Bewitched'-coined word of "Wish-Craft" in this essay, meaning that this is just a stunt casting dream on my part. But who knows? If I don't get the suggestion out there, some Auntie suit won't be able to learn of it and claim it as its own. If I bring it up, there's always the slim chance it might get fanned into becoming reality!
BCnU!Toby OB
PS:
I wrote to BBC-America about getting 'Strange' onto their schedule here in the States, but of course I got a basic form letter in response. ("Dear Toby, Thank you for taking the time to contact us. BBC America takes the opinions of viewers such as yourself very seriously. Rest assured we will forward your remarks on to the appropriate department(s). We thank you again for your comments." Yada yada yada.....)
PS:
I wrote to BBC-America about getting 'Strange' onto their schedule here in the States, but of course I got a basic form letter in response. ("Dear Toby, Thank you for taking the time to contact us. BBC America takes the opinions of viewers such as yourself very seriously. Rest assured we will forward your remarks on to the appropriate department(s). We thank you again for your comments." Yada yada yada.....)
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