Rick vs. Shane. It's certainly starting to look like that's what it's all about to come down to this year. In Sunday's episode of "The Walking Dead," "Triggerfinger," the two men are set up for an eventual face-off that easily could turn into a shootout over Lori and her baby, each determined to do whatever's necessary to protect "what's his."
It's Shane who heads out to search for Lori after the others realize she's been missing for hours -- during which time, of course, she's flipped the car she was driving and, we learn, fended off a couple of walkers on her own. To convince her to return to the farm with him, Shane tells Lori that her husband is alive and well and already there, though in fact, Rick is still inside the bar with Hershel and Glenn, grappling with the enormity of Rick's decision to shoot the two strangers who had threatened them.
Things become more fraught for the trio when some folks come looking for Dave and Tony and always-honest Rick announces that they're dead, that he shot them in an act of self-defense. A firefight ensues, and before long, Hershel's vowing to cover Glenn as he runs to get their vehicle -- just because Hershel opposes firearms on his farm doesn't mean he doesn't know how to use one, he points out.
A horde of walkers scares off the others, though they leave behind one of their own, a shooter who jumped down from his rooftop perch and ended up with a wrought iron spike through his leg. Rick and Glenn attempt to fend off the walkers to buy Hershel some time to assess the severity of the injury. The prognosis, however, isn't good. Hershel wants to amputate, but Rick decides to just pull the man's leg free and they all head back to the farm.
Shane and Lori get there first, and Lori's furious that Shane lied to her about Rick's whereabouts. He insists that had he told her the truth, she never would have agreed to come back and his first concern was for her safety, and for the baby. At which point Carl learns he's about to have a brother or sister.
The others do turn up not long thereafter, but Shane sees the presence of a stranger in their midst as a threat. He's convinced that the man could escape and expose their location to the people with whom he'd been travelling, leading to an all-out war for the farm. Andrea agrees, but Rick insists that there is no threat and saving a life was the right thing to do.
Surely, Rick's humanitarianism is about to be put to test (well, it has already, of course, but perhaps not to the same extent) with Lori, doing her best Lady Macbeth, insisting that the only real threat is from Shane, who's convinced that he is the father of the child, that he's in love with Lori, that he's the only one who can keep her safe in a vicious, brutal world.
One imagines it would be Shane who would come out on the losing end of that fight -- Rick is the center of the series after all. But it's disheartening to think about the series without either character. Jon Bernthal's committed portrayal of an unhinged, desperate man has been the best thing about Season 2 of "The Walking Dead" hands down.
What do you think? Please leave your comments below.
"Fringe" tells stories unlike anyone else. Since the beginning of television, shows have had the "will they/won’t they" romantic leads. Your Sam and Diane, Mulder and Scully, Ross and that monkey. The problem with those relationships is the writers constantly have to come up with reasons why the two can’t be with each other. Mostly through misunderstandings and bad timing, but ‘Fringe’ does it in its own way. Peter and Olivia have had a rocky romance. Whenever they get together, it turns out that one is from another universe or the other is from an alternate timeline. Those two kids just can’t catch a break.
After the events in Westfield, alternate history Olivia starts picking up memories from regular ordinary Olivia. She goes through our Olivia’s Friday routine: ordering in, drinking wine and making out with Peter. Only it doesn’t stop there. Soon she’s remembering Peter with her when she rescued Walter from the mental hospital or sharing a drink after solving a case. The questions arise. How did alternate-timeline Olivia get these memories? And is making out with her technically cheating on the original Olivia?
"The Walking Dead" returned from its month-long hiatus with the episode "Nebraska" in which the visitors to and the residents of Hershel's farm deal with the aftermath of Shane's decision to open the barn and free/dispose of the walkers inside, not realizing that poor missing Sophia was among the creatures inside. Picking up exactly where the previous installment left off, the action begins with inaction -- Hershel and his kin frozen by shock and horror at the massacre they've just witnessed, Rick and the others paralyzed by the realization that Sophia is not only beyond saving, but that she's been nearby the whole time.
Shane is furious with Hershel, who he believes has kept the secret of Sophia's whereabouts from them, though Hershel insists he had no idea the girl was in the barn as it was Otis who rounded up the walkers and left them there. As the older man recovers his wits and heads into the farmhouse, he tells Rick that Shane must leave his property at once. Not everyone is so furious with Shane, however -- Andrea and T-Dog think he did what was right and required. Dale is beside himself with grief over the event, but Carol, after an initial outburst of sobs, grows silent and distant, saying that clearly, her little girl was lost some time ago. When a hasty funeral is arranged, she chooses not to attend.
The incident leaves its imprint on Rick and his family, too, of course. Lori listens to Carl tell her first that he thought he would be the one to find Sophia and bring her back alive; then to go on to say that Shane made the right call. After an altercation with Shane, Rick, who struggles mightily with the obligations of his leadership role, seems to be furious with himself that he had endangered the lives of the others by looking for the girl and confesses as much to his wife.
But no one is perhaps more profoundly changed then Hershel, who packs up his departed wife's belongings and heads to the local bar to begin drinking, ending decades of sobriety. Glenn accompanies Rick to find him and bring him back to the farmhouse, telling Rick on the way that Maggie has told him she's in love with him. Caught off guard and doubtful of her sincerity, Glenn didn't return the sentiment, but Rick tells him he should -- that anyone can see Maggie loves him.
Glenn apologizes for bringing Lori the batch of morning-after pills she nearly used to try to terminate her pregnancy; Rick forgives him, saying he knows Glenn was just trying to do what he thought was best. As it happens, Lori's condition might be in question: Driving to retrieve Rick, Glenn and Hershel herself, she doesn't notice a walker in the center of the road, her car hits the zombie, the auto flips and takes some serious damage and we don't see Lori for the rest of the episode.
Central to the entire series is that one basic question of how to define what's morally right in a lawless world where the chief priority is survival. But "Nebraska" returned to that theme time and time again, most pointedly with the final stand-off between Rick and two strangers he runs across at the bar. The men -- a couple of sleezy guys that you probably wouldn't want anywhere close to your wives, sisters or daughters, even if there hadn't been a zombie apocalypse -- break the bad news that Fort Benning reportedly has been overrun by walkers.
There's a friendly drink, and the duo asks where they might find shelter, the conversation growing increasingly more threatening, until it concludes in a firefight with Rick channeling "Justified" lawman Raylan Givens and shooting the pair as they draw on him. Who's to say what's right?
What did you think? Was it worth the wait? Please leave your thoughts below.
"Fringe" is science fiction at its best, and the great thing about science fiction is that it’s a pretty big genre. There are endless variations. You have your hard science fiction, your soft science fiction, time travel and alternate history, space operas, suspense, anything you can imagine. The great thing about "Fringe" is that it dips into every realm. This week, "Fringe" gives a try at science fiction survival horror and it pulls it off very well.
The problem with sci-fi being such a large genre is that most ideas have been done before. “Welcome to Westfield” centers on a small town you cannot leave. How many times have we seen that before? Walter references the high school drama staple "Brigadoon," but the idea has been used in everything from "The Twilight Zone" to the "Simpsons Movie." "Fringe" keeps it fresh by tying the story to "Fringe" mythology. I honestly expected this episode to be boring and cliche. I’m more than happy to be proved wrong.
Finally! I’ve been saying since day one that ‘Fringe’ needed an Astrid-centric episode. I track the Astrid Action every week. In the first few season, Astrid battled for screen time, let alone character development. In season two , Astrid became more of a foil for Walter. She tossed in a jab here or there. By season three, Astrid was a full confidant of Olivia. We even got the alternate version of Astrid, spouting statistics and wearing a cool beret. This season the Astrid from the Peter-less timeline got out of the lab. She acted as Walter’s eyes and ears in the field. Now we get a whole side story about Astrid. About time.
Is that not enough for you? How about an investigation tied to the Observers? Everybody loves the hairless, pale voyeurs. Just like in real life, right? You think Astrid didn’t get much screen time? The Observer often only got a single frame. In ‘Making Angels,’ the Observers step out of the background. Literally.
‘Fringe’ practically pandered directly to everything I love this week. The only problem with getting everything you want is that sometimes it can be too much.
"Fringe" normally nails its twists. It will lead you down a trail, letting you think you know what’s happening, before it flips on you. Suddenly that helpless victim turns out to be the villain. Or Walternate turns out to be a good guy. "Fringe" knows how to work a good red herring. Though now I want to coin a new term: the Black Dry-Cleaning Van. A red herring is an intentionally false trail, made to draw you away from the true path. A Black Dry-Cleaning Van is like a red herring where the truth is a letdown.
In "Forced Perspective," the Fringe Division investigates Emily, a young girl who sees glimpses of the future. Specifically people’s deaths. The girl’s father constantly moves their family, changing their names and getting new jobs, to prevent people from taking Emily away to study her. People like Massive Dynamic. After Olivia discovers the Emily’s gift, her father thinks Massive Dynamic has found them again, but it turns out to only be a black dry cleaning van that happened to park across the street. Kind of a letdown. Definitely if this guy has been uprooting his family constantly because of his own paranoia. Makes you hope Massive Dynamic was stalking them, just to make it worth it.
One thing I’ve loved about "Fringe" is that the show never has evil characters. They will take their time building up their villains, whether it is the mad scientist whose experiment ran amok this week or someone like Walternate. Though once you get the full story, even the extreme bad guys have almost sympathetic motivations. Most are men so wrapped up in their own obsessions they lose track of who they were harming, but every so often, they have antagonists fueled by blind ambition or a desire for destruction. The best of them being David Robert Jones.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Unless your enemy’s enemy is David Robert Jones. Then we both have a problem. Jones first appeared back when the British bought out Sterling Cooper. No, wait. It was Season One. Olivia went to visit him in a German prison to help an FBI agent with a parasite wrapped around his heart. Jones became the first recurring baddie. After his colleagues transported him out, Jones worked tirelessly to bust over to the alternate universe in order to impress William Bell. He almost made it, but Peter slammed the door closed and sliced the poor guy in half.
Now that we’re dealing with a Peter-less timeline, "Fringe" can bring back anyone it wants, and David Robert Jones has a second chance to fulfill his nefarious plans.
When "Fringe" premiered back in 2008, it seemed like your average procedural show with a supernatural twist. Nothing exceptionally original. We had seen it before: monsters of the week sprinkled with hints at a larger mythology. Only "Fringe" didn’t leave us hanging endlessly waiting for answers. Instead of spending five years leaving us wondering who took Mulder’s sister or what was the smoke monster, "Fringe" gave up its secrets. Two universes. Our Peter died. Walter stole theirs.
Where does a series go after it has revealed its big mystery? Anywhere it wants. Now we get episodes that center on alternate-timeline versions of the parallel-universe doppelgangers of our original "Fringe" characters. How many shows can say that?
The only character from our universe and timeline is Peter, and he desperately wants to get back. Who could blame him? His dream of waking up to pancakes with Olivia and a half-naked Walter seemed pretty nice.
The only problem is that the one man who could help Peter doesn’t want anything to do with him. This timeline’s Walter has decided that his attempt to save the parallel universe’s Peter caused too much damage. He won’t risk that again. Luckily ...
“Terra Nova” has come to the end of its first, perhaps only, season — a season that had some pretty good ideas but never really clicked. There’s nothing wrong with that. Plenty of science fiction shows get better in their later seasons, and there were hints of a more promising direction in the season finale. Would I watch a second season of this show? There would have to be a pretty substantial overhaul of the production team, but … I suppose I could be tempted by the premise that’s laid out in the closing moments here, with the people of Terra Nova cut off from the future — perhaps for good — and forced to make it on their own with whatever they can find out in the great prehistoric nowhere.
Here’s something I just realized: Why on Earth do the future folks want everybody in Terra Nova to send resources back to the future, if it’s such a grim, dystopic hellhole? Why wouldn’t the rich and famous of the year 2149 just take a trip back to the ancient past, take over Terra Nova, force the colonists to work for them, and create an idyllic paradise no one else could escape to? If we’re going to believe that there are this many evil folks who want Terra Nova for their own purposes coming from the year 2149, why do they need the portal to go both ways? Why on Earth can’t they be content with the perfect world in the past that’s already waiting for them to move into?
In some alternate universe, there’s a TV network dedicated to nothing but the tales of Stephen King, showing not just the famous movies but all the bombs, near-misses and the few genuine classics produced for the small screen.
On Sunday, the two-part miniseries “Bag of Bones” premieres on A&E, the latest in a very long line of efforts to bring King’s unique vision to TV. It’s a list that includes adaptations of novels and short stories, some with teleplays penned by King himself, as well as original work created by King for TV, such as “Storm of the Century” (1999) and the 13-part “Kingdom Hospital” (2004), an American riff on Lars von Triers’ miniseries “The Kingdom.”
Given King’s abiding love for pop culture, it’s surprising how often the made-for-TV versions of his tales seem like marriages of convenience, beginning with the first: Tobe Hooper’s 1979 adaptation of “Salem’s Lot.” Shot in Northern California, Hooper’s version is too sunlit to evoke the crepuscular atmosphere of the novel’s small-town Maine setting. David Soul is an equally poor stand-in for novelist Ben Mears, though James Mason camps it up merrily, and there’s a neat visual take on the vampire Barlow, who appears here in full Nosferatu drag.
The 2004 TV remake featured another decadent European, Rutger Hauer, as Barlow, and a fine Rob Lowe as Mears, here reimagined as a reporter captured by the Taliban during the Afghan war.
For tax reasons, few Stephen King tales have been filmed in his native Maine. “The Langoliers” (1995) is an exception. Shot on location at the Bangor International Airport, this underrated miniseries anticipates “Lost,” with its depiction of an inexplicable event that causes the disappearance of all but 10 passengers on a red-eye from L.A. to Boston. Survivors include Bronson Pinchot as an increasingly unglued banker responsible for the loss of $45 million and David Morse in a nicely understated performance — perhaps the only understated performance in all of King’s oeuvre — as the pilot who calmly guides the plane back through a temporal storm.
“The Tommyknockers” (1993) is in the running for Worst King Miniseries Ever. Sample dialogue: “Something is happening to this town, and I’m telling you it has something to do with that thing in the woods in there.” “It” (1990) isn’t much better, though redeemed by Tim Curry’s Bozo-Goes-to-Hell turn as Pennywise the clown. (“Come on up, Richie — I gotta balloon for ya! Doncha wanna balloon?”)
And then there’s the 2002 pilot for a projected series of “Carrie” in which Carrie survives to become a psychic investigator in Florida, something even Patricia Clarkson as Carrie White’s grim-faced mother couldn’t save. “You ever see something you can’t explain?” asks one prom-night survivor. “I’m not talking about a strange light in the sky, or Jesus’ face on a tortilla. I’m talking about something that’s not supposed to happen. Like, in reality.”
One of the very best versions of a King story is also one of the briefest: Brian Henson’s wonderful “Battleground,” a one-hour episode in the 2006 King anthology series "Nightmares and Dreamscapes." With a teleplay by Richard Christian Matheson (based on a King story that first appeared in "Cavalier"), “Battleground” stars William Hurt as a hitman who, after killing the CEO of a toy company, finds himself attacked by a battalion of toy soldiers. Hurt’s icy performance is brilliant, as are the fantastic digital effects by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, in a high-tech chamber piece all the more remarkable for having no dialogue whatsoever.
Director Mick Garris is King’s most established collaborator on TV projects, directing “The Stand” (1994), “Quicksilver Highway” (1997), “The Shining” (1997), “Riding the Bullet” (2004), “Desperation” (2006) and now “Bag of Bones.” A&E’s two-night miniseries focuses on the story’s deeply felt emotional elements as well as its supernatural ones — a writer dealing with his wife’s sudden death; a single working mother in a custody battle with her child’s grandfather; the legacy of racism in a small New England town. These are the specters that give Stephen King’s work its power.
“So often the [horror] genre is treated like the redheaded stepchild,” Garris said in a telephone interview. “It’s a ghetto, and people always want to say, ‘It’s really a psychological thriller.’ And it is. But it’s also a literary work. That’s the exciting thing about ‘Bag of Bones,’ and that’s why I’ve tried for five years to get it on film. I did the best work I could do, and with the most respect for the material that I could give it.”
When asked about his affinity with King, Garris mentioned that both men came from blue-collar backgrounds; and while King is a few years older, both grew up steeped in mid-20th century American pop culture — movies, rock ’n’ roll and TV. Garris directed the 1992 film “Sleepwalkers,” based on King’s original screenplay, but some of his strongest work has been on television miniseries, a medium generous with the time it takes to develop the intricate levels of narrative that characterize King’s more complex novels.
“We were going to do ‘Bag of Bones’ as a feature film first and it didn’t work out. In a way, that allowed us to make the script better and fuller,” admitted Garris. “With TV, you have increasingly less censorship than there was historically…. A&E was really quite liberal with what they allowed us to put into this adaptation. So even though there’s less time and money in doing television, it allows you the luxury of telling a story.”
Garris remains the only television director yet to dare tackle “The Stand.” King’s post-apocalyptic epic seemed to defy adaptation for many years, because of its length and irredeemably grim subject — an experimental virus destroys most of humanity, leaving survivors to take their cues from the book of Revelation and duke it out in the ruins.
Garris’ version (originally released in six one-hour segments in 1994) had a teleplay by King and showcased gripping performances by a cast that included Gary Sinise, Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Ed Harris and Kathy Bates. (In October, Ben Affleck was reportedly tapped by Warner Bros. to direct a new film version.) Even after repeated viewings, the first scene remains one of the most frightening ever televised, along with the now-famous opening credits set to Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.”
Three years later, Garris took on a three-part adaptation of “The Shining,” a move decried as heresy by the legions of filmgoers who regarded Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film, with Jack Nicholson’s career-defining role as Jack Torrance, as one of the high-water marks of horror cinema. (King himself had been unhappy with Kubrick’s film.)
In Garris’ production for which King wrote the teleplay, Steven Weber beautifully embodies the self-loathing and guilt that undermine Jack’s efforts to stay sober and Melvin Van Peebles as head cook Dick Hallorann hews closer to the character in King’s novel. And the Stanley Hotel, original inspiration for the Overlook, gets to play itself, complete with croquet court and topiary animals.
While King has never been above going for the gross-out, his best work confronts atavistic terrors: fear of the encroaching wilderness; the loss of a child or beloved spouse; a deep distrust of those in authority, whose own weaknesses and fears too often cause them to betray or destroy those whom they should protect. Garris, who laughingly refers to King’s remarkable 40-year career as “literary Viagra” and describes the author as “our Dickens,” honors King’s work by never condescending to it.
The original mission of the crew of the starship Enterprise of "Star Trek" was "to boldly go where no man has gone before." The Science network will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the "Star Trek" franchise Wednesday night with the premiere of a new documentary, "Trek Nation," which will explore the continuing legacy of "Star Trek" while featuring exclusive footage that few men have seen before.
The special, which airs at 8 p.m., also salutes late "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry and his vision for the future, spotlighting interviews with fans such as George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Seth MacFarlane and several alums from the TV series and "Star Trek" films.
Included in the special are snippets from hours of exclusive footage, including never-before-seen home movies from the Roddenberry family and the first-ever "Star Trek" convention. Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, the 37-year-old son of Gene Roddenberry, is the host and executive producer of the special, which also chronicles his personal journey to gain insight into his father's groundbreaking vision.
Roddenberry discussed the special in a phone interview from London, where he is attending a wedding.
Why does "Star Trek" continue to be such a phenomena and have such an effect all over the world?
It really has to do with the messages and the metaphors that were in the series and the following incarnations. I've learned that from so many fans, from all around the world and from all walks of life. Athletes, doctors, students, whoever, all relate to this commonality of believing in a future for the common good. Who wouldn't want to live in a future life like that?
What was going on with you as the "Star Trek" craze was developing?
I was very rebellious. I knew my father more as an authority, more as "Dad" rather than the man behind 'Star Trek.' I have to say I didn't get it at the time -- the metaphors and the context really didn't come across to me. My father passed away when I was 17, and sadly it took my father's passing to understand why what he did meant so much to so many people. It was then when I realized 'My dad did this.' I loved the philosophy.
In your opinion, who is the most important character in "Star Trek?"
There's a character in all my father's creation that is known as the "Roddenberry" character. It's also always the 'alien' character that shows us our humanity, that brings all the rest of the characters together and shows them their significance. Spock certainly fit in there. Data was a classic Pinocchio, always questioning what it's like to be human. I love Data, who was always showing what it is like to have emotion.
There's a stereotyped image of the "Star Trek" fan as being some weirdo who dresses up in starship uniforms and can act very strange and geeky.
I have complete respect and admiration for the fans. After my father's passing, they were the ones I turned to. They were inspired by my father and they spoke of how he inspired them to reach beyond their preconceived limitations of what they could accomplish. Plus, you go to any football games and see people wearing costumes. That's no big deal.
What is the biggest lesson you learned about your father?
Working on this was a very collaborative effort. The main thing that happened was learning things about my father that were not easy to hear. I learned early on that I needed to humanize him. He was put on a pedestal so early in life, and I needed to find out who the man was. Working on this brought him to a level where I could connect and identify with him, and love him even more. I do have one hope that audiences will continue to love and admire him, but also that they will realize that anyone can achieve greatness if they have the passion and will to see it through.
Photo: Director Robert Wise, left, Gene Roddenberry, DeForest Kelley and Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner (seated) on the set of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," which came out in 1979 and was the first big-screen adaptation of the TV series. Credit: Roddenberry estate
