John Mayo, of ComicBookPage, and Kay Kellam, of PopArtsPlace, have a spoilers filled discussion about the Twelve Monkeys movie from 1995. With Syfy having finished a season of the tv show 12 Monkeys, based on the premise of this movie, we decided it was time we sat down to not only watch the original film, but speculate on how it could evolve into a show we are looking forward to binge watching.
For those who have not yet seen the movie, and have a Hulu subscription, with the Showtime Add-on, you can stream Twelve Monkeys through your Hulu account.
Fans of The Closer, which starred Kyra Sedgwick, were disappointed when the show was cancelled after seven season on TNT. Then, like a phoenix rising from the ashes came Major Crimes. Remarkably similar to The CloserMajor Crimes has a strikingly similar cast, with a new leader, and a new guiding principle. It is no longer enough to close the case — now they want a confession, a conclusion that is so iron clad the D.A. can walk in and cut a deal, not only saving the citizens a costly trial, and meaning the state knows the guilty party will indeed go to jail, instead of pulling some legal wizardry at trial, and getting away with a trial we have just spent an hour being convinced they committed.
After 109 episodes in which cases were closed, week after week, the Major Crimes division has spent 66 episodes making sure the criminals will go away. One of the most interesting aspects of Major Crimes has been the use of Rusty (Graham Patrick Martin) to take a character who we gradually saw more and more of near the end of The Closer, Captain Sharon Raydor (Mary McDonnell), and take her from a very brusque by-the-book officer on the side of Internal Affairs, to a more sympathetic, maternal team leader.
Rusty, a street kid whose testimony was needed in a trial, started as a rough around the edges boy who had no interest in the members of Major Crimes getting into his life and pressing him to testify. Now, he is a part of Captain Raydor’s life, his adopted son, they have shown one another a definition of family that reminds the audience we can choose who we call family, and that being there for people, no matter what is perhaps the most important thing — mattering infinitely more than the value of physical gifts given at holidays, or shared DNA.
One of the great subplots of this season, that has extended to a series of online videos, has been Rusty’s realization that when he was living on the streets no one was looking for him. But now, he has Sharon… and the team as well, but predominantly Sharon, and that means, above all else, he has someone who would file a Missing Person’s Report should he go missing. It sounds so simple, and yet, to someone who has had no one to rely on, or trust, for so long, it means so much.
Upon seeing a Missing Person who was found dead, and realizing no one filed a report on her, Rusty sets out to identify the girl… the person who, under other circumstances, could have been him.
The first episode of Forever, coming this fall on ABC is available on-line now at the ABC site (and we are hearing some cable/video-on-demand boxes have it), and is well worth the time to check out… or you could be patient, and wait until it premiers, on your television, Tuesday Sept. 23.
This is a show that caught my eye at San Diego’s Comic-Con International with an interesting trailer at the ABC booth, and the first episode lived up to my hopes. It fulfills the promises, introducing us to the main characters and giving us a sufficient idea of how they are connected to one another, and just enough back story on the key players to make them interesting, and prompt me to want to come back next week and find out more. I’ll concede there was at least one moment where I groaned and wondered why they chose to open that door and head down that path… but since I have no idea what is ahead, or where we are going, that simply leaves me wondering where the path I would not have chosen will take us, and if I will be satisfied when we reach the end of it, or if I will wish we had taken a path less traveled.
ABC’s Forever, poster from the ABC.com Site
Forever stars: Ioan Gruffudd (Ringer, Fantastic 4), Judd Hirsch (Taxi, Numb3rs), Alana De La Garza (Law and Order, Do No Harm), and Joel David Moore (Bones,Avatar), all of whom are familiar faces with a large body of work between them, and they come together with some very nice performances, honestly, when you pull together such an evenly matched cast, how is one to choose a stand out? Instead it would be fair to say they continually bring out the best in one another.
With flavors of previous characters visible you can easily understand why these actors came to mind when the show was being cast, and yet already it appears they will be playing different characters than we have seen them in before, simply with a similar foundation and core, I felt subtle differences even in this first episode (perhaps in part because I was watching the screen, watching to see if they were there or not), again making me curious to see what future episodes have in store for the audience.
This is a great trailer for the show, but be warned, it draws heavily on the first episode to pitch the show, that said, I really do love how it sells Forever.
