television

Chris Knight's avatar

This past season of Doctor Who has seen some of the best storytelling in the entire forty-five year history of the franchise. More than six months later and I am still as much in awe at “Forest of the Dead” as I am enthralled about what it hinted about the Doctor’s future. And of course there was “The Stolen Earth”/”Journey’s End” two-parter that hailed the return of Davros: possibly the greatest villain in all of fiction.

So is it possible that the now-traditional Christmas special of Doctor Who could be just as up to par with what has already transpired in 2008? More to the point: could this year’s special “The Next Doctor” please be much better than the glorious mess that was last year’s “Voyage of the Damned”?!

In so many words: “Yes yes YES!!!”

“I’m the Doctor! Simply the Doctor! The one, the only, and the BEST!”

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Chris Knight's avatar

Sad news out of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts: veteran character actor Paul Benedict, who was perhaps best known as British neighbor Harry Bentley on the classic sitcom The Jeffersons, has died at the age of 70.

If you grew up in the late Seventies and into the Eighties, Benedict was just about everywhere. His portrayal of Mr. Bentley was the biggest reason why a lot of people tuned in to The Jeffersons every week… ‘cuz Bentley was probably one of the funniest characters in television history.

Benedict also did quite a bit of film work. One of the earliest roles that I remember him from was Jeremiah Johnson, which was a drastic – and dramatic – departure from much of the rest of his resume. A lot of people will note that he was in This is Spinal Tap, where he uttered the immortal line “I ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Ten years ago tonight, the Babylon Project came to a magnificent end as “Sleeping in Light”, the series finale of Babylon 5 – considered by many to be the greatest television show of the Nineties – was broadcast on TNT.

I have not written nearly enough about Babylon 5 on this blog. J. Michael Straczynski’s soaring, spanning epic about the Babylon 5 space station and the people within it, I can confidently attest, had the most profound impact on my personal philosophy of any work of televised fiction. From the first time I heard about it in an issue of Starlog in the summer of 1992, I knew this would be one to watch for. And it did not disappoint: the shot of the Vorlon fleet coming through the jumpgate in the pilot movie should have been fair warning to everyone that science-fiction television would never be the same....

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Kinda reinforces the notion that for the most part, this upcoming season of Lost is going to be practically two different shows. One will be about Locke, Sawyer and the rest who were still on the island when it “moved” to God knows where (and God Himself may not even know if Ben wasn’t lying for once). And the other will be about Jack’s group that was able to leave, who are now all trying to get back.

Good poster. I like it a lot 🙂...

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Today marks an extraordinarily dubious anniversary for the Star Wars saga. Because it was thirty years ago tonight, on November 17th, 1978, that CBS aired the first and last broadcast of The Star Wars Holiday Special.

The two-hour schlockfest is now widely considered by many to be the absolutely worst block of television in the history of anything…

“One of these things is not like the others…”

I’m not even going to try to pretend to make sense of this… thing. If you want to see it, you’ll be able to find it all over the ‘net and if you don’t want to see it well, that’s two hours of your life that’re your own to spend how you wish. I remember watching this as a way wee lad on the night that it aired, and even then I thought it was pretty terrible. I mean, Harvey Korman as ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

“Where we going Mommy?”

“We’re going on vacation, baby.”

And among the other intriguing things in this new promo: Juliet uncovering what looks to be another hatch, Daniel wearing a mining helmet underground, Locke at Jacob’s cabin, Sun locked in a room demanding to be let out, and what looks to be the words “DHARMA Initiative” that flashes by very rapidly (don’t blink or you might miss seeing it).

DarkUFO has an even better quality version for you to enjoy looking… and guessing… at....

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Lost is returning for its fifth season on January 21st (two and a half months from now) with “Because You Left”, the two-hour premiere. That’s according to James Hibberd’s The Live Feed. Lost will have the 9 p.m. Wednesday slot for the rest of the season (which will no doubt make a lot of people happy that they don’t have to stay up so late… right Geoff? 🙂

Speaking of Lost, I have been hearing some weird rumors regarding Season 5. Namely: that when Ben moved the Island it went backward in time and we’ll see the castaways who stayed behind meeting up with DHARMA folks like Horace and “Dr. Candle”, that there will be a flashback episode for the Black Rock, that “Jeremy Bentham” will turn out to be a clone, etc. What other show but Lost could make such outrageous concepts perfectly logical for the ...

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