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Doux News: June 9, 2013

This week: Again with the Buffy Re-Watch (we'll never shut up about it) -- Community quite possibly saved -- Rod Serling and Pride and Prejudice -- Veronica Mars casting -- Supernatural tidbits -- But is it art?

This is the quietest time of the year here at Doux, between the season finales and the premieres of the summer shows we're covering. (More about that here. We're covering a lot of stuff.)

Of course, the powerhouse that is Game of Thrones is still going strong. (We certainly got a lot of hits on Josie's review of last Sunday's episode. I wonder if anything important happened?) Teen Wolf and Arrested Development just began, too.

And there's our very own Buffy Re-Watch, which is going gangbusters. We've finally gotten past the early growing pains episodes and are up to season two's "Lie to Me", so there's a lot of good stuff to talk about right around the corner. We're doing a new episode every other day, and it's not too late to join us! The comment box is perpetually open, and it's never too late to post a comment on anything. We cover a lot of new stuff these days, but we love our old faves and enjoy getting comments on any of them, any time.

Community quite possibly saved

Yes, this is old news (I was taking a break from doing the Sunday newsletter for the past few weeks), but Community creator and showrunner Dan Harmon, fired last season, is officially returning to run season five, and he's promised not to be a jerk about season four. (I'd actually be okay with him being a jerk about season four.) Mark Greig, our Community reviewer, gave up on the show mid-season, but is now working on filling in the missing season two reviews. We even have a volunteer, Juliette, who will be covering the missing season four reviews. So we may very well be covering season five, possibly as a round robin. Let's hope Community gets its mojo back, now that it has its Dan back.

New this fall, or sometime at any rate

Mark Greig has already put together a a terrific rundown on what we have in store for us this fall. Since J.J. Abrams only has two new shows on the list (they had me at Karl Urban), he's also developing a limited event series based on Rod Serling's final, unproduced screenplay. That's the Rod Serling who hosted The Twilight Zone, if you're not familiar with the name. I remember reading somewhere that Serling's scripts were not the best Twilight Zone offerings (much like Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek), but it certainly sounds intriguing. Plus there's the J.J. treatment, which is no small thing. (Geez, doesn't the man have enough to do these days?)

Doux Reviews writers Sunbunny and ChrisB, with some assistance from Juliette, are currently reviewing all things Pride and Prejudice. It seems like the announcement of Death Comes to Pemberley, starring Matthew Rhys from The Americans as Darcy, is happening just for us. Doesn't it?

This week in casts

Michael Raymond-James has been upgraded to series regular on next season's Once Upon a Time.

Casting of the Veronica Mars movie is proceeding quickly, with the previous announcements of Jason Dohring and Enrico Colantoni (arguably the most important additions other than Kristen Bell) and the latest, Percy Dags III (Wallace Fennel) and Chris Lowell (Piz). Wallace, yes, but Piz? Nothing against Chris Lowell, who did a fine job with the part, but he mostly existed as an artificial LoVe obstruction, didn't he? And I'm certain he will be again. Sigh. More announcements are expected. I'm hoping for Tina Majorino, of course.

This week's Supernatural news

As you probably know, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite show of all time. But Supernatural is my favorite currently running show, and its longevity continues to amaze me. Some argue that it hasn't been as kick ass since Kripke left at the end of season five and I won't deny that there's something to that (although Kripke certainly doesn't have the ultimate magic touch, as those of us who have been complaining about Revolution can attest). But Supernatural is still a quality show, and is doing much better late in the game than I ever could have hoped. In fact, Supernatural's eighth season ended with the biggest viewership gain of any broadcast show this year. That's impressive.

Supernatural's success can most certainly be attributed to consistently good writing and a strong series mythology, and of course, the care that the writers have taken with their two lead characters played by Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki. Last week, I read a terrific article about the character of Dean Winchester, Supernatural's Dean Winchester Dismantled His Own Machismo-- and That's Why We Love Him. Lengthy, smart, and highly recommended. Especially if you love Dean as much as I do.

Jensen Ackles became a father last week! Danneel Harris announced the following on Twitter: "We are happy to announce the birth of our precious baby girl, Justice Jay 'JJ' Ackles. She was born happy and healthy on May 30th." What an interesting name.

Comment poetry

Josie Kafka has been tracking our "Recent Comments" section (right-hand column of the site, about in the middle) which only gives a word or three of the comment so that it doesn't spoil anyone. Those little words out of context sometimes form wacky "comment poetry" of sorts. Just recently, Josie noticed this one:
Sorry.
About this comment:
Eagerly, finally, never--
Yeah!
Two after six.
I loved this.
Did anyone?

That's it for this week. What's new with you guys? Raves, rants, questions? Post a comment!

10 comments:

  1. I'm always happy to hear about more people signing on to the VM movie... but Piz? I wonder how that will come about since it's supposed to centre around their High School reunion and he was introduced when they started college at Hurst! Hmmm...

    Just get me Mac please! And Weevil! What about Weevil?!

    I'll jump on the Buffy rewatch bandwagon as soon as I finish my Veronica Mars rewatch. It keeps getting interrupted by things like season finales, season premieres, big tennis matches... oh and yeah, real life! (pesky thing!) :p

    It was World Oceans Day yesterday! Did anyone know that? Take a minute to get their feet wet either for real or in spirit? ;o)

    Question: which summer series are you guys most excited about? I'm torn between The Newsroom and Falling Skies. True Blood has me a bit tired out (but I'm always ready to be surprised). And I'm always ready to enjoy my two summertime guilty pleasures: Teen Wolf and Covert Affairs! ;o)

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  2. The final seasons of Dexter and Breaking Bad are big ones for me. I've reviewed both series and am very emotionally involved. Less so with True Blood (as you say, Cris, it has me a bit tired out, too, although I'm going to continuing reviewing it). Falling Skies starts tonight, and I've grown very fond of Teen Wolf. :) And Josie's doing Under the Dome, which starts soon.

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  3. I loved that article on Dean. Very insightful, it made me even more in love with him -- if that is possible.

    In terms of my summer viewing, there have been so many new shows these past weeks that I am struggling just to keep up with them. I want to finish the shows I started watching this year, catch up with Continuum whose second season just started here and finish catching up with both Teen Wolf and Dexter.

    CrazyCris is being modest, by the way. She sponsored a Oceanic Blog-a-Thon to mark World Oceans Day that got a fair number of participants and a good number of readers. Juliette and I both joined in the fun. Check out this link to see what we all got up to: http://crazycrishereandthere.blogspot.com.es/2013/06/oceanic-blog-thon-2013.html

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  4. My dad's favorite Twilight Zone episodes were written by Rod Serling. I can' t speak to this, as that show always creeped me out and I hate watching it.

    Is it too much to hope that Piz is guest starring as a dead body whose murder Veronica must solve?

    Congrats to Jensen and Danneel. 'Justice' is an interesting name but 'JJ' is just freaking adorable.

    I know we usually don't cover celebrity news and stuff here, but this is quite possibly the cutest thing ever. If you can't tell, it's a picture of Alexis Denisof taking a picture of his FREAKING ADORABLE four year old daughter in front of a billboard for her daddy's big movie. All together now: Awwwwwww

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  5. That's just wonderful, CrazyCris.

    That photo of Alexis and his daughter is totally adorable.

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  6. Wowwwwwww

    Dan Harmon returning to Community !!??!!

    Lemme repeat : wowwwww

    And Josie's "poem" is quite...interesting...

    Hey ! Aren't we having fun with Buffy or what ?

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  7. Here's a new poem :

    Wow sunbunny
    Gus ! Typo
    Wowwwwwww Dan
    One of the Teen Wolf
    That's I sort of hate

    poetic (?).

    ReplyDelete
  8. "I remember reading somewhere that Serling's scripts were not the best Twilight Zone offerings..."

    I don't know. I just finished rewatching the entire series, and I can tell you that Mr. Serling personally wrote the VAST majority of The Twilight Zone (something like 60% or 70% of the episodes - it actually became a joke after a while to see "Written by Rod Serling" yet again). They weren't all home runs, of course, but he was the one responsible for most of the "classic" episodes that people remember. Serling was also an award-winning writer of plays and scripts even before The Twilight Zone started. Any comparison to Gene Roddenberry (a terrible writer, albeit a great producer) is completely specious in my opinion.

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  9. Tina Majorino will be there! And we can all watch the Veronica Mars movie happy.

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  10. If ya don't mind me asking, when are the Wire reviews going to start?

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