Page 1 of 8
March 29, 2013
Da
y
il
Inside:
comedy vets to
run grammer/
martin series
PAge 3
abc’s walters
to retire in 2014
PAge 4
king to close
tribeca fest
PAge 5
zodiak delivers
baby to miptv
PAge 6
tv review:
thrones
PAge 7
Meet FXX: New FX Net
Will Skew Younger
By Marisa Guthrie
and Lacey Rose
FX has made it official: Its new
network, FXX, will launch
Sept. 2 in 74 million homes.
The announcement came
Thursday morning during
the network’s first upfront
presentation in New York.
The new network will target viewers 18-34, FX Networks president and GM
John Landgraf said from the
stage at Manhattan’s Cipriani. The channel joins flagship FX and FXM, which is
dedicated to theatrical acquisitions and targets an older
25-54 audience. FXX will be
introduced with a branding
campaign that unites all
three networks under the
tagline “FX: Fearless.”
Collectively, the networks
will ramp up FX’s development and pilot-production
With the hit series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia among its anchors,
FXX will be more comedy focused than sister networks FX and FXM.
slate, more than doubling its
current offerings to feature
25 scripted original series
across the three nets during
the next three years. Each of
the networks — all of which
Landgraf will oversee — will
look to air its programming
exclusively in an effort to
build distinctive identities
as opposed to try to be all
things to all people.
FXX will be “slightly more
comedy focused,” Landgraf
told a roomful of Madison
Avenue buyers. It will launch
with four original scripted
comedies in the first year as
well as late-night show Totally
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March 29, 2013
tv news
FROM page 1
Biased With W. Kamau Bell
moving from a weekly series
to a five-nights-a-week strip.
FXX eventually will look to
have six original comedies
on its schedule as well as
original, slightly youngerskewing dramas. Comedies
Louie, Archer and Wilfred
will remain on flagship FX.
The channel will launch
with comedy hits It’s Always
Sunny in Philadelphia and
The League as its anchors.
The veteran efforts have been
renewed for season 10 and
season 5 and 6, respectively.
Landgraf also announced
a second-season pickup for
freshman comedy Legit,
and noted that the new net’s
fourth comedy likely will
come from one of the net’s
half-hour pilots. (A decision
on the future of Russell
Brand’s Brand X will be
made in the next couple
of months; if it continues,
it too will move to FXX.)
Acquired programming set
to air on the new network
includes Aaron Sorkin’s
Sports Night and Arrested
Development. Reruns of
Denis Leary’s Rescue Me
also will be shown on FXX.
In making the series of
announcements, including a
fifth-season renewal of Justified as well as a 10-episode
limited-series adaptation
of Joel and Ethan Cohen’s
1996 feature Fargo for FX,
Landgraf added that he’s
making a pointed run at the
broadcast networks’ slipping
grip on viewer dominance.
Viewers, he said, “have increasingly stopped settling
for the sameness of broadcast TV and its endless basic
cable imitators.”
What’s more, Landgraf
offered advertisers gathered
for the presentation an alternative to pricey broadcast advertising fees. As the company’s networks grow — with
FX posting gains of 23 percent and 28 percent among
the 18-49 and 18-34 demo,
respectively, for the first
quarter — “they will continue to deliver upscale
programming without the
legacy, upscale CPMs” [cost
per thousand viewers] that
the broadcast networks still
charge, he said.
The Fargo effort hails
from My Generation’s Noah
Hawley, who will pen the
script. Joel and Ethan Coen,
the writers, directors and producers behind the pic starring Frances McDormand,
William H. Macy and Steve
Buscemi, are on board to
executive produce the effort
from MGM Television and
FX Productions.
Also included in the
early-morning presentation
were brief snippets and executive producer interviews
associated with two upcoming drama pilots: Howard
Gordon’s Tyrant and Guillermo del Toro’s The Strain.
Landgraf confirmed that a
writing staff has been assembled for both projects, and
additional scripts already
are under way.
FX Orders Pair
of Comedy Pilots,
4 Limited Series
By Lesley Goldberg
It’s been a busy day for FX.
Hot on the heels of announcing the new network
FXX and handing out a
10-episode order to a mini
based on the 1996 feature
Fargo, FX has put four additional limited series into
development and ordered
two comedies to pilot.
The cablenetwork home
to comedies Wilfred and Louie
has ordered
to pilot How
Kaufman
and Why from
Oscar winner
Charlie Kaufman and Chozen
from Grant Dekernion, Danny
McBride and
Giamatti
the team behind
Eastbound &
Down.
Additionally,
the cabler put
into development MayPayne
flower, from
Paul Giamatti;
Grand Hotel, from Sam Mendes; Mad Dogs, based on the
British series and adapted
by Shawn Ryan; and Sutton,
based on J.R. Moeringher’s
novel and adapted by Alexander Payne.
How and Why tells the
story of a man who can explain how and why a nuclear
reactor works but is otherwise
clueless about life. Kaufman
(Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) will write and
helm the FX Productions
pilot and executive produce.
The pilot marks Kaufman’s
return to half-hour comedy
following Fox’s Ned & Stacey,
which ended its two-season
run in 1997. His TV credits
also include Get a Life, The
Dana Carvey Show and Adult
Swim’s stop-motion entry
Moral Orel in 2006.
Chozen hails from Dekernion, who will write and executive produce the animated
comedy about a white rapper recently released from
prison who uses his new survival skills in his quest for
redemption. McBride and
Rough House Pictures —
the team behind HBO’s
Eastbound & Down — will
exec produce along with
Floyd County Productions.
The characters in the FX
Productions effort will be
voiced by Saturday Night
Live’s Bobby Moynihan,
Michael Pena, Hannibal
Buress, Kathryn Hahn, Nick
Swardson and McBride.
Production on both pilots
will begin soon and join
Howard Gordon’s Tyrant,
Guillermo del Toro’s The
Strain and an untitled comedy from Andrew Gurland
at the network.
Mayflower is described
as an unflinching portrait
of the Puritan settlers at
Plymouth Colony and their
uneasy alliance with the
local Native Americans.
Gil Netter (Life of Pi, The
Blind Side) will executive
produce, marking his first
small-screen vehicle. Dan
Carey and Giamatti (Sideways) also will exec produce
alongside Doug Miro and
Carlo Bernard (The Sorcerer’s
Apprentice), with the latter
duo on board to pen the
FX Productions and Touchy
Feely Films series.
Grand Hotel takes place
inside an international luxury hotel in Paris that turns
into a trap when it becomes
the center of a terrorist attack.
Richard McBrien (Merlin)
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March 29, 2013
tv news
FROM page 2
will write and executive produce alongside Pippa Harris
(Revolutionary Road), Mendes (American Beauty, Skyfall) and Alain and Vassili
Clert (Spiral).
Mad Dogs follows the
reunion of four fortysomething guys who head to
Belize to visit their former
classmate when things take
an unexpected and dark
turn. Cris Cole, who created
the British series, will pen
and executive produce the
adaptation with Ryan returning to the cable network
behind his series The Shield
and Terriers to executive
produce for Sony Pictures
Television and Left Bank.
Sutton centers on the
journey of Willie “The Actor”
Sutton, an Irishman/folk
hero and the most prolific
bank robber in American
history as he goes from
the Attica prison to New
York City, where he takes a
reporter and photographer
on a guided tour of his life
of crime. The Wrestler’s Rob
Siegel will pen the series
and executive produce the
FX Productions installment
alongside Jim Burke (The
Descendants), Michael De
Luca (Moneyball, The Social
Network), Payne (The Descendants, Sideways) and Jim
Taylor (The Descendants).
The limited entries come
as FX has found success with
Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk’s anthology American
Horror Story, which reboots
its cast and story each season.
Comedy Vets to
Run Series With
Grammer, Martin
By Lacey Rose
The oddball comedy pairing of Kelsey Grammer and
Martin Lawrence has found
its leaders.
The Lionsgate-produced
show will be written and
executive produced by Bob
Boyett and Robert Horn,
comedy veterans whose halfhour credits collectively include Family Matters, Perfect
Strangers, Full House, Living
Single and Designing Women.
The hiring of two seasoned
writer-producers for the
10/90 show follows similar
moves on Anger Management
and the untitled George
Lopez project, which lured
The Drew Carey Show’s Bruce
Helford and Roseanne’s Matt
Williams as showrunners.
The news comes after
Lionsgate executives and
the project’s stars met with
several writer-producers who
were brought in
to pitch ideas.
The project,
which will
launch with
a 10-episode
Boyett
straight-toseries order
poised to trigger a back
90 episodes,
has yet to be
pitched to
Horn
networks.
“We can confirm that Bob Boyett and
Robert Horn have been
selected as candidates for the
proposed Martin LawrenceKelsey Grammer multicam
comedy that we are developing for the 10/90 model in
partnership with DebmarMercury,” Lionsgate TV
Group president Kevin Beggs
said in a statement. “We are
thrilled that they responded
to the hilarious pairing of
comedic legends and look
forward to concluding a
deal with them and starting the development process immediately.”
Unlike Anger Management
and Lionsgate’s Lopez comedy, the Lawrence-Grammer
project began as a pairing
with neither a title nor a
concept. “But the idea of
Kelsey and Martin together
is inherently funny and
draws comparisons to great
pairings in the past, whether
it’s The Odd Couple or Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder,”
Beggs noted in an interview
with The Hollywood Reporter
in early March.
Debmar co-presidents
Mort Marcus and Ira Bernstein initially identified
Martin as somebody who
was interesting for the 10/90
model and were concluding
a deal with him. Around
the same time, Grammer’s
Starz drama Boss, another
Lionsgate effort, was canceled, leaving Lionsgate TV
COO Sandra Stern to suggest pairing the two in a
genre for which Grammer
has long been known.
“We had those conversations with each, and it was
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March 29, 2013
tv news
FROM page 3
great because they’re so
respectful of each other,”
recalled Beggs in that early
March interview. “Each artist basically said, ‘Do you
think they’d work with me?’
It was an incredibly humble
point of view for both of
these men, who to me are
titans of TV.”
ABC’s Walters
set to Retire
in may 2014
By Marisa Guthrie
NEW YORK — Veteran ABC
News personality Barbara
Walters is poised to retire
in May 2014, sources told
The Hollywood Reporter.
Walters, 83, is expected
to make the announcement
herself. She
will stay on
at The View
through next
season, according to sources,
Walters
to usher the
show through
an impending transition
that will mark the exits of
hosts Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Walters’ final year as a
regular presence on ABC
News and The View will
be filled with tributes to
more than half a century
in broadcasting.
News of her retirement
is not unexpected. She suffered a health setback this
year when she contracted
chicken pox, which caused
her to become faint and
fall and cut her head at the
home of the British ambassador in January. The epi-
sode sent her to the hospital and kept her off The View
for several weeks.
And Walters herself
has flirted with retirement
publicly. A seemingly offthe-cuff remark during a
2011 interview with President Barack Obama that
she planned to retire “next
year” sent media speculation into overdrive. At the
time, an ABC News spokesperson brushed off the news
flash, saying, “Barbara has
joked that she is retiring
every year since the Clinton
administration.”
scorsese preps
Gangs tv series
with miramax
By Lesley Goldberg
Gangs of New York is heading
to the small screen.
Martin Scorsese and
Miramax are teaming to
develop a television adaptation of his Oscar-nominated
2002 feature, the company
announced Thursday.
The potential series,
which does not have a network attached, will draw
from the events in the Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron
Diaz and Daniel Day-Lewis
film and take place at the
turn of the 20th century.
The story will take place in
New York and other cities
including Chicago as the
show explore’s the birth of
organized crime in America.
“This time and era of
America’s history and heritage is rich with characters
and stories that we could
not fully explore in a twohour film,” Scorsese said of
Gangs, for which he earned
a best director Oscar nomination. “A television series
allows us the time and creative freedom to bring this
colorful world, and all the
implications it had and still
does on our
society, to life.”
Added Miramax chairman
Richard Nanula: “No one
better exempli- Scorsese
fies what the
new Miramax is and will be
better than Martin Scorsese.
His dedication to quality
and the art of storytelling
continues to excite everyone that works with him
and watches his films and
television programs.”
The series would mark
Scorsese’s latest smallscreen venture, joining
HBO’s Emmy-nominated
period gangster drama
Boardwalk Empire, which
will bow its fourth season
this year.
Cuomo, Bolduan,
Pereira Team for
CNN A.M. Show
By Erin Carlson
NEW YORK — CNN has
tapped Chris Cuomo and
Kate Bolduan to host a
new morning show slated
to premiere in the spring.
In addition, Michaela
Pereira of KTLA Morning
News in Los Angeles has
joined the cable network
as the New York-based program’s news anchor. Jim
Murphy boards as senior
executive producer and Matt
Frucci as executive producer.
“I’ve been looking forward to this announcement
since I first joined CNN,”
CNN Worldwide president
Jeff Zucker said in a statement Thursday. “Chris,
Kate and Michaela are a
dynamic team that will give
our viewers in America a
new way to start their day.
We were floored with excitement when we saw Chris
and Kate together onscreen,
and by adding Michaela
to the mix, we feel we have
something very special. We
believe there is an opening
to do news in the morning
with a fresh, new voice.”
Cuomo moved over to
CNN from ABC in January;
at ABC, his was co-anchor
at 20/20, news anchor for
Good Morning America and
ABC News chief law and justice correspondent. At CNN,
he’s covered events ranging
from the papal conclave to
the State of the Union.
Bolduan, who’s been
with the channel since 2007,
co-anchors The Situation
Room with Wolf Blitzer and
is one of CNN’s congressional correspondents.
“It is a huge opportunity
to work on this new show,”
she said. “Knowing that we
have the resources of some
of the most experienced
executives in the business,
the backing of a brand like
CNN and to be able to sit
alongside such great people as Chris and Michaela
— I can’t think of a better
combination.”
Added Cuomo: “This has
been a rare pleasure for me.
Meeting Kate and Michaela
onscreen and off, I knew
right away that this is my
thr
TV family.”
Page 5 of 8
March 29, 2013
movie news
Tribeca Fest to Close
With King Restoration
By Tatiana Siegel
they were there with you, in
your living room. Robert De
Niro and I were both drawn
to Paul Zimmerman’s script
... which really captured the
show business atmosphere
and the desperate attachments that some of the people on the other side of the
screen could form.”
The Tribeca fest is set to
run April 17-28.
The Tribeca Film Festival
has tapped a restored version of Martin Scorsese’s
The King of Comedy as its
closing-night film.
The festival, now in its
12th year, sometimes opts
for a studio tentpole in the
slot as it did last year with
The Avengers. But festival
co-founder Jane Rosenthal
said this film, which will
screen April 27 at BMCC
Tribeca Performing Arts
Center, “seems more relevant today than it was 30
years ago,” when it released.
King, which was written
by Paul D. Zimmerman,
stars festival co-founder
Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis,
Diahnne Abbott and Sandra
Bernhard. Arnon Milchan
produced the film, which is
recognized for its groundbreaking foresight into the
reality TV culture and the
lack of distinction between
renown and notoriety.
The Film Foundation,
Regency Enterprises and
Fox joined forces to spearhead the restoration. The
film is being restored digitally in 4K from the original
camera negatives at Sony
Colorworks. John Polito at
Audio Mechanics is digitally
restoring the soundtrack.
“Twelve years ago when
we announced the first festival, it was Marty’s idea for
us to feature restored and rediscovered films,” Rosenthal
said. “The King of Comedy was
The King of Comedy stars Tribeca
Fest co-founder Robert De Niro.
so ahead of its time. … We are
so grateful to Jim Gianopulos
and Regency for helping to
restore such an iconic film
and ensuring it remains a
part of our cultural heritage.”
The film, which shines
a light on the darker side
of comedy, kicks off when
talk show host Jerry Langford (Lewis) is kidnapped by
stand-up comedian Rupert
Pupkin (De Niro) and his
sidekick (Bernhard). Langford is forced to give Pupkin a shot at the big time
by allowing the struggling
comic to perform his routine
on Langford’s show.
Said Scorsese: “I’ve always
been partial to comedians —
the irreverence, the absurdity,
the hostility, all the feelings
under the surface — and to
the old world of late-night
variety shows hosted by Steve
Allen and Jack Paar and, of
course, Johnny Carson, to the
familiarity and the camaraderie between the guests.
You had the feeling that
comers also include Jude Law,
Harvey Keitel, Saoirse Ronan,
Tom Wilkinson, Mathieu
Amalric, Tony Revolori and
F. Murray Abraham.
Anderson returnees include
Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Willem
Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Bob
Balaban — and of course,
Jason Schwartzman, Owen
Wilson and Bill Murray.
Searchlight distributed
Anderson’s 2007 film The
Darjeeling Limited and 2009’s
Fantastic Mr. Fox, while Focus
Features handled last year’s
Moonrise Kingdom.
Talk, Son:
Budapest Hotel Good
D’Angelo
Bound for States Chase,
Vacation
Via Searchlight eyeing
By Borys Kit
By Jordan Zakarin
Chevy Chase and Beverly
has reserved The Grand Budapest Hotel.
The specialty label has
acquired rights to distribute
worldwide writer-director
Wes Anderson’s latest film,
The Hollywood Reporter has
confirmed. The pic, which
just wrapped production in
Germany, is described as a
story about “a legendary concierge at a famous European
hotel between the wars and
his friendship with a young
employee who becomes his
trusted protege.”
A late 2013 or early 2014
release is being eyed.
Produced by Scott Rudin,
Steven Rales and Jeremy
Dawson, Budapest Hotel features an immense ensemble
cast filled with Anderson regulars and several new stars.
Led by Ralph Fiennes, new-
D’Angelo are in talks to reprise their classic roles of
Clark and Ellen Griswold for
New Line’s Vacation reboot.
Ed Helms and Christina
Applegate are starring in the
pic, which will be directed
by John Francis Daley and
Jonathan Goldstein.
The sequel-cum-reboot
follows the son of the Griswold clan, Rusty (played by
Anthony Michael Hall in the
original and now by Helms),
as he takes his family on a
road trip similar to the one
he and his parents and sister
took when he was young.
At one point, he visits his
parents, with his dad giving
him Griswoldian advice.
The casting of Chase and
D’Angelo is no surprise as
it was always New Line’s
intention to nab the duo for
thr
cameo roles.
NEW YORK — Fox Searchlight
Page 6 of 8
March 29, 2013
international news
Royal Baby
Doc Headed
to MIPTV
LONDON — A new one-hour
documentary, William, Kate
and the Royal Baby, detailing the story of the Duke
and Duchess of Cambridge’s
first pregnancy, will be
touted to buyers during the
2013 MIPTV market, set to
run April 8-11 in Cannes.
Zodiak Rights, the international division of Zodiak
Media, has inked a deal to
take on sales for the doc from
Paris-based CB Productions.
The one-hour special, coproduced by CB Productions
and Marathon for France 3,
will be delivered in July,
just in time for the royal
baby’s arrival.
The doc looks at the worldwide interest in the Duke
and Duchess of Cambridge’s
first child and what lies ahead
for this new member of the
world’s oldest monarchy.
Prince William also will
be appearing in the second
season of U.K. reality show
Helicopter Rescue, which
returns to BBC1 and BBC2
on April 8. The Duke of Cambridge is known to spend
some of his free time captaining a crew of helicopter
rescuers in Devon. According
to the BBC, he’ll be shown
working with his crew and
discussing the tension and
excitement of his chosen
avocation in the second
season’s first episode.
Matt Cardy/Getty Images
By Stuart Kemp
The special examines the global
interest in the Duke and Duchess
of Cambridge’s first pregnancy.
Zodiak Rights, who are
handling sales of the new
baby doc, previously brokered
sales for the one-hour royal
wedding special William,
Kate and 8 Royal Weddings.
As well as pre-sales to
France 5, TSR and RTBF,
Zodiak Rights also inked
deal memos to TLC in the
U.S., UKTV in the U.K.,
Antena 3 in Spain, RTL2 in
Germany, VTM in Flemishspeaking Belgium, Nova in
the Czech Republic, MTV 3
in Finland, Noga in Israel,
Leland in China, NTV Nippon Television in Japan, NBC
Universal in Russia, CBC in
English-speaking Canada
and Radio Canada for the
French-speaking territory.
Royal Baby is co-produced
by Marathon, part of the Zodiak Media Group and CB
Prod, one of Europe’s leading royal family specialists.
Zodiak Rights owns worldwide rights to the title.
33 U.S. Series
Set for China’s
Youku Tudou
By Patrick Brzeski
Youku Tudou, China’s leading
Internet streaming video service, announced on Thursday
the addition of 33 U.S. TV
dramas, comedies and variety
shows to its library of licensed
content.
Among the titles picked
up by the Chinese online
video giant are Modern Family, 2 Broke Girls, Cougar
Town, The Vampire Diaries,
Pretty Little Liars, Revenge
and 27 other popular shows
from ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC,
The CW and WB.
According to the company,
viewership of U.S. TV is its
fastest-growing content category, with an increase of
roughly 400 percent from
2011 to 2012. Average views
for single episodes reach as
high as 2.5 million, Youku
Tudou said in a statement.
After appearing on
Youku.com, The Walking
Dead became the mostwatched U.S. show in China,
reaching the top three on
Chinese Internet search giant
Baidu’s TV list, with the third
season scoring more than
95 million views on Youku.
The huge content coup
more than doubles Youku
Tudou’s existing library of
American TV series. Since
2010, the company had imported slightly more than
20 U.S. TV shows, including
Desperate Housewives, American Idol, Scandal, Glee, Survivor, America’s Got Talent
and The X Factor.
Financial terms and the
specific timing for the slate
of acquisitions were not disclosed.
Youku and Tudou once
were major rivals in the
fiercely competitive Chinese
streaming video space, ranking No. 1 and No. 2 by market
share, respectively. Youku
acquired Tudou in August
in a stock deal valued at
$1 billion. The new entity,
Youku Tudou, is traded on the
New York Stock Exchange as
YOKU. Combined, the company’s two sites, Youku.com
and Tudou.com have a user
base of nearly half a billion,
by most estimates.
Cineflix Inks
First-Look Deal
With October
By Etan Vlessing
TORONTO — Indie distributor
Cineflix Rights has inked an
exclusive first-look deal with
U.K. indie production banner
October Films.
The agreement gives the
London-based distribution
arm of Cineflex Media the
worldwide rights for new
programming from October
over the next two years.
The British firm is best
known for TV documentary
fare like World War II From
Space for History, You Have
Been Warned for Discovery
Channel and Letting Go for
the BBC.
The distribution deal
was negotiated by Cineflix
Rights senior vp of acquisitions Noel Hedges, and adds
October to major suppliers
like Impossible Pictures,
Windfall Films and LMNO
thr
Productions.
Page 7 of 8
March 29, 2013
tv reviews
Game of Thrones
Ciaran Hinds is
a new player on
Game of Thrones.
By Tim Goodman
Much of the chatter that
drives HBO’s addictive and
outstanding drama series
Game of Thrones tends to
come from people who have
read the books by George
R.R. Martin, even though
relatively speaking they are
a minority. But they know
a lot. They are very devoted
and insider-y and can recall
characters that barely have
graced the screen — and
even then are covered in dirt
and hardly recognizable.
These book-first, awesometelevision-series-second
types are way, way ahead
of everyone else.
They have conversations
amongst themselves about
what’s being left out from the
books and how effectively
the massive tomes are being
divided into a TV series.
And much of their driving
internal force comes from
wondering what David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the series
creators, writers and showrunners will do with the characters and events these fans
already know the fates of;
they can’t be satiated.
For the rest of us, well,
Thrones is first and foremost
one of the most ambitious
and creatively challenging
(and rewarding) shows on
television. Secondly, the
series is mighty dense. If
you lack sufficient bandwidth in your memory or
you haven’t “marathoned”
the previous season right
before staring the next one,
break out the Advil.
That said, having watched
the first four episodes of
Season 3, there are barely
a handful of series that generate this kind of fervent
appreciation for the skills
at hand. It’s like being in
some epic tale that never
ceases to be engrossing and
creates a kind of demanding,
spoiled attitude that culminates in this despondent and
annoyed declaration: “Why
do they only make 10 episodes
a season!?”
And yes, after the first two
10-episode seasons on HBO,
it’s clear that no other genre
series has managed the leap
to greatness quite as quickly
as Thrones. The series took
fantasy, a la The Lord of the
Rings, and made it as intellectually significant as the
deep existential musings of
Mad Men and as rigorously
fast-paced and addictive as
Breaking Bad by creating
worlds and rules and legends that have no bearing
on “the real world” but echo
its deepest mysteries, worries,
complications and mundane
daily realities. In that sense,
it takes what outsiders might
consider “some sci-fi show”
and turns it on its head,
revealing that great art can
come from any genre pro-
vided (in the television landscape) if the writing, acting
and ambition are there.
Season 3 can be comfortably described as insanely
ambitious. In a series that
already has so many characters and interwoven storylines, viewers get two fascinating new characters in Mance
Rayder (Ciaran Hinds), the
King-Beyond-the-Wall and
Olenna Redwyne (Diana
Rigg), a new location in Astapor, bands of warriors forgotten since Season 1 and
enough fallout and intrigue
from Season 2 to last a whole
lot longer than 10 episodes
(the third book in Martin’s
series will be split into this
season and the next because
it was so massive).
Benioff and Weiss have
said that Season 3 will,
in fact, be the most packed
of all because it builds so
many stories (and necessitates new arrivals) but that
moving forward there will
the typical Thrones winnowing out, which usually means
some popular character you
think will live forever ends
up with his or her head on
a spike.
(In this area, so much
praise must be given to the
readers of Martin’s books
because they haven’t spoiled
anything for the rest of us —
though, given the influence
of social media, they quite
easily could if they wanted.
It’s that devotion to quality
television and not wanting to
ruin it for anybody that makes
shows like this so special.)
And in keeping with the
no-spoiler rule, all that really
needs to be said about Season 3 is that the first four
hours are immensely enjoyable and leave you, at the
end of each, pleading like
a junkie for the next six.
This, of course, is the curse
of Thrones’ finest achievement, and it does have one
unfortunate side effect for
the individual episodes: This
sprawling story, being told
in only 10 episodes, doles
out in an hour only precious
morsels of plot from a variety of characters and clans,
then abruptly switches to
the next character or clan
and so on. The end result is,
despite the brilliant quality,
a bubbling frustration for
more, more, more.
But if that’s the main
drawback of your series —
that viewers are so enraptured that they get frustrated in their desire for
additional scenes, episodes
or seasons — then you’re
doing something truly right.
Here’s to a dense, layered,
enterprising and fascinating
journey through Season 3,
and as many more seasons
as need be to complete this
incomparable fantasy.
Premiere date: Sunday, 9 p.m.
thr
ET/PT (HBO).
Page 8 of 8
March 29, 2013
tv reviews
Orphan Black
By Tim Goodman
We are in that period of television where the riches are
so immense and so deep and
varied that you can’t possibly
keep reminding yourself how
lucky you are. Let’s face it,
you’re spoiled.
There are the obvious
top-tier series such as Mad
Men, Breaking Bad and Game
of Thrones, but Justified and
Boardwalk Empire are great
too, and The Walking Dead
went from scary and unique
to scary and brilliant. The
list goes on and on. Even
when we get something like
Vikings on History — which
is entertaining and selfaware enough to know that
it’s not trying to be Shakespeare, much less Game of
Thrones — you can’t help but
add it to your list. Same goes
for Banshee on Cinemax
and Bates Motel on A&E. No
matter what your mood is,
there’s a show for you. And
chances are, that show will
be pretty damn good.
And now we can welcome
Orphan Black, the second
original series from BBC
America (after Copper), and
what a thoroughly impressive,
wildly entertaining hour it is.
But maybe, in some ways,
Orphan Black goes beyond
that description. It’s addictive and compelling — you
want the next episode mere
seconds after the previous
one has ended, which is
always a fantastic sign. But
even beyond that, there’s
little doubt that Orphan
Black is more than just a
thrill ride or some guilty
pleasure. It is, flat out, one
of the most intriguingly
Tatiana Maslany
assumes a new
identity on
Orphan Black.
entertaining new series of
the year, and it’s so much
more than pure entertainment. For a sci-fi series,
there’s some real heft to it.
Orphan Black stars the
wonderful Tatiana Maslany as Sarah, whom we
first meet asleep on a train
coming into the outskirts
of New York. She has an
English accent. A stranger
in our world. Dressed in all
black with shorts and stockings, we know Sarah is tough.
As she’s arguing on the phone,
she watches as some Wall
Street-type woman weeps
and tries to keep it together.
Minutes later, the woman
has taken off her shoes and
folded her suit jacket neatly
and steps in front on an
oncoming train. But before
she does, she looks to her
right and sees Sarah.
They are remarkably
similar — possibly twins.
Desperate for money,
Sarah takes the woman’s
purse and, upon seeing the
driver’s license and pictures,
is freaked out by the fact
she might have an identical
twin she didn’t know about.
Sarah’s a hard, adopted
kid who grew up fierce on
the streets. She’s closest to
her adopted brother, Felix
(Jordan Gavaris), and tells
him of the situation. Sarah
has a daughter named Kira,
who she hasn’t seen in 10
months, having left her with
Mrs. S (Maria Doyle Kennedy), who was Sarah and
Felix’s foster mother. To get
the money to have a life for
her daughter and Felix,
Sarah first tries to sell cocaine
but then realizes that the
woman who jumped in front
of the train, Beth, might have
a life that Sarah can occupy.
This is where Orphan
Black gets really good. Beth
might have all the things that
Sarah doesn’t, but trying
to become someone else is
both extremely difficult and
troublesome to Sarah, especially when she realizes her
doppelganger’s life, while so
exciting from the outside —
fancy apartment, hunky boyfriend, sweet car — actually
is much more complicated
than her own.
You can’t give Maslany
enough credit here; she’s
fantastic as Sarah, who
becomes Beth, then finds the
ongoing secret of the series:
They’re all clones. Series
creators Graeme Manson
(Flashpoint), who does the
writing, and John Fawcett
(Spartacus), who does the
directing, have been massaging this Orphan Black
storyline for a decade, and
you can tell immediately
they’ve worked out the angles.
This is a series that feels as
confident as any you’ll see
on TV right now, and it has
the added benefit of being
a sci-fi show without much
heavy sci-fi, broadening its
appeal. The story moves
quickly, is thrilling at every
turn and has surprisingly
solid acting on every level.
BBC America still might
need to work out some of
the kinks in Copper, but it
has an excellent and entertaining second scripted
entry in Orphan Black.
Premiere date: Saturday, 9 p.m.
thr
ET/PT (BBC America).