Not letting his defeat for Best Actor at this year's Academy Awards keep him down, Mickey Rourke has signed onto Marvel's Iron Man 2. Rourke, who will be playing the villain Whiplash, joins Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson as the newest additions to the franchise, which also includes Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, the man destined to become War Machine. Director Jon Favreau returns along with Robert Downey, Jr., Gwenyth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson and Paul Bettany, all reprising their roles from the first film, the breakout hit for Marvel Studios as an independent film production company. Iron Man 2 will kick off the 2010 summer movie season on May 7, much as the first did last year and went on to gross almost $600 million worldwide. Iron Man is one of four cornerstone franchises culminating in The Avengers to be released in 2012. The other franchises whose characters have, and will continue, to pop up in each other's films include The Incredible Hulk, also released summer 2008, Thor and The First Avenger: Captain America, both scheduled for summer 2011.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Iron Man 2 Casting Scoop
Not letting his defeat for Best Actor at this year's Academy Awards keep him down, Mickey Rourke has signed onto Marvel's Iron Man 2. Rourke, who will be playing the villain Whiplash, joins Sam Rockwell and Scarlett Johansson as the newest additions to the franchise, which also includes Don Cheadle replacing Terrence Howard as James Rhodes, the man destined to become War Machine. Director Jon Favreau returns along with Robert Downey, Jr., Gwenyth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson and Paul Bettany, all reprising their roles from the first film, the breakout hit for Marvel Studios as an independent film production company. Iron Man 2 will kick off the 2010 summer movie season on May 7, much as the first did last year and went on to gross almost $600 million worldwide. Iron Man is one of four cornerstone franchises culminating in The Avengers to be released in 2012. The other franchises whose characters have, and will continue, to pop up in each other's films include The Incredible Hulk, also released summer 2008, Thor and The First Avenger: Captain America, both scheduled for summer 2011.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Resident Evil REtrospective
WARNING: This post contains scenes of extreme violence and gore.
On Friday, Resident Evil 5 arrives in stores in North America. It's been four years since a new RE game hit shelves and I couldn't be more excited. Note: Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was released in 2007, but it recaps events that occured in previous games.
There are only a handful of franchises I trust so blindly as to purchase their games without any information about them, including whether critics favor them. I would buy anything that begins with The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Metroid and Castlevania. I would similarly buy anything that begins Resident Evil.
I discovered Resident Evil later than most, in large part due to the fact that I never owned a Playstation. The first Resident Evil game was released in 1996. At that time I was busy playing Super Mario 64 and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire on my N64.
Luckily for me, Capcom decided to port its sequel, Resident Evil 2, to the N64 in 1999,
a year after it premiered on the Playstation. Reading a positive review in Nintendo Power, I rushed to Toys"R"Us and picked up a copy, knowing very little about the RE mythology.
I remember a few things from that first RE experience. One: The cartridge was heavy. REALLY heavy. Developers were forced to squeeze two discs worth of data onto a single 64MB cartridge. Two: I HATED the control scheme. I was used to manuevering the camera around the hero; in RE2, the point of view was static. Three: I was regularly terrified by the content of the game. The atmosphere was full of dread and there were plenty of drop-the-controller moments.
Since then I've been hooked. I've played the five main titles, although not in chronological order.
Below are brief reviews of the five main titles in the Resident Evil canon (excluding Code: Veronica and Umbrella Chronicles). There are listed in order of release date.
**Spoilers may follow**
Resident Evil
Release dates: March 30, 1996 (PS1); April 30, 2002 (GCN)
Genre: Survival horror
Developer: Capcom
In 2002, Resident Evil was remade for the Gamecube. If you're new to the franchise, I suggest this is the version you buy. Resident Evil uses virtually the same plotline of the Playstation original, but adds several gameplay elements, environments and visuals that look frightingly realistic.
For those who don't know, Resident Evil takes place in fictional Raccoon City, a unassuming Midwestern town.
After a series of brutal slaying are reported, local law enforcement sends two S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics and Rescue Services) teams to investigate. The trail leads S.T.A.R.S. members to an abandoned mansion deep in the woods on the outskirts of town. Players can choose to control either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, two members of S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team, as the explore the mansion and come face-to-face with secret experiments gone horribly wrong.
Resident Evil 2
Release dates: January 21, 1998 (PS1); October 31, 1999 (N64)
Genre: Survival horror
Developer: Capcom
RE2 takes place shortly after the events of the first Resident Evil. A virus which turns humans into flesh-eating zombies has
found its way into the heart of Raccoon City. As the streets become filled with walking corpses, two strangers enter the city. One is Leon Kennedy, a police officer on his first day at the Raccoon City Police Department. The other is Claire Redfield, Chris' sister, who's looking for her missing brother.
Once again, players can choose to survive the game as either a male or female hero: Leon or Claire.
RE2 boasts several upgrades over the original, including enhanced graphics and the ability to gauge the protagonist's health simply by looking at their body language.
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Release date: November 11, 1999 (PS1)
Genre: Survival horror
Developer: Capcom
Every family has a black sheep, an individual that doesn't quite match up to his or her siblings. RE3 is that black sheep.
The first half of RE3 takes place one day before Leon Kennedy arrives in Raccoon City and the second half takes place two days after. Players control Jill Valentine, now a former S.T.A.R.S. member, as she tries to escape from the zombie-infested city. Along the way she encounters several mercenaries employed by Umbrella, the corporation responsible for the outbreak.
RE3 is a departure from the previous two RE installments. Players can
only control Jill (except for a brief episode when players control Carlos Oliveira, one of the mercenaries). There is also a recurring villain who appears in several boss fights and other set-pieces: Nemesis. Designed by Umbrella to kill S.T.A.R.S. members, Nemesis can run, use weapons and follow Jill from one area to the next.
RE3 is far from a bad game; it simply doesn't have the same effect on the player as RE and RE2. One of the biggest drawbacks is the setting: Raccoon City. By removing the action from a mansion or police station, RE3 eliminated a lot of the claustrophobic feeling associated with the first two RE installments.
Resident Evil Zero
Release date: November 10, 2002 (GCN)
Genre: Survival horror
Developer: Capcom
Made exclusively for the Gamecube in 2002, RE0 takes place one day before the mansion incident chronicled in Resident Evil. It follows the adventures of Rebecca Chambers, the medic for S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team (and a supporting character from Resident Evil) and ex-marine and escaped prisoner Billy Coen, who find themselves stranded in the Arklay Mountains outside of Raccoon City.
As opposed to earlier RE titles, where players choose a character at the beginning of the game, RE0 demands
players switch between Rebecca and Billy throughout the game. This dual-character system is necessary to solving many of the game's puzzles and makes the gameplay that much more enjoyable.
RE0 has tremendous graphics, terrifying enemies and goes a long way toward clearing up obscured plot details about the Umbrella Corporation.
It is the last of the main RE titles to use the classic RE control scheme prior to Resident Evil 4.
Resident Evil 4
Release date: January 11, 2005 (GCN); October 25, 2005 (PS2)
Genre: Survival horror/Third-person shooter
Developer: Capcom
Goodbye Raccoon City. Goodbye Umbrella. It's now 2004 and Leon Kennedy, one of the heroes of RE2, is a member of the Secret Service. Umbrella is bankrupt and publicly disgraced. Raccoon City is cinder and ash.
In RE4, the best of the series, players control Leon as he journeys to a remote village in Europe on the trail of a secret cult responsible for kidnapping the daughter of the United States President. RE4 is remarkable for almost everything: graphics, sound, story, atmosphere, etc.
Where it made huge leaps, however, is in its control scheme. The camera is no longer motionless above a ceiling fan or behind a window; instead it follows Leon wherever he goes, just above his right shoulder. What does this mean: the ONE fault from which RE games suffered was removed.
I can't say enough good things about RE4. When I played it, I knew I was experiencing something special. It's survival horror, action-adventure and shooter combined into one masterpiece of a game.
Note: Resident Evil 4 is currently ranked #3 on my Top 100 Games of All Time.
On Friday, Resident Evil 5 arrives in stores in North America. It's been four years since a new RE game hit shelves and I couldn't be more excited. Note: Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles was released in 2007, but it recaps events that occured in previous games.There are only a handful of franchises I trust so blindly as to purchase their games without any information about them, including whether critics favor them. I would buy anything that begins with The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, Final Fantasy, Metroid and Castlevania. I would similarly buy anything that begins Resident Evil.
I discovered Resident Evil later than most, in large part due to the fact that I never owned a Playstation. The first Resident Evil game was released in 1996. At that time I was busy playing Super Mario 64 and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire on my N64.
Luckily for me, Capcom decided to port its sequel, Resident Evil 2, to the N64 in 1999,
a year after it premiered on the Playstation. Reading a positive review in Nintendo Power, I rushed to Toys"R"Us and picked up a copy, knowing very little about the RE mythology.I remember a few things from that first RE experience. One: The cartridge was heavy. REALLY heavy. Developers were forced to squeeze two discs worth of data onto a single 64MB cartridge. Two: I HATED the control scheme. I was used to manuevering the camera around the hero; in RE2, the point of view was static. Three: I was regularly terrified by the content of the game. The atmosphere was full of dread and there were plenty of drop-the-controller moments.
Since then I've been hooked. I've played the five main titles, although not in chronological order.
Below are brief reviews of the five main titles in the Resident Evil canon (excluding Code: Veronica and Umbrella Chronicles). There are listed in order of release date.
**Spoilers may follow**
Resident Evil
Release dates: March 30, 1996 (PS1); April 30, 2002 (GCN)
Genre: Survival horror
Developer: Capcom
In 2002, Resident Evil was remade for the Gamecube. If you're new to the franchise, I suggest this is the version you buy. Resident Evil uses virtually the same plotline of the Playstation original, but adds several gameplay elements, environments and visuals that look frightingly realistic.
For those who don't know, Resident Evil takes place in fictional Raccoon City, a unassuming Midwestern town.
After a series of brutal slaying are reported, local law enforcement sends two S.T.A.R.S. (Special Tactics and Rescue Services) teams to investigate. The trail leads S.T.A.R.S. members to an abandoned mansion deep in the woods on the outskirts of town. Players can choose to control either Chris Redfield or Jill Valentine, two members of S.T.A.R.S. Alpha team, as the explore the mansion and come face-to-face with secret experiments gone horribly wrong.Resident Evil 2
Release dates: January 21, 1998 (PS1); October 31, 1999 (N64)
Genre: Survival horror
Developer: Capcom
RE2 takes place shortly after the events of the first Resident Evil. A virus which turns humans into flesh-eating zombies has
found its way into the heart of Raccoon City. As the streets become filled with walking corpses, two strangers enter the city. One is Leon Kennedy, a police officer on his first day at the Raccoon City Police Department. The other is Claire Redfield, Chris' sister, who's looking for her missing brother.Once again, players can choose to survive the game as either a male or female hero: Leon or Claire.
RE2 boasts several upgrades over the original, including enhanced graphics and the ability to gauge the protagonist's health simply by looking at their body language.
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Release date: November 11, 1999 (PS1)
Genre: Survival horror
Developer: Capcom
Every family has a black sheep, an individual that doesn't quite match up to his or her siblings. RE3 is that black sheep.
The first half of RE3 takes place one day before Leon Kennedy arrives in Raccoon City and the second half takes place two days after. Players control Jill Valentine, now a former S.T.A.R.S. member, as she tries to escape from the zombie-infested city. Along the way she encounters several mercenaries employed by Umbrella, the corporation responsible for the outbreak.
RE3 is a departure from the previous two RE installments. Players can
only control Jill (except for a brief episode when players control Carlos Oliveira, one of the mercenaries). There is also a recurring villain who appears in several boss fights and other set-pieces: Nemesis. Designed by Umbrella to kill S.T.A.R.S. members, Nemesis can run, use weapons and follow Jill from one area to the next.RE3 is far from a bad game; it simply doesn't have the same effect on the player as RE and RE2. One of the biggest drawbacks is the setting: Raccoon City. By removing the action from a mansion or police station, RE3 eliminated a lot of the claustrophobic feeling associated with the first two RE installments.
Resident Evil Zero
Release date: November 10, 2002 (GCN)
Genre: Survival horror
Developer: Capcom
Made exclusively for the Gamecube in 2002, RE0 takes place one day before the mansion incident chronicled in Resident Evil. It follows the adventures of Rebecca Chambers, the medic for S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team (and a supporting character from Resident Evil) and ex-marine and escaped prisoner Billy Coen, who find themselves stranded in the Arklay Mountains outside of Raccoon City.
As opposed to earlier RE titles, where players choose a character at the beginning of the game, RE0 demands
players switch between Rebecca and Billy throughout the game. This dual-character system is necessary to solving many of the game's puzzles and makes the gameplay that much more enjoyable.RE0 has tremendous graphics, terrifying enemies and goes a long way toward clearing up obscured plot details about the Umbrella Corporation.
It is the last of the main RE titles to use the classic RE control scheme prior to Resident Evil 4.
Resident Evil 4
Release date: January 11, 2005 (GCN); October 25, 2005 (PS2)
Genre: Survival horror/Third-person shooter
Developer: Capcom
Goodbye Raccoon City. Goodbye Umbrella. It's now 2004 and Leon Kennedy, one of the heroes of RE2, is a member of the Secret Service. Umbrella is bankrupt and publicly disgraced. Raccoon City is cinder and ash.
In RE4, the best of the series, players control Leon as he journeys to a remote village in Europe on the trail of a secret cult responsible for kidnapping the daughter of the United States President. RE4 is remarkable for almost everything: graphics, sound, story, atmosphere, etc.
Where it made huge leaps, however, is in its control scheme. The camera is no longer motionless above a ceiling fan or behind a window; instead it follows Leon wherever he goes, just above his right shoulder. What does this mean: the ONE fault from which RE games suffered was removed.I can't say enough good things about RE4. When I played it, I knew I was experiencing something special. It's survival horror, action-adventure and shooter combined into one masterpiece of a game.
Note: Resident Evil 4 is currently ranked #3 on my Top 100 Games of All Time.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Arcade Treasure
Ikaruga
Release date: December 20, 2001 (Arcade); April 15, 2003 (GCN); April 9, 2008 (Xbox Live Arcade)
Genre: Vertical Shooter
Developer: Treasure; G.rev
For several years after its 2001 release, the arcade shooter Ikaruga wasn't available outside of Japan. In 2003, however, the game was ported to the Nintendo Gamecube. Five years later it arrived on Xbox Live Arcade, an archive of video games available for download to the Xbox hard drive.
Ikaruga follows the golden rule of all great arcade games: easy to learn, impossible to master. During the game players pilot the ship Ikaruga through hostile skies filled with enemies and hazards. What sets Ikaruga apart from generic shooters, beside its vibrant graphics and poetic preambles, is its dual polarity system.
Enemy ships in Ikaruga are either black or white and shoot colored bullets accordingly.
The player's ship can reverse polarity - from white to black and black to white - to maneuver through ribbons of enemy fire. When polarized to black, Ikaruga can absorb black bullets and inflict more damage on white ships; when polarized to white, the opposite holds true.Ikaruga is brief, spanning only five levels, but the replay value is enormous. The Xbox Live Arcade version is especially addictive, with its online co-op mode and leader boards.
Score: 90/100
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Watchmen (2009)
Director: Zach Snyder
Starring: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson
The world will look up and shout "Save us!"... And I'll whisper "No."
Watchmen is something to behold. It is a movie that is full of faults but yet completely stunning despite all of these faults.
It is the story of an alternate 1985, where
costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of society, and the US sits on the brink of a nuclear winter with the USSR. One of the heroes, The Comedian, is brutally murdered and one of his former colleagues Rorschach sets out to uncover a conspiracy against costumed vigilantes.
I don’t want to give away too much of the story; it is really very interesting. It does feel like the movie could use another hour or so to really flesh out the story; of course the movie already comes in a robust 2 hours 40 minutes. Even without a story, there is enough there visually to make the movie a must-see. You might want to brush up on your US history from 1940 to 1985, however, otherwise you’re going to miss a ton of cultural references.
Visually the movie is just a stunner; the alternate 1985 looks great. Zach Snyder is quickly becoming the king of green screen filming after Watchman and 300. He may not be a great director but he really knows how to work with the medium.
There is really much more to this film than meets the eye; there really are layers to the film. It is a beautiful allegory about human nature. This is not your traditional superhero movie; it is not the feel good type of movie where the good guy catches the villain, and wraps up nicely. It is something much more interesting.
Editor's Note: Watchmen is a film adaptation of 12-issue serialized comic book written by Alan Moore, drawn by Dave Gibbons and colored by John Higgins. DC published the limited series between 1986 and 1987. After the series concluded, all 12 episodes were collected and sold in paperback format.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Old and New Friends: News Brief 3/7/09
This week sees the return of a critical hit from last season and the premiere of a new series with a fan favorite. The former is Breaking Bad, starring Bryan Cranston as Walter White, a high school chemistry tea
cher diagnosed with terminal cancer in the first episode. In order to provide for his family after he is gone, including his physically disabled son and the daughter on the way, he uses his particular skills to cook crystal meth with a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Breaking Bad's first season was considerably shortened due to last year's writers' strike, however that did not prevent it from winning two Emmys (one for Crantson as Best Actor, the other for Editing) and, with the help of Mad Men, making the American Movie Classics channel a new player in basic cable programming. The thirteen episode second season kicks off tomorrow night (March 8) at 10:00 PM EST.
Nathan Fillion can only be described as prolific. Just this week Wonder Woman, an animated film based on the DC comics character, was released featuring Fillion as the voice of Steve Trevor, the love interest for the title character. He also featured in Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, a short musical film that debuted on the
Internet. In Halo 3, he voiced Sergeant Reynolds (a nod to his Firefly character) and will return in the game's expansion, Halo 3: ODST. There's no doubt as to his popularity, however twice now series in which he has had a leading role, Whedon's Firefly in 2002 and Drive in 2007 (both on Fox), have led to quick cancellations. Taking the role of Dr. Adam Mayfair on ABC's Desperate Housewives last year seemed to be preparation for a third go-around by joining an established show with demographics outside his usual fan base. We will see if Fillion's charm works in his favor when his new series, Castle, premieres Monday (March 9) at 10:00 PM EST on ABC. A sort of reverse Murder, She Wrote, with younger, sexier leads, the series stars Fillion and Stana Katic, who has had small roles on 24 and Heroes, as a mystery novelist and NYPD detective respectively, who investigate a copy-cat murder from one of his novels. The show has been contracted for ten episodes and hopefully this time Fillion will get the success he deserves.
Can you believe it's been almost eleven years since Seinfeld finished its hugely impressive run on NBC? Well, if you think you're finally getting over the loss, it's time for a relapse
. Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards and Jason Alexander have all signed to appear on Larry David's HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. This will be the first time the entire cast has reunited on television, the separate interviews of 2004's "The Seinfeld Story" do not count, and since they are all scheduled for multiple episodes this looks to be the best chance for a reunion that Seinfeld fans can hope for.
cher diagnosed with terminal cancer in the first episode. In order to provide for his family after he is gone, including his physically disabled son and the daughter on the way, he uses his particular skills to cook crystal meth with a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Breaking Bad's first season was considerably shortened due to last year's writers' strike, however that did not prevent it from winning two Emmys (one for Crantson as Best Actor, the other for Editing) and, with the help of Mad Men, making the American Movie Classics channel a new player in basic cable programming. The thirteen episode second season kicks off tomorrow night (March 8) at 10:00 PM EST.Nathan Fillion can only be described as prolific. Just this week Wonder Woman, an animated film based on the DC comics character, was released featuring Fillion as the voice of Steve Trevor, the love interest for the title character. He also featured in Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, a short musical film that debuted on the
Internet. In Halo 3, he voiced Sergeant Reynolds (a nod to his Firefly character) and will return in the game's expansion, Halo 3: ODST. There's no doubt as to his popularity, however twice now series in which he has had a leading role, Whedon's Firefly in 2002 and Drive in 2007 (both on Fox), have led to quick cancellations. Taking the role of Dr. Adam Mayfair on ABC's Desperate Housewives last year seemed to be preparation for a third go-around by joining an established show with demographics outside his usual fan base. We will see if Fillion's charm works in his favor when his new series, Castle, premieres Monday (March 9) at 10:00 PM EST on ABC. A sort of reverse Murder, She Wrote, with younger, sexier leads, the series stars Fillion and Stana Katic, who has had small roles on 24 and Heroes, as a mystery novelist and NYPD detective respectively, who investigate a copy-cat murder from one of his novels. The show has been contracted for ten episodes and hopefully this time Fillion will get the success he deserves.Can you believe it's been almost eleven years since Seinfeld finished its hugely impressive run on NBC? Well, if you think you're finally getting over the loss, it's time for a relapse
. Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards and Jason Alexander have all signed to appear on Larry David's HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. This will be the first time the entire cast has reunited on television, the separate interviews of 2004's "The Seinfeld Story" do not count, and since they are all scheduled for multiple episodes this looks to be the best chance for a reunion that Seinfeld fans can hope for.
Video Game Classics - Part II
Blood Omen: Legacy of KainRelease date: November 15, 1996 (PS1); August 31, 1997 (Windows)
Genre: Action-Adventure
Developer: Silicon Knights
Developer: Silicon Knights
"When coincidence seems too convenient, I prefer to call it fate."
So says Kain, the hero of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, a petty nobleman turned vampire after his untimely death. Kain narrates most of his adventures in Nosgoth, a fictional medieval landscape filled with monsters, mayhem and magic.
Blood Omen is a top-down action-adventure game not unlike the early Zelda games (excluding Zelda II), only much darker and bloodier. Players take on the role of Kain, returned from death to exact revenge on his assassins. But fate, it would seem, has larger plans for Kain: he is charged with the task of healing the "Pillars of Nosgoth" and restoring peace to the realm.
The gameplay of Blood Omen is solid and enjoyable: explori
ng caves and dungeons, cutting down monsters and finding all types of treasure. It is in the story and the production values that Kain is most notable, however. The saga of Blood Omen unfolds slowly and with many twists and turns, through captivating full-motion animation and top-notch voice acting.
ng caves and dungeons, cutting down monsters and finding all types of treasure. It is in the story and the production values that Kain is most notable, however. The saga of Blood Omen unfolds slowly and with many twists and turns, through captivating full-motion animation and top-notch voice acting.Most of the credit for Blood Omen lies with Denis Dyack, the founder and president of Silicon Knights, which developed the game. Dyack directed the PS1 version; he is also credited for the concept of Blood Omen and created the storyline and mythology with Ken McCulloch. Dyack also directed the production of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, another action-adventure game with horror themes and excellent production values.
Blood Omen was followed by four sequels.
Score: 91/100
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Ailing Actors, Shows and Ratings: News Brief 3/4/09
Earlier today Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit's Detective Olivia Benson, was hospitalized for the third time since January. Her original ailment then was a pneumothorax, or collapsed lung for those who don't watch ER, and a spokesman for the show stated her current trip was for "routine tests". L&O: SVU, which airs Tuesdays at 10:00 PM EST on NBC, has been in reruns the past two weeks, returning next week, should not expect any delays in the production, remarked the same spokesman. All of us here wish Ms. Hargitay a speedy recovery so she can go back to what she does best, catching those sex crimes offenders and making sure they never reach trial.Yesterday ABC announced the cancellation of new series Life on Mars which premiered back in October. The show focused on Detective Sam Tyler (Jason O'Mara) who, after being hit by a car, wakes up and finds himself in 1973. The series is based on the original BBC series of the same name, which ran for two seasons in 2006-7 and starred Doctor Who's new series' Master, John Simm, in the title role. The announcement is said to have been made with enough time for the producers to provide a satisfying con
clusion to the series' storylines. For those fans of Life of Mars who are upset over the cancellation, there is comfort that the sequel series to the British original, Ashes to Ashes, has its American premiere this Saturday (March 7) at 9:00 PM EST on BBC America.Last night's season premiere of Reaper on the CW came in last place with only 2.36 million viewers (over a 12% drop from the season one finale last May) tuning in to see Sam jumping back into his demon-hunting lifestyle. I personally blame the decline on the lack of Gladys (Christine Willes) from the long-awaited season premiere. That and American Idol with its 24.21 million viewers probably had something to do with it.
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