Just when I was getting ready to complain that none of the pilots were being leaked this season, the torrents are starting to appear: True Blood, Fringe, Pretty Handsome, Do Not Disturb, Life on Mars are out there now.
True Blood, Fringe and Life on Mars seem like major properties to me and I find it interesting that they’ve found their way out of the vault. Last year’s list of pilots leaked over the summer included Bionic Woman, Pushing Daisies, Reaper, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Cavemen, Chuck, Lipstick Jungle and Aliens in America. The season before many of us were bowled over by the preair version of Studio 60.
Last years crop predicted a season of shows about people with powers and series with strong female leads. True Blood, Fringe, Life on Mars and Dollhouse (no preair of Dollhouse yet and I hear the security around it is tight) suggest another season of sci fi, only this time the leads won’t have the powers but will be grappling with strange phenomenon and the powers of others. It looks like the era of the strong female lead continues.
The bulk of last season’s leaks came out in August so there are likely more leaks to come. We’ll have to keep our browsers tuned to the torrent sites for more trends.
Robbo
I’m keeping my eyes peeled on all the Torrent sites. Holding out for “Dollhouse” – yesssssss!
Cheers.
Bill Cunningham
Saw Fringe and have to say it looked and played much better than it read. I felt bogged down in the script, but the director really achieved the right tone more clearly than I expected.
admin
I gotta admit, I feel the exact opposite about Fringe. I liked the script and didn’t much like the pilot. Too many “horror” shots and I didn’t buy the emotional lines. On the other hand, Life on Mars exceeded my expectations.
I noticed a new pilot torrent yesterday, Raising the Bar which is the new Steven Bochco for TNT.
Lee
I really liked the Fringe pilot, though they’ve pretty much shot their load, budget wise. It’ll be interesting to see what future episodes will look like, made for about 80% fewer dollars.
But I found the script quite hard to read. You won’t believe it’s me saying this, but I couldn’t deal with all the swearing in the mise-en-scene. It added nothing to the story, and ended up making the writers look inarticulate, when I would imagine they were somehow trying to communicate enthusiasm.
Lee
Oh, and as for the others:
I couldn’t finish Life on Mars. If it can “do an Office” and eventually become its own show, I might come back, but too much of this was cut and paste from the original.
True Blood – was this missing a final scene? I’m not so sure given that there were cards announcing missing scenes throughout, but this ended pretty abruptly. Holding off on this one for now, but would like to see more.
I really enjoyed Leverage. It would make an excellent candidate for a breakdown post, Jill, as I thought it was really well constructed. This is going to be a fun show.
Raising the Bar is still waiting.
All I’ve seen of Pretty Handsome so far is the Teaser, but based on that, this show is the win! Joe Fiennes refusing to “put it in” Carrie-Anne Moss because he’d rather pose in front of the mirror in womens’ panties? Yep, show me more. Although I’ve read that FX have passed, sadly.
Jaqueline
Watched “Pretty Handsome”, but I got sick after a couple of minutes because of the shaky camera work. Why do you have to shoot a character drama as if it was the Bourne Identity? I’ll never get this trend. Nice story though.
True Blood was, well, interesting. I guess it will be one of the shows with an average pilot and some kickass storylines that need a couple of episodes to get in shape.
Life on Mars I actually enjoyed! A bit. I know, odd. But to me it felt like a slimmer, faster version of the original. Very “American market”.
Finally – Fringe. Was fun to watch, but folks – when I see one more fake German accent in a show I’m going to cry. They didn’t even get the grammar right. It’s like watching a German movie, where a German actor with a thick German accent plays an American who says “Let go in city, we could make super fun boys!”
Horrible.
Yet, it was a decent pilot.