Drexfiles: Fantastic Behind The Scenes Star Trek Video Of The U.S.S. Reliant Filming Model & The Voyager Bridge Set

Doug Drexler: Old School on Star Trek: The Next Generation

Doug Drexler, one of the best visual effects guys in the business (all four modern Star Trek series, Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, and the forthcoming Battlestar Galactica:  Blood & Chrome), has released a great episode of his D-Files show on his own WordPress blog, drexfiles, and we felt compelled to share it.

It features home video footage taken by his friend and collaborator on Star Trek and the BSG series, Gary Hutzel, of the U.S.S. Reliant filming miniature and video that Doug himself took of the Voyager bridge set moments before it was torn down for good post-series finale in 2001.

Gary Hutzel

Doug gives great insight into the world of Sci-Fi visual effects and what it was like working on Star Trek and BSG.  Even if you’re not a fan of Star Trek or BSG, we highly recommend his blog as it’s very entertaining.

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Mr. Sunshine (ABC – Wednesday, 9:30 p.m.)

Matthew Perry stars as Ben Donovan, the general manager of the Sunshine Center, who every night navigates a never-ending series of bizarre requests, curious mishaps and employee screw ups to put on a show for 18,000 screaming people.

Working alongside him is his boss and arena owner Crystal, attractive, powerful and highly erratic; Alice, the cute, tomboyish marketing director and Ben’s friend with benefits; Alonzo, a former basketball player, handsome and unbelievably happy; Ben’s assistant, Heather, pretty, sweet, but terrifying because she once lit a boyfriend on fire; and Crystal’s son, Roman, sweet-faced, clueless and Ben’s newest employee.

“Mr. Sunshine” stars Matthew Perry (“Friends”) as Ben, Allison Janney (“The West Wing”) as Crystal, Andrea Anders as Alice, James Lesure as Alonzo and Nate Torrence as Roman. – ABC

2 out of 10

They say that familiarity breeds contempt and that particular axiom has special meaning for this “comedy” offering from ABC.  You see, everything is familiar about this show and for that we have contempt for it.  The story is familiar as it’s obviously just a cheap rip-off of NBC’s 30 Rock, the characters are familiar as they are obviously just cheap rip-offs of the characters on NBC’s 30 Rock, the stale jokes are familiar as they are obviously just cheap rip-offs of the jokes on 30 Rock, and the style of the show is familiar as it is – you guessed it – obviously just a cheap rip-off of 30 Rock.

Mr. Sunshine is unoriginal tripe.  As noted, the jokes aren’t original, they aren’t funny and there are really no likable characters.  The attempts at slapstick fail completely and the only message  we can really ascertain at the end of each episode is “don’t tune in again next week unless you want to more crap.”  We would also really like to know whose brilliant idea was it to make a sports arena as a backdrop for a show.  Have the writers been reduced to Mad Libs or are they just pulling slips of paper out of a hat for story ideas, now?  Also, actors delivering their dialogue like a machine gun doesn’t make it any funnier.

There’s one more thing that’s familiar about this show that needs to be addressed: Matthew Perry.  No offense to the guy, but we’re sick of him.  He does nothing for anything he is in.  He’s not horrible, he’s just vanilla… milquetoast… bland.  Like every other cast member on that horrible piece-of-crap show, Friends (we don’t care if you watched it… you know it sucks) they gave him a shot to do films in the 1990’s and 2000’s and like every other cast member with maybe the exception of Jennifer Aniston (we qualify Aniston with a “maybe” because although she’s had some successful films and her name is a draw because we guess she was hot at one point and married to Brad Pitt, other than Office Space, her films are crap) he has a history of box office failures and television failures.  The only films that were even worth watching that this guy has been in were  The Whole Nine Yards and Fools Rush In and the only reason why those two films were worth investing in was because one starred Bruce Willis and the other one starred Selma Hayek.  We’re sorry, but Perry simply does not bring much more to the table in 2011 than he has for the last 15 years.  If you don’t believe us, simply look at his résumé and tell us that we’re wrong.

We’re also finding the similarities to this show and 30 Rock a little creepy.  Has anyone else caught the fact that in 2006, NBC debuted two shows about what goes on backstage at a sketch comedy show, one of a highly acclaimed sit com in the form of 30 Rock and the other a highly acclaimed drama called Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and that only 30 Rock was kept and that 30 Rock is now in its fifth season?  Has anyone else caught the fact that Matthew Perry was a regular cast member on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and has hardly worked since?

Here’s our theory:

Perry is trying to make up for the success that he didn’t have on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip by duplicating almost everything in 30 Rock, the show that, let’s face it, won the battle at NBC amongst the shows about sketch comedy shows.  Now, why do we suggest that this is creepy or even happening?  Well, normally we don’t wait around for end credits when watching anything on VOD but we did for this because we wanted to see who the production company was.  To our surprise it was none other than Perry’s own production company, Anhedonia Productions.  You see, Perry co-wrote the pilot and is responsible for this mess coming to ABC and we feel it is his attempt to get back to the status that he once had in the 1990’s on television.

What makes it especially creepy is the name of the production company: “Anhedonia.” Ahedonia is a psychiatric condition defined as  an inability to experience pleasurable emotions from normally pleasurable life events such as eating, exercise, social interaction or sexual activities (i.e., joy).  It is a symptom associated with schizophrenia and drug addiction, in particular with amphetamines which Perry is well-known to have had addiction problems with.  The name of the production company, Perry’s history and the show’s tagline (as seen in the poster above) “Oh, Joy.” is not very encouraging to us.  Maybe we’re looking into this too much and this is only a strange bunch of coincidences but we’d be remiss if we didn’t do the analysis.

So, is the ironically named Mr. Sunshine really an attempt at sit com gold or is it just a desperate expression of melancholy from Perry.  We don’t know but we do know that it’s pretty awful and it has no business being the lead-out for Modern Family.

Watch full episodes of Mr. Sunshine, here.

TV SCOOP! ‘Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome’ Preliminary Concept Art Released!

This isn't one of the pics released, we just found it on the Internets, thought it was cool and created a title for it.

***UPDATE: DOUG DREXLER HAS CONFIRMED WITH THE THE ‘TASTIC TODAY THAT HE IS ATTACHED TO THE BLOOD & CHROME PROJECT AS WELL***

“Happy New Year Shawn! Yes! [VFX Supervisor]Gary [Hutzel] drags my bleeding corpse with him everywhere he goes!”

Check out Doug’s blog at the Drexfiles, right here on WordPress.  LOTS of fun stuff there.

Well, Battlestar Galactica fans, it looks like the highly anticipated prequel, Blood & Chrome is quickly becoming a reality.  Last month, we reported to you in our Caprica post-mortem that the pilot for the series had been green-lit and what the premise was.  Blastr.com has obtained exclusive concept art from the show’s producers (scroll down to the bottom for the slideshow) and the word is that principle shooting is to begin in late January, 2011.

Galactica SITREP did a brief interview with writer and executive producer, Michael Taylor who provides a bit of insight into these images and into the pilot:

“Those pics were just the first of the many concept art sketches we’ve been creating. They don’t necessarily reflect any particular incidents in the script; as “concept” drawings they’re helping us flesh out the new world of Blood & Chrome. And it is a new world, one that owes much to the BSG series of the past but at the same time uses CGI to open up that world in ways that we hope fans will find fresh and exciting.

As for the show’s status, SyFy has officially green-lit a two-hour pilot, and we have begun pre-production, with filming expected to begin at the end of January, or very shortly thereafter. This is the fun part for me: seeing the script take tangible shape (or “virtually tangible” shape, since practically all of the pilot will be shot on green screen) as our director (Jonas Pate), DP (Lukas Ettlin), VFX supervisor (Gary Hutzel) and a host of artists — and of course the cast that we’ll soon be gathering — bring it to life.”

We have just a few observations about this latest news:

First, it seems to us that all of this is coming together amazingly quick which means either one of two things:  SyFy is incredibly eager to wash the taste of Caprica out of its mouth and breathe life back into the most successful franchise in its history or this is a lot of wishful thinking on the producers’ part as to how fast this is all coming together.

We’d like to hope it’s the former, but this whole process seems to be going at FTL speed for us.  Goodness, the project just got green-lit it in November and the casting hasn’t even been made public on IMDb.  Then again, this is Hollywood and if, as Taylor notes, virtually all of the two-hour pilot will be shot on green-screen then you don’t have to do a whole lot as far as set dressing is concerned and we suppose it could be done that quickly.  It’s the post-production and visual effects that will take a lot longer than usual.

Which brings us to another concern, not necessarily a criticism, but a concern nonetheless:  Virtually all of the two-hour pilot is going to be shot on green screen?  Really? Are we talking Phantom Menace here?  One of the more appealing aspects of BSG was the ability to effectively mix practical sets with digital elements to the point where it was generally seamless (at least in the interior scenes) and it always makes us cringe a little when we hear about such a dramatic shift in production (especially THIS shift because we are very much opposed to the over-reliance on CG) to a franchise known for high-quality visual effects.  That being said, Gary Hutzel is in charge of visual effects again and he is a master at combining practical filming and CG effectively (see: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and, of course, Battlestar Galactica).  So, at this point we will remain less skeptical than we normally would be.

We also need to correct the Blastr.com piece we alluded to earlier.  Despite what the piece says, Blood & Chrome will not be a “two-hour pilot movie,” it will simply be a two-hour pilot episode.  The distinction needs to be made because calling it a “movie” implies by its nature that it is a “backdoor  pilot.”  A “backdoor pilot” is a made for television movie that is produced with the intention of the movie acting as a pilot episode for a potential series but is written as a standalone, self-contained story if the series isn’t picked up.  This is an important distinction because if the indications were that a project was to be a “movie,”that would mean that the network would be waiting to see how the “movie” does in the ratings before ordering episodes for the series.  That means that if it doesn’t do well in the ratings, you’ll never see a regular series episode.  If it does do well, however, it will be several months before you’ll see new episodes.

If, on the other hand, a show is planned as a conventional pilot, that means that the network heads will watch the pilot, decide if it’s good enough to order additional episodes, and then proceed from that point.  They will then air the two-hour pilot episode and shortly thereafter, air the new series episodes.  If the network heads don’t like the pilot, don’t worry about the series being canceled because you’ll never even see the pilot.  There has been absolutely no indication whatsoever that the two-hour pilot for Blood & Chrome is anything but a two-hour pilot episode and in this case that’s absolutely a good thing.  SyFy isn’t going to wait around to see how the pilot does in the ratings when they already have the established BSG audience built-in, just as they did with Caprica, so if it airs (which we are sure it will) expect that the series will follow.

Yes, we are certainly aware that Blastr.com is a SyFy Channel project, but they got this wrong and it happened for one of two reasons:

1. It was completely intentional in order to hype the pilot. This is a well-known practice in genre.  The Star Trek franchise was notorious for calling two-hour episodes “movies” or “movie-events” in the mid-to-late 90’s and in more recent years, 24 did the same thing with their two-hour episode Redemption, and in fact, they are still clinging to this notion that Redemption is a “film.”  Nah… it was just the season seven primer that aired two months prior to the season premiere to make up for the fact that the series had gone 18 months without an original episode because of the writer’s strike and they wanted to spark interest in it again.  So, again, this practice isn’t unheard of, but it’s misleading for the average audience who thinks that “movie” implies that they will be watching an original feature film on basic cable.

2.  It was just a mistake, typical of an over-exuberant blogger. We freely admit that we’ve made similar mistakes based on our excitement for a particular project.  Simply look at our rating of The Event for evidence of that.  Blastr.com is a professional site but it’s still a blog.

Finally, we are very excited about the choices in writers for Blood & Chrome if what’s reported on IMDb is accurate.  Ignore the references to Ron Moore because he has nothing to do with the new series (and we doubt Glen Larson does either), he’s simply listed as the developer as a courtesy and because he is responsible for developing the franchise and tacking his name onto the project gives it credibility.

On the other side of the coin, though, it is being Executive Produced by David Eick (and that is confirmed, it’s not just a courtesy title) and Michael Taylor as well as being written by Taylor, David Weddle, and Bradley Thompson.  This trifecta of writers was not only part of the major core of writers for BSG but they are also responsible for some of the absolute best episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as well, which has been hailed by critics as the best series of that franchise, and it revolved around an intergalactic war so these gentlemen certainly have credentials in that department.

The ‘Tastic will keep you up to date as we find out more about Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome.

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‘Haven’ (SyFy – Friday, 10:00 p.m.)

 

Syfy’s all-new one-hour drama series Haven, starring Emily Rose (Jericho, Brothers and Sisters) is based on the novella The Colorado Kid from renowned author Stephen King. The series follows the shrewd and confident FBI agent Audrey Parker (Rose) who has a lost past, and arrives in the small town of Haven, Maine on a routine case. Before long, her natural curiosity lands her in the epicenter of activity in this curious enclave, which turns out to be a longtime refuge for people that are affected by a range of supernatural afflictions.  As the townspeople’s dormant abilities begin to express themselves, Audrey helps keep these forces at bay while discovering the many secrets of Haven — including one surrounding her own surprising connections to this extraordinary place. – SyFy

3 out of 10

As noted in the show description, SyFy’s new show Haven is based on a Steven King 184 page novel titled The Colorado Kid.  From what I read at iMDB before I saw the pilot, the title is one of the few things the show and the book actually share in common.  The Colorado Kid was a departure from Stephen King’s normal fare of the supernatural and just a straight-up mystery/crime novel.  Haven is exactly the opposite and apparently it was this way at the direction of King himself who wanted this television version of his story to have a science fiction premise to it.  That’s really all the interesting information I can provide about this show because there really is nothing more interesting about it except for the fact that for some reason, out of all of the Stephen King stories, SyFy chose to make a series out of the one that was universally panned by the critics. 

Haven is what I like to call a poor-man’s attempt at The X-Files except for instead of the cases taking place all over the country, all of these cases take place in small, mythical town of Haven, Maine, which I guess is just one big X-File.  Unlike other attempts to capture the spirit of The X-Files  while still remaining unique (such as FOX’s Fringe or even SyFy’s Warehouse 13) Haven makes absolutely no attempt to be original whatsoever.  I’ve now watched 1.75 episodes (I was so annoyed by the second episode I turned it off early ) and all I’ve seen is poorly recycled and predictable plots from old X-Files episodes, a bunch of supporting characters that don’t do a thing for me and a “who’s-who” of Canadian character actor casting (which is the only reason occasionally one of them sounds like they might actually be from Maine).

Our leads are Agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) and Officer (Detective?) Nathan Wournos (Lucas Bryant) and let’s just put it this way:  they’re no Scully and Mulder.  They have absolutely no on-screen chemistry and neither one of their parts is very well-written.  By the time I got halfway through the second episode, Butterfly, I wanted to punch Supercop (and I mean that literally… the character doesn’t feel pain) Nathan right in the face.  I think it’s safe to say that one of the benchmarks for good TV is that you shouldn’t want to punch the protagonist in the face by the second episode, so you can kind of see where all of this is headed.  The only redeeming factor of Butterfly was the absolutely stellar performance by one of my favorite character actors of all-time, Stephen McHattie, who is better known to Star Trek fans as Senator Vreenak from  arguably the best Trek episode ever made, Deep Space Nine‘s In the Pale Moonlight.  But even McHattie’s brilliant performance is not enough to save this dud of a series.  Yes, this series is so bad that I have to throw in a Star Trek reference just to bring some level of excitement to an otherwise awful review experience.

I am very disappointed in Haven.  When I watched the pilot, I wasn’t very impressed but I wanted to give it another chance because there was so much buzz about it and it was so eagerly anticipated by SyFy (and Sci Fi) fans.  Unfortunately, though, it didn’t just not improve from the pilot to the second episode, it actually got much worse.  The writing is lackluster and flat and the audience simply cannot empathize with any of the characters and I have to say that even by SyFy’s standards, these are some of the worst CGI effects I’ve ever seen.  The only reason I even gave it a 3 is because of McHattie.  I’m sorry, but I simply have no time for bad TV.

That being said, if you don’t trust me and want to watch this mess for yourself to decide, SyFy has all of the episodes available to view online for free here.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.