The Bloated Penguin

I’m kind of wigging out like a crack-addict after the first three hours of rehab. I miss Fringe. Thursday nights used be an event, now? Well, last evening I actually went out of my apartment. With people. Come back Fringe, PLEASE.

If any of that rings true to you, you can do one of two things. You can join the Fringe Facebook group and receive updates during this ridiculous hiatus.

OR

You can just stay here and check it all out in one place:

A couple of weeks ago, this was posted

Then on Feb 18th, they posted this:

Also on the 18th, these photos were posted (the gallery is at the bottom of this post)

Then on Tuesday Feb 23, they posted a link to the Fringe Hidden Elements Game

Fringe Hidden Elements Game

And Last evening, these images were posted

With this video here

Trust me, you want to know what they just found.

I hate mid-season finales. They’ve done it with Smallville, They’re doing it with Glee, and last night saw the mid season finale of Fringe. And the kicker is that Jacksonville (the title of last night’s episode) was the best of season 2 so far. Agreed, the second season of Fringe has been a bit slow in terms of the overall arc of the stories set up in the first season, but in defense of the brilliant Rob Orci and Alex Kurtzman, this was needed to gain more fans. Last night’s episode was like a “Thanks for sticking with us, here’s what you’ve been waiting for,” episode.

Without giving too much away, Jacksonville was about Olivia’s powers, the parallel universe and Peter – basically everything devoted Fringe fans have been waiting for. Now, I’m going to make a claim here, and you can argue it if you want. Jacksonville was a better hour of television that the premier of Lost on Tuesday.

NOT IN THE FACE!!!

Maybe it’s because I really like Fringe, or maybe it’s because I get that home-sick feeling when I watch the Vancouver-filmed sci-fi show, but I really do believe that Jacksonville was the best entertainment on television this week – so far considering Absolute Justice is on tonight.

But here’s my beef – Why hasn’t Fringe been picked up for a third season? I just read that Bones has been renewed for two more seasons along with Glee, 24 and Lie to Me. But what about Fringe? If Fox screws this up, I’ll plead to Sy-Fi to pick this up. I’ve already read some comments from Akiva about a third season arc involving Astrid and a possible six season run for the entire show. I can live with that. Really, I can – If Fringe gets to run for the hopeful six seasons, I’ll be content (pending the writing doesn’t get stale).

Please Fox – you’ve screwed me by changing The OC in the passed. You canceled Dollhouse, Firefly and the Sarah Conner Chronicles. You’ve destroyed television with American Idol. But please, for the love of Walter Bishop – renew Fringe!!!!!

Welcome to Wednesday. Grab your coffee, sit your ass down at your desk and pretend it’s Friday…. Okay, now that reality has set in, so can that mid week depression. Need a little pick-me-up? Check out Jasika Nicole. Who? I’m not surprised you ask. Jasika Nicole plays Astrid Farnsworth on the hit FOX show Fringe. If you follow the Bloated Penguin then you’ll already know my devotion to this show.

Anyways, back to Jasika, or Astrid. Even though Fringe carries tons of over-arching themes and a web of different stories throughout, one of the big reasons I watch is the comedic timing between John Noble’s character Walter Bishop and Astrid. In Fringe, one of the great mysteries is trying to guess whether or not this is going to be the week where Walter actually remembers Astrid’s name. On more than one occasion he’s referred to her as Astro, Astrix, or Astroid.

Jasika Nicole grew up in the Alabama and after graduating from Catwaba College with degrees in theater dance, voice and studio art she started to get national exposure with commercial work. After a few successful runs of advertising McDonalds, Home Depot and the NYC Lotto she landed a couple of guest spots on Law and Order: Criminal Intent. I’m assuming the casting director that works with JJ Abrams saw one of these episodes or possibly caught Jasika on stage during a performance of Believe In Me – A Bigfoot Musical and decided to give her a shot at auditioning for Astrid Farnsworth. The rest is gravy.

So where can we expect to see Jasika Nicole this year? She’ll be playing a small role in the new rom-com She’s Out Of My League opposite Jay Baruchel as well as finishing up the second season of Fringe. Keep your eyes peeled for more interesting news from Jasika and if you’re interested, you can check out her personal site (yeah, I guess I kind of stalked her….).

You can buy some of her art, check out more of her past performances and sign her guest book….

Morning kids,

So what did you do this wonderful holiday season? Me? I holed myself up in my apartment to avoid the tundra that is downtown Toronto and threw in the first season of Fringe to enjoy. I’ve seen every episode a few times before last week’s marathon, but I’m beginning to think that Fringe is one series that I can re-watch quite a bit. Similar to X-Files, the JJ Abrams, Rob Orci and Alex Kurtzman series about fringe science has so many things going on at the same time that you can really lose yourself within any number of story lines the series follows.

I was lucky enough to get the first season on DVD from the fat man in a red suit so when I first popped in disc one of seven I immediately jumped to the special features. The most interesting pieces were those that focus on the creation of the show, but one piece of information that was missing was the important casting process of Joshua Jackson who plays Peter Bishop. They showed footage of everyone’s audition from Olivia all the way to Astrid, but for some reason didn’t even mention how they were able to cast Jackson.

So, for all of you who were wondering (like myself and the one other person in this world that actually cares about this trivial gold mine) here is how it all broke down according to some dodgy Internet sources and Wikipedia:

After a successful run in movies and TV Jackson hit the London stage with Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard) for the two-man Mamet play A Life In The Theater. After critical and public success for the year, Jackson auditioned for the role of James Tiberious Kirk for JJ Abrams’ Star Trek remake. Although the part eventually went to Chris Pine, Jackson impressed the producers so much with his audition that they asked if he would play the part of Peter Bishop for a pilot they wanted to shoot. The pilot was of course Fringe and Joshua Jackson has since moved back to his hometown of Vancouver for the second season.

So, maybe not that interesting, but I don’t know what is up with special features only going half-ass. It’s not like Jackson’s casting was a big secret, especially if the internet already knows the story. In any case, here’s an interview he did with George Sssstrom…. whatever…

This whole concept of stopping all regular TV shows over the holidays is starting to get on my nerves. I had just started to get a rhythm down for which shows I would watch on which nights and all of a sudden all of them start going on 3 month hiatuses. I’m sure I could find something else to watch in the meantime, but all that does is add to already full schedule when everything returns.

Okay Okay, I’m basically complaining for the sake of complaining with this, but as I was watching the mid season finale of Glee last evening (great line by Sue telling Will he has the hairstyle of a lesbian) I wondered when we’d be able to see a brand new episode. The same will go for Fringe this evening and a bunch of other shows.

Here’s my solution – while the show is being shot in the summer and fall, prep for the time off and create some sort of cheap online component to put crazy people like myself back in front of the screen. I think shows like Battlestar Gallactica did this and actually incorporated parts of the story. The web-only content wasn’t pertinent to the arc of the TV show, but it kept people interested during a long hiatus.

I think the writers’ strike really killed some great momentum in episodic TV shows and we’re we’re finally starting to gain some of that back. But throwing in mid season finales followed by 3 month layovers just kills it. So again, go online. It’s cheap, it can be experimental and it will keep people interested until your actors come back from their vacations in sunnier climates.

Hey Fringe fans, I’m not sure how you will react to this, but after hearing about this week’s Observer focused episode I did a little research and found some pretty interesting facts about actor Michael Cerveris. Recently we’ve associated Cerveris as the bald albino creepy dude who has some strange preferences when it comes to sandwich choice, but what you might not have know is that our beloved Observer is in fact a Broadway Vet.

Singing and dancing isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Observer, but it really does show this guy’s range. Okay, maybe the character of the Observer doesn’t take a whole lot, but who knows, maybe this week’s episode will show a different side.

Anyways, Youtube won’t let me embed a lot of the clips from Cerveris’ early days on the musical show Fame, but here are some links:

Here is Cerveris performing a number titled After Dark

And here is one with Cerveris performing with Debbie Allen

Interesting stuff and a huge credit to the talents of Michael Cerveris. Can’t wait for tomorrow’s episode.

Fringe, Californication, Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Bones last week as well as the return of Heroes tonight. Alright, so as you can probably guess, I don’t get out much; but hey! I’m in a new city without anyone to hang out with so I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with Walter and Peter Bishop, Hank Moody, Charlie and the gang from Paddy’s Pub and Booth and Brennan (I just realized how sad that really is…)

Anyways, I’ve been putting off my review of the season premier of Fringe for a little while because I needed some things to soak in. Not only has my favorite show returned, they are now shooting the entire series in my hometown of Vancouver. Its just too bad that they premiered the second season during my first week in Toronto which has brought forth some serious homesickness. Enough about me and onto the show. JJ Abrams, well done so far. I know not a lot of people will understand the point of the premier, but I found your clues and love the entire episode being an homage to the original Vancouver shot sci-fi hit X-Files. I loved how it was playing on TV in one of the opening scenes, I love how Peter and Olivia care about each other far beyond how regular co-workers care for each other and I really loved how Fringe division was almost shut down X-Files style only to be saved by Broyles and Peter. Even though you didn’t really touch on Belly and the other dimension, I thought this was a great episode to start the season off with. I also love the little messages left throughout the summer about Charlie being “fired,” Brilliant. So Fringe premier gets an A.

Californication was also a strong episode, but I’ll go into my gripes first. The recap at the beginning of the episode was way too long. I understand Showtime wants to gain viewers by showing newbies what they’ve missed, but more than half of the scenes shown in the recap had nothing to do with the episode. The good parts of the premier were obviously Hank’s dialogue and the ridiculous choices made by Runkle. The strength of the show is always going to be rooted in the fact that Hank is impulsive and spends most of his time complaining and basically fucking anything with legs, but I like how this season they have clearly defined a path for Hank to go down from the beginning. Unlike seasons past where he’s just an angry old writer, this season gives him a goal (get some work) and an enemy (the new Dean of the University played by Peter Gallagher). I also love how Peter Gallagher can’t seem to get away from playing dudes with chick names: Sandy Cohen from the OC and now Stacey Koons. I’ll give the premier of Californication a solid B cause I’m excited to see how Hank is as a teacher, but not too pleased that he probably won’t be writing much for himself this season… We’ll have to see.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is wearing on me. After a hilarious first and second season, I really think the gang at Paddy’s pub is running out of stupid shit to do. In the past it was funny when the gang tries not to be racist or they turn themselves into crackheads, but the premier had them trying to invade the real estate market and basically ran its course of ridiculous comments from Charlie and terrible ideas from everyone else. I hate to say it, but I think this show needs to drop Danny Devito. Yes he’s a TV icon and I agree with the choice to bring him into the second season to gain some veiwership, but now I feel as though he’s dragging the show down. It’s actually not so much Danny Devito himself as it is for the character of Frank. I feel as though the writers are trying too hard to include him in a lot of the story lines. I’m giving the premier of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia a C because it’s getting predictable and it’s lost most of the shock value it came in with a few seasons ago.

The last premier I watched last week was Bones. Bones is one of those shows that you can just watch one day and not worry about missing any episodes because nothing really big ever seems to happen. I think TV needs a few of these shows every once in a while because a lot of us just don’t have time. The premier was very Bones-esque. Brennan questions anything non-scientific while Booth presents some human elements. They solve an old murder, bicker back and forth, use some fictional technology to assemble the story and end with a slow fade out to some modern music. Like I said, nothing special – but sometimes you need that. I’m giving the Bones premier a B as well, but I don’t think a show like this can ever achieve top status because of the nature of each formulaic episode.

So that’s my roundup for last week. I’ll be watching the 2-hour season premier of Heroes tonight with low expectations. The last two seasons have had their moments, but for the most part, nothing compares to the inaugural season. I blame NBC’s inability to sign Bryan Fuller, and the fact that they refuse to kill off / recast Claire Bennet. Anyways, I’ll still watch Heroes tonight, but I don’t know how long I can stay loyal…

Please share in my excitement when I remind you that the season premier of Fringe is a mere 10 days away!!!!

As a HUGE fan of the series and its creator, this is probably one of the most anticipated days of the year for me. The off season provided some big news in that the series would be moving to Vancouver for production so I’m really excited to see how my home town will be featured on one of the best shows on television right now. Couple that with all of the hints the series has been dropping of late and you can bet that Thursday September 17th is going to be a great TV day. When the series left off (and I hope I’m not spoiling it for anyone out there), Olivia just met Dr. Bell played by Spock (Leonard Nemoy) and Peter just found out that he was in fact taken from another dimension. It sounds crazy right now, but Fringe provided viewers with one of the best season finales I’d ever seen. With all of the changes coming to the show, I’m mostly excited to see where JJ Abrams and his crew of writers and creators can take the series in its sophomore season. I’ve done my best to avoid Fringe rumors up to this point so I don’t know a whole lot about what to expect – which is a good thing. Anyways, now you all know what I’ll be doing next Thursday evening.

Check out the season 2 promo that Fox has been airing as well as an interview with JJ Abrams about the upcoming season.