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

So the other day I decided to switch on the TV and a promo for this new show Human Target caught my attention. It doesn’t look terribly amazing at first glance, but I recognized the main character as the dude who played John Scott in the first season of Fringe. So, meh, I decided to check it out…

I’m actually kind of glad I did. The principle cast of three is a perfect number to start off with and the likes of Chi McBride and Jackie Earle Haley really play off of relative newcomer Mark Valley quite well. The concept of a rogue undercover security guy is okay, but what kept me interested the entire hour of the pilot was noticing details of the show that have Vancouver Production written all over it. Here is a short list of clues to figure out if a series is shot in Vancouver or not:

1 – They say everything is taking place in San Francisco, but they either never show the Golden Gate Bridge, or it is very obvious stock footage.

2 – At some point there is an explosion at random office building usually referred to as some kind of genetic lab, R & D home base, bank or industrial design house.

3 – Tricia Helfer makes an appearance at some point.

4 – For some reason the streets of NYC, California, Hong Kong or even Sydney sometimes are completely empty at some point in order for a car jacking, private conversation or important event to happen in broad daylight.

5 – Victory Square is dressed up to become a park, a meeting place, a place where a drive-by happens, or the background of a car chase.

6 – This guy makes a cameo.

If a pilot or episode has over half of these points, it’s a safe bet that it was filmed in Vancouver.

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.

Congrats to A-Roid, Jeter and all of the over-paid, over-hyped and over-weight Yankees for winning the World Series last night. I’m not going to lie, I cheered for the Yanks, but not for any reason other than they were leading the series and baseball is FINALLY over this season. For those of you who know me, you already understand my frustration with baseball as a spectator sport. Sure you could say I don’t appreciate the game for what it is, the fact that it’s a thinking man’s game or that baseball is more like a chess match – but I hate chess too. Playing baseball is fun, watching anything with enough alcohol can be fun, but being forced to endure half of Sportscenter and all of FOX’s evenings chalk full of baseball was like waiting for that neighbor you hate to move.

Well, its over, and lets keep our fingers crossed that FOX doesn’t run a series of Yankee-based documentaries in prime time – its back to real entertainment, the entertainment that matters; its back to regular TV!!!!

Hopefully returning tonight on FOX is Bones and Fringe. When we last left off with Bones, Brennan, Booth and the gang solved yet another murder. But this time the murder didn’t actually occur in the present, the gang solved a murder that from ancient Egypt. Alright, so the last Bones was really weak, but I’m still happy it is returning (hopefully) tonight. Fringe left off in a much better state. After finally getting over her trip to the other side, Olivia returns to the bowling alley where she’s given yet another task – collecting business card (???). She has been feeling uneasy about the death of her old partner Charlie and Sam puts her on yet another path to recovery. Olivia, Peter and Walter then travel to Seattle to investigate a strange murder that is some how related to dreams. A series of sci-fi-yee things happen and the murder is solved, and by the end, Olivia realizes that she didn’t actually kill Charlie, she killed something that looked like him. Tonight’s episode has been a long time coming and with baseball finally over we can see what happens next. FOX has been running promos for it for a few weeks now, so hopefully Fringe won’t disappoint.

Friday night calls for the return of another show I follow, Dollhouse. I’ve gone and done it again and went ahead and read what the next episode is about. Apparently we’re going to get one episode of a two parter on Friday. The big news about the double episode? Summer Glau will be making an appearance. According to a few Whedonites, this might spell the end of Dollhouse as Glau has never been on a show that has lasted very long.

Next Wednesday also means the return of Glee. The last episode aired focused more on the slushy facials than anything, but along with a few more catchy tunes, it also set the stag for the inevitable Sectionals where New Directions will finally compete against another group. Should be fun, especially since I’ve heard that hip-hop has-been Eve will be guest starring.

Thanks to the Yankees for finally putting an end to baseball for another Winter. Life can now go on.