Michael Koby

The Hollywood Reporter is runnig a story that HBO bringing the Preacher comics to the small screen.

From the article:

The pay cable network is developing a one-hour series based on the popular 1990s Vertigo comics series. Mark Steven Johnson, the writer-director behind comic adaptations “Daredevil” and the upcoming “Ghost Rider,” is writing the pilot, while Howard Deutch is attached to direct. Johnson and Deutch will executive produce along with Michael De Luca, George Agusto, Chris Bender and JC Spink.

If you do not know anything about Preacher, it is an excellent read about a down-and-out Texas preacher possessed by Genesis, a supernatural entity conceived by the unnatural coupling of an angel and a demon. Given immense powers, the preacher teamed with an old girlfriend and a hard-drinking Irish vampire and set out on a journey across America to find God — who apparently had abandoned his duties in heaven — and hold him accountable for his negligence. But it is definitly not kid friendly and the fact that HBO has picked it up means some justice might be done to it.

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The direction everything seems to be going in today’s high paced media world, you are either in or you are out. You either offer digital content or you don’t. There is very little in between. As special interest groups work with government officials to make it harder for us to use media in a way that works for us, we as users are being left in the dust of extremely fast legislating that leaves us with very little rights when it comes to the media we listen to and watch.
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The new hit show of this fall season is Heros. Heros is about a group of ordinary people who discover they have extraordinary abilities. For example, one girl can heal herself, another guy can fly, and still another guy can read mind. The show even has some of the best minds from the comic book industry writing and producing episodes. Since the show obviously has some basic comic book elements, it would only stand to reason that there be a comic for the show.

NBC is releasing a small 7-8 page comic a week in PDF format on the Heros’ webpage at nbc.com. The comics give a little insight to a character each week and gives a little bit of what happens between two episodes.

I am glad to see that the television companies are utilizing marketing campaigns like this. When a show is as good as Heros is, people can not seem to get enough extras to tide them over between episodes.

Points to NBC for this one.

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The more television I watch with my wife, April, the more I am bound to find good television. Our latest find is SciFi’s Battlestar Galactica. This remake of the classic 1970’s science fiction epic is everything good TV is. The writing is top notch, the acting is superb, and the photography direction is just plain awesome.

The show focuses on a a group of forty thousand humans that survived the nuclear destruction of the human race by the Cylons. The Cylons are the robotic artificial intelligence that humans had created who also later rebelled, commenced a war with the humans and then disappeared. The Battlestar Galactica is a ship from this first Cylon war and is on the verge of being decommissioned when Cylons attack the 12 human settlements, known as the 12 Colonies. Commander Adama, is in charge of the Galactica and commences to go to war with the Cylons. But after discovering a fleet of ships of the last remnant of the human race, he along with newly appointed President Laura Roslin decide that running away and looking for the lost 13th colony on Earth is the better option for the human race.

Through out the course of two seasons there are various struggles. These struggles range from political, military, and to personal. Every character is brought vividly to life by the writing and the back stories associated with them. But what really stood out to me was the various political and religious statements made through out the show. There is a lot of talk about religion in Battlestar Galactica, at least of a science fiction show. And the politics of the first two seasons have very familiar tones to our own (United States) government at the time. It’s almost as if the writers were using this show as a soapbox for some of their political and religious views, but they do it in such a way that one, it does not effect the flow of the show, and two if you are not paying attention you’d never notice it was there.

Battlestar Galactica, runs its viewers through a ton of various emotions and all within a few episodes. April and I watched the first 2 seasons on DVD, and doing so got us through the story up to now much faster but it also allowed us to see complete story arcs. This really ran us through a bunch of emotions and I can even admit to shedding a tear during a few scenes. The writers really work to make you feel for these characters and they succeed beyond any preset expectations.

Battlestar Galactica is good television and should be enjoyed by everyone.

Season DVD sets can be purchased via Amazon.com:
Season 1
Season 2.0 (Episodes 1-10)
Season 2.5 (Episodes 11-20)

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