Nathan Fillion–with a moustache? One of the more interesting panels from this year’s San Diego Comic-Con and one certainly not to miss for Browncoats everywhere is a panel devoted exclusively to the star of Firefly, Castle, and The Rookie. It’s definitely one of those atypical panels (even for 2020) like we saw Fillion host back in the days of Nerd HQ, this time with added wacky editing and Fillion stepping in to provide commentary along the way. That’s right, Fillion has enough pop culture street cred to get a panel to himself. But he also knows how to share the stage.
The next tropical paradise action series has two things going for it: star Poppy Montgomery and a tropical island setting. Unfortunately that’s probably not enough reason to come back for more. The new series, Reef Break, will air Thursdays on ABC, with the first season of 13 episodes filmed. The pilot aired last night, and unless the network made significant changes, viewers can expect a series you’ve seen before with rough writing and rudimentary stumbles. The show follows Australian native actress Montgomery back on her home turf as Cat Chambers, a no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners, confident ruffian with a history (aka baggage), who returns after several years away to the tropical island town of Reef Break. Filmed and written attempting to conjure a “tropical noir” vibe, it’s crime drama in the vein of Castle–it looks like it wants to be the next Castle with a Hawaii Five-O backdrop, but it has a long way to go.
Audiences have hardly seen a TV season go by–going back to her debut in 1994 on Silk Stalkings–where Montgomery wasn’t either firmly planted atop an acclaimed series (seven seasons on Without a Trace as the high point) or featured as an eye-catching supporting character. She’s more than up to the task for this role, which is a showcase of her acting showing both her smarts, saving lives, solving cases, and otherwise being the smartest person in the room, and her physicality, surfing the waves, pulling a gun on the bad guys, and getting punched in the face by the daughter of a man she killed in the show’s backstory. Montgomery looks like she’s having fun, and for some of her diehard fans that might be enough. But the material also seems to be light faire for someone of her caliber. She has presence and even swagger, but the story and dialogue are sub-par, and she’s using a Southern drawl that doesn’t seem like it fits the role (she’s filming in Australia, let’s hear that accent!). The worst feature is reliance for emotion on an over-stuffed pop song soundtrack. The opening scene alone incorporates iffy covers of three different overplayed radio songs.
A lot, probably too much, is going on here for a pilot, so it’s a surprise a network picked it up. Cat Chambers is an ex-thief and now a fixer with the skill set of a British spy or FBI agent, and she knows everyone, and everyone knows her, in this island community. Already the governor is ready to offer this almost ex-con (arrested, never convicted) a job–for anyone familiar with storytelling he’s set-up as the series recurring bad guy. The appeal is for fans of Magnum P.I., which had instant chemistry in its reboot with the benefit of nostalgia in addition to the tropical setting, or counterpart series Hawaii Five-O. Reef Break is also not as clever or quirky as Death in Paradise. Part of the pilot fail is a clunky introduction of all the characters, and an ending that shows all the characters are all too coincidentally connected. It’s goofy and escapist, but so far more goofy than escapist, and doesn’t compare to that instantly slick and sharp (and now canceled) CBS crime series Whiskey Cavalier.
After the 2019 Academy Awards recognized genre films Black Panther, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and gave top awards to Green Book and Roma,ABC aired the pilot for a new series. Whiskey Cavalier begins with a solid pilot episode, and you can find it in its weekly timeslot beginning Wednesday evening on ABC. It borrows from two familiar sources for network TV: the spy genre, like Mission: Impossible, iSpy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Avengers, and Chuck, and the “will they or won’t they” investigation shows like Moonlighting, The X-Files, Bones, Castle, and Private Eyes. Whiskey Cavalier–the military/NATO spy call sign for FBI agent Will Chase (yes, that’s his name), stars Scott Foley opposite CIA Agent Francesca “Frankie” Trowbridge, played by Lauren Cohan. It’s more action and fun than drama–a good thing that works for this offbeat new series.
The first episode finds Agent Chase as a sad sack agent, recently dumped by his French girlfriend, crying as he listens to songs from his break-up mix tape, assembled from recommendations from other FBI agents. Those familiar with Michael Dorman’s lead character in Amazon Studio’s series Patriot will see much in common between the leads. Chase doesn’t have his heart in his job until he’s in action, and then he becomes full-on Jack Ryan (actor Scott Foley has a vibe crossing Jack Ryan series star John Krasinski and White Collar co-star Tim DeKay, and the pilot includes a humorous reference to his Chris Evans’ Captain America appearance).
As Chase tries to intercept an alleged hacker/thief/traitor, CIA Agent Trowbridge steps in, and that’s when the chemistry begins. You can almost hear the 1970s movie trailer voice-over: “What can happen when we combine this sensitive FBI agent and this tough-as-nails CIA spy? Can they work together to save the world without killing each other?” And yet, the pilot was edited into a fast-paced drama, not at all bogged down in origin story, and it supplies a supporting cast of characters that seem to gel from the start, played by Ana Ortiz, Vir Das, and Tyler James Williams. In brief, it’s fun and it works.
Nerd HQ offered up a great variety of panels from the best of TV Saturday. Here are some great panels to check out. After four years of 45 minute panels offered just yards from San Diego Comic-Con, many of these have become a source for stand-up comedy from the actors. See for yourself.
First up what may be the best panel idea ever, the voices and muppets themselves, from Sesame Street, Grover, Cookie Monster, Bert, and Murray. And Grover reveals the true identity of Super Grover. This one can’t be missed.
A Conversation with Sesame Street
Intruders TV Series Panel with John Simm, Mira Sorvino & Glen Morgan
Orphan Black Panel with Tatiana Maslany and Other Cast Members
You may have first seen Jaime Ray Newman in The Drew Carey Show episode “The Warsaw Closes.” She had a small part opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the hit Steven Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can. Soap fans may know her from her 68 episodes as Kristina Cassadine on General Hospital.
Versatile, endearing, and attractive, sometimes tough, sometimes sensitive, often devious and other times just plain fun, you just can’t help running across actress Jaime Ray Newman when getting caught up on TV series from the past several years. Since her role on General Hospital, Newman has turned up everywhere you look, and we’ve seen her in so many genre roles since 2005 that we think she is someone everyone should keep an eye out for, and an actress we can’t get enough of.
Newman played Amanda Walker in the episode “Phantom Traveler” in Supernatural in 2005. In the same year she played Lieutenant Laura Cadman in two episodes of Stargate: Atlantis.
Nerd HQ is back for its second year in the San Diego Gaslight District, right across from the Convention Center during Comic-Con. The star of the now-cancelled series Chuck, Zachary Levi, is back selling Nerd swag, promoting video games, and offering fans a second chance to see some favorite TV and movie celebrities. Nerd HQ is a nice break for convention goers and a welcome opportunity for local Californians who couldn’t get Comic-Con tickets.
Last year we attended the panel featuring Scott Bakula, star of Quantum Leap, Men of a Certain Age and Enterprise, discussed here at borg.com last July. At start time the panel still had available seats and they showed us in for free. The discussion was interactive and cozy in a way you can’t really get with the larger Comic-Con venue. And you really can interact. Levi praised E.C Bunce and my Chuck “Buy More” and “Nerd Herd” outfits and even poked fun at her prosthetic alien head later during a panel. This year the panels will be broadcast live at break.com/nerdhq, so even if you don’t pay the $20 per panel charge, you can still get your panel fix like you were there in person, no matter where you’ll be that weekend.
The details about some of the panels don’t appear to be totally locked in yet, but NerdHQ says this will be the basic schedule:
***Thursday, July 12, 2012***
9:30 a.m. Expendables 2
Features Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture talking about the follow-up to the 2010 action film The Expendables.
11 a.m. Psych
Actors from the USA Network detective comedy series will be making an appearance to talk about its upcoming seventh season. No specific actors appear to be confirmed yet.
12 p.m. Chuck
Expect Zach Levi and a few other actors talking about the wind-up of the series.
2:30 p.m. Robot Chicken
Seth Green (Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s character Oz, will be discussing his series airing on Cartoon Network.
***Friday, July 13, 2012***
10 a.m. Stan Lee
The big guy himself. ’nuff said.
12 p.m. Man with the Iron Fists
No stars locked in yet for a discussion of this new Quentin Tarantino flick.
3 p.m. The Rise of the Guardians
Director Guillermo Del Torro is expected to bring some actors discussing the coming computer-animated action-adventure comedy film about Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy and others battling the boogey man and Jack Frost.
4:30 p.m. Nathan Fillion
The Castle and Firefly star returns to Nerd HQ for his second appearance.
5:30 p.m. Assassin’s Creed 3
No specifics released yet for this new video game.
***Saturday, July 14, 2012***
10 a.m. NTSF: SD SUV
Paul Scheer’s National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: Sport Utility Vehicle show airs on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim.
12 p.m. Tomb Raider
No specifics yet. A trailer? A video game preview?
That’s all that’s been released so far. Proceeds from the panels go to Project Smile.
