Nick Frost and Simon Pegg are a magical team. Usually Pegg takes the driver’s seat, but not so in the Amazon Prime series Truth Seekers, which puts Pegg back in the office of a British telecom company and Frost on the road as chief broadband installer. If you ever wondered what The X-Files might look like if produced in England, here is your chance. With better special effects and even some better scares than the 1990s show featuring agents Mulder and Scully, Truth Seekers is also full of good British humor, the kind that would make it the perfect sequel to the 1999-2001 series Spaced, starring Pegg and Frost. And it has the supernatural and horror elements that keep the content right in the veins of their big screen Cornetto Trilogy films Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End, their pop culture references in Paul, and secrets from afar of Frost’s Attack the Block. It also has two of the best award-winning British actors you could hope to find in an eight-part half-hour horror comedy. Truth Seekers has been streaming for a few weeks, but we want to make sure you don’t overlook this one.
Before the actual Ghostbusters returns next year with its sequel Ghostbusters: Afterlife, you can relive the theme in a new Amazon series. Another new 2020 television series previewed at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con 2020 that is coming your way features the stars of the popular Cornetto trilogy horror-comedies Shaun of the Dead, The World’s End, and Hot Fuzz (plus Paul, and the series Spaced). Nick Frost takes the lead over Simon Pegg this time in Truth Seekers. Pegg plays his boss, the head of a broadband company who may have his own secrets. The eight-episode, half-hour series follows Frost as Gus, an Internet installer who is also a ghostbuster.
We’re back today with the second part of my interview with Nicholas Meyer, director, screenwriter, and storyteller, as we celebrate the 35th anniversary of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and its return to theaters next month as part of the Fathom Events series. Meyer directed Star Trek II and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and he was a screenwriter on both movies as well as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. He chatted with me about his films and more this past week. If you missed part one of the interview, check it out here.
CB: You’ve written words spoken on-screen by Lawrence Olivier (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution), David Warner (Time After Time, Star Trek VI), and Christopher Plummer (Star Trek VI). Are there any other great actors you maybe fantasize, or would like to write, dialogue for?
NM: I’ve also worked with Jason Robards and John Lithgow (both in The Day After). I’ve worked with some really wonderful actors. Fantasizing about working with actors is interesting. When I listened to the Chandos recording of the music from Henry V–the Olivier film with Christopher Plummer reciting or acting out the various Shakespeare vocal parts–I thought, “Wow, I’d really love to work with this man.” And I wrote the part of Chang in Star Trek VI specifically for him. That’s the first time I’ve ever written for an actor other than the Star Trek cast. I said to my casting director Mary Jo Slater, “Whatever you do, don’t come back without him. Because there’s no movie unless it’s him.” It would take me longer than this conversation to rustle around in my brain other actors I’d love to work with–Benedict Cumberbatch–sure, of course.
Nicholas Meyer directing the production crew, with Christopher Plummer as General Chang, on the Klingon courtroom set of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
CB: Your Time After Time co-star Malcolm McDowell joined Star Trek in the seventh movie in the series, Star Trek Generations, after you were no longer with the franchise, and it always seemed to me to be an obvious choice to get him into the Star Trek universe. Did he ever contact you about taking on a Star Trek role?
NM: No… we never discussed it. David Warner, who actually has been in two Star Trek movies (as Chancellor Gorkon in The Undiscovered Country and St. John Talbot in Star Trek V: The Final Fronter), was the great post-war Hamlet with the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company), and I think Malcolm at one point was a spear carrier in that company at the time when David was this huge star. In Time After Time they used to kid each other about those times. Something about carrying a pack of cigarettes under your costume.
CB: You have said you see yourself first as a writer and have been writing and telling stories since you were five years old. Are you as excited today to sit down and craft a story as you were in 1982?
NM: I think when I get going the answer is yes, and if it’s going well the answer is yes, and the hours can go by and I look up and it’s a week later. But as I’ve gotten older, the process of actually starting, of facing what used to be a blank page, which is now a blank screen, having done it again and again and again… Most of the stuff I’ve written has never been produced. Most of the stuff I’ve written for books I’m happy to say has been published, but I haven’t written that many books. But most of my screenplays–including probably my best screenplays–have never been done. So as you get older and you embark on this again and again and again there is a kind of a weariness of picking up the yoke and putting it on your shoulders. That said, getting paid for telling stories beats work any day.
On the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Engineering set, that’s Catherine E. Coulson (later Twin Peaks’ Log Lady) with the camera, director Nicholas Meyer (in Starfleet captain’s jacket) and James Doohan as Scotty, filming the emotional finale.
CB: In your memoir The View From the Bridge, you mentioned some of your best ideas or solutions when writing come while doing laundry, while in the tub, or even building a model boat. What was your biggest revelation and strangest place you found it?
It’s Time After Time, the series, the mash-up of real life The Time Machine author H.G. Wells and the serial killer Jack the Ripper, adapted from the 1979 novel Time After Time by Karl Alexander and the 1979 modern classic film of the same name starring Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, and Mary Steenburgen. It’s a new TV series beginning tonight on ABC that looks similar to the short-lived ABC series Forever, which followed a 400 year-old-doctor as he searched for a reason for his longevity in 21st century New York City, and starred Ioan Gruffudd, Alana de la Garza, and Judd Hirsch.
The film Time After Time was as good as any 1970s detective movie. Steeped in classic science fiction storytelling, we met author H.G. Wells, played by McDowell, who invents the actual machine of his novel. His colleague, played by Warner, turns out to be the actual Jack the Ripper, and he takes the time machine into the future to continue his evil ways, and threatens a new love interest of Wells, played by Steenburgen.
The new series appears to follow the original story, with Freddie Stroma as Wells, Josh Bowman as The Ripper, and Génesis Rodríguez as Jane. Time After Time is helmed by director Kevin Williamson, known for his horror films and series including Scream, The Following, I know What You Did Last Summer, and The Vampire Diaries.
What we thought was going to be another ad for the DVD release of Gravity actually was a teaser for the return of Heroes to NBC. NBC released a few details to the press before the Olympics Saturday night teaser premiere, revealing a new Heroes TV series will be returning in 2015. NBC and creator Tim Kring will be holding the details close to their vests until Heroes Reborn draws closer, but we’re thinking there is no way to move the series forward and call it Heroes without at least Hayden Panettiere as invincible ex-cheerleader Claire Bennet, Milo Ventimiglia as power-borrower Peter Petrelli, Masi Oka as time traveler Hiro Nakamura, or the always awesome Jack Coleman as Claire’s dad, the horned-rimmed glasses guy.
NBC has ordered 13 episodes for the new mini-series, an entire season for any other property. Could this be a try-on that could be continued if the first year is successful?
“The enormous impact Heroes had on the television landscape when it first launched in 2006 was eye-opening,” said NBC Entertainment President Jennifer Salke. “Shows with that kind of resonance don’t come around often and we thought it was time for another installment. We’re thrilled that visionary creator Tim Kring was as excited about jumping back into this show as we were and we look forward to all the new textures and layers Tim plans to add to his original concept,” Salke continued. “Until we get closer to air in 2015, the show will be appropriately shrouded in secrecy, but we won’t rule out the possibility of some of the show’s original cast members popping back in.”
Masi Oka is currently on Hawaii Five-O on CBS, Hayden Penettiere is on Nashville on ABC, and Milo Ventimiglia is filming a series on the Crackle online network coming off of his Mob City mini-series in TNT. Ali Larter, who played Tracy Strauss and her mirror twin on Heroes, last filmed a mini-series on TNT and continues her string of big screen movie projects, and ex-cop Greg Grunberg is making a string of movies. Although he’s been seen on ABC’s Scandal, Jack Coleman also had a key role in the last season of USA Network’s Burn Notice last year. USA Network is an NBC sister network. Could that mean a possible connection to have Coleman’s character lead the new mini-series? Something like Agent Colson on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Coleman is our top pick, and we think HRG is the most likely driver of a new series. But why stop there?
USA Network’s hour-long comedy about a fake psychic detective solving real crimes began its fifth season this week, with the first notable guest spots the network promises to be a key feature of this season. As “Sean Rescues Darth Vader” opens, hyper-observant Sean Spencer (James Roday) is shown “James Bonding it up in here” at the mansion of the British ambassador (Malcolm McDowell, Heroes, Time After Time, Star Trek Generations), where a party is underway for an exchange student newly acquitted of the murder of his girlfriend. True to series tradition, Sean’s presence at the mansion has nothing at all to do with any of that–the Psych team has been hired by a kid to recover the vintage Darth Vader action figure the ambassador’s son stole from him.
And, of course, in true Psych tradition, things only get wilder and more ridiculous from there, when Sean stumbles over a murder victim and nearly gets caught by security guards as he flees the mansion. The episode is a classic Psych premiere–slightly more over-the-top than usual, featuring big-name guest stars (McDowell is joined by veteran British actress Polly Walker (Enchanted April, Patriot Games)); a semi-irrelevant plot; silly banter and jackassery by Sean (here his obsession with achieving diplomatic immunity); and verbal sparring between Sean and frenemy Detective Lassiter (Timothy Omundson, Judging Amy, Starship Troopers, Xena: Warrior Princess, Star Wars video games).
Although every cast regular got decent screentime, Omundson probably had the standout role in this episode. Driven by his anger over discovering Juliet’s relationship with Sean in last season’s finale (“Yang 3 in 2D”), Lassiter dials up his determination to discredit Sean, and we see some great funny moments as he administers polygraph tests to Juliet and Sean. In a notable departure from series tradition, the flashback to Sean’s childhood that is typically the opening of each episode was moved to the end, where we saw Henry Spencer training his son to beat a lie detector. I’m not sure such a move was necessary, because the audience already knows Sean is lying, but it did create a moment of outraged suspense, as fans all over were likely exclaiming over the missing flashback sequence. I guess I can’t complain.
According to USA Network, we’ll see lots more guest stars this season: William Shatner, Danny Glover, Jason Priestley, Wayne Brady, Molly Ringwald, and Madchen Amick, among others. We’ll also see the first episode written and directed by James Roday, in which Detective Lassiter finds love. And I’m sure we’re all looking forward to seeing how that plays out.
