Tori Is Out, Shannen Is In for 90210 Remake!
If you’re a fan of the OG Peach Pit posse, you might want to sit down, ‘cause sources connected to the CW’s new 90210 are spilling exclusive dish of OMG proportions.
In a nutshell: Shannen Doherty is in, Tori Spelling is out and Jennie Garth may bewait for itreuniting with Shannen on the screen.
Get all the details in Online’s Watch With Kristin TV blog and check out the 90120
Exclusive: Tori Is Out, Shannen Is In for 90210 Remake!
If you’re a fan of the OG Peach Pit posse, you might want to sit down, ‘cause sources connected to the CW’s new 90210 are spilling exclusive dish of OMG proportions.
In a nutshell: Shannen Doherty is in, Tori Spelling is out and Jennie Garth may be—wait for it—reuniting with Shannen on the screen.
(We’ll pause while you find a paper bag to breathe into…especially if your name happens to be Jennie Garth.)
After EW.com’s Michael Ausiello first reported the news that Shannen is in talks, a very reliable and very inside source who works on 90210 tells me exclusively that “It is happening with Shannen. It’s just a question of how long she’ll shoot, whether it will be one day or ten, and what the storyline will be, but we are working on it and it is a very real thing.”
Inside sources also confirm exclusively that Tori will not be appear in the season premiere as planned because of personal reasons—like she just gave birth to a baby girl on June 9. The new mom had been signed on to do a few episodes at the beginning of the season, but she isn’t yet ready to return to work, so her appearance has been pushed to a later date.
As for Shannen’s storyline, I’m told the details are still in the initial-concept stages, but the writers are hoping to get Shannen and Jennie together, onscreen, for a scene. Can you imagine? As far as superhot publicity explosions go, that would be akin to mixing gasoline, Tabasco sauce and fire.
Of course, the real question is, will they do it? “I don’t think there’s any love lost between Shannen and Jennie,” says one rock-solid inside source. “But they are both adults now and professionals, and I don’t see it being an issue. Everyone has their take on what happened back in the day, and I think the feeling is that it’s time to move on. They were 19 and 20 when all of that happened and a lot has changed. And, you know, they’re not moving in together, just shooting together for an hour and a half.”
Another insider close to the negotiations points out: “I want to stress that Shannen has been very, very cool through this whole process. We have seen nothing like the behavior for which she was once famous for.”
Awww…Who doesn’t love a redemption story, right? As long as there are two red dresses in the dressing room, all should be right with the world, the ratings should go through the roof and we 9-0 fans can start freaking out about how lip-smackingly juicy this remake just might turn out to be.
What do you think of Jennie and Shannen reuniting? Post your comments below!
Five favorite George Carlin HBO routines
When I posted about George Carlin’s death early Monday morning, I made a couple of mistakes, mainly due to a combination of shock and tiredness:
1) I said that Carlin “passed away.” Anyone who’s listened to Carlin’s comedy knows that he hated euphemisms like “he passed away.” So, let me correct things right now: George didn’t pass away or leave this earth. He died.
2) I really didn’t convey how ingenious his comedy was. His observations of even the smallest of human foibles and his examinations of how we use the English language were always among the funniest routines he would do, even funnier than the ones about politics or religion or anything else that happened to chap his ass that year.
I knew about Carlin mostly through his albums, because I didn’t have HBO (Occupation: Foole was the first Carlin album I ever heard, and I still think it’s the best). But, thanks to HBO and YouTube, I can give you — in no particular order — my five favorite Carlin routines … well, at least the ones that aired on TV:
Baseball and Football: This is probably Carlin’s best known bit, aside from “The Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV.” It certainly is the one the die-hard fans like the best. Why? Because it’s Carlin in a nutshell: his observations of human behavior paired with precise use of language provides the audience a routine they laugh and applaud at because they not only find it funny, but find it painfully and utterly true as well. It’s also a favorite because it’s the routine that Carlin tinkered with the most over the years. He did an early form of the routine on the first episode of Saturday Night Live in 1975, and I heard him do it again at a concert in 1999. But this version, which in this video is from the 1990 special Doin’ It Again, is the one I like the best, mainly because of how polished and considered his use of language and voice inflection is, which heightens the comedy.
Stuff: After listening to Occupation: Foole, I sought out other Carlin albums. The first one I bought on my own was A Place for My Stuff, which was a 1981 album that combined live bits (like one about being a “Picky Eater”) with studio bits recorded with the help of Denny Dillon (my favorite: the game show called “Asshole, Jackoff, Scumbag!”). A few years later, he did a similar special called Carlin on Campus, featuring some animation and a couple of different routines (including an 1980s version of “Baseball and Football”). In both cases, his ruminations of “Stuff” and how people are so devoted to it was my favorite bit. It’s one of his more acute and detailed observations about the human condition, especially when he explains how people take a “smaller version” of their stuff so they’re comfortable on vacation.
This version is from a Comic Relief episode, but it’s pretty much the same as the one from Carlin on Campus (love the list of essential items at the end):
Have a Nice Day: Until Carlin on Campus, Carlin’s albums and HBO specials didn’t coincide. So, even though this routine is from Carlin at Carnegie, I first heard it on the album A Place for My Stuff. Yet another exploration of the things people say to each other that are utterly ridiculous. “If I’m in a particularly jaunty mood, I’ll tell them ’I’m not unwell, thank you,’ which pisses them off because they have to figure it out for themselves.”
Sports: Carlin loved sports, as his constant tinkering with “Baseball and Football” showed. But this routine, from 1986’s Playin’ With Your Head, is just as considered and detailed. It goes over Carlin’s rules as to what should be a sport and what shouldn’t (”Remember, it’s my rules; I make ’em up.”). One of my favorite parts is how he breaks down the game of volleyball: “Racketless team ping-pong played with an inflated ball and a raised net while standing on the table.”
Things You Never See: This one is also from Doin’ It Again, and I list it for one sentence and one sentence only. I won’t repeat it here, but it has to do with a hot poker and chopping something off. I first heard that line when Carlin performed at William Paterson College in 1989, and I almost choked on my own spit, I was laughing so hard. Carlin’s ability to put words together in unique and funny ways always were my favorite parts of his routines.
If you notice, there aren’t any recent Carlin routines on this list. During most of the ’90s and ’00s, Carlin was in his angry “the human race is doomed” phase, which just wasn’t as funny as the more observational stuff. Not that he didn’t have any good recent routines — his observations on death and how people deal with it were funny as hell — but I think the earlier ones were less angry and a bit more precise. And I didn’t put any of his “Seven Words” routines because, well … they’re funny, but much broader than the ones than are my favorites. Of all the “Seven Words” routines he’s done, the best one is “Filthy Words” off Occupation: Foole, which you can hear here (staring around the four-minute mark) and here.
What are your favorites? Let me know in the comments.
Sci Fi merging MMO and TV for new series
If nothing else, you have to give the team over at Sci Fi a couple points for thinking outside the box. This latest rush of creativity finds them partnering with Trion World Network to build their very own massively multiplayer online game to coincide with a companion series. In a nutshell, TV writers will partner with game designers with the end result being a game and series that will work in unison. The kicker being that those fans that play the game will influence the direction of the series.
Exactly what that influence will be is one of the many questions left up in the air after the guarded announcement. The only real details that were given up about the setting and direction of the show are that it is set 80 to 100 years in the future and Earth looks very different. It’s not a lot to go on, but it’s understandable why they are excited about it. Reading through the quotes from those involved you see things like Sci Fi president Dave Howe saying, “This is the Holy Grail for us, without a doubt.” So, if you had Aztec Rex in the Sci Fi Holy Grail pool, you were wrong.
If the Holy Grail comment wasn’t rose-colored-glasses enough, Howe follows it up later in the article by adding that bundling a World of Warcraft player community with a series and an on-line social community is something Sci Fi has tried to puzzle out for years. That’s great, but the problem is that part about the WoW community. Call me the skeptic, but that’s just not going to happen. If that’s the goal, then the Holy Grail reference is all the more appropriate, because that kind of community is going to be damned near impossible to find.
Of course, they don’t need to have the number one community in all of MMO in order for this idea to work. If the show and the game can combine to focus a rabid fan base, there could be a kernel to get this idea going. They do have on their side the fact that shows such as this have the ability to build those devoted fan bases. But then, there’s the rub. In the end I suspect it is going to come down to whether or not the show is any good. Give the viewers something on par with Battlestar, you might have something. Try to sell them something on the level of Painkiller Jane, and no amount of interactivity is going to save the show.
I’m curious to know about just how the fan interaction with the show is going to work. The example given in the article talks about telling players when and where an alien invasion will be taking place. How the players respond will determine the outcome and become a part of the show. It’s like a choose your own adventure novel on the biggest of scales.
Lars Buttler, chief executive at Trion, offers another peak at how the interactivity will shape the show. The data from the game and online community will help the producers bend the story lines to audience tastes. It’s an idea that I can see splitting opinion. Is it better to let writers tell their tale, or to try and constantly poll the viewership to try and guess what is going to work?
At this point there are certainly more questions than answers, and I think the show has more going against it than it does for it. Launching a game that is going to draw a big enough audience to be viable is hard. Establishing an online community that gains any traction is hard. And creating a television show that finds its audience and hangs on to them is hard. Getting all of those things to coincide is really frickin’ hard. That being said, I did sit through Heatstroke in its entirety last weekend, so I’m game to try anything once.
[ via massively.com ]