Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Downton’s hiatus puts strain on Christmas spirit
I’ve gotten death threats. OK. One death threat. And it probably wasn’t serious.
I’m just going to go ahead and declare that it was made in the heat of the moment by an overly frustrated Downton
Abbey fan aggravated by the long, agonizing wait between the last time she saw her very most favorite series in the world (March) and when it returns for its final season Jan. 3.
Perhaps I should have been a bit more judicious when I announced recently on social media that I had received my review copy of the final season. Maybe I should not have included a photo of the DVD.
I believed I was simply informing my readers that I was on the job and had begun to watch the forthcoming season for their sake. Was that taunting? Was that lording it over the plebeian viewers who must wait like the lowly servants below in the kitchen while we, the privileged class of television critics, sip tea and prattle on about the decline of Edwardian values?
Whatever, I hardly believe that my early possession of Season 6 of Downton Abbey warrants the response, “My pre-ordered copy doesn’t ship until Jan. 26 and I may have to kill you for yours.”
Nonetheless, I shall be watching my back along with the previews as the new year approaches. Downton Abbey isn’t the only series with fanatics out there.
I tried to watch the preview DVD that WGN sent me of Outsiders last weekend and the thing kept hanging up. I’ll have to work on that before the debut on Jan. 26. From what I can gather, it looks like Deliverance meets
Sons of Anarchy, only with all-terrain vehicles instead of motorcycles.
The point is, most preview DVDs are cheap things because the networks aren’t spending much money on them for the critics.
Fanatics? Fox has already begun its run-up to what it’s labeling “the next mind-bending chapter of The X-Files” at 9 p.m. Jan. 24 following the NFC Championship game.
The second of the twonight special premiere will be at 7 p.m. Jan. 25. I’m not certain whether Fox will even bother sending a preview DVD. Sometimes the networks believe something is so special and comes so presold that it doesn’t want to risk piracy with a DVD.
Increasingly, the networks resort to press screener websites accessible only by do-not-share, preregistered passwords. That’s so they know who you are, where you are, for whom you work and when you are watching.
To further discourage the temptation to copy, share or otherwise disseminate the proprietary intellectual material, the preview copy on the press site is generally dark and muddled, with bad sound.
What else is looming? Game of Thrones doesn’t arrive until April, but the Season 6 poster has Jon Snow (Kit Harington) on it.
American Crime returns to ABC at 9 p.m. Jan. 6 with a new story and characters. Back from the first season are Felicity Huffman, Regina King, Timothy Hutton and Lili Taylor.
American Idol kicks off its final season at 7 p.m. Jan. 6 on Fox.
Mike & Molly finally gets a premiere date at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 6 on CBS. It will be a shortened season of 13 episodes and evidently will also be the series’ last, although the network has yet to make that official.
Jennifer Lopez gets a shot at her first TV dramatic role when NBC debuts Shades of Blue at 9 p.m. Jan. 7. She plays a detective and single mother enlisted by the FBI to investigate her own dirty squad. Ray Liotta and Drea De Matteo co-star.
Fox is rolling out Second Chance (formerly titled Lookinglass, The Frankenstein Code and Frankenstein) at 8 p.m. Jan. 13. It features a guy who gets killed and is then resurrected by a couple of tech billionaires as a younger man (Rob Kazinsky, True Blood).
And finally ( for today), I’ll mention that Lost creator Carlton Cuse has cast Lost favorite Josh Holloway (he played Sawyer) in Colony. The series, co-starring The Walking Dead’s Sarah Wayne Callies ( she played Lori Grimes), is set in Los Angeles, which has been occupied and colonized by an advanced alien race. I found the pilot intriguing. The series debuts at 9 p.m. Jan. 14 on USA.
And speaking of The Walking Dead, that hugely popular fan favorite doesn’t come back until Feb. 14. Yeah. Happy Valentine’s Day.
Miss Universe. If you enjoy your beauty pageants for what they are and unencumbered by any pretension of being a “scholarship” pageant, then tonight’s your night. The 64th annual Miss Universe Pageant with Steve Harvey as host airs at 6 p.m. on Fox from Planet Hollywood Las Vegas Resort & Casino. It’ll take three hours.
If you root for the home team, she’s Miss USA Olivia Jordan, a 27-year-old (kind of old for this sort of thing), 5-foot-11 model and actress from Tulsa who was in Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and can quote every episode of Friends.
My international favorite is 21-year-old, 5-foot-9 Polish model Weronika Szmajdzinska from Szczecin. She lists her special talent as being able to fall asleep anywhere.