This is going to be a video-packed, catch-up post on the Heroes Webisodes, which launched July 14. A new one is going up every Monday, so parts 1 and 2 are up right here.

The first thing that struck me is that unlike The Office Webisodes, these are a lot like the real show. Yes, they suffer from the same time constraint that makes any kind of plot development or subtlety out of the question.

That said, you get all the elements of a new hero introduction that you would expect from the primetime series. They’re intense, a little suspenseful and right off the bat you identify with and feel for Echo, the mailman whose bark is worse than any dog’s bite.

And while the first installment opens with a seemingly cliched dog-chases-mailman opening, you do get the sense that Echo is decent. He doesn’t want to hurt the dog, even though it’s his cliched mortal enemy. But when The Company comes calling, he’s happy to unleash his pipes.

Does anyone else think the Constrictor looks like the lead singer from Midnight Oil? No? OK then.

Check out the videos and a plot breakdown after the jump. (And no Kristen Bell isn’t in the Webisodes, I just like that photo, courtesy of NBC Universal.)

I’ll admit it. I’ve never seen an episode of “Lost.”

I know, people tell me it’s amazing. I’m also fiercely intimidated by joining a complicated show so late in its run, which is why it took me so long to give “Deadwood” a try—and wow, I’m glad I did. But I’m also unmotivated to catch up on a series with season after season on DVD, especially when that honor is currently bestowed on “The Wire.” I just finished the fourth episode of Season 2, when Freamon looks 10 years younger than he does in Season 5 and Daniels is slowly working his way up the po-lice ladder. And it’s fantastic, obviously.

But there’s no disputing the powerful, almost cult-like fan base of “Lost.” One friend of mine only watches one show with any regularity and it’s “Lost.” And even people who feel like the show has lost its footing still watch it every week, much like fans of “The Sopranos” would complain that it would never live up to the quality of its first two seasons, but watched all the way through to the end for fear they’d miss something groundbreaking. (Insert joke about that series finale here.)

For a cliffhanger show like “Lost,” the stakes for season finales are much higher than, say, “30 Rock” (which I love, by the way). So when crazy things happened and new twists were revealed—can you tell I didn’t see it?—a heckuva lot of you (31 percent of voters) seemed to like what happened and voted accordingly in the latest Remote Access poll, deeming it the best season finale among fall series we regularly cover on this blog.

Placing second with 26 percent of the vote was “Jericho,” which filmed two endings and wound up using the one that worked more as a series finale.

Placing third (too low!) with 8 percent of the vote was the finale of “The Office,” which was by far the best episode of Season 4 and featured a command performance by “Wire” veteran Amy Ryan, as evidenced by this classic one-minute snippet when she endears herself to Michael and millions of “Office” fans:

Tied for fourth were the finales for “Heroes” and “House,” with 6 percent of the vote. Find out the rest of the results—and our latest poll—after the break. Read more of this entry »

Despite the fact that so many of the shows we follow on this blog involve killing people and blowing things up, many of our favorite actors and actresses are vegetarians.

PETA is holding its annual Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity contest, and here’s the stars from Remote Access shows who are in the running (sorry if I missed anyone!) — and you can vote for one woman and one man, so you can choose your favorite two:

The women

The men

NBC’s fall slate is out, confirming among other things that The Office returns Sept. 25.

30 Rock doesn’t return until Oct. 30, more than a month later, to make room for prime-time, election-editions of Saturday Night Live on Oct. 9, 16 and 23.

Other highlights include Heroes’s three-hour premiere (which includes an hour-long compilation show) Sept. 22, the Oct. 9 debut of Kath & Kim (9:30 p.m. ET) and the relaunch of Knight Rider Sept. 24 (8 p.m. ET). Entertainment chief Ben Silverman unveiled the lineup today.

Chuck returns (Thankfully!) Sept. 29 (8 p.m. ET) and leads into Christian Slater’s new show, My Own Worst Enemy 10 p.m. ET).

Kath & Kim,” starring Molly Shannon and Selma Blair, replaces Scrubs —which jumped to ABC—on Thursdays. Reality hit The Biggest Loser launches with a two-hour Families edition, filling the America’s Got Talent slot on Tuesdays.

America’s Toughest Jobs jumps its Summer 2009 scheduled debut with a two-hour episode on Sept. 12 (8 p.m. ET). Check local listings. Its schedule is zany. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (10 p.m. ET) starts its 10th season Sept. 23. Read more of this entry »

And from what I’ve read, Mohinder is no longer the narrator, which should make the show 40 percent less annoying. Now all we need is for Sylar to corner Claire alone in a dark alley.

Check out this promo. I’m pretty sure if you look close you’ll see Peter labeled a villain. It can only make him more likable.

As much as I love covering “Top Chef,” which is just past its seasonal halfway point, and “American Idol,” which is coming down the home stretch, I’m looking forward to blogging more regularly about some scripted TV, specifically “Chuck,” which returns this fall.

Filming for the fall begins next Friday and, to TV Guide, the Intersect and his buddies will return to TV for 13 consecutive new episodes this fall. Nice.

Zachary Levi revealed the date to resume filming to TV Guide, but not much else about Season 2. “I have a huge mouth, so if they tell me anything, we’re screwed,” he told a TV guide reporter.

“Heroes” is expected to receive the same treatment of 13 straight new eps this fall, according to the mag.

Now, I know I’ve been critical of NBC for deciding to wait until the fall to bring the show back while allowing more established comedies (”The Office” and “30 Rock,” for example) to return for a mini-season shortly after the conclusion of the writers’ strike. But while “The Office” and “30 Rock” are critical darlings that have devout, passionate and may I say extremely intelligent fans, post-strike ratings for those shows went from strong to wrong once “Grey’s Anatomy” and “CSI” returned with new episodes. “The Office” dropped 21 percent from its season high (earned May 1) while “30 Rock” posted its “lowest-rated episode this season,” according to Entertainment Weekly. Blerg.

Perhaps the NBC execs had a point when they decided to wait a bit; “Chuck’s” ratings were slowly building an audience and collected some momentum in the fall. Bringing it back too soon only to cut it short again for summer break might have crippled any chance for the show to build or even retain its humble ratings, meaning all but certain cancelation.

What should we expect for Chuck version season 2.0? And will “Chuck” fans ever see an appearance by Natalie Martinez, who may or may not have been tabbed to play Chuck’s steady girlfriend, thus completing a love triangle with him and Sarah? Plus more teasers, minor spoilers and photos await for “Chuck” fanatics after the break. Read more of this entry »

Well, not quite, but FHM has its annual list of the 100 sexiest women of 2008, and at least 14 15 of them are familiar to our blog’s faithful readers:

90. Summer Glau (Cameron, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
83. Jenna Fischer (Pam, The Office)
73. Carrie Underwood (American Idol)
63. Grace Park (The Eights/Sharons, Battlestar Galactica)
49. Katherine Heigl (Dr. Isobel ‘Izzie’ Stevens, Grey’s Anatomy)
41. Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang, Smallville)
38. Katherine McPhee (American Idol)
37. Evangeline Lilly (Kate, Lost)
24. Kristen Bell (Elle, Heroes)
19. Ali Larter (Niki Sanders & Co., Heroes)
15. Erica Durance (Lois Lane, Smallville)
11. Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennett, Heroes)
9. Blake Lively (Serena van der Woodsen, Gossip Girl)
8. Tricia Helfer (The Sixes, Battlestar Galactica)
4. Elisha Cuthbert (Kim Bauer, 24)

That’s more than 10 percent of the list accounted for. Hey! Where’s the 100 sexiest men of 2008?? (And isn’t April/May kind of early in the year for this sort of listing?)

A week and a half ago, Jenna Fischer, who plays Pam on “The Office,” and Brad Beyer, who plays Stanley on “Jericho,” were deadlocked among Remote Access readers who voted in a poll to determine the supporting actor “most crucial” to his/her show.

After a tie of 171 votes apiece, Fischer broke away from Beyer and claimed the honor. She finished with 222 votes; Beyer claimed 203. (Photo of Jenna Fischer courtesy of NBC/Universal.)

Like last week’s results, actors from their shows also filled the poll’s next two slots: Rainn Wilson (92 votes), Dwight on “The Office,” and reader-submitted Skeet Ulrich (73 votes), Jake on “Jericho.” (I’d still contend that Ulrich is a lead actor, but it’s an interesting poll trend regardless.)

Rounding out the top 10 were Michael Emerson as Ben on “Lost” (43 votes); Robert Sean Leonard as Wilson on “House, M.D.” (36 votes); Tricia Helfer as Number Six on “Battlestar Galactica” (32 votes); Summer Glau as Cameron on “Terminator: The Sarah Conor Chronicles” (25 votes); Masi Oka as Hiro on “Heroes” (18 votes); and Allison Mack as Chloe on “Smallville” (17 votes).

Our new poll, in the right margin of this page, is all about elbow grease: Who is the hardest-working TV personality? We’ve even given you a few suggestions to get you started.

From “Lost” to “Cloverfield,” it seems like JJ Abrams is everywhere these days. “Daily Show” alumnus Steve Carell rocks “The Office” and is an A- or B-list movie star at this point. “Saturday Night Live” alumna Tina Fey is the MVP writer/producer/star of “30 Rock” and also has movie cred with “Mean Girls” and “Baby Mama.” Ryan Seacrest hosts “American Idol,” the Emmys, “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” his own radio show, E! newscasts, “American Top 40″ and pretty much everything that needs an emcee. And Oprah Winfrey’s talk show continues to rule and her presence extends into prime time, politics and international charity work.

As we like to do here at Remote Access, we’re giving you the option to submit your own nominations as well. So feel free to do so. Remember: We’re looking for people who got their start and/or are best known for their contribution to television. Movie stars making a TV cameo now and then shouldn’t count. Vote, vote, vote!

Check out the rest of the results of the supporting actor poll after the break.

This unrelated photo of Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), courtesy NBC Universal, is from the April 24 episode “Night Out”. It’s my blog and I felt like including it. So there.

Well now NBC is announcing that Heroes and Chuck are slated for their own series of online shorts come July. Additional chapters of Webisodes for each show will roll out throughout the season, the network says. The Office Webisodes, dubbed “The Accountants” won an onlin Emmy for the 10-installment saga of a missing $3,000.
In less exciting news, 30 Rock 360 will launch, bringing the same kind of zany fun (i.e. excruciatingly un-fun) that we’ve already seen for The Office and Heroes.

I was skeptical of The Office 360 when I first heard about it a year ago, and Dunder Mifflin Infinity, as it became to be known, fell short of even my lowest expectations. In this case you might be thinking, “It’s 30 Rock-related. How could it not be fun?” I thought the same thing about The Office and was painfully wrong.

Heroes’s fall return is a long way off, but I’m still intrigued by at least some of the snippets of spoilery info that trickle out onto the Interwebs from time to time.

For starters, SyFyPortal reports that Kenzei will rise from the grave. It was sheer genius for Hiro to plant his friend-turned-nemesis six feet under just as the erstwhile Adam was about to unleash a plague upon humanity. It seemed potentially permanent at the time, but I kept thinking that if he isn’t dead he’s still a threat.

“I believe so, yeah. I hope so. I know I’m going to be in one of the first six so…”  (actor David) Anders told SyFy Portal’s Alan Stanley Blair at (the mid-March) Eclipse event in the United Kingdom. “But after that, it’s called ‘Villains,’ and I am an uber-villain.”

The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films announced the nominations for the 34th Annual Saturn Awards this week. Not surprisingly, in the television nominations, Lost led the way, with an impressive seven nominations. Dexter, with five, and Heroes, with four, also did well.

But what was missing?

Jericho.

Now, I know that not everyone considers Jericho to be science fiction. But most sci-fi fans do consider it to be, at least. Sci-fi websites cover Jericho and it’s a post-apocalyptic drama; seems to fit the category, at least loosely. How is it less so than, say, Pushing Daisies? Or Shrek the Halls??

As much as I appreciate most of the noms listed below (but Battlestar Galactica totally should have gotten more nominations, as much as I love Lost!), Jericho should have gotten some Saturn love.

And the (television) nominees are (for a full list, go here): Read more of this entry »

Remember that scene in Spaceballs when they find Yogurt and he tells them the secret to the Schwartz? “Moichandizing!” the glittery Mel Brooks declares.

So you had Spaceballs the hat. Spaceballs the action figure. And of course Spaceballs the flamethrower.

Well that’s what I was reminded of when I read a recent press release from NBC Universal about the forthcoming release of Heroes the soundtrack.

Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop recorded tunes alongside such perennial music icons as Nada Surf (Who?), Panic! At The Disco, Wilco and The Jesus & Mary Chain (their first recording since the 1990s. Who knew?).

The disc hits stores, electronic and brick, March 18.

(By the way, it’s being released by NBC Universal Television, DVD, Music & Consumer Products Group. That reminds me of Jack Donaghy, vice president of Television and Microwave Programming.)

It’s exec produced by Errol Kolosine (”Six Feet Under”) in collaboration with showrunner Tim Kring and Heroes exec producer & director Allan Arkush.

“For a long time music and comic dork like myself, this project has been a dream come true,” Kolosine said. Read more of this entry »

Meandering about the interwebs for tidbits on Heroes‘ immediate future has turned up some interesting observations and speculation on what’s to come.

Sounds like we can expect to see less Kristen Bell (which would be a shame) but not too much less (phew!). And there should be more Heroes overall, which is cool.

TVGuide.com’s Michael Ausiello, not surprisingly, is the source for much of the recent scoop. In one recent Ask Ausiello column he hints that Bell, who only signed on for a limited run as bad girl Elle during this interrupted season, will be back in the fall. But Ausiello also hints that we should “scale back” our expectations.

A week earlier, actually, he was much more direct about the question.

…Kristen Bell is not — I repeat, not — signed on for next season. But (and this is a big “but,” so listen up) sources confirm that Heroes is in active discussions with her to return for an arc during Season 3. And considering how much everyone at the show worships her — and she them — I have every reason to believe that this will happen.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think much at all about Heroes these days, mainly since it became clear that Season 2 was a wash and Tim Kring and Co. wouldn’t be returning with new episodes until the fall.

That’s totally cool with me. I understand the show is costly and time-consuming to produce. Any effort to rush out a handful of new episodes this spring would likely result in sub-par results to little purpose. I wasn’t as harsh a critic of the recent season as some (though Alejandro and Maya certainly tried my patience), but I’ll be the first to admit a little time and a creative reboot couldn’t hurt.

Well, after perusing a recent BuddyTV report on what’s to come when the “Villians” story arc finally gets under way, I’m feeling confident it’ll be worth the wait.

NBC announced three series pickups for the fall: Chuck, Life and Heroes. That last one was not a shock to anyone, to be sure, but it’s definitely nice to see the news about Chuck. I haven’t watched Life, but it sure gets good play… It’s not clear if any more episodes of Chuck or Life will be filmed for the rest of this season, but Heroes definitely won’t be back until fall.

NBC also recently announced it had picked up the American series adaptation of the popular Australian comedy, Kath & Kim. The American version would star Molly Shannon as Kath, “a cheerful, forty-something divorcee,” and Selma Blair as Kim, “her self-absorbed daughter.”

Speaking of, NBC and CBS also announced when several other shows would come back.

With the writers’ strike nearing an end—YAhoo!—it looks like many of our favorite shows will be back on the air by spring.

“The Office,” “30 Rock,” “Gossip Girl,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives” and more will likely be able to churn out a handful of new episodes by April.

But others—mostly newbies like “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Pushing Daisies” and “Chuck”—  probably won’t be back until the fall.

Then there’s “24,” which won’t return until January 2009, returning to the show’s standard winter premiere strategy—but leaving fans without their Jack Bauer fix for nearly TWO years.

As for serialized dramas like “Heroes” and “Lost,” the decision is a bit more difficult.

Networks and producers are trying to figure out if it’s worth the trouble to produce just a few episodes for the rest of this season, leaving viewers hanging in the middle of convoluted storylines until September.

“Lost” exec producer Damon Lindelof seems to think the island drama can crank out more than the 8 episodes we’ve been promised this season—but then again, it’s all up to ABC as to when they’d air.

E!’s Kristin Dos Santos got the scoop from show runners for some of Remote Access’ faves, including all of the above mentioned shows.  Check it out here!

(Photos courtesy of ABC, FOX and NBC) 

Marlo? A Hero?

I’m new to The Wire, but that seems unlikely. And yet it’s true.

Jamie Hector, who plays the ruthless but impressively ambitious and efficient young Baltimore drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield, will join the Heroes cast when the show returns next season. New York Magazine reveals that he has already shot a couple of episodes, which have been on ice during the writers strike.

Hector, who appeared in Spike Lee’s 1995 Clockers, plays the role of Benjamin Knox Washington. And that’s about all the detail he was willing to share.

What else do you need to know? Marlo is 145 times scarier than Sylar ever was.

Some pairing

I thought it was pretty creepy when romance seemed to be brewing between Claire Bennett and Peter Petrelli midway through season one of Heroes. Later, when it was revealed they were uncle and niece, I was relieved that potential storyline had been chucked.

But when Hayden Panettiere and Milo Ventimiglia were snapped at a pro hockey game last month, we were back to creepy territory again. I’m willing to admit, though, that I can’t say for sure why. He’s 30 and she’s 18. Normally I’d say that’s not good. But considering that they are high profile celebrities who don’t live anything approximating real lives, is it really terrible? Read more of this entry »

Ninety days and counting is a long time to get by on a dwindling supply of original TV viewing. We all did what we had to. Some of us turned to TV on DVD. Others gasp resorted to reality shows. A few of us, I hate to say it, even popped open a book or two.

No one’s going to blame you later for what you did to survive the writers strike. But hopefully you didn’t sully your TV-absorbing brain cells with too much of the written word. And hopefully you discovered TV-friendly options, like the original Heroes tome, “Saving Charlie” (which I first mentioned here). I didn’t get that desperate, so I can’t tell you if it was worth the $24 you had to plunk down for Aury Wallington’s take on the backstory between Hiro and Charlie at the Burnt Toast Diner.

But this mom of twins read it, and she offers her take. Read more of this entry »

Every now and again, I have to clear out my drafts folder with all the tidbits I’ve been saving up and never gotten around to posting.

So here’s several news items that have come to light in the past week or so:

• The SciFi Channel has ordered a 13-episode season of a new scripted drama that will be 90 percent CGI, as far as the sets are concerned, in the style of 300 and Sin City. Amanda Tapping, late of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, stars as Dr. Helen Magnus, and Robin Dunne, who once upon a time was on Dawson’s Creek, plays her protoge, Will Zimmerman. They “are on a quest to track down, aid and protect all manner of strange creatures that walk the earth.  The show started out as an Internet-based high-def series. Tapping will, however, still make guest appearances on Atlantis in its next season.

The latest sci-fi star to get an asteroid named for him is none other than Adm. William Adama, Edward James Olmos.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the asteroid formerly known as 1993 EO (not to be confused with the artist formerly known and then once again known as Prince) has been dubbed 5608 Olmos, according to SciFi Wire.

The name change is “in recognition of the actor’s work and promotion of humanitarian causes.”

Massachusetts astronomer Tom H. Burbine, who got a different asteroid named for Star Tr