An Early Start to the New TV Season

The Fall 2003 series line is beginning to roll out this week, with several new shows out of the gate very early. Official Premiere Week isn’t until September 22nd, but NBC will unveil Whoopi Goldberg’s eponymous Whoopi tonight at 8pm, followed by the John Laroquette/Christine Baranski vehicle Happy Family. The word isn’t too positive on either of these, so perhaps it's wise to catch these while you can.

Tomorrow night on UPN brings the first new Enterprise episode of the season, plus the premiere of the new Jake 2.0. Jake sounds like fun, and there’s a lot riding on Enterprise’s third year to pep up what some consider a faltering Star Trek franchise. Star Trek on the skids? Perish the thought! Of course, Jake real competition for like-minded viewers will heat up once WB's Angel gets new episodes going; if Jake does make the grade, it will be the first successful post-Enterprise venture for UPN, and not because they haven't tried.

UPN’s doing a sneak preview of sorts with Thursday night’s post-Smackdown airing of their new comedy The Mullets, and WB brings out Steve Harvey’s Big Time and the new sitcom Run of the House the same night. On Friday WB introduces All About the Andersons.

Next week is also peppered with premieres, with more to come during the official week, and there are some staggered starts from Fox still to come due to their baseball coverage which extends well into October. Check your TV listings for the latest on the newbies, and you can get my previews of all the new shows on my website here.

I’m on my way to Nova Scotia again, and so will be on a TV starvation diet. Once I return I’ll catch up but good, and in addition to the shows I’ve mentioned above, I’ll be most excited to watch HBO’s already-lauded Carnivale which premieres this Sunday night, with many encores throughout the week. I’ve got a lot to say about this sideshow-set creepy melodrama, but I guess it will have to wait a while!

In the meantime, happy viewing and here’s to a great 2003 TV season!

 
Viva Banderas!

Tonight on HBO, Antonio Banderas joins the motley band of thespians – Telly Savalas, Yul Brynner, Pedro Armendariz, and Wallace Beery among them – who’ve attempted to capture the charismatic essence of legendary Mexican revolutionary leader Pancho Villa on screen. His movie is called And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself, and it’s safe to say that Antonio’s certainly got a leg up in the looks department, if that counts (sure it does!). Writer Larry Gelbart and director Bruce Beresford have concentrated on an intriguing and eccentric bit of history for this newest look at a man whose exploits mightily vexed – and fascinated – the U.S. shortly after the turn of the 20th century.

Let’s face it, to most Americans the name Pancho Villa lives as an iconic image of a guy in a bandido hat; it’s better than not living at all of course, but if this movie is going to work – get an audience – it’s certainly not the quest for a fuller portrait of a historical figure that will pull them in. You’ve gotta have a gimmick, and HBO’s got a dandy, the improbable but true story of how a band of Hollywood filmmakers went down to Mexico to make a documentary of Villa’s fight against the forces of dictator Porfirio Diaz, and ended up letting Pancho fashion his own version of the conflict. There’s a lot of potential to explore here: the incongruous visual juxtaposition of fact vs. fantasy, the curious notion of historical figure portraying himself as a character in a movie of his own as-yet unfinished exploits, and all that stuff about the supposed myth-making power of the movies, which we’ll no doubt see that Pancho Villa himself believed, even way back in the movie industry’s teen years.

Movie pioneer D.W. Griffiths appears as a character in the film, along with Mutual Film Corp. exec Harry Aitken, actor-director Raoul Walsh and others, as well as figures from the Mexican side of the story. Along with the wry intellectual conundrum of the basic premise, there’s plenty enough traditional action and adventure to make this film a pleasure on multiple levels. Add to this the irresistible and evidently extremely hard-working Banderas – the latest Spy Kids movie in theaters now, his new Once Upon a Time in Mexico opening this Friday, his six-month stint on Broadway in Nine winding to an end – and maybe the excitement and newness of a long-ago and barely recalled historical era can come back to life. This era hasn’t worked in movies since – well, since this era, really. Name the last pre-World World I movie that worked. And movies about early Hollywood? Wonderful material – I’m thinking of Bogdanovich’s Cat’s Meow, which is a slightly later time period but close enough – but it’s a place where audiences don’t want to go. Thank goodness that And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself has guns, galloping horses, fightin’ flivvers, and everything else you need to make the mythic medicine go down a lot easier.

This movie also has a little bit of Reds in it (John Reed’s a character), some Old Gringo (Americans come up against the Mexican Revolution), a smidgen of Good Morning, Babylon (D.W. Griffith), and the ghosts of every actor who did his best to bring Pancho Villa to life. As this movie shows, truth is always stranger and much more interesting than fiction, and let’s hope that Banderas et al get the audience recognition they deserve for this rambunctious and riveting drama.

And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself premieres tonight, Sunday 9/7 at 9:30pm on HBO. Check out their website for more information and a complete schedule of airdates.

If you decide you'd like to delve into the history for yourself, here are some good websites about Pancho Villa:

Who Was Pancho Villa? Find out here!

The Biography Project's Pancho Villa site.

Pancho Villa from the Wikipedia site.

Another nice site with lots of links about Pancho Villa.