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‘Taken’: The NBC Thriller Gets a “More Mills” Reboot

January 2, 2018 Lori Acken

When Taken debuted last winter, fans of the Luc Besson film franchise on which the series was based knew they were getting an origin story. What they didn’t expect was that the drama and its core character Bryan Mills (Clive Standen) were almost unrecognizable to the Besson mythology. Rather than give up on a promising premise, NBC instead opted to reboot its reboot, cleaning house on an oft confusing array of supplemental characters and bringing in Person of Interest’s Greg Plageman to oversee a more Mills-centric tale, augmented with just a pair of intriguing newbies. In Season 2, Mills is […]

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MacGyver on CBS: The Gadget Guy Is Back For a New Generation

September 22, 2016 Lori Acken

MacGyver CBS Premieres: Friday, Sept. 23 at 8/7CT Who’s In It? Lucas Till, George Eads, Sandrine Holt, Justin Hires Mac’s back! The cult-favorite series that ran from 1985-1992 and made Richard Dean Anderson a star gets a fun and pulse-pounding update from Hawaii Five-0’s Peter M. Lenkov and the Saw movie series mastermind James Wan, in his first TV project. Lucas Till — the X-Men films’ Havok — plays a 20-something Angus MacGyver, Department of External Services agent and, yes, massively creative problem solver, with beloved CSI star George Eads taking over as his sidekick Jack Dalton. “For the most part, […]

Rush Hour CBS
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Not so fast: Rush Hour TV series isn’t up to speed

March 31, 2016 Ryan Berenz

A TV series adapted from a popular film franchise has the benefit of brand recognition and a built-in audience. On the other hand, the TV project is saddled with its own set of expectations and inevitable comparisons to the films. In the case of Rush Hour on CBS, the movies leave their TV adaptation in the dust. Chris Tucker played wisecracking maverick detective Carter and Jackie Chan played straitlaced Hong Kong detective and martial arts expert Lee in three Rush Hour movies. Now CBS is reimagining the interracial buddy-cop action/comedy franchise in a new hourlong series starring relative newcomers Justin […]

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Elodie Yung thinks Elektra in Marvel’s Daredevil “is kind of a sociopath”

March 17, 2016 Jeff Pfeiffer

Marvel’s Daredevil, the acclaimed Netflix series based on the comic, returns for Season 2 on Netflix March 18, with Charlie Cox again playing the title hero, joined by returning cast members Deborah Ann Woll as Karen, Elden Henson as Foggy, Rosario Dawson as Claire and Scott Glenn as Stick. New to the Daredevil series are Elodie Yung as Elektra, and Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle, a.k.a. The Punisher. You may remember these two characters from various film incarnations, but it sounds like there will be some unique takes on them in this series. “We think Elektra is kind of a […]

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Why I Should Binge-Watch “The Shield”

February 1, 2016 Eric Kohanik

WHAT IS The Shield ABOUT? Who is in it? Where is The Shield now? Why is it binge-worthy? Must-sees Most shocking episodes That line was so great A gritty police drama set in Los Angeles, The Shield revolves around a group of detectives dedicated to battling gang activity in the fictional Farmington neighborhood of L.A. Michael Chiklis tops the cast of the series as an ethically compromised detective named Vic Mackey, who heads up the unit known as the Strike Team, which often relies on unethical, corrupt – and illegal – methods to nab bad guys. Original TV Home: FX […]

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Supergirl Season 1 Episode 8 Recap: Hostile Takeover

December 15, 2015 Scott Fishman

The Kryptonian family feud comes to a head on the Supergirl midseason finale. Having escaped Astra and returned to the DEO — where Alex tells her to rust Hank Henshaw and let them handle Kara’s aunt — Kara discovers Astra hovering over CatCo. The two go to battle. But during each of their encounters you get a sense of just how close the two were, especially during flashbacks to when Kara was a little girl. They fight, but exhibit restraint when each is in a vulnerable position. There is — or was — love between them. Supergirl eventually captures Astra and […]

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Syfy’s “The Expanse” combines old-school space opera and sleek, modern sci fi

December 8, 2015 Jeff Pfeiffer

Syfy is billing The Expanse as the most ambitious series in its history, and from what we’ve seen, that shows. It has a look and feel that combines good old space opera with sleek science fiction, reminding us of Guardians of the Galaxy at times in its fun yet thrilling depiction of a future that — despite being set 200 years away from our time, when humanity has colonized the solar system — still has a lived-in look. There’s nothing tidy about this future, or its characters, especially rogue ship’s captain Jim Holden (Steven Strait, pictured). “We have the technology […]

Into the Badlands The Widow
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AMC’s genre-bending “Into the Badlands” lives by the sword

November 12, 2015 Ryan Berenz

It’s hard to pin a label on AMC’s new six-part action drama series Into the Badlands, premiering Sunday, Nov. 15, at 10pm ET/PT. It has the dystopian future politics of The Hunger Games. It has the antiheroes of Westerns like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It has the warrior’s spiritual journey of Kung Fu. It has themes of family bloodlines and ambition like in Game of Thrones or Shakespeare’s history plays. It has the moral codes of classic samurai films, and fight sequences reminiscent of The Matrix and Hong Kong martial arts movies. Into the Badlands fuses together […]