This week marks a pretty big event for the gang over at Smallville as they encounter the Justice Society of America for the first time. Granted, this isn’t the first time other DC superheroes have made it onto the show, with characters like Green Arrow, Aquaman, Black Canary, and others joining in the fray from time to time. With all those characters making appearances in the past, there’s still something even more special about this week’s two-hour episode.

While this season has brought up some interesting plots including Braniac, the Legion, Metallo, and others, this coming event, written by Geoff Johns, seems to take the cake. From Kryptonsite:

A man named Sylvester Pemberton tracks down Chloe (Allison Mack) and tells her he knows about her team of superheroes and needs their help. However, before he can explain who he is, he is attacked and killed by Icicle (guest star Wesley Macinnes). Clark (Tom Welling) and Chloe’s (Allison Mack) investigation leads Clark to the former headquarters of the Justice Society of America where he meets up with Nelson AKA Dr. Fate (guest star Brent Stait), Carter Hall AKA Hawkman (guest star Michael Shanks) and Courtney AKA Star Girl (guest star Britt Irvin).

Courtney pleads with Hawkman and Dr. Fate to help her catch the killer that is targeting their group but they are reluctant to resume their duties as superheroes. Clark, John Jones (guest star Phil Morris), Green Arrow (Justin Hartley) and Chloe team up to help the JSA stop Icicle before he murders another member of the group. Meanwhile, Lois (Erica Durance) receives a package from a mysterious agency called Checkmate, run by Amanda Waller (guest star Pam Grier).

Check out two exclusive clips from Smallville: Absolute Justice and be sure to watch the entire two-hour event this Friday at 8/7 Central on the CW.

Continue Reading →

The CW (Formerly UPN and The WB) has managed to latch on to some strong properties over the years, while of course picking up a few new ones, such as Gossip Girl. One of the original series’ that seems to stay strong, even in it’s fifth season, is Supernatural.

This season, thing seem to get a bit more interesting as the show attempts some risky episode scripts. Back in November, the “Changing Channels” episode had the two brothers flipping into different fictitious TV shows, which were basic spoofs of the other shows in Supernatural’s timeslot.

This week it seems that they’ll be taking a page from the book of Buffy, as Sam and Dean get locked up in an insane asylum. From Warner:

SAM & DEAN LOCKED UP IN THE NUTHOUSE?! – Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) go undercover at a mental institution in response
to a distress call from Martin Creaser, a former hunter (guest star Jon Gries) who’s a patient there.  Creaser thinks supernatural forces may be the real reason behind a large number of patient suicides and is afraid for his own life, but the experience proves to be a very dangerous one for the Winchester brothers as well.

Check out two brand-new clips from “Sam, Interrupted” after the jump. Be sure to catch this week’s episode Of Supernatural on Thursday at 9:00pm ET/PT on The CW.

Continue Reading →

Smallville is a show that hasn’t really generated that much intense interest with with true fanboys in it’s 9 seasons, yet we are all pretty excited about the upcoming “Ultimate Justice” event, in which the Justice Society of America make an appearance on the show. We already got a brief look at Michael Shanks as Hawkman earlier last week, and now we get much more to salivate over.

The episode was originally called “Society,” but due to the magnitude of the story, has been stretched to a two-part event entitled “Ultimate Justice.” As well as Shanks, the rest of the guest cast is filled out by Brent Stait (Andromeda) as Kent Nelson/Doctor Fate, Britt Irvin (Courtney Whitmore/Stargirl), Phil Morris  as John Jones/Martian Manhunter, and Erica Carroll (Reunion) as Dr. Fate’s wife, Inza.

Check out the brand new preview clip of the episodes after the jump, in which we get a glimpse of the Green Lantern ring, the Sandman mask, Dr. Fate, and a really cool Justice Society “Last Supper” painting. The episode is set to air January 29th of 2010.

Continue Reading →

Television network ABC has effectively staked their claim to rule Thursday nights, if the return numbers from The Hollywood Reporter are any indication. But instead of trying to make sense of those numbers, let’s break it down in a more digestible format, and what you really need to know is that ABC crushed the competition.

Both Grey’s Anatomy and the season premiere of Private Practice won their respective time slots while FlashForward tied with CBS’ Survivor in theirs, translating to an almost clean sweep. While most of the other shows couldn’t produce the same viewership, they managed to stay the course and not drop too much. CBS’ CSI: Crime Scene Investigations and The Mentalist, Fox’s Bones and Fringe and The CW’s Vampire Diaries and Supernatural all enjoyed different levels of success.

Left in the cold, however, is NBC and their sinking line-up of programming. Parks and Recreation, Community and SNL Weekend Update Thursday managed to produce poor numbers. Even fan-favorite The Office only managed to do “average,” leading to the former home of “Must See Thursday” placing fourth among the top-tiered networks.

General Zod is one of those characters that has an interesting back story in the Superman franchise. The character was originally created in 1961 by Roger Bernstein and George Papp, but didn’t become remotely as popular as when portrayed by Terence Stamp in Superman I & II. Since then, each reincarnation of the character has only been a monument to that role. Until now, that is.

Callum Blue has been added to this season’s cast of Smallville as the general who was sentenced to the Phantom Zone after attempting to rebel against his Kryptonian government. He was released at the end of the last season, and looks to be building his own army already in tonight’s premiere.

Blue comes from the popular Showtime series Dead Like Me, so he’s no stranger to the world of fantasy. The irony of the in-place Smallville cast is that Terence Stamp is already a regular as the voice of Jor-El, Clark’s father. Somehow, there is bound to be a moment when the new and old Zod cross paths, so keep an eye out.

Check out a clip from tonight’s premiere after the jump, and if you’re a Battlestar Galactica fan, see if you notice something familiar about it. All that seems to be missing are octagonal dogtags and the line “So Say We All!” Don’t forget to catch Smallville as it kicks off season 9 tonight on The CW at 8PM/7PM Central.

Continue Reading →

In 1992, Executive Producer Aaron Spelling’s latest soap-drama Melrose Place was lacking some serious ratings sizzle. Heather Locklear was recruited to play the stiletto heeled, micro-mini wearing maneater, Amanda Woodward. The character stirred things up in the boardroom (at D&D advertising agency) and in the bedroom.

Almost overnight, ratings climbed, and Locklear was credited with a 22% rise in ratings, according to Entertainment Weekly. Originally hired for a guest starring stint, Locklear remained on the show throughout its 7 year run, and her character’s bitchy persona and questionable board-room attire provided fodder for countless water cooler chats.

Later, Locklear appeared on Spin City, Scrubs, and Two and Half Men. All three shows saw a bump in ratings as well (“The Locklear Effect”, so to speak).  Her 2004 series LAX didn’t fare as well, though, and was quickly canceled.

Continue Reading →

Much like the rest of the universe of comic and TV fans out there, we have had a love/hate relationship with Smallville. The first few seasons were fun, but then the show began to lose it’s focus, along with a number of dedicated fans. Last season, that all seemed to change with the move of the show’s setting from Smallville to Metropolis, and more specifically, the Daily Planet.

At the end of last season, one of the big cliffhangers that was thrown into the last hour was that of Lois Lane (played by Erica Durance) disappearing into the future after stumbling across a Legion of Superheroes ring that one of the Legionaires left on their last visit.

Check out a new clip from Friday night’s season premiere in which Chloe (Allison Mack) and Clark (Tom Welling) discuss Lois’s disappearance–and reappearance–from the present time. This clip also alludes to a new villain for this season, which we will have a clip of tomorrow. Don’t forget to catch Smallville in it’s 9th season this Friday on The CW and 8PM/7PM Central.

Continue Reading →

With the corpse of his former show, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, barely even cold, Brian Austin Green has already moved on. According to TV Guide, the former Beverly Hills 90210 star will take up residence in a new, probably far-less glamorous, zip code: Smallville.

Green will join the show next season for at least two episodes as, oddly enough given his last TV gig playing someone who killed cyborgs, t, the kryptonite-powered cyborg Metallo. Green will, of course, also appear as Metallo’s alter-ego, Daily Planet reporter John Corben. No word on if the actor’s role will be expanded beyond the initial episodes. Guess that depends on the ratings.

Actually, I’m kinda glad Green is getting more acting gigs. His work on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was actually pretty good and went a long way to help me forget David Silver. Who knows, if there ends up being another Terminator feature film (and there probably will) perhaps we’ll see Green pop up in that one as well? He seems to like cyborgs so anything’s possible.

The ninth, and presumably last, season of Smallville premieres Friday, September 25th on The CW.

As an amateur photographer, I often find it necessary to use Adobe’s Photoshop software to enhance, color correct and otherwise improve some of my photos. When used correctly, judiciously and with a little common sense, its a great tool that most of the time is incredibility useful and vastly improves whatever photo you’re working with. However, this is not one of those times. Case in point, this brand new promo image for Season 9 of the CW’s television series Smallville.

Today, the CW released this promo image to advertisers promoting Season 9, and in so doing, according to Kryptonsite, created a weirdly Photoshopped mess where Tom Welling’s (Clark Kent/Superman) has his Season 8 head on his Season 6 body and Erica Durance (Lois Lane) has her head on Kristin Kreuk’s (Lana Lang) body.

According to the site, the promo image also lists “Sam Witwer as Davis Bloome” as part of the cast, so it may also be outdated. Although, oddly, Aaron Ashmore as “Henry Jimmy” is not listed. This same image can also be found on the CW’s official site, along with some equally badly Photoshopped images from 90210, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries and more.

If you happen to be a Photoshop expert looking for work, you should really get in touch with the CW. Obviously, they could use the help.

Even though its not on Matt Raub’s list (at least I don’t think it is), Reaper is one of those shows you’re not watching, but probably should be. The story of a boy who collects souls for his father Satan and sends them back to hell with the help of his two bumbling pals hasn’t exactly been a ratings darling for the somewhat struggling CW network. Sadly, given its ratings, it seemed cancillation and oblivion was the likely scenario for the show. Not so, according to an article over at The Hollywood Reporter.

According to the article, sources say show producer ABC Studios is in talks with CW affiliate stations about continuing Reaper as a syndicated series on Sunday night — seeing as how the CW recently gave Sunday back to its affiliates and they need programming besides local car commercials and reruns of Jerico. Another possible scenario is for the show to continue on cable. However, both of these are considered longshots mostly due to the cost of producing the show for cable or syndication and to series co-star Tyler Labine’s new Fox comedy series Sons of Tuscon, which was recently picked up by Fox. 

To be honest, Reaper was an interesting and intriguing show with a good cast when it first started but, for whatever reason, lost me half way through this season. Perhaps the show could find its stride once again if given a new lease on life in syndication or on cable? Or, maybe its time to just let the show die a dignified death like so many other quality shows these days that can’t seem to find an audience.