September 19, 2005
Fall TV Preview
Get ready to set your DVR's and TiVo's, D.C. The major networks have already started rolling out their new line-ups, but this week there are seemingly unlimited primetime viewing options as the new fall TV season kicks into high gear. Family sitcoms are back, as are shows about aliens.
Where does D.C. fit into this prime time muddle? Lucky for us, it looks like the political drama is still going strong. We'll have more then just The West Wing to tide us over, though. Viewers can catch the obvious E-Ring, an NBC drama about life inside the Pentagon, which premieres this Wednesday at 9 p.m., or ABC's Commander in Chief, starring Geena Davis. (On a side note, ABC's website for the show uses a fake blog format to drum up interest. It's annoying, to say the least.) Personally, we'd rather watch David Boreanaz brood handsomely all over the streets of D.C. as an FBI Agent in FOX's Bones. Kind of like a Mulder and Scully for the CSI set, the series premiere shows some potential, but they've got to be better with their exterior shots of the District. Our plea to network exec's everywhere: there's more to our city then the same canned footage of the Capitol building and Pennsylvania Ave. Please take note. And really now, we all know you can't see the Capitol from Dulles, like a screenshot above of the premiere captured by brownpau seems to indicate. D'oh!
So, what to watch then? Should you pick Supernatural on the WB over Fox's critically acclaimed House at 9 p.m. on Tuesdays? What about Thursday's at 8? Is it The O.C? Or CBS's Survivor: Guatemala? Sadly, DCist can't decide for you, and a few hard choices are going to have to be made. Post TV critic Tom Shales gave us his opinion on the new season this past Sunday, but what are your thoughts?
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Sadly, the writing in Bones wasn't compelling enough to keep me from griping about the complete geographical mash that the show makes of DC. It's so bad that you'd think someone is intentionally screwing it up. The last scene makes it look like you can bury someone about 20 feet away from the Lincoln Memorial.
Fairly typical of the movie industry to think itself above cracking an ADC (or spending 30 seconds on maps.google.com.) Consider, for example, the bucolic landscape the Wedding Crashers drive through before crossing some unspecified Potomac bridge (representative of the vast cow-pastures of Arlington, I suppose.) Although I don't recall any Capitol-vistas in Die Harder; and there are other examples of (limited) geographical veracity: Being There, 227, Igby Goes Down, Minority Report ...
Hello,
To be honest I’m hooked on CSI and more so to Survivor. I’m not sure which is going to turn out more brutal this season but I’d say Survivor is in the lead. Maybe it’s that reality aspect, Survivor’s events have more of an impact. I loved the West Wing but for some reason about a year or so ago I just drifted away. Oddly enough lately Washington Journal is creeping into my viewing habits as CSI begins to seem like the same thing over and over, murder, death, kill. I think it might be time to change the alphabet soup a little for some variety. (FBI, CIA, NSA) Washington ? Give me some intrigue mixed in with some technology coolness. This is a show I’d watch. Agent Maxwell Smart where are you? There's an interesting question about Survivor Guatemala at www.jerrythudson.blogspot.com Does anyone know the answer to the question asked? It's got graphics otherwise I would post it.
Take Care.
A particular favorite movie moment of mine is from the Day After Tomorrow when Dennis Quaid picks up Jake Gyllenhaal in northern Virginia and drives him over the 14th Street Bridge to go to National Airport. Not the most efficient way to get there, but who am I to argue with Dennis Quaid and Jake Gyllenhaal?
I'm kind of curious to see the E-Ring. I suspect it will involve a lot of people in dark mood lighting with bright LCD situation screens constantly running around saying Important Things and making Important Policy. Personally I think it would be more fun to be true to life and show them working in unflattering lighting, eating at the Taco Bell express, saying things like "OMG that was like totally a 4-star general!", and blowing their paychecks across the street at Pentagon City.
I was so distracted by the goofy geography on Bones I hardly paid attention to the plot.
They shot the series in L.A.
me too---there's a shot where they're coming back from dulles, but they roll past the capitol bldg. seriously, what? i'm hoping that the other two dc shows try a little harder.
I mean, you can bury someone 20 feet from the Lincoln Memorial.
No, you can't. By the time you get the third or fourth shovel full of dirt out of the way, they're on you. Every time.
(Easier at the Jefferson. Fewer guards.)
my favorite dc area movie/tv goof is in "Along Came A Spider" where Morgan Freeman goes in to Union Station to get on the subway, only to magically appear on the Baltimore subway.
As far as what to watch, allow me to throw in my bid for Nip/Tuck, which premieres tonight on FX (3rd season premiere, I mean). Best sex on basic cable, I say.
The end of Wedding Crashers could have easily been filmed around the Tidal Basin; I don't remember any egregious switches in landscape. I got a bigger kick out of the dressed-up Union Station posing as a flower market.
There's also the chase sequence in Enemy of the State, where Will Smith is running around Columbia Road in Adams Morgan (Chief Ike's is called Captain Ike's in the film), and then bam, he's on Connecticut in Dupont.
I don't remember any egregious switches in landscape.
I certainly do, and they certainly cross a very broad river in their approach to the Washington Monument, but concrete proof will have to wait until I iMovie my Quicktime bootleg or some such crap.
The bridge they crossed during their approach to the Washington Monument was definitely one of the bridges surrounding Maine Avenue approaching the start of Rock Creek Parkway. I don't know where "a very broad river" has a crossing as low to the river as the bridge seen in the film, and it's not that hard to make a bridge appear longer than it is.
THE WEST WING was always good for some mistakes:
1. Early on, they repeatedly mispronounced Rosslyn, giving the middle "ss" a short, terse hiss instead of the slightly languorous "z" sound that is correct.
2. In one episode, the staff were having a hard time getting into work because of protests or some such nonsense. Leo asks Josh how he got in, Josh replies: "I took Dupont." I thought, "Took Dupont where?" Aside from anyone driving around and around and around, Dupont is not something Washingtonians "take."
3. Season finale, President Bartlet must travel from the White House to the State Department to give a press conference that has been relocated. They leave 1600 Penn Ave, and are soon seen driving past the National Cathedral. Guess he had a lot of time to kill!
I don't know where "a very broad river" has a crossing as low to the river as the bridge seen in the film, and it's not that hard to make a bridge appear longer than it is.
Looked like a vague approximation of the Memorial Bridge, which ain't exactly a sky-scraping span. You really think they were driving up the SW waterfront in that scene? Eh. Doesn't seem right.