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First Look: White Collar

BuzzSugar — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:40:13 -0700

From Traveler to Chuck, Matthew Bomer has the mysterious, slick, small-screen action star thing down. So I'm excited to get a glimpse of the former Bryce Larkin in his next role, as a criminal turned crimefighter in USA's White Collar.

The concept of White Collar seems to fit pretty well with a couple of other recent USA series, especially In Plain Sight and Burn Notice. Bomer plays Neal Caffrey, a cunning criminal who falls prey to an FBI agent (Tim DeKay) who's been his nemesis for years. He escapes from a maximum security prison, and though he's eventually caught, he comes up with a suggestion that would keep him from being behind bars: He offers his services to help the FBI track down other criminals like himself.

Tiffani Thiessen helps round out the cast. White Collar will air 13 episodes in its first season, which starts in the Fall. Are you interested in giving it a try? To watch the preview, read more.

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Buzz News Roundup, 8/11

BuzzSugar — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:30:51 -0700

The Office has been given the key post-Super Bowl time slot and will air a one-hour episode following the game, Entertainment Weekly reports.
According to ComingSoon, Steve Buscemi and Romany Malco will star together in Saint John of Las Vegas, a loose adaptation of Dante's Inferno.
Tori Spelling has no deal to appear on 90210 and her desired salary may be the sticking point, E! reports.
Sara Gilbert is joining the cast of The Big Bang Theory after a successful guest-starring gig, Zap2it reports.
Dennis Hopper will get his own exhibit in France where, apparently, he is highly revered, writes Variety.
Clarke Peters and Wendell Pierce - aka Freamon and Bunk from The Wire - are joining Treme, David Simon's new HBO pilot about New Orleans, writes The Hollywood Reporter.
Variety has the news that director Chris Columbus is readying a film about Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential run.
24 producer Carlos Coto and Brett Ratner are working on an action-comedy for Fox titled Wild Boys, which will follow "ex-soldiers turned suburban dads," ComingSoon reports.
Matthew Bomer - aka Bryce Larkin from Chuck and Jay from Traveler - has been cast in the lead of a USA series called White Collar, writes The Hollywood Reporter.

Photo courtesy of NBC

Chuck Rundown: Episode 10, "Chuck vs. The Nemesis"

BuzzSugar — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:40:02 -0800

First of all, here's something worthy of celebrating for all you Chuck fans: NBC has picked up the show for a full season, along with the new series Life. Exactly what that means depends on how long it takes to resolve the Hollywood writers' strike, but whenever shows go into production again, Chuck will be among them. Yay!

So it's only right that Chuck followed up the big news with an episode that featured some of the best action sequences since the pilot, an intriguing love triangle, and, of course, the return of Bryce Larkin. To hear my take on the episode's ups and downs, just read more

I'd been expecting a lot from the return of Bryce, and Chuck totally delivered. He aggravated Casey, made out with Sarah, and tried making nice with Chuck, who's still upset that Bryce sent him the Intersect in the first place. (For that matter, if I were Chuck, I don't think I'd be satisfied at the "I needed to send it to a friend who wasn't CIA" explanation. For one thing, they weren't friends; for another, he must have known that the CIA and NSA would swoop in almost instantly.) As much as I didn't love the episode where Chuck discovered why Bryce got him kicked out of Stanford, I see why it was necessary. Chuck needed to forgive Bryce, at least a little, to trust him in this episode. How else could he have known Bryce would shoot for the vest, regardless of what he promised in Klingon?

Forgiveness or not, though, it still must have hurt when Chuck saw Bryce and Sarah making out in his bedroom - even though the big showdown at the Buy More made Chuck realize that Sarah and Casey were a good team.

Speaking of the showdown at the Buy More: How awesome was that? Big Mike hurdling himself over the counter; Casey revealing his weapons cache in the home theater; Sarah and Bryce throwing simultaneous spin-kicks. I can't imagine the kind of budget and logistics it would take to put together a fight sequence inside a superstore, but I'm glad Chuck pulled it off this well at least once. Ninja sequences aside, the whole plot made me realize that this show really does have an answer for everything. How to keep Morgan from getting in trouble? Have a CIA agent pose as a fireman and tell Big Mike there was a gas leak. How to explain the shattered glass and broken big-screens? Why, the government has a clean-up crew!

Some other thoughts:

This show really has a thing with love triangles, huh? I loved the last scene with the two phones ringing - the old-school rotary phone pointing Sarah toward Bryce, the new iPhone with Chuck's goofy picture pulling her that way.
I'm not sure why Anna would go running back to Morgan after her public dumping, but I did like the idea that some girl would even think Morgan had a chance with Ellie.
I'd be happy if this show never did a fake orgasm scene with food again. Two in two weeks - Lou's sandwich, Ellie's sweet potatoes - is plenty.
Also, I'm with Awesome: "How about a destination Christmas?" I know Ellie loves her dinner parties, but really, can we back off that for a while?
However, if losing the dinner parties means ditching all opportunities for Casey/Awesome interaction, I'm not so sure I'd make that tradeoff. "Nice and tight, John!" "Two words: water sports." "Two dudes. One raft."

Your thoughts? How will Sarah choose? And is there a better holiday sweatshirt in the history of holiday sweatshirts than Jeff's "gobble gobble" turkey?

Photos courtesy of NBC

Your "Traveler" Questions, Answered

BuzzSugar — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:34:23 -0700

Remember when the short-lived series "Traveler" ended with an episode that promised to answer all your questions - but then totally didn't? The series creator, David DiGilio, has fixed that with an extensive blog entry at TVGuide.com explaining everything that would have happened in seasons two and three of "Traveler" - and beyond. Here are some of the biggest revelations:

The quest to uncover the Fourth Branch - the organization that seemed to be calling the shots toward the end of the series - would have been the major plot of season two. Jay, Tyler and Will would have sought to expose the organization, which was a secret society filled with rich, powerful, and mostly corrupt members of America's oldest families.
The painting - John Trumbull's "Declaration of Independence" - was key because it depicted the formation of the Fourth Branch. Will took it as leverage in case the organization decided to punish him for letting Jay and Tyler live.
Tyler has an evil brother, Gabriel, who would have been the key nemesis in season two. In that season's finale, Tyler would have been murdered at Gabriel's hands.

For more, especially about Will Traveler's past, just read more

Will Traveler's real name was Stephen Mailer, and he was trained in martial arts and other fighting techniques from a young age by his uncle. That uncle got him enlisted in the military and, ultimately, directed him to join Operation Hometown, working for Jack Freed.
The Hotel Guy, aka The Porter, finally has a name: Jon Anselmo. He was a rogue CIA agent bent on destroying the corrupt Fourth Branch.
In the FBI subplot, Marlow would have struck out on her own to uncover the FBI's ties to the Drexler bombing; ultimately, Chambers would have killed her. Chambers' daughter would have been introduced as a character, and she would have eventually convinced her father to abandon his ties to the Fourth Branch.
How it all would have ended: In the final episode, Will would have sacrificed himself to save Jay and expose the corrupt reign of President Shears. Jay, with Kim's help, would have carried out Will and Tyler's legacy by revealing the lies and deceit of the Fourth Branch.

"Traveler" fans - if any of you still exist - are these answers more satisfying to you than the ones we saw on TV?

Traveler Recap: Episode 8, "The Exchange"

BuzzSugar — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:52:50 -0700

Wow, that would have been a great episode of "Traveler" - if it hadn't also been the series finale. Instead of leaving us with a neatly wrapped-up story, we got even more questions. Pretty much everything else I could say is a spoiler, so I think we'd better just read more

First of all, I know I said early on that I wanted more Will in the show - but seriously, Jay and Tyler were barely even in this finale. Come on, now. We've spent seven weeks getting to know these guys, and then in the final hour it's all about Will and the FBI?

Will gets shot during the confrontation with the FBI, and while he nurses his wounds, the guys ask him if anything he'd told them about himself was true. Dead dad? Nope. Last name Traveler? Probably not. He works for Jack Freed, who started a domestic espionage program after Sept. 11; Jay and Tyler are patsies who were easy to blame for the bombing because their fathers hated the government.
Did anybody else notice all the excessive shaky-camera shots of the New York City skyline?
Chambers orders Marlow back to the office. She starts piecing together names and eventually finds Joseph, whoever he is. He gets a mysterious phone call a few seconds after she gets to his house, and they end up having a shootout, with Joseph dying before he can tell Marlow who was on the phone.
I'm sorry, but even though it was a major plot point last night, I still don't understand the significance of the painting Will took from the Drexler. Can anyone enlighten me? It becomes clear that Will is less interested in freeing Jay and Tyler than he is in getting revenge on Freed for killing Maya, and Tyler - he of all the worst ideas in this series - actually comes up with a decent one, saying they need to expose Freed so the truth gets out.
Carlton's arrest seemed a little unnecessary to me, but I guess they had to find a way to bring back scary bleached-blond Otis Whaley to shoot him. Borjes attempts to arrest him; Chambers arrives and shoots Borjes. Well, that pretty much explains who the evil one in the FBI is.
So, silly me, I actually thought Will was going to end up offering Jay and Tyler up as a sacrifice - but can you blame me? It's not like we'd been given any reason to trust the guy. Instead, the three launch an elaborate plot to get Jack talking about the bombings on tape. They then drive Jack to a newspaper office, and Jack protests that they're not going to listen to three known terrorists instead of the director of homeland security. Which is probably true, and was exactly my problem with that storyline.
Marlow gets the number of the last incoming call from Joseph's cell phone and dials. Chambers picks up. Dun-dun. Meanwhile, we see a shot of Kim being taken somewhere - I would assume to be killed or held hostage.
Meanwhile, the guys tell the newspaper that they have the explanation for the Drexler bombing sitting in the limo outside the office. Before anything can happen with that, though, the limo blows up, and the guys are on the run again.

Which would have been a great cliffhanger between seasons, but as a finale, there really wasn't anything satisfying about it. We did get a couple of questions answered - we know Chambers is the bad guy in the FBI, and we know Jack Freed is the guy running things from Homeland Security - but there are so many things we don't know. Why was the Drexler the target of the bombing? What was with the hotel guy, and who did he work for? Does Chambers realize what Marlow knows about him? What's with Marlow's bad record and Chambers' gunshot scars? What's happening to Kim? What else did Jack Freed's network have planned? Who blew up Freed's limo? I could go on.

In the end, though, "Traveler" was an enjoyable series, and I have to wonder what would have happened if ABC had put it on the fall schedule instead of, say, "The Nine." Would it have been a serial that actually took off? The flip side, though, is that maybe it would have been canceled even earlier, without a chance to get what little resolution we got from these eight episodes. How would you have liked to see it end?

TV Tonight: The "Traveler" Finale

BuzzSugar — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 07:30:00 -0700

The commercial for tonight's episode of "Traveler" promises that questions will be answered - and I certainly hope the good folks in ABC's promo department aren't just messing with me when they say that. The show that surprised me by becoming one of my must-watch summer series concludes tonight, and while I've already accepted that there are lots of developments from this fast-paced, eight episode serial that I'll just never understand, I'll settle for learning who Will is and why he was supposed to kill his best friends. That's not asking too much, right? To watch the preview, read more

"Traveler" Recap: Episode 7, "The Reunion"

BuzzSugar — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:29:25 -0700

Only one more episode of "Traveler" to go, and I'm beginning to accept that I'm not ever going to understand everything that happens in this show. But "The Reunion" was yet another fun ride with yet another major twist at the end, so let's get to it.

So this episode begins literally where the last one left off, with Tyler running from the FBI agents. Did anyone else think, at least for a moment, that he might go running straight into Jay's outstretched arms, all romantic-comedy style?
Jay, meanwhile, has other things to do - like track down his girlfriend for a little romp beneath the sheets in his sketchy hotel. Of course, when you're a fugitive on the run, and your girlfriend is being interviewed by the FBI, such a proposition is fairly complicated. Marlow tells Kim she knows Will exists and can protect Jay; Jay later sends word to Kim via courier, and she literally hurdles a fence to sneak to Jay's hotel.
While they're, er, reuniting, Will is seeking violent revenge for Maya's death. He very nearly hangs Jimmy - barely letting his toes touch the hood of Will's car - before Jimmy coughs up some morsels of information.

Lots more, so read more

Conveniently, Kim's camera takes the same media card the guys found in Will's lockbox. There are no photos on the card, but there is an audio file of the moment when Joseph told Will his roommates would have to die in the bombing - and that it was all part of a bigger plan.
I'm honestly not sure what all was going on with Will and the tattoo parlor, but in the end, he figures out that Jimmy killed Maya. Jimmy says he was just following orders, and Will's content to let that go - until Jimmy calls Maya "Mary." At that perceived insult, Will turns around and shoots.

Tyler flashes back to his dad telling him he's not strong enough to lead the family forward, then slips into a bar and orders a whole bunch of whiskey. He essentially begs the bartender to recognize him - she even uses "does anyone ever tell you you look like that bomber guy?" as a pickup line - but she doesn't bite, and they drunkenly stumble down the street together in full view of everyone including the FBI surveillance equipment.
When Tyler wakes up with the girl, he immediately hops on her computer. Are we really supposed to believe this is the first time he has ever Googled his father? If my dad were Carlton Fog, I think I'd do that long before he implicated me in a terrorist plot and then tried to kill me. Anyway, Tyler ultimately finds the name of Jack Freed, a former FBI director whom Carlton's been known to associate with. And not only that - he's also on the list of people who sold stock right before the bombing.
Speaking of the FBI, we learned a few more interesting things about the agents this time around. Borjes was in the military and has a clean record, while Marlow apparently does not.
Tyler makes his realization that the FBI could be involved in the plot at the same time Jay and Kim decide to take Will's passports and the audio file to the FBI. Tyler frantically calls Kim, who says it's too late and Jay is talking to Marlow right now at a bar; meanwhile, Marlow - who I actually thought was on Jay's side - pulls a gun on him and attempts to handcuff him.
Realizing the situation is out of hand, Kim manages to plunge the bar into darkness, and Tyler arrives soon after, taking a cop hostage at gunpoint to show that he's not messing around. Marlow acts skeptical, saying "C'mon, Tyler, you're not gonna shoot anyone."
A voice says: "No, but I will." And it's Will with a gun! Hi Will! Reunion complete.

Soooo ... a whole lot of questions leading in to next week's finale (not even including the ones that I don't think will be answered, like what was with the hotel guy from early in the series, and why does Will seem to have the ability to travel from state to state in mere seconds?). First of all, I think one of the FBI agents has to be working with Freed (and, theoretically, with Joseph and the rest of Will's crew), but I'm not sure if it's Marlow, Chambers or Borjes. Will is going to have to explain himself to a lot of people, including Tyler and Jay. And we've got to learn something about the "larger plan" the Drexler bombing was theoretically a part of. The promo for next week promises that "questions will be answered," so tell me: What do you most want to know?

"Traveler" Recap: Episode 6, "The Trader"

BuzzSugar — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:11:03 -0700

As "Traveler" hurtles toward its season finale, the episodes are starting to be more closely balanced between Jay and Tyler's story and Will's, leading me to believe that there's going to be a massive smackdown between the three of them. So I'd just like to go on record now as saying that if they just hug and make up, it will be the lamest series ending ever.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. This week's episode starts with Jay and Tyler heading back to New York, where Jay ever-so-helpfully reminds us it's dangerous to be because people haven't forgotten about the Drexler bombing. Well, maybe they shouldn't be talking about it in public, then, huh? There was lots more wacky logic in this week's episode, so read more

Back at FBI headquarters, we get a long, lingering shot of old bullet scars in Agent Chambers' back. Why? Well, that's another thing we just don't know yet. The agents get a report that Jay and Tyler were in Boston, and Marlow heads that way while Borjes stays behind to figure out the identity of the scary bleached-blond escapee.
Will, meanwhile, surfaces in Deer Harbor to observe the wrecked, gutted Good Ship Maya and discover his key missing from the hiding space in her basement. I was expecting someone to be waiting for him when he got back upstairs, but I jumped a few feet in the air anyway. Will quickly dispatched the intruder with a spin-kick through a plate-glass window.
Jay and Tyler arrive at the office of Three Continents Investing, which is conveniently unlocked. Inside: a computer with nothing on the hard drive, a disconnected phone, bags of shredded documents. Tyler recognizes the paper scraps as some kind of stock document and matches the ticker symbol to Holloway Insurance, the company Carlton had told them sold off a bunch of stock just before the Drexler bombing. They nearly get discovered but manage to run (and pant heavily) down a nearby alley.
Will apparently has super time-travel abilities, as he makes it to Boston from Maine in what appears to be a few seconds and discovers his locker empty. He then pickpockets two people - including one of the FBI agents searching for Jay and Tyler - in the space of about 45 seconds. He's a slick one, that Will. The FBI later reviews the security footage for the library, and Marlow realizes that Will exists. But ... wouldn't the FBI have just reviewed the tapes for several days prior to find out who emptied out the locker?

Tyler coerces his grad-school friend Eddie, an employee of Tyler's dad's, to look up who sold Holloway shares before the bombing. One of the big sellers turns out to be a company Tyler's dad has a stake in, but Tyler refuses to believe his father could be involved, punches Jay in the nose, and leaves. Jay, meanwhile, goes back to Eddie's apartment, where he binds him to a chair and tells him not to tell the police anything - unless it's the truth about Carlton.
Tyler confronts Carlton with the Holloway evidence, and Carlton simply responds that his involvement was all about protecting the family's long-term longevity. Wow, nothing like finding out your father intended to have you killed because you were too weak to lead, huh?
Will meets some dude named Jimmy and trades his new ID stash for a rather large arsenal of guns and knives. He then meets up with another "soldier" in a park and tries to find out who killed Maya, but instead, she tries to kill Will, saying the word came down that he'd "gone rogue." The only interesting part of the sequence to me was that Will said he never signed up to kill civilians; so, who did he sign up to kill?
Borjes discovers that the escapee is actually an undercover government agent named Otis. Heh, he didn't look like an Otis.
Finally, Tyler goes back to hang out and watch the police proceedings outside Eddie's apartment. Sure, that makes sense - go where the cops are. Not to be all Carlton Fogg, but Tyler's really not the smartest, is he? Chambers and Marlow spot him and take off running, and that's where this episode ends.

Will the guys reconcile? Are Otis and the NSA guy rogue government operatives, or is everyone up through the president in on this plan? And will the FBI ever believe that Jay and Tyler were framed? Stay tuned.

Source

TV Tonight: "Traveler"

BuzzSugar — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 09:00:00 -0700

For me, last week's episode of "Traveler" marked a shift in the way I think about the show. It's not just a fun summer time-waster anymore; it's actually good. But I'm getting a little nervous about how the show is going to wrap up. Tonight marks episode six in the show's scheduled eight-episode run, and there's still so much we don't know. Why does Homeland Security want Jay and Tyler dead? Why was Will being interrogated on a sound stage? What do Tyler and Jay's fathers have to do with all of this? And who is Will, anyway?

From the looks of the preview clip for tonight's installment, it looks like we'll once again be getting more questions than answers - in addition to yet another new character, Eddie. But hey, Jay and Tyler are back to running (and panting overly loudly) through the streets, and that's got to count for something, right? To watch the clip for yourself, read more

"Traveler" Recap: Episode 5, "The Tells"

BuzzSugar — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:17:53 -0700

This week's episode of "Traveler" was the most action-packed hour yet, and for the first time, I'm actually a little sad that this show will (presumably) be ending for good in just a few weeks. I've grown attached to Jay and Tyler, but this week also featured a heavy dose of Will, the reason I liked this show in the first place.

This week jumped back and forth between Jay and Tyler's story and Will's interrogation, so there was a lot going on. Here's my take on what happened:

So Hotel Guy shot Will with a tracking device (which his bosses later cut out of his leg, ew), and he's also been following Jay and Tyler thanks to a tracking device in the watch he gave them. He seemed most interested to know if Maya gave them anything; Jay refused to admit they had the mysterious key. I'm still not sure whose side Hotel Guy is on, but I'd be nervous about messing with him.
Hotel Guy also finally informed the guys that Will is not their friend. Gee, you think?

Lots more, so read more

The FBI's medical examiner finally figured out that the guy who died in the bombing wasn't Will. I was wondering what was taking them so long, but it's only actually been 54 hours since the bombing, which is a pretty good turn-around time.

Everybody hates Will: Jay and Tyler, Hotel Guy, and even the organization he apparently works (worked?) for. A woman named Kate interrogates him about what really happened the morning of the bombing, and we learn that the plan was for Will to activate the bomb and Jay and Tyler to die in the museum. But when he got there, someone else had already activated the bomb. Will strangled that guy with his sweatshirt, then pulled the fire alarm.
In the flashback, the other guy says they only needed Will "to get your friends here." Were Jay and Tyler just supposed to be framed for the bombing because there had to be someone to blame, or was there some specific reason they were picked to be the fall guys? Also, did Will really think he was being a better friend by letting them live as terrorist suspects rather than letting them die in the bombing?

Jay and Tyler go to Boston - they sure have gotten bold about going out in public - and learn that the key opens a locker at a historic research library. Tyler opens the drawer and discovers a stash of passports from different countries with Will's picture and various fake names (all more convincing than Will Traveler, by the way), along with a bunch of currency and a gun. Tyler bags it all up and puts it in the car.
Why can't I place the creepy bleached-blonde guy we see in the apartment? I'm almost positive he's been in the show before, but in what context? Was he the guy who stole the photos from Kim's bag? That actor, by the way, has to be one of the creepiest men working in Hollywood today; his blank stare gave me chills.
Kate is quite interested in the painting Will stole, for some reason, because it makes them vulnerable. I guess I understand that, but it's not like the FBI knows the painting is missing. Ultimately he tells her it's in the long-term parking lot at LaGuardia.
To get answers, Kate plays Will a recording of Maya being tortured; once he gives up the info, Kate tells Will that Maya was dead hours ago. Will somehow frees himself and stabs Kate to death with part of the chair.
Here's when I start to be confused: Will leaves the hotel - but it looks like the hotel was really just a sound stage? Meanwhile, the creepy bleached-blonde guy manages to escape. Then, we see a flashback of Will getting his instructions from Joseph - and is that the National Security official we've seen in previous weeks? Finally, one of the henchmen shows up at LaGuardia and opens up the trunk of the car, finding only a bomb.

Wow. What do you make of the ending? Who are all these people? And can they possibly wrap up this story in three more episodes?