When Lost returns this Tuesday for the beginning of the end of the series, one of the biggest questions that has to be answered concerns John Locke. Is he dead or not? Has he been dead all along and someone/something else was taking his place? What is the real story of John and why was he chosen for the role he has on the island and off?
Well, part of the fascination with Locke is the way Terry O'Quinn has played the character. O'Quinn is a dynamic and compelling actor. And if you want to get a great look at just how good Terry is, take a look at the recently released reissue of a small, independent film he made in 1987 called The Stepfather. The DVD presents a much younger Terry O'Quinn -- he was 35 at the time -- as Jerry Blake. And Bill Hodges. And Henry Morrison.
A new season of Top Gear, one of this particular gear head's favorite shows, is headed to BBC America on January 25. And, to build buzz for the show's upcoming 13th season, BBC America is giving away DVDs for the new releases of Top Gear Season 11 and Season 12.
One of the modern stalwarts of British TV, Top Gear is a popular import to the U.S. with its mix of super cars, stunts and less than politically correct humor. For viewers like me, it's fantasy fulfillment and as close to some mammothly powerful cars as we'll ever come.
We're a season behind here in the U.S., as U.K. fans already worked their way through Season 14. But, the show's ongoing success on U.S. screens means this franchise should drive on a little farther.
Doctor Who went from regular production to sporadic specials last year to freshen up the show and to give former lead David Tennant a shot at playing Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The end results of that year of specials are headed your way on DVD in a five disc set.
Doctor Who: The Complete Specials features what proved to be a mixed bag of special episodes that became a sort of de facto fifth mini-season for Tennant. While you're not going to find a bad piece of television anywhere on this disc (or anywhere in Doctor Who's 21st century rebirth), last year's programs got weaker as they marched toward Tennant's regeneration.
The line-up includes The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, Parts One and Two. The first two stand alone, but the last three create a sort of trilogy documenting the 10th Doctor's final days.
The "Ask TV Squad" column, published every Wednesday, answers your questions about current and past TV shows, as well as about the celebrities appearing on TV. Every week, I will pick a question (or more) sent to us and provide answers in the column. If your question is not picked for a column, it may be answered in a subsequent column. To submit questions to the "Ask TV Squad" column, you can post them below in comments or email them at asktvsquad@gmail.com.
This week, I answer questions about Rules of Engagement, Huff and Southland.
The Rifftrax crew unwrapped its second national live broadcast this week from San Diego as Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett took on a series of moldy Christmas short films and sent the results to hundreds of theaters across this great nation of ours.
Over the 90+ minute run of the upbeat show, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums steered seemingly innocent holiday-themed shorts and clunky toy advertisements from bygone eras into dark, pitiful entries into irony complete with sexual innuendos and memories of failed Christmas' passed.
Weird Al Yankovic showed up to join in on mocking a delightful, but bizarre look at pork. But the high point of the show was a closing shot at a Max Fleischer directed version of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" -- including Santa visiting the heroic mammal in his bedroom with the disturbing words: "Rudolph...I need you tonight."
Most American TV viewers know Edward Woodward from his run as Robert McCall as The Equalizer. But, British TV aficionados know he trained in backside-kicking on the dark, gritty British spy series, Callan.
Written by James Mitchell, the show featured David Callan -- a spy working for an ultra-secret arm of the British Intelligence service specializing in assassinations. Unfortunately, the former soldier and convict was cursed with a conscience that led him to hate his job, his superiors and himself.
Woodward was perfect in the role -- blending haunted humor with genuine menace to create an intelligent, tortured man who you believed could kill anyone without having to look like Rambo while he did it.
Plenty of freshman (and drunken upperclassmen at most state colleges) get lost on university campuses every day. But, the developers of the new Lost: Season Five Blu-Ray set want you to lose yourself in its "school" willingly.
Opening for "classes" December 8, Lost University is a special feature of the Blu-ray offering a "captivating new immersive bonus experience powered by BD-Live technology. A series of interactive "lectures" expands "the world of Lost, giving viewers around the world an unprecedented interactive experience unlike any other before it."
Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment arranged a strong collection of "professors" to teach the university seminars. Cast members include Naveen Andrews, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Evangeline Lilly, Terry O'Quinn, Michael Emerson and Henry Ian Cusik.
The "Ask TV Squad" column, published every Wednesday, answers your questions about current and past TV shows, as well as about the celebrities appearing on TV. Every week, I will pick a question (or more) sent to us and provide answers in the column. If your question is not picked for a column, it may be answered in a subsequent column or in TV Squad's APB Podcast.
To submit questions to the "Ask TV Squad" column, you can post them below in comments or email them to asktvsquad@gmail.com.
This week, I answer questions about TV shows on DVD.
Many sci-fi fans wonder what classic Doctor Who might look like if the BBC bosses of the '70s and '80s could have budgeted more than £6 per episode for visual effects.
A new Who DVD set from BBC Video features a specially remastered episode that offers you just that experience.
Doctor Who: "The Black Guardian Trilogy" serves up a trio of 1983 Who episodes featuring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor in a life and death struggle against a supernatural evil force.
A team of restoration and digital effects artists took the final episode of that trilogy ("Enlightenment" -- a well-written, high-concept adventure featuring a simulated sailing race in deep space) and laid in 21st Century CG visuals.
If you're like me, and I know I am, you've wondered what it would like if the U.S.S. Enterprise descended on the Hollywood Hills.
Fortunately, Paramount held the big DVD and Blu-ray release party for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movie at the Griffith Park Observatory Monday night, and the Enterprise took up a standard orbit around the famous planetarium landmark.
While the film's creators and cast mingled inside the observatory, a high-definition multimedia system projected video images of Trek visual effects up against the building's walls.
So, for a few moments, the Enterprise (almost to scale) swooped in for a visit before heading away at warp factor one.
Director Stephen Sommers might want to discourage the production of animated lead-ups to his feature films. They keep outdoing the movies they're supposed to set up for audiences.
Before his Van Helsing reached theaters in 2004, Universal released Van Helsing: The London Assigment. Written by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens, the animated half-hour was clever and action-packed. Van Helsing? It was not clever and action-packed.
Now, the DVD release of G.i. Joe: Resolute, an 11-episode series of animated shorts that originally aired on Adult Swim before the release of Rise of Cobra, brings a cooler and more visually compelling "Yo, Joe!" to screens.
On an Adult Swim schedule where every show is strange in some way, Xaviermay be the strangest of the bunch. The title character is a hairy birdman with a beak and legs with knees that bend the wrong way. And a snake hand. And a loincloth. And two different colored eyes. And six nipples (I could go on, but...) He talks like a surfer dude, mashing up new age double talk with double entendre, inhabiting a sort of alternate, SIMS-like earth and killing or damaging irreparably all he seeks to help.
The effect of this only intensifies when you watch a lot of episodes of Xavier in one sitting, which is what you can do with the new Xavier: Renegade Angel Seasons 1 and 2 DVD. In its usual dose of fifteen minutes per episode, it's odd. Watch it for two hours, you start to see spots. Even the animation, which stresses the bright colors and blocky movement of computer generated graphics, pushes you off kilter. It's an overused description to say something looks like a cartoon on acid, but if ever a show actually deserved the description, it's Xavier.
I know I'm dating myself, but I'm really looking forward to watching the second season of thirtsysomething on DVD.
The first season was released back in August, and I had a blast catching up with great characters like Michael and Melissa Steadman, Elliot Weston and Gary Shepherd. Season two hits DVD in January, thanks to the good folks at Shout! Factory, known for putting out great sets like the packed Freaks and Geeks collection and the recent Transformers "G1" collector's set.
Some people might only think of thirtysomething as "that '80s show about whiny yuppies," and that's fine. But the Emmy-award winning drama brings back a lot of great memories for me. As I mentioned before, I used to watch it with my mom, who I'm pretty sure related to Patricia Wettig's frustrated homemaker Nancy Weston and free spirit Melissa Steadman, played by Melanie Mayron. (As for my dad, I'm not ashamed to say that he's more of a Timothy Busfield type!)
Leoben, that tricky toaster, was right: All of thishas happened before, and all of it is happening again.
Battlestar Galactica: The Plan retells major events from the first two years of the celebrated sci-fi series through the eyes of the Cylons. It weaves together recycled scenes from the series with new footage to reveal a first-hand account of the Cylon agenda, or "plan."
The result is a film that feels incomplete, episodic and disjointed. It plays less like a movie and largely like a disk full of high quality bonus material. Most of what happens here feels irrelevant to the series -- almost like it was tacked on to the BSG mythos to satisfy completists and hardcore fans. Still, it's worth watching to see Dean Stockwell carry the film with a fearless performance as the scheming and duplicitous Brother Cavil. The veteran character actor takes center stage in The Plan, and your enjoyment of the film will rest largely on how much you like, or dislike, Cavil and his major role in the series.
If you haven't checked out Ken Burns' documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea on PBS yet, now you can actually buy it. The 12-hour series hit DVD and Blu-ray on Oct. 6, and offers a stunning look at our national parks, including Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, the Everglades, and the Gates of Arctic in Alaska.
When you think about it, it's truly amazing how these natural wonders have become part of our lives, even if we've never been to them. Burns covers 150 years of the parks, starting with the concept in the mid-1800s and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks, Andy Garcia, Sam Waterston and others.
The cool thing about the DVD / Blu-ray sets is that you get three hours of bonus material, including a making-of featurette, Musical Journeys Through the National Parks, Contemporary Stories and Outtakes.
When Lost returns this Tuesday for the beginning of the end of the series, one of the biggest questions that has to be answered concerns John Locke. Is he dead or not? Has he been dead all along and someone/something else was taking his place? What is the real story of John and why was he chosen for the role he has on the island and off?
A new season of 
Doctor Who went from regular production to sporadic specials last year to freshen up the show and to give former lead David Tennant a shot at playing Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company. The end results of that year of specials are headed your way on DVD in a five disc set.
The "Ask TV Squad" column, published every Wednesday, answers your questions about current and past TV shows, as well as about the celebrities appearing on TV. Every week, I will pick a question (or more) sent to us and provide answers in the column. If your question is not picked for a column, it may be answered in a subsequent column. To submit questions to the "Ask TV Squad" column, you can post them below in comments or email them at 
The Rifftrax crew unwrapped its second national live broadcast this week from San Diego as Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett took on a series of moldy Christmas short films and sent the results to hundreds of theaters across this great nation of ours.
Most American TV viewers know Edward Woodward from his run as Robert McCall as The Equalizer. But, British TV aficionados know he trained in backside-kicking on the dark, gritty British spy series, Callan.
Plenty of freshman (and drunken upperclassmen at most state colleges) get lost on university campuses every day. But, the developers of the new Lost: Season Five Blu-Ray set want you to lose yourself in its "school" willingly.
The "
Many sci-fi fans wonder what classic Doctor Who might look like if the BBC bosses of the '70s and '80s could have budgeted more than £6 per episode for visual effects.
Director Stephen Sommers might want to discourage the production of animated lead-ups to his feature films. They keep outdoing the movies they're supposed to set up for audiences.
On an Adult Swim schedule where every show is strange in some way, 
I know I'm dating myself, but I'm really looking forward to watching the second season of 
Leoben, that tricky toaster, was right: All of this has happened before, and all of it is happening again. 
If you haven't checked out Ken Burns' documentary 
Six Reasons Why '24' Has Jumped the You-Know-What
The Super Bowl Commercials: The Best
The Super Bowl Commercials: The Worst
