- News Archive November 1997
GARETT MAGGART ARTICLE IN TV GUIDE ONLINE - November 26
This
article comes from TV Guide Online'sSci-Fi News which is updated every Tuesday.
This follows similar coverage on Richard Burgi a couple of weeks ago. It's great
to see the show getting some support in TV Guide.
Greed is good. Nobody knows that better than The Sentinel's Garett Maggart. "What cinched it for me," he laughs, recalling his audition for the role of anthropology grad student Blair Sandburg on the UPN show "was that Malcolm-Jamal Warner was up for it, and he wanted too much money." A relative newcomer with fewer television credits, Maggart happily stepped into the role.
The son of veteran character actor Brandon Maggart, Garett decided on his career early in life, but didn't pursue it until he was out of school. "I always knew that this is what I wanted to do," he says, "and I didn't want to be a child actor. I hadn't seen very many of them make the change to adult careers." Coincidentally, Garett had always had a casual interest in anthropology. "And since I started playing Blair, I've been doing a lot more reading in that area," he says, "just so I don't sound so green when I'm saying some of the terminology that they write for me." Still, he admits, he's got it easy compared to cast members on some other shows. "I watch Star Trek: Voyager sometimes," he says, "and I say to myself, 'Thank God I don't have to talk about voltrons and micturators, or whatever those things are.' I'd never get through it."
Sci-Fi News is edited by John Walsh
Photo: Garett Maggart by George Lange/UPN
SENTINEL VIDEO CLIPS COMING TO ULTIMATE TV - November 23
Thanks to Cindy for forwarding on this response from the Ultimate TV site regarding web-based video promos of The Sentinel.
Subject: Re: video clips
Hi, Cindy. Thanks for this feedback. I'm glad you're enjoying our site and the videos we provide. (It's the only place on the web where you can watch these official videos.)
To answer your question regarding The Sentinel,I am happy to tell you that we will soon be providing videos from that show as well. Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks... because something big is about to happen. :)
Thanks again.
Camille Alcasid
Director of New Technologies
UltimateTV
WHO IS THIS DEAN VALENTINE ANYWAY? - November 23
This
fascinating article was written when Dean Valentine was President of Walt Disney
television and gives a valuable insight to the man with the reins at UPN.
During his tenure at Disney, Valentine oversaw the creation and production of Home Improvement, Ellen, Boy Meets World, Brotherly Love, as well as Nowhere Man. Last fall, Touchstone Television introduced three new series, Dangerous Minds and Life's Work, both for ABC, and Homeboys in Outer Space, for UPN.
Valentine has also spearheaded the development and production of the Disney Family Movies franchise for ABC in 1997.
The son of a journalist father, Valentine was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1954 and his family emigrated to France in 1960. After a year and a half they moved to St Paul Minnesota, sponsored by the Hebrew Immigration Society.
And that's why TB played an important role in the 7-year-old's life. "I learned to speak English in St Paul watching my favorite TV show, which at the time was Mighty Mouse. I also rated Superman pretty high," Valentine says.
After a year the family again moved to Queens, NY, where Valentine attended The Bronx High School for Sciences, with the full intention of becoming a scientist or engineer. "It is one of three specialty high schools for gifted kids, who I guess couldn't afford to go to private schools."
Then at 16 he realised he'd been wrong and discovered literature. "I found I had no aptitude for maths and that would be hard to become a scientist."
At the university of Chicago he studied English language and literature, and then aspired to become an English professor. Then, during his senior year, his Shakespearean Professor suggested he "wasn't cut out for the academic life."
Following this, Valentine did some freelance writing, working for several publications, became an article editor for Life magazine and played softball on the weekends where one of the guys on the team was Brandon Tartikoff, president of NBC.
"We became friendly and basically he offered me a job being director of comedy development at NBC," Valentine recalls. "It was probably a bizarre leap, a bizarre bridge, but I'd always loved TV."
He read a lot of scripts and on a "deep structural level" he discovered similarities between being an editor and a TV Executive. "You put together ideas and writers and talent and put them to an audience. You serve as a creative middleman. Of course, it's vast and more complicated, financially riskier. In Hollywood, you're dealing with a lot more money, people and problems."
Valentine has a life beyond work. He still loves to read and calls himself "de facto married" to producer Amy Adelson. He also has a family of "two large german shepherds."
"I love working with writers and my life came out of writing and a respect for writing which continues to this day. I have a great love of television and I watch a lot of TV and I like commercial TV. I'm not a PBS kind of guy. I still read a lot though."
THE NIELSEN RATINGS - WHAT THEY MEAN FOR THE SENTINEL - November 23
As we the viewers attempt to come to grips with the ratings that affect our favorite television show, this article by Marvin Kitman (New York Newsday) gives some revealing insights into the numbers game that is the Nielsen ratings and UPN.
What we are seeing are the opening shots of what may go down in history as the Valentine Massacre of 1997, named in honor of the new chief executive at UPN, Dean Valentine, who is dedicated to the elimination of all the garbage that has become synonymous with the name UPN.
As good as Valentine's choice of new comedies and dramas is, in the existing system UPN will always be mired in the ratings cellar.
Sure, everybody knows UPN and WB have fewer stations and cover less of the country. And some affiliates are known as "coat hanger stations," low-power UHF outlets. So even if ER or Seinfeld were on UPN or WB, they automatically would be out of the race for anything but the bottom 10.
The way it works in TV is: With high ratings, the networks leave you alone. Your show is left to grow by itself, allowing the creators, producers and writers to follow the instincts that made the networks buy the show in the first place -- without getting those "notes" (or ways to improve the scripts) from the "suits" (executives). When you're low in the ratings, the suits are around all the time justifying their high salaries. These guys, whose only qualifications as writers may be knowing at least 25 of the 26 letters in the alphabet, feel they can tell the professional writers how to do their jobs.
Why should a show with some promise, like The Sentinel, be permanently scarred as 91? Or why should Moesha be a 93? Ultimately, playing this numbers game saps a network of its creative strength.
THE SENTINEL PROMOTION ON THE PREVIEW CHANNEL - November 13
The Prevue Channel, an on screen tv guide that many cable systems provide for their viewers, has scheduled a special promotion of The Sentinel for the month of November.
The promo spots, currently being approved by UPN, will feature two 45 second promos and some interview footage. The spots should be airing sometime in November. Watch this space for further details and keep an eye on your cable preview channel, if you have one.
(Thanks Ann Teitelbaum)
THE "BUDDY" THEME RIDES AGAIN - November 12
UPN appears to be sticking with their new "buddy" theme for The Sentinel preview spots. The promo for this week's show, showing scenes from Red Ice, runs as follows:
VOICE OVER:"If you like action, you'll love The Sentinel, network television's bigger, badder, buddy-buddy cop show.
"And on an all new episode it's Sentinel versus Sentinel. To catch an assassin with heightened senses of his own, these buddies will buddy up like never before.
"Five heightened senses. One super cop."
Don't forget to write to UPN and let them know that the fans approve of their new focus.
LISA AKEY JOINS CAST OF THE SENTINEL - November 9
The upcoming episode Dead Certain will introduce Lisa Akey as the new forensics officer Cassandra (Cassie) Welles. (Great-Niece of Rudi Welles from The Six Million Dollar Man - nah, only gaggin!)
After a quick search around the net we've come up with the following credits for Lisa Akey:
LEGEND (with Richard Dean Anderson) - Drusilla Dern in the episode Fall of a Legend; VIPER - Bambi Dexter in Black Box; MODELS INC - Anna Jacobs; MURDER SHE WROTE - in the New Orleans episode Big Easy Murder; KIRK - as Leslie Stevens, Russell's teacher; the miniseries, SEASON IN PURGATORY (1996); telemovie BIG DREAMS AND BROKEN HEARTS: The Dottie West Story (1995) - Shelley West; Two-Eleven (1995) - Katherine Delaney - as well as the Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, where she covered the lead role of the Narrator.
THE SENTINEL ON VIDEO - November 8
Urban Uschi received the following response from Pet Fly regarding the possibility of The Sentinel being released on video.
"Thanks for your interest in the show. Right now there are no plans to release Sentinel into the video market, but that may become a possibility if we are renewed for a fourth season. Keep watching and check back with us in a few months."
(Thanks Uschi)
TV GUIDE ONLINE NEWS PROMOTES SENTINEL EPISODE - November 7
In an article titled SENSITIVITY TRAINING, featured the following write-up:
Richard Burgi's heightened senses may help heighten awareness of human-rights abuses in this week's episode of The Sentinel (Wednesdays, 9Ęp.m./ET, UPN). In Amnesty International USA's first-ever endorsement of a television show, the group's executive director, Dr. William F. Schulz, said, "We appreciate the attention the episode calls to the plight of prisoners of conscience around the world and the message it sends to human-rights abusers." The Nov. 5 episode, Fool Me Twice, finds Det. Jim Ellison (Burgi) and Blair Sandburg (Garett Maggart) racing to thwart the assassination of an admired human-rights activist. Paul DeMeo, executive producer of the action series about a jungle combat veteran gifted with extraordinary sensory abilities, hopes the episode will "reinforce Amnesty International's message of the fundamental human right to self-determination."
(The picture accompanying the article featured the standard 3rd Season promo shot of Richard Burgi)
(TV Guide Online News)
TIME-SLOT CHANGE AND "BUDDY" PROMO AN UNQUALIFIED CONFUSION - November 5
To coincide with the timeslot change on Wednesday nights between The Sentinel and Voyager, UPN organised some special cross-promotion.
Kate Mulgrew (Janeway) and Jeri Ryan (7) "hosted" this first Voyager in its new timeslot, and viewers were encouraged to stay tuned to The Sentinel, which featured a special behind the scenes "CGI demo" promotion for Voyager fans.
Despite UPN's efforts, there was a huge mix-up in the satellite primary feed and most east coast and central viewers of The Sentinel experienced incorrect ad breaks, interrupted transmission and a cut to a promo spot for "next week's episode" that never appeared. The glitches were fixed by the West Coast feed and most viewers received the broadcast as intended. However, viewers in Sacramento were further disadvantaged, missing 15 minutes of the beginning of this week's episode as well as some footage at the end.
Unfortunately for those who missed it, a new "buddy" promo was created for next week's episode, more in line with what fans identify as their favorite aspect of the series, rather than the usual "explosions and chases on various modes of transport" etc. It's more Butch and Sundance than Die Hard and Speed.
VOICE OVER: "Who's your buddy? Who's your pal? UPN that's who. Because next week we bring you an all new Sentinel. Network television's bigger, badder buddy buddy cop show. To save a beautiful woman from a mad man these buddies do it like no-buddy ever before."
We then see footage from Flight when Jim turns to Blair and says,"I'm glad you came." Jumping off the cliff into the river from Survival. Jim restraining Blair from trying to save the lawyer Dent, from his crashed car in Deep Water. Real touchie-feely stuff.
VOICE OVER: "Bigger, badder, buddy-buddy cop show."
There are also preview scenes from Storm Warning.
It's significant that the fan writing campaign to UPN and Paramount etc. over the first few weeks of the SOS campaign has attempted to highlight why we watch the show, and now we have a promo seeming to focus on that very thing.
So keep the letters up. Keep writing and telling them why YOU are watching. It appears they ARE listening.
(Thanks Bert, Barbara, Kendra Maureen and Sharon G)