- News for January 21 - 28 1999 -
MAGGART'S MYTH-CONCEPTIONS - Jan 28
| From TV Gen Science Fiction News By John Walsh What's the biggest misconception most people have about Garett Maggart? "That I'm an academic!" the actor laughs. In a recent chat with TVGEN visitors, Maggart confessed he doesn't have much in common with anthropologist Blair Sandburg, his character on The Sentinel (Mondays, 9 pm/ET, UPN). For one thing, Maggart insists, he's a better basketball player than Sandburg. He scored a three-pointer in a scene on the show, "but they didn't show my playing at all!" The fan response that rescued The Sentinel from cancellation was "incredible," Maggart says. "It was kind of strange to be a part of something like that. It makes you feel good when it's received by a number of people like it was. It was really gratifying." Fanzine gossip has Sandburg becoming a cop in a future episode. True or false? "I'll take the Fifth!" Maggart says. You'll just have to keep watching, fans. Is an except of the chat with GM and a picture of our favorite anthropologist |
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(Thanks Beth and Lori)
RICHARD BURGI'S UPN MOVIE TO RERUN IN MARCH - Jan 29
UPN has plans to rebroadcast "I Married a Monster" starring Richard Burgi as the newly-wed husband who falls prey to alien possession, on Thursday March 18.
(Thanks Linda )
ONLINE CHATS UPDATE - Jan 29
AOL Chat
Garett Maggart and Richard Burgi will be doing online chats for People Online on Monday, February 8. Garett will be chatting from 8-8.30 pm ET (5 - 5:30 pm PST) while Richard will be following on at 8.30-9 pm ET (5:30 - 6 pm PST).
People Online is now on America Online - AOL Keyword "People" but to access the chat you will need to be an AOL subscriber.
(Thanks Linda and Ann)
Richard Burgi on Yahoo/TV Gen
Yack - a website devoted to reporting online events, previews the upcoming chat session with Richard Burgi on Monday February 1. For more details visit Yahoo Chats.
The Yack review reads as follows:
Actor, Richard Burgi
(The Sentinel)For anyone brave enough to try take a casual pot shot at the television program, The Sentinel ... beware, fans of the show are as tough and demanding as Richard's starring character, Lt. Dectective, Jim Ellison. A Sentinel is someone who, in ancient times, is chosen, by every village of all tribal cultures, because of a genetic advantage he/she was born with. The show tracks the life of modern day Sentinels as they try to make sense of their senses, and channel them into a police force. And while that might be a bit confusing to someone who has yet to see the show, let me tell you what The Sentinel is not. It is not akin to The Bionic Man, A-Team or even MacGyver ... although parts of one of the episodes do show some similarities to Mac. Nevertheless, based on several spirited responses to an earlier review on Yack!, you should check out this chat, and the show itself. (whew!)
ps: Richard will be chatting as an intro to the episode that concludes the cliffhanger, Sentinel Two, Part Two.
(Thanks Carol)
ABC SKEWERS CUPID - WILL A CAMPAIGN SAVE THE SHOW - Jan 27
E! Online
TV News
by Joal Ryan
Where the cancellation of Cupid is concerned, this Internet fan put it most succinctly: "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" (Give or take a few Os and exclamation points.)
But, yes, it's true. ABC halted production on its romantic-minded cult-favorite series Tuesday. In doing so, it praised the freshman show, starring Jeremy Piven as the would-be winged one, as "phenomenal," "first-rate" and a "labor of love."
One problem.
"Unfortunately, despite everybody's efforts, the audience just didn't respond," the network said in a statement.
Much the same could be said for Brimstone, the gothic/sci-fi series axed this week by Fox.
In the ratings week ended Sunday, Cupid ranked a lowly 95th out of 115 programs--a victim of its dead-end 9-10 p.m. Thursday time slot against NBC's Frasier and Veronica's Closet. Brimstone barely fared better--92nd place.
Cupid is scheduled to air through February 11.
Since nothing is ever really canceled until May, when next fall's schedules are announced, a network spokesman left open the door for Cupid's return--if only ever so slightly.
"It's always possible," the rep said. "We'll see how the last two airings go."
Fans of Piven are already launching a "Save Cupid" campaign, as are those partial to Brimstone and even the DOA Michael Madsen series, Vengeance Unlimited (previously dumped by ABC).
The success rate of such grassroots efforts is spotty. Cagney & Lacey and Designing Women are two famous--decade-old--examples. Last year, the couch-potato contingent lobbied hard for Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, but lost. Alternately, campaigns for CBS' The Magnificent Seven and UPN's The Sentinel seemed to win them new life as back-up shows.
Do Cupid and Brimstone have two--much less nine--lives? Stay tuned.
(Thanks Noon)
MORE SENTINEL MEDIA COVERAGE - Jan 30
ON SAT magazine
- Feb 8-14 - "Tube Talk"
by Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith
Fan Power
Richard Burgi's The Sentinel has risen from the dead--thanks solely to the show's fans. After three years on the air, the network had canceled the drama about a policeman with extraordinary senses, but a deluge of letters, e-mails, and phone calls prompted UPN to rethink its decision--and the show will go on! The new season's first original episode aired Feb. 1.
And you thought your opinions didn't count!
(Thanks Lynn)
E! News Daily will be running a story on The Sentinel featuring interviews with Richard Burgi and Jeri Ryan, and clips from Sentinel, Too, Part 2. It is scheduled to air on Monday, February 1 at 7 p.m. and on Tuesday, February 2 at 10 a.m. ET and 7 a.m. PT.
(Thanks to the Official Richard Burgi Fan Club)
CNN Headline News
- Friday Jan 29
The Hollywood Minute featured a spot on The
Sentinel's cliffhanger resolution.
The promo said:
"The Final Showdown between The Sentinel. Det. Jim Ellison
and his evil counterpart, Alex, is coming to UPN. The second half of the two
part cliffhanger that ended last season will air Monday night on UPN."
The trailer they showed Jim in Alex's burned apartment. He was feeling fabric on the couch and appeared to have a vision of Carl and Alex in the room (the vision was all in blue), the scene then flashed back to Jim's face (again in color, hands still on the couch), then back to a blue scene of Alex at a window in a tropical locale, and finally back to Jim's face in the apartment (in color, removing his hands from the sofa, looking puzzled).
(Thanks Rosemary)
Richard Burgi & Garett Maggart pinups in POPSTAR!
From: Hollywood's Hottest Hunks Magazine
"Richard Burgi & Garett Maggart will each be featured in a full-page pinup in POPSTAR! (v.3 #2), which goes on sale March 9. It's an all-Hollywood's hottest hunks issue."
(Thanks Moz)
Entertainment Weekly - TV section
Monday - Series Premiere
The Sentinel
Thanks in part to a grassroots fan campaign, UPN and star Richard Burgi decide to stick around for season 4 and keep it real for the people.
(Thanks Karen)
FINDING CLOSURE - CHICAGO TRIBUNE ARTICLE - Jan 26
By Allan Johnson
Tribune Staff Writer
There were those who were somewhat amazed when UPN last season canceled its sci-fi series The Sentinel, a pretty entertaining show about a lawman who developed supersensitive senses after a lengthy stint in the Peruvian jungle.
The Sentinel had more action than a regular police show, likable stars headed by Richard Burgi as supercop Jim Ellison and a small--but strong--fan base.
So when The Sentinel closed its season with a potent cliffhanger featuring special guest Jeri Ryan of Star Trek: Voyager, and UPN announced the show wouldn't show up on the 1998-99 schedule, Sentinel fanatics let their e-mail, letter-writing and paid advertisements do the talking. These are the same tactics that fans of CBS' The Magnificent Seven used to help get that show back on the air.
The protests worked, and The Sentinel was slotted as a backup series. Smart move, considering UPN went into a ratings tailspin this season.
"We always knew that we might need to slide it (The Sentinel) into a number of different slots in the schedule," admits UPN Entertainment President Tom Nunan.
The Sentinel resurfaced Jan. 18 with a replay of the series pilot. Monday's episode was last season's cliffhanger, during which Ryan, whose character also has Sentinel-like abilities--heightened sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch--seemed to have killed Blair Sandburg (Garett Maggart), the anthropology graduate student helping Ellison get a handle on his abilities.
Next Monday (8 p.m. on WPWR-Ch. 50) The Sentinel launches the first of eight new episodes with the resolution of the cliffhanger. Producers Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo obviously would have liked a full-season order of 22 episodes, but they'll take what they can get.
"I'm extremely grateful that we're back on the air at all," Bilson says. "We were really, really disappointed in being canceled, because I felt like we were making a good show, and for that network, we were holding our own."
Both producers were also amazed they were yanked because if UPN had given them signals to the contrary they wouldn't have ended the season with the apparent death of Sandburg, according to DeMeo. DeMeo, with his partner, also created the syndicated action series Viper and previously developed the superhero show The Flash for CBS.
The Sentinel will run new episodes through March 1, followed by a couple of months of repeat shows the two producers consider their favorites. Three new shows then will air for the May sweeps.
The eight shows represent a wide variety of styles that DeMeo and Bilson always wanted to try with the series--one episode has a film noir-ish slant with elements shot in black and white; another show is something of a sequel from a previous episode starring several professional basketball stars; another features Robert Vaughn of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. as an actor from a 1970s detective series who tries the real thing.
"All the episodes I think are really rich. So what we were doing was making like eight pilots in a way," Bilson says.
UPN will monitor the ratings for The Sentinel to see if it warrants renewal. If not, then the season finale won't keep fans in suspense.
"The last episode that was shot had definitely a sense of closure on what we've done," says Burgi, the 40-year-old star of the series.
But if The Sentinel does return, Burgi adds that final episode also "opens the door for a whole new way for the show to go."
Burgi has been an actor for 12 years. His credits include One West Waikiki with Cheryl Ladd and soap operas As the World Turns and One Life to Live. He says one reason fans like the show is the relationship between Ellison and Sandburg, who pretends to be a special police consultant so he can ride along with Ellison. The pair also share a kindred spirit in Ellison's superior, Capt. Simon Banks (former Chicago actor Bruce A. Young) and all three keep Ellison's superpowers a secret.
"I think we always tried to bring a real level of vulnerability and a heart quality to (the show); I can't find any other way to put it," Burgi says. "These characters are struggling with their place in life . . . especially Ellison. This isn't something he wears easily."
Adds DeMeo: "There's a lot of humor between (Ellison and Sandburg), there's a spiritual bond between them, and these are characters that you come back to week after week.
Burgi is pleased to have returned to the role of Ellison, a character he thought he'd never play again after seeing the show disappear without any closure.
"I like his cynicism," Burgi says of Ellison. "I guess I can be very cynical as well, but his wearing that as a badge is just an acerbic way of relating to things. I think he's kind of an old schooler and old thinker, and he is thrust into this world of rapidly changing cyberdynamics--what do they call it?--the Digital Age. He's an analog guy to a degree."
(Thanks Linda)
TV GEN/YAHOO CHAT TRANSCRIPTS - Jan 26
On Monday January 18, Yahoo hosted a TV Gen online chat session with The Sentinel's Executive Producers Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo - read the transcript of the chat session.
Monday January 25 featured a session with Garett Maggart - read a transcript of Garett's chat.
Richard Burgi will be chatting online on Monday February 1. For more details visit Yahoo Chats.
MORE SENTINEL COVERAGE - Jan 25
TV Guide has a blurb about the upcoming TV Gen/Yahoo Richard Burgi chat. On page 55 in a box titled "sitelines" and it reads as follows:
Ask nature-lover Richard Burgi about The Sentinel's return when he visits TV Guide Online, Feb.1, 8PM/ET.
(Thanks PA)
SENTINEL FOR SYNDICATION IN 2001 - Jan 25
Broadcasting & Cable Magazine - 11 Jan 99 issue
In a article by Joe Schlosser called "What's the next 'Seinfeld'?"
News that Paramount has sold Sentinel, Viper and JAG to USA Network for debut in the fall of 2001. There are no plans to sell any of them to other networks/stations for weekend showings.
And for the Buffy fans, BTVS has been sold to FX for daily viewings (M-F), also to debut in the fall of 2001.
(Thanks Taya)
DILBERT REVIEW - Jan 25
Hollywood Reporter
By Barry Garron
Finally, UPN has a signature show. Fittingly enough, its star is a character who practically embodies the words "frustration" and "underdog."
Dilbert, an animated version of the Scott Adams comic strip that gets posted on bulletin boards more than warnings against sexual harassment, is wickedly funny, smartly satirical and a perfect embodiment of the subversive office humor contained in the comic strip.
In Dilbert's corporate world, executives have no original thoughts, employees are treated like automatons, consultants are always right and marketing departments pervert everything with their insistence on style over substance. Dilbert, an engineer whose biggest ambition is to keep his job for another week, is perhaps an island of sanity in an ocean of corporate foolishness.
Not that Adams and exec producer Larry Charles, who both co-wrote the premiere, stop their sharp contemporary commentary at the office door. Dilbert is more than happy to lampoon other institutions such as local TV news and industry trade publications.
In the premiere, the company's new, herbal all-natural throat lozenges named Anthrax have lethal effects on those who use it. As victims lie strewn around him, a TV reporter points his microphone at a man near death from the lozenges. "We can see the devastation," the reporter says, "but how does that make you feel?"
Dilbert has his own problems. He is having the ominous "chicken dream," last visited upon an engineer who was driven mad because no one could agree on a name for his project. Suddenly, Dilbert finds himself in a similar situation.
This season has brought with it a renaissance in animated prime time comedy. The PJs premiered this month on Fox, which will also show Family Guy after the Super Bowl. Although there may be a limit on audience appetite for the form, series like Dilbert should keep demand strong.
SENTINEL PRESS TOUR TRANSCRIPT
On January 8th 1999, UPN hosted members of the Television Critics Association from all across the country at the annual "Winter Press Tour" at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pasadena, CA. The return of The Sentinel was launched with a special Q&A session with Richard Burgi, Bruce Young, Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo fielding questions from the press.
With thanks to UPN, read the entire transcript here.
MORE SENTINEL PUBLICITY - Jan 25
The Sunday TV guide in the Houston Chronicle has a half-page ad-on Sentinel ad. The ad is in color and shows a smiling Jim Ellison. The copy reads "You called. You e-mailed. You rallied. YOU WIN! The Sentinel is back on UPN20. Ellison goes one-on-one with Voyager's Jeri Ryan, a femme-fatale who stimulates more than his five heightened senses."
(Thanks Jamie)
The "He's the Heat" Commercial is running now at the beginning of TWILIGHT ZONE on the Scifi Channel.
(Thanks Deana)
Detroit Free Press: "Monday Night's Best Bets"
The Sentinel (9 p.m., WKBD-TV, Channel 50). Neat repeat. It's an encore
for last spring's traumatic season finale in which Blair Sandburg (Garret
Maggard) was killed. Or was he? It's all a lead-in to next week's cliff-hanger
resolution season premiere, with only eight episodes scheduled in what may be
the cult action drama's final year.
(Thanks Lori)
UPN SEARCHING FOR A HIT FORMULA - Jan 25
Detroit Free Press Online
article
BY MIKE DUFFY
Free Press TV Critic
It's simple, says Dean Valentine, chief executive officer and president of UPN, television's most beleaguered little network.
Hit shows are good, flops are bad.
"We will get the people as long as we put on something they want to watch," he says. There's only one problem: UPN hasn't put on any shows that very many people want to watch.
Especially the signature fiasco of last fall.
Read the full text of the article which goes on to compare the changing fortunes of UPN and WB in the national and Detroit markets.
ELVIRA MEETS THE SENTENNIAL - Jan 21
The February issue, #70 of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark humor comic features "The Sentennial".
Elvira is published every month by Claypool Comics and to To learn more about it, you can visit the Claypool website. For specific info on upcoming comics like Elvira #70, click on the Claypool Clarion link.
For an advance peek at some of the story visit Kevin Cunningham's site to see more of the guys as adorable humor characters (and get a chance to appreciate swell lettering) - a sneak preview of which you can find below.
(Copyright 1999 Queen "B" Productions)
Credits:
Script: Jo Duffy, Pencils: Neil Vokes, Inks: Louis Lachance, Edited by: Richard
Howell.
(Thanks Jo)
MORE FROM SOAP OPERA NEWS RICHARD BURGI INTERVIEW - Jan 21
Soap Opera News issue Jan 26
by Paulette Cohn
Former Daytime Star Richard Burgi Owes His Second Chance On Prime-Time to Fan Letters and Calls
MORE SENTINEL PUBLICITY - Jan 21
E! News Daily did a story popped up about people working to keep shows on the air as opposed to the ratings system, and The Sentinel got a mention!
(Thanks Martha)
The new issue of TV Guide is running full page ads for The Sentinel next Monday. The ads have been spotted in LA, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.
(Thanks Kat, Shayne, Linda and Bianca)
I flipped over to the Preview Guide they were running the promo for The Sentinel.
(Thanks Mick C.)
During Highlander on Sci-fi Network they had 2 ads for The Sentinel.
(Thanks D'Ree)
The SciFi Channel is airing Sentinel commercials. One aired around 10:20pm ET tonight.
(Thanks Susan)