Groundhog Day All Over Again

I keep seeing previews for this new ABC show DAYBREAK. Am I completely trapped in my childhood or is this GROUNDHOG DAY all over again? I don't remember the exact time that Bill Murray's character woke up at, but it was suspiciously close to the time they keep showing in that preview. I just don't understand how that can be taken seriously by anyone old enough to have enjoyed the original. Same thing with the new Denzel Washington movie DEJA VU. Isn't that 7 DAYS (which was TIME COP)?

I'm still going to see both of them, of course. I love science fiction premises and let me tell you, I'll watch every cyborg movie out there and then some. I guess I'm just wary and hoping that they each find a new take on the idea of revisiting the past, that the stories and characters tread some new emotional territory and that they are just plain good. I'm tired of watching sci fi premises created without respect for what makes sci fi so great -- it's ability to imagine a brave new world and explore the good and evil in it.

A friend of mine from high school recently contacted me. I went to a performing arts highschool and was a nut (let's not talk about the ballet shoes I insisted on wearing nearly every day my freshman year, or why I decided leotards, mini-skirts and a headwrap with hoop earrings were appropriate attire). Anyway, we were talking about The Six Million Dollar Man and how much we loved the show. He had a car accident a few years ago that was pretty terrible. Being an optimist, he, of course, mainly remembers how the equipment used to piece him together was straight out of that show. I guess that's what makes me such a geek. I do think the job of an artist is to imagine the future.

In other news, I had coffee with a senior producer on a current TV show. He gave me some great pointers on what to do this time around when I hire an agent (I was repped a couple of years ago, but didn't get staffed, so I moved to the Bay Area...), what types of pitfalls to avoid in my spec writing, and offered to read my current spec (as opposed to the pilot spec) when I've finished them. The pilot spec I'll have to find someone else to read because it turns out he is writing something in the same arena. Oh, well, I did pitch myself for a staff job if his script goes to pilot in January..... :-)

****** BREAKING NEWS ********

They just KILLED my favorite character on LOST. WTF??!!! i'M SOOOO DEPRESSED NOW.

Ugh, OK, I'm going to drown my sorrows in DEXTER, luckily I haven't watched last Sunday's episode yet.