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Michael J. Fox wins: The best and worst of the new fall shows

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:00:00 +0000

This past week, the four big networks unveiled their fall schedules and all the brand spanking new sitcoms and dramas that will start premiering in September. The quantity of shiny new shows makes this week the TV critic equivalent of Christmas in May — if three-quarters of the Christmas presents were defective (most of these shows will not make it through the year) and one could only stare at them through their packaging, i.e. the short trailers based solely on a first episode.

Of the 50 some new shows, a few of the most promising don’t even have trailers out for public consumption yet. (I’m talking to you, NBC’s “About a Boy” and “Crisis.”) Among those that do, there are many dude-centric sitcoms, many new re-imaginings of famous tales (Dracula, Alice in Wonderland, and even Ichabod Crane) and even one show that stars John Malkovich as a pirate. Watching all the trailers, I kept reminding myself that pilots are difficult to make and not necessarily indicative of the series to come. First episodes are sometimes better than what follows, but usually, thankfully, they are much worse, especially for comedies, which need to need time to clarify tone and character. I kept reminding myself of this because I had to: the new shows don't look very good. But in the spirit of optimism, here are the five series that I’m most excited about, and, in a slightly less generous spirit, the five shows that I’m most intrigued by, not necessarily for good reasons.

Canadian militants in Algeria siege

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:15:00 +0000

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- The Islamist militants who attacked a natural gas plant in the Sahara wore Algerian army uniforms, memorized the layout of the vast complex and included two Canadians and a team of explosives experts ready to blow the place sky-high, Algeria's prime minister said Monday.

The operation also appeared to have help from the inside - a former driver at the plant, he said.

Algeria offered a grim toll in the attack, saying that 38 hostages and 29 militants died in four days of mayhem. The dead hostages included seven Japanese workers and three energy workers each from the U.S. and Britain.

Three of the attackers were captured and five foreign workers remain unaccounted for, the prime minister told reporters at a news conference in Algiers, the capital.

Monday's account offered the first Algerian government narrative of the four-day standoff, from the moment of the attempted bus hijacking to the moment when the attackers began to prepare to explode bombs across the massive gas plant that sprawled over 5 square kilometers ( 2 square miles).

All but one of the dead hostages - an Algerian driver - were foreigners. The prime minister said three attackers were captured but did not specify their nationalities or their conditions or say where they were being held.

“Numerous” new bodies at Algeria plant

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 14:52:00 +0000

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- Algerian bomb squads scouring a gas plant where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage found "numerous" new bodies on Sunday as they searched for explosive traps left behind by the attackers, a security official said, a day after a bloody raid ended the four-day siege of the remote desert refinery.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the bodies were badly disfigured and difficult to identify.

"The bodies could be either Algerian or foreign hostages," he said.

Algerian special forces stormed the natural gas complex in the Sahara desert on Saturday to end the standoff, and the government said all 32 militants were killed. Earlier Sunday, Algeria's chief government spokesman said he feared the toll of hostages - which stood at 23 on Saturday - would rise as the special forces teams finished their search.

He said the militants came from six countries and were armed to cause maximum destruction. Sonatrach, the Algerian state oil company running the Ain Amenas site along with BP and Norway's Statoil, said the entire refinery had been mined.