Threshold premieres friday sep 16

[Forever Xena]

THRESHOLD," A NEW DRAMA SERIES STARRING CARLA GUGINO, EMMY AWARD WINNER CHARLES S. DUTTON, BRIAN VAN HOLT, BRENT SPINER, ROB BENEDICT AND PETER DINKLAGE, WILL DEBUT WITH A TWO-HOUR SERIES PREMIERE, FRIDAY, SEPT. 16 ON THE CBS TELEVISION NETWORK

"Trees Made of Glass Parts I and 2" -- Carla Gugino ("Sin City"), Emmy Award winner Charles S. Dutton ("Something the Lord Made"), Brian Van Holt ("House of Wax"), Brent Spiner ("Star Trek: The Next Generation"), Rob Benedict ("Felicity") and Peter Dinklage ("The Station Agent") star in the new series, THRESHOLD, which debuts with a two-hour series premiere event, Friday, Sept. 16 (9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. The suspense drama focuses on a team of experts who, after a strange phenomenon is discovered, must try to thwart the possible global threats that stem from it.

Dr. Molly Anne Caffrey (Gugino) is a government contingency analyst whose job is to devise response plans for worst-case scenarios. In a single instant, her life changes when one of those plans -- THRESHOLD -- is activated by Deputy National Security Advisor J.T. Baylock (Dutton). Armed only with her hypothetical strategy to address an unprecedented occurrence, Caffrey now finds herself thrust in the midst of a global crisis. Now, to help her investigation, Dr. Caffrey hand-picks a team of eclectic specialists to help execute her plan: Dr. Nigel Fenway (Spiner), a disillusioned NASA microbiologist; Lucas Pegg (Benedict), a brilliant but neurotic physicist; Arthur Ramsey (Dinklage), an expert in languages and mathematics who has a penchant for unpredictability, women and alcohol; and Cavennaugh (Van Holt), a highly trained covert operative with a mysterious past. Together, they are in a race against the clock to identify the source of the threat that could strike at any time, anywhere and to anyone.

In the premiere episode, Dr. Caffrey and her team must investigate a chilling situation on the Big Horn, a U.S. Naval cargo freighter, after its crew is terrorized by a signal from a mysterious craft that lands in the mid-Atlantic Ocean. Once it's discovered that most of the ship's men have perished or disappeared except for one, First Mate Gunneson (William Mapother), they observe him and study his strange behavior until he jumps overboard. Meanwhile, Dr. Caffrey, Cavennaugh and Pegg discover a video of the craft that emits a loud noise that causes them to have a severe physical reaction, and it is then that they realize they've made first contact with an unexplainable force and must now follow Caffrey's contingency plan to the letter.

However, Dr. Caffrey and her team realize that other missing crew might not have perished, just like Gunneson. Now, in order to contain the situation, they must find him and any other crew members to figure out what has affected them before it spreads to the rest of the population and creates a crisis situation.

Carla Gugino's television credits include her critically-acclaimed performance as the title character in the series, "Karen Sisco," based on the character from the Elmore Leonard novel, Out of Sight. She has also appeared in the series "Chicago Hope" on the Network, "Spin City," and has starred in many television movies, including the CBS Hallmark Hall of Fame movie "A Season for Miracles," "A Private Matter," "The Motorcycle Gang;" "She Creature," and the mini-series "The Buccaneers." Her feature film credits include "Sin City," her role in all three installments of the "Spy Kids" series, "The Singing Detective," "The Center of the World," "The One," "The Jimmy Club," "Snake Eyes," "Judas Kiss," "The War at Home," "Michael," "Miami Rhapsody," "This Boy's Life," "Son in Law," "Lovelife" and "Troop Beverly Hills," her first film. She will next be seen in the feature film "Jump Shot" and will soon begin work on the film "Rise." Gugino's theater credits include her Broadway debut in the Roundabout Theater's revival of Arthur Miller's After the Fall, for which she received an Outer Critics' Circle Award nomination and a Theater World award for Outstanding Broadway Debut.

Charles S. Dutton is an accomplished film, television and theater actor, as well as producer and director. He won an Emmy Award in 2002 for his guest role on "The Practice" and one in 2003 for his guest role on CBS's "Without a Trace." Dutton's feature film credits include "Against the Ropes" (which he also directed), "Get On The Bus," "Mimic," "Crocodile Dundee II," "A Time To Kill," "Mississippi Masala," "Alien 3," "The Distinguished Gentleman," "Menace II Society," "Rudy", "Surviving the Game," "Low Down Dirty Shame," "Cry The Beloved Country," "D-Tox," "Random Hearts," "Cookie's Fortune" and "Secret Window." On television, Dutton appeared in "ROC" (for which he also served as executive producer), "The Practice," "The L-Word," "Ed," "The Sopranos," "Homicide: Life on the Street," the television movies "Something the Lord Made," " DC Sniper," "Zooman," "10,000 Black Men Named George," and in the mini-series "The Murder of Mary Phagan," "The '60s" and "For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story." He directed the mini-series "The Corner" and the television movie "First Time Felon." His theater work includes "The Piano Lesson" and "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom," for which he received two Tony nominations, and "Joe Turner Come and Gone."

Brian Van Holt has several television roles to his credit, including "Sex and the City." His feature film credits include "House of Wax," "Black Hawk Down," "Windtalkers," "Basic," "S.W.A.T.," "Confidence," "Man of the House" and "Whipped."

Brent Spiner's television credits include "Star Trek: The Next Generation," "Star Trek: Enterprise," "Joey," "Friends," "Frasier," "The Outer Limits," "Mad About You," "The Twilight Zone," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Night Court," "Cheers," the television movies "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge," "Jack," "The Ponder Heart," "Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long," "Crazy from the Heart," "Family Sins," "Manhunt for Claude Dallas," "Crime of Innocence" and the mini-series "Robert Kennedy & His Times." His feature film credits include "The Aviator," four "Star Trek" films, "Independence Day," "I Am Sam," "Stardust Memories," "Dude, Where's My Car?," "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut," "The Master of Disguise," "Phenomenon" and "Out to Sea." Spiner's theater credits include "A History of the American Film," "Sunday in the Park with George," "Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "The Three Musketeers," "Life Times Three" "Little Shop of Horrors," and "1776," for which he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Best Actor in a Musical.

Rob Benedict is best known to television audiences for his role as Richard Coad in "Felicity." His additional television credits include "NCIS" and "Chicago Hope," on the Network, "Alias," "Medium," "Birds of Prey," "NYPD Blue," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Snoops," and "Beverly Hills 90210." Benedict's feature film credits include "Kicking & Screaming," "Not Another Teen Movie," "Two Days," "The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest" and "My Dinner with Jimi."

Peter Dinklage is best known for his starring role in the in the 2003 Sundance Audience Award-winning film "The Station Agent," for which he was nominated for Best Actor in the 2003 Independent Spirit Awards. His additional feature film credits "Elf," "Human Nature," "Safe Men," "Never Again," "13 Moons," "Surviving Eden, and his role as 'Tito' in "Living In Oblivion." He recently wrapped the films "Find Me Guilty" and "Lassie," and will be seen in the upcoming feature films "The Baxter" and "The Little Fugitive," and is set to star in "Mendel's Dwarf," "Fellini Black & White," "Little Green Men" and the "Affair of the Sorcerers" franchise. His theater credits include "I Wanna Be Adored," "Imperfect Love" and "Evolution," "Hope Leaves the Theater," and "Richard III" at New York's Public Theater, for which he was nominated for a Drama League Distinguished Performance Award.

THRESHOLD is produced by Paramount Network Television. David Heyman, David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga are the executive producers.

Carla Gugino……... Dr. Molly Anne Caffrey Charles S. Dutton J.T. Blaylock Brian Van Holt Alice Doherty Brent Spiner Dr. Nigel Fenway Rob Benedict Lucas Pegg Peter Dinklage Arthur Ramsey Diane Venora Angela Hatten William Mapother Gunneson Scott MacDonald Captain Colin Campbell Grady Joel Steingold Fry Traber Burns Chef Josh Cruze Secretary of Defense James Mathers Secretary of Homeland Security Matthew Sigloch Seal Commander Raymond T. Williams Navy Seal #1 Dotan Baer Navy Seal #2 Mitchell Edmonds Chief of Naval Operations Lucas Ford Navy Seal #3 Charles Howerton Military Official Charles Emmett Navy Pilot Dominic Fumusa Cal Mark Berry Agent Hargrave Seamus Deaver Agent Detoro Kevin Durand Crewman Sonntag Richard J. Chacon Blue Collar Man Alice Lo Chinese woman Tay Blessey Young girl Rick Scarry Businessman Chris Freeman Tall man Zale Morris Skittish man

RATING: To Be Announced

Official CBS website: www.cbs.com/primetime/threshold/

[Forever Xena]

'Threshold' Aliens Lurk Offshore
(Sunday, September 11 12:01 AM)
By Jay Bobbin
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - If a network is going to attempt a new science-fiction series, it could do worse than to have "Star Trek" alumni on board.
"Next Generation" co-star Brent Spiner and "Enterprise" and "Voyager" executive producer Brannon Braga are among those involved in "Threshold," which puts a military ship -- and possibly the rest of Earth -- at the mercy of an alien vehicle sighted in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Premiering Friday, Sept. 16, the CBS show focuses on the top-secret squad of specialists brought together to determine the worst that could happen under the circumstances ... and how to respond if it becomes reality.


The impressive cast also includes Carla Gugino ("Karen Sisco") as the government analyst who leads the team, Peter Dinklage ("The Station Agent") as a math and language expert, Rob Benedict ("Felicity") as a worrisome physicist, and Brian Van Holt ("House of Wax") as a man of mystery.
Spiner plays an ex-NASA employee versed in microbiology, and Charles S. Dutton ("Roc") portrays the deputy national security adviser overseeing the group. William Mapother ("Lost") also appears in the pilot episode as the apparent lone survivor of the Navy vessel's encounter with extraterrestrials.

"Whether they want to be or not," Braga says of the central characters, "they're plucked out of their lives by federal agents and told, 'You can't tell anybody what's happening, and you're going to be here for the next X-number weeks or years. If you don't agree, you're going to be put in a cell somewhere, because you already know too much.' Already, it's created kind of a tense situation; the whole investigation is intense, so there is a lot of pressure on these characters."

Gugino immediately took to the idea of starring as their leader. "I think it's very cool to play an empowered woman," she says. "As far as [being] the most important person on the planet, I think my character, Molly, feels like anyone would, which is, 'Am I up to the task?' There's a lot of depth to this woman. She's very capable and very smart, yet she is thrown into waters that are unknown to her. She is out of control, and to me, that's much more interesting to watch and to play than someone who is in control."

Dutton agrees, especially having made such creature-driven theatrical thrillers as "Alien 3" and "Mimic." "It always boils down to the human stories," the two-time Emmy-winning actor says. "I don't think you win awards with action. You win awards with acting and drama. It's the hardest thing, I think, for any actor in a genre like this to feel believable. In television, unlike the stage, you get no rehearsal, so you get no time to form a character that's grounded. You just sort of have to make-believe so good that (viewers) believe it."

The same approach can be deemed key to the success of ABC's "Lost," but veteran screenwriter David Goyer ("Batman Begins," "Blade") and his fellow "Threshold" producers went in with a full blueprint. "We know how the show eventually ends," he says, "but when we first pitched to CBS, we had an initial three-year plan. We know how the first, second and third seasons end. Seasons four through six, if we get that far, are a little foggier; then we know how the whole thing ends. I think audiences will be able to enjoy the individual episodes, but there's definitely a mythology that is building."

Braga adds, "If you have the mythology clear in your mind from the get-go, and you've laid it out and you have a sense of where you're going, you're in good shape. If you're making it up as you go along, I think that's when you get into trouble. We need to be mindful about having big, surprising payoffs that feel intrinsic to the premise. We've endeavored to depict this alien visitation in a different way. It's not going to be the traditional 'ship lands, [aliens] come out' kind of stuff."

Being in a TV series is a move out of the ordinary for film actor Dinklage, but he found the "Threshold" concept appealing from the start. Still, he admits, "The first time I read the script [for an episode], the technical stuff goes way over my head, but I ask. There are people around who know, and I learn something every day. Great writing is the first thing I'm attracted to. I like trying new things, and I was just really attracted to what these guys were putting on the page."

With "Threshold," "Lost" and other shows like NBC's new "Surface," otherworldly shows clearly are making a comeback on broadcast television. "For my money, it's a reaction," Goyer says. "There's a lot of anxiety in the world right now. [With] what recently happened in London and what's going on in Iraq and the West Bank, people are scared.

"Historically when people have been nervous, there's been an uptick in science fiction, fantasy and horror. You're telling allegorical tales, you're shining a light back on society, and it's a way to talk about what's going on ... but from a sideways angle."

[Lesa]

I just saw the first hour of this and thought it was really interesting.

Gotta go, the 2nd hour is starting right now. ;D

[Joxcenia]

While watching the first hour I thought I wouldn't keep up with it. But the second hour suckered me in. Not that the first hour wasn't good... just that aliens aren't my cup of tea.

[Forever Xena]

Got hold of the first ep , hopefully I will be able to watch it soon

'Threshold' teeters from spooky to silly
By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff | September 16, 2005

Turns out alien beings may dig Spirographs, those toys that enable kids to create cool geometric forms. We don't glimpse the colonizing ETs in tonight's premiere of CBS's ''Threshold," but we do get to see their signature marking, a twisting fractal pattern that resembles those plastic inserts on vinyl 45s. After the invaders pay a violent visit, they leave everything that's alive -- roaches, fish, human blood -- turning in a sort of widening gyre.

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Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts And those spiral helixes, like the crop circles in the movie ''Signs," add visual chills to the new series, which begins with a two-hour episode at 9 on Channel 4. Along with the darkly lit sets and the haunting presence of actor William Mapother, Claire's kidnapper from ''Lost," the evil patterns create a resonant B-grade horror mood. When the show's investigators watch a video of an alien spacecraft and bleed from their facial orifices, yeah, it's eerie enough.

But on the human side of the story, ''Threshold" falls woefully short. When the show isn't creeping us out with its grim atmosphere and effects, it's undermining its own potential with a self-consciously cutesy gang of heroes, ill-advised humor, and illogical situations. When it's not trying to scare us, it's just plain silly.

The lead characters, led by Carla Gugino's fearless Dr. Molly Anne Caffrey, play too much like a version of the Scooby gang. Despite the massive danger the aliens present to Earth, the crisis has fallen into the hands of a small team dripping with too-obvious quirkiness. There's the paranoid microbiologist (Brent Spiner), the neurotic engineer (Rob Benedict), and the womanizing mathematician (Peter Dinklage), who tries to cop a pair of his boss's underwear after she's been attacked in her home. These guys aren't exactly funny, like the Lone Gunmen on ''The X-Files," but then they're often played as comic relief.

Meanwhile, Gugino's Caffrey is a tired TV stereotype, the workaholic who eats lonely dinners of prepackaged food with her dog. Naturally, since ''Threshold" is clearly a post-''X-Files" series, she comes equipped with a back story involving the mysterious disappearance of her father, and as the series unfolds, she'll probably connect him to her alien investigation. But so far, she's a stock character who doesn't bring enough charisma to the show. Gugino was more darkly compelling on the failed series ''Karen Sisco."

It's as though the makers of ''Threshold" came up with enough horror material to fill a single movie, but now they must stretch it out to serial TV length with so much interpersonal baloney and filler dialogue. From ''We're in dark waters" to ''We've got to stare into the face of the unknown and make damn sure we don't blink," the script is padded out with boilerplate Saturday afternoon horror shtick. There are a number of new supernatural dramas this season, all hoping to mimic the success of ''Lost" and ''Medium." ''Threshold" isn't the worst of them; that distinction belongs to Jennifer Love Hewitt's hokey ''The Ghost Whisperer." But it's a second-rate thriller that doesn't have the kind of inner life of a ''Lost" or an ''X-Files" to offer long-term appeal

[Lesa]

Jox, after the first hour and before I realized it was a 2-hour premiere, I wasn't wanting to wait another week to see what was going to happen with the guy in her house who she couldn't stop with bullets. After Caffrey threw him down into the basement and he disappeared, I started wondering if he was now four-dimensional like the thing that appeared by the ship.
One also has to wonder how he not only knew where to find her, but how he got from the ship to the shore, and then to her house so quickly. Either he is so quick as to move past someone without them seeing him, or he is able to travel interdimensionally or in some other supernatural(?) way.

FX, how did you manage to get a copy of the first ep? ;D I hope you'll get to see the others.

Re: Gilbert's Review:
I must admit that I wonder how they'll make a whole series out of it, but I like this review better:

'Threshold' makes stylish, exciting debut


By Maureen Ryan
Tribune staff reporter


"Threshold" (8 p.m. Friday, WBBM-Ch. 2) is the most exciting new show of the fall TV season, one of the few programs deserving of an unambiguous thumbs up.

Which is why it's odd that CBS has decided to air it Friday nights, with the weightless "Ghost Whisperer," which premieres Sept. 23, as its lead-in.

Never mind. In its earliest (and best) years, "The X-Files" managed to garner a sizable following Friday nights, a loyal audience that was addicted to the Fox show's stylish thrills and intelligent plotting, not to mention its charismatic leads.

"Threshold," which is far from just another "Lost" imitator and recalls the best of "The X-Files," should be able to do the same.

First of all, anything involving Carla Gugino is bound to be good. Her cool intelligence, recently on display in the short-lived "Karen Sisco," balances out the alien-invasion elements of "Threshold," which are doled out in just the right increments.

Gugino plays Dr. Molly Anne Caffrey, a lonely think-tank analyst who lives with a mutt named Monster in a house full of unpacked boxes. Caffrey's all-consuming job is to come up with plans for what the government should do in various worst-case scenarios, and her "Thresh-old" blueprint -- the one that details what to do should aliens come calling -- is kicked into high gear when a very strange object shows up in Earth's airspace.

Within hours, J.T. Blaylock (Charles S. Dutton), the deputy national security director, has Caffrey briefing government and military officials on what to do next. And on her behalf, he assembles a rogue's gallery of science experts to help her investigate the last known place where the mysterious object was seen.

That's where "Threshold" goes from good to really good. Caffrey's team -- played by Brent Spiner ("Star Trek"), Rob Benedict ("Felicity") and Peter Dinklage ("The Station Agent") -- unwillingly accompanies the disaster specialist and a bunch of military guys to a ship in the middle of the North Atlantic, where very odd things have been happening and continue to happen once they arrive.

To give away what Caffrey and company find on the spooky ship would be mean (plus I've only seen most of the first hour of the two-hour "Threshold" premiere). So I'll just say that William Mapother, who did a stellar turn last season on "Lost" as a creepy guy named Ethan Rom, pops up here as a very creepy guy you do not want to mess with.

Though it has its share of well-paced scares, the real pleasure of "Threshold," is the chemistry of the ridiculously talented ensemble cast.

Spiner's character is a bitter ex-radical turned DNA expert who's not thrilled about being stuck in the middle of nowhere doing the government's dirty work. Benedict is a twitchy treat as a terminally nervous rocket scientist who alternates between wanting to greet the aliens and wanting to hide under a desk. Dinklage is wonderfully acerbic as a math and language expert with, as one character puts it, a sizable "gambling, booze and stripper problem."

Not only does the cast have chemistry to spare, the stylish "Threshold" doesn't take itself all that seriously, which can be deadly for a genre-tinged program. You have to like a show in which one character makes a snarky remark about Klingons to Spiner, who's best known for his turn in "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Sure, there are one or two clunky lines in the first hour, and one wonders how the central mystery of "Threshold" will play out, given that "The 4400," a somewhat similar USA Network show, had a difficult time sustaining its momentum into a second season.

But the intelligence of the cast and the writing bode well for the future of "Threshold," even if, on the show at any rate, the future of Earth is in doubt.

Source: chicagotribune.com

I chuckled at the Klingon line, but lmao when they put the camera on Spiner's face immediately after. It was like an intentional almost-out-of-character moment where he almost seemed offended at the remark.

Ratings:

The sci-fi drama THRESHOLD debuted with a two-hour premiere last night on CBS, coming in second in the nine o'clock timeslot in the Fast National ratings published this morning by Zap2it. The Brannon Braga-produced alien invasion series earned a 5.3/9 for CBS, following DATELINE on NBC, which took the slot with a 6.9/12.

The THRESHOLD premiere improved in its second hour against LAW & ORDER SVU, still taking second place, but moving up to a 5.6/10 vs. SVU's rerun with a 5.9/11. CBS was #2 overall on the night, averaging 5.2/9 to NBC's 6.0/11.

TNG actor Brent Spiner co-stars in THRESHOLD, co-created by David Goyer. The show also is home to former TREK writers Mike Sussman and Andre Bormanis and airs Fridays at 9p.

Source: trekweb.com

It looks like plenty of people were interested enough to stay tuned in for the 2nd hour. ;D

[Forever Xena]

'Threshold' IS The Government Conspiracy

Author: Wayne Hall
Date: 09-22-2005
Source: SciFi Wire

The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the first season of "Threshold."

With several new genre shows premiering this fall, Brannon Braga, the co-creator and executive producer of "Threshold" on CBS, can easily point out one of the ways his show differs from the others, according to SciFi Wire.

"A lot of shows deal with government conspiracy, and there are the people in the shadows who you don't quite know what they're up to," Braga said, discussing NBC's "Surface" and ABC's "Invasion." "We ARE the conspiracy. We're leading the conspiracy. And they are going to do some shady things. The Threshold protocols are going to occasionally call for some gray areas to be explored."

So, what are the aliens up to in "Threshold?" "It's bioforming," Braga said. "They're sending out this bizarre technological signal that mutates our DNA, turning us into them. There are no aliens. They're turning us into them."

The show focuses on the character of Dr. Molly Caffrey, played by Carla Gugino. She wrote Operation: Threshold, a contingency plan that specifically lays out how to respond to an alien threat. Things get interesting when an alien ship is found by a cargo ship and the protocols must be put into motion, with Caffrey assembling her "red team" to investigate.

Braga felt it was time for a female lead to take the reigns of a show. "I liked the concept that she wrote this contingency plan about what if an alien intelligence came to Earth and it was hostile," he said. "This plan was purely theoretical, and one day the government calls her and says it's really happening. So that her 'What if?' scenario becomes a 'What now?' scenario. And she really has to start planning this because it's really happening."

In related news, the two-hour premiere of "Threshold" attracted a 2.9 rating among adults aged 18 to 49 on Friday, September 16. Among adults 25 to 54 years of age, the show was competitive, with a 3.8 average rating. What CBS may find most encouraging was that the numbers inched up slowly as the two hours progressed.

"Threshold" airs Friday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.