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HOW IT ALL STARTED...
The War of the
Worlds series was essentially a continuation of the George
Pal 1953 movie. The premise picks up the story some 35 years
later, with the Martian war machines crated up and stored in
military warehouses and the aliens buried in steel drums and
forgotten. Enter: Dr. Harrison Blackwood, an astrophysicist;
Suzanne McCullough, a microbiologist; Norton Drake, a
wheelchair-bound radio astronomer; and Colonel Paul
Ironhorse, a military man. Neill Fearnley, a director of
four episodes of the first season, admits that the very
first science fiction book he had ever read was War of the
Worlds. "To be a part of [the story], in any fashion, was a
lot of fun!" laughs Fearnley.
RESURRECTING
THE ALIENS...
"In the H.G.
Wells story, the aliens all died of a cold virus-a common
cold, and then Orson Welles came along and he concocted his
premise [updating the location and time of the story to
modern-day New Jersey], which was clever, and then the movie
came along, and so they decided to fashion (this television
series] somewhat after the movie. The stumbling block
was that [the aliens] had died in the film." To do a series
based on dead aliens was a difficult chore for the show's
creators. Greg Strangis, who assembled War of the Worlds for
Paramount Television, says that "the George Pal film really
was a homage to the novel, and it was a pretty reasonable
adaptation of the radio broadcast. ... I thought, `OK, ...
how do we deal with it in the '80s? It's many years later
and the aliens are still here.' And that was the jumping-off
point. I made every effort to be respectful to the source
material and still have the requirements of a continuing
series." To make sure that the reviving aliens who were
defeated by Earth's bacteria would not be defeated again by
the very same germs, Strangis says, "My reasoning was that
radiation protected them from the virus. Radiation killed
the virus." "They were in hibernation, and they would all
come back to life, which was very clever," interjects
Fearnley. "I think where the show ran into problems,
personally, is the idea they would enter a human body and
somehow their molecules combine with a human's molecules.
And you could have an alien sitting right there. Again, a
clever idea, and given today's technology, if you were to
promote the series today, you might get away with it because
of morphing. "If we had today's computer morphing effects,
the way that Terminator 2 has been done, we might have been
able to do some really extraordinary things. But in those
days the idea was that [the alien invaders] would be a hole
inside of you and come out of you. That doesn't really work
emotionally, but worse, technically. For a show filmed in
six days, it's virtually impossible to satisfy the demands
for excellence that the audience has, and to have them see
that as anything but a rough attempt to approximate the
effect." Fearnley believes that War of the Worlds was "a
very grand idea for a limited budget," and adds, "A lot of
people had difficulty on that show. For me, it was great
fun. I enjoyed myself thoroughly..... I don't remember bad
things about it. It was very very difficult, and the hours
were very long and it hurt making it. But it was fun. We had
a good time. We tried very hard; we were very sincere about
what we were doing. But sometimes it doesn't work out, and
it didn't for us on that show for whatever reasons.
WRITERS GUILD
STRIKE...
Among the
challenges they faced was dealing with a very abrupt and
jarring Writers Guild Strike in Los Angeles, which affected
production severely. Strangis says the writers' strike
almost brought the show to a screeching halt. "We started
principal photography of the two-hour premiere episode on or
about the same time as the writers' strike," he recalls.
"There were no scripts being developed. The pilot was
completed. The strike was still going. The pilot was
delivered. Basically I was out of work until the resolution
of the strike. When I came back when the strike was
resolved, scripts were apparently being written by strike
scabbers. Some of those shows were not in the best of shape,
so we put them up on the shelf and scrambled and tried to
come up with product in a very short amount of time so we
could keep producing." "It affected things badly," says
Fearnley, who was in Toronto where the show was filmed. "In
a way, you almost had to write your own scripts. They didn't
have access to a broad spectrum of people-[just] the few who
were working on the show, and those scripts were done under
pseudonyms. Who knows who wrote them? The scripts needed a
lot of work." Fearnley's comments shed light on several
suspicious teleplay credits for the show's first season. On
"Epiphany," Sylvia Van Buren was credited. Sylvia Van Buren
was Ann Robinson's character from the George Pal film (and
in fact Robinson guest-starred in early episodes). "That's
right. That was the gag," responds Fearnley to this
reminder. "Who wrote that show? I don't know. There were a
few others [with pseudonymous screenwriters]. "Whoever wrote
those shows-and they weren't really written-I had the right
to rewrite. I would start rewriting, and I'd give it back to
the producers. I wouldn't get credit for it, but you do it
all the time. You say, `Look, this isn't working,' and [the
producers] say, `Oh, why?' `Well, for these reasons,' and
they say, `You're right!' So the first few scripts were very
unwieldy, very difficult, basically not very good." Strangis
says the strike polarized the studios and the writers. "Put
yourself in the various different positions in terms of the
studios. It's very important for us to have and maintain at
least a semblance of a business as usual. The creators are
very protective from an editorial perspective ... being a
writer, I didn't want to do anything that would breach the
Writers Guild." As a result, the station owners were
concerned about having product. "Everybody wanted the best
of all possible worlds, and it's a matter of compromise. I
think the show suffered." Ilse Von Glatz, who was one of the
three semi-regular villains on the show, recalls, "The first
thing I thought with the advent of the strike was that my
job was on the line! We kept shooting, but everything was
thrown into a panic, especially since this happened so close
to the beginning. Everybody became somewhat demoralized
because we really didn't know what was going on. Were these
scripts, during that time, the real thing or some slapdash
thing just thrown together? A sense of cohesiveness was
certainly lacking." Of his scripts, Fearnley recalls
"Epiphany" as being definitely affected, and possibly
"Multitude of Idols," but the last two were in fine shape.
"You know," he says, "it improved a lot once the writers
[returned]. We tried very hard on a very difficult thing in
a short period of time," Fearnley adds. "I think more
planning would have delivered a better show. On a show like
that, the planning is essential, and I think we rushed into
it. And it might be simply that the writers' strike got in
our way. You can't do anything without the writers. Who
knows? It might have been because of the strike that it came
together. "In the end, it was fun. I think it was one of the
first times I had the chance to just be creative and not be
told what to do. The show was wide open. We were making up
the universe as we went along."
WHEN THE
WRITERS STRIKE WAS OVER...
Coming back
from the strike was harder than starting from scratch, says
Strangis. "After the strike, by and large, it was a long
process because we were really trying to catch up in terms
of material. There was never enough time to develop stories.
First, a series requires so much time, and there was none of
that available to us. But slowly and surely we found out
what things were working and what things weren't. The
one thing everybody forgets is it takes a long time to
develop special effects. After writing down something on a
page, it takes a while to make it work, and then you have to
turn it over to other craftsmen. And it was tough trying to
deal with schedules. The show was coming along very nicely."
INCONSISTENCIES...
Lost in the
Writers Guild strike was the explanation that as our
intrepid team battled the aliens, no one in the world
remembered the invasion of 1953-the war that (in the George
Pal film) destroyed, among other things, the Eiffel Tower,
the Taj Mahal and the Los Angeles city hall. The episode
"Eye for an Eye" also explored the first invasion in 1938.
Actor Philip Akin says, "It was never explained to anyone's
satisfaction, ever. Just one of the blips that we had to
keep glossing over and use smoke and mirrors to try and shy
away from it...". Further inconsistencies developed
because years one and two had different production
personnel, whose interpretations were in contrast to each
other. "They changed the rules again," declares Fearnley.
"And that's okay. Where the problem lies is within the
season. If you break the rules, then you get into trouble."
Asked if he felt the radical retooling of the show for
second season was too much, Fearnley responds, "And did that
contribute to the downfall of the show? As a viewer, I think
so. As somebody working there, I can't say so because I
didn't work on the second season. I don't know all of the
reasons for the changes. Some executive somewhere wasn't
happy. But as a viewer I preferred, in a funny way, the
premise of the second season, where the aliens had
accomplished a lot of their ends. The Earth was in dire
straits. I liked that. That was kind of interesting. I
preferred that apocalyptic, `Max Headroom' kind of approach
to the universe."
THE CHARACTERS
...
Of the cast of
characters assembled for the series, Fearnley enjoyed the
four-person team consisting of a scientist, a military man,
a communications expert and a biologist. But, he says,
"Richard Chaves and Philip Akin were not as well served as
they could have been. Those characters had handicaps placed
upon them. "They put [actor Philip Akin] in a chair in a
basement in front of a computer screen, and they didn't give
him much of an opportunity. ... I mean, here was a character
who's dynamic and filling the screen and yet we only cut to
him every two seconds when we go to the TV screen. We had to
get him involved in the story! He's tremendous! Very few
shows had had people physically handicapped before, so
nobody knew what to do, and we said, `Why not put him in a
truck? Give him a facility. Get him outside and make him
human. Get him away from the screen and office and into the
world.' I think that was a big bonus, but I don't think the
character was served as well as it could have been. He's a
terrific actor. I don't take credit for [the van idea], but
after a lot of discussions, we were able to do that." Philip
Akin maintains, "Neill was responsible for Norton getting
out and about. However, subsequent directors and the
producers began, I felt, to feel it was too much of a
hassle. In retrospect, it was as if they loved the idea of
the wheelchair but not the reality [of working with it]."
Fearnley points out that to include a disabled character in
the show was a challenging and daring move on the part of
the creators. "It's a melting pot," he reflects. "Somebody's
saying [in casting the lead characters of this show], `Well,
let's include in our group all of the different social
aspects of America that we can think of and put that mix
together,' and somebody gets the idea, `We'll put one guy in
a wheelchair..." That requires a conscious decision. ... And
War of the Worlds was one of the first shows where somebody
at least made the effort to portray somebody functioning in
society who had a physical handicap ... and made him one of
the best characters of the whole show." Working with a
wheelchair gave Akin opportunities to innovate and
incorporate some personal skills into the show. "I am quite
a physical person and actor. I train in Aikido, Kung Fu and
Tai Chi as well as being an avid bicyclist, so the
wheelchair forced me to work in many different ways than
what I was used to. I couldn't use the physical stuff that
I'm so fond of using. It was a bit of a stretch to try not
to use my legs, thus I started to use a strap to tie my legs
together so that it would be a constant reminder not to
move. It did cause some problems on the set as they kept
designing `Norton things' that were better suited to a
leg-user and not a wheelchair user. A case in point was the
alarm buzzer in the `Second Wave' script. They had it set on
the floor, and the director could not see the problem or the
incongruity of a floor switch for a wheelie. In one other
case, I found it impossible to loop any of my lines standing
up. It all had to be done seated as that position changed my
breath and vocal patterns." Regarding other characters of
the show, Fearnley says that Col. Ironhorse could have done
a lot more, too. Yet he believes that the show's focus was
more on Blackwood and Ironhorse than on some of the other
characters and says there should have been a better balance.
"It was all very politically correct, too. We had everything
from the very right wing to the very left wing." Playing one
of the three alien advocates like a German terrorist was
Ilse Von Glatz's ticket to the show. She confesses War of
the Worlds "was not a show that I would watch on TV myself.
Dormant aliens brought back to life ... to wreak havoc on
the world-come on! You must understand, actors are not
necessarily concerned with concept. Nobody ever really
explained (to me] what the concept really was. You go in
there, do the job as best as you can-usually totally
uninformed. I had absolutely no idea what was going on at
the audition. Some terrorist thing, I was told. `Look stern.
Dress in black.' I was handed a couple of pages of script
that made no rhyme or reason. I guess I have the look they
wanted, and [the fact] that I could play a German terrorist,
with a German accent, got me the job. "We had pretty good
ratings for the first few shows. We were all pretty hyped.
The PR machine was working at full tilt. Richard Comar,
Michael Rudder and I got our photos in full fright makeup,
on the front page of the entertainment section of USA Today.
But by the time I was just doing ADR (looping dialogue) in
the studio, I was so far removed from the whole thing. I
would only find out sporadically how things were going." At
first, says Von Glatz, "we bad guys had the upper hand and
were actually visible to the audience. To be quite honest, I
don't think they should have ever allowed us-the
triumvirate, the Advocates-to become unrecognizable. ... The
audience, believe me, love to cheer on the villains too!
They're usually more interesting. I knew we were
`disintegrating,' but surely they could have come up with
some miracle cure for us." As resident aliens on the first
season, Von Glatz, Rudder and Comar never really interacted
with the main cast. As a result, says Von Glatz, "Richard,
Michael and I, as we always appeared together, became quite
the team. Working so closely, I really got to love those
guys. Making jokes, clowning around, trying to make sense of
the script, sweating under all that makeup ... the
filmmaking experience really boiled down to the camaraderie
we shared. "For the time that I was there, I can only laud
the production values. The work, the sets, a location at the
Quarry in the first three episodes, were anything but
low-budget. The set for the aliens in the studio was
unbelievable. I was stunned when I first saw this immense
cave that was to become our `home.' Shooting for TV is
always rushed, but I was never aware of any `lowbudgetness'
for the time I was actually on the set." As for her
character, "I must say that my role never really developed,"
laments Von Glatz. "The most work I did was at the beginning
as far as character was concerned. That's when I played
Urick the terrorist. After that, as aliens, we were directed
to be as monotone and unemotional as possible. The challenge
was restricted to the limitations imposed by the
prosthetics, the costume." Remembering audience reactions to
her character, Ilse laughs: "Ha! I got one fan letter from a
visually impaired fellow who thought I `looked' really hot
as a terrorist. He requested a full length photo." She also
remembers, "One day Richard and Michael and I headed off in
the car during lunch break. No big deal, except that we were
in full horror makeup and costume. Caused quite a few
traffic jams!" In summary, says Von Glatz, "I can't say that
I really had that much to do. For the most part we were
instructed to act half dead and monotone. The real challenge
came in the ADR studios. You're handed scripts in which you
don't know what's going on and tape dialogue. It really
works!"
JOHN COLICOS...
When it comes
to guest-starring in War of the Worlds, John Colicos, a
respected actor famous as Baltar in Battlestar Galactica,
remembers his appearance on "The Prodigal Son" very fondly.
"It was a marvelous part," he says, "and in fact, one of the
best science fiction parts ever created! [It was] one of the
best science fiction scripts I think I've ever read. Greg
Strangis, the producer, thought so highly of it that he put
me up for an award, which unfortunately I did not get, as
best performer in a guest role for a series. Colicos
describes his character on "Prodigal Son" as a "half-alien,
half human sort of character. It was a character who was in
constant conflict with himself, whether he would let the
human side or the alien side of himself take over." Did the
character regard himself as human or alien? "That's the
conflict," replies Colicos. "That's what we were trying to
develop." He adds, "You would never know from week to week;
was he an enemy or was he a human or was he trying to bridge
the gap?" The character was to continue in the series, but
the show went into a different direction. Colicos regards
the loss of the character and the show as unfortunate. "Had
it gone in the direction that Greg Strangis wanted to, I
think it would have filled a marvellous void because there
is a great audience out there for good intellectual science
fiction. Unfortunately, producers thought otherwise, and
they wanted blood and gore and that usual stuff you find on
television, so it was cancelled."
PHILIP AKIN...
Philip Akin
believes his character on the show "was a strong individual
with ideas and a great sense of humour and less of a compu-droid.
I feel that within the parameters that I had to work in, I
was pleased to go as far with him as I was able to. However,
the full growth of the character was never realized. In that
first year, he still remained somewhat stunted. By the end
of the season there was progress, but still he was left
somewhat stillborn. "In the last episode [of the first
season] there was a great opportunity to have Norton healed.
However, the producers backed away from the option that had
been provided to them by the writers." Instead, at the start
of the second season, Norton Drake and Col. Ironhorse were
killed ("The Second Wave") as part of a radical facelift for
the whole series, now under the guidance of a new producer,
Frank Mancuso. The aliens were executed in this episode by
new aliens, the Morthren, who took over attempting their own
invasion of Earth. Of his departure, Akin says, "I thought
the script was inconsistent and pathetic even for the genre.
There were better, classier ways for people to leave than
what they did. I have no real knowledge of why two of the
most popular characters were killed off. I never got any
other explanation except that the new producers wanted to go
in another direction."
IRONHORSE...
Richard Chaves,
who played Col. Ironhorse, says that like Akin, he was
anguished at the decision to kill his character. "I [had]
gone through the whole gambit, the whole spectrum of
emotions. I was hurt. I couldn't understand and it blew me
away. At first I was very upset, and very angry, and I
didn't understand. And one of the things that fuelled that
negative reaction was that everybody kept telling me,
`Richard, you're the greatest.' Everyone kept telling me my
fan mail was like five-to-one." Series star Jared Martin
provides an insight to the thought processes leading to the
death of Ironhorse. "His character was sort of painted into
a corner, and they couldn't deal with a sort of crisp,
neatly pressed military person in the world which the show
was going into," he remarks. "[That was] very much a Blade
Runner, 1984 world as opposed to a brightly lit,
by-the-book, military-operation kind of world. They wanted
to introduce a character-more of a roguish, offbeat, Mad Max
character-and the Ironhorse character was just not going to
work. It was a real tough decision. I know that Frank
Mancuso spent many late nights thinking about it. He was
killing off, arguably, the most popular cast member, which
you don't do lightly." Filming the scenes was very emotional
for Chaves. "My last night of filming was very strange, and
the first time I recounted what happened was to Peter Bloch
Hanson, the guy who did the Starlog interview. And Peter
isn't just a professional press person that I have worked
with; he's a friend. He asked me what the last night was
like, and I started telling him about it. The next thing I
knew, I got real emotional and I fell apart. It was very,
very difficult. It was a long, long night, and the most
poignant moment of the entire time was when I took off my
uniform for the last time and said goodbye to a very, very
dear friend." But as time went on, Chaves says, he steered
himself to the positives. "I knew something better would
come along." Whatever shortcomings the show had for Philip
Akin, being associated with War of the Worlds was worthwhile
for him overall because of the impact his role made on the
people who watched the show. "I have received lots of
fabulous and caring mail from many people. At one conference
a lady came up to me and told me of her friend's class of
disabled kids who loved the show because Norton was so
independent and capable. It was that kind of response that
made it all quite special."
LYNDA MASON
GREEN...
One cast
member who continued into the second season was Lynda Mason
Green, as microbiologist Suzanne McCullough. "When we first
started working on War of the Worlds, I was very happy with
the script," she says. "I liked the writing, the characters,
the idea. I saw lots of potential for Suzanne. She was a
woman who interested me. I liked her and looked forward to
being a part of her evolution and the challenge of playing a
successful scientist who was also a single mother. "For me,
the best part of the [two-hour premiere episode] script was
its humour. I felt that the tone and the wit that had been
established by Greg Strangis in that script was a lot of
fun. At times, `wit' slammed into `camp' but I, as a viewer,
have always appreciated a series that had its tongue firmly
implanted in its cheek and resisted taking itself too
seriously. I looked forward to a lot of the same in future
episodes." Green was concerned that the updated approach to
the Pal adaptation of the Wells novel would not have the
strong foundations for a long run. "Audiences these days
have very sophisticated tastes, and expectations of SF drama
are high. After Close Encounters and Star Trek and its
subsequent generations, it's become hard to sell the `evil
rubber suit Martian' without a healthy dose of humour. Since
that seemed to be integral to the show at the beginning, I
felt optimistic about our future." She was troubled,
however, when the humour she appreciated became the first
casualty of the writers' strike. "It seems in retrospect
that we never quite got back on track after that, even after
the strike was finally resolved. Writing seems to be a
fragile process in need of a lot of TLC. I admit that it was
a disappointment for me that we never seemed to get to that
wonderful point where everything begins to pulse with the
same rhythm." Further, Green recalls, "I was stunned to hear
that we would be losing two important cast members. I had
become friends with Phil Akin and was especially
disappointed that he would not be back." However, she says,
"By the end of the first season, we knew that we would have
a new producer if there was to be a second season. Frank
Mancuso, Jr., who became the new producer, had some very
exciting changes to make. I liked what I heard so much that
I could hardly wait to get back to work. "As the second
season progressed, the style and the look that had been
designed by Frank was maintained by our wonderful creative
staff and their crews. The scripts also took on a more
intense, darker, more dangerous tone and texture as well. We
were now to become a Blade Runner-esque action/drama. The
show bore so little resemblance to the first season that it
was hard to relate the two. I personally preferred it.
Mostly it gave me an opportunity to get out of the lab and
to develop the relationship with Debi [played by young
actress Rachel Blanchard] much more. Almost everything about
the new season was much more interesting for Suzanne and
therefore for me as well." One of the most important
improvements for Green was changing the nature of the
adversaries. "The aliens became more humanoid. Denis Forest
and Catherine Disher were wonderfully arch Nazi-esque
aliens. They updated the threat, made the aliens much more
intelligent and consequently much scarier. I thought they
were great. Julian Riching and Pat Phillips were also strong
new members of the alien cast. "I was also glad to have
Adrian Paul come aboard (as Kincaid]. His character was much
more of the romantic action-adventure hero, a rogue warrior.
We needed him in the second season, especially since we were
now out of our element and the environment had completely
changed. We were forced onto Kincaid's turf. It was an easy
adjustment."
SEASON CHANGES
AND THE SHOW'S DEMISE...
Discussing
audience response to the drastic changes between seasons,
Green says, "We were effectively two completely different
shows connected by a thread of consistency that was barely
more than a rumour. We lost a lot of fans that had been
attached to the conservatism of the first season. The second
year was much darker, oppressive, anarchic, and the `good
guys' did not always win. Many of the more enthusiastic fans
of the first season did not make the transition." On the
other hand, "many did like it better, and we apparently
gained a lot of new fans as they discovered the show." Green
was unable to offer any concrete reasons for the show's
demise. "Cast is rarely privy to such information until
someone says, `The show is over. Your check is in the mail!'
I assume we didn't have enough support in the syndication
market, that our support at Paramount waned, that audiences
were confused by the radical shift between seasons that was
never really explained adequately. It's pure speculation on
my part. I would have been happy to do one more season, but
I think we took it as far as we could under the
circumstances, and it was time to move on." Jared Martin
says he's proud of the second season of War of the Worlds,
which he called "immeasurably better." In a 1989 interview
during the second season, while he was looping dialogue,
Martin said that the show was "more consistent, it has a
point of view and we seem to have taken that last ounce of
effort that makes something extra good. "I think the show
last year was perceived as an attempt to reach different
kinds of audiences. We kind of went hat-in-hand to the
audience and went, `Look at us! Won't you please watch our
show and like it?' This year, we're building the show first,
and we're making a statement. If we collect an audience,
that's fine. Last year, I think we were concerned too much
with demographics. This year, because of our executive
producer, Frank Mancuso, Jr., our attitude is, `Let's swing
for the fences on this one.' And if we fail, fine. If we get
cancelled, life goes on, but if we don't and we're going to
have a hit that makes us more concerned with the show ...
and indeed it's already kind of paid with a good review in
Variety." The radical format change between seasons one and
two served to "open it up," Martin said. "Our show is based
on the almost-tomorrow; therefore the things that we do are
more recognizable and have to be based on reality. The more
you base a show on reality, the more it starts swinging to a
cops-and-robbers type of action-adventure show. We're trying
to leverage out the concept of the show.... We're dealing in
more pure science fiction terms. It's not just the good guys
versus the bad guys from outer space [any longer]. That
would get stale. "We're more urban-based this season," he
continued. "What seems to be happening in the world is
happening in the cities. There's Beirut, New York, you name
it. We've moved into the city. What's happening in the
cities are the real problems of the advancing world, how do
we deal with them? We can make a statement and score some
points if we stay in an urban environment." With the
Morthren setting up shop on Earth and taking over where the
Advocates failed, the second season's "new" aliens provided
a deadlier threat to the world. Jared Martin said, "The
strings are being pulled by the aliens. It's been
personalized and we get to see more of their point of view.
Why they're here and what they're about. They are not just
stock villains in vacuum cleaner suits like they were last
year, so the show is moving to the tune of the alien agenda,
and this represents a shift other than us chasing them.
[This time around] they are chasing us. We're living
underground and are in more desperate circumstances, which
makes for a more interesting show. "How do 250 or so aliens
take over the earth? They don't have the weaponry at this
point, they are cut off from their planet, [but] they [do
have] superior intelligence and technology. How do they do
it? They attack several nerve centres of the socioeconomic,
political aspects of the earth. Basically, they are here to
disrupt, destroy and take over. "The stewardship of Earth
has been marred by all sorts of ecological disasters;
nuclear explosions and constant warfare. We just don't get
on with each other and we're not really taking care of this
planet very well. I mean, there's an underlying ecological
message to this series, which has to be well decorated with
action-adventure or else people just wouldn't tune in." It's
there if you look for it, he said. Martin also believed that
with proper care, the show would be further exposed to
audiences via overseas sales, cassettes, and syndication
reruns. And in fact, the Sci-Fi Channel promptly picked up
War of the Worlds when the station first went on the air in
the fall of 1992. "It's a timeless thing," insisted Martin.
"Most science fiction is. It's not going to fade as quickly
as a lot of action-adventure, sitcom or dramatic shows
might." Martin waxed romantic at the notion of the show
going for five years. "Well, I'd like to. I like the
character. I like the people [I work with], I like the
set-up, and in terms of my acting this is my signature
series. Right now I'm very involved with it and I'd hate to
think that we will close down at the end of this [second]
year." Unfortunately for Martin, the War of the Worlds did
just that. |
