Exposed

Hey all -

Well, this definitely goes down in the books as the latest Eberts' File ever. I¹ve been a little distracted as you might imagine.

So First things first, the change of venue. I thought about this for a while. You¹ve all been wonderful to us and so the idiotic decisions of some (are Bonnie¹s ears burning?) should not penalize you. At the same time, I don't want to reward Sci-fi with higher viewership on their website. So for now I've chosen to post on the I-Maniacs site and the Perseus project. I may change my mind later, but for now let's stick with this.

So let's spend a little time on Exposed. This actually marks the end of two story arcs. One you know about, the other you probably don't. Overall I thought Exposed did exactly what it had to do, the let other shoe drop on the character of Gaither. You don't create a guy that creepy and not let him out to play!

So let's jump into a couple of Ebits'...

O/T a bit: They delayed this episode because of the buildings exploding with people in it. We may also never see Going Postal and possibly Germ theory or Diseased because of recent events. I don't know any of this for certain, but I'd make extra copies of those just in case.

I think my two favorite episodes to shoot as far as comfort are this one and Johnny Apocalypse. In JA, I got to sit in a bathrobe and eat Oreos (or Creos to be correct), in exposed I got to play around in an arcade all day! Is acting tough or what? Josh Props managed to score me about 50 tokens and so in between takes or re-lighting I would dash over to a game and play until they needed me. All the background kids were alternately stunned and amused that I not only like to play the games, but that I was actually GOOD! I smoked more than one of them in Virtua Tennis and immediately relived my Atari 2600 days.

Double Eberts. Every agency has a guy like Eberts on it's force. I had known this since the day I was cast, the producers just didn't figure it out until now (Actually, in "The Devil You Know", Luke Lawson had an "Eberts" in an early draft.). My counterpart, Barney had obviously gone to the same "yes-man" school as I and it's quite possible we were even frat buddies. We even have the "Yes-man" society secret handshake that we do. The actor that played Barney had seen the show before and so knew exactly what I was going for. It's a good thing too because the only reason I existed in that scene was for that gag and the quarter dispenser gag.

They did cut my line in the arcade. Darien says "So we¹re screwed." I reply "Definitely. Definitely Screwed."

Prey fans rejoice! Well, shout hooray at least. So they build up this huge thing about the Prey connection and all it turns out to be is about two lines. Sorry about that. I do understand that it provides some degree of cathartic release (I¹m still pent up over the fact that the Robinson's will never get home in Lost in Space), there could have been a little more. The 'high school' line by Vinny is an ad-lib. I wish I had more info on Adam, but I wasn't there that day.

My big 'Die Hard' scene. Originally, I'm supposed to emerge from an actual air duct in the wall a la Bruce Willis in Die Hard. If you notice, I'm wearing his exact outfit (although, the shirt was a little too tight!). Because there are no wall ducts in the keep, the director decided that I'd be hiding in a pile of debris. I was going to throw in a "yippe-ki-yi-yay" in there somewhere, but I never found a good spot.

I didn't get a chance to directly interact with Arim Shimmerman this episode and that really bummed me out. I did get to sit with him the day he wrapped and have drinks with him and No-Name (Danny Goldring) in the hotel bar. We sat around for about two hours talking about everything we could think of. Armin goes down in my book as an incredibly classy guy and I wish nothing but the best for him.

This also marks the end of Brandy Ledford on The Invisible Man (I think. She may be in one more, but don't think so.), thus ending a terrible, terrible mistake by the network. Please don't get me wrong, I love Brandy and think that she is an incredible actress that did all that she could with what she had. The network (and it is Bonnie hammer, Ian Valentine and Kathy Kim who made this decision) placed an unsympathetic character into a cast that was finally starting to gel. By the end of the first season, we were all comfortable enough that we could take risks with each other and feel that we¹d be there to support each risk. The character of Alex put a wedge between all of us and too many episodes were spent trying to make this difficult character work rather than concentrate on story or existing characters. In the end I believe the network chickened out and pulled the plug on her character like they did with so many things in this show (including the show itself). I see no harm in telling you that she won¹t be in any more since they won't explain her absence just like they never explained any of her absences. I loved Brandy, but truth be told I hated Alex.

Well, nothing like a little bile at the end to really sour an Eberts file. I plan on speaking a little more plainly and not sugar coating everything from now on. The Sci-Fi BBoard was a little too public to voice some of my more contrary opinions about Sci-Fi and the show. Now that we¹re cancelled and not on an official site, I can cut loose. I hope you don't mind but you should know all the details, gory though they may be.

Plus you guys are the best fans a show can have. I have spoken to the entire cast recently and they all agree that you made this experience very special to them. We plan on keeping in contact with you through the last five episodes and beyond. I hope you like the cast picture I sent, I have plenty more surprises like that in store. I'll keep on sending them as long as you all hang around. You watched us for two years, we owe it to you to not let you down!

Thanks,

Mike