michael imperioli

(S01E08) This show has found a new directive. That directive is: deviate from the original British series as quickly as possible. It was bound to happen. I just didn't think it would happen so soon or to such a large extent.

To begin: WTF??? When we last left Sam Tyler, he was answering a mysterious phone call. Now we have a jump in time out of Lost and he's at the scene of a suicide in mid-attempt. That's page one of sloppy serial storytelling.

Random House defines outrageous as highly unusual or unconventional; extravagant; remarkable. It's as though they've been watching TV, and wrote their definition to fit some of the crazy characters on television shows today.

Oh, don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining. I love these larger-than-life characters, played to perfection by the talented actors who grace these roles. Some fit in perfectly with their surroundings, others stand out like a sore thumb amongst castmates. One thing they all have in common, though, is that watching them is pure entertainment.

Patrick Jane (played by Simon Baker on The Mentalist)
Jane doesn't quite have the social graces to blend into society, and that's why I love him. The frumpy suits, the obnoxious antics, and the constant pushing of the envelope make for some good TV. From card counting in the casino to reading Lisbon's mind; hypnotizing suspects to making a sandwich in a victim's home, Jane's done it all. Unconventional, to say the least.

(S01E07) In what would have been the season finale if this were the British version of the show, Sam finally meets his father (and talks to himself as well, in an amusing timey-wimey sort of way). Originally, his father left him on his fourth birthday right after the party. Now, something else happened.

On a tangential note, I do wish this show had theme music of some sort. Preferably something akin to the style of '70s police television dramas. The opening montage seems to go too quickly. At least, this is what I thought while listening to the '70s-style music during the opening chase scene.

Life on Mars does has a slower pace than most of the other shows on television. Fortunately, it is kept interesting by being filled with eye candy such as wide shots and different colors. The shirts and the wallpapers alone fascinate me. I even got a laugh from Gene Hunt's loafers.

(S01E06) Gotta love that old school funk that the episode started with. I've been constantly commenting about how similar the individual plots and characters are to the original British version of the show (which has been noticed in the feedback), but in this episode I saw a lot of the show coming into its own. Some of the plot differences even make more logical sense that the original version.

The attention to detail from the entire series is superb. Little bits like Sam's frustration with using an old style typewriter add to the flavor of the show. As usual, Michael Imperioli gets the best lines. It wouldn't surprise me if he got a best supporting actor Emmy nomination for this role, despite its cartoonish nature.

(S01E04) "Just resign already, will ya?" - Sam, after seeing Nixon on TV

Well, it's probably not the main reason, but it looks like Sam finally figured out one the reasons he's in 1973 - keeping an eye on his mother. Last week, after Windy mentioned to Sam that maybe 2008 is the dream and 1973 is reality, it got me wondering if any of Sam's family would be around. Of course, that was quickly confirmed when Sam saw his father (Cobra!) and his young self heading off to a Knicks game at the end of the episode. Now, I'm no expert on the whole space-time continuum thingy... but isn't the world supposed to blow up or something when you see your past self?

"It's dangerous to be part of the Sopranos family. I didn't even make it out of that family."

ABC's 'Life on Mars' is one of the most promising new shows of this fall TV season -- and some might argue that it's not necessarily new, being a remake of a BBC series of the same name, but it's always been truly American to steal our best ideas from the Brits, anyway. (Oh, kidding.)

Jason O'Mara stars as an NYC detective who goes to bed one day in 2008, but wakes up in 1973. But his girlfriend in the present day is Lisa Bonet, and his girlfriend in 1973 is Gretchen Mol, so life can't be all bad, right?

Michael Imperioli co-stars as another detective, and he and O'Mara sat down for an Outside the Box interview to talk about the show and all things related and unrelated -- such as American accents (O'Mara is Irish), their guilty pleasure TV shows, what TV family they'd want to be a part of, and the worst acting jobs they've ever had.

Check out Outside the Box: Life on Mars, AND notice how good Michael Imperioli looks with a beard. Am I right, or am I right?

Jason O'Mara is the star of the new ABC drama Life on Mars, but the show features a few other actors who look even more familiar ... such as Michael Imperioli, otherwise known as Christopher Moltisanti (or as I always think of it, "Christapha") on HBO's The Sopranos.

O'Mara and Imperioli sat down for an Outside the Box: Life on Mars interview to talk about the show -- which, at the time they taped the interview, was getting its pilot completely scrapped and redone -- and some other stuff, including guilty pleasure shows, their worst acting jobs ever, and what TV family they wish they could be a part of. (And no, Imperioli doesn't want to be a member of The Sopranos. Again.)

In this clip exclusive to TV Squad, it's again with the Sopranos! This time, O'Mara asks Imperioli about the difference between filming an HBO series and a network series -- and they ALMOST bust out the swear words. Darn it, maybe we should have given them some beer.

Watch Outside the Box: Life on Mars

Have you checked out ABC.com at all today? If you do, get ready to be caught off guard. To generate some buzz, the Alphabet network's home page opens up with an advertisement for their new drama Life On Mars and it looks an awful lot like some funky virus just invaded my computer.

Life on Mars continues to add to its cast.

Just days after it was announced that Gretchen Mol had joined the ABC remake of the British hit comes word that Bill Cosby's TV daughter is coming aboard too. She's going to play Jason O'Mara's girlfriend (the one in the present-day, not the 1970s - Mol will play the other one).

As we reported earlier, the entire pilot is being reshot, with a brand new cast. Some of the people they have in the new version certainly sound interesting (including Harvey Keitel), though I think I would have liked to have seen original pilot cast members Lenny Clarke and Colm Meany. Bonet had an infamous falling out with Cosby while filming The Cosby Show in the 80s and then got her own spinoff show, A Different World. She went on to such movies as High Fidelity and the new film Gambit, and was married to rocker Lenny Kravitz (son of Roxie Roker, from The Jeffersons) for a while.

For some reason, reporters were kicked out of the ballroom so ABC could set up for this press conference. But all I saw when I walked in an hour later was palm trees and 1973-era ABC signs (like in the picture above). Wonder why I had to abandon my laptop for that?

Anyway, because many of the critics were fans of the BBC original, the gathered throng of testy TV watchers were eager to question the panel for ABC's version of Life on Mars. It was a relatively small panel, with executive producers Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, and stars Jason O'Mara and Michael Imperioli. You have to realize that having no pilot to base questions on makes us critics a cranky bunch, and the fact that the show is undergoing a show-runner change (from David E. Kelley to the Applebaum and Nemec), a massive recasting (all of the original pilot's cast, except for O'Mara, is being recast as we speak) and location change (LA to New York) only fuels more questions.

All things considered, the critics took it relatively easy on the panel.

Wondering what the deal is with new fall TV show Life on Mars? Now, you can ask two of its stars, Jason O'Mara and Michael Imperioli, yourself!

AOL TV's new video interview series, Outside the Box, takes questions submitted by fans and poses them to cast members of the hottest shows. We're already gathering questions for Scrubs, Private Practice and Dirty Sexy Money.

If you don't know much about the series, O'Mara plays a modern-day police detective who suddenly finds himself transported back in time to 1973. There's been a lot of buzz and gossip surrounding around this show, which is a remake of a popular British hit.

If you've got questions for O'Mara and Imperioli, submit them in the comments below by Tuesday, July 15. Be sure to include your first name and city/state. We'll take the best entries and ask some of them in the interview. Good luck!

Former Sopranos mobster Michael Imperioli is returning to television as a police detective. The actor has been cast in ABC's Life on Mars, an American adaptation of the BBC series. Imperioli landed the role of Detective Ray Carling, one of the lead character's colleagues. Ray is described as "a rough, tough sexist who has never heard of the phrase 'politically correct'."

This cast addition is the latest of many changes made to the drama. David E. Kelley is out as the Life on Mars showrunner, and October Road's Josh Applebaum, Andre Nemec, and Scott Rosenberg have replaced him. Producers also decided to move the show's production and fictional setting from Los Angeles to New York City.

You know, I used to love hearing the yearly announcement about which major celebrities will lend their voices to the upcoming season of The Simpsons. I think I liked it because I knew the writers would make good use of those voices, either making them a new character or somehow integrating a cartoon version of the celebrity into the plot (for instance: "Hi, I'm Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins." "I'm Homer Simpson, smiling politely."). But it seems like lately the list just shows how "with it" the producers of the long-running series still are, and the voices seem to be somehow forced into the episodes, either in pop culture asides or something the family watches on TV.

This year's list is no exception. Fox announced that the following celebrities will lend their voices for the show's 18th season: The White Stripes, Dr. Phil, Natalie Portman, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Wolfe, Gore Vidal, Michael Chabon and Jonathan Franzen. Also, Joe Pantoliano and Michael Imperioli will appear as Fat Tony's henchmen (Fat Tony, of course, has been voiced by Joe Mantegna since the beginning of the series). That last bit particularly screams "shoehorning", because Fat Tony's henchmen have been voiced by cast regulars for the last 17 years; why give them celebrity voices now?

Michael Imperioli, who plays Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos will be reprising his role as detective Nick Falco on Law and Order, at least for April sweeps. Imperioli initially took on the role when regular Jesse L. Martin took a break from the series to star in the feature film version of the musical Rent. Martin was also in the original Broadway production. Holy cow, Imperioli plays a guy whose last name is Falco, and he's on The Sopranos with an actress named Edie Falco. Coincidence? Yes, of course it is. I just thought I'd mention it.

HBO realizes that it's been a really, really long time since we've seen any new episodes of The Sopranos, so it has enlisted the assistance of Google Maps to help you remember. On The Sopranos website, the Google Map shows different locations in New Jersey where key plot points happened last season. Move your mouse over a red dot and a box will appear with a video clip, summary, and a link to an entire episode guide. A lot of the video clips are just conversations between Tony and other major characters like Tony B. (Steve Buschemi), Christopher (Michael Imperioli), and Sack (Vince Curatola) and really aren't all that exciting. They're used as a reminder of who got whacked and where the tensions lie between crime bosses. And, of course, it includes the scene where Adriana gets whacked.

Speaking of getting whacked, here's a way to kill time. It's The Sopranos' version of Whack-a-Mole.