Welcome to Hollywood!

Grammy Award-winning producer and 20-year music industry veteran Randy Jackson will once again step behind the judges' table this week for the premiere of FOX's hit talent search series American Idol (airing tonight at 8:00 EST). We caught up with Randy last week to ask him about the changes behind the judges table and what we can expect from this season's contestants.

Gamesville:  After all these years of listening to auditions the first few weeks, are you growing more impatient with the contestants who obviously can’t sing but just want their 15 minutes?

Jackson: That’s one of the best questions I’ve had in quite some time. And, yes, I am growing a little impatient with that. You’ve watched the show, you know what the show is, you see every year somebody great wins the show. The top three or four or five or top ten people are all usually great singers and you just wonder what are they seeing that I’m not seeing? It’s like we’re not on the same page here, so, yes, I am getting a little impatient with that.

What's it been like working with Ellen?

Next week, Hollywood Week, will be our first time really sitting down with her because she didn’t do the auditions on the road. I’ve known her for quite some time, so has Ryan Seacrest, so we’re really good friends with her. I think we’re going to have a very funny, interesting season ahead of us. There will be a lot of laughs.

What do you miss most about working with Paula?

Paula is really near and dear to my heart and she’s one of my best friends. The whole thing started with me, Ryan, Simon and her, so she’s one of our best friends and still is. We look down the table sometimes and go, wait a minute, where’s Paula? I expect to hear something from my left ear and I go, wait a minute, that doesn’t sound like Paula. She’s one of my dear friends, so I wish her the best in the world.

Are you and Simon going to have the same relationship and dynamic with Ellen as you did Paula?

Ellen is different than Paula so it’s definitely going to be a different dynamic. She’s going to interact with Simon and interact with me and Kara very differently. It’s going to be a very interesting, wild, crazy, exciting season, I think.

What are this season's contestants shaping up like?

I think there’s some really talented girls that showed up this time. I also think that what changes the show from year to year are the contestants that we get. Usually whoever wins or comes in one and two, that next season of auditions you have a lot of those kinds of people. It’s almost like there was a signal to everyone at home that we like them, now it’s time to try out for American Idol. So I think we have a very interesting, unique cast that’s really only unique to this season nine. I think it’s going to be really, really exciting and very different.

Was there a particular city that stuck out for you as being just a real hot bed for talent?

For me I thought Orlando was really strange, just in terms of the talent and who came out and what was going on there. I thought it was a little strange of a place, but I think Dallas was good. I actually think probably Atlanta was one of the standouts for me, actually. I felt Dallas was really strong as well.

The premiere of American Idol continues tonight, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time on FOX.

With the return of FOX's series Fringe (airing Thursdays 9:00 EST) we had the opportunity to talk a guest star of the series and living sci-fi legend, Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy plays the role of William Bell, one of the show's most mysterious characters. He answered some of our questions about his new role on the show, what it was like to be back in the spotlight and his recent work on several J.J. Abrams projects.

Gamesville:  Did you have any reservations on taking another role with the potential of such a fanatic following?

Nimoy: I love this question. I can’t help but laugh and you’re absolutely right because it’s an interesting set of circumstances. What attracted me to it was several things: J.J. Abrams, Bob Orci, and Alex Kurtzman, all of whom I worked with on the Star Trek movie. I admire their talent and the work that they do and the series they are creating is at the very least to say intriguing. The character was somewhat of a blank slate, but we began talking about it and, therefore, I was attracted because there’s an opportunity to build an interesting and unpredictable character. I’m enjoying it a lot.

Can you tell us a little bit more about your relationship with J.J. Abrams having now worked on the new Star Trek the movie and now his series Fringe?

Well I first met him about three years ago when he first contacted me about the possibility of working together, and I went to a meeting with he and Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman and some of his production staff. They told me a very good and strong and touching story about their feelings about Star Trek and specifically the Spock character. I felt very good about it and went to work for them.

I had a great time working on the movie. I think they did a brilliant job, and I think the audience response shows that that was the case and has reinvigorated the franchise. And when they contacted me about working on Fringe–the same people, the same attitude, the same creativity, the same creative team–it was very enticing.

Had you been a fan of the show prior to being cast?

I watched it periodically. I think it’s extremely well done, it's very nuanced and extremely complex. It’s a mixture of science and science fiction in a very interesting and intelligent way. And I think it has a long way to go in story-telling. It tells a terribly interesting story and the character that I was offered was potentially a very intriguing and controversial and fascinating character which is very inviting for an actor.

Having stepped away from the spotlight for awhile and now having returned, have your feelings about acting changed in any way?

I did not expect to be acting so much at this time in my life, but I’m having a wonderful time doing it. I’m very comfortable in the two offers that I’ve accepted. The Star Trek movie was a joy to do. I admire the production team that made the film. I admire the new cast and I thought Zachary Quinto was a great choice for the new Spock. It was a pleasure to work with him and with all the other people on the project.

The Fringe character was intriguing because, as I’ve mentioned, it was kind of a blank slate and we had some very interesting and intense conversations about who and what he could be and how we should perceive him. It's really been about what we might or might not learn about him and why we might or might not trust about him. These are intriguing opportunities for an actor and because the team piqued my interest I went back to work.

When will your character William Bell and his former partner Walter Bishop face off?

Unpredictable at the moment. In the upcoming episodes we will learn a lot, more than we have known in the past, about Bell and Olivia's relationship, what is all about and what William Bell’s intentions are–or at least we will be told what his intentions are. We’re not really quite sure that everything that he says is accurate or true.

What do you think of Anna Torv, the star of Fringe, as an actor and as a person?

I think she’s really excellent in the role. We spent a bit of time working together and I was impressed with the way she works. I’ve seen quite a bit of her work on the screen. I think she handles a very wide range of activities, from very internalized psychological questions to very physical stuff. She’s very competent and very interesting to watch. I think she’s terrific.

Final question, do you believe William Bell is evil or good?

That’s a really wonderful question. Time will tell.

Fringe airs Thursdays, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time on FOX.

With the start of Dollhouse's season two on FOX we got a chance to sit down with the series' star Eliza Dushku. We caught up with the leading lady to talk about her character's progression through the next season and her continued interest in working on Joss Whedon projects. Be sure catch up and read our interview with Joss Whedon from last week.

Gamesville:  How do you feel the direction of this season is different from the first one?

Eliza: Well, there’s so much being cracked open and explored, especially with Echo having this new place that she’s in. She had all of the personalities downloaded into her in one swift punch and they’re not going away. So every pick up this year she’s still tapping into these personalities. Sometimes it’s not in her control and other times it is.  But overall she’s really absorbing things from her engagements and from the dollhouse. She’s really becoming self-aware, but not necessarily as Caroline, but as Echo. So it’s definitely complicated.

It’s a little darker all around. We’ll explore some things like the origins of some of the other dolls and the other characters. And then bringing in a bunch of guest stars and fabulous people.

How much closer Echo will get to rediscovering her true self this season?

Every single episode it’s been a little bit more. She really is becoming an entirely different character in many ways because she is getting sort of farther away from Caroline, even though Caroline is still her original self.

The development of the character Echo has just been so exciting and so fascinating because the way our writers and the way Joss can pick pieces from each of her experiences and weave them into this new character is just fascinating. So you’ll absolutely see a whole new Echo this season.

Is there a particular role or character that was kind of hard for you to get into, and if so, why?

Playing a mother was certainly something I hadn’t expected. I’m an auntie and I’ve always loved other people’s children and babies. Playing a mother and trying to tap into that maternal instinct was a challenge, but also a thrill and a beautiful thing.

What trouble will Echo run into in her attempts to save everyone?

I’m sure all kinds because it’s a Joss Whedon show. There are so many directions and so many layers, it’s all over the map. Of course a main story line is Agent Ballard, who spent last season trying to get into the dollhouse. Now that he’s in and assisting as Echo’s handler he’s working with her and they may possibly be trying to bring the dollhouse down from the inside out.

Joss mentioned that Echo will be looking for allies and maybe form some kind of a team. Could you give un any details on Echo is looking for?

Yes. Absolutely. She is looking for allies because as she is becoming aware of her surroundings and what’s going on. All of these personalities that are creeping up and out of her put her in an entirely vulnerable place because if wrong person catches on to what she’s experiencing she could be done forever. She’s being very careful with the tools and the knowledge that she has gained to sort of sniff out who she can trust, who she can manipulate, who she can use.

Agent Ballard was trying all last season to get into the dollhouse and now that he’s in it remains to be seen if he can be trusted. But in the beginning of the season it seems like there’s a pretty strong connection there. Then with the introduction of the other dollhouse and some of the other players, it’s just makes more of a maze for Echo to navigate and to find her way through, realizing that one wrong, one bad step and she’s done.

What’s the dynamic like between you and newcomer Summer Glau?

She’s great, I love her! We’ve had such a good time filming these last two episodes. She just has come in with her A game; she’s just a sweet, positive, fun actress. Our characters have some back story that we have to fight out, and so that's a lot of fun. Joss has brought in some of his favorite people to the show so I always can pretty much safely know that we’re going to have the cream of the crop coming in.

What do you like about working with Joss and doing his shows?

I would say, first and foremost, that I just love the guy as a friend. He’s been a friend, a brother, a teacher and a mentor. Obviously he is just incredibly talented. His skill is so beautiful to me and he’s just wildly creative, smart, funny, dark, scary and twisted–he just combines it all into such a sweet little package that he gets me every time.

Dollhouse airs Fridays, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time on FOX.

With the second season premier of FOX's Dollhouse last week (airing Fridays at 9:00 p.m. EST) we got a chance to sit down with the series' creator Joss Whedon. Best known as the creator and head writer of the well-known television programs Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, we caught up with Joss to discuss the new season of Dollhouse and his thoughts on how the series is progressing.

Gamesville:  There were a lot of people who were worried that you might be cancelled after your first season. What do you think it was that convinced FOX to sign you on for another season?

Joss: I think it’s the nature of the business and the nature of the fan base. The nature of the fan base is they’re in it for the long haul, and they’re nurturing, and they’re intense about it and they will see it through. They will stick with it and that means years after it’s cancelled. Firefly still sells, Buffy still sells, and that’s also a business thing for the studio. They’re in it for the long haul because they know the long haul is how my work pays off. I don’t make hit shows. I make shows that stick around, that people come to long after they would have stopped generating revenue in the old system.

With the advent of DVD and the eventual monetization of Online, there’s a market there that exists beyond your Nielsen numbers, and the fans showing up and DVRing, and buying a DVD, and proving on all my other projects that they don’t do these things lightly, that it runs deep in them, means that the base doesn’t have to be as broad for the studio to think it’s worth it to try and eke out another season.

Could you talk about how you approached the idea of new viewers following the show?

We try and make the premise clear enough so that if you haven’t been watching it, you don’t have to do a huge amount of math, especially in the first episode of the season. There’s a lot of exposition in the first pilot and in the first episode of this season to help that. But at the end of the day, you do have to go, 'Well, if they don’t get the premise,' and we’ve even rejiggered the opening credits to make it clearer, than they’ll either become involved in these peoples’ stories or they won’t. You have to move slow enough so people can grab a hold and jump on with you, but you have to keep moving.

[Dollhouse star] Eliza Dushku had a hand in developing her character for this role. How has she helped shape who Echo has become and will become?

Eliza has specific things she’s interested in, specific things she feels comfortable with. Sometimes I like to go to that place because I know that she can knock it out of the park and sometimes I like to go in the opposite direction to take her out of her comfort zone because that’s the best thing you can do with an actor.

The fact is she shapes it because she is very specific as a person. She’s very specific in the way she presents and even though there are many different aspects to that, the people don’t usually get to see how funny she can be, how elegant. It was a conversation about all of the different things she was supposed to be, or had been, or was trying to be, or trying to get away from that led to the creation of the show.

How will Echo come in to her own this season?

Basically, through force of will. She had all those personalities dumped into her at once and as we pick up we’re going to find out that that’s starting to affect her. Rather than be at sea in between engagements, she’s much more directed and driven, and even in her doll state is growing, learning and starting to try to access these personalities to see what they can help her with. She has a mission that she understands now, which is to get back to her personality and get everybody back to theirs.

Summer Glau is joining the cast this season. What was that casting decision like and what’s in store for her character?

The casting of Summer was based on the knowledge that Summer existed and the character was created with the hopes that she would play it, which she is right on stage right now doing. She’s playing the programmer of another Dollhouse. It’s a somewhat eccentric part but hopefully different than what we’ve seen her do before. The most useful part of that is that the writers work twice as hard to make sure that the character really pops and pays off because they know that it’s going to be played by somebody extraordinary.

Can you talk a little bit about the relationships that are coming up this season – what it’s going to be like with Echo and Paul, and even among the dolls this year?

Victor and Sierra just can’t keep their hands off each other, and they’re like monkeys and it’s something that we’re going to be treating, they’re going to be seeing through for a while. It makes some people very uncomfortable and sometimes it’s just extremely sweet. Sometimes it’s just funny.

But Echo is very much building herself and she sees it as an indication that they’re ready to be pushed to a level like hers. She’s looking for allies and Paul is the first person she’s going to turn to for that. But then a lot of the season is going to be her attempt to put together some kind of team, even though she has trouble articulating it at first. She’s looking for the sense of family that I think the audience was looking for last season. So we’re going to be seeing who’s on her side and who, not so much.

Dollhouse airs Fridays, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time on FOX.

With the return of FOX's sci-fi series Fringe (airing Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. EST) we had the opportunity to talk with one of the show's stars Joshua Jackson about the progression of his character and what we can look forward to in the upcoming season.

Gamesville: What can you tell us about your characters particular story line this season?

Joshua: The entire first season for Peter and Walter was about this father and son reconnecting through the craziness of their circumstances and actually becoming something of a family.  And Season two has carried that forth. In the beginning Peter is really invested now in being part of this team and actually belonging to this Fringe family, but eventually he’s going to find out that this horrible happened to him as a child and that’s going to blow up his relationship with Walter and probably with Olivia I would imagine.  To me, that’s the great thing hanging over Peter the entire season and it gives me something to move toward as they go forward.

When we first met your character in season one we got a sense of this kind of dark background that you had, doing arms dealing and such. Will we get back to that this season?

Yes. We actually delved right into that very early in the season. We kept on hinting at it last year, but never showing it. Walter has as part of this Fringe team and we spent the first season explaining exactly why Olivia Dunham in particular, as opposed to any other FBI agent, had to be the center of this Fringe team. What we never really got into until the final episode was why it is specifically Peter that needs to be a part of this. Now that we’ve brought him in, this season we’ve gone a lot deeper into actually showing rather than just talking about this prior life that he had.

What is your reaction when you get the scripts and it’s some new crazy thing that they’re bringing into the story?

That’s the beauty of our show; if we don’t have a new crazy thing, something’s gone horribly wrong so I take it always as a positive thing. Each week it’s a little bit of a science lesson for the class, it’s a little bit of a vocabulary lesson for the class and it always presents you with some other kooky thing. The great thing about our show is that if we can dream it we can do it.

What do you enjoy more as an actor, when you get to do an episode in which there’s lots of action, fighting, racing around, when it’s crazy science elements or when it’s simply doing a scene with the cow?

It’s a little known fact that the cow’s a diva. I don’t know that I have a particular favorite. I think if I did any one of those things too much each one would become boring in their way. I would tell you that the thing I spend the time thinking about is trying to keep the dynamic between Peter and Walter truthful and growing, but the beauty of being on a television show is that you get to do a little bit of everything all the time.

Do you think that Peter and Olivia will have some sort of romantic? What are your feelings about that?

I feel like this is more of a family dynamic than a romantic dynamic. What’s unique and what’s great about our show is, as opposed to having just a leading man and a leading lady, you have this crazy father in the center of it. That would be a very, very awkward love triangle so I don’t think they’re going to go in that direction. I see Peter and Olivia as more brother and sister rather than lovers on this show. Where they’re going to take it, I have no idea, but for right now I run under the assumption that this is father, son, daughter rather than boyfriend, girlfriend, dad.

What does shooting the show in Vancouver actually add to the show?

The gray rainy-ness of it all actually seemed to add to sort of the natural moodiness of a show like Fringe; I think that’s a positive. Then whereas last year we were in New York, which has all of the obvious things that New York and that backdrop add, it’s difficult to shoot there because there are the other 14 million people that you have to deal with. It makes our production life, I think, a lot easier being up here, just the things that you’re allowed and capable of doing on the streets of Vancouver.

Fringe airs Thursdays, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time on FOX.