TV Tidbits - Winston-Salem native stars in new series on Web

By: Tim Clodfelter | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: October 25, 2009

Austin Highsmith -- a Winston-Salem native who has made TV appearances on such shows as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and CSI: Miami -- has the leading role in a new Web series from Paramount Digital Entertainment.

Circle of Eight is a new 10-part horror series that will make its debut Tuesday on MySpace.com. Highsmith plays Jessica, a newcomer to Los Angeles who moves into an eerie, downtown apartment building. The cast also includes D.J. Qualls as a documentary filmmaker investigating a supernatural mystery. The interactive series includes mobile content, an online game, MySpace pages for the characters and more.

The first three installments will be released Tuesday. A trailer can be found at www.myspace.com/circleof8.

Fans of the original Land of the Lost TV series, a staple of Saturday-morning television in the 1970s, may be disappointed with the uneven and frequently raunchy theatrical remake, which is now available on DVD or Blu-ray.

But the new film does boast an enjoyable performance by Danny McBride, an alumnus of the UNC School of the Arts. One of the extras is an amusing, tongue-in-cheek feature called "A Day in the Life of a Big-Time Movie Star" that follows McBride on the set as his cast mates berate him. Other extras include deleted scenes, interviews, another feature with McBride in character and a documentary.

Starting this week, the Weather Channel will begin showing movies at 8 p.m. on Fridays. The first movie is The Perfect Storm, which will be followed in the coming weeks by March of the Penguins, Misery and Deep Blue Sea. Time Warner Cable has no plans to add the HD version of the Weather Channel. But on Wednesday, the company will add some other HD channels: BBC America (channel 592), TCM (593), Investigation Discovery (594), Headline News (595), MSNBC (596) and TruTV (597).

Here's a Halloween treat for DISH Network viewers: Zombie Girl: The Movie, an endearing documentary about a 12-year-old kid trying to make her own horror movie. It will be shown at 8 p.m. Friday on the Documentary Channel (DISH channel 197).

Two animated DVD sets coming out on Tuesday have vocal work from performers who went to college in Winston-Salem.

Adult Swim in a Box is a seven-disc sampler of cartoons from the edgy "Adult Swim" lineup, including some successful shows and some that never went beyond the pilot episode. They include Aqua Teen Hunger Force, with Wake Forest graduate Dave Willis, who also co-created the show, as the voice of Meatwad, and the unsold pilot Korgoth of Barbaria, a sword-and-sorcery spoof with Diedrich Bader, a UNCSA alumnus.

Bader also provides the voice of Fiskerton, a friendly Bigfoot-like creature, on The Secret Saturdays.

Also new on DVD Tuesday: the second season of the horror anthology Tales from the Darkside; The Fugitive: Season 3, Vol. 1; the third season of 1970s detective show Mannix; a third volume of the British crime drama Trial & Retribution; and the first volume of The Barbara Stanwyck Show, with 15 episodes from the 1960-61 drama anthology.

tclodfelter@wsjournal.com.
727-7371