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Post by WarrenWitchesRule on Mar 19, 2008 19:03:26 GMT
Just wondering if anyone else is watching The Passion?
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Post by orokiah on Mar 20, 2008 16:08:29 GMT
Just wondering if anyone else is watching The Passion? I haven't caught any of it so far...it's got an amazing cast though. Is it any good? |
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Post by WarrenWitchesRule on Mar 20, 2008 18:57:20 GMT
The acting is amazing throughout. What I like the most though is it's not antisemitic at all.
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Post by fenris on Mar 21, 2008 14:05:14 GMT
Things I Haven't Told You is a dark thriller by young writer Lisa Mcgeeset in a sixth form of a school where every student has a dark secret and a twisted life. Produced by Tiger Aspect ( Robin Hood), the story follows events after a girl's disappearance and an inquisitive light is shone onto her friends' movements. Although it was a little heavy-handed, with perhaps too many individual subplots (every character seemed to have a terrible secret and/or hidden agenda) I found The Things I Haven't Told You to be genuinely intriguing. There was a nice Hex-type vibe about it, mostly due to it's school setting and the subtle hint that main character Ash (who was killed in the opening scene and narrated the rest of the pilot in flashback) is perhaps lingering on as a ghost. Apparently, if a full series is commissioned, each episode will concentrate on a different individual and how they're directly affected by Ash's death. Although Being Human was easily my favourite of BBC Three's group of pilots, The Things I Haven't Told You was a surprisingly close second (the admiringly uncompromising Mr. Inbetweeny, with a take-no-prisoners performance by Amelia Bullmore, was also very worthwhile). In a perfect world, I'd like to see both Being Human and Things greenlit to become series. |
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Post by orokiah on Apr 15, 2008 13:48:15 GMT
Waking the Dead is back on BBC1: amazingly in its seventh series. I almost didn't watch it. The show's always had complex, labyrinthine stories, but at times in the last series they just didn't make sense; so many twists and turns being stuffed in that the plot lost all sense of logic. Boyd the eccentric detective was becoming annoying and unbelievable, and his tendency to SHOUT every OTHER word was turning into a parody of itself.
But so far it looks like it's back on form. Last night's episode (part one of two; the second is tonight) was not only remarkably easy to follow but surprisingly good. The mystery of Boyd's missing son (the reason for his involvement in the CCU) finally seems set to be solved, and it was good to see the excellent Michelle Forbes making a cameo. I didn't think the relationship between her character and Boyd in last series' finale rang all that true, but it was nice to see it resolved instead of being forgotten about.
I think the series suffered a bit from the loss of Claire Goose but Félicité du Jeu is a talented actress - she also made a brief appearance in Casino Royale - and a worthy replacement for her. Hopefully she'll get more to do this series than occasionally conversing in French with the conveniently-French speaking guest star of the week.
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Post by fenris on Apr 15, 2008 18:07:52 GMT
Waking the Dead is back on BBC1: amazingly in its seventh series. It was good to see the excellent Michelle Forbes making a cameo. I didn't think the relationship between her character and Boyd in last series' finale rang all that true, but it was nice to see it resolved instead of being forgotten about. I'm also a fan of the fabulous Forbes, especially as she seems to be the only U.S. actress who's happy to jet across the pond and appear on British TV shows. Apart from Waking the Dead she's previously turned up in the first three seasons of Messiah (apparently she also wanted to be in the fourth, but was prevented by conflicting filming schedules) and even an episode of Holby City. However, I doubt she'd cross the Atlantic just for a cameo appearance. My guess is that her character will return later this season, and all her scenes were shot at the same time. The cast-member I miss most is the lovely Esther Hall, who played Felix. I'm still miffed that she was dropped from the show without any explanation after only a single season. On the plus side, at least I can now see Hall nearly everyday, alongside Kris Marshall in their series of adverts for British Telecom. |
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Post by orokiah on Apr 24, 2008 13:40:27 GMT
Heist, part of the Medieval season on BBC4. A great cast (Kris Marshall and Geraldine James were the leads) and a good idea, but it didn't really work. It was so determined to be wacky and accessible that it ended up as plain bizarre.
It was played for laughs - mostly via an awful lot of toilet jokes - but it was laughable for the wrong reasons. An uneasy mix of slapstick, Blackadder, Ocean's 11 and Guy Ritchie movies doesn't really add up to cohesive comedy drama: it adds up to a bit of a mess.
Geraldine James' turn as Joanna the Concubine (sample quote: 'I am NOT your bliss wench') made up for some of the shortcomings, and the inventive narrative structure - Kris Marshall's character was relating the tale while being roasted on a rack in hell - also lifted it up a notch. If the intent was to inject some comedy into the Medival season, it succeeded; but for the wrong reasons. It was an interesting experiment and worth watching for the novelty factor, but that was about it.
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Post by fenris on Apr 24, 2008 15:49:23 GMT
Has anyone else seen the CBBC series Young Dracula? It was a show I was aware of, due to seeing the occasional trailer, but I never bothered watching it, simply because it was a childrens' programme. However, recently it's been mentioned favourably on other forums that I visit, and since the first season is currently being repeated on Wednesdays on BBC1, I thought I'd give it a look.
Set in the present, the series' premise has Count Dracula, his daughter Ingrid, younger son Vlad and devoted servant Renfield all leaving Transylvania because of continuing difficulties with mobs of angry peasants. Travelling to Wales, the Count buys a castle that looms over a small town, enrolls his children into the local school, and tries to keep a low profile by drinking sheep's' blood and using the name 'Mr. Count'.
In the show's mythology, those who are born vampires (such as Ingrid and Vlad) originally seem totally normal, but begin to display certain vampiric abilities as they get older, finally transforming into full vampires on their sixteenth birthday. While Ingrid openly embraces her developing bloodsucking nature, Vlad quite likes being normal and hopes to find a cure for his condition. Ironically, the only friend Vlad makes at the school is a geeky boy called Robin, a proto-Goth who's obsessed with vampires. Meanwhile, the childrens' woodwork teacher is revealed to be Eric Van Helsing, descended from a long line of vampire slayers, and whose own son Jonno is also a pupil at the school.
Yes, it is a childrens' show. But while not up to the same high standard as The Sarah-Jane Adventures, Young Dracula boasts decent production values, has a pleasing Gothic look, and tackles issues that most modern teenagers can relate to. For example: moving home, starting at a new school and trying to make friends; martial break-up (both Dracula and Van Helsing are single parents, their wives having left them); parental pressure (Dracula and Van Helsing are both pushing their sons to continue their respective family traditions); sexism (the Count - a 600 year old misogynist set in his ways - constantly encourages and praises Vlad, while dismissing and ignoring Ingrid); sibling rivalry (Ingrid unsurprisingly loathes Vlad); not fitting in (Ingrid, Vlad, Robin and Jonno are all outsiders, to varying degrees); and the confusion and awkward fumblings of first romance (Ingrid apparently falls in love with a human in the second season).
Sex and hormones also raise their ugly heads: Dracula's estranged wife Magda occasionally turns up, and is portrayed as an openly sensual creature. And Ingrid is lusted after by every boy at the school - which means she rarely has to use her hypnotic powers to get them to do whatever she wants.
It's also clear that the transformation into a vampire is a metaphor for either puberty (for the younger viewers) or the transition from carefree teen to responsible adult (for those slightly older).
Most of the performances from the cast are at the level you'd expect in a kids' TV show, especially from some of the child actors. But the series benefits greatly from two of the regular cast-members providing well-judged portrayals: Keith Lee Castle gives a perfectly-pitched performance as the Count, finding just the right balance between playing it straight and slightly fang-in-cheek. And he's matched by teenage actress Clare Thomas, who plays Ingrid. As written, Dracula's daughter could easily have been a two-dimensional, whining bitch, but Thomas turns her into the most well-rounded character in the show.
Debuting on the CBBC channel in 2006 with fourteen episodes, a second season of thirteen episodes was shown in late 2007 - early 2008. From what I've read on-line, the second season moved away from self-contained episodes and featured on-going storylines, introduced additional recurring characters, and became much darker. The second season apparently ends on a cliffhanger, and the BBC have officially announced that a third season isn't being commissioned (sound familar?).
Despite being far older than the show's target audience, I've found Young Dracula to be a painless way of spending twenty five minutes each week. Particularly amusing are the slight in-jokes and references that surely sail over the heads of the kiddies watching. Dracula and Van Helsing's wives share their maiden name and first name respectively with two female characters in Bram Stoker's original novel; Ingrid is clearly named after iconic Hammer movie actress Ingrid Pitt (star of The Vampire Lovers and Countess Dracula); and best of all, Vlad's pet wolf - who's stuffed, undead, and talks - is called Zoltan (a reference to an obscure 1970s American TV movie, Zoltan: Hound of Dracula).
If nothing else, Young Dracula helps pass the time while we wait for the launch of Shine's Van Helsing series later this year.
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Post by fenris on Apr 26, 2008 13:24:12 GMT
Sumo TV have re jigged their last night schedule and unveiled several new programmes this month, and two of the debuting shows that I've seen are Japandemonium (Saturdays at 23:00) and In Bed With Sim-Wise (Fridays and Sundays at 23:00). Sadly, Sumo TV (having moved to Sky channel 206) appear to have ditched all the various series they started a couple of months ago, and their evening/night schedule now solely consists of Casual Action, a several hours-long programme in which viewers' text messages and photos are displayed on screen, while a female presenter occasionally pops up and makes comments. It's watching-paint-dry television. |
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Post by fenris on Apr 30, 2008 18:52:46 GMT
Waking the Dead is back on BBC1: amazingly in its seventh series. Holliday Grainger appeared in this week's Waking the Dead two-parter (28 & 29/04/08), playing a young widow. I'd not previously seen her in anything, so it was nice to put a face to the name prior to seeing her in Shine's forthcoming Van Helsing series. Another familiar actress I spotted was Lucy Evans, who had a brief cameo in the first episode as a girl whose dog discovers a shriveled-up severed hand. Evans seemed to corner the market in 'teenage daughter' roles a couple of years ago, playing Robson Green's daughter in the BBC1 drama series Rocket Man, and the title character's daughter in the quirky detective show Mayo. She also appeared in a memorable TV advert for Specsavers (or was it Vision Express?) with Primeval's Andrew Lee Potts, as a teenager who brings her boyfriend (Potts) home to meet her glamourous mother, and is subsequently jealous of how well the two of them get on. Evans recently turned up in two of BBC Three's recent drama pilots, Dis/Connected and The Things I Haven't Told You. And checking her IMDB profile before writing this post, I was surprised to see that she is/was a regular cast-member in Coronation Street. I don't watch Corrie, so I'd had no idea. Good for her. |
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Post by orokiah on May 1, 2008 17:08:37 GMT
Miss Austen Regrets on BBC1, which was superb. A classy costume drama with a bitter, wistful edge. I did like the similarly-themed Becoming Jane, but this was better: more mature and with a sombre tone - even if it did border on outright misery towards the end as Jane's illness took hold. It was beautifully filmed too: some stunning scenery and shots. Imogen Poots was very good and so was the script - funny in parts ('the only way to get a man like Mr Darcy is to make him up'), deeply moving in others (as their financial crisis deepens, Jane's mother berates her for having the temerity to change her mind about marrying a wealthy man) and even a little bit educational (Edward tells his daughter to read Austen's novels again if she thinks they're just about love and marriage - absolutely true, there's more to them than that). But best of all was Olivia Williams' performance. She really was spectacularly good: her Jane was at turns witty, waspish, flirtatious and fun-loving: complex, as a portrayal of a real person ought to be, however much artistic licence is, inevitably, involved in it. It was worth watching for alone. Another familiar actress I spotted was Lucy Evans, who had a brief cameo in the first episode as a girl whose dog discovers a shriveled-up severed hand. And checking her IMDB profile before writing this post, I was surprised to see that she is/was a regular cast-member in Coronation Street. I don't watch Corrie, so I'd had no idea. Good for her. I think she's still in it, but not for much longer - they axed her didn't renew her contract, supposedly because of 'negative feedback' from viewers.
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Post by fenris on May 16, 2008 19:09:01 GMT
Sadly, Sumo TV (having moved to Sky channel 206) appear to have ditched all the various series they started a couple of months ago, and their evening/night schedule now solely consists of Casual Action, a several hours-long programme in which viewers' text messages and photos are displayed on screen, while a female presenter occasionally pops up and makes comments. It's watching-paint-dry television. Sumo TV (which has moved again, and is now on Sky channel 875) has unfortunately become a 24 hour dating channel. So, no more Cult 45, which is a shame as it was a great little show (and also boasted a cracking theme tune). I also think I'll miss In Bed With Sim-Wise, a series that may have been approximately 50% zero budget dross and 50% train wreck television, but never pretended to be anything else, and was certainly never dull. It was actually quite addictive, in a I-can't-believe-I'm-watching-this kind of way. |
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Post by orokiah on May 27, 2008 15:07:20 GMT
Kiss of Death on BBC1: Waking the Dead meets Boomtown. By the creator of Waking the Dead Barbara Machin, it had lots of similarities: a cast of characters with the exact same functions (lead detective with a troubled past, canny profiler, too clever by half forensic scientist, a couple of younger detectives), a kidnapper/killer with a personal grudge against one of the team (a crime drama staple but also the same plot that was used in the pilot episode of WTD), and a grim story with plenty of gruesome detail--rendered even more complex in Kiss of Death, because it shifted between different characters' POV, flashing back and then forward again with plenty of visual gimmicks to add to the gloss. I liked that the main characters were so well fleshed out--every one of them had a trauma or a secret of some kind--but they were so unremittingly unpleasant it was hard to care. In WTD Boyd is notorious for stomping about and shouting: in Kiss of Death, everyone was yelling at everyone else, so loudly and so often that even in ninety minutes it got very old very quickly. There were plus points: Louise Lombard was very good as Rousseau, it had pace and momentum and the twist at the end involving Lenora Crichlow's Jude was a clever touch that used the POV gimmick to full, chilling effect. But they didn't cancel out the downsides: the seething-with-hatred characters, a press conference scene so unbelievable I thought the POV had switched to a dream, and Rousseau kissing the killer (who was also a convicted rapist) during an interview in an attempt to get him to confess, just because he liked to kiss his victims. Not nice, or at all believable, even for a character so screwed up. It only got 3.6 million viewers, so it remains to be seen if it makes it to a series. I can't say I'm hoping for one on last night's showing. Really, the only good reason for a full series is so they can fit in a WTD crossover--in which Boyd and co come in, solve the case and show Rousseau's unstable bunch how it's really done. 
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Post by fenris on May 29, 2008 18:11:05 GMT
I didn't think much of Kiss of Death to be honest. Using multiple points of view, and narratives that switch backwards and forwards in time, is a semi-regular occurrence in movies, and I confess that it was both rare and refreshing to see them being utilized in a TV show. However, it came across as a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to breathe new life into a tired and overcrowded genre. If Kiss of Death does return as a full blown series, I suspect such tricks would rapidly grow tiresome.
I'm not a fan of Danny Dyer and his cockney geezer persona, but he was surprisingly okay here. And while it was good to see Louise Lombard back on British screens, making her character an ex-jailbird - imprisoned for killing her child until the conviction was eventually overturned - was both unnecessary and a gimmick too far. And I thought the final twist concerning Jude just didn't work, simply because it was so clearly signposted in advance.
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Post by fenris on Jul 26, 2008 15:17:11 GMT
Watched the first episode of the new comedy series The Kevin Bishop Show on Channel 4 last night (25/07/08). Bishop found fame in the earlier Channel 4 series Star Stories, which apparently shares writers with this new show, but as I never watched Star Stories I came to The Kevin Bishop Show without any preconceptions or expectations.
The format of the show is that the viewer is channel-hopping between various TV stations - the show even copies the look of Sky's on-screen channel listings and uses the names of genuine channels, such as More4 and Zone Horror. However, the most striking aspect of the show is it's relentless machine-gun pace, with the majority of sketches only lasting a few seconds. It makes The Fast Show look positively snail-like. Like any sketch show, the humour is hit and miss, but the sheer rapid-fire speed in which the show jumps from one skit to the next means that if you don't find one joke particularly funny, you know that another will be along in the blink of an eye - quite literally. I especially liked the (admittedly obvious) Countdown USA sketch, complete with a leggy Carol Vorderman stand-in wearing a skimpy bikini. And full marks to guest star Jodie Marsh, who proved she's happy to make fun of her public image.
I found myself laughing out loud several times during the first episode, and it's been a long time since I could say that about a sketch show. The only drawback of the series is that it's so topical, in regards to specifically parodying current pop culture and celebrities, that it will no doubt seem quite dated in only a couple of years time.
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