What Else Is Everyone Watching At The Moment?

[orokiah]

DS posted a newer interview with Christian Cooke this week, which addresses both Trinity and the axing of Demons:

www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/a177491/christian-cooke-trinity.html

He makes some valid points about Demons' demise, but I'd argue that one of the things that 'wasn't good enough' about the series was Cooke (and/or Luke) himself. One of the biggest problems they had was that the supposedly central character was by far the least interesting.

[orokiah]

Misfits, the new superhero drama from writer Howard Overman (Merlin, Demons) and director Tom Harper (Demons, The Scouting Book for Boys), begins on E4 on Thursday 12th November at 10pm.

[fenris]

Apart from Zone Horror, the channel I'm watching most at the moment is ITV4, primarily for all the Sixties/early Seventies British adventure series that they're repeating, most of which were produced by Lew Grade.

The most famous & best remembered of the shows from that period are The Avengers, The Saint, Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) and The Prisoner, and it's no accident that all four of those series spawned either sequels (The New Avengers and The Return of the Saint) or remakes (Reeves & Mortimer's version of Randall & Hopkirk, and the upcoming ITV1 redux of The Prisoner). However, what I especially enjoy about ITV4's scheduling is that instead they're screening some of Grade's slightly lesser-known shows, which never truly broke through to enjoy mainstream success... Series that in my opinion have been unfairly overlooked.
For example, earlier this year they broadcast the stylish mystery show Department S, and the channel's current line-up includes The Champions (probably Britain's first superhero series, unless anyone knows different) and Gerry Anderson's grim and bleak UFO. The latter in particular is ripe for rediscovery.

[fenris]

I fell out of love with American TV series a couple of years ago. Honestly can’t tell you why. I just stopped watching them and concentrated on homegrown shows instead. As a result, recent US TV series that people have raved about, such as Lost, Heroes, Dollhouse and Flash Forward have passed me by, and I can’t say I’m bothered: you don’t miss what you’ve never had.

There have been only a couple of exceptions. I watched both seasons of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, and I’m currently following Eleventh Hour. The latter show debuted in the UK earlier this year, on a satellite/cable channel that I don’t have access to (Living? Hallmark? FX? I don’t remember), but it’s currently being repeated on Virgin 1, Wednesdays at 22:00. It’s a remake of the short-loved ITV series of a few years ago that starred Patrick Stewart as governmental scientific advisor Dr. Ian Hood and Ashley Jenson (Extras, Ugly Betty) as his MI5-assigned minder Rachel Young. Needless to say, because it’s an American remake both characters are now younger and glamorous (if the current glut of detective shows that dominate the US schedules are to be believed, every police precinct and FBI department in America is exclusively staffed by good-looking hunks, older but still handsome mentor figures, and slim gorgeous young women), but thankfully Marley Shelton and Rufus Sewell as (respectively) FBI agent Young and Dr. Jacob Hood have the acting chops to match their looks.

Nothing about the show is original or format-breaking. It’s premise is House-meets-The X-Files, with apparent echoes of another recent short-lived US series, Medical Investigation, which I’ve not seen but I believe is currently being repeated on Five US. The characterisations of Hood and Young are also standard: he’s the impulsive, rule-bending, outside-of-the-box-thinking maverick with a tragic past (a dead wife), while she’s his ultra-efficient bodyguard, sidekick and social buffer, who doesn’t have time for a personal life because she’s so dedicated to her job. But while Sewell and Shelton don’t quite succeed in breathing any fresh life into these stock characters, they have good chemistry and make Hood and Young a likable team.

In conclusion, Eleventh Hour isn’t anything special, but it’s a well-produced and entertaining show that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. It only lasted eighteen episodes, but I believe it’s worth seeking out.

[fenris]

Neighbours remains by guilty pleasure and is one of the few TV shows I make sure I never miss. To mark both the end of 2009 and the return of Neighbours to our screens after a four week hiatus over the Xmas/New Year period, here are My Personal Neighbours Awards for 2009, or as I prefer to call them, 'The Donnas';

Best Actor/Actress: Pippa Black. The massive range of emotions she can convey without saying a word never ceases to amaze me. And she's also great at comedy, whenever Elle ventures out of her comfort zone.
Best Character: The Donna. She's been slightly normalised over the last several months, but was inevitable due to her promotion to senior female Ramsey Street teen, following Rachel's departure and Didge ending up dead in a ditch. But flashes of The Donna we know and love are still frequently in evidence.
Best Storyline: Nicola loses the plot. Ah, Nickers. The best girlfriend Toadie never had. She was beautiful, caring, sexy, psychologically disturbed... The plotline in which Nicola suffered a breakdown gets this award because it made the Parkers interesting for the first and only time during their lengthy stay in the series. Neighbours producers were criticized for casting high-profile glamour model Imogen Bailey as Nickers (especially as they'd also just cast a former Miss Australia to play Sienna), but this storyline enabled the shapely Bailey to prove she had more than the necessary acting chops.
Best Couple: Elle and The Donna. The most devoted and physically hands-on couple in Erinsborough. The way in which their relationship became blatantly overt during 2009 leads me to strongly suspect that Pippa Black and Margot Robbie lobbied the producers to let Elle and Donna have a full relationship, but while the producers vetoed their suggestion they gave the actresses permission to work with the writers to push the Elle/Donna pairing as far as possible without it becoming sexual. Regardless of whether I'm right or wrong, Elle and Donna were often the best reason to watch Neighbours throughout 2009.
Best Arrival: instead of the debut of a new character, this award goes to the return of an existing one. The lovely Sam, arriving back in Erinsborough on the eve of Libby and Fitzy's wedding, heavily pregnant. Crank the awkwardness up to Max.
Best Exit: Cass. The textbook example of why you should never mess with Elle Robinson. Within 24 hours, using just a few well-placed phone calls, Elle completely dismantled Cass's life, leaving her unemployed, homeless, and with no choice but to flee. Her departure gets extra points for the way she spitefully knocked over everyone's rubbish bins as she drove away.
Best Sapphic Moment: having returned from fruitlessly searching for her father, Donna sits in Harold's Store and arranges for her younger siblings Teagan and Simon to go and live with their grandmother. "Why don't you come too?" Teagan suggests. Eavesdropping in the background, a visually panicking Elle instantly drags Donna into the kitchen;
Elle: "You can't leave! What about school? And your friends? They'd miss you!"
Donna (zeroing in on what this is really about): "Well... what about you?"
Elle (her face crumbling, and on the verge of crying): "I've only just got you back... I can't lose you again."
And they embrace in one of their trademark hugs. Ahh.
Best Comedy Moment: Elle's interaction with the crazy dancing chick at the music concert, and her getting flustered around the nude male model at Rebecca's hen party ("I'll get some nuts - nibbles! Testicles!") were both strong contenders, but the award goes to the subtle in-joke when Steve (depressed due to his break-up with Miranda) was moaning to Didge about the relationships of other Ramsey Street residents. After passing comment about Rebecca getting back together with Paul, he muttered "And then there's Elle and Donna. I mean, what's going on there?"
Best Newcomer: Sophie. Proof that it's possible to have a child character in Neighbours whom I don't want to see being repeatedly hit in the face with a brick.
Best Cleavage: Rebecca. She even had the goods on display at Didge's funeral.
The Nurse Jodie Award for the Recurring Character I'd Most Like To See Become a Regular: Melissa, the behind-the-scenes queen at Pirate.net, seemed a shoo-in for this award, but the wonderfully sly & bitchy Amanda has sneaked in and snatched it at the last moment.

[fenris]

Good grief, what has happened to Neighbours? Last week Donna tumbled into bed with a guy she'd just met, and this week Steph and Fitzy share one kiss and this instantly leads to them having a night of hot monkey love. Have the show's producers hired new writers who normally work on porn films? If so, then whatever next? Kate and Donna proving to the bank manager that they'll do anything to secure their business loan?

Incidentally, Ramsey Street desperately needs a influx of female teenagers. The current ratio is four boys (Ringo, Declan, Zeke and Harry) to two girls (Donna and Kate). If this imbalance isn't corrected soon, Earth in the Neighbours-verse will tilt off it's axis and go spinning off into the sun.

[fenris]

Playing catch up. Random thoughts on the last several episodes of Neighbours;

Love it when a brand new character we've never seen before turns up, and the regulars all act as though they've known them for ages. Two examples last week;
(1.) Griffo. If he's Erinsborough High's new bully, I'm not impressed. Kyle or Justin could have him for breakfast (there's a thought - we've not seen Justin for months), and Amanda would make him her bitch without any trouble.
(2.) Adrian the barman. Will he become Charlie's equivalent of Nurse Jodie at Erinsborough Hospital and Jamilla in Harold's Store?


The pornification of Neighbours continues. We've had Donna instantly tumbling into bed with her ex-lover's half-brother; Steph and the Scumbag's one night stand; and Sonya acting all blissful & loved-up after a night of bed-breaking, window-rattling, house-shaking passion with the Toad. And while I've always thought that the Donna would take Zeke's virginity (as she did with Ringo), it was Mia who eventually did the deed, in the middle of a nocturnal raid on an animal testing lab, no less. It was a typical 'against all logic and reason, let's have sex RIGHT NOW!!' moment that only exists in skin flicks. And today's 1940s B&W dream sequence also had dialogue (Waiter Hunk/Ringo: "Is there anything else I can get you?" Sex Vamp/Donna: "What are you offering?") and close-ups of Donna's temptingly open mouth that was all straight out of a porno.


The Doom That Came For Toadie: it's official - Sonya's lovely. Almost as lovely as Sam. Pity we all know it's going to end really badly for her and the Toad...

[fenris]

Apr 6, 2009 18:01:51 GMT fenris said:

Dead Normal is a comedy about the joy of living. Set in a boarding school, it follows the comical adventures of three funny, strong-willed and sassy teenage sisters – Rebecca, Sophie and Hazel ... who just happen to be ghosts!
Dead Normal is a 13 x 24-minute production from Coolabi Productions.

Having been re-titled Dead Gorgeous, this series about three female phantom siblings attending a boarding school debuted on BBC2 last Monday (15/03/10), and is currently been shown every weekday at 08:00.
It was commissioned as a replacement for Young Dracula - a show that was intended for children, but proved to be quite entertaining for adults as well. And early indications were that just as M.I. High has successfully been the tween version of Spooks, so Dead Gorgeous would be a younger viewers' equivalent of Being Human.
Unfortunately, Dead Gorgeous completely lacks the sly wit, relative sophistication and Gothic grandeur of Young Dracula, nor does it possess the pace and attitude of M.I. High. Instead, it can best be described as a Rentaghost for the 21st century, with heaps of unimaginative culture-clash humour as the ghostly sisters (who have spent 150 years in limbo) are flummoxed by modern day items such as short skirts, i-pods and under-wired bras. Definitely for small kiddies only, I'm afraid.

However, one truly surprising aspect of Dead Gorgeous is that although the end credits confirm that it's a CBBC production, it was entirely filmed in Australia, presumably for budgetary reasons. It's depressing to think that a TV series that's been commissioned and financed in the UK is now cheaper to make on the other side of the world than here in Blighty.

[orokiah]

Mar 24, 2010 15:51:54 GMT fenris said:

Having been re-titled Dead Gorgeous, this series about three female phantom siblings attending a boarding school debuted on BBC2 last Monday (15/03/10), and is currently been shown every weekday at 08:00. Unfortunately, Dead Gorgeous completely lacks the sly wit, relative sophistication and Gothic grandeur of Young Dracula, nor does it possess the pace and attitude of M.I. High.

That's a shame. It sounded quite promising from the summary, and I was interested to see that Poppy Lee Friar (of Desperate Romantics fame) had been cast. I preferred the original title too.

As far as Australian children's genre productions go, anyone remember Escape from Jupiter and its sequel, Return to Jupiter?

[fenris]

In addition to it's schedule of movies, the Horror channel (formerly known as Zone Horror) currently has a pleasing line-up of TV shows as well. They're currently screening Haunted, the highly enjoyable Witchblade, the repetitive but still entertaining Friday the 13th: the Series, and this month they've added Blade: the Series to their roster. And starting tomorrow (21/04/10) they're screening Brimstone every day at 20:00.

For those unfamiliar with Brimstone, it was a short-lived (thirteen episodes) American late-Nineties series about a dead police detective who is resurrected by the Devil, in order to hunt down 113 condemned souls (mass-murderers, serial rapists, war criminals, etc) who have escaped from Hell, and send them back to the Pit by shooting their eyes out (as they're 'the windows of the soul', naturally). Though it never achieved mass popularity, Brimstone maintains a healthy cult following, but bizarrely it's never been released on DVD, either here or in America. I personally consider it to be perhaps the best genre show of the Nineties, and as Horror's screening will be the first time it's been shown in the UK for almost a decade, I urge you to watch it if you can.

[orokiah]

Loving Stargate Universe at the moment. I was never a Stargate fan, so I tuned into this originally, and stuck with it, mostly for Robert Carlyle. But since it came back for the second half of season one, something seems to have clicked. It's easily the best thing on TV right now, up there with new Who. I'm really surprised by how good it's got.

And Carlyle is still phenomenal, which doesn't hurt. Hope they hang on to him as long as possible.

[fenris]

Two episodes in, and BBC 1's massively-hyped Luther is proving to be quite worthwhile. It's yet another series about a conventional unconventional, rule-breaking detective, but it neatly reverses as many cliches as it faithfully pays lip-service to. For example, such maverick cops usually have constant shouting matches with their superiors and frequently run roughshod over their colleagues (who are usually portrayed as a bunch of none-too-bright, envious dolts, compared to the lead character). Not so in Luther. Here, titular character John Luther (played by Idris Elba) is valued and supported by his senior officer, and liked and respected by his fellow detectives - who are shown as being intelligent and resourceful in their own right.

As opposed to being just another cop show, it seems the intention is for Luther to be the British equivalent of such American series as Unsub, Profiler and Criminal Minds, about investigators who specialise in combating serial killers. And a lot of money has clearly been spent on the show, with supporting roles and guest parts filled by well known actors (Saskia Reeves, Steven Mackintosh, Indira Varma, Paul McGann, Sean Pertwee, etc). I suspect that with Elba being a familiar face in America due to the five years he spent in The Wire, the Beeb have plans to re-package Luther as a mini-series and sell it to one of the big US networks or cable channels, as opposed to going down the usual BBC America route.

However, in order for Luther to convincingly pass as an actual mini-series instead of just six standalone episodes, there's an ongoing storyline that is both the show's strongest asset and also potentially it's weakest element: Alice Morgan (played by Ruth Wilson, who by a quirk of scheduling can also currently be seen in ITV1's remake of The Prisoner) is a genius-level sociopath who kills her parents in the first episode, but leaves absolutely no evidence behind, meaning that Luther can't even arrest her, let alone charge her. Intrigued by him, she subsequently invites herself into his life ("I've become her new project," Luther mutters ruefully). It's an interesting idea, but with only two episodes gone, it's clear that the writers are struggling to maintain and define a relationship between Luther and Alice that's outside the traditional positioning of hero and nemesis. Episode #2 ends with Luther grudgingly accepting Alice's continuing presence, in a development that feels false and makes little sense - unless we're to presume that at least it enables him to keep an eye on her.

There have been a few other narrative problems and plotholes. In the second episode - about a combat veteran launching an armed vendetta against the police - on two occasions I worked out what the killer was doing way before Luther and his colleagues did, and watched as the cops walked into obvious ambushes and booby traps. And even if Luther can't pin her parents' murder on Alice, she's done plenty of other things that he could arrest her for - such as breaking into the house that Luther's estranged wife shares with her new boyfriend and cheerfully chatting to the terrified pair while drinking their wine (a scene that strangely felt flat).
Even so, Luther remains worthwhile and highly watchable. With Paul Rhys guest-starring in Episode #3 as a devil-worshipping, kidnapping psychopath, Luther is swiftly becoming the best horror/detective hybrid on UK television since Messiah.

[fenris]

The third episode of Luther proved to be a somewhat disappointing, by-the-numbers affair. But the series improved with it's fourth instalment, in which a downtrodden mechanic was posing as a cab driver and killing young women as a means of working up enough courage to murder his wife (the always excellent Nicola Walker) after discovering that she was having an affair.
Meanwhile, Luther found himself under investigation and confined to his office when the child rapist whom he let fall from a great height in the first episode awoke from his coma. This was a neat narrative device that prevented Luther from physically interacting in the case, resulting in a genuinely tense climax as an unwitting prostitute made an outcall to the house where the killer had just murdered his wife's lover, and was promptly pursued cat-and-mouse style through the building, while Luther could only pace back-and-forth and hope his colleagues got to the address in time to save her.
As for the child rapist subplot, it was swiftly and surprisingly curtailed by Alice - looking more and more like a 1940s femme fatale with each episode - appointing herself as Luther's sociopathic guardian angel and matter-of-factly eliminating the pedophile.

Luther's fifth episode broke with the formula established thus far, as the writers ditched the Serial Killer of the Week template in an awkward and self-conscious attempt to build up to the extra-dramatic, blow-out series finale that they clearly feel the show deserves. Luther's colleague Reed (Steven Mackintosh) is suddenly (and with no previous indication or foreshadowing) revealed to be corrupt, supplying criminals with the information required to steal from other criminals - the kind of robberies that never get reported, and therefore can't be traced back to him. However, one such heist goes badly wrong, resulting in a messy kidnapping and double murder, and a panicking Reed adopts a scorched earth policy, killing anyone who can link him to the case. This clumsy attempt at a cover-up leads to Luther discovering the truth, whereupon Reed - running out of options and no longer thinking straight - accidentally kills Luther's wife and promptly frames his colleague, who's forced to flee the crime scene as the credits roll.
The entire storyline feels un-necessary and slightly desperate, and leads me to suspect that the Beeb intend Luther to be a one-off series, as opposed to a show that can potentially be recommissioned for another season next year. If I'm correct, the final episode next week will probably end things with a bang. If nothing else, the prospect of Luther forced to work with Alice (paradoxically, the only person who still believes in him) in order to clear himself is an intriguing one.

[fenris]

The sixth & final episode of Luther wrapped up the series in a satisfying fashion, mostly because the writers finally had a proper use for the character of Alice Morgan for the first time since the opening episode. She was in her element as she assisted Luther in avoiding arrest, almost skipping gleefully along as they carried out their thrown-together scheme to clear his name, which involved stealing cars, ambushing Luther's colleagues, deposing of planted evidence, and even a spot of kidnapping.
There were some glaring plot-holes and contrivances. Zoe's boyfriend seemed very easily convinced of Luther's innocence, especially considering the bad blood between the two of them. And how did Luther know that Reed had hidden the gems from the robbery in his work locker? But these didn't detract too much from the over-all story.
The series didn't end on an actual cliffhanger as such, but still with a very large question mark hanging over the fate of at least four main characters. I confess I don't know how well Luther has performed in the ratings, but I'd like to see another series. Alternatively, if Idris Elba can't be persuaded to return, there's plenty of scope for a spin-off focusing exclusively on Alice.

[fenris]

Apr 20, 2010 9:07:01 GMT fenris said:

Brimstone was a short-lived (thirteen episodes) American late-Nineties series about a dead police detective who is resurrected by the Devil, in order to hunt down 113 condemned souls (mass-murderers, serial rapists, war criminals, etc) who have escaped from Hell, and send them back to the Pit by shooting their eyes out (as they're 'the windows of the soul', naturally).

A repeat run of Brimstone started on the Horror channel last Tuesday (21/09/10), and is continuing every weekday at 20:00.