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Post by fenris on Mar 18, 2009 20:12:17 GMT
Incidentally, a series that was clearly influenced by Murder in Suburbia was BBC1's Mayo, which was screened in 2006. Loosely based on a series of detective novels, the show not only had the same quirky and relaxed tone as Suburbia, but title character DI Gil Mayo (played by Alistair McGowan) even recreated murder scenes using toys and action figures - the same as Suburbia's Scribbs.
Mayo's team of co-investigators included DS Alex Jones (played by Jessica Oyelowo, Hex's Rachel McBain) who throughout the series wore a different stunning outfit in every scene. This lead to fans of the show speculating how she could afford such an extensive designer wardrobe on a copper's salary. There was also DC Martin Kite (Huw Rhys), whose main characteristic was that he was very Welsh, and whom seemed to spend his time complaining about all the sex he wasn't getting. Final member of the squad was Scene-Of-Crime-Officer Harriet 'Anorak' Tate (former Casualty actress Loo Brealey), who proceeded to steal the entire series from under her colleague's noses.
The show also employed an ongoing background storyline: several years earlier, Mayo's wife had vanished without trace, and he'd therefore singlehandedly brought up their now-teenage daughter Julie (portrayed by Lucy Evans, who'd also played a near-identical role in the Robson Green drama series Rocket Man that same year). Strangely, nobody seemed to consider that Mayo's wife had perhaps been abducted or murdered - instead it was just assumed that she'd walked out and left her husband and daughter for reasons unknown.
Mayo only lasted one series of eight episodes. It was subsequently screened in Australia and on BBC America, and on both occasions retitled The Gil Mayo Mysteries. Amusingly, after the show had been cancelled, McGowan confessed in interviews that the series' writers had based the characters of Mayo, Jones, Kite and Anorak on Scooby Doo's Fred, Daphne, Shaggy and Velma respectively.
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Post by fenris on Jun 10, 2009 22:26:29 GMT
Zone Thriller has begun showing weekend double bills of a series called In Deep, which starred Nick Berry and Stephen Tompkinson as undercover detectives Liam and Garth. The highlight was the final episode of series two, in which Liam's wife (played by Lisa Maxwell, best known now as a regular on The Bill) was killed off, falling victim in her own home to a murderer Garth and Liam were chasing. It's the end of an era next week, as Lisa Maxwell leaves The Bill after playing DI Samantha 'Sam' Nixon for eight years. Her final two-part story 'To Die For' is being screened on ITV1 on Wednesday (17/06/09) and Thursday (18/06/09), both episodes at 20:00.
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ozzyrulz777
Newbie Hexen
Saviour, Saint, Salvation
Posts: 34
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Post by ozzyrulz777 on Jun 11, 2009 20:56:11 GMT
Here are the shows I love that are from Britain:
The Young Ones Garth Marenghi's Darkplace Bottom The Mighty Boosh Look Around You and many more I cannot think of right now.
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Post by fenris on Jun 13, 2009 11:54:27 GMT
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Post by fenris on Sept 5, 2009 16:06:38 GMT
Does anyone else remember a Channel 4 series called The Ghost Squad that was screened back in 2005? In the first episode, uniformed police officer Amy Harris (played by Irish actress Elaine Cassidy, soon to be seen in Harper's Island) arrests a local scumbag and repeat offender for a minor crime. However, the man is subsequently beaten to death in the cells, and the police station is locked down as the UK equivalent of Internal Affairs arrive to question everyone. Harris realises that she's being framed for the murder by whoever amongst her colleagues is actually responsible, and the remainder of the episode is a tense race-against-time as she rushes around the building, trying to keep one step ahead of the investigators and her co-workers, while desperately attempting to clear herself. Realising that recently-arrived detective Pete Maitland (a pre-Robin Hood Jonas Armstrong) is an undercover mole, Harris exposes him to buy herself more time, and eventually uncovers the true murderers. The episode ends with Harris quitting the police, knowing that because she handed in her colleagues, nobody in the force will trust her or work with her again. She's promptly recruited by 'the Ghost Squad', an officially non-existant unit of undercover officers who investigate reports of corruption within the police. Harris leaves behind all traces of her old life, is given a new identity and forced to adopt a rootless, friendless, nomadic existance, going wherever each assignment takes her and living in cheap and temporary rented accommodation. Her only contact is Maitland, who's appointed as her partner/handler, with both of them reporting exclusively to Detective Superintendent Carole McKay (Emma Fielding, a talented actress whom we don't see enough of on our screens), the secretive head of the Squad.
Channel 4 spent a lot of money on The Ghost Squad, and each episode boasted some familiar guest stars, such as Lloyd Owen and Adrian Lester. Jason Flemyng was a particular standout in one installment, playing a veteran Ghost Squad operative who was cracking up under the strain, giving Harris a glimpse of her potential future. However, due to it's adult content - language, violence, sex scenes and full frontal nudity - the series was shown at 23:00 on weeknights and seems to be have overlooked as a result. Critics ignored it and most people appear never to have heard of the show (I'm always met with blank looks whenever I mention it in company). It only lasted one series, and has never been released on DVD in the UK.
I have fond memories of The Ghost Squad and consider it to be one of the best police dramas I've ever seen. It's a shame that it's one of those TV shows that has slipped through the cracks and been forgotten about.
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Post by fenris on Jan 5, 2010 9:23:04 GMT
There was a wonderful little series called Murder in Suburbia that debuted in the UK on ITV1 back in 2004. The second (and final) season was screened in 2005. In total, twelve episodes were produced. The first season of Murder in Suburbia is currently being repeated on ITV3 at 22:00 on Mondays.
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Post by orokiah on Jan 8, 2010 23:05:31 GMT
It's pilot time again at BBC Three. The same kind of showcase that produced the much raved-about Being Human is now giving three more pilots the chance to follow in its footsteps: Dappers, following two young mothers in Bristol, Stanley Park, a south London-set comedy drama, and Pulse, a horror drama set in a teaching hospital. Pulse, written by Paul Cornell, is the one that's of most interest to genre fans (the synopsis sounds very Trinity-like, with all its talk of secret experiments and parents dying suddenly and in suspicious circumstances), and the one that I'm looking forward to most. That Little Dorrit's Claire Foy is the star also bodes well: St Timothy's is one of the UK's top teaching hospitals, home to some of the country's most promising trainee doctors. But beneath its veneer of medical normality lies a secret network of dangerous experiments pushing back the boundaries of science with potentially horrifying consequences in this one-off 60-minute medical horror drama written by Paul Cornell.
Hannah Carter's mother was a consultant at the hospital, but died suddenly a year ago. Grief left Hannah (Claire Foy) teetering on the edge, but following a year off, she's back to resume her training. But Hannah remains fragile, so when she starts glimpsing peculiar events in the hospital and unsettling behaviour from her ex-boyfriend and star surgeon Nick (Stephen Campbell Moore), she's unsure what to believe.
Ignoring the pleas of those around her, Hannah puts her sanity on the line to uncover the truth about the hospital.Source
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Post by fenris on Jan 10, 2010 17:19:25 GMT
Further evidence of how the recession is hitting TV production: last time we got six pilots all vying for a full series. Now it's three (note also how the various drama series that ITV1 have screened over the last 12 - 15 months have been just three episodes in length instead of the previously usual six. Whitechapel and Above Suspicion are two examples).
Pulse does sound intriguing and very Trinity like, even down to the heroine with a recently-deceased parent who used to work at the facility that is the show's setting. Cornell's track record has been extremely impressive of late, with his New Who 'Human Nature/Family of Blood' two-parter and his second season Primeval episode that remains that show's highpoint. The public response to the Being Human pilot proved that BBC Three viewers are open to genre series*, so fingers crossed that Pulse is (1.) as good as Cornell's other work, and (2.) subsequently gets greenlit.
*However, considering how the Being Human series turned out, I now wish that rival pilot Things I Never Told You had gotten the nod instead.
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Post by fenris on Feb 10, 2010 9:46:42 GMT
The first season of Murder in Suburbia is currently being repeated on ITV3 at 22:00 on Mondays. ITV3's repeat run of the first series of Murder in Suburbia came to an end this week, but the channel is continuing straight on with a re-showing of the second (and final) season, starting next Monday (15/02/10) at 22:00. The second series kicks off with the Hex-alike episode 'Witches', in which Ash & Scribbs investigate the fatal night-time stabbing of a teenage girl in a graveyard, and find the evidence leads to the exclusive private school that the victim attended. Pretty soon, the two detectives find themselves up to their eyeballs in spookiness and strange goings-on. Well worth watching, especially if you're a Hex fan.
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Post by orokiah on Feb 11, 2010 17:54:34 GMT
There were reports recently that the Beeb are looking to axe some of their long-running dramas, with Spooks and Waking the Dead apparently high on the hit list, while Casualty, Holby City, New Tricks and Waterloo Road are all thought to be safe. Also speculated on were the futures of Hustle and Silent Witness, back on our screens recently for their sixth and thirteenth series respectively.
While I loved last year's series of Hustle, with its timely plays on the credit crunch and cast changes that gave it a refreshing new verve and direction (not forgetting the welcome return of Adrian Lester to the fold), this year it felt like it had gone off the boil a bit. While newbies Kelly Adams and Matt Di Angelo are now well established, their second year never really hit the heights of the first, which the lacklustre finale only reinforced. It seemed like it had originally been written to feature Indira Varma's Lucy Britford, introduced in #6.1 as the gang's new antagonist, thereby bookending the series. Instead Britford appeared only on video, vaguely citing other commitments, and dispatched her old friend Jenny (the excellent Anna Madeley) to pit her wits against the grifters in her place. The change left the episode feeling unbalanced - Mickey gaining leverage on femme fatale Britford with a sex tape might have worked, but with Jenny in her place it just felt lazy - and the gang's triumph at the end felt unusually unearned. It's a shame actor availability seemed to have scuppered what could have been a much better episode. As it was, it was a disappointing finale that left the series on a bit of a downer.
On the other hand, Silent Witness was a revelation this year. The Leo/Nikki/Harry partnership of recent years has made it reliably good viewing; a solid but unspectacular crime drama that's sometimes as good for mockery as it is for an old fashioned whodunnit. But out of nowhere this series it hit a rich vein of form that culminated in an utter classic of an episode. 'Shadows' part one, which saw Nikki and Harry trapped on a university campus being stalked by a hooded gunman, was a cracker: brilliantly executed and nailbitingly tense. Part two was never going to live up to it, and didn't - it lost some of the momentum, and became talky and overcomplicated - but it didn't matter. The potential for the series, old as it is, suddenly seems endless, and much more exciting than it did before.
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Post by orokiah on May 21, 2010 17:11:50 GMT
It's pilot time again at BBC Three. The same kind of showcase that produced the much raved-about Being Human is now giving three more pilots the chance to follow in its footsteps: Dappers, following two young mothers in Bristol, Stanley Park, a south London-set comedy drama, and Pulse, a horror drama set in a teaching hospital. BBC Three's pilot season kicks off on Thursday 3rd June at 9pm, with Paul Cornell's Pulse, and continues a week later with Stanley Park. Must admit I wasn't that interested in Stanley Park, until I saw the cast - among them Holliday Grainger ( Demons), Antonia Thomas ( Misfits) and Jennie Jacques ( Desperate Romantics). It's only half an hour long, so might just be worth a watch. BBC Drama Pilots homePulse on Facebook
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Post by fenris on May 22, 2010 14:00:17 GMT
The Geek Syndicate website has posted the following spoiler-free review of the pilot episode for Pulse; Synopsis: St Timothy’s is one of the UK’s top teaching hospitals, home to some of the country’s most promising trainee doctors. But beneath its veneer of medical normality lies a secret network of dangerous experiments pushing back the boundaries of science with potentially horrifying consequences in this one-off 60-minute medical horror drama written by Paul Cornell. Hannah Carter’s mother was a consultant at the hospital, but died suddenly a year ago. Grief left Hannah (Claire Foy) teetering on the edge, but following a year off, she’s back to resume her training. But Hannah remains fragile, so when she starts glimpsing peculiar events in the hospital and unsettling behaviour from her ex-boyfriend and star surgeon Nick (Stephen Campbell Moore), she’s unsure what to believe. Ignoring the pleas of those around her, Hannah puts her sanity on the line to uncover the truth about the hospital.
Review: To sum up Pulse in one word is pretty much impossible so let’s go with part medical drama, part thriller, part horror, part sci-fi and all wrapped in a scary bow labelled conspiracy. If that doesn’t get you intrigued then I’m dead in the water here. The combination of Paul Cornell’s excellent writing style and great direction evoke fond memories of some the excellent UK genre shows such as Ultraviolet and Being Human but at the same time it felt fresh and original. Pulse has a sense of dread and unease that pervades, pretty much, every scene and makes from some pretty unnerving watching (in a good way). The characterisation is handled well with some great dialogue and deft touches of black humour. Given he’s got one pilot to sell the show to the viewer Cornell does a great job in a short space of time of setting up and giving us an insight into the relationships between the characters. One line in particular from one of Hannah’s friends, another trainee doctor played by Gregg Chillin (from Being Human fame), after an operation was comedy gold and really made me warm to the character. The main character, Hannah, like all the best heroes/heroines has her own inner demons to conquer when’s she’s not busy uncovering that all is not well at St Timothy’s. Her growth from a daughter struggling with her mother’s death and the huge shoes she now has to fill to reluctant heroine feels realistic. It would have been easy to start the episode with a massive info dump to give us her background but instead we are allowed to find out how and why she’s so traumatized as the episode draws on. There are a lot of characters being juggled in Pulse and all get a fair amount of screen time save one of the female trainee doctors who was pretty forgettable as a character and doesn’t really get much to do. I’m hoping that if this leads to a series this character will get her moment to shine. I don’t want to say too much more about the other characters as it would run the risk of ruining some of the revelations in the show. One of the great things about Pulse is that it shows that you don’t need to have buckets of blood and gore (although there are quite a few scenes that are not for the squeamish) to create shocks and elicit the required hide behind the sofa response. The one scene that made be jump involved no blood whatsoever (then again I am an official wuss). The plot is tight,well thought out and relatively self-contained. There were a few twists I saw coming but it didn’t really spoil my overall enjoyment. Although you do get answers by the end of the pilot the last ten minutes and especially the final shot open up a world of questions and theories that we’re all going to be praying get resolved if the pilot is commissioned for a series. I was also left with the need to give the episode a second watch in light of some of the revelations. The mythology that Cornell hints at in this first episode is something I want to see more of so I’ve got my fingers crossed for a series as Pulse definitely has a bright future ahead of it. The pilot of Pulse will be screened in a BBC3 pilot season in early June. GS Reviewer: Nuge.Source: geeksyndicate.wordpress.com/2010/04/26/spoiler-free-pulse-review/
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Post by orokiah on May 27, 2010 15:47:01 GMT
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Post by fenris on Jun 30, 2010 10:24:18 GMT
The first series of Murder in Suburbia is getting another repeat run on ITV3, starting at 22:00 next Monday (05/07/10).
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Post by fenris on Aug 11, 2010 15:15:25 GMT
The first series of Murder in Suburbia is getting another repeat run on ITV3, starting at 22:00 next Monday (05/07/10). ITV3's repeat run of the first series of Murder in Suburbia came to an end this week, but the channel is continuing straight on with a re-showing of the second (and final) season, starting next Monday (16/08/10) at 22:00. The second series kicks off with the episode 'Witches', in which Ash & Scribbs investigate the fatal night-time stabbing of a teenage girl in a graveyard, and find that the evidence leads to the exclusive private school the victim attended. Pretty soon, the two detectives are delving into seemingly supernatural events, and it all starts to feel like an unofficial extra episode of Hex. Amongst the guest-stars in 'Witches' are Sugar Rush's Olivia Hallinan and Ashes to Ashes' Montserrat Lombard (who prances about in skimpy black underwear in one scene).
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