Film

• Peter Bogdanovich to adapt Turn of the Century
• 24 movie finally underway
• Katherine Heigl to star in One For The Money
• Rachel Weisz to star in Dream House
• Tim Robbins joins Green Lantern
• Steven Soderbergh to direct Contagion
• Trailer for Neil Jordan's fantasy movie Ondine
• William Fichtner and Amber Heard join Drive Angry
• Mr and Mrs Smith rebooted as Mr and Mrs Jones

British TV

• Two Freeview slots up for grabs [subscription required]
• Sky sells 10.4% of ITV
• Heroes hits series low
• 24 hits season low
• Alibi looking for crime writers

US TV

• Additional casting on ABC, NBC pilots
• Bones creator joins Fox's Pleading Guilty
• Minka Kelly joins True Love pilot
• Spartacus and Caprica ratings up
• Eli Stone's Laura Benanti to star in Open Books
• Christopher Lloyd to guest on Chuck
• Michael Shanks to play Danno on Hawaii 5-0?

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Read other posts about: 24, Heroes

In the US: Friday 5th February 2010, 8/7c, The CW

I gave up watching Smallville at the start of this season. As I said at the time, for most of its previous nine years, the show had admirably tried to square the comic book silliness of Superman with the sensibilities of Dawson's Creek, albeit with decreasing success. Come the tenth season, it just all got very silly indeed and went into comic book overload.

This week, the producers of Smallville fired up their Flash-powered running wheel to give us a two-part story stuck together as a movie. Doing its best to channel Watchmen, Absolute Justice saw former members of the so-called Justice Society of America being killed by an old enemy, necessitating its disgraced surviving members team up again and join forces with the fledging Justice League that Clark Kent, Chloe, Oliver (Green Arrow) and co have been trying to put together.

And like a giant bat signal in the sky, it called to my inner geek to watch it. There's ironic, huh?

Continue reading "Review: Smallville - Absolute Justice"

Read other posts about: Smallville

In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, The CW

To maintain a sense of consistency with my first-episode review, I'm about a week late with this third-episode verdict. But hell – let's do it.

So as we all recall, Life Unexpected sees a precocious teenager who's been through seven foster families track down her birth parents so that she can be emancipated and lead her own life, free of adults. However, despite leading separate lives now, they decide to be 'Lux's' parents for real.

Now, the first episode was actually quite good: it played a little with the darkness of the concept, had some reasonably witty dialogue and moments and the characters were broadly likable. Trouble was, it was pretty much a self-contained concept – where was the show going to go from there?

Continue reading "Third-episode verdict: Life Unexpected"

Many people think I'm kidding when I say I have a problem with names. Or if not kidding, they think it's just an excuse for not being bothered to do research (although they might have a point there).

However, case in point illustrates just how stupid my brain really is. Somewhere before Christmas, despite the fact that they're labelled differently in my email program, send in their pictures using different methods, and were both on the leaderboard as separate people, my brain decided that Sister Chastity and Karen were the same person. It didn't matter what evidence was presented to it, as soon as Karen sent in a picture, it ended up in Sister Chastity's pile and I even replied to her emails as though she were Sister Chastity, despite the fact she came up as "Karen" rather than "Sister Chastity".

See? Messed up.

Now, that didn't affect last year's scoring any, but it's obviously left Karen a bit behind this year. Apologies to Karen and everyone involved – I truly am a spanner.

So for one week and one week only, we have a very special "Karen Sitting Tennant" Monday (we'll see about Friday), to enable her to catch up and get her total to where it should be.

Feast your eyes on the pics above: they're all from her, which means the picture leaderboard now looks like this.

1. Rullsenberg: 45
2. Toby, Sister Chastity: 35
3. Sabine, Karen: 25
4. Erin C: 10

To prevent my messed up brain from doing similar in future, I've a big ask for picture contributors – in future, no matter how you provide your pics, can you include your name in the filename please (eg RobSittingTennant5.jpg)? It'll help prevent this kind of thing from happening again (probably). Oh, and picture contributors – please be vigilant and make sure I'm not ignoring you or wrongly attributing pics as well? Thanks.

Anyway, don't forget Friday's caption competition!

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it's judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery.

Every photo displayed on Monday (one per person who sends one in) gets five points; the best pic in the stash each week will appear on Friday and get ten points.

You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Friday's Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.

When will it be acceptable to start wearing hats to the BAFTAs again? Well, if one man – or one head – can make it happen, it's Richard Armitage('s).

Haikus if you can.

Got a picture of Richard Armitage's head, preferably wearing a hat? Then leave a link to it below and if it's judged suitable, it will appear in the “Dick Heads” gallery.

You may not have realised this, but over in the US last week, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, where they discussed political coverage, Fox News bias. Only edited highlights were shown on Fox, but they've posted the full 42-minute interview and you can watch it below. Worth watching if you have an interest in US news programmes

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email, or follow me on Twitter for breaking updates

Doctor Who

• Big Finish to do The Four Doctors, another Mara story
• Neil Gaiman writing ep for second Matt Smith season

Film

• Lucy Punch to star opposite Cameron Diaz to Bad Teacher
• Sam Worthington to star in The Fields
• Prince of Persia trailer
• Carey Mulligan to star in My Fair Lady?
• Casting on The Thing prequel

British TV

• Mark Gatiss, Matt Horne and Marc Warren to star in Boy George drama for BBC. No filming in Eltham, though! Pah!
• Persuasionists ratings halve
• Trevor Eve to star as hostage negotiator in ITV1 thriller

US TV

• Michael Chiklis to star in No Ordinary Family
• A&E drops one pilot, still considering Sugarloaf
• More pilot casting
• Lost's Daniel Dae Kim to star in Hawaii Five O
• Smallville movie hits a high…
• …as does Parks and Recreation, while Supernatural drops
• Henry Winkler joins Royal Pains [spoilers]
• David Goyer out as FlashForward show runner
• Julie Benz to stay longer on Desperate Housewives
• Lexa Doig and Nicolas Lea join V
• Sheryl Crow to appear in Cougar Town
• John Rhys-Davies to guest on Legend of the Seeker
• Heroes producers Tim Kring and Aron Eli Coleite working on III
• Enrique Murciano joins Off the Map

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Read other posts about: Big Finish, Heroes, Lost, Smallville, Supernatural

If you're old enough and British, you probably remember Morph and Take Hart. If you're very slightly older you'll just about remember their precursor, Vision On, a show designed to educate, inform, entertain and hopefully even get children fired up about art – particularly if they were deaf.

Vision On was the brainchild of producer Patrick Dowling, who went on to produce The Adventure Game. It was designed to replace For The Deaf but quickly picked up a wider audience. The aim of the programme was to entertain but also to encourage imagination, with a fast-paced flow of contrasting ideas, both sane and silly.

The presenters were Pat Keysell, an actress who also taught deaf children, and Tony Hart who made pictures in a variety of sizes and media, and encouraging children to submit their own paintings to "The Gallery", which they did in their thousands. 'Actor' Sylvester "Sylveste" McCoy also mucked around in true silent comedy/mime style.

The show aired on BBC1 for 12 years, from 1964 to 1976, and even afterwards, its legacy lived on through other programmes, including Take Hart starring the now-vocal Tony Hart, and Jigsaw, which was developed by one of Vision On's later producers, Clive Doig, and featured Sylvester McCoy as well as the silent "Nosey Bonk"; Eureka, another Doig show, also saw Vision On/Jigsaw contributor and mad inventor Wilf Lunn doing his shtick for another generation.

In its mission to fire up kids about art, it worked. It's a hazard of the job knowing graphic designers and I know a number who were inspired to become designers purely thanks to Vision On and Take Hart. I doubt any of them were inspired by its very weird old title sequence though.

I feel this is almost a sequel to last week's. Ms Rullsenberg gets the points for top pic of the week this week, which neatly catapults her into the lead.

We'll have a very special edition of Sitting Tennant on Monday, for reasons that can best be summed up as "Rob is a spanner". Brace yourself for that.

1. Rullsenberg: 45
2. Toby, Sister Chastity: 35
3. Sabine: 25
4. Erin C: 10

Meanwhile, over in Sitting Caption land, oh no, it's happened again. Three captions, two from Rullsenberg, one from Toby. Were you all feeling a bit feverish or something? Nevertheless, Tobe's won through with his caption, so he gets the shiny ten points. I hope you all feel more inspired this time!

1. Jane Henry: 25
2. Rullsenberg, Toby: 20
3. Sabine: 15
4. kellyann06: 10
5. Electric Dragon, Sister Chastity: 5

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it's judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery.

Every photo displayed on Monday (one per person who sends one in) gets five points; the best pic in the stash each week will appear on Friday and get ten points.

You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Friday's Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.

I haven't watched last night's episodes of CSI, Archer, 30 Rock, Community or The Deep End or this week's episodes of Life Unexpected and Cougar Town but:

• Being Human: Very good. Scary and clever. Loved it, apart from Matthew Rhys who's still hamming away.
  
• House: Lovely wife was impressed that I guessed whodunnit halfway through. Quite fun, but the plot involving Foreman's brother didn't do it for me.
  
• Chuck: The whole Kristin Kreuk plot was rubbish and they really need more money for CGI, but the main plot was excellent and it's nice to see the show becoming darker, characters evolve and more. A definite step up from the last season. I'm also thoroughly enjoying the channelling of Sylvester Levay for the incidental music – bring back the 80s!
• Scrubs: Caught up with all the backlog. The lack of JD is slightly problematic, if only because they keep going on about him all the time; but Sarah Chalke was great. They need more of that Australian student though…
• Burn Notice: What's up with Chris Vance and his fake English accent? He's English, so why's he putting on that crap accent? Of course, since he's trotting out every stereotypical English clichéd phrase imaginable, it's very possible it's all part of an act the character's putting on. Whatever, last week's episode had moments of weakness (the persona Michael played) and this week's was a little bit too "let's pat the guy with learning difficulty on the head" for my liking, but they were at least refreshingly violent and Bruce Campbell is finally getting to be more than just comic relief.
• Supernatural: A great one this week, even if there was a magic reset button and a poor explanation for a character being written out for the whole episode. And Michael was truly scary.
• Spartacus: Ha, ha, ha, ha! So entertainingly stupid. It's a show that tries to be shocking and outrageous and then to outdo its last piece of shocking outrageous in the next minute. Quick, let's have some full-frontal male nudity. How about that and the F-word and the C-word, while limbs are being hacked off? How about a sex scene where someone explodes in blood? How about Lucy Lawless in a see-through dress? How about Lucy Lawless in a see-through dress being masturbated by a female slave, while her husband, John Hannah, swears at her, and is fellated by another female slave? Ooh, how are we going to top that? I know…
  Lovely wife, who is of hardy Welsh stock and normally more than up to some sex, violence and swearing on TV, was shocked to the core inside of three minutes so we had to turn it off and watch something else while I was doing the ironing.
• Leverage: Kind of coasting along for the last two weeks, but it was nice to have a US show following in the footsteps of Psych and The Mentalist and demonstrating how psychics and mediums do their tricks. Thinking I actually might like Jeri Ryan more than Gina Bellman now, but Beth Riesgraf still is best.
• Archer: Last week's. Not as funny as previous week's, but still full of wonderful moments. "He's wants to sit at the table like he's people!"
• Modern Family: Another funny one. Minnie Driver added little to the proceedings, but a fun bit of farce, although it left Julie Bowen's character looking a little dull and humorless.
• Caprica: I'm kind of liking the "monotheists bad, polytheists good" angle on it, as well as the "what if machines have souls?" thing they're doing with Zoe and the Cylon, but it's all a bit dull and tedious, isn't it? Where's the fun? Where are the engrossing characters? I like no one on it in any way whatsoever.
• 24: Shaping up to be possibly the most boring seasons of 24 so far. We want Jack Bauer. We want Jack Bauer. We want Jack Bauer. So why do we have him sitting in a car for most of the last two episodes? Admittedly, when he got out of the car and starting speaking some of the most appalling German I've ever heard, I almost wanted him to get back in the car, but he soon got things back on track. The whole CTU/Katee Sackoff plot is dreadful and should be chucked ASAP, but at least the Russians are vaguely interesting.
• Smallville: Watched a bit of last week's. Nope, still pants.
• Newswipe: Charlie's bits were more engrossing than previous weeks, where the normal rule is "guest contributor good – as long as it's not that poet – Charlie Brooker okay". I think that's because it became a bit more Screenwipey than in previous weeks.
• Floyd on the Med: Caught up with a few old cooking shows of Keith Floyd's. So much more interesting than a lot of cooking shows I could mention, and with some great scenery. But they were Channel Five shows and didn't have Clive, unfortunately.
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Just thought I'd catch an old Jeremy Brett episode. He was overly flamboyant, but it was just great. Can you imagine ITV doing anything as good now (and don't say Whitechapel)?
• Roger Scruton: Why Beauty Matters – Erm, for a philosopher, he doesn't stick together a very air-tight argument, does he? "Beauty's sent by God and connects us to Him therefore modern art and architecture is rubbish". It was persuasive at some points, but comparing Michelangelo with Tracy Emin (rather than say Francis Bacon) isn't really comparing like with like.

As always, no spoilers unless you're going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you've reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might ge

[via]

Film

• McG to direct Bradley Cooper and Reese Witherspoon in This Means War?
• Casting excitement on Burke & Hare as Jessica Hynes, Bill Bailey, Reece Shearsmith, Tim Curry, Sir Christopher Lee et al sign up
• Trailer for Kevin Smith's Cop Out with Bruce Willis and 30 Rock's Tracy Morgan

British TV

• Channel 4 reuniting Last King of Scotland makers for human trafficking drama
• Surreal comedy This is Jinsy gets a pilot on BBC3
• ITV and RTÉ recommission Single-Handed

US TV

• The Middleman's Brit Morgan joins True Blood
• Casting, including Reaper's Bret Harrison on Adam Goldberg's comedy
• HBO to make Hollywood blogging drama
• ABC picks up Wright vs Wrong
• SyFy to show Merlin
• Emily Rose to star in Haven
• Human Target ratings drop in new time period

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It's probably funnier if you have an iPhone.

It's been an interesting week for our Ali. Firstly, she randomly chose to have a fist fight with Sendhil Ramamurthy to see who can appear on-screen the least in the latest season of Heroes. I think Sendhil won, but I don't know if he fought fair – I think he had help from the writers.

But there's more…

Continue reading "Random Acts of Ali Larter: Fighting Sendhil Ramamurthy"

To me, she looks like a Cabbage Patch Kid version of Zooey Deschanel:

It's very off-putting. Do you think calling her character Zoe was an acknowledgement of her mini-Deschanel status?

Doctor Who

• Titles for the first three episodes of the next series

Film

• Kathy Bates and Whoopi Goldberg join Earthbound
• Christian Bale, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams and Olga Kurylenko to star in Terrence Malick pic
• A sequel for Enchanted?

British TV

• Caprica starts with poor ratings

US TV

• Lost ratings go up for the first time
• Gary Cole to star in Uncle Nigel
• Big Love gets a fifth season
• CBS picks up Rob Riggle comedy pilot
• Sarah Chalke to star in Freshmen
• Caprica ratings down, Spartacus ratings up
• Rob Lowe to join Criminal Minds spin-off?
• Lost's Cynthia Watros joins House as… [spoilers]

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Read other posts about: House, Lost

Typically, the Big Finish Companion Chronicles try to fit in with the writing style of the Doctor Who era in which they're set. So the Hartnell stories tend to be (waves hands a bit, since it's a bit more complicated than this) a bit hardcore sci-fi or historical, the Troughton ones have veered towards daft sci-fi and historicals, the Pertwee ones to monster stories and so on.

Set during the reign of the Fifth Doctor, Ringpullworld in no way attempts to fit in. It doesn't feel like Doctor Who at all, at times. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, because if you squint a bit, you could actually imagine this was written by Douglas Adams, since it's probably the cleverest and most entertaining of all the Companion Chronicles so far. It really is that good.

Funny that it's about Turlough, mind.

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 4x5 - Ringpullworld"

Read other posts about: Big Finish

As promised last review, I'm going to neatly step over the third in the latest series of Big Finish's Companion Chronicles, The Prisoner of Peladon, on the general grounds that there are no companions in it, which is clearly taking the piss.

Instead, let's talk aboutThe Pyralis Effect, starring Lalla Ward as Romana II. Now, despite the fact almost everyone loves the Fourth Doctor, most of the Companion Chronicles featuring him and his various assistants have been terrible, whether they feature Leela, Romana I or Romana II.

But, as you might have noticed, over series three of The Companion Chronicles and as we've gone through series four, the whole range began to get much, much better. So should it surprise you much to hear that, in contrast to those previous Fourth Doctor Chronicles, The Pyralis Effect is actually pretty good?

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 4x4 - The Pyralis Effect"

Read other posts about: Big Finish

In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, ABC
In the UK: Fridays, 9pm, Sky 1/Sky 1 HD. Starts February 5th

There's something to be said for the "DVD box set" approach to viewing TV series. Why watch episodes live when you can wait until a season has finished and watch all the episodes in one go?

I'll tell you why I'm suddenly thinking this is a great idea - I've seen the first two episodes of the new season of Lost. Where's the next one, huh? Next week: that's where. What use to me is that?

Discussion and spoilers after the jump.

Continue reading "Review: Lost 6x1-6x2"

Read other posts about: Lost

I haven't watched all the second season of Being Erica - still got seven episodes to go since it was proving a bit of a downer and not quite as interesting as the first season - but for those of you who haven't started yet, here's star Erin Karpluk talking about it and what you have to look forward to, since there are still quite a few things to look forward to.

Read other posts about: Being Erica

Film

• MacGyver creator threatens to sue MacGruber
• Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones to star in Dragon Fire
• Hugh Jackman joins Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
• Asterix in Britain to be adapted

Theatre

• Billy Bragg to star in a stage show

British TV

• Getting On gets a second series
• Scarlet TV goes into administration [subscription required]
• Trevor Eve highest paid TV actor

US TV

• Russell Mulcahy to direct Teen Wolf pilot
• Zooey Deschanel to star in HBO pilot I'm With The Band
• Entourage team developing political drama for HBO
• Heroes ratings up a bit again
• More pilot casting
• Virginia Madsen to star in ABC's Scoundrels
• The CW picks up three pilots, including shows produced by Tom Welling and Hayden Panettierre

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email, or follow me on Twitter for breaking updates

Read other posts about: Heroes

Well, the Internet random number generator has spoken and the winner of the District 9 competition is…

Continue reading "Winner of the District 9 competition"

As promised a short while ago, here's that performance by the Reduced Shakespeare Company of the first five seasons of Lost. There's an intro by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof as well.

Read other posts about: Lost

In the US: Monday 1st February 2010, 9pm, NBC
In the UK: I'm thinking about 13 or 14 weeks from now

Normally, when you say a Heroes episode is "a bit season 1ish", it's a good thing. But in this case, when we're nearing the end of season four - yes, just one episode to go now - it's a bit of a problem. Spoilers and discussion after the jump.

Continue reading "Review: Heroes 4x17 - The Wall"

Read other posts about: Heroes

Three pics, four people: it can only mean one thing – Rullsenberg and Sister Chastity are doubling up again. But Toby and Sabine have provided some lovely pics, as well, so I hope you don't feel short-changed.

1. Toby, Sister Chastity, Rullsenberg: 35
2. Sabine: 25
3. Erin C: 10

Don't forget Friday's caption competition.

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it's judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery.

Every photo displayed on Monday (one per person who sends one in) gets five points; the best pic in the stash each week will appear on Friday and get ten points.

You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Friday's Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.

Ah, just what the world was clamouring for: another sequel to Universal Soldier, this one featuring – yes! – both Jean-Claude van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, as well as Andrei "the pitbull" Arlovski. My, don't they seem… old.

And here's an interview with Mr Lundgren explaining why he agreed to do it:

Continue reading "Universal Soldier: Regeneration – really?"