Feast your eyes on what Erin C, Rachel, Rullsenberg, Sabine, Sister Chastity and Toby found down the backs of their sofas this week. Brilliant huh?

1. Rullsenberg: 75
2. Toby, Sister Chastity: 55
3. Sabine, Erin C: 50
4. Karen: 35
5. Rachel: 30

Don't forget Monday's caption competition. As if you could.

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. Don't forget to include your name in the filename so I don't get mixed up about who sent it to me.

The best pic in the stash each week will appear on Monday and get ten points; the runners up will appear on Friday (one per person who sends one in) and get five points.

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

In the US: Tuesdays, 10pm, FX
In the UK: Starts next month on Five USA

Miss Walker: Texas Ranger? Then have I got the show for you.

Actually, that's kind of unfair. That comparison might have you thinking Justified isn't any good, when actually it's very, very good. I mean, it's based on an Elmore Leonard story so how bad do you think it could be?

In something of a break from FX's traditional dark, manly shows about manly men doing manly things, Justified is a light, manly show in which manly men do manly things. In this case, Timothy Olyphant plays a US Marshall working in Miami who really quite likes shooting the bad guys he's chasing - and as a result gets shipped back to his home town in Kentucky.

There, he's faced with catching up with his backstory, which apparently involves lots and lots of women. Which is no surprise, given it's the charismatic Timothy Olyphant playing our hero Raylan Givens.

Here's a promo for you.

Continue reading "Review: Justified 1x1"

Doctor Who

• Sixth series and Christmas special confirmed
• There almost certainly will be a Tom Baker Big Finish play
• From the new series press launch, a video interview with Matt Smith…
• …and a video interview with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, including a clip from the first episode

• Final Destination 5 a go
• Jamie Foxx joins Bruce Willis on Kane and Lynch
• Trailer for Predators
• New trailer for Kick-Ass
• Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher join Ivan Reitman's Friends with Benefits
• Film rights to Andy McNab's Nick Stone series acquired
• Tim Burton doing 3D stop-motion Addams Family movie

British TV

• Lucy Gaskell joins Casualty
• Adam Crozier to earn at least £1m a year at ITV [subscription required]
• Justified acquired by Five USA
• Wii and iPhone now responsible for 4% of iPlayer views each
• John Pilger to make Afghanistan documentary for ITV1 [subscription required]

Canadian TV

• Lots of money spent on US shows

US TV

• Beau Bridges to co-star in The Rockford Files
• Skeet Urich gets a pilot
• Ashley Tisdale to star in Hellcats
• Human Target's ratings hold up
• BSG's Michael Trucco to recur on Castle
• A returning True Blood character [spoilers]

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Parenthood has had a reboot. Yes, another one. After a bit of recasting after the pilot episode, the show came to our screens as a supposed dramedy: a bit of comedy but mostly drama. Unfortunately, the comedy didn't work, leaving it like a show that wanted to be a combination of Modern Family and Brothers and Sisters, but which was actually just Brothers and Sisters.

Come episode two, it's all change. Now we're a comedy with a hint of drama. Given the cast includes a number of people best known for their lighter touch (Peter Krause, Lauren Graham, Monica Potter, Dax Shepard), that shouldn't have been a surprise, although one could have argued that sticking the comedy in the first episode as well would have been a good idea.

The second episode was actually a lot better than the first episode. The first tried to simply say that parenting is hard. Look everyone, parenting is hard. But we knew that and showing us a bunch of people we can't really relate to having trouble parenting isn't going to make the message any deeper.

Episode two, however, managed to give us more relatable characters involved in situations that we could at least empathise with: working mum finds stay-at-home dad has closer relationship with kid than she does and feels threatened by the hot stay-at-home mums who he's friends with; single mum finds it hard to date and get a job after years out of the workforce; and guy finds he has a young kid he never knew about and doesn't know how to be a father.

Episode three continued more in that vein, although it started to veer dangerously close to clunky drama at times. Working mum (former swimming champion) finds she's not involved in teaching her daughter to swim and tries to help out; single mum has dating issues; new dad has to look after his son for a few hours and doesn't know what to do. Some of these were a little painful, with working mum's attempts to teach her child woefully bad, as though someone had simply said "Hey, how do dads cock up when trying to help their kids? Let's give all that to her. It'll be the same, right?" But on the whole the episode wasn't bad.

Running as the main plot strand throughout the episodes is Krause's/Potter's discovery that their son has Asperger's Syndrome. For mainstream US TV, which has something of a bad record of portraying autism and autistic spectrum disorders, this has actually been surprisingly well handled and accurate. It's a little odd – so much so that the couple's teenage daughter points it out in episode three – that in San Francisco of all places, a child with Asperger's wasn't spotted until he was six or seven and there aren't many places except private schools that have the expertise to deal with it, but hey, it's TV. The American pathological model of ASD – OMG there's something wrong with our child, he's broken – is also jarring to UK eyes.

But here's the problem with the show. Everything we see is pretty much from a male point of view and reflects mainly male concerns about parenting. None of the female characters have female friends that they talk to, and when they have a problem, they talk to one of the male characters about it. When a male character has a problem, he talks to a male character about it. As a result, the women are simply more problems or sources of problems for the male characters to deal with rather than vice versa or characters in their own rights.

So the show feels emotionally unsatisfying because of this lack of character interaction and development. Although it has some interesting aspects to it, it doesn't really speak to things as well as it should do. I'm enjoying it to some extent because of the cast, particularly Erika Christensen and Monica Potter (even though yet again she has very little to do) and the comedy when it works. But it feels like it's not quite firing on all cylinders yet.

Carusometer rating: 3
Rob's prediction: It'll last a season, but this is NBC so who knows what'll happen after that.

Now that's just brilliant

[via Blair]

This week, Ali Larter was unveiling the new Acura ZDX in LA, where she chose to wear a Brian Reyes digital print strapless dress – and to pose with (if you're the producers of Heroes) the next best thing after an Ali Larter: Elisabeth Röhm. Which is nice. Some photographer called Erik Madigan Heck was also there. Look:

That's less interesting though. But random.

Have you seen Ali Larter acting randomly? If so, let us know and we'll tell everyone about it in "Random Acts of Ali Larter"

Read other posts about: Heroes

It had to happen. You don't think I could continue this epic nostalgia-fest without mentioning cult kids' TV show Monkey, do you?

For the uninitiated, Monkey (aka Monkey Magic) was a Japanese kids show that aired on BBC2 in the 80s, dubbed (with a couple of exceptions) by English actors such as Miriam Margolyes doing dodgy Japanese/Chinese accents.

It was based on a Chinese story about the Monkey king and his travels with a priest to recover some Buddhist scrolls, aided only by his natural cunning, a water monster and a pig-man and being a Japanese show it was completely mental: a combination of humour, surrealism, fight scenes and Buddhist philosophy.

For your delectation, the explanatory weird title sequence is below, but I've included a "best bits of" video as well. See if any of it makes sense to you.

Joanna Page has been tweeting from her new Sky1 pet show. Look, lots of lovely animals!

Ads are getting odd. TV tie-ins are no new thing for ads – you can look back more than 50 years and find them – but these are generally designed to promote just the products using the influence of the TV shows.

Now we have a Dr Pepper ad featuring the character of Dr Spaceman (played by Chris Parnell, who also voices Cyril on Archer) from 30 Rock that's promoting both the show and Dr Pepper. That's just confusing.

[via]

Read other posts about: 30 Rock

Doctor Who

• Steven Moffat offers Steven Spielberg the chance to direct an episode
• Karen Gillan reveals more about her character, as well as her inability to do anagrams [spoilers]

Films

• Peter Mullan to star in The Lion Inside
• Glee/Heroes' Jayma Mays to star in The Smurfs…
  
• …with Hank Azaria playing Gargamel
• Spooks' David Oyelowo to play Martin Luther King
• Amanda Seyfried to star in McG's The Girl Who Conned The Ivy League
• Trailer for Jason Statham's The Mechanic
• Trailer for The Romantics
• Reese Witherspoon signs up for blog-based The Pioneer Woman
• A Tron: Legacy set visit or two (with pics) [spoilers]

British TV

• Five to go HD on Sky
• Five won't help FlashForward if it's cancelled

• CTV acquires The Borgias

US TV

• Larry Charles creating Steve Jobs satire
• Pilot casting
• Brotherhood's Jason Clarke to star in Shawn Ryan's Ride-Along
• 24's Howard Gordon to adapt Israeli format Prisoners of War
• Justified FX's second biggest debut ever
• Daylight savings time continues to cause ratings drop
• Robert Wisdom to appear in Burn Notice [spoilers]
• James Marsters joins the Hawaii Five-O pilot
• Jane Espenson to write for Game of Thrones

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

Read other posts about: 24, Burn Notice

Ooh, a radio question. That's novel.

For the benefit of overseas readers, 6Music is a BBC radio station that's available on the Internet or on DAB radios (you don't have those either). It covers "new music" (something close to US indie music) and other genres that appeal to musophiles.

And the BBC is about to close it. The reasons given are that it competes with commercial radio stations (maybe, but only in terms of the listeners, not in terms of content), it costs too much (it only costs a few million pounds to run), it doesn't have enough listeners (although it has enough apparently to compete with commercial radio stations, except it doesn't. Square that circle if you can), and the resources will be used elsewhere (true enough).

To replace it, the current plan is to provide a "Radio 2 Extra" – just as ITV2 gives related content to ITV1 programmes as well as original content of its own, so the new 6Music would do the same for Radio 2.

So this week's question is:

Why are the BBC really closing 6Music? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Do you care? Will you listen to the replacement? Or is all this a storm in a teamcup, you can't get this DAB thing anyway, and to hell with Internet radio?

For the advanced reader: repeat but for the closing of the Asian Network.

As always, leave a comment with your answer or a link to your answer on your own blog.

Films

• Sigourney Weaver joins Vamps
• Rose McGowan joins Conan

British TV

• Virgin to offer HD for free [subscription required]

US TV

• White Collar's Natalie Morales joins Parks and Recreation
• Goran Visnjic to star with Katee Sackhoff in pilot, Dougray Scott and Molly Parker to star in another pilot + more casting
• Tom Selleck to get a pilot?
• The Pacific starts with 3.1m viewers
• Trailer for David Simon's Treme
• Chuck gets all-time lowest ratings
• Ashley Scott joins NCIS

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

Doctor Who

• Behind the scenes of the new series [spoilers]
• An interview with Karen Gillan

Film

• Orlando Bloom and Jonathan Rhys Meyers join Albert Nobbs
• Paul Bettany and Rufus Sewell join The Tourist

• Trailer for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

British TV

• BBC to launch second Freeview HD service because Five can't?
• BBC shouldn't have bid on Harper's Island [subscribers only]
• Sci Fi HD coming to Virgin
• ITV1 HD also coming to Sky

US TV

• SyFy working on Three Inches, Alphas and another BSG spin-off
• Mia Maestro to star in Cutthroat + more pilot casting
• Actor leaving True Blood for The Good Wife?

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

Read other posts about: Battlestar Galactica

I should have been watching a lot more TV than I did, last week. I've got the first episode of Canadian TV show The Bridge to watch, as well as the first eps of Sons of Tucson and BBC4 documentary Women. I'm also way behind on Archer and have the latest eps of Modern Family, CSI and Spartacus: Blood and Sand to watch, too.

The reason? Rome. I've been averaging an two to three episodes a day. It's really very good. You should watch it if you haven't already.

But here's what else I did watch.

• Chuck: Ooh, Chuck gets its heart back and in a 'game changing' episode. However, it's one of those eps where you think, "Hang on, if the bad guys can do that, why haven't they already done it in every single episode before this?" I do hope it doesn't mean the end for Ellie and Awesome in the show though.
  
• Community: Katherine Macphee was actually quite good and there were some good moments in the episode, but it didn't have the zing of the previous week's.
  
• Cougar Town: Stuff happened. You know. Actually, a few good character touches, particularly around Ellie, but they should be giving Dan Byrd a whole lot more to do, and they seem to have forgotten the show is supposed to be about the difficulties a 40-something female divorcee might face when dating.
• Lost: Good ending, and nice to see Ben get redemption in both realities, but felt like a filler ep again. Clearly, the Locke-Sawyer eps are going to the best ones this season.
  
• Life Unexpected: It's just going all over the place, here. I have no idea what they're up to, and I'm not sure they do, too. But it's still enjoyable enough.
• Parenthood: A definite improvement over episode one, but something of a reboot, since now it's trying to be funny. The Asperger's element is actually very well handled, even if it has the US perspective of "this is a pathology" rather than something more adaptive and British. Erika Christensen's "working" mom fight with the "stay at home" mom was entertaining and rang true. But the singular flaw to the show is the lack of female communication – the guys and their issues are the focus, and while the women have issues, they never get to talk about them with anyone, if at all, except with the guys. So you still have a male-centric view of the women's issues, and the women's issues then become issues for the men. We needs some BFFs here, please.
• Pineapple Dance Studio: Possibly the most bizarre thing on TV at the moment. It looks like a reality TV show set in the eponymous West End dance studio (from which the clothing line gets its name), but between the semi-scripted, Fame-like dance moments, the OTT stars and Michael Buerk's sarcastic, dry commentary, it's impossible not to think it's all some Chris Morris spoof. You really can't tell if it's real or not. Your gut says fake, but your mind says real. It's so very weird.
• 30 Rock: A good visual gag involving dubbing, but not really that funny this week.
• 24: Just a glimpse, a mere glimpse of old Jack was enough to elevate this show above previous weeks', but this was just horrifically dim stuff. And can we please just end the useless Dana sub-plot? You're in the middle of a terrifying nuclear security threat to the United States. You work for US counter-intelligence as a computer operator. You've just managed to convince your boss not to prosecute you/fire you for negligence. How stupid do you have to be to pick up a call at 2.30am from an unknown number on your personal cell phone? Switch the bloody thing off!
  
• Undercover Princesses: BBC3 has recruited real princesses from Uganda, Saxony and India, stuck them in a house in Chelmsford, given them jobs in offices, hairdressers and the like, and told them to find themselves a man within three weeks. In Chelmsford. I'm not exactly sure what the point of it is: surprisingly, some princesses are better than others at looking after themselves (even if they can't work a broom or work out how to break an egg), but other than laughing at that, there's not much to the show. The men aren't appealing. No one has anything in common with anyone else. You might as well be watching a show in which a modern-day Belgian, fire-fighter and leopard tamer are sent back in time to 1625 and asked to find a goblet, some contemporary Lithuanian art and an original Shakespeare folio while holding down a job as silversmiths in Lincoln for all the use this serves.

But what did you watch?

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

When people (by which I mean Doctor Who fans) think of 'lost stories' and Colin Baker, they generally think of those stories from the original season 23, such as The Nightmare Fair and Mission Magnus, that got replaced with Trial of a Timelord thanks to Michael Grade and his 'hiatus'.

However, those stories weren't the only Colin Baker stories that fell by the wayside. Here we have Leviathan, a story written by the late veteran TV writer Brian Finch for season 22. Despite getting as far as a rehearsal script, the story never got made, probably because it would have been too damn expensive to make.

In the story, the Doctor and Peri land in a medieval forest near a castle. They come across some villagers who are being pursued by Herne the Hunter.

Cue the Celtic charms of Clannad and the theme to Robin of Sherwood? No, because this Herne is mean and he's out for blood…

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - The Lost Stories - 03 - Leviathan"

Read other posts about: Big Finish

Time got away from me on Friday so I didn't manage to post any tranquillising pics of Dr David Tennant PhD for you all, I'm afraid. But never fear, I didn't forget about you all and your need to see the good David sitting down at least once a week. Here's this week's points-winning picture, which comes from Erin C – as a low budget practice-run for the Great Blonde Elevator, it leaves a little to be desired, it has to be said, but each to his own.

1. Rullsenberg: 70
2. Toby, Sister Chastity: 50
3. Sabine, Erin C: 45
4. Karen: 35
5. Rachel: 25

In caption land, the returning Electric Dragon managed to get the 10 points, with a lovely Fast Show quote. Not sure if a man winning the International Women's Day caption competition is quite the done thing, but well done all the same, sir.

1. Jane Henry, Rullsenberg, Toby: 45
2. Electric Dragon, Marie: 30
3. ecg: 25
4. Sabine, SK: 20
5. Rachel: 15
6. kellyann06, Sister Chastity: 10

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. Don't forget to include your name in the filename so I don't get mixed up about who sent it to me.

The best pic in the stash each week will appear on Monday and get ten points; the runners up will appear on Friday (one per person who sends one in) and get five points.

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