In the US: Mondays, 9pm ET/PT, Fox In the UK: Acquired by Watch
Well, normally I hold out until episode three of a show in case it gets better, since usually you can expect some quality change in a show by that point.
Alcatraz, though, has enviable consistency. After a surprisingly dull first two set of episodes, episode three - its explicit 'origins' - proved to be amazingly identical to them in almost every way. The procedural element of the show was just a massive plod through gross serendipity crossed with colossal stupidity. We got absolutely no revelations about the central mystery, only more mystery that wasn't actually that interesting. Parminder Nagra was still stuck in a hospital bed, not saying anything. And the female lead still looked about 16. In fact, she seems to be getting younger.
Beyond Sam Neill and the vague possibility that there's something good hidden deep inside this mystery, there are no reasons to watch this show. So I shalln't.
Carusometer rating: 4 Rob's prediction: Should stagger on until the end of the season at least. Could possibly even get a second season. But it doesn't deserve to.
And we have our first winners of the year! With 35 points apiece, Hebbie and Sister Chastity are the joint medal winners in January's Sitting Tennant photo competition. Well done both of you! Enjoy your laurels as crowned champions.
Next week, the points will go back to zero in the picture competition for February, but everyone's points will be kept and tallied up at the end of the year to announce the overall 2012 champion.
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 and doesn't obviously infringe copyright, 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 Tuesday 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 Tuesday's Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.
Each month, I'll name the best picture provider and best captioneer, and then at the end of the year, the overall champion will be announced for 2012!
Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling had a long and illustrious career as a comedy character. Originally created by Peter Cook for Beyond The Fringe and Not Only… But Also, he was an aristocrat used by Cook to satirise any number of things as well as for pure surrealism. But he's probably best known for his attempts to get ravens to fly underwater.
Dudley Moore: Is it difficult to get ravens to fly underwater?
Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling: Well, I think the word difficult is an awfully good one here. Yes, it is. It's nigh impossible... There they are sitting on my wrist. I say 'Fly! Fly you little devils!!'... (then) they drown. Little black feathery figure topples off my wrist and spirals to a watery grave. We're knee deep in feathers off that part of the coast... not a single success in the whole forty years of training.
DM: Does this makes your life a miserable failure?
SAS-G: My life has been a miserable failure, yes.
Probably his finest hour, however, was in Christmas 1990, when over a period of 12 days on BBC2, he explained to Ludovic Kennedy what gifts he'd like for Christmas in A Life in Pieces. These five-minute sketches allowed Sir Arthur to look back over his life in exchange for gifts of a partridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves and so on. However, his reminiscences exposed him unwittingly as a coward, liar, murderer and many other things.
If you have an hour or so, even though they haven't been released on DVD, you can enjoy on YouTube all 12 episodes of A Life in Pieces:
That wasn't the last the world heard of Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, however. He went on in 1994 to record for Radio 3 a series of five interviews, Why Bother?, with none other than Chris Morris. During the interviews, Sir Arthur talked about his experiments on eels, his role in the racial violence during the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King trial, his military career, including his time in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during World War II, and his habit of strangling his business partners, as well as his next project: cloning from the fossilised remains of the infant Christ.
The interviews were completely improvised and Morris says:
It was a very different style of improvisation from what I'd been used to, because those On The Hour and The Day Today things were about trying to establish a character within a situation, and Peter Cook was really doing 'knight's move' and 'double knight's move' thinking to construct jokes or ridiculous scenes flipping back on themselves, and it was amazing.
Thankfully, the BBC has, in its wisdom, released Why Bother? on CD, but it's also available on YouTube. Alas, Peter Cook died in 1994. He is much-missed.
Yes, The Decoy Bride may be set in Scotland but David Tennant has an English accent, Sally Phillips has an American accent, Dylan Moran gets to be Irish and Kelly Macdonald gets to be properly Scottish but still try an American accent. Enjoy the multi-accented trailer!
And it's Sister Chastity and Hebbie, neck and neck again. David Tennant, however, is trailing far behind – maybe if he'd bought a better car?
Hebbie, Sister Chastity: 30
shilohforever: 15
Janice: 10
Jane Henry's back and she won last week's caption competition, despite Ms Rullsenberg's usual filth – well done, Jane! All the same, Ms Rullsenberg is in the lead again.
Rullsenberg: 15
Sister Chastity, Jane Henry, SK: 10
Jen, Toby: 5
Good luck with this week's captioning and picture-hunting everyone! The results of January's competition will be coming soon…
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 and doesn't obviously infringe copyright, 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 Tuesday 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 Tuesday's Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.
Each month, I'll name the best picture provider and best captioneer, and then at the end of the year, the overall champion will be announced for 2012!
In Canada: Tuesdays, 9pm ET, CTV/MuchMusic In the US: Acquired by The CW for spring 2012
So here's how TV normally works: you come up with a pilot episode and then you cast it. Normally, you'll slip in a few Australians or Canadians because they're cheaper. Then, to save more money, although your show is supposedly set in the US, you'll film your show in Canada, with most of the supporting cast being Canadian, with just the occasional American flown in for luck. Once your show is made, you'll then sell it to Canadian TV companies.
Now imagine the craftiness of the Canadians who have inverted that entire process with The LA Complex. It features a big group of Canadian actors - as well as an Australian - some of them famous from US shows, Jewel Staite (Firefly, Stargate: Atlantis) and Chelan Simmons (Kyle XY), some from Canadian shows (Cassie Steele from Degrassi: The Next Generation). They all play Canadians (apart from the Australian) - actors, dancers, singers, comedians and musicians who have all come to LA for a shot at the big time. Rather than being shot in Canada, it's shot in LA and there's the occasional American added for good luck (Mary Lynn Rajskub as herself). And now it's been sold to The CW.
And despite the fact it's largely about young, pretty actors, it's really quite good and has an unexpected edge.
In the US: Sundays, 10pm ET/PT, Showtime In the UK: Acquired by Sky Atlantic
Do you miss pilot movies? I miss pilot movies. Time was, you could set everything up for a TV series at a decent speed in an hour-and-a-half long movie. But you can't these days – now you have to squeeze everything into an hour, or in the case of House of Lies, half an hour, hope that people like that enough to keep watching, then put everything you left out into the second and third episodes.
Trouble is, that's going to give people a misleading impression of the show and they might not like all the fireworks you've had to add to get their attention.
So, in case you've forgotten already, House of Lies is a supposed insight into the world of management consultants that stars Kirsten Bell and Don Cheadle. And its first episode wasn't very good: neither insightful nor funny, full of sex for sex's sake, and locker room talk that made it clear that women weren't welcome.
Since then, the show has simmered down. It's got us by the balls and but it doesn't want to knock them for six. It wants to play with them for a while. And it's all the better for it.
Characters other than Don Cheadle get a look in; the relentless locker-room talk is mocked; some actual management consultancy is performed; the pitches to camera by Cheadle are now quite clever; there's an ongoing story arc about the firm based on events from the first episode; it does have some really quite nice Machiavellian moments; and Richard Schiff has turned up as corporate Toby from TheWest Wing to be the boss. It's actually a much more watchable show.
What we have now is a bunch of four people who spend all their time taking the piss out of each other, while skiving off proper work, trying to get as many freebies as possible and trying to shag everyone – possibly the closest America is ever going to get a British workplace environment. While it's not really a subtle show, it's no longer the insult to the intelligence the first episode was and it's almost enjoyable. Worth a try from about episode two onwards, I reckon.
Carusometer rating: 3 Rob's prediction: Will probably last a season, but not much more
Would you look at that. Another cover for Wonder Woman that actually contains more action than the entire issue (incidentally, have a look at who Wonder Woman is tridenting while I ask, Rolf Harris-style, "Can you tell who it is yet?" Bet you can't.)
Anyway, follow me quickly after the jump so we can talk about Wonder Woman's first proper trip around London, the arrival of a couple of new gods, the unveiling of a cockney demi-god and some more of Wonder Woman's super-powers, and how even though flattery may be the sincerest form of imitation, Tony Akins really isn't Cliff Chiang. Spoilers ahoy!
Time for "What did you watch this week?", my chance to tell you what I watched this week that I haven't already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case we've missed them.
First, the usual recommendations: Archer, Being Human (US), The Daily Show, Modern Family, Happy Endings, Portlandia, Royal Pains, Shameless (US), Southland,Suburgatory and 30 Rock. Do watch them.
Still in the viewing queue from last week are Eternal Law, The L.A. Complex and Arctic Air. I get the impression I won't watch any of them. As predicted, I deleted Borgen from the viewing queue since I'm now four episodes behind. I've now got the second episodes of Are You There, Chelsea? and Shameless (US) to get through, too, as well as the first episode of Smash and the first episode of the new series of Mad Dogs.
But I did manage to watch the first episodes of a few new shows:
Rob: Rob Schneider (yes, Deuce Bigalow himself) plays an OCD guy who marries a woman virtually on impulse and gets to meet her extensive Mexican family, including her dad, played by the 1970s' Rob Schneider, Cheech Marin. I was expecting to absolutely hate it, but it did display at least a few signs of intelligence and originality… for all of 10 minutes, after which the ridiculous farce and extensive Mexican stereotypes kicked in and I switched off. So better than Mike and Molly but not as good as 2 Broke Girls then.
The Finder: A spin-off from the tepid Bones, in which a man (and two sidekicks, including Michael Clarke Duncan) who can find things… finds things. Exciting, huh? Watched the first five minutes, during which our hero was shot at with an automatic while running down a narrow corridor, yet survived to tell the tale, and figured I'd pretty much got the measure of the show. An affable enough dramedy, but in no sense remarkable at all.
Stella: Sky 1's new comedy-drama starring and written by Ruth Jones of Gavin & Stacey fame. Now, we were a little divided about this one, because I didn't think it that great, while my lovely Welsh wife said it was almost exactly like being back home: even if it wasn't necessarily funny all the time, it was always incredibly well observed. However, we stopped after 10 minutes of episode 2, since it just started to get a bit miserable and unenjoyable. It should also be pointed out this had the worst title sequence of any UK TV show since 1985.
A few thoughts on some of the regulars:
Portlandia: after the fabulous first BSG sketch from this episode, expectations were high for the follow-ups. The next wasn't as good, and neither was the final sketch, but it saw a reunion of James Callis, Edward James Olmos and Ronald D Moore so was worth it all to see them watching Doctor Who together at the end.
30 Rock: Slowly decreasing in funniness, but a couple of good moments.
Royal Pains: back and starting to feel a little less like it's treading water than it did over summer. Signs of plot progression? We can only hope.
Being Human (US): the first episode is doing a repeat of series 1, by starting the same way the UK series did. But this time, lessons appear to have been learnt. While a little darker and less engrossing than it was towards the end of series 1, the episode picked up after the first 15 minutes or so to give us a better version of the original. Sally's plotline was fun without the comedy overkill of Annie's, and Nora is essentially a pleasant but still sparky version Nina, which means she's actually watchable (ditto Josh v George and Tovey's over-acting). We also had some great vampire moments and fights courtesy of Sam Witwer's Aidan. On the whole, I'm looking forward to this series much more than I am to series 4 of the UK original.
Sherlock: The Hounds of Baskerville - dreadful, illogical and obvious; The Reichenbach Fall – much better, although dragged in the middle. Looking forward to the next series!
Suburgatory: Sweet, and an interesting ending.
Southland: As usual, cast changes aplenty. We have Lucy Liu making a surprisingly good street cop; Arija Bareikis seems to have disappeared, as has every detective who isn't Regina King (or her new partner). It basically feels like a slight retooling to focus on the best bits of the show – the beat cop side – away from the detectives. A little bit bitty as an episode, but with a cracking firefight and some great moments. Welcome back Southland!
And in movies:
Paradox: An odd little movie that you can find on SyFy now and then. Based on a comic book, it stars Kevin Sorbo (Hercules, himself) as a detective who lives in a world much like our own but that uses magic the way we use science. Winston Churchill helped to defeat the Germans in World War 2 using the power of Excalibur and is still alive; wizards run the government and coroners bring people back from the dead to answer questions about their murders. Except there's crossover between the two worlds and Sorbo has to learn how to deal with science and technology. Let down by the gimmicky addition of comic book artwork in between scenes, it's quite fun, although never going to win any awards.
"What did you watch this week?" is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid - and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I've watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you've seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?
In the US: Mondays, 9pm ET/PT, Fox In the UK: Acquired by Watch
A year ago, JJ Abrams had two shows on the air: Lost and Fringe. Lost, of course, was a story about a mysterious island that could cause people to travel through time; Fringe, which is still running on Fox, sees a group of federal agents (and a civilian weirdo), investigating strange crimes and criminals operating at the fringes of science.
If you were going to predict JJ Abram's next show, only in wildest cynical pastiche would you have come up with Alcatraz, a show about a mysterious island that causes people to travel in time while a group of federal agents investigate strange crimes and criminals.
Yet here it is on Fox. It's even got Hurley (Jorge Garcia) from Lost as one of the leads, as well as that nice Sam Neill from Jurassic Park. The basic plot: the Alcatraz prison wasn't actually shut down because of lack of money, but because every single person in the prison, warden and prisoner alike, disappeared one night back in the 60s. Now, one by one, they're popping up again, not having aged a day, and the government wants to find out why and stop them from committing any more crimes now they're free.
And to nobody's surprise, it's not even half as good as Lost or Fringe. Here's a trailer.
About the blog
This is a UK media blog with daily news, views, exclusive reviews and good conversation. There's a bit of a bias towards the latest and greatest US TV, but we also cover British TV ranging from new Doctor Who to old Z Cars, and BBC4 to S4C.
Add in film, theatre, art, books, events and competitions and you've (hopefully) got officially the fourth best blog on the web for media lovers. Oh yes, and there's The Carusometer, the ultimate guide to quality TV.
About me
I'm Rob Buckley, a freelance journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of, although you might have heard me on Radio 5 Live's Saturday Edition. I've edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for trade magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider and the equally short-lived Death Ray and Filmstar magazines; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it "web site for urban hedonists" The Tribe. I'm freelance now and have contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network and TV Scoop.
Read more on Friday's Sitting Tennant (week 4, 2012) plus the winners of the January 2012 Sitting Tennant picture competition