Posted
on April 1, 2007 | |
I have to say, Andy Barker PI has been pretty consistent. It started off weak and has continued weak. Essentially a one-joke show - accountants aren't really that hard, white-collar criminals aren't that much harder, either, and if you stuck them all into standard private investigators plots, it would all look a bit silly – it's continued to exploit that joke for all it's worth, which isn't much. (It's a joke that doesn't work much for blue-collar crime either, which the similarly formatted Knights of Prosperity has already discovered.) They added in a few fat-jokes for episode two, which wasn't particularly nice of them, either.
It has a good cast, and there's some talent in the production team, but I think they've hung their collective coats on the wrong hook this time round.
So, unfortunately, The Medium is Not Enough declares Andy Barker, PI, to be a 3 or Minor Caruso on The Carusometer quality scale. A Minor Caruso corresponds to a show “in which David Caruso might guest star. He will insist on providing at least seven of his own jokes, most of them ending in the punchline 'That's my meat', and will deliver them in a grating monotone for 'authenticity'.”
Posted
on April 2, 2007 | |
Doctor Who
- Ratings for Smith and Jones were 8.2 million, peaking at 9.11 million
- John Barrowman questioned about 'fattie' comments
- David Tennant's Doctor models himself on Jamie Oliver
Commercials
- The official solution to that Virgin 74 bands puzzle
Film
- First pics from Iron Man
- Tarantino frightens cast with knowledge of their rubbish movies
- A Dylan Thomas movie is on the way
- The official site for Nicholas Cage's Philip K Dick movie, Next, is up
- Test-screening details of The Simpsons
- Sigourney Weaver talks about Avatar
- Antonio Banderas and Johnny Depp may be in the sequel to Sin City
- Luke Goss joins the cast of Hellboy 2
- Two Transformers TV trailers
British TV
- Living TV has the rights to Criminal Minds and Ghost Whisperer's second seasons
US TV
- A promo for the next episode of Heroes
- James Doohan has been fired into space
- Sydney Pollack is directing a movie for HBO about the 2000 Florida recount
- An interview with Dennis Haysbert about The Unit
- The Sopranos in seven minutes
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Posted
on April 3, 2007 | |
Doctor Who
- Feel sorry for the US: BBC America has just bought Torchwood
- David Tennant back for series four
Film
- Aardman's signed with Sony now
- Can anyone say 'fix'? Serenity voted best sci-fi movie ever
- Two John Cusack trailers
British TV
- John Travolta will appear in the Christmas Extras
- Virgin Media has launched a digital terrestrial service
US TV
- Jennifer Love Hewitt's mind is as thin as the rest of her: she thinks ghosts haunt the set of Ghost Whisperer
- The Black Donnellys has been pulled
- You can buy one of the original KITTs from Knight Rider
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Read other posts about: Torchwood
Posted
on April 4, 2007 | |
Doctor Who
Books
- An unpublished 1979 interview with Douglas Adams resurfaces
Film
US TV
- Marta Kauffman does reality TV with a programme about psychics for Fox. That'll be rigourous then
- Ruin the CSI finale for yourself with a load of spoilers
- Set designing for 30 Rock isn't easy, thanks to HD
- FX has picked up Glenn Close's pilot
- The Wedding Bells, Six Degrees and Seventh Heaven all bite the dust
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Read other posts about: 30 Rock, CSI
Posted
on April 5, 2007 | |
No more news until Tuesday, but there'll probably be other stuff over the weekend, probably about my impending heart attack from over-work.
British TV
- Sky's ratings have dropped since cutting off Virgin Media
- Russell Brand quits Big Brother's Big Mouth
- Channel 4's finances look shaky
- A clip from the next series of Peep Show
US TV
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Posted
on April 7, 2007 | |
Y'all remember Stargate when Kurt Russell and James Spader meet the nice Egyptian descendants and offer them chocolate as a sign of friendship, right?
Well, isn't the ability to process lactose in adulthood a relatively recent (c. 3000 years ago) genetic mutation that originated predominantly in European farmers? Since the alien humans are descendants of Egyptians from 10,000 years ago, wouldn't they be lactose intolerant and therefore likely to get diarrhoea as a result of their chocolate bar gifts?
Maybe it should be in the standard “meeting alien” protocols: don't offer them milk chocolate, only dark or white chocolate, in case they're lactose intolerant?
Just a thought.
Read other posts about: Stargate
Posted
on April 8, 2007 | |
You may have noticed the stealthy new arrival of a “Technology” category on the blog. I do get some whizzy gadgets to review every so often so I figured some of you might be interested in whether to hand over hard-earned dollars, pounds sterling, etc on these shiny things.
The latest I've got is the Miglia TVMax+, which lets you record video on your Mac. Anyone interested in my well-thought-out opinion on it?
Posted
on April 9, 2007 | |
If you cast your minds back a while to when I was debating whether to introduce a “fifth episode verdict” to supplement my existing third-episode verdict system, I made the point that such a verdict was going to be next to useless for British shows. What, after all, is the point of saying “This show is great. You should watch it” or “This show is rubbish. Don't bother tuning in” when there's only one episode to go?
All the same, not getting a full sample size of episodes can affect the accuracy of the delicately tuned Carusometer, the most powerful measure of television quality in the universe. Case in point is Primeval.
Last week, I finally got through episodes five and six, thanks to my handy new video iPod and I have to say I actually thought they were quite good. Episode four was as bad as The Carusometer had predicted it would be, but five and six were scary and intriguing. True, I'd rather be attacked by llamas than have to endure Hannah Spearritt and the “young adult” sub-plots again. But Dougie Henshall and the more clearly grown-up members of the cast were doing their best and I really rather enjoyed it.
So in the vain hope I can help those in the rest of the world who haven't yet been granted a Primeval viewing licence (eg the US) or who were waiting for its release on DVD, use episodes three and four as coffee mug coasters or to have some much-needed family time, but stick around for the rest of Primeval, since it was actually a reasonably enjoyable series overall.
Read other posts about: Primeval
Posted
on April 9, 2007 | |
Try and imagine you or your lifetime as approximately one inch in length. Then compare it to the first CD of Cruel Immortality, which is a thousand million miles long. One inch, you. CD one of Cruel Immortality a thousand million miles. Just compare them. It's very, very long. And it's very, very boring.
Those were more or less the thoughts that passed through my mind as I tried to get through the first half of Cruel Immortality. Each track was like having teeth drilled. Every single thing that was wrong with the Big Finish series of Sapphire and Steel audio plays was here and taken to the Max. Trite characterisation, poor acting, a Sapphire and a Steel completely unrecognisable and way too human in comparison to their on-screen selves. Listening to David Caruso sing the works of Marilyn Manson would have been preferable.
But, suddenly, come the end of CD one, it all changes. It becomes interesting. All the pain, all the hurt dissolves away and suddenly, you don't want to use the second CD as a hat, garden ornament or eccentric clothing decoration. Instead, you want to listen to it.
Continue reading "Review: Sapphire and Steel - Cruel Immortality"
Posted
on April 9, 2007 | |
When Se7en scriptwriter Andrew Kevin Walker picked up his Empire award for best screenwriter (or something similar), his acceptance speech mentioned how he'd been aiming to win the vote of manic depressed students with his script and this was proof he'd succeeded.
I think the Warshawski brothers were aiming for the same thing with The Matrix. As you might recall, Agent Smith takes Morpheus to one side and says that he's worked out that humans are viruses, because we grow without limit, etc. This was his rationale for wanting to wipe us out.
Surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly), this chimed with a load of teenagers, who thought they'd been given some higher truth. Pseudo-intellectual sci-fi movies will do that to you.
However, I do feel that Agent Smith drew an incorrect conclusion. All he correctly determined was that a species of animal will expand without limits if there aren't checks on it from natural predators, etc.
We aren't viruses, my friends. We're bunnies.
I can't help but feel that would have ruined the mood, having a psychotic bunny-hater as an enemy. I'm sure you could argue about Smith's mindset leaping to the best analogy his computer-generated mind could hit. But all the same, I think it would have been fun.
Read more on Friday's Sitting Tennant (week 11, 2010)