This television thing. In your home. What's been on it this week that you've been liking or hating?
Torchwood started off not bad, went a bit pants and went to downright excellent last night, so heavens knows what it's going to be like tonight – I might be too stunned by the fact it's not been awful to even tune in. I eventually managed to catch Top Gear, despite the Beeb's efforts to mess up the Sky+ EPG, which was reasonably entertaining, but no classic, particularly since it had that *expletive deleted* Michael McIntyre on it.
Valentine's returned to The CW for no readily explored reason, other than they paid for it so they might as well show it while people still remember it. It's a very odd show. On the one hand, it has the world's worst opening title narration, narrated by the world's least convincing actress, Jaime Murray. Every single aspect of the "Greek love gods matchmaking mortals" storylines makes you want to tear your face off to make it all end, even if you have Joshua Malina as one of the mortals, as happened this week. But the arcing storyline involving the gods themselves and their mysterious nemesis is really excellent, dark, gripping and surprisingly true to the myths. If they'd just had that as the show and hired an actress to play Aphrodite instead of Murray, maybe we'd have had a classic fantasy series on our hands.
Except they didn't, so it's been cancelled already. Who knows if we'll ever find out how it was supposed to end.
Otherwise, apart from what I've already reviewed, it's just been Tim Gunn's Guide To Style on Sky3, which for the uninitiated is like Trinny and Suzannah's What Not To Wear but done by someone with taste, style, charm and intelligence. Series first: no keepers in the 10 items!
As always, no spoilers unless you're going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please
July 10, 2009 | Reply
Not a fan of the McIntyre, then; can I ask why?
July 10, 2009 | Reply
"Not a fan of the McIntyre, then; can I ask why?"
Because
a) he's a tit
b) he's not funny
c) he's incompetent
IMHO. That's way harsher than I want to be, but I have no other way of putting it that expresses my feelings.
July 10, 2009 | Reply
What I watched:
The traditional 4th of July "TZ" marathon, with a tweak - they also showed episodes from the 1980s version (which to me felt like it was kin to 'Tales From The Dark Side'). The episode I wanted to catch especially was of "It's A Good Life" with Billy Mumy - My9 showed the sequel from 2000 (?) two weeks ago and so now I have both episodes permanently installed together on my DVR queue - until such time (if any!) when they're released together on DVD. But I also caught the one with Burgess Meredith as "The Obsolete Man" and Richard Basehart in "Probe 7 - Over And Out", which I'm planning to write up for its theoretical connection to 'Doctor Who'....
Because of the death of Harve Presnell last week, I watched an episode of 'Andy Barker PI' which was a good showcase for Presnell's wacked-out Lew Staziak character. ("The Big No Sleep") Best of all was his tough-guy grilling of a ten year old "Samoan" and his recollections of a peyote trip.
TCM had a night of movies from "1939 - Hollywood's Greatest Year", which was the name of the special that accompanied the movies they chose. It's narrated by Branagh and made for a fascinating history lesson. There were a few stretches on the word "great", just to find something to represent all of the studios at that time, but the clips were welcome anyway.
I've never been a big fan of Miss Marple, unlike Poirot. But when I saw the cast list for "A Pocketful of Rye", I decided to check it out. Couldn't resist seeing Wendy Richard, Prunella Scales, Helen Baxendale, Matthew McFadyen, and Liz White all together. Wasn't too keen on Julia MacKenzie taking on the role of Jane Marple, however.
'Sing Along With Mitch' (Miller) from the 1950's, part of my new quest to see a classic old TV show every day. This was in 4 parts on YouTube and had Johnny Carson as the surprise mystery guest hidden amongst the choir at the end.
Other shows I caught so far in this new quest: '26 Men' - "The Wild Bunch", 'The Beulah Show' - "Beulah Goes Gardening", and another episode of 'Biff Baker, USA' - "Mona Lisa". (I was really hoping that Alan Hale, Jr. would eventually stand next to the painting so that I could grab a screen capture of it. Something about the Skipper with the Mona Lisa cracks me up. But he never did, and I had to settle for Alan Napier, ten years away from being Alfred the Butler on 'Batman', holding the phony Mona Lisa.)
Not as old as those, but I caught an episode of 'McCloud' - "The Man With The Golden Hat", which had an interesting guest cast - Don Ameche, Roger C. Carmel, Phil Carey, Robert Webber, Mills Watson (a real go-to character actor back in those days), Liam Dunn, Arthur Malet (a fave!), and Jacklyn Smith.
'Warehouse 13' - unlike Rob, I liked it. But I will admit that I'm biased because of my Toobworld blog - this will be a great show for theoretical links to other series.
Technically against my will, as my friends know I hate "reali-TV", I watched an episode of 'Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares'. But I did somewhat like it since the episode's subject was the Olde Stone Mill restaurant just a bit farther north of here in Tuckahoe, NY. Maybe I can talk my friends into making the trip up for our own "sequel" experience.
And that was a small price to pay for the next item on the Bit Torrent Rebel Alliance's schedule: The first four hours of 'Torchwood' - "Children of Earth". Got spoiled of course seeing them all in a row - I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to see tonight's finale. I'd like to see it before it arrives on BBC-America, so that I can make comparisons on what had to be edited out in order to make room for the commercials over here....... But all in all, I LOVED it! And won't say more on the matter for now......
We started 'Doctor Who' - "Enlightenment", which I had never seen, but I only made it through the first episode. Only because it was now 2:40 am and I was crashing.
Now I'm back home in Toobworld Central and off to watch all the Thursday night American line-up which was recorded while I was out on that all-nighter - 'Burn Notice', 'Royal Pains', and 'The Listener'.
Sorry for blathering on.....
July 10, 2009 | Reply
Michael McIntyre last Saturday. I like him well enough to spend £20 to see him live last year by the way. His guests have been uninspiring on the whole though.
Torchwood every day this week. I thought it started ace and went (comparatively) downhill but still retained a level of brilliance that thrills me.
Psychoville was exceptionally good this week and even if you haven't watched the rest of the series, I think people should watch this one episode. Absolute genius and shot in two long takes.
Apart from those "live" shows, I have been watching True Blood. I've been encouraged to by a number of people I trust and sure enough I was hooked at episode 8. Sure, there were 7 episodes of me hating Sookie and Bill (and also Jason- the dumbest tv character of all time?) but somehow episodes 8 through to the current episode just flew by.
I also watched the pilot for Friday Night Lights. Not too sure what to make of it so far. Straight forward story, odd town with rituals centred around American football, and very distracting hand held camera work. But I hear great things about it so will no doubt get through the season if not the whole series.
July 11, 2009 | Reply
Torchwood Torchwood and Torchwood. Amazed at how good it was. Last night gut wrenching, heartbreaking and where I have felt in all the Dr Who finales the final ep lets it down because the tension goes and you know they'll get out of it the sheer brilliance of the terrible choice Jack had to make cut against Gwen and Rhys escaping with the children was fabulous. Peter Capaldi's suicide also heartbreaking. Loved his secretary's revenge. Obvious plot flaw that if you're going to steal ten per cent of the children you shouldn't time it with the school run, and soldiers arent' all robotic morons who follow unbelievably immoral orders, but that aside was a total mess by the end of it. Can't believe I have actually cried at a Torchwood episode. The alien was a bit crap (though I quite liked the fact you didn't see it), and I thought the one man travelling alone comparison to Dr Who was a bit repetitive. But I did like the fact that Jack did what the Doctor never could. I did wonder what the alien was lobbing against the glass wall though. Children anyone? So overall big thumbs up from me. If it comes back will definitely watch it again, so long as Rusty carries on in this vein I think we finally have Torchwood as it was meant to be.
July 11, 2009 | Reply
Watched Torchwood all week. Became a mess by end of Thursday and though the finale was GRIM with extra capital GRIM on top I have to say I was delighted: dark, dark, dark. Nothing else touched this all week.
July 11, 2009 | Reply
Second post in this thread to agree that watching day five of Torchwood was a harrowing experience. Sublime television. Grim indeed.
July 12, 2009 | Reply
Watched Torchwood all week - thought the first three episodes were actually quite poorly paced (for which read SLOW) but interest was kept up thanks to some great performances. Then of course went bleak beyond expectations to the point of RTD virtually writing himself into a corner... won't say more for fear of spoilerage.
Elsewhere, it was all about Psychoville. I get actually excited on Thursdays now, it's that good. I wish I could be the dissenting voice in this regard but I can't. It's clever, silly, laugh-out-loud funny and the storyline is genuinely intriguing. And this week's stage-y, single-shot (well, thereabouts) episode was just great. I could go on and on about it, and kinda have.
July 12, 2009 | Reply
Dammit! That was me.... sorry.
July 13, 2009 | Reply
Have posted my thoughts on Torchwood here if anyone remotely interested. http://maniacmum.blogspot.com/2009/07/torchwood-children-of-earth.html
Anna I keep missing Pyschoville. Damn. Hope they repeat it!
July 13, 2009 | Reply
"Anna I keep missing Pyschoville. Damn. Hope they repeat it!"
They're stacking it on iPlayer ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lf6t2 ), so all the episodes will be available until after the last one airs.
July 13, 2009 | Reply
Thanks Electric Dragon. Trouble with iplayer is I never have time to watch! My tv viewing tends to be 9pm and afterwards, always too busy in the day...
July 13, 2009 | Reply
@toby: Doctor Who - Enlightenment is one of the very few old Who eps written by a woman (allegedly) and one of the very few with a feminist sub-text (if you can call it sub- rather than just text). The US version of Kitchen Nightmares just feels odd, like a make-over show gone cobbled together out of patchworks from other shows.
@bob: I reviewed "Friday Night Lights" a while back. I kind of enjoyed it, but it's very hard to get excited about.
@anna: couldn't get into Psychoville at all, so I gave up midway through the first episode.