What have you been watching this week (w/e September 17)

Pen Talar

There’s enough new stuff this week that I’m a little bit behind (Olympus knows what it’ll be like next week as the US networks start up in earnest). That means that I’ve the first new ep of Parenthood to watch, as well as eps of Mad Men, Mad, The Gates, Terriers, Nikita and Hellcats to get through, as well as that landmark new S4C show Pen Talar. But, in addition to University Challenge, Come Dine With Me, The Daily Show, Britain’s Next Top Model, Australia’s Next Top Model, and America’s Next Top Model, I have managed to watch

  • Covert Affairs: Ooh, they went overseas to do some filming. Look, it’s London! Look as they drive round Picadilly Circus then Parliament Square, then Picadilly Circus, then Camden, then Picadilly Circus. Look at the appalling green screen. Look at them get out of the car into the obvious backlot somewhere in Canada. Listen to the terrible English accents. Now they’re off to Sri Lanka where there are people with real English accents for some reason. Look, they forgot to take Piper Perabo with her. Look her hair’s up in this scene, then cut to overseas with her body double whose hair is down. Now let’s cut back to her with her hair up again. Now let’s cut to an obvious backlot somewhere in Canada. All the same, it was a moderately good way to end the season, with lots of bluff and double-bluff. Sendhil Ramamurthy is proving to be a proper action hero. Still felt a little flat. The show really hasn’t managed to find a real spark, so although it’s been doing well at some proper tradecraft, it hasn’t really caught fire in the relationships between characters. Good cast though. Hopefully, they’ll fix everything for next season.
  • Dark Blue: I wasn’t joking about this being Light Blue now. Clearly being burnt off by TNT since they don’t plan on renewing it for a third season, the second season was flawed, with the occasional good episode towards the middle. But we had a god-damn happy ending for everyone except the black guy, of course. They ruined that then.
  • Don’t Tell The Bride: So the bridegroom gets £12,000 to spend on the wedding, the catch being he only has three weeks to organise everything and the bride can’t have anything to do with the arrangements? Well, nothing could possibly go wrong there. Apart from the £12k of course, why would you put yourself through that on your wedding day? The ep we watched saw the bloke organising the wedding to take place on board the HMS Belfast. I’m not kidding. What degree of mental do you have to have to think that’s a good plan?
  • Him and Her: Gave up 10 minutes into the second episode because we were bored.
  • Mad Men: Loving it.
  • Rubicon: Ooh, things are happening! A bit! We’re on episode eight now. It’s all strangely engrossing, in the same way a conference on quantity surveying might be if you happen to pass it in a hotel. But I’m still not seeing the big fun yet.

But what have you been watching?

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 get killed by the spam filter).