The average number of children per family in the United Kingdom is 2. In the United States it's 3.1.
I mention this purely because of the above picture. Seriously, that's one pair of grandparents, their children and most of their grandchildren and partners - at least in the US show Parenthood. Really, some kind of Chinese-style child-reduction policy is needed here because, at the very least, keeping track of all these characters is way too difficult. Look, NBC have even had to create this family tree for us to deal with all the characters in Parenthood, and they're not all on it. There are more than this:
Parenthood, as you may recall, was an 80s comedy about the 'Buckman' family that looked at the trials and tribulations of being a parent. Apparently, being a parent isn't easy - who knew? Oh wait - everyone. That's the correct answer. Everyone knows.
This TV series, exec produced by the movie's original producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, is an at-best loose adaptation of that movie, with the Buckmans having become the Bravermans, and comedy having become misery.
I'm not going to lie to you - it's not fun and it's not great, but RGBE denizen Monica Potter in it, so it might worth a look-in.
Here's a trailer, but you'll notice that Maura Tierney is in it. She's been replaced by Lauren Graham off Gilmore Girls, as you can see from the behind-the-scenes featurette beneath it, and the teenage girl's been recast/hair-dyed as well. But you get the idea.
Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci Writer/Director: Nora Ephron Price: £19.99 (Amazon price: £12.98) Released: March 8th 2010
Calling all foodies! Slight departure from the normal TMINE fare, I know, but I refuse to be confined to one little box - here's your chance to win a copy of Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep as famous US TV chef (ah, see the TMINE link now?) and writer Julia Child and Amy Adams (you know, off Enchanted, Sunshine Cleaning et al) as a blogger who tries to make all the recipes in Childs' magnum opus Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year.
It's been nearly four years since I wrote the original version of this for Off The Telly, but seeing as Off The Telly is busily playing the National Anthem and getting ready to turn the lights off, I thought I'd move it to its natural place - here, on Lost Gems. Besides, I can add video and pictures to it here.
For most of its history, children’s television has been childish. Shows with simplistic plots and large casts of children have long dominated the afternoon schedules, with dreary adaptations of classic novels the only real exceptions.
Yet during the 1970s, commissioners slowly began to experiment with more mature programming, bringing in adult themes in disguise through science-fiction and fantasy shows such as Ace of Wands, The Tomorrow People and Timeslip. Sapphire and Steel even went from being a show for children to a show for adults, through the simple exclusion of juvenile leads and child-friendly characters.
By the late ’70s and early ’80s, this pushing of boundaries meant it was possible to have a programme on children’s television that was firmly embedded in an adult genre, with mainly adult leads and adult dialogue, and for it still to be accepted as a children’s show.
Codename: Icarus, which aired on BBC1 in 1981, was the purest examples of this new breed of programme. It's only available on DVD in America not in the UK, although you can watch it on YouTube (or below) if you want - it's a Lost Gem. But I'm also going to be covering a few other shows along the way, including Knights of God, Dark Season, Chocky's Children, the 90s remake of The Tomorrow People and Press Gang, complete with videos, so stick around.
In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, Fox In the UK: If Living doesn't pant at it like a dog in a desert, I'll be surprised
Underneath its logo, Fox should really have etched like a motto below a family crest, "Never knowingly avoiding a formula." All the other networks have sitcoms - it has to have sitcoms, even though it's very bad at them. Other networks had cop shows, medical shows, comic book shows: it had to have them, too.
Now, other networks have had for quite some time shows in which people, usually cops, investigate and solve old crimes and bring justice to bereaved families. There's obviously Cold Case, but ABC moved in with The Forgotten in the fall, so Fox clearly had to get some of that action. Here's its mid-season stab at the same idea.
Being Fox though, and although there are exceptions to the rule, it's gone for something supremely rubbish and tasteless. In Past Life, 'psychologist' Kate McGinn with the aid of former police officer Price Whatley helps people who find themselves remembering past lives to discover who they used to be, and who murdered them.
Would it be obvious and cliché to say that this one is pretty much "dead on arrival"?
In the US: Monday 9th February 2010, 9pm, NBC In the UK: 15 (?) weeks from now
So here it is. The end. Possibly the last ever episode of Heroes. It's been a rocky season - indeed seasons - but here we are at the end. Will it go out with a bang or a whimper?
Possibly useful information? The episode is written by Tim Kring.
I gave up watching Smallville at the start of this season. As I said at the time, for most of its previous nine years, the show had admirably tried to square the comic book silliness of Superman with the sensibilities of Dawson's Creek, albeit with decreasing success. Come the tenth season, it just all got very silly indeed and went into comic book overload.
This week, the producers of Smallville fired up their Flash-powered running wheel to give us a two-part story stuck together as a movie. Doing its best to channel Watchmen, Absolute Justice saw former members of the so-called Justice Society of America being killed by an old enemy, necessitating its disgraced surviving members team up again and join forces with the fledging Justice League that Clark Kent, Chloe, Oliver (Green Arrow) and co have been trying to put together.
And like a giant bat signal in the sky, it called to my inner geek to watch it. There's ironic, huh?
In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, ABC In the UK: Fridays, 9pm, Sky 1/Sky 1 HD. Starts February 5th
There's something to be said for the "DVD box set" approach to viewing TV series. Why watch episodes live when you can wait until a season has finished and watch all the episodes in one go?
I'll tell you why I'm suddenly thinking this is a great idea - I've seen the first two episodes of the new season of Lost. Where's the next one, huh? Next week: that's where. What use to me is that?
In the US: Monday 1st February 2010, 9pm, NBC In the UK: I'm thinking about 13 or 14 weeks from now
Normally, when you say a Heroes episode is "a bit season 1ish", it's a good thing. But in this case, when we're nearing the end of season four - yes, just one episode to go now - it's a bit of a problem. Spoilers and discussion after the jump.
In the US: Fridays, 10pm ET/PT, Starz In the UK:Summer 2010
Every so often, someone will come along and claim of a British TV programme, "Of course, you wouldn't see that on US TV. It's too gritty/grimy/explicit [delete as appropriate]." These kind of people have never seen US cable TV.
HBO is the obvious standout when it comes to risk-taking, but Showtime and AMC are now pushing the envelope as well. But the latest arrival to decent, risk-taking TV programming in the US is Starz. As well as the likes of Crash and Party Down, Starz has just added Spartacus to its roster of edgy shows.
Imagine the violence and look of 300 coupled with the language of The Wire and the soft core porn of Caligula and you have Spartacus. Oh, yes - it has a subtitle: Blood and Sand. That's kind of a clue.
I know, I know. I'm about a week late on this one and episode two has already aired. But we watched episode one last night, so what the hell.
Anyway, this was a relatively pleasant surprise. I say pleasant but we're talking about a show in which a a 15-year-old girl called Lux tracks down the birth parents she's never met so they can sign away their parental rights - apparently, the seventh foster home she's in wasn't any more up to scratch than the previous ones, so she'd quite like to live by herself.
Bleak, huh? But, given this is The CW, the home of programmes for teenage girls/young women/family audiences, you can bet it doesn't turn out too horrible.
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, Property Ladder to Big Brother, and BBC4 to S4C – yes, this blog is firmly part of the conspiracy to promote all things Welsh where possible, particularly Caerdydd.
Add in film, theatre, art, books, events and media journalism and you've (hopefully) got one of the best places 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. 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; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and contributed sarcastic articles about television to 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 and TV Scoop. Have pity on me.
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