In the US: Tuesdays, 9.30/8.30c, ABC
In the UK: Anything with Ted Danson in appears on Paramount Comedy. You know that.
Help Me Help You is what is known in the trade as a “smart comedy” – that is, you won’t laugh very much, but you’ll be thinking “Oh, that’s wry and accurate”. It’s also what is known as a “Ted Danson vehicle”. That is, it stars Ted Danson with shockingly white hair.
Ah. Peri….
Sorry. Got a bit distracted there.
Peri’s one of those Doctor Who companions that could have been good but never got the chance. The Doctor’s first American companion, she could have been a good foil for the Doctor and asked questions about things we’d always taken for granted (screw “If you’re an alien, why do you sound like you’re from the North?” How about “Why is the entire universe populated by people with English accents?”). Unfortunately, bar one episode where she gets to make a potion using her knowledge of botany, she had bugger all to do except scream and look good.
Ah. Peri…
Sorry, got distracted again.
So far, Peri has appeared in a substantial number of Big Finish audios, usually with the fifth Doctor but occasionally with the sixth. Her fifth Doctor appearances have done little to rectify the “Peri as cypher” problem, since most of the allotted characterisation time has been given over to new companion, Egyptian pharoah Erimen.
And despite being more of a sixth Doctor companion anyway, only having an intro story plus one other with the fifth compared with a bit over a season and a half with the sixth, she’s had little by way of characterisation in those plays, too, with perhaps only Her Final Flight offering anything by way of variety to the character (and that one didn’t even count. Listen to it and you’ll know what I mean).
But, ta da! Here it is. Finally. The story where Peri gets something to do. More than that: it’s an entirely Peri-centric story, set in her home-town and home-age of Baltimore, 1984.
Ooh. And it’s got cybermen, too (it’s on the cover: I can’t be spoiling it for you if it’s on the cover).
In the US: Sundays, 10/9c, ABC
In the UK: Channel 4 has the rights. No air date yet.
I’m in two minds about this one. On the one hand, we have a show about three brothers and two sisters who are all ludicrously rich. I hated almost all of them immediately. It was also pretty slow-moving and uninvolving. On the other hand, the show has a pretty stellar cast (Calista Flockhart, Sally Field, Rachel Griffiths, Balthazar Getty, Ron Rifkin, Tom Skerritt) and it has a moderately interesting set-up for the rest of the series, so maybe it’ll be good.
I actually can’t be arsed to review the rest of it, though. It’s like trying to review a Hallmark card. Everyone has problems, although since they’re the kind of problems no one can really relate to (“How dare you become a radio host and talk about your feelings about the Iraq war!” “He may have embezzled money from the pension fund!”, etc), I’m not sure how much I can empathise with anyone. There are the usual second thoughts about marriage proposals, etc, etc. Pretty generic, pretty turgid, but with an incredible cast.
Toby at Inner Toob has a better review than this. There be spoilers, though. Maybe I’ll be able to get into it by the third episode, but I’m going to need caffeine in big quantities.
In the US: Fridays, 8pm ET/PT, CBS
In the UK: Season one on E4 right now and on ABC1 in January. Hopefully, they’ll both be sane enough not to pick up season two.
Characters re-cast: 0
Major characters gotten rid of: 1
Major new characters: 2
Format change percentage: 10%
Well that was painful. I’ve seen some pretty rubbish shows in my time, but Ghost Whisperer makes Night Man and Viper look like Six Feet Under. It’s as though someone thought Charmed was just a little too edgy and a little too simple and they really needed something more complex and more touchy-feely.
Jennifer “I’d love to eat some food but I just can’t force it down” Hewitt can see and speak with dead people. She runs a shop. She tries to help the dead people. Occasionally there’ll be bad dead people. That’s it. It’s Medium without the good dialogue or the fun. It’s Charmed with only one sister.
More a talking point really since the news comes from the Daily Lies (sorry Daily Star), but the Lies has it that there’s now a Doctor Who movie being planned that will feature Billie Piper. Since the Star web site is arse, here’s the story, loving copied and pasted from somewhere else:
WHO THE MOVIE
Sexy Billie in back for Doctor blockbusterSmash telly hit Dr Who is set to become a megabucks movie…and bring back sexy sidekick Billie Piper. Insiders say the flick will reunite assistant Rose Tyler with hunky time traveller David Tennant.
Producers came up with the idea after the BBC admitted the £10 million budget doesn’t stretch to lavish sets for alien planets or even distant destinations on earth.
But after flogging the series to America they’d be able to raise hundreds of millions to make an all action film.
And the first star they want on board is Billie, 24, as feisty Rose – heart-breakingly seperated from 35 year old David in the last series and trapped in a parallel universe.
Continue reading “Another Doctor Who movie, but with Billie Piper?”
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