I was waiting for the green shoots of comedy to emerge from the distinctly average pilot. Unfortunately, it looks as if someone has come along, planted some uranium pellets and some salt around the green shoots and killed all greenery in a 100 mile radius. There’s still a few laughs per episode and if you found Everybody Loves Raymond endlessly entertaining, you’ll probably love it, but I’d recommend everyone else to stay away unless they have a nice lead-lined suit to keep them going.
Month: September 2006
The Unit – it does get better
Turns out, as hoped, that the first episode of the new season of The Unit was a blip: the third episode, The Kill Zone, is an absolute cracker. Loads of adrenaline on The Unit side, coupled with some interesting political comments on the home front, with the US army’s policies towards next of kin, funeral payments, etc, put under the microscope.
And yes, it was written by Lynn Mamet. Should be airing October 3rd in the US, which is when season one begins airing on Bravo in the UK, coincidentally.
US TV
Stewie gives Earl bad advice for his DVD boxset
When asked to create some original material for the first My Name is Earl box set, creator Greg Garcia decided to reshoot the pilot as Bad Karma, in which Earl gets set on the path of evil karma rather than good.
But who would provide Earl with this bad piece of advice?
Stewie Griffin from Family Guy!
“If someone dares to hurt you, you hunt them down and beat them like a dog. Sweet, sweet vengeance!”
Read all about it over at the Los Angeles Times.
US TV
Review: Criminal Minds 2.1
In the US: Wednesdays, 9pm ET/PT, CBS
In the UK: Season one currently on Five. Will probably air on Living in 2007.
Characters re-cast: 0
Major characters gotten rid of: 0 (1 soon)
Major new characters: 0
Format change percentage: 0%
Cast members looking seriously older: 1
Criminal Minds was one of those shows I rejected as stupid over a year ago when I saw the screener. I’ve caught an episode here and there since, and while it’s not that bad, it combines massive over-seriousness with completely preposterous storylines.
The thing is, most serial killers, psychopaths and sociopaths are really dull. They’re not like the serial killers in books and movies. So when you make a TV series about them, you either have to come up with some completely unrealistic serial killers or produce a dull show.
So I tuned into the premiere episode of the second season, which picks up from last season’s finale, The Fisher King (Part One). My, they’ve gone for “interesting” killers in a big way, haven’t they?
Trailer for 300
The famous battle of Thermopylae between the Persians and the Spartans was retold by Frank Miller in the graphic novel The 300, which many laud as a classic. Now it’s been turned into a movie, 300, the trailer for which is now available. Can’t say it looks historically authentic but it does have a really unique visual style – apart from The Matrix slo-mo.