Smith had the dubious honour of being the first of this season’s new shows to be cancelled. It only lasted three episodes, and many people are wondering why it was killed off so quickly. Turns out, each episode cost $3 million to make (the pilot cost $8 million). I reckon that would explain it.
Year: 2006
Unnecessary remakes of our time, number 17: Hellraiser
Clive Barker is working on a bigger budget remake of the seminal Hellraiser. Given there have now been eight Hellraiser movies, the question has to be, “Why?”
Holy frack: Last week on US TV
Quite a stupendous week in US TV for various shows that have been up and running for a few weeks. Battlestar Galactica‘s fourth episode, Exodus Part 2, shifted upwards the quality threshold for TV sci-fi by about 10,000 feet, alternating between tear-jerking tragedy (I certainly had a sniffle at one particular scene) and staggering action that probably blew the show’s budget for the next decade. If you’re ever going to give Battlestar Galactica a look in, UK viewers, that’s the one to watch.
Meanwhile, Jericho has suddenly turned properly interesting, five episodes in. Both Skeet Urich and Lennie James’ characters have revealed themselves to be a gadzillion times more interesting than anything up to the third episode had really promised. Despite a saggy middle section that featured yet another “disaster of the week”, the episode also had a promising opening as well as very, very promising ending that indicates a whole load of interesting things are going to be happening soon. Looking around at the various spoiler zones, I’d say that these aren’t false promises either. So hang in there until the fifth episode, potential Jericho viewers in the UK: it’s worth it now.
NBC to stop showing scripted comedy and drama in 8pm slot
On the back of 700 job cuts, NBC’s chief exec for TV, Jeff Zucker says that the network will no longer show scripted comedy and drama in the 8pm-9pm slot because it’s too expensive. Instead, NBC is going to show reality TV and game shows.
And thus the US version of ITV1 is born. More analysis over at Organ Grinder.
Ian Levine told where to go by RTD
There’s a thoroughly amusing anecdote about Ian Levine over on the Off The Telly blog. Basically, Russell T Davies told him exactly where to go at Wednesday’s Torchwood press conference in Cardiff:
“Ian, no offence, you’re not a journalist, so fuck off.”
Magic. I laughed like a drain when I read that.
If you don’t know who Ian Levine is, there’s a handy article about him on Wikipedia. He also has his own discussion forum now. Suffice it to say, he’s a rich, powerful über-fan of Doctor Who, who saved various episodes from being burnt by the Beeb and eventually became a ‘continuity consultant’ to the show back in the 80s.
He’s also notoriously litigious: I was told by a publisher once that I wasn’t allowed to mention him in case he sued the magazine. All I wanted to say was the theme tune to K9 and Company was a bit rubbish, but that, apparently, would be enough to set him off in those days. Can’t stop me now, though!
PS What is it about the St David’s Hotel and Spa? John Barrowman’s going to spend Christmas there with his family, they hold the Torchwood press conference there? There are other hotels in Cardiff, you know. It is nice, mind.
PPS To counterbalance the Ian Levine photo, here’s one of a tree-hugging David Tennant.
