Year: 2006

US TV

Review: Ghost Whisperer 2.1

27 September 2006 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Ghost Whisperer

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.

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Another Doctor Who movie, but with Billie Piper?

27 September 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

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 blockbuster

Smash 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?”

US TV

Review: The Office 3.1

26 September 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Office US

In the US: Thursdays, 8.30pm/7.30pm Central, NBC

In the UK: Season 2 is on ITV2, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Season three after it.

Characters re-cast: 0

Major characters gotten rid of: 0, I think

Major new characters: None as far as I can see

Format change percentage: No idea. 10%, I’d guess.

Episodes seen previously: 1

I have a disclaimer to make. Three actually. I’m not talking about the $1 million NBC pays me every year to write favourable reviews about its shows on this blog: that’s something best kept secret.

No, my disclaimers are these:

  1. I’ve only seen one episode of the US version of The Office
  2. I didn’t like it
  3. I didn’t like the UK original very much

The third sounds like heresy, I know, but I don’t like cringe comedy that much. I’ll hand in my nationality papers on the way out.

But here’s the third season of the US version of The Office and I feel like reviewing it anyway. And you know what, I kind of liked it – more than the UK version anyway.

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UK TV

Mysterious advert explained. Boy was it rubbish

26 September 2006 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

I was in Charing Cross train station today and I saw a somewhat offensive advert:

FIve US ad

“WTF?” I thought to myself. It was on a graphics screen, so I assumed it was going to change into something like AOL’s “Discuss” campaign.

But it didn’t. It was just that. I went away from it thinking, “What tossy Guardian-reading spanner thought that was a good idea?”, enumerating to myself all the wonderful things the US (I assumed they weren’t having a go at the Bolivians) has given the world. And I’m a Guardian reader.

Turns out it was an advert for Five’s new digital channel, Five US, which as we all know is the channel designed especially for me. There are going to be follow-up adverts that will turn the campaign into a positive one, apparently, but it’s already garnered complaints. And if I’m p’ed off with the ad, I’m pretty sure some of the rest of the target audience are going to be, too.

Whoops, Five.