Brace yourself. Steven Seagal and his band Thunderbox are playing Camden Underground on September 21st.
Tickets are £20 each, so get those credit cards ready now.
Year: 2006
In Televisual this month…
The latest issue of Televisual has just fallen into my mailbox. It’s a monthly, but there are a few nuggets of info that are relatively interesting:
- Simon Amstell, ex-presenter of Popworld and soon to be the permanent host of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, is going to one of the writers of a new E4 show called Skins. Starring Kidulthood and About a Boy star Nicholas Hoult, it centres on a group of 17-year-old friends as they “drop pills, pass exams, have sex, manage their parents, interface with their teachers and push boundaries”. Very E4.
- 57% of independent production companies reckon the Beeb is the worst broadcaster to work for because of bureaucracy, being “too large and confused”, “rigid and slow” and for having “too much middle management”. However, it was also voted the most improving network by 43%. Channel 4 was voted the best with 29% of votes, with Five close behind on 25%.
- My old boss, Televisual‘s publisher James Bennett, has bought the mag from Centaur! It’s been with Centaur for 24 years, so that’s big news. It’s probably going to be of interest to about 0.01% of this blog’s readers, though. All the same, best of luck to James, Jake, Tim, Poz, Jon and Charlotte in the exciting and scary world of self-employment.
BFI events
Jane Eyre and Charley at the NFT
A couple of tele-related things to watch out for at the NFT this month. The first is a season of Central Office of Information (COI) films starting on the 21st and running through to the 30th. COI films? You remember Charley Says, right? Think Before You Drink Before You Drive? Course you do. Basically, a week of those films, grouped by theme onto individual nights.
The other thing that might be worth catching is a preview on the 15th of the Beeb’s new adaptation of Jane Eyre. It features Toby Stephens as Rochester, Francesca Annis as Lady Ingram, and newcomer Ruth Wilson as Jane. It’ll be a four-parter when it appears on tele, but the NFT is showing the first two hour-long episodes.
If you feel the urge, get booking now!
Stargate SG-1 might move network – again
Stargate‘s producers have decided that they’d really rather like the show to continue, following the show’s cancellation by the SciFi Channel. Producer Robert Cooper has already revealed that they’re considering other avenues for SG-1 to continue their never-ending adventures, but it seems they’re not content to look just for DVD and video game opportunities. They’re going to try other channels, too.
Stargate has already been cancelled by its host network once already, way back at the end of season five when Showtime decided to call it a day. SciFi then picked up the slack and has carried it for another five seasons. Will there be another channel out there willing to carry it for a further five, I wonder?
With Stargate: Atlantis picked up for another season by SciFi, it would be interesting to see a repeat of the Buffy/Angel situation of a few years ago. This saw Buffy lured away by UPN from its original home of The WB, where sister-show (brother-show sounds wrong, somehow) Angel remained. At the very least, it would probably rule out crossovers.
But could a full-on “Battle of the Stargates” take place, I wonder? It never happened with Angel and Buffy, but it would be fun to watch if it happened with the two Stargates.
“Your effects are cheap and our Stargate is more interesting to watch than yours!”
“Ha! Your characters are even more tissue-thin and inconsistently written than ours!”
“Well, we have more super-textual references than you!”
Let the trash talk begin…
More good reviews for season four of The Wire
I’m going to keep going on about it, you know. You can’t stop me. Season four of The Wire, which begins a week on Sunday on HBO in the US – and comes to FX in the UK later this year – is getting some pretty great reviews from all the critics who have watched it.
Here’s another one, which includes juicy quotes such as:
The shows are so powerful – so well-written, acted, filmed and edited – that the experience of watching them has left me a complete wreck.
I am so blown away by this show that I will go out on a limb here to declare that these 13 episodes just might comprise the single finest piece of work ever produced for American TV.
And
…following the story of these four boys for 13 Sundays this fall will be one of the most rewarding experiences you’ve ever had watching TV.
I’m looking forward to it, anyway. Ways to play catch-up for UK and US viewers are listed on my last fawning entry on the subject.