Tuesday’s ever-so-tired news

Doctor Who

  • Feel sorry for the US: BBC America has just bought Torchwood
  • David Tennant back for series four

Film

  • Aardman’s signed with Sony now
  • Can anyone say ‘fix’? Serenity voted best sci-fi movie ever
  • Two John Cusack trailers

British TV

  • John Travolta will appear in the Christmas Extras
  • Virgin Media has launched a digital terrestrial service

US TV

  • Jennifer Love Hewitt’s mind is as thin as the rest of her: she thinks ghosts haunt the set of Ghost Whisperer
  • The Black Donnellys has been pulled
  • You can buy one of the original KITTs from Knight Rider

Monday morning news

Doctor Who

  • Ratings for Smith and Jones were 8.2 million, peaking at 9.11 million
  • John Barrowman questioned about ‘fattie’ comments
  • David Tennant’s Doctor models himself on Jamie Oliver

Commercials

  • The official solution to that Virgin 74 bands puzzle

Film

  • First pics from Iron Man
  • Tarantino frightens cast with knowledge of their rubbish movies
  • A Dylan Thomas movie is on the way
  • The official site for Nicholas Cage’s Philip K Dick movie, Next, is up
  • Test-screening details of The Simpsons
  • Sigourney Weaver talks about Avatar
  • Antonio Banderas and Johnny Depp may be in the sequel to Sin City
  • Luke Goss joins the cast of Hellboy 2
  • Two Transformers TV trailers

British TV

  • Living TV has the rights to Criminal Minds and Ghost Whisperer‘s second seasons

US TV

  • A promo for the next episode of Heroes
  • James Doohan has been fired into space
  • Sydney Pollack is directing a movie for HBO about the 2000 Florida recount
  • An interview with Dennis Haysbert about The Unit
  • The Sopranos in seven minutes
US TV

Third-episode verdict: Andy Barker, PI

The Andy Barker Carusometer3-Minor-Caruso

I have to say, Andy Barker PI has been pretty consistent. It started off weak and has continued weak. Essentially a one-joke show – accountants aren’t really that hard, white-collar criminals aren’t that much harder, either, and if you stuck them all into standard private investigators plots, it would all look a bit silly – it’s continued to exploit that joke for all it’s worth, which isn’t much. (It’s a joke that doesn’t work much for blue-collar crime either, which the similarly formatted Knights of Prosperity has already discovered.) They added in a few fat-jokes for episode two, which wasn’t particularly nice of them, either.

It has a good cast, and there’s some talent in the production team, but I think they’ve hung their collective coats on the wrong hook this time round.

So, unfortunately, The Medium is Not Enough declares Andy Barker, PI, to be a 3 or Minor Caruso on The Carusometer quality scale. A Minor Caruso corresponds to a show “in which David Caruso might guest star. He will insist on providing at least seven of his own jokes, most of them ending in the punchline ‘That’s my meat’, and will deliver them in a grating monotone for ‘authenticity’.”