Clips from NBC’s new pilots

NBC’s posted clips from a few of its Fall season series to its web site today. Now, if they’re like any other NBC video, UK residents won’t be able to watch them (I won’t be able to check until Thursday, for obvious reasons, but give it a whirl and see if it works for you, gentle reader.) but US denizens should have no problem. The videos are quite extensive, so worth looking in on if you’re curious.

UPDATE: Mark says they work for him in Wigan.

However, forward thinking old NBC has also posted a few of them to YouTube so the rest of the world can sample the goodies. Of most interest to UK viewers, in all likelihood, is the remake of The Bionic Woman starring ‘Enders‘ Michelle Ryan and putting in a surprisingly good turn.

Much of the focus is on how the show is going to be a metaphor about modern women needing to be superhuman to balance all the different aspects of their lives. But in keeping with the fact that BSG producer David Eick is behind the remake, it looks like they’re going back to the original for inspiration as well: not only are the physics of the bionic ladette’s powers completely screwed, if you’ll recall, Oscar Goldman was originally a bit of a bastard in the first two Six Million Dollar Man movies (and, indeed, Michael Caidin’s original book, Cyborg) and it looks like new Oscar, Miguel Ferrer, is going to follow in his footsteps. Still it makes you wonder just how many times he’s going to have to develop a Robocop before he realises it’s a bad idea.

Here are two clips: one of Ryan getting her bionic bits and another of her giving first gen bionic woman Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck in BSG) a good slapping. It’s worth mentioning that you don’t get to see some of the worst bits from the full NBC trailer, including Ryan’s relationship with her deaf sister.



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US TV

Season finales: Prison Break, My Name is Earl, The Unit, Jericho

As you may recall, last year I cast my reviewing eyes over the end-of-season finales for various US shows. The tissue-thin rationale I gave was “A good finale to a TV series can keep you watching even the biggest rubbish imaginable. They can be exciting, tense and a whole load of other things.

“Stress, of course, is a major health hazard. Therefore, so that UK viewers can brace themselves to an appropriate degree, I’ll be giving near-spoiler free guides to just how tense and exciting each of the major US TV shows’ finales were, starting today. US TV shows don’t end all at once: they’re spread over a period of three weeks or so, so there’ll be another couple of updates to come after this over the next week or so.”

Guess what. I’m doing it again this year using pretty much the same reasoning as I did last year. So here goes: there’ll be more to come over the coming days and indeed weeks.

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She’s watched Heroes!

Ha ha! My wife’s started watching Heroes and loves it. My cunning plan was to not ask her to watch it, but instead to leave all 21 episodes sitting around on the Apple TV for her. In my absence, she chose to idle her time away watching them. Hooray!

She’s now up to episode 12 and is worrying that Sylar has too many powers, making him too dangerous. I think she’d be watching the rest of them this evening, but Canada’s Next Top Model has just started and Project Catwalk‘s on soon, too.

So there you go: Heroes is loved by just about everyone who watches it, it seems. Let those of you who haven’t started yet see that as a testimony to its quality.

The Eurovision song contest: some thoughts

Well, I’m here in Miami. I’ve unpacked the Carusometer from its lovingly filigreed portmanteau. Temperature yesterday was about 32?Ǭ?C. Nice.

Normally, it being a Monday, I’d have reviewed Saturday’s episode of Doctor Who by now. But I can’t, because the Eurovision Song Contest was on instead. So I’ve decided to scribble down a few thoughts on that instead.

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My pilgrimage

As mentioned yesterday, I’m off on a pilgrimage for a few days, meaning that my daily news updates might be few and far between for a while (although who knows). I should be back on Thursday and depending on my state of jet lag, updates should then begin as per normal.

Hopefully, depending on my work schedule, I should be able to provide you with some actual, you know, reviews and stuff, as well, and I have high hopes of providing reviews of the current season finales, but we’ll see.

Where am I going? Where else, but Miami, of course!

The Carusometer is taking its sunglasses on and off so quickly, it’s just a blur of excitement. Maybe I’ll have to take it in for re-calibration.