Wednesday’s uninspiring headline news

Film

Art

British TV

US TV

  • Kidnapped‘s Timothy Hutton to star in TNT pilot Leverage
  • Stargate: Atlantis star sued by agency
  • Nashville pulled in favour of K-Ville
  • John From Cincinnati moves to Friday Night Lights
UK TV

Review: The Sarah Jane Adventures 1×1

Sarah Jane Adventures

In the UK: Mondays, 5pm, BBC1

In the US: God knows

Blimey. Don’t know about you but it’s been a while since I tuned into Children’s BBC. Okay, technically I didn’t, because Bastard, my PVR, failed to record this and I had to borrow a copy, but all the same, I feel very odd, tuning into a programme that’s put out by the broom cupboard people of yore.

The action picks up where the pilot left off, back in sunny, not too offensive BBC-land. Luke the Asperger’s wannabe (oh yes, They’ll be watching, you know They will), with his poor social skills but top notch science powers, is ensconced in Sarah Jane’s house as a surrogate son. The female neighbour is still living with her nice dad and improbably brain dead mother.

Everything is pretty much as it was before, except the intrusion of the “a little bit too inner city for our liking” female sidekick from the pilot has been rebuffed by those fearsome BBC bosses and a less gabby male sidekick from Zone 6 of the tube map has been added to the roster of alien defeaters. He’s more generic, less screamy. He’s more parent-friendly. He’s just what the Beeb is looking for.

Continue reading “Review: The Sarah Jane Adventures 1×1”

News

Tuesday’s eruptive news

Up Pompeii

Doctor Who

  • David Tennant and Catherine Tate take Peter Capaldi, Tracey Childs and Phil Davis over to Rome for a week’s filming for the new series [spoilers]

Film

  • Jessica Biel to be the Justice League‘s Wonder Woman?
  • The Rock to play either hero or villain in Shazam!
  • Die Hard director John McTiernan sent to prison for four months for lying to the Feds

British TV

US TV

US TV

Review: Gossip Girl 1×1

Gossip Girl

In the US: Wednesdays, 9/8c, The CW

In the UK: Acquired by ITV2

From the Ratings Bible, II Teen Girls 12, verses 16-20

And lo! It came to pass that The OC did finish. The CW did look and It was pleased. For It knew that teens were Its domain, to be trespassed upon by no other, particularly not that satanic Rupert Murdoch’s Fox. 16

And at the end of this time, The CW did say to Itself, “How can We can get some of that hot teen girl viewing action? How about if we get the Creator of The OC to come up with something for Us?” 17

And The CW did wander in the desert that was Palm Springs and Hidden Palms for 40 days and 40 nights, although it felt like more like nine weeks. And there was much musing about copyright infringement and other terrible fates, if The CW did blatantly rip off The OC. 18

And at the end of that time, The CW did say to Itself, “Book adaptations. That’s where the clever money is. And we’ll set it in New York. Let’s clear that with legal, then green light it.” 19

And The CW did smile for the plan was good. 20

Actually, for all that cynicism of mine, I really rather enjoyed the second half of Gossip Girl. Which is surprising, because I really, really hated the first half.

Continue reading “Review: Gossip Girl 1×1”

UK TV

What bit of Doctor Who history for series four?

DavrosAutumn is in the air. The leaves are falling from the trees. The weather alternates between chucking it down with rain and bright, blinding, car-crash inducing sunlight.

It must be that time of year again. The time when we start coming up with idle, groundless speculation for what’s going to be in the next series of Doctor Who.

As we all know from watching Doctor Who Confidential for series three, Rusty plans to bring back another element of Doctor Who history for series four. Of course, I don’t know about you, but I have a Memento-style tattoo somewhere that says “Don’t believe Rusty’s lies”. All the same, we can probably assume it’s true, judging from his track record.

So who or what do you reckon it’s going to be?

My two pitches, to open the proceedings, are:

  1. Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor
  2. Davros

Although Rusty doesn’t do “Doctor meets” allegedly, he might well take the opportunity to include a previous Doctor next year – which is going to be more fun, apparently. McGann, being the only one of the previous Doctors (except for Eccles-cake) who still looks reasonably like he did during his on-screen appearance, would be the obvious candidate and since he didn’t exactly last a long time in the role, it wouldn’t really be a clash of egos thing if he did turn. Plus there have been all those rumours…

As for Davros, which is a bit more likely, we’re down to one Dalek now. If they turned to him in the past when their fortunes were decidely better, now would be an ideal time to go back to the Dalek-creator and get him to rustle up a new batch and thus ensure the continuity of the franchiseDalek race. Plus Terry Molloy did say he’d been talking to the production team.

Over to you, my friends. What are your bets?