Month: February 2007

Events

Morning, you

5 February 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Flakes are back

Have a nice weekend?

Film and comics

  • Joss Whedon’s off the Wonder Woman movie.
  • Ghostbusters 3 is still happening. Both Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray are up for it. But it’s going to be all-cg.
  • A new version of Barbarella is in the works.
  • Joel Schumacher wants to film Sandman.
  • The Flash has a new director.

Commercials

  • The Cadbury’s Flake ads are coming back on Friday. Directed by Jack “son of Ridley” Scott, they will focus “on the unique way of eating a Cadbury Flake: peeling back the wrapper and enjoying the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate in the world.” Ooh, top euphemism.

Events

British TV

US TV

News

Friday’s glorious news

2 February 2007 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

Hot Fuzz


Doctor Who

Commercials

  • Orange has decided to continue with its Film Board cinema ads. First up: Michael Madsen.

Film

British TV

  • Apparently, we needed another The Bill. Details of the long-promised HolbyBlue are emerging. It’s got Zoe Lucker and Tim Piggott-Smith, for one thing. Oh Tim. You were so good in The Chief. Why ruin the memory?

US TV

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Phobos

1 February 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Immortal BelovedSo we’ve had something Dalek, something silly, something thought-provoking and now, something traditional. Blah, blah, blah, blah, Doctor and companion arrive, Doctor and companion find people being killed off one by one, Doctor and companion get put in peril and discover monster is behind it all.

Ring any bells with anyone?

Yes, it’s standard Doctor Who plot #3. It worked for countless episodes of the old series (Image of the Fendahl, Curse of Peladon, The Dominators and just about anything else you care to name) and it’s readily deployable to the halfway house between old and new Who that is the Big Finish universe.

The question is, did you feel the fear?

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – Phobos”

UK TV

Life on Mars for the lazy

1 February 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Life on Mars press pack



Want to know all about series two of Life on Mars? Want to write an entire article about it without having to watch an episode or buy a DVD? Thank goodness for the Life on Mars series two press pack, now available from the BBC web site.

Shall we start a book on how many strangely familiar ‘exclusives’ will be appearing in various outlets soon?

US TV

Fifth-episode verdict: The Knights of Prosperity

1 February 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Carusometer for The Knights of Prosperity3, a Minor Caruso

Okay. Enough’s enough. I don’t care if I find out whether these guys manage to rob Mick Jagger or not. Without Mick Jagger, the show’s dull. It’s predictable. There’s clearly something there, but it’s really struggling to make itself known among the general cobblers. It comes to something when the title sequence is the funniest gag in an entire comedy.

It’s not awful. It’s not painful (check out Salon’s “bad sitcom pain-rating scale”, which rivals The Carusometer for usefulness). But it’s definitely something you really don’t care enough about to watch more than the occasional episode of at most. It’s visual popcorn that makes you titter. It’s cheese string for the mind.

Oh well.

The Medium is Not Enough has declared The Knights of Prosperity to be a three or “Minor Caruso” on The Carusometer quality scale. A Minor Caruso corresponds to “a show in which David Caruso might guest star. He will demand more on-screen time than the actual star and that he defuse at least one bomb using his expert marksmanship, even if it’s a romantic comedy”.