US TV

Preview: Raising the Bar

In the US: TNT, some time in the Fall. No airdate set

Lawyers, hey? Always such curmudgeonly old types, their actually having to know things n’all. So unphotogenic. Ugh.

Wouldn’t it be just the coolest thing, though, if we could have a TV show about young lawyers who were all really pretty? No, not like Shark. Absolutely no old folks around – you know 35 or even 40 – to mess things up. We want pretty, pretty, pretty.

But wouldn’t they all be a bit rubbish?

Maybe. But we could make that a virtue. How about they’re all a bit rough and ready and make mistakes? They’d screw up – and each other – because they wouldn’t know better.

They’d need practice and training before they could handle tricky things well. We could call it something like Law Squad? No? How about Training Briefs?

I know. Raising the Bar. That’ll do.

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Sitting Tennant

Today’s Sitting Tennant: The Bill

Today’s Sitting Tennant is from an episode of The Bill (Deadline) that David Tennant appeared in roughly 13 years ago. You can see a clip of it on YouTube as well. In case you can’t tell, he’s in an interrogation room, not a hair salon.

Amusing captions, please.

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below and if it’s judged suitable, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery in due course.

News

Wednesday’s American Stig news

Adam Carolla on Top Gear

(pic by Jalopnik)

Film

  • Spielberg acquires screen rights to The 39 Clues
  • PIerce Brosnan and Nicolas Cage to star in Roman Polanski’s The Ghost

British TV

  • BBC calls off sale of BBC Resources’ post-production arm [free registration required]
  • Fremantle launches three web shows [free registration required]
  • ITV3 and ITV4 to be used to test programmes for ITV1
  • Performance Channel to close after 23 years

US TV

Why is Five bringing back Superstars?

Anyone know why Five is bringing back classic 70s sports show Superstars?

Not only has BBC1 tried it and failed – perhaps because they had Johnny Vaughn as the main host and he’s best at armchair comedy – they’re bringing it back and messing around with the format. This time it’s going to be teams (three men and one woman in each).

Anyone going to watch it? Anyone got any ideas about why they’re bringing it back?

US TV

Preview: Leverage

In the US: TNT. Coming in the Fall (no airdate or slot yet)

There are very few films that have essentially relaunched entire genres. Ocean’s 11 is one of those few. It managed to cause an outbreak of ‘cool criminal’ films and TV series, the effect of which is still being felt. Some of these have been successful (Hustle), some unsuccessful (the remake of The Italian Job, Smith).

Leverage is the latest TV series to take the idea of the caper movie and run with it. Starring Oscar winner Timothy Hutton, Angel‘s Christian Kane (without an evil hand) and our very own Gina Bellman (Coupling), it’s actually very good.

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