Doctor Who
Film
British TV
US TV
In the UK: Sundays, 9pm, BBC1
As we all know, detectives need a gimmick. There’s Columbo, the working class detective; Inspector Morse, the crossword-puzzle-solving detective; Resnick, the sandwich-eating detective; Life, with the ex-con, Buddhist detective. And so on.
Wallander stars Kenneth Branagh as the eponymous Swedish detective.
Hold those words in your mind for a few seconds: Swedish detective. Think about it. Envision the stereotype.
Hey presto, you’re right. It’s Wallander the depressed detective who has so many life problems, it’s a wonder he hasn’t simply killed himself because it’s Tuesday.
Trailers from BBC1 for its Christmas season have arrived on YouTube. Here’s the drama one, with lots and lots of clips from Doctor Who and the Jonathan Creek Christmas special, among other things.
And here’s the comedy one, featuring, among other things, clips from Gavin & Stacey, The Royle Family and that Blackadder documentary.
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As mentioned in my asides, I didn’t have much time for blogging last week. Sorry about that. But here’s a round-up of a few of my TV thoughts:
Survivors
Pretty rubbish. Couldn’t even be bothered to watch episode two. Interestingly, probably the only instance of a TV show adapted from the novelisation of an older TV show, and there was the name-switch of a couple of characters to fake out the seven people who could remember the original series/novel and who lived/died.
But still very tedious, with no really interesting characters and no real sense of disaster or tragedy. “Oh my God, I’ve had to burn the body of my dead husband. Right, anyone for chips?”
To a certain extent, the problem is with the format, since although it’s got a great starting point – almost everyone in the world dies so how will the survivors manage to eke out an existence? – invariably it descends into decisions about crop rotation, government structures and population stabilisation systems that somehow manage to avoid discussing or depicting sex since it’s mainstream BBC.
But the original series still managed to make the characters interesting so clearly not everything can be blamed on Terry Nation.
Knight Rider
We’ve stopped watching it. It really is very, very bad.
Odd BBC2 links
We were watching Top Gear yesterday when up pops a trailer for Louis Theroux’s programme following the police in Philadelphia. Two things:
24: Redemption
God. Hasn’t television moved on since the last series of 24. That felt ridiculously antediluvian. Can 24 only thrive when there’s a Republican presidency – discuss?
Heroes
Getting bored now, mainly because Ali Larter isn’t in it enough, but also because of all the ridiculous personality switches, the fact there are so few characters who act like grown-ups, general inconsistencies, lack of logic, etc. Sigh. Roll on volume four (hopefully) although some of the spoilers I’ve heard don’t fill me with much enthusiasm. How would you fix the show?
Dexter
Told you you have to wait for a while to see if it gets good. Always around the seven or eighth episode.
The Unit
Why aren’t more people watching it? It’s brilliant.
The IT Crowd
Thank God it’s back. Officially the only comedy show in which Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade have ever appeared in that’s funny. Katherine Parkinson’s great – and a redhead again. Yey! And that magician was great. If only bluffball.co.uk were a real site…
Thanksgiving
Is all good television banned on Thanksgiving in the US?
Today’s Joanna Page comes from the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special, with Stacey out lingerie shopping with Smithy. Nuff said.
Not the best picture of our Joanna ever, but it’s interesting to note that Stacey has what looks like a name badge. Is that a job then?
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