Month: March 2009

Thursday’s Glee-full news

12 March 2009 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Doctor Who

Commercials

Film

Theatre

  • Roger Allam and Philip Quast to star in La Cage Aux Folles

British TV

US TV

US TV

Review: Breaking Bad 2×1

11 March 2009 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

In the US: Sundays, 10pm/9c, AMC
In the UK: Probably FX again

Breaking Bad is one of those TV shows that no matter how hard you try to describe it properly, no amount of description really gives it justice.

Essentially, the plot is this: a brilliant high school chemistry teacher (Walter White, played by Bryan Cranston, the dad in Malcolm in the Middle, here almost unrecognisable) discovers he has cancer and that even if he survives the disease, the medical bills will mortgage his family’s future. So, despite the fact his brother is a DEA agent, he decides to get into the lucrative crystal meth business, making the purest, best crystal meth on the market using his advanced geek skills to safeguard his family’s future.

See? Doesn’t sound promising, does it..

Yet the show, now starting its second season, is one of those quality shows that’s allowing AMC to make a mark in drama after years of re-runs and cowboy movies. It looks at issues like the state of healthcare in the US, High Schools and indeed the drugs trade, giving the probably quite comfortable viewer a glimpse of the scary side of the drugs business, without the insulation from reality, make-believe and training the characters get in other shows – what would you do if you were trying to sell drugs, how long would it be before you got killed or had to kill, and what effect would it have on you, your loved ones and your relationships?

Now season two’s here after the first season was curtailed by the writers’ strike, and things are even darker than before, if that’s even possible.

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UK TV

Review: Doctor Who: Key 2 Time – Destroyer of Delights

11 March 2009 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

The Destroyer of Delight

On, then, to adventure two in the three-part (or is it four-part if we include that Companion Chronicle?) Key 2 Time series, an only slightly painful affair in which the Fifth Doctor has to travel around the universe looking for the segments of the Key to Time. Again.

Part two carries on directly from part one with the arrival of the Black Guardian, played by David "son of Patrick" Troughton. But all is not as it seems and pretty soon we’re (literally) in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves territory for a historical with more than a few sci-fi overtones – and that nasty vampire from Being Human.

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Today's Joanna Page

Preview: Safety Catch (series two)

11 March 2009 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

As Radio 4 comedies go, Safety Catch is an odd little show. Starring Darren Boyd (Green Wing, Smack the Pony), Joanna Page (Gavin and Stacey), Brigit Forsyth (The Likely Lads), Lewis McLeod (Look Around You) and Sarah Smart (Wallander), it’s aimed at the same kind of liberal, middle class audience as more obvious fare like Claire in the Community.

But it’s about a man who makes a living from mass murder, gun running and selling weapons to child soldiers ("putting the infant in infantry").

No wonder then that yet again it’s been marooned in the 11.30pm slot when it returns for its second series on 1st April.

But, hey, I went to see two episodes being recorded last Sunday. Here’s what that was like.

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