I’m slowly catching up with tele following my holiday, so haven’t really seen anything that I haven’t yet reviewed or talked about it. Dark Blue‘s had a couple of good episodes, in particular one with Michael Biehn from The Terminator as a dirty cop – and yes, our heroes actually got to do some downright bad things this time. But how about you?
As always, no spoilers unless you’re going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please
In the US: Thursdays, 8/7c, The CW
In the UK: Acquired by ITV2
I am not a tweenie. I am not a teenager. I am definitely not a teenage girl.
So The Vampire Diaries is not aimed at me. It is not my show. So when I describe it as “very bad”, you might be tempted to think the problem is with me. That I don’t get it.
You might be right, but I do love my Gossip Girl and Privileged and a whole host of other programmes that aren’t aimed at me either. I can spot quality, I think, even in this area.
And I can spot a lack of it, too. Because, you see, The Vampire Diaries is very bad. Not supremely awful, but enough to make you almost want to take your own life rather than watch it.
TNT’s Leverage is of course basically an attempt to do a slightly less cool, funnier version of Ocean’s 11 for the small screen. So it was heartening to see last week’s episode, The Ice Man Job, homage Ocean’s 11 in an oblique sort of way – by taking the piss out of Don Cheadle’s accent.
At first, I thought it was just one of those typically bad British accents that US TV occasionally puts out – not as much as it used to, mind – confident in the knowledge that few people will care or even notice (cf Burn Notice). But as various characters started to take the piss, it became obvious that in fact, it was deliberately bad. Anyway, see/hear for yourselves: it’s a laugh.
Oh, and I’ve followed that with a clip of the character, Hardison, speaking in his normal Texan accent, just for comparison. And because it contains Rob’s GBE list member, Beth Riesgraf, at her best.
Film
Theatre
British TV
Canadian TV
German TV
US TV
In the UK: Tuesdays, 9pm, ITV1 (except Scotland)
Good drama – good anything – is hard to find on ITV1 these days (even harder in Scotland, where STV is failing to carry almost any of ITV1’s programmes). Yet there are a few standouts, usually in the crime genre. The Fixer is one such standout. It features Andrew Buchan as a former SAS soldier, recruited by a shadowy branch of the police to do its very, very dirty work, usually involving murder but also resorting to other unpleasantries that are in no way legal. With a chav idiot sidekick and a hard as nails, unmovable boss, The Fixer is basically Callan for the 21st century.
Series one of The Fixer was properly classed as very good, rather than excellent. It came perilously close to excellent at times, but despite being an action show, it had very little action, it exhibited quite phenomenal amounts of misogyny at times, it veered towards the cliché and the occasionally silly, and Tamzin Outhwaite was pretty much there as a name to draw in an audience, rather than because she had anything to do.
Series two, which opened with a two-part story, seems to have spotted these problems and done its level best to fix them, because despite a slightly flat and occasionally bizarre opening episode, the second episode managed to pile on the suspense and action in bucketloads.
At last!
Here’s a promo – and yes, that is Mr Darcy from Lost in Austen as an evil member of the security services – followed by the first 10 minutes of the first episode of series one, just so you have an idea of what’s going on if you missed it: you can watch the rest on YouTube or DVD if you want.
© 2022 The Medium is Not Enough
