What have you been watching this August?

5 August 2010 Rob Buckley TV reviews, UK TV, US TV 23 Comments

Dark Blue - Season 2

This is going to be the last entry on the blog for most of (if not all of) August, so it’s going to be an open-ended thread for y’all to chat about what you’ve been watching on TV this month – assuming you want to, of course. I’ve a few things in my queue that I’m going to be watching on planes, including Rubicon, ep 2 of Mad Men (which is already looking better than ep 1) and the first two eps of the new Tricia Helfer-enhanced Dark Blue (I’m unsure if this is a good thing or not, but I remain open-minded).

But this week, I’ve been watching:

  • Burn Notice: Reasonably fun, but in the scheme of things, a throwaway ep, bookended with a couple of interesting character scenes.
  • Covert Affairs: The first really good ep of the series, with Oded Fehr as a Mossad agent. It had a real Bourne Identity feel to it, and the activities back at Langley seemed to be more coherent. Fingers crossed the rest of the season will be like this.
  • The Gates: Vampire fun! A good ep, but when will Nick find out about the rest of the Gates’s secrets?
  • The IT Crowd: Nice cameo by that bloke off The Mighty Boosh and as funny as always.
  • Persons Unknown: Silly. But could it all be in their heads?
  • Rev: A nice way to end this series. Not many belly laughs since the first ep, but surprisingly deep with a knowing humour. Fingers crossed for a second series.
  • Royal Pains: Slightly interesting playing around with time and Fringe-esque graphics. Some decent character moments, but I’m missing Hank-Jill and the general edge the show had in season one, even if it’s nice to have Anastasia Griffith around.
  • Scoundrels: Moderately amusing at best, but it does seem to be settling down and working out a vibe for itself.
  • Top Gear: A so-so season over all. It’s definitely losing its appeal now it’s trying to be more serious.

As always, no spoilers unless you’re going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you’ve reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might get killed by the spam filter).

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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