Year: 2010

US TV

Review: Miami Medical 1×1 (US: CBS)

8 April 2010 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Jeremy Northam in Miami Medical

In the US: Fridays, 10/9c, CBS

LES MOONVES: Damn it! I need a producer in here, stat!

Enter JERRY BRUCKHEIMER

BRUCKHEIMER: What is it, sir?

LES MOONVES: Thank God you’re here, Bruckheimer. CBS has no medical shows

There’s a stunned pause

BRUCKHEIMER: No medical shows?

LES MOONVES: That’s right. No medical shows. We just don’t have any. I need you to make me one – now!

BRUCKHEIMER: But, sir, you can’t rush something as important as this!

LES MOONVES: Don’t give me that, Bruckheimer. It’s an emergency! Right now, you’re making CSI, CSI: Miami, and CSI: New York for me, and The Forgotten for ABC. No way you didn’t rush half of those out. So give me your pitch – now!

BRUCKHEIMER gives himself a shakedown and begins to pitch

BRUCKHEIMER: So it’s like ER, in a trauma hospital.

LES MOONVES (warning): Expensive. Contract renegotiation is always a bitch on ensemble shows.

BRUCKHEIMER: Small cast! It’ll be shot in… Miami, so we can have lots of shots of women in bikinis. It’ll be stupid, like CSI: Miami, but life-affirming like The Forgotten.

LES MOONVES: Dialogue?

BRUCKHEIMER: Painful.

LES MOONVES: Plots?

BRUCKHEIMER: Tortured and over-elaborate.

LES MOONVES: Characters?

BRUCKHEIMER: Thin and poorly sketched. Noble, but comedic black orderly. Fiery ambitious Latina. Brilliant but cocky young doctor. Young doctor with a heart. That kind of thing. But there’ll be plenty of blood, explosions, that kind of thing to keep the prurient interested.

LES MOONVES: We need something else.

BRUCKHEIMER: What?

LES MOONVES: A Brit. Like with House.

BRUCKHEIMER: How about that guy who played Sir Thomas More on The Tudors?

LES MOONVES: Jeremy Northam? Excellent!

BRUCKHEIMER: But, sir, I don’t think it’s going to work. Look what happened to Three Rivers. It’ll be just the same as Trauma on NBC but less exciting and less well written and that’s ratings poison!

LES MOONVES: I don’t care! Give me 13!

Continue reading “Review: Miami Medical 1×1 (US: CBS)”

Who knew Wales did so much?

8 April 2010 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

It’s the Wales Screen Commission promo reel – apparently they helped with Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood; Clash of the Titans, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I; Ironclad; Merlin and, of course, Doctor Who. Lots of clips and behind the scenes stuff. And Welsh people.

[via Toby]

Thursday’s “Tom Clancy reunion” news

8 April 2010 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Doctor Who

  • UK Torchwood scripts written, no US Torchwood without Captain Jack, says John Barrowman

Film

Books

British TV

US TV

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – The Lost Stories – 04 – The Hollows of Time

7 April 2010 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

The Hollows of TimeSeason 18 of Doctor Who is one of my favourites. It’s the first season run by producer John Nathan Turner (aka JNT) and he brought with him script editor Christopher H Bidmead. Bidmead comes up with this crazy idea – let’s treat Doctor Who like proper sci-fi, that adults can enjoy and that’s full of proper science.

Look through season 18 and you’ll find the likes of The Keeper of Traken, Warrior’s Gate and Logopolis – excellent stories that put science and sci-fi ideas front and centre.

Tragically, season 18 was also very dull and very hard to understand. Even to this day, grown men and women stand around trying to work out what the hell Warrior’s Gate was all about.

Bidmead didn’t hang around forever, but he did return briefly to write the Peter Davison story Frontios, which was another of those science type stories. He also came back to write a story for Colin Baker, The Hollows of Time, but that was never made.

Now Big Finish has got Bidmead to brush the script off, spruce it up, give it a humungous edit because it was 30% too long, convert it to audio since it was always intended as a very visual play and hand it over to them for their ‘Lost Stories’ season.

And you know what? Like most of season 18, it’s absolutely incomprehensible and not very enjoyable, but I still really liked it.

One slight hitch: there were two returning enemies of the Doctor in the original script, but Big Finish couldn’t get the rights to one of them, so he’s been replaced by AN Other enemy of vague origins and identity. Who is it? Well, the clues are there if you can do anagrams…

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – The Lost Stories – 04 – The Hollows of Time”

Random Acts

Random Acts of Ali Larter: Doing backflips and giving out cupcakes

7 April 2010 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Ali Larter at Wondercon with Milla Jovovich

Ali Larter at WonderconAli Larter at Wondercon

Our Ali’s been at Wondercon this weekend, promoting – she even gave out cupcakes – her shiny 3D movie Resident Evil: Afterlife – done in proper James Cameron Avatar 3D rather than pikey “five minutes in a ZX Spectrum” 3D à la Clash of the Titans, mind.

Look, there’s a trailer for it now, albeit in 2D since the 3D one looks bizarre if you’re not wearing 3D glasses:

Athletic Ali, no? She also answered questions – if you squint:

Or not:

And might have commented on the chances of a season five of Heroes, too:

Larter told the crowd of fans, “I think we’re coming back for Heroes for another season.” However, she was quick to add, “I think, but I’m not sure. So you guys have to go and blog and get on there.”

Larter went on to say, “It’s been such a thrill being on that show and I hope that we have the chance to sort of wrap up those storylines for all the fans of it.”

Have you seen Ali Larter acting randomly? If so, let us know and we’ll tell everyone about it in “Random Acts of Ali Larter“