Year: 2010

Friday’s grumpy rock star news

5 March 2010 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Doctor Who

Film

British TV

  • MTV acquires The Secret Life of the American Teenager and Sweet Valley High [subscription required]
  • Being Human creatives want to launch production company, have new idea for a show [subscription required]
  • BBC4 to go back to its high-brow roots [subscription required]

US TV

  • Casting, including Jeri Ryan on Body of Evidence, Robert Patrick on Edgar Floats and Nate Corddry on Our Show
  • Scott Caan to play Danno on Hawaii Five-O
  • Smallville gets a 10th season
  • NBC’s Angela Bromstad discusses the chances of Chuck and Heroes returning
  • 24 on the bubble still
US TV

Review: Parenthood 1×1

4 March 2010 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

NBC's Parenthood

In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, NBC

The average number of children per family in the United Kingdom is 2. In the United States it’s 3.1.

I mention this purely because of the above picture. Seriously, that’s one pair of grandparents, their children and most of their grandchildren and partners – at least in the US show Parenthood. Really, some kind of Chinese-style child-reduction policy is needed here because, at the very least, keeping track of all these characters is way too difficult. Look, NBC have even had to create this family tree for us to deal with all the characters in Parenthood, and they’re not all on it. There are more than this:

Parenthood Family Tree

Parenthood, as you may recall, was an 80s comedy about the ‘Buckman’ family that looked at the trials and tribulations of being a parent. Apparently, being a parent isn’t easy – who knew? Oh wait – everyone. That’s the correct answer. Everyone knows.

This TV series, exec produced by the movie’s original producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, is an at-best loose adaptation of that movie, with the Buckmans having become the Bravermans, and comedy having become misery.

I’m not going to lie to you – it’s not fun and it’s not great, but RGBE denizen Monica Potter in it, so it might worth a look-in.

Here’s a trailer, but you’ll notice that Maura Tierney is in it. She’s been replaced by Lauren Graham off Gilmore Girls, as you can see from the behind-the-scenes featurette beneath it, and the teenage girl’s been recast/hair-dyed as well. But you get the idea.

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US TV

Street Hawk’s out on DVD at last

4 March 2010 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Street Hawk

Remember Street Hawk? Of course you do. Well the joyous news is that this motorcycle equivalent of Knight Rider and Airwolf is coming to proper DVD on March 22nd. I already have it on dodgy DVD, but I’ll probably get it as well, even if the episodes don’t exactly hold up in the way that Airwolf‘s first season’s have over the years.

Just to get you in the mood, here’s the title sequence, complete with marvellous theme tune by Tangerine Dream, and a clip of the infamous ‘hyperthrust’. The adrenaline jolt I just got from both was epic, so be careful.

If you can bear the excitement, after the jump, there’s a longer clip from the pilot episode as well as two of a very cheesy, early 80s George Clooney.

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Classic TV

Weird old title sequences: Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982)

4 March 2010 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Tales of the Gold Monkey

Donald P Bellisario has had quite an influence on television over the years. Cutting his teeth on shows like the original Battlestar Galactica, he went on to create Magnum PI, Airwolf, Quantum Leap, JAG and NCIS.

But today, we’re going to be looking at another of his shows, Tales of the Gold Monkey, a slightly fondly remembered programme from the early 1980s that was a homage to stupid adventure films of the 1930s.

Guess what – it had a slightly prosaic but very weird old title sequence.

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