The girl on the walls in Virgin Active gyms:
Joanna Page having a bad day? It’s not, but…
TMINE
Year: 2010
US TV
Supernatural – season five in the UK: a trailer, an online game and the devil speaking to you
Living TV now has first-run rights to Supernatural and to promote season five, it’s got a trailer and an online/real-world game in which you can win prizes (UK players only I’m afraid), as well as a video from Satan himself.
Unfortunately, since Living’s PRs haven’t got a proper handle on this new-fangled Interweb thing, they only videos they have are 640 pixels wide and can’t be resized so won’t fit in this lovely window. So you’ll have to click here for the season trailer and here for a very special message to UK viewers from Satan.
UPDATE: They’ve provided some proper-sized vids now:
Classic TV
Weird old title sequences: The Avengers
Today’s weird old title sequences are for The Avengers. You remember The Avengers don’t you? Steed, this dapper bloke in a bowler hat, and his lovely sidekick Mrs Peel fight weird sci-fi crimes together?
Kind of.
You see The Avengers changed a lot over its six series. Originally envisioned as a vehicle for rising star Ian Hendry from Police Surgeon, it began with Dr David Keel (Ian Hendry) investigating the murder of Peggy, his office receptionist and wife-to-be, by a drug ring. A mysterious trenchcoat-wearing stranger named John Steed (Patrick Macnee), who was investigating the ring, appeared on the scene and together they set out to avenge her death in the show’s first two episodes – hence the show’s title ‘The Avengers’. Afterwards, Steed asked Keel to continue partnering him when needed to solve crimes.
In this first series, Steed was the secondary character – he doesn’t even appear in some episodes. He also isn’t the dapper man about town we all grew to know and love, either. He was a hard-edged, ruthless character, willing to do what it took to get the job done, with Hendry’s Keel providing the moral centre for their work. In keeping with this blunt, down-at-heel approach, the show got some equally down-at-heel titles, with Hendry and Macnee lurking around on street corners in their trenchcoats, and – oh f*ck no – a jazz theme tune.
But slowly, the show began to change – and get a whole load more weird title sequences.
What have you been watching this week? (w/e January 15)
I’ve had a little bit of time to watch tele this week, and most of it’s been catch-up, but there’s been a few things:
- Cougar Town: Last week’s episode, not this week’s. Still, it was – surprisingly, given it’s a show about women – I think the first episode so far that’s been written by a woman, and easily the best. It rang a lot more true than previous episodes in some of the details. Lisa Kudrow was excellent as the evil dermatologist. More Lisa, please
- Leverage: An okay episode. Jeri Ryan‘s a good (temporary) replacement for Gina Bellman, but the show’s starting to slack off a little. They were never a really plausible bunch of con artists, but the show seems more to be about everyone having a laugh while they’re making it than about being convincing now. That would certainly explain the ‘accents’, the outfits, etc. Oh, and if you’re going to create a fake fashion magazine, try not to get a graphic designer off a failed US trade magazine to design it, because there’s a substantial difference between one of those and a consumer glossy – not the least of which is that the latter look good, the former look like sh*te. Having said that, Heroes managed to mock up a newspaper clipping on Monday and left it full of lorem ipsum Jabberwocky text, rather than copy so hey ho…
- Modern Family: Again, last week’s not this week’s. Funny. Nice to see Benjamin Bratt back in action after The Cleaner got slaughtered, and good to see Ed O’Neill’s character being out-machoed.
- Piers Morgan On… Las Vegas: Not a brilliant piece of work, it has to be said, and Morgan’s fake laughter to woo interviewees was insanely bad (do people really believe it?). But it was an actual piece of journalism all the same, which is something to be revered in this age of Fearne Cotton Talks To… A Plank of Wood, and an interesting look at an interesting topic.
- The Daily Show is back. It’s okay at the moment, looks a little light on correspondents, and John Oliver is actually being more entertaining than Jon Stewart.
- Wallander: Much better than last week’s depression fest, this one actually made sense and some of the supporting characters got a look in as well. There were a few cringe moments in it, but very good, although it felt like there should have been more continuity with his father’s storyline
What have you been watching though?
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).
Damages catch-up and season three trailer
I wasn’t a big fan of FX’s Damages, in which Glenn Close plays an evil manipulative lawyer, as you can probably tell from my first and fifth episode verdicts. However, in case you are, here’s a trailer for season three. And in case you are but want to start watching, but can’t be arsed to watch the first two seasons, I’ve also added a two-minute catch-up video after the jump that should tell you all you need to know.
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