It’s Joanna Page’s birthday today. Everyone say happy birthday and tell her to stop doing this:
That would be appearing in things like Bedlam and White Van Man, BTW.
Today's Joanna Page
Month: March 2011
US TV
Third-episode verdict: Breakout Kings
In the US: Sundays, 10/9c, A&E
One of the things about holidays, work, et al, is sometimes it takes me a while to catch up with everything, particularly new shows that don’t look especially brilliant from the outset. That’s why I’m three episodes behind on Breakout Kings, which looked anything but appealing – except for one thing…
For starters, Breakout Kings has had something of a chequered history. Originally in development at Fox, the show got a pilot episode in January 2010. However, Fox didn’t pick up the series but tried to sell it to other networks instead. A&E picked up the show in June 2010 and after a wee bit of recasting, here it is.
Now, not to suggest that the writers are stuck for ideas, but we have here the story of a bunch of criminals who help US marshals track down escaped prisoners. Want to guess which Fox show the writers used to work on?
That’s right: Prison Break. They even brought T-Bag (Robert Knepper) along for an episode.
Cue the trailer.
US TV
Compare and contrast: The Killing and Forbrydelsen
Over here in the UK, the Engrenages (Spiral) and The Wire-deprived portions of the population searching for decent crime TV (or indeed decent TV) have been eagerly watching Danish thriller The Killing (aka Forbrydelsen) on Saturdays on BBC4. Not that we’re behind the times, but it was actually made in 2007. Ho hum.
Anyway, airing in two-parts on Danish TV (two blocks of 10 episodes), Forbrydelsen details the police’s investigation of the murder of a school girl, with each episode showing a day’s worth of investigation. And although I’m only up to episode five, I’d have to say it’s damn fine TV and you should all watch it if you can. If you can’t, it’ll be out on DVD from April 4th.
Since that first series, it’s gone on to have a sequel series and a third series is in production right now, but hey, guess what, AMC in the US (home of Mad Men, Breaking Bad et al) is remaking it and is going to air its version from April 3rd. So you can compare and contrast, here’s an English language trailer for the Danish version and a trailer for the US version. If you’ve seen the first few episodes of the Danish version, you’ll be able to see they’re making it very, very similar to the original, don’t you think, right down to the music?
Canadian TV
Review: Endgame 1×1-1×2
In Canada: Mondays, 10pm ET/PT, Showcase
“If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived.” – Sherlock Holmes describing Mycroft Holmes in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter
It seems that no matter where you go in North America, more and more cable channels (and even Netflix) are reckoning that the key to getting good ratings and making money is to actually make TV programmes rather than simply air re-runs. HBO, Showtime, AMC, Starz: they’re all at it.
Canada’s no different and with CBC currently suffering budget cuts everywhere (and churning out crud like InSecurity instead of The Border ), we have to look to lovely subscription TV to find bolder attempts at quality TV.
Showcase, which has been having a brave stab at quality (with varying degrees of success) with the likes Lost Girl, Blackstone, Moderation Town, Cra$h & Burn and Haven, has now waded into the problematic world of detectives. I say problematic because there have been so many detective shows already. As a result, detectives in TV shows need to have quirks to stand out from all the others – that’s the law. Everyone knows that.
So we’ve had fat detectives, thin detectives, gourmet sandwich-eating detectives, 80s-TV obsessed detectives, detectives with OCD, working class detectives, upper class detectives, detectives that live on house boats with their robots (Riptide, in case you couldn’t place it), detective brothers and more. But generally they’ve all had one thing in common: they actually want to solve crimes. Okay, maybe not Jonathan Creek, but everyone else, largely yes.
So let’s add to this mix a very unique detective: Arkady Balagan, a Russian chess grandmaster with agoraphobia. He can’t leave his hotel so wanders around in his pyjamas and dressing gown all day. He’s also a bit of an a-hole – is that why the KGB have been trying to kill him? But because he needs to pay his hotel bills, he starts solving crimes to claim the reward money rather than because of any sense of altruism.
And he turns out to be quite good at it.
Cue the trailers, one with a particularly funky bit of music, one with a bit more explanation.
Question of the week: what do women want from a TV channel?
Obviously, this question is as easy to answer as the question “what do men want from a TV channel?” but let’s give it a go, since Sony is launching a TV channel in the UK called Sony Entertainment Television on April 7th (Sky Channel 157). According to their PR, “The channel is aimed at females offering a wide range of programmes and movies from engaging comedies to heartfelt dramas.”
This apparently means Hawthorne, The Da Vinci Code, Las Vegas, Til Death and Hotel Babylon among other things. Oh dear.
My initial thought when I heard this was “Why does Sony hate women?” or ‘females’ as they put it. But who knows? After all, Sky Living and Oxygen have both managed to attract loyal, predominantly female audiences through a combination of tear-jerking movies, reality TV, make-over shows, low-quality action shows that happen to have female leads and stuff about psychics. So let’s ask a question:
What do women want from a TV channel? Is it as complicated as “Good TV” or is Sony onto something here? Or perhaps the question should be “Women, what do you want from a TV channel?”
Answer whichever question you feel like answering.
As always, leave a comment with your answer or a link to your answer on your own blog