Year: 2012

What did you watch last week? Including The Bridge, The Almighty Johnsons and Don’t Trust The B—-

8 May 2012 Rob Buckley 16 Comments

It’s “What did you watch last week?”, my chance to tell you what I watched last week that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual recommendations from the first-run shows are: The Almighty Johnsons, The Apprentice, Awake, BeTipul, The Bridge, Community, Cougar Town, The Daily Show, House, Mad Men, Modern Family, and 30 Rock. Hunt them down.

Only two episodes in the backlog this week: House and Touch. And I’m saving up the second series of Braquo for when the mother-in-law comes round.

Here’s a few thoughts on the regulars:

  • Mad Men – funny, interesting to see where they’re taking Megan as a character, but also Pete and Peggy. And who knew what a new man Don Draper was? And The Beatles – awesome.
  • Missing – an entirely predictable set of revelations, but Judd seems to have become crap at fighting all of a sudden
  • Cougar Town – glad they’re expanding the cast with the new character, who fits in well
  • Louis Theroux’s Extreme love: Autism – I have to ask – why did LT have to go to America to find some autistic children? We do have them here, you know. Was there an ethics problem or is there, as my wife suggests, an embarrassing lack of residential care facilities for autistic children in the UK?
  • The Almighty Johnsons – a lovely episode. Good to see the goddesses now coming front and centre, but it has to be said the male gaze is still there: it was a golden opportunity for the goddesses to explain becoming a goddess to Gaia but that was glossed over because essentially it’s all about the gods’ reactions to the goddesses, rather than the goddesses as people in their own rights. But I knew it was only a matter of time before other pantheons came into the show, and I’m pleased by the looks of the trailer for the next episode as to which one it might be.
  • Suburgatory – how quickly do women gestate in Suburgatory? Alicia Silverstone wasn’t showing at all last episode IIRC…
  • Awake – A bit dull, and a distinct lack of therapists
  • Community – Shocks all round from the finale! A weird episode, but still not very funny
  • 30 Rock – A spot on analysis of scripted reality shows bit rubbish and unfunny all the same.
  • Don’t Trust The B—- – And the show finds its feet again, this time with the first of the non-James Van Der Beek celebrity appearances: Kevin Sorbo. Let’s hope they can maintain this, even if Dreama Walker’s character still isn’t funny, despite her best efforts this episode.
  • The Bridge – well, I was expecting it to be a cop, so the revelation at the end of the last episode wasn’t too surprising. Then again, the previous episode revealed it might be Stefan, so maybe that’s not too conclusive a statement. Still very much enjoying it though.

“What did you watch this week?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?

The CarusometerA Carusometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Veep (HBO)

8 May 2012 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

In the US: Sundays, 10pm, HBO
In the UK: Will air on Sky Atlantic in June

Veep is a show I really, really, really, really, really, really, really want to love. It’s basically the US version of The Thick Of It – okay, technically there was a US version of The Thick of It already, but it was rubbish – with a powerless politician at the mercy of more powerful forces, as well as her own well-meaning, incompetent staff. It’s also by Armando Iannucci and most of The Thick Of It‘s writers, and Chris Morris is one of the producers, so it should be great.

But until this week, it’s been floundering. The cast are all very good, particularly Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the vice-president and Anna Chlumsky as her chief of staff. It’s all full of types you absolutely can recognise. But with a large cast of characters to service and with no obvious stand-out character in the vein of Malcolm Tucker, it’s largely been flailing around trying to find its feet. Certainly, my wife gave up after five minutes of watching it because it wasn’t very interesting or funny and I’d probably have joined her if I wasn’t writing this ‘ere blog.

But this week, the show seemed at last to work out what to do with itself. We had some proper political shenanigans, some characterisation for vice-president Selina that didn’t involve her simply being crushed by the heel of the political machine, and some laughs as well. Even the secondary characters got a chance to delineate themselves properly at last. It felt a bit like The West Wing in a lot of ways, but without the rose-tinted glasses and more swearing.

So I’m cautiously recommending it now as a show that looks set to get better in the next few weeks at least. Fingers crossed.

Carusometer rating: 3
Rob’s prediction: Already renewed for a second season, so I’m going to go with "will last at least two seasons"

Sitting Tennant

Tuesday’s Sitting Tennant (week 19, 2012)

8 May 2012 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Sister Chastity's Sitting Tennant

I wonder what David’s sat on to make him look like that. Perhaps Sister Chastity knows, seeing as she sent the picture in.

  1. Shilohforever, Sister Chastity: 15
  2. Hebbie, Toby: 5

Sitting Board of Winners 2012
January
Hebbie, Sister Chastity

February
Sister Chastity

March
Sister Chastity

April
Sister Chastity, Shillohforever

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it’s judged suitable and doesn’t obviously infringe copyright, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery. Don’t forget to include your name in the filename so I don’t get mixed up about who sent it to me.

The best pic in the stash each week will appear on Tuesday and get ten points; the runners up will appear on Friday (one per person who sends one in) and get five points.

Each month, I’ll name the best picture provider and then at the end of the year, the overall champion will be announced for 2012!

US TV

Question of the week: is TV more forgiving of bad acting than movies are?

8 May 2012 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Stana Katic and Nathan Fillion on Castle.jpg

Willa Parkin over on Slate recently made an interesting suggestion:

In a movie, an actor has approximately two hours to convince the audience of his or her skill. They only get one shot at us, and if they’re unnatural or uncomfortable, overly mannered or under-emotive, we won’t connect to or care about them. They will have failed to do their job, and we will see them for what they are: bad.

TV is a whole other story. Actors have multiple episodes to hone their performances, and even if each installment is far shorter than a movie, it’s also contained. It films, it finishes, the actors can see it and take notes. Over the long run of a series, many initially not-so-great actors have dramatically improved — think of Taylor Kitsch on “Friday Night Lights,” Tina Fey on “30 Rock,” or Courteney Cox on “Friends” — just as their writers learn to create material that plays to their strengths, giving them the story lines and jokes best suited to them.

But while the actors and the writers are getting better, the audience is also doing work. As a show goes on, we start to think of bad acting as a character trait, and stop seeing it as the performer’s lack of skill. “Mad Men’s” Betty Draper is emotionless and unreadable because Betty has been infantilized her whole life by a sexist society that has rewarded her for being pretty, not interesting — not because January Jones can only play one note. “Castle’s” Katic is stilted and stiff because her character, Kate Beckett, is uptight and traumatized — not because Katic can’t express feelings and wouldn’t have chemistry with a bottle of peroxide. “Friday Night Light’s” Julie Taylor is oddly unknowable because she’s young and immature (despite having three to four times as much screen time as “FNL” characters we know intimately), not because Aimee Teegarden isn’t up to the level of her costars. (Though the aforementioned examples are all actresses, men fall into this category too: Like David Boreanaz in “Bones” or Winston on “New Girl.”)

So this week’s question is a simple “Do you agree?” –

Is TV more forgiving of bad acting than movies are?

Answers below or on your own blog, please

US TV

First cast pictures for some of NBC’s new shows

8 May 2012 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

And we’re starting to emerge from the US pilot season at last. Finally, after comparing and contrasting all the pilots, network executives are ready to put some hard money down to commission the shows they think we, the viewing public, will want to watch.

Or in NBC’s case, what they think a very small number of people will watch and which they’ll promptly cancel, judging by the network’s behaviour over the past few years. Nevertheless, NBC is the first to announce some of its commissions and they’ve already released cast photos for them: Go On with Matthew Perry, Save Me with Anne Heche, 1600 Penn with Bill Pulman and Jenna Elfman, Revolution from Eric Kripke and JJ Abrams, The New Normal from Glee‘s Ryan Murphy, and Animal Practice starring Justin Kirk and Tyler Labine.

So follow me after the jump to get a gander at the new shows and their cast. Do any of them look interesting to you?

Continue reading “First cast pictures for some of NBC’s new shows”