Year: 2012

Sitting Tennant

Friday’s Sitting Tennant (week 17, 2012) and the winners of April’s competition

27 April 2012 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Hebbie's Sitting Tennant

shilohforever's Sitting Tennant

Sister Chastity's Sitting Tennant

Toby's Sitting Tennant

It’s the end of April, at least as far as Sitting Tennant is concerned and so it’s a big congratulations to both Sister Chastity and Shilohforever, who are this month’s winners. Well done and thank you to everyone who sent in photos this month and best of luck for next month – the competition will begin again on Tuesday. Until then, have a nice weekend and try not to drown in the rain.

  1. Sister Chastity, Shilohforever: 35
  2. Hebbie: 25
  3. Toby: 10

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!

The CarusometerA Carusometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Don’t Trust The B—- In Apt 23 (ABC)

27 April 2012 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

In the US: Wednesdays, 9.30c/8.30c, ABC

There’s surprising variability to Don’t Trust The B—- In Apt 23, an intriguing little show about a wide-eyes, mid-westerner who moves to the big city and ends up flat-sharing with a New York sociopath who’s best friends with James Van Der Beek from Dawson’s Creek. On the one hand, there’s a really rather lovely dark streak to the whole show, Krysten Ritter (the B—- in question) is deliciously evil while also endearing and James Van Der Beek has a great time sending himself up.

But stuck in the middle of this is the big glaring problem of Dreama Walker, the wide-eyes mid-westerner, whose character sucks almost all humour from every scene she’s in. When the show focuses on Ritter and Van Der Beek – or even guest stars, like Michael Landes – as it did in episode two and to a lesser extent episode one, it works well and is funny; when it devotes itself to Watson, as in episode three, it’s a big mass of mid-western tumbleweeds rolling across the screen.

Which is a shame, because there are some really funny moments in the show. Episode three had Van Der Beek doing a body-swap comedy movie with Don Draper’s daughter from Mad Men, which had the memorable line "I had to make out with mummy!", and pretty much everything Ritter had to say worked nicely.

If somehow, they could just get rid of Walker or sideline her, this would be a really good show. Unfortunately, at the moment, it’s just okay. If you watch it, you’ll have to sit through some cruft to get to the good stuff, but that good stuff is worth it. One for the ‘maybe’ pile.

Carusometer rating: 3
Rob’s prediction: Will last for a season then get cancelled

Friday’s “More Muppets, Fringe, Prisoners’ Wives, The Syndicate, Happily Divorced, True Justice; less Make It or Break It” news

27 April 2012 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film

Trailers

  • Trailer for Hick, with Chloe Moretz, Blake Lively, Juliette lewis and Alec Baldwin

UK TV

US TV

Weird old title sequences: ITC shows (1970s)

26 April 2012 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

And so we round off our look at the majestic rise and fall of ITC, a company that dominated TV for three decades. Last time, we looked at the shows of the 60s, a decade when ITC was at the height of its powers; this week, we’ll look at its slow descent.

Things started well at first with the marvellously cast – if not marvellously scripted – The Persuaders!, starring Roger Moore and Tony Curtis, which is a candidate for the show with the best theme tune and title sequence in TV history.

With high production values, actual location filming and an all-star cast, it looked like ITC was on to something good.

Unfortunately, The Persuaders! didn’t rate very well in the US, so didn’t get a second series. So instead, ITC concentrated on two half-hour formats to replace, that followed similar lines: The Protectors, with Robert Vaughn from The Man from UNCLE and Nyree Dawn Porter, and The Adventurer.

The Protectors had a fabulous theme tune and song by Tony Hatch, but its half-hour format really killed the scripts.

The Adventurer, however, was saddled with the somewhat ego-centric Gene Barry from Burke’s Law and The Name of the Game, a sub-Persuaders theme tune by John Barry and some truly dreadful scripts.

After that, it was left to ITC mainstay Gerry Anderson to maintain the ITC tradition. But having done so well with puppets in the 60s with shows like Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, after the interim show The Secret Service…

…he was ready to move on to full live-action with first UFO then Space: 1999, both of which I’ve already covered, neither of which lasted more than two seasons.

After that, Lew Grade was ready to move on to mini-series such as Jesus of Nazareth and movies like Raise The Titanic and The Medusa Touch. Which meant the death nell for ITC was sounded in 1980 with the very un-ITC, very low-key story of village life, Shillingbury Tales, starring the likes of Robin Nedwell and Diane Keen.

And that, unfortunately, was that for ITC after three decades at the top. But along the way, it did give us some very fabulous – and sometimes very weird – title sequences.