Year: 2012

Nordic TV

Review: Those Who Kill (Den Som Dræber) (ITV3) 1×1

28 February 2012 Rob Buckley 18 Comments

Those Who Kill

In the UK: Thursdays, 10pm, ITV3. Available on the ITV Player
In Denmark: Aired last March. Cancelled after the first series

Foreign TV is a funny old thing. What you get to see of another country’s TV is usually the cream of the crop, some nice purchasing person at your local TV network having viewed it all and decided what’s good and what isn’t. So it’s easy to think as a result, based just on what you see on TV of it, that another country’s television output must be great.

French TV looks good thanks to Engrenages. Canadian TV looks good thanks to Being Erica and The Border. Danish TV looks awesome thanks to The Killing and Borgen. UK TV looks good because of Downton Abbey and Doctor Who. US TV just looks good all round. Israeli TV looks amazing thanks to all the adaptations like In Treatment and Homeland.

Italian TV, thanks to Inspector Montalbano, just looks silly. Some things I guess you just can’t polish.

But if you have to wade through it and start delving into the lower reaches of TF1, CTV, Sky Living, TBS, et al, you soon start to realise that not all foreign TV is good. Equally, you start to realise that other countries watch other countries’ TV and try to emulate that.

Now, here in the UK, we’ve had something of a Scandinavian TV love-in thanks to BBC4 and the rise of the ‘Nordic noir’ genre of books and movies. The Killing, Wallander and Borgen have convinced people that Scandinavian TV is universally brilliant. So ITV3, the home of old crime shows, has been trying to get in on that action and has bought in Danish TV network TV2’s Den Som Dræber aka Those Who Kill.

On paper, this should be cracking. It’s written by bestselling crime-author Elsebeth Egholm and Stefan Jaworsk, the writer of several award-winning and critically acclaimed features and TV series. The show stars, among others, Lars Mikkelsen from The Killing, and comes from the producers of several of the Wallander movies, and when it aired in Denmark last year, was watched by a record-breaking 50% of the adult population.

Yet, unfortunately, Those Who Kill is laughable old toss. Here’s a trailer:

Continue reading “Review: Those Who Kill (Den Som Dræber) (ITV3) 1×1”

Sitting Tennant

Tuesday’s Sitting Tennant (week 9, 2012) plus the winners of the February 2012 Sitting Tennant caption and picture competitions

28 February 2012 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

SisterCweek812.jpg

It’s that time again – yes, time to announce the winners of both the picture and the caption competitions. It’s been a close-fought race, but this month, Sister Chastity has triumphed, providing us in the last moments of February this lovely picture. A great big well done to her and a big thanks to everyone for competing this month. March’s competition will start next week and don’t forget that the points will all count to the year’s total when the winner of 2012 will be announced.

  1. Sister Chastity: 50
  2. Hebbie, shilohforever: 30
  3. Toby: 10

Over in captions land, despite a last-minute attempt to overtake Ms Rullsenberg by SK that garnered the full 10 points, it was still Ms Rullsenberg who passed the chequered flag first. Well done to her and thanks to everyone who captioned this month.

  1. Rullsenberg: 50
  2. SK: 40
  3. Toby: 15
  4. Sister Chastity, Jane Henry: 10
  5. Jen, Antimony, Janice, Virpi: 5

Good luck with this week’s captioning and picture-hunting everyone!

Sitting Board of Winners
January
Pictures: Hebbie, Sister Chastity
Captions: Rullsenberg, SK

February
Pictures: Sister Chastity
Captions: Rullsenberg

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.

You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Tuesday’s Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.

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

Film reviews

Review: Justice League: Doom

28 February 2012 Natalia Romanova 1 Comment

Starring: Kevin Conroy (Batman), Tim Daly (Superman), Susan Eisenberg (Wonder Woman), Nathan Fillion (Green Lantern), Carl Lumbly (Martian Manhunter/Ma’alefa’ak), Michael Rosenbaum (The Flash), Bumper Robinson (Cyborg), Carlos Alazraqui (Bane), Claudia Black (Cheetah), Paul Blackthorne (Metallo), Olivia d’Abo (Star Sapphire), Alexis Denisof (Mirror Master), Phil Morris (Vandal Savage)
Writers: Dwayne McDuffie, Mark Waid.
Director: Lauren Montgomery
Price: $24.98 (Amazon price: $14.99)
Released: February 28, 2012

When it comes to movies, Marvel and DC both have their specialities these days. Marvel has it sewn up at the movies, with things like Captain America, Iron Man, The Avengers, The X-Men, Daredevil, Thor et al. Sure, DC has Batman, but Superman isn’t working that well, Green Lantern wasn’t exactly brilliant and if you can’t work out how to make a movie of Wonder Woman after a decade of trying, clearly you’ve got problems.

By contrast, in the realm of animated movies and TV shows, it’s the other way round. You’d only have to have a teeny weeny, atom-sized piece of paper to write down all the decent animated shows that Marvel has put out (X-Men Evolution and that’s about it) in the last couple of decades, while DC has had Batman, Superman, Green Lantern and, of course, Justice League shows filling up the airways for years. They even did a halfway decent animated Wonder Woman movie.

Possibly their best effort was Justice League, which expanded to become Justice League Unlimited later on. That, of course, ended nearly six years ago, but now the brainiacs at DC have decided to take an old Justice League comic and create a brand new Justice League animated movie, Justice League: Doom, in which the Justice League’s arch-enemies club together to kill the League. Cleverly, DC has got together virtually all the cast from the original series, as well as Nathan Fillion (Firefly, Castle) from its Green Lantern animated TV series, Tim Daly from its Superman animated series and a great guest cast to do it.

And while it’s not outstanding, it does at least make you wonder why the hell they can’t make a proper live-action movie. Here’s a trailer.

Continue reading “Review: Justice League: Doom”

Tuesday’s “Lucy Liu is Watson, F Murray Abraham in Beauty and the Beast and Alan Ball to leave True Blood” news

28 February 2012 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film

British TV

US TV

US TV pilots

Question of the week: would you watch prime-time plays?

27 February 2012 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Back in the day, series of plays (and their close cousins, the anthology series) were one of the staples of TV. Play for Today, Armchair Theatre, Theatre 625, The Wednesday Play et al were vibrant parts of scheduling and they launched the careers of some of our best writers, including Dennis Potter and Jack Rosenthal. There were even themed play series, such as Espionage, Out of the Unknown and Worlds Beyond, dealing with spies, science-fiction and the supernatural respectively. And who could forget Tales of the Unexpected?

Yet where are they now? Sky Arts and daytime TV, that’s where. The popular wisdom is that even with something like The Street, which is essentially a play series (albeit one set in the same location each week), with no recurring stars, there’s no way to build up regular viewership in primetime. With so many draws for the attention, each play would have to be individually marketed and still have to appeal on things like the iPlayer as well.

But today I’m questioning received wisdom and asking this question:

Would you watch a primetime series of original plays if you knew the quality of the writing and acting was going to be good, even if the cast and writers were unknowns? Or would it have to be themed or in some other way more narrowly defined?

Answers below or on your own blog, please.