In the US: Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC In Canada: Thursdays, 10pm ET, CTV In the UK: Not yet acquired
Seeing as the first episode of NBC’s new show has the lowest ever ratings for a mid-season show, I’m not sure I needed to have bothered with a full review for this boy – it’s not long for this world. But I will and I’m going to take the opportunity to wonder exactly how short-term broadcast networks’ memories are.
See, on the one hand, I’m impressed by their commitment to trying to make an idea work. ABC has just greenlit a pilot based on The Syndicate, a UK show about Lottery winners with secrets and how they’re affected by their win. Thing is, NBC did that not so long ago as Windfall.
Maybe that’s okay, given the show was on another network: one US network is rarely bothered if they make an almost identical show to another’s within a year of it airing – indeed, that’s often the point.
But how about when it’s remaking its own shows, shows that flopped. Do No Harm is a take on the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in which a brilliant neurosurgeon (aren’t they always? Aren’t there ever really rubbish neurosurgeons? Under-achieving neurosurgeons? After all, it’s not exactly rocket science is it?) has multiple personality disorder. Every night at 8.25pm, his other, sociopathic personality takes over and tries to screw up his life and possibly mutilate and rape anyone he comes across. Then the nice surgeon wakes up again at 8.25am, trying to work out what the bad guy did.
Thing is, we’ve already had Awake just a year ago, which had the two different lives, one inside dreams, one outside (or maybe they’re both dreams). That at least had the virtue of being pretty good.
But before that, also on NBC, we had My Own Worst Enemy, in which mild-mannered Christian Slater discovered that he was really an implanted personality and that his real, nasty, more interesting secret agent self came out at night when he was asleep. In that show as well, the nice guy decides enough is enough and decides to take revenge against himself – as does the bad guy – while they try to come to some kind of working arrangement in the interim.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? No, wait. It’s the opposite of that. This was not an idea that needed exploring again.
There’s a lot of nostalgia for the 80s at the moment. Okay, so the 60s and 70s have largely been done to death on TV now thanks to Mad Men, That 70s Show et al and the population is ageing, but right now, it’s the 80s that have all the buzz. Maybe it’s those conservatives and their love of Ronald Reagan. Maybe it’s the fashionistas. Certainly, The Carrie Diaries is giving teenagers who weren’t even alive back then a chance to indulge in the decade of crazy fashions, MTV and Ferris Bueller.
What The Carrie Diaries doesn’t give anyone is a good old nostalgic feeling for the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the possible imminent death of everyone on the planet in a nuclear war. It won’t even include the Twin Towers in the Manhattan skyline in case it bums anyone out.
But The Americans, FX’s latest wander down the path of darkness, dares to love the Cold War, when times were simpler and you largely knew where the enemy was: either the Soviet Union or the Soviet embassy down the block – certainly not in a cave somewhere. Well, except for those sleeper agents, of course…
But it goes one step further still and dares to love the Soviets. Because The Americans, set in 1981, follows Keri Russell (last seen on Running Wilde) and Wales’ own Matthew Rhys (a Brothers and Sisters alum, so well versed in the art of faking an American accent) as a pair of Soviet sleeper agents who have spent 15 years in the US pretending to be an everyday couple next door. Trained to blend in with suburbia, they even have two kids, although whether those kids were conceived out of love or a desire to convert the American populace to socialism is a thorny subject.
Yes, after 15 years of living like Americans, our undercover couple – who are still spying, seducing and killing for the Soviets – are starting to wonder if the Yanks are really as bad as all that. Have they been changed? Is their will breaking? Or are they still good comrades? At the very least, they’re hoping that the FBI agent who’s moved in next door doesn’t discover who they are before they’ve decided for themselves…
News of the day is that Gerry Anderson puppet show Thunderbirds is going to be remade. For those not in the know (who are you?), this saw a team of brothers go into action as part of International Rescue to save people from usually very explosive danger, sometimes with the assistance of their London agent Lady Penelope.
This isn’t the first time the show will have been remade, of course, since there was a live-action movie version a few years ago (with none other than Sophia Myles playing Lady Penelope)…
…and there was an animated series, Thunderbirds 2086, more than a few years before that.
This time, not only does it have the blessing of Gerry Anderson, it’s going to combine models with CGI thanks to those nice people who did the effects work for Lord of the Rings.
So today’s quick question is:
Are you (or perhaps your children or even your children’s children) going to watch the new series when it comes out?
As always, leave your answers below or on your own blog.
