I’m not a big Luther fan – in the sense that I didn’t like it much and gave up after the second or third episode. However, you might be and as series 3 is on the way, I thought I’d give you this shiny trailer to whet your appetite. More interestingly, it’s an interactive trailer, so if you click in particular areas, you’ll get extra video.
Month: June 2013
Friday’s “Musical Happy Days, a Terminator trilogy and Orange is the New Black again” news
Film
- New Terminator trilogy scheduled
- Sony developing Captain Planet and the Planeteers
Film casting
- Christopher Plummer replaces Michael Caine in Imagine
Trailers
- Trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners, with Hugh Jackman, Maria Bello, Jake Gyllenhaal et al
- Trailer for Escape Plan, with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger
Theatre
- Musical Happy Days to tour UK
UK TV
- Maggie Gyllenhaal to star in BBC2’s The Honourable Woman
- Peter Davison, Rosie Cavaliero and Tom Turner join ITV’s Pat and Cabbage
- E4 renews: Youngers
- Sky Atlantic acquires: HBO’s Hello Ladies
- Lovefilm acquires: The CW’s Emily Owens MD
- Sky Living acquires: Fox’s The Mob Doctor
US TV
- Netflix renews: Orange is the New Black
- The Sundance Channel acquires: BBC2’s The Honourable Woman
- Wednesday ratings
US TV casting
- Brian Austin Green joins Anger Management
- Doris Roberts, Mario Ross et al to guest on Major Crimes
- Sendhil Ramamurthy to guest on Unforgettable
New US TV show casting
- Scott Speedman to star in HBO’s Open
Thursday’s “Rhys Ifans heads to Elementary, FX developing Last of the Mohicans and S4C budget cut” news
Film casting
- Martin Starr joins Veronica Mars
- Cameron Diaz joins Annie
- Philip Seymour Hoffman joins Child 44
Trailers
- Trailer for Thanks For Sharing, with Mark Ruffalo, Gwyneth Paltrow, Tim Robbins and Pink
- Trailer for Hell Baby with Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb
Audio
- Absolutely team to make sketch show for Radio 4
- Big Finish to remake lost Avengers episodes
Canadian TV
- Saving Hope returns with 1.1m viewers
UK TV
- S4C budget to be cut
- Sky Arts to broadcast Samuel Beckett’s Not I
- Paul O’Grady to guest on Holby City
US TV
- MTV cancels: Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous
- Tuesday cable ratings: Rizzoli & Isles returns strong, Perception dips
US TV casting
- Rhys Ifans to guest on Elementary [spoilers]
- Ken Marino to recur on Eastbound and Down
- Andrew McCarthy to guest on Unforgettable
New US TV shows
- FX developing: Last of the Mohicans
- NBC retooling: I Am Victor
- CW adapting: Juana La Virgen
- Fox retooling: The Assistants
New US TV show casting
- Frankie Shaw to recur on ABC’s Mixology
- Chris Zylka joins HBO’s Leftovers
- Eric Winter joins Lifetime’s Witches of East End
The Weekly Play
The Wednesday Play: General Electric Theater – Clown (1955)
Most of the plays featured in this strand have been British. But as I’ve remarked before, the US had plenty of its own play strands, artfully disguised as “anthology shows”. One of the longer lasting anthology shows – and eventually most controversial – was General Electric Theater. Guess who the sponsor was.
An offshoot, as many of these strands were, of a radio show, it was broadcast every Sunday evening at 9pm, starting on February 1 1953 and running for an amazing nine years until May 27 1962 for a total of 209 episodes, all of which were adapted from novels, short stories, plays, films and magazine fiction. Originally host-less, on September 26 1954, the show took on no less an actor than Ronald Reagan to introduce and even star in some of the segments.
Given Reagan part-owned the show, it made him a wealthy man; however, when he spoke out in 1962 against the problems of ‘big government’, it didn’t stop GE from firing him, possibly under pressure from Robert Kennedy, leading to the show’s cancellation.
Along the way, though, General Electric Theater accrued a remarkable number of performances from stars of the day, including Kevin McCarthy, Lee Marvin (no fewer than seven times), Lon Chaney Jr, Dean Stockwell, George Snaders, Alan Ladd, Vincent Price, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Judy Garland and even Nancy Reagan herself.
This week’s play, though, is Clown, which stars Henry Fonda in an adaptation of the autobiography of circus performer Emmett Kelley. Enjoy!
Room 9 – it’s Africa’s X-Files
Apparently, Africa makes TV. Who knew? Well, most people, probably. But did you know they also make science-fiction there?
Shut up, Charlie Jade fans.
Well, they do. They – and by ‘they’, I mean South African network SABC – have even made their own sort of Fringe meets The X-Files called Room 9, which you can read more about here. It’s going to be on the Africa Channel in the UK from 8th July, so you might want to give it a watch.
The observant will notice a Torchwood reference pretty soon in the trailer, too – apparently, Africa watches our TV, too.
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