They’re for this year’s Treehouse of Horror episode and if you can spot all the horror film allusions in this, you’re even nerdier than I am.
Month: October 2013
Nathan Fillion on Community, Avengers 2 casting, a Jack Ryan trailer and more Covert Affairs and Sleepy Hollow
You all know what day it is and this is the news, right?
Film casting
- Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Johnson join Avengers: Age of Ultron
Trailers
- Trailer for Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit
UK TV
- Watch acquires: NBC’s Believe
- Channel Five acquires: CTV’s Played
US TV
- Next 24 to film in London
- Sleepy Hollow gets a second season
- Covert Affairs gets a fifth season
- Wednesday ratings: Ironside tanks, Super Fun Night starts well, Revolution hits series low
US TV show casting
- Nathan Fillion to guest on Community
- Jason Priestley to guest on Hot In Cleveland
- Dennis Haysbert to guest on Trophy Wife
New US TV shows
- Hallmark green lights: Signed, Sealed & Delivered
- NBC green lights: The Pro with Rob Lowe
- ABC developing: Just Rewards
- NBC developing: The Mason Twins
New US TV show casting
- Jamie Kennedy, Adrian Pasdar, Aldis Hodge join Amazon’s The After
- Patrick Kennedy, Dominique McElligott and Laila Robins join HBO’s The Money
- Joel Gretsch to guest on Witches of East End
US TV
Mini-reviews: Super Fun Night 1×1 (ABC)
In the US: Wednesdays, 9.30pm ET/PT, ABC
I’m going to give you a little list of traits and as I add to them, think of how few shows there have been in the history of TV that have featured this combination of traits, despite their not being especially rare: female, friends, nerds, overweight, nights out.
Think about it. Rarer than ducks’ teeth, huh? So in some ways we should celebrate Super Fun Night, a female ensemble comedy about a group of nerdy women who have been friends for years and who every Friday go out on ‘Super Fun Night’ together. Not only that, it stars in another positive representative move the plus-sized Australian comic Rebel Wilson, who was one of the best things about both Bridesmaids about Pitch Perfect and is also the head writer on this. It even features Kevin Bishop as a nice British guy who’s quite into Wilson, preferring her and her nerdy ways over the thin office high-achiever and her back-stabbing.
It’s all quite enjoyable as a set-up, reverses the gender stereotypes a little with Bishop the normal one who has to endure the female nerds’ excesses when he accompanies them on Super Fun Night. There’s even a cameo by Wilson’s Bridesmaids comedy partner, Matt Lucas of Little Britain fame.
Except, although it raises a few titters, it’s not that funny. It’s more that you want it to be funny. It doesn’t help that Wilson brings in too much of the Pitch Perfect and has a lengthy singing scene midway through the episode. There’s also too much cringe comedy for something trying to be warm hearted and fun: the show has certain Miranda elements to it, with Wilson becoming embarrassingly disrobed on various occasions, but it’s done more as a scene of embarrassment rather than physical comedy.
It deserves to do better and I think it probably will settle down and get better in later episodes. At the moment, it’s not quite a keeper, more one to keep an eye on.
US TV
Mini-reviews: Sean Saves The World 1×1 (NBC)
In the US: Thursdays, 9/8c, NBC
Well, ITV has already shown us what you get when you take a traditional British sitcom format and fill it with much loved gay actors playing (horribly) stereotypical gay characters: you get the terrible Vicious. Now NBC shows us when happens when you take a traditional US sitcom format and fill with a much love gay actor playing a (slightly) stereotypical gay character: you get something a lot better.
Sean Saves The World is a multi-camera comedy, filmed in front of a studio audience and directed by James Burrows of Cheers fame, who’s been directing sitcoms since the 1980s. It sees Sean Hayes from Will and Grace playing a single dad trying to bring up his teenage daughter with the help and hindrance of his mother (Linda Lavin). At the same time, he also has to deal with his employees at work (including Vik Sahay from Chuck) as well as his company’s new owner (Thomas Lennon from Reno 911).
So far, so absolutely conventional. A lot of the dialogue is very conventional and there’s heart-warming family bonding at the end. Beyond the fact it has a gay central character, this could have been shot in practically any decade since the 1960s.
The show has two big points things going for it though. The first is Hayes, who manages to lift even the most ordinary dialogue into something much better. The result is quite a few laughs, which in this year’s season of supposed comedies, is a standout trait.
The second is Thomas Lennon. Not only does he have the same comedic talent as Hayes, his evil boss character is something different: he constantly imagines himself to be in a battle of wits with Hayes, trying to score points and lay traps at every point, even claiming prizes when he wins. Pretty much every scene with him in it is better than any other scene without him.
And, just to repeat, it’s actually quite funny. Okay, the female characters aren’t especially, with teenage daughter (Samantha Isler) really there as a problem to be solved and Sean’s mother no different from any other hectoring, not especially maternal sitcom mom, ready to toss out zingers at her progeny’s expense. There’s also a co-worker (Megan Hilty, who replaced Lindsay Sloane directed after the show went to series) who’s a colossal over-actor, too.
But, again, this does need repeating again, it’s actually quite funny. Will marvels never cease?
International TV
Ooh! A Colombian version of Breaking Bad
Thought Breaking Bad was a bit white knuckle? Well, imagine what the Colombian version will be like, with Walter Blanco (Diego Trujillo) deciding to take on the cartels at their own game in Metastasis. Sounds fun, huh? One big difference, though: he’ll be cooking meth in an old school bus, not an RV.
[via]
UPDATE: Now with English language trailer!