Month: October 2013

What did you watch last week? Including Breathless, Once Upon A Time in Wonderland and Witches of East End

14 October 2013 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

It’s “What did you watch last week?, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I watched last week that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV.

As usual, a bevy of reviews up last week, including:

I gave up on Ironside, midway through the second episode, on the grounds that it was rubbish and derivative, and spent all its time trying to prove what a man Ironside was. Sean Saves The World was only marginally funny and relied completely on Sean’s boss for those funny moments, so that’s being abandoned, too. Super Fun Night wasn’t even that funny and was actually kind of sad instead, so that’s being consigned to the “not interested” heap, too.

I tried the first episodes of a few other shows, none of which were good enough to continue being watched:

Breathless (ITV)
Jack Davenport is a 1960s surgeon/hottie in an ensemble piece that looks like a bad carbon copy of Call The Midwife, The Hour and Mad Men, without any of the interesting qualities of any of them.

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland (ABC)
Even duller spin-off from Once Upon A Time, this time focused on the grown-up Alice and her efforts to find her genie boyfriend Silas, aided by the Knave of Hearts (Michael Socha from Being Human) and the White Rabbit (John Lithgow). Almost completely impenetrable to anyone who hasn’t watched however many seasons it is of Once Upon A Time, and best described as having ‘scenes of mild peril, romance and humour, but nothing more’.

Witches of East End (Lifetime/Lifetime UK)
Julia Ormond is a witch. She has lots of witch daughters who are all grown up but don’t know they’re witches. There’s a bit of shagging, a bit of voodoo, but this is really one for fans of the book series this is based upon and for people who really loved Charmed when they were teenagers and have been hoping for something less complicated and interesting ever since. The only tolerable and enjoyable part of it was Madchen Amick.

Still in the viewing queue are last night’s Homeland and Serangoon Road. The third episode of Atlantis is about 15 minutes too long, 10 times too unfaithful to myth and about 7 times too dull to be enjoyable, but I’m bearing with it for now.

Shows I’m watching but not necessarily recommending
Strike Back (Cinemax/Sky 1)
Something of a return to form in terms of action scenes, with some hugely impressive shoot-outs. Good ending, too, even if you could probably see it coming a mile off.

Recommended shows
Arrow (The CW/Sky 1)
The usual second season partial reboot we’ve come to expect from US shows, with people changing jobs, doing odd things, changing relationships, redecorating, etc, purely because there’s been a gap of a few months. Nevertheless, a really excellent first episode, the introduction by the looks of it of Black Canary and some decent stunt scenes. The flashbacks to the island are a bit unnecessary, though, now, even if does give us lots of Manu Bennett.

Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)
After a decidedly regular and uninspired episode, a genuinely moving ending featuring a guest vocal appearance by Natalie Dormer as Jamie Moriarty which only made me want more.

Modern Family (ABC/Sky 1)
Funny and a determined improvement on the previous few weeks.

“What did you watch last week?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?

US TV

Review: The Tomorrow People 1×1 (US: The CW; UK: E4)

11 October 2013 Rob Buckley 7 Comments


In the US: Wednesdays, 9pm/8c, The CW
In the UK: Acquired by E4

As we all know, US TV is prone to remaking other countries’ TV shows, but if you’d asked me a year what the most likely remake of a UK TV show would be this season, never in my wildest dreams would I have suggested 1970s sci-fi gay metaphor and excuse for borderline S&M paedophilia The Tomorrow People. Yet here it is. Do they have no shame?

Amazingly, although I tend to prefer remakes that are faithful to the original, in this case, the lack of fidelity is an improvement. The original show was dreadful. Just dreadful. Although possessed of one of the best and most disturbing title sequences in TV history, it had numerous faults, most of which I’ve spelt out over here. Or you could watch this brief clip, which should show you what you’ve been missing all these years.

Yet here, although we don’t have something that’s much above “not bad”, we don’t have something outrageously terrible. What we do have is, however, is also a bit more mundane. Following on from the original, the story posits that all over the world, a new race of human beings called Homo Superior or The Tomorrow People is ‘comingbreaking out’. Able to teleport, read minds and move objects with their thoughts, unlike the nasty new humans of Prey, these genetic mutations can’t kill and just want to be left alone to lead normal lives like anyone else.

Unlike the 1970s Tomorrow People, there are some complete TP spanners ruining for it everyone by breaking into bank vaults and the like, so a government scientist called Jedekiah who definitely isn’t a fierce, shapechanging, alien robot is out to stop these new Tomorrow People and give them genetic therapy to make them normal ‘saps’ (Home Sapiens) – assuming he can’t get them to join his team of black-suited TPs.

With new and super-powerful mutation Stephen (Robbie Amell – cousin of Arrow‘s Stephen Amell) just breaking out and teleporting into people’s bedrooms while he’s asleep, both sides in the war are looking to recruit. Which side will he join? Well, that would be telling, so maybe you’ll just have to read my mind to find out. Or watch it.

Here’s a trailer. Spoilers after the jump.

Continue reading “Review: The Tomorrow People 1×1 (US: The CW; UK: E4)”

UK TV

Preview: The Tunnel (Tunnel) (UK: Sky Atlantic; France: Canal+)

11 October 2013 Rob Buckley 14 Comments


In the UK: Wednesdays, 9pm, Sky Atlantic. Starts 16th October
In France: Canal+. Starts in November

Well, here we are again, on a border, two dead women’s bodies cut in half and stuck together, two different police forces from two different countries having to investigate the crimes, and resolve their personal and cultural differences. 

The Swedish-Danish co-production Bron/Broen – known in the UK as The Bridge – was a big success in both countries, one of BBC4’s biggest successes of 2012 and has taken the rest of the world by storm, too. Given the story involved co-operation between two countries’ police forces, it was always a natural for remakes, too.

We’ve already seen one example of such a remake in the US: The Bridge, which sees a US and a Mexican investigator pairing come together to solve a crime on the exact border of the US and Mexico. In some ways an almost exact duplicate, in others an improvement, but overall a blander dilution of the original, it’s been renewed for a second season.

Chances are, we probably won’t see it in the UK for a while, though, because the rights have already been acquired by the makers of a new Sky Atlantic/Canal+ co-production, The Tunnel. Yes, this time there’s been a murder but because there’s no bridge to France, it’s all happening underground in the Channel Tunnel.

Starring Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones, Hunted, The One Game) and Clemence Poésy (Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire), The Tunnel is once against an almost exact replica of that original show, but surprisingly enough, there are still a few things the format can offer that we haven’t seen before. Here are some trailers.

Continue reading “Preview: The Tunnel (Tunnel) (UK: Sky Atlantic; France: Canal+)”