Year: 2013

US TV

Review: Da Vinci’s Demons 1×1 (Starz/FOX)

18 April 2013 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Da Vinci's Demons

In the US: Fridays, 9pm, Starz
In the UK: Fridays, 10pm, Fox. Starts 19th April

You might have thought the horror that was Torchwood: Miracle Day had ended. There’s no more Torchwood, thanks to the series being so poorly received, even the majority of die-hard Torchwood fans couldn’t bear any more episodes. Yet like that giant hole in the middle of the Earth, sucking the joy from life in that show’s finale, so its legacy carries on.

That legacy is an alliance between BBC Worldwide and Starz aimed at creating yet more dramas as good as Torchwood: Miracle Day – yes, that good – and Da Vinci’s Demons is its first bastard offspring. On paper, it might have seemed a good idea, with David Goyer, the co-writer of Batman Begins, crafting a historical fantasy series about the early life of Leonardo Da Vinci. The well known Renaissance polymath, he’s popped up in enough shows over the years that he probably deserved a show of his own.

But in practice, it’s not. Starz has tried to do historical shows before. It’s had huge, deserved success with Spartacus; Magic City may just be nasty but it’s a loving recreation of the 1950s Miami at the very least. Unfortunately, rather than aping either of those two shows, it’s decided to go the Camelot route and produced a genre-busting show that marries Camelot‘s sex, nudity, poor action and complete bypass of virtually all history; the BBC’s child-friendly but atrocious Merlin, Robin Hood and Bonekickers; the setting and political intrigue of The Borgias; the ridiculous conspiracy theories of The Da Vinci Code; and elements of movies ranging from Batman Begins to Hudson Hawk. Yes, the probably gay Florentine polymath Leonardo Da Vinci is actually a leather-jacket wearing shagger of women, prone to the occasional sword-fight with the local guards, who somehow gets mixed up with the magical secret society that is the Sons of Mithras, all while flying people around in his inventions.

And it’s all filmed in Wales with an almost entirely British cast. Be proud. We made this.

Continue reading “Review: Da Vinci’s Demons 1×1 (Starz/FOX)”

Thursday’s “A 2nd season for Da Vinci’s Demons, Heroes to return?, and Zombieland TV series premieres” news

18 April 2013 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Film casting

Trailers

UK TV

US TV

US TV casting

  • Brad Beyer and Alexandra Socha to recur on Royal Pains, Dohn Norwood promoted to regular on Hell On Wheels

New US TV shows

The Wednesday Play: Red Shift (1978)

17 April 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Since I know a lot of you lovely readers are sci-fi lovers, today, I thought I’d give you the gift of one of the few sci-fi/fantasy plays that the BBC made in its standard drama strand, Play For Today. Based on Alan Garner’s novel of the same name, Red Shift is an odd little thing set in three time periods: Roman times, the Civil War and ‘modern times’. Linked by an artefact that appears in all three periods, a stone axe, the play looks at the plight of three different men, all faced with different challenges of the time, usually involving women. In the Roman period, some Roman deserters are in hiding, except the enemy may be within (or it might be the Celt woman they have prisoner, who might actually be a local goddess); in the Civil War, the goodies (including James Hazeldine) are holed up in a church, trying to escape from some Royalists; while in the present time, a somewhat pretentious student is vexed by his girlfriend and his parents.

To a certain extent, the story defies description, losing some aspects of the novel in translation to TV. The stories are linked more or less only by location, although the themes of adolescent angst, religion and control/lack of control of women are still there in the play. As a result, it’s more fascinating to watch mainly for the third story to see what ‘modern values’ were in 1978, with the pretentious student living with his parents in a caravan, and they being unwilling for him to have sex with his girlfriend. It’s also fun to see how little traffic there was in motorways in those days.

I won’t pretend it’s the greatest play ever and the specialised science-fiction strands at the BBC produced far superior work. But it’s a worth a watch out of historical curiosity and to see something that doesn’t give easy answers.

Wednesday’s “Universal acquires Bates Motel, Joanna Page joins Breathless and MTV’s theme park drama” news

17 April 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film casting

  • James Caan and Louis Gossett Jr to star in Fighting Man

Trailers

UK TV

US TV

New US TV shows

US TV casting

  • Oliver Cooper joins Californication, Michael Gill promoted on House of Cards

New US TV show casting

Charley says: watch out for rabies

16 April 2013 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Inspired by Scarfolk, the English town that still lives in the 1970s, this week we’re starting up a new feature on the blog: Charley says.

The 1970s was a terrible time, of course, where the risks to people from everything from electricity cables to water to other people could not be overstated. It was horrifying. Particularly the rabies.

To save the public from these threats – and themselves – the British government authorised a series of public information films designed to scare the living daylights out of anyone who watched them. And each week, I intend to scare the living daylights out of you with a public information film or two – watch them, as they might just save your life.

This week: Rabies. Beware. The threat is still there, you know, and if you aren’t scared shitless, you haven’t been watching. And that means death for you (unless you watch the third movie – you’ll be sound as a pound after that).