Year: 2013

Tuesday’s “Sky Living acquires Hannibal, Peter Capaldi to star in BBC1’s The Three Musketeers and Lindsay Lohan’s Anger Management” news

26 February 2013 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

Happy Birthday, Lovely Wife!

UK TV

  • Peter Capaldi to star in BBC1’s The Three Musketeers. No sign of Grégory Fitoussi, malheureusement
  • Sky Living acquires Hannibal
  • Trailer for BBC3’s zombie show In The Flesh

US TV

US TV casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

French TV

Review: Engrenages (Spiral) 4×5-4×6 (France: Canal+; UK: BBC Four)

25 February 2013 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

In France: Last autumn
In the UK: Saturday 23 February, 9pm, BBC Four

Well, we’re halfway throughout season 4 already. How distressing is that? Bloody BBC, burning through these things as if there’s an unlimited supply. This is France’s answer to The Wire, we’re talking about, and there’s not a lot on TV to rival it.

A more even affair this, following last week’s mix of not-so-cracking and cracking, with shocks aplenty. And for those who think I’m kidding about that comparison with The Wire, this week, on top of the usual less-than-complimentary look at French society, we had a police officer’s gun stolen and him going all out to get it back, a bunch of high-up police officers more concerned with the stats than getting to the root cause of crime, and a mysterious Greek with criminal connections turned up.

One unshocking thing we learnt this week, too: Ms Rullsenberg should be writing these reviews…

Continue reading “Review: Engrenages (Spiral) 4×5-4×6 (France: Canal+; UK: BBC Four)”

US TV

Review: Cult 1×1 (The CW)

25 February 2013 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

The CW's Cult cast

In the US: Tuesdays, 9pm ET/8pm CT, The CW
In the UK: Mysteriously acquired by an unnamed network

Cults are really big right now on TV. The Following is on Fox and now we have Cult on The CW. Intriguingly, both shows were thought up years ago, The Following as the script for Scream 3 and Cult as a show for the now-defunct predecessor to The CW, The WB.

The two shows both have good pedigrees. The Following comes from long-time writer Kevin Williamson (Dawson’s Creek and The Vampire Diaries) but Cult comes from the even older pen of Rockne S O’Bannon, who started out on The (New) Twilight Zone, before going on to create Farscape, Alien Nation and seaQuest DSV.

So perhaps it’s appropriate that Cult is a trickier, more knowing beast than The Following. The Following, of course, has all kinds of degrees of Scream-esque meta, but Cult takes things a step further. It begins seemingly as a somewhat stupid, tacky The CW show in which a young blonde cop, Kelly Collins, (Alona Tal) and an older, fatter, blacker cop have to investigate the cult run by Billy Grimm (Robert Knepper) to which Collins used to belong.

But just as they find somewhat buried in a wall and he utters the somewhat ludicrous and unfathomable “‘Well hey. These things just snap right off,” we discover we’ve been watching a TV show within a TV show. Collins is really actress Marti Gerritsen and Knepper is actor Roger Reeves and they star in The CW’s Cult.

With me so far? Good. Anyway, so far, so Pulaski/30 Rock. But rather than being a spoof or send up of the making of a TV show, Cult is a far darker creation that focuses on the nature of cult television and its fans. This Cult has fans and it’s created web sites and all kinds of other clues for them to seek out to discover more about the show. Except perhaps it’s not all fiction. Because when one fan seems to work it all out, he disappears. When his journalist brother Jeff Dean Sefton (Matthew Davis) comes looking for him, he starts to discover the same messages in the show that his brother did, and with the help of a researcher on the show, Skye Yarrow (Jessica Lucas), they begin to investigate Cult, to see if they can find out what’s really going on and what’s happened to his brother.

Here’s a trailer that gives away all the good bits from the first episode.

Continue reading “Review: Cult 1×1 (The CW)”

Bob Godfrey is dead – here’s Newsnight’s tribute

25 February 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Bob Godfrey was one of the UK’s most famous and influential animators. Among his credits are Roobarb and Henry’s Cat, which anyone who grew up in the 70s and 80s in the UK will almost certainly remember. He died last week, as did Richard Briars, the star of Ever Decreasing Circles, The Good Life et al, and also the narrator of Roobarb. Here’s how BBC2’s Newsnight paid tribute.

Monday’s “Gavin & Stacey US remake finds its Smithy, Mark Pellegrino is Jedikiah and Hill Harper quits CSI: NY for Covert Affairs” news

25 February 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

There’s a possibility the Daily News won’t be around tomorrow, since it might be celebrating its wife’s birthday (if she’s awake). Check in tomorrow to find out.

Film

UK TV

  • ITV to premiere 666 Park Avenue episode on ITV Player [subscription required]
  • TCM acquires Longmire
  • Sky to green light Give Out Girls
  • Robert Emms to star in BBC1’s Atlantis
  • Someone might be leaving Mr Selfridge [spoilers]

US TV

US TV casting

New US TV show casting

  • Tom Green to star in NBC’s Camp, Anjelah N Johnson joins NBC’s About A Boy adaptation
  • Jorge Garcia to star in CBS’s The Ordained, Joe Lo Truglio to be a regular in Fox’s Andy Samberg comedy
  • Ken Jeong to star in ABC’s Spy remake
  • Connor Buckley (no, no relation) to star in Fox comedy, Inbar Levi to be a regular in Fox’s Gang Related
  • Andrea Anders to star in ABC’s Divorce, thus guaranteeing it almost instant death; Dustin Ybarra to play Smithy in Fox’s Gavin & Stacey remake Friends & Family, James Martinez joins CBS’s Intelligence
  • John Stamos to star in NBC’s I Am Victor
  • Yael Grobglas to star in The CW’s The Selection
  • Odette Annable and Bruce Greenwood to star in ABC’s Venice
  • Mark Pellegrino to play Jedikiah in The CW’s The Tomorrow People remake
  • James Van Der Beek to star in CBS’s Friends With Better Lives
  • Henry Ian Cusick to co-star in The CW’s The Hundred, Rhys Coiro joins CBS’s Hostages remake
  • Bridget Regan to star in ABC’s Murder in Manhattan, Angelique Cabral to star in Fox’s Enlisted
  • Peter Riegert to star in Fox’s Dads, Michael Weston to co-star in The CW’s Blink
  • Margo Martindale joins CBS’s Greg Garcia comedy
  • Melanie Lynskey joins HBO’s Togetherness