Year: 2013

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.

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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.

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Full season and a returning agent for SHIELD, and Richard Belzer leaves L&O:SVU

11 October 2013 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Daily News will return on Wednesday. Or Thursday. It depends how tired I am

Doctor Who

Film casting

Trailers

  • Trailer for Ambushed with Dolph Lundgren, Vinnie Jones and Randy Couture

Canadian TV

New UK TV shows

US TV

US TV casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

  • Natalie Zea to star in Amazon’s Outlaws, Peter Jacobson to recur on Lifetime’s HR
  • Ray Liotta and Mamie Gummer join HBO’s The Money
Weekly Wonder Woman

Review: Superman/Wonder Woman #1

10 October 2013 Rob Buckley 15 Comments

So after a dormant period of a few months – long enough to dodge the crappy and pointless Trinity War, anyway, if not to quite miss the end of Forever Evil – I think it’s time to revive the Wonder Woman reviews. Rather than save them up and do them all in one go, though, I think it’ll probably make more sense and give me a higher chance of succeeding if I review each comic as it comes out. 

Appropriately enough, for my first new review, it’s Superman/Wonder Woman #1, which horrifyingly enough is only the first new second title for Wonder Woman in 61 years. As you may have noticed, though, she has second billing in this to Superman, because to mirror the successful bromance of Superman/Batman, we have here what DC hopes will be the successful romance of Superman and Wonder Woman.

Indeed, one of the most controversial aspects of the DC’s nu52 has been the jettisoning of the Lois Lane-Clark Kent-Superman triangle of days gone by and the Steve Trevor-Diane Prince-Wonder Woman triangle of even farther off days gone by in favour of this new pairing, hinted at in pre-nu52 issues, fulfilled in alternative continuities but never official canon in DC’s main lines. Until now.

Now, following brief flirtations with the relationship by writers in Superman, Justice League and more bizarrely Young Romance (but notably, thanks to Brian Azzarello, not in Wonder Woman), we finally have a title that’s dedicated to it. Hooray!

One question is: will it be a success? An even better question is: will it make for a good comic. Let’s answer that question after the jump. Beware of epic spoilers ahead (sorry).

The gatefold cover for Superman/Wonder Woman #1

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