Year: 2013

Australian and New Zealand TV

Review: Serangoon Road 1×1-1×3 (ABC Australia/HBO Asia)

8 October 2013 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

Serangoon Road

In Australia: Sundays, 8.30pm, ABC1
In Asia: Sundays, 9pm, HBO Asia

Australia’s been having something of a renaissance when it comes to quality TV of late, particularly in the realm of the period crime drama. We’ve already seen one rather fine effort this year: ABC1’s The Doctor Blake Mysteries, in which Craig McClachlan investigates crime in a small Victoria town in the 1950s. That’s been bought by the BBC and has already been renewed for a second season.

Now, in a co-production with HBO Asia (that network’s first ever original drama series), ABC1 are giving us Serangoon Road, a surprisingly enjoyable and intelligent private detective show. Set in Singapore in 1964, it stars Don Hany (East West 101) as Sam Callaghan, a former Australian soldier who helped the British during the Malay uprising of the 1950s and now helps Joan Chen (Twin Peaks), who has inherited her late husband’s detective business. Callaghan has to deal not only with the local criminals, including the Red Tiger gang, he has to cope with the sometimes helpful Americans (largely Michael Dorman of The Secret Life of Us), the usually unhelpful British and the occasional Australian ex-pat – in particular, Claire Simpson (Maeve Dermody), whose businessman husband is always absent…

Filmed in Malaysia and with an obviously large budget and a cast of huge Australian and Singaporean stars, it would be tempting to think Serangoon Road would be nothing but a beautiful-looking, historical bore. Instead, it’s a vibrant, exciting, multi-lingual show that brings to mind the likes of Bring Em Back Alive and Tales of the Gold Monkey, except thankfully with more intelligence.

Continue reading “Review: Serangoon Road 1×1-1×3 (ABC Australia/HBO Asia)”

BAFTA events

Preview: Y Gwyll (Hinterland) (UK: S4C/BBC Wales/BBC Four)

8 October 2013 Rob Buckley 12 Comments

Hinterland/Y Gwyll

In the UK (in Welsh): S4C. Starts 29 October.
In the UK (English/Welsh): BBC Wales in early 2014. Then BBC4

TV is getting more and more international. Not only are different countries remaking other countries’ shows, more and more are willing to show the originals, even if they were shot in a different language.

Here in the UK, we have BBC4 and its foreign TV slot of Wallander, Spiral, The Killing, The Bridge, Inspector Montalbano et al; meanwhile, Sky Arts has given us Prisoners of War, Isabel, In Treatment, Grand Hotel, Maison Close, Hard and their like, while Channel 4 has made its first foray into French in years with Canal+’s The Returned.

But it’s easy to forget (well, if you live in England it is) that English isn’t the only native language still spoken in the UK. Although the likes of Manx and Cornish are confined to relatively few speakers, both Scots Gaelic and Welsh not only have thousands of speakers who regard them as their first languages, there are entire TV channels dedicated to programming in these languages: BBC Alba and S4C respectively.

While BBC Alba is a relatively new phenomenon, the output of which is largely confined to dubbed English-language programming, sport and factual programmes, S4C is over 30 years old and has produced everything from soap operas (Pobol Y Cwm) to comedy (Dim Byd) and drama (Caerdydd).

And yet, despite this new keenness for multi-lingual, global programming, you’d be hard-pressed to find any of this home-grown, Welsh language programming on the BBC or Sky Arts, not even in the foreign language slots.

Until now.

Because for the first time since A Mind To Kill 20 years ago, S4C has made a cop show. Not only that, it’s made it simultaneously in both English and Welsh. Airing first on S4C this month and then in the rest of Britain next year on BBC Wales and BBC4, Hinterland/Y Gwyll* follows the investigations of DCI Tom Mathias (Richard Harrington from Lark Rise to Candleford), who’s newly arrived in Aberystwyth from London. Partnered with DI Mared Rhys (Mali Harris from Caerdydd), Mathias has to investigate four dark and disturbing, 120m cases against the backdrop of the Welsh landscape in a way that should appeal to the rest of the world. In fact, Denmark’s already bought it.

Here’s the trailer. A preview with minor spoilers of the first episode after the jump, together with some more information from a Q&A that I attended at BAFTA last week.

Continue reading “Preview: Y Gwyll (Hinterland) (UK: S4C/BBC Wales/BBC Four)”

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 2

Third-episode verdict: The Blacklist (NBC/Sky Living)

8 October 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

In the US: Mondays, 10/9c, NBC
In the UK: Acquired by Sky Living

We’re now three episodes into The Blacklist, NBC’s White Castle version of Hannibal‘s fine dining experience, in which master criminal James Spader turns himself in and agrees to help the US government find other master criminals, provided he gets to work with an FBI novice (Megan Boone) for no well defined reason.

And after a pretty good start, the show has continued to stay more or less exactly the same. Since the first episode, we’ve had a few new arrivals in the cast, although only CIA agent Parminder Nagra (ER, Bend It Like Beckham) ever gets anything to do – or say – and doesn’t have any especially well identified personality traits beyond her plot function. But then neither do most of the main cast, since this is all about Spader.

Indeed, Spader is there as before, mildly hamming around the place, running rings around the FBi with some devious scheme that isn’t yet clear. Boone continues to exhibit all the charisma and inner strength of candy floss, while trying to work out if her husband is some kind of secret agent or master criminal sent to spy on her. The baddies of the week are mildly interesting, more for their casting (Chin Han and (spoiler alert) Isabella Rossellini) than because there’s that much to them as characters, although they generally represent some form of popular evil whose taking down by the forces of law and order we can only applaud. There’s also some reasonably good fight scenes and stunts to enjoy each episode.

This is fun, escapist entertainment. It makes almost no sense. But it hits all the right buttons, Spader’s great, and there’s a real sense of intrigue trying to work out what Spader is really up to. It’s not I, Claudius in the scheme of things, but it’s one of the top shows of the Fall season so far and there are worse ways to spend an hour.

Barrometer rating: 2
Rob’s prediction: Providing it doesn’t hold off giving away its secrets for too long, this one could run and run.

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 2

Third-episode verdict: The Blacklist (NBC/Sky Living)

8 October 2013 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

In the US: Mondays, 10/9c, NBC
In the UK: Acquired by Sky Living

We’re now three episodes into The Blacklist, NBC’s White Castle version of Hannibal‘s fine dining experience, in which master criminal James Spader turns himself in and agrees to help the US government find other master criminals, provided he gets to work with an FBI novice (Megan Boone) for no well defined reason.

And after a pretty good start, the show has continued to stay more or less exactly the same. Since the first episode, we’ve had a few new arrivals in the cast, although only CIA agent Parminder Nagra (ER, Bend It Like Beckham) ever gets anything to do – or say – and doesn’t have any especially well identified personality traits beyond her plot function. But then neither do most of the main cast, since this is all about Spader.

Indeed, Spader is there as before, mildly hamming around the place, running rings around the FBi with some devious scheme that isn’t yet clear. Boone continues to exhibit all the charisma and inner strength of candy floss, while trying to work out if her husband is some kind of secret agent or master criminal sent to spy on her. The baddies of the week are mildly interesting, more for their casting (Chin Han and (spoiler alert) Isabella Rossellini) than because there’s that much to them as characters, although they generally represent some form of popular evil whose taking down by the forces of law and order we can only applaud. There’s also some reasonably good fight scenes and stunts to enjoy each episode.

This is fun, escapist entertainment. It makes almost no sense. But it hits all the right buttons, Spader’s great, and there’s a real sense of intrigue trying to work out what Spader is really up to. It’s not I, Claudius in the scheme of things, but it’s one of the top shows of the Fall season so far and there are worse ways to spend an hour.

Barrometer rating: 2
Rob’s prediction: Providing it doesn’t hold off giving away its secrets for too long, this one could run and run.

Charley says: Clunk Click every trip

8 October 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

It wasn’t until the 1980s that it became illegal to not wear a seatbelt in the front seat of car. However, accidents still happened and to stop people from taking risks while it was still legal, public information films extolled the virtues of the seatbelt with the message: “Clunk Click Every Trip“. Here’s (oh God) Jimmy Savile and others to demonstrate, particularly to you ladies watching.

For a little change of pace, I’ll also give you this hardcore remix by Jam Hamster. It’s very catchy.