Whoops. As you might have heard, the Beeb cocked up and accidentally sent out the Blu-Ray release of this half-season of Doctor Who before the finale aired. That meant 210 fans had the potential to spoil everything on web sites, Twitter, et al. But they didn’t. Even though John Hurt had already spoiled most of it himself. Well done them.
To reward them, the BBC has released this shiny clip of Matt Smith and David Tennant chatting away about the anniversary special, due on November 23rd. I wonder what David Tennant’s advice was.
It’s “What did you watch this week?”, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I’ve watched this week that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
First, the usual recommendations:
Arrow (The CW/Sky 1)
Continuum (Showcase/SyFy)
The Daily Show (Comedy Central)
Doctor Who (BBC1/BBC America)
Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)
Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living)
Modern Family (ABC/Sky 1)
Vegas (CBS/Sky Atlantic)
These are all going to be on in either the UK or the US, perhaps even both, but I can’t be sure which.
Still in the viewing queue: new show The Goodwin Games, which I’ll be reviewing on Monday, and I’ll be playing catch up with New Zealand show Harry, too.
I did give Life of Crime a go, too, in which Hayley Atwell plays a cop in three different time periods at different stages of her career. Entirely fits the template of ITV crime dramas and you could predict virtually everything that happened in each time period, with the corresponding Attitudes written in neon lights all over every character.
Now, some thoughts on some of the regulars and some of the shows I’m still trying:
Arrow (The CW/Sky 1): No League of Shadows, surprisingly, but everything played out in the finale pretty much as you’d expect, beyond the final twist. Overall, a very decent season, although it started to lost its edge and become a tad more Smallville than Batman Begins by the end. One to look forward to next season, certainly.
Continuum (Showcase/SyFy): There I was complaining there wasn’t enough cool sci-fi in the show, when up it pops in spades. For my next trick, can we have some more intelligent schemes from the terrorists, please.
Elementary (CBS/Sky Living): Everything played out pretty much as I expected in terms of revelations, but in many ways better than Sherlock‘s handling of similar Sherlock Holmes facets. I also liked the fact they made Irene Adler and Moriarty one and the same. It’ll be great if they bring her back and make her a maths professor, too. A good explanation for an in-story bad accent, too. PS, New York can try to pass itself off as London, but it will always fail.
Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living): I’m not convinced that Hannibal should be that good in a fight, particularly not up against Demore Barnes who was in The Unit. All the same, another fascinating episode, Gillian Anderson getting more to do this week. What surprises me is that the show, which I’m thinking more and more of as a cross between Touching Evil (US) and David Cronenberg’s oeuvre, is actually capable of instilling dread in me, which is a very novel emotion of a TV show to be able to create in its audience. Magnificent, but its fate is in the balance at the moment. Please renew it, NBC.
Vegas (CBS/Sky Atlantic): And so it’s gone, in a somewhat underwhelming finale that mostly just tied up loose threads, left a couple dangling and let everyone pat each other on the back and say goodbye, all while Carrie Anne Moss had nothing to do, which was par for the course. A shame, since it started off with so much fire.
“What did you watch this 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?
It’s the end of upfronts week for the major networks now, with “oh yes, we forgot about them” The CW rounding it all off yesterday. The LA Screenings start today and buyers from around the world, including the UK, have descended from all the major networks to see these pilots and decide whether to buy any of them.
Last year, The CW decided to end its policy of targeting almost exclusively young women with a collection of new shows that included the rather good Arrow and the rather poor Cult, as well as the more traditional for The CW The Carrie Diaries, Beauty and the Beast and Emily Owens MD. It was a strategy that was only partially successful, with Arrow getting renewed for a second season along with The Carrie Diaries and Beauty and the Beast, but Cult dying a death with Emily Owens.
Nevertheless, The CW is pressing on with its gradual expansion into (what it thinks are) male realms this year, while continuing to provide (what it thinks is) young female-friendly output that falls into roughly the same areas as its existing programming, with just a hint of originality in there, too.
The Tomorrow People: Beauty and the Beast style remake of the old paedo-friendly ITV show, with the mandatory two white guys, one BME guy and a white girl + Mark Pellegrino
The 100: 100 young people return to a devastated Earth
Star-crossed: Romeo & Juliet + aliens
After the jump, summaries, trailers, clips and a schedule.
Last week, I unveiled this ‘ere blog’s handy guide to all the Western, English-language TV shows that have portrayed particular religions to be true in some way. At the time, I said it was a work in progress, and I’ve already separated the original entry out into separate posts, mainly to avoid crashing browsers with too many videos.
Anyway, following various people’s suggestions that my memory is full of holes…
…I’ve added a few new shows to the various pages.
Judaism and Christianity: Afterlife, Quantum Leap, Being Human, Joan of Arcadia, Eternal Law and Apparitions
