Lauren German to co-star with Tom Ellis in Fox’s Lucifer
Nasim Pedrad to be a regular on Fox’s Scream Queens
Bret Harrison to replace Brian Austin Green on Fox’s The Perfect Stanleys
Claire van der Boom to be a regular on NBC’s Game of Silence, Shane Mcrae to be a regular on Sneaky Pete, Rizwan Manji to be a regular on NBC’s Aseem Batra pilot
Rachel DiPillo to star in NBC’s Cuckoo remake, Ashley Johnson to be a regular on NBC’s Blindspot
Don Hany to star in NBC’s Heart Matters, Callie Thorne joins TNT’s Breed
Tim Bagley promoted to regular on NBC’s Mr Robinson
You know, if you’re going to remake an already not great show, you should probably try to fix some of the original’s problems. Australia’s Secrets and Lies was supposed to be Ten’s Really Big Thing for 2014. Backed up by social media et al in the exact same way that Gracepoint was, it saw painter and decorator Martin Henderson find the body of his neighbour’s dead child while out running. Unfortunately for him, the police get it into their heads that he’s the murderer and it’s left up to him to work out who the real culprit was, all the time being followed by the police and the media while simultaneously reviled as a child killer by everyone he comes across. Along the way, all kinds of secrets and lies are revealed that threaten his family, marriage, livelihood, etc.
And he takes his top off a lot.
It’s a decent idea that unfortunately didn’t pan out in practice so well, as it relied on Henderson being an absolute idiot and the police being insanely vindictive and incompetent, to the extent that they were practically twirling their moustaches and laughing menacingly the whole time. The result was that the ratings were pretty low and little was heard of the show after just a few weeks. Watercooler moment? Only if you’d forgotten there was a watercooler and then every so often were reminded you had a watercooler once and idly wondered where it had got to – for a moment.
ABC – the US one, not the Australian one – bought up the format rights to the show before it had even been made and now we’re finally seeing the remake emerge onto our screens, with Henderson replaced by posh boy Ryan Phillippe (Cruel Intentions) and the moustache-twirling police detective replaced by Juliette Lewis (Natural Born Killers). The trouble is, beyond the recasting, it’s pretty much the same show, except with Phillippe taking his top off less. More or less every moment is the same, just relocated to a Washington/Canada environ with a US cast (bar one couple who are British for no readily explored reason).
And that means all the stupid things are the same, too. While there are changes in emphasis and Henderson’s neighbour is now Phillippe’s house guest, confidant and sanity-advisor, we’re still getting him picking up the murder weapon that’s been hidden in his house and then trying to hide it in an only slightly less obvious location. Lewis may not have a literal moustache to twirl but she spends all her time looking like she’s sucking on a lemon while thinking of new ways to make Phillippe’s life miserable, going out of her way to ignore all kinds of heinous acts, including domestic violence, if it would cut into her lemon-sucking time in front of Phillippe.
To be fair, Phillippe – who’s changed a lot since Cruel Intentions – does well as a now moderately hard working painter/decorator (although Henderson’s gay clients appear to have been lost somewhere over the Pacific in the relocation) and the supporting cast do feel like proper characters and potential suspects rather than a simple Rent-A-Mob. You also get a better feel for Phillippe’s motivations for some of the daft things he does, which now only seem very inexplicable rather than outright ludicrous.
But fundamentally, the backbone of the story is still the same old idiocy that made me turn off the original at pretty much the exact same point I’m almost certain to turn off this time – now. Spare your brain, don’t watch Secrets and Lies.
It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’sLocate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.
A couple of days away and once again the new shows descend! It’s like they know. I’ve done my best to watch them all, and you might have noticed my reviews of The Last Man on Earth, CSI: Cyber and Battle Creek over the past week. I’m putting off my review of ABC’s remake of Secret and Lies until tomorrow when I’ve had a chance to watch the third episode (yes, they showed the first two on the same night) and American Crime only arrived on the scene on Thursday so I’ll be giving that a go either tomorrow or Wednesday. Netflix’s also dumped the whole of the new Tina Fey sitcom The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt onto our queues on Friday, which I’ll at least try to make a start on this week, too.
Which just leaves the following, which I have actually managed to watch but which don’t really merit full reviews of their own.
Dig (US: USA Network)
Tim Kring (Heroes) and Gideon Raff (Homeland, Tyrant) collaborate on what is essentially Touch 2, with FBI agent Jason Isaacs coming to Jerusalem to hunt down a murderer, only to be drawn into Jewish mysticism and Dan Brown-style prophecies and conspiracies involving a red-haired archaeology student and the guy who played Hardman in Suits (the fabulous David Costabile) having a big collection of cloned kids and a black-hair-free cow in Norway. It’s novel to have both the Israeli location shooting and the solely Jewish rather than Christian mythology as the foundation of the plot, but already it’s so intricate and beardy weirdy that I’m not really tempted to watch any more of the silliness. But there are enough bonkers elements, including Richard E Grant, to make me watch at least one more episode, I think.
Maximum Choppage (Australia: ABC2)
Asian guy returns to Melbourne after three years away in Beijing at a martial arts school, whereupon his family and friends demand that he protect them from local gangs. Unfortunately, it turns out he’s actually been at Marshall Arts School, learning how to paint and edit videos, which means he and his female kung fu-tastic best friend have to pull off a series of elaborate con tricks on everyone to keep the neighbourhood in check by convincing the baddies that he really is a true warrior. Written by and starring Lawrence Leung, it works best when it’s sending up the plots of 70s and 80s kung fu movies and transposing them onto modern Melbourne, worst when it has a bad guy called ‘Kai Lee’ who likes to sing ‘The Locomotion’. Not bad and occasionally quite titter-worthy, but not as good as the average episode of Hong Kong Phooey.
After the jump, the regulars: 12 Monkeys, 19-2, The Americans, Arrow, Banshee, The Blacklist, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Forever, Fortitude, Gallipoli, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agent Carter,Suits and Vikings.
