Year: 2015

US TV

Review: Ballers 1×1 (US: HBO)

23 June 2015 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Ballers

In the US: Sundays, 10pm, HBO

It would be tempting to think of HBO’s latest ‘comedy’, Ballers, as simply a black Entourage set in the world of American football. I imagine HBO would like it to be too, given that Entourage ran to eight seasons, several Emmy awards and has just been resurrected for a movie that is now in cinemas.

Certainly, there are similarities, with the Hollywood glamour and wealth transferred to the East Coast’s plastic surgery capital Miami, where the men apparently all behave just as badly as on the West Coast – at least when they’re not playing football.

However, there are significant differences. For starters, show star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is no Ari Gold, instead being the one good, sensible calm person in a world of dickheads and *ssholes, who must avoid becoming one of them, even as he tries to carve out a career as a sports agent following an injury that ended his career.

But the other big difference is that Ballers isn’t funny. In fact, it’s actually quite sad, being more like Hoop Dreams, except full of people on the downslopes of their sporting careers. There’s former player Omar Benson Miller (CSI: Miami) who’s reduced to taking a job at a car dealership, where even the dedicated sports fan who runs it doesn’t remember him. There’s real-life former football player John David Washington playing a God-fearing player whose career is hanging on a thread, following numerous stupid off-field transgressions that make him toxic to potential clubs. And every woman is either a nagging WAG or a ‘skank’/‘whore’ out for cash and doesn’t even get a name.

Johnson’s dilemma in the show: to do the right thing, get fired and go bankrupt or do as his boss Rob Corddry (The Daily Show) demands and exploit his friendships with them so he can flourish. And although he tries to do the right thing, that’s easier said than done, as he has to deal with baby-men who are their own worst enemies and resolutely refuse to learn. Well, maybe Washington will this time, but there’s a 60% chance he won’t, Johnson reckons.

I won’t pretend I know a lot about American football, beyond the fact it’s a bit like rugby but slower and with more padding, so I was thankful Ballers has almost nothing to do with football itself, focusing instead on the politics, society and industry surrounding it. From what I can glean from people who do know about American football, though, Ballers isn’t especially authentic or good in that area, and indeed, you’ll have seen most of the characters and situations before in other sports movies and shows.

What is good, though, is Johnson, who is a calm, intelligent presence in the show, and naturally enough for a former WWE wrestler, not only looks the part but seems very comfortable in this world. He’s worth watching in every scene and if you think that as an action star, he can’t be much cop at acting, here he’ll be a revelation to you.

All the same, I can’t recommend Ballers as it stands, because there’s really not much to enjoy about it. You can root for Johnson, as he wades through dirt, but it’s hard to root for the dirt itself and there’s a lot of it here.

News: Hannibal cancelled, No Offence renewed, a Hawkgirl series, a Cristina Ricci pilot + more

23 June 2015 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Film

Internet TV

UK TV

New UK TV shows

  • Trailer for BBC One’s A Song For Jenny

New UK TV show casting

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

TMINE

Celebrating a decade of The Medium Is Not Enough

22 June 2015 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

Gentlemen prefer blondes

Bloody hell. I’ve been doing this for a decade.

Yes, 10 years ago back in 2005 (sort of, subject to blog migration, blog splitting, blog reunions, etc), this blog emerged into the light of the Internet with its first two posts: a preview of Prison Break, the not-unpopular Supernatural and the still-unseen Global Frequency; and tedious cruft about The Omega Factor.

Since then, The Medium Is Not Enough has celebrated nine birthdays, and for a little nostalgia, you can look back and see what I’ve learned over the years:

  1. 2006
  2. 2007
  3. 2008
  4. 2009
  5. 2010
  6. 2011
  7. 2012
  8. 2013
  9. 2014

In that time, TMINE’s changed a lot and after the jump, I’ll do my regular once-a-decade potted history of the blog. I won’t pretend it’s made me rich and famous, but it’s led to my writing for a fair number of magazines, a few appearances on the BBC, write-ups in the likes of The Guardian weekend guide, getting quoted in newspapers around the world, a couple of awards, Charlie Brooker owing me a favour, and drawing the attention of Adam Buxton (in perhaps the wrong way).

It’s also helped me to meet and make friends with a lot of very lovely people online. Indeed, one thing’s remained constant: how great you guys are who come here, read TMINE and comment nicely on things I’ve said, even if for some bizarre reason you don’t always agree with me. Hopefully, I’ve helped you and certainly you’ve all helped me, so I’d like to thank everyone who over the years has regularly commented here and been lovely. Yes, all of you:

Year one
Anna, Holyhoses Rob, Jason, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Rosby, Scott, Stu

Year two
Anna, Holyhoses Rob, Jason, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Rosby, Scott, Stu, Iko, Poly, Mark, espedair, Linda, cindylover1969, Fraser, Kev, Craig, Lesley, Jonathan, Phoenix

Year three
Anna, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Rosby, Scott, Stu_N, Stu, other Scott, Stuart, Iko, Poly, espedair, kaballa, Electric Dragon, Linda, cindylover1969, Fraser, Kev, Craig, Lesley, Jonathan, Cackle Jr, Murray, Mark, Toby and Phoenix, Persephone, Jane, TemplarJ, Vin and Andrea

Year four
Anna, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Rosby, Scott, Stu_N, Stu, other Scott, Stuart, Iko, Poly, espedair, kaballa, Electric Dragon, Linda, cindylover1969, Fraser, Kev, Craig, Lesley, Jonathan, Cackle Jr, Murray, Mark, Toby, Phoenix, Persephone, Jane, TemplarJ, Vin, Chris, Andrea, Dan, Rev/Views, Aaron, Jaradel, Nik, Joe, Bob and Sister Chastity

Year five
Aaron, Almost Witty, Andrea, Anna, Bob, Cackle Jr, Chris, Craig, Dan, Electric Dragon, George, Iko, Jane, Jaradel, Joe, Jonathan, kaballa, Kev, Lesley, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Nik, Phoenix, Poly, Rev/Views, Rosby, Scott, other Scott, Sister Chastity, Stu_N, Stu, Stuart, TemplarJ, Toby, Vin, Brian Clegg, DOPEaddict, dreamer-easy, ecg, Erin C, Jemima, Jonathan Burt, Julie Paradox, Karen, Mark Carroll, Mark Clapham, Rachel, redscharlach, Robin Parker, Sabine, Skreee, SK, Steerforth and Virginia Moffatt.

Year six
Toby, Marie, Jane, Rullsenberg, SK, Bob the Skutter, Stu_n, Aaron, Hannibal, Electric Dragon, Mark Carroll and the other David (and everyone else I couldn’t mention that year!)

Year seven
Toby, Rullsenberg, SK, Bob the Skutter, Aaron, Mark Carroll, Stuart Ian Burns, Robin Parker, Adam Bowie, benjitek, TheReader76, Craig Grannell, the other David et al

Year eight
Mark Carroll, Gareth Williams, GYAD, Toby, Rullsenberg, SK, Bob the Skutter, Robin Parker, Hazel, Julia Williams and benjitek

Year nine
Mark Carroll, Gareth Williams, GYAD, Toby, Rullsenberg, SK and benjitek.

Year ten
Mark Carroll, Gareth Williams, GYAD, Toby, Rullsenberg, SK, benjitek, Andy Butcher and Ian Mond.

I’m hoping you’ll all stick around for more!

I’d also like to thank those people lurking behind RSS feeds and Twitter who push up the web traffic, even if they never feel the need to comment (my wisdom is truly awesome and can inspire silence in those who receive it), as well as those whom I talk with regularly on Twitter, including @SnarkAndFury, @IainMHepburn, @cathoderaytube, @cameronyardeJnr, @AlexRomeo, @ThierryAttard, @Ladyteruki, @crimetimeprev, @paulwhitelaw and @lukecustardtv.

Here’s to another 10 years of television, my writing about television and your good health.

Continue reading “Celebrating a decade of The Medium Is Not Enough”

Weekly Wonder Woman

Weekly Wonder Woman: Justice League of America #1, Wonder Woman #41, Superman-Wonder Woman #18, Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Four #7, Sensation Comics #38

22 June 2015 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

(Formally) moving to its new home of Monday, it’s Weekly Wonder Woman, your weekly round-up of all the DC comics that have featured… well, you can probably guess who.

This week, we have the grand unveiling of the DC You Wonder Woman, the semi-successor to nu52 Wonder Woman. Yes, no longer will I be able to inaccurately mock the new 52 with a tedious reference to Apple Computers of the 1990s; now I must deal with the already self-mocking DC You. Supposedly, a lighter, happier, freer DC universe – ah, if only they could say ‘Marvel-ier’ – it’s got new versions of old characters, new comics and more, right down to a Black Canary who sings heavy metal while fighting crime.

Black Canary sings heavy metal

While the launch has been underway for a couple of weeks now, with Superman getting his secret identity revealed and losing some of his powers over in Superman and Batman’s Bruce Wayne having been replaced by Commissioner Gordon in some kind of battle suit…

Batman and Superman in the DC You

…this is the first week we’ve properly seen the new Wonder Woman make an appearance. So after the jump, as well as our regular scans over the Elseworld Wonder Women of Injustice Gods Among Us Year Four and Sensation Comics, we’ll be looking at the first-DC You issues of both Wonder Woman and Superman-Wonder Woman, wherein we get to meet the new DC You Wonder Woman – hint, she might just have a new costume.

And we’ll also be looking at the first issue of Justice League of America. Yes, I know there’s already a Justice League – this is the Justice League of America. Yes, I know there’s already been a nu52 Justice League of America with a completely different line-up – this is the regular Justice League line-up, with Superman, Green Lantern, The Flash, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Cyborg. Yes, I know Wonder Woman isn’t American and actually lives in London, but that’s not my fault is it?

What do you mean they’re all still wearing their nu52 costumes? Don’t tell me that’s now an Elseworld, too. Sigh.

Talking of Elseworlds, here’s the new animated Wonder Woman. See if you can spot any actual similarities with normal Wonder Woman, beyond the fact she’s

  1. A woman
  2. The daughter of a god
  3. Fights
  4. Has a boyfriend called Steve Trevor

Although I guess since Batman’s actually a vampire and Superman’s the son of Zod in Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles, similarities aren’t really what Bruce Timm is going for…

Continue reading “Weekly Wonder Woman: Justice League of America #1, Wonder Woman #41, Superman-Wonder Woman #18, Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Four #7, Sensation Comics #38”

US TV

Review: Complications 1×1-1×4 (US: USA Network)

22 June 2015 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Complications

In the US: Thursdays, 9/8c, USA Network

A lot of things can be learned from Matt Nix. Well, three at least. Nix, of course, is the creator of USA Network’s Burn Notice, for years the network’s most popular show. What lessons can we learn from him?

  1. Collaboration is important
  2. Not everything needs to be a procedural
  3. Dark and gritty may not always be a good thing

When Nix first pitched the idea of Burn Notice to USA, it was a dark misery-fest set in New York. Then USA said that maybe he should lighten the whole thing up a bit and set it in Miami. The result was a show that lasted for 111 episodes and a movie. However, I and many others gave up on the show after the fifth season because it had stopped innovating and had become a formulaic procedural.

Now we have Nix’s Complications, in which ER doctor Jason O’Mara shoots a gang member to save both his own life and that of his patient, the child of a gang member. Events then start spiralling out of control as he has to keep protecting and caring for the child or else the gang will kill him, his family, etc.

The show reads as what Nix might have made Burn Notice had he been left to his own devices. It’s dark and gritty, there’s almost no fun or engaging characters, and there’s mysteriously a procedural element to the show as well, with O’Mara having to deal with a ‘dark and gritty’ case of the week in each episode – domestic violence, foot amputation, etc, etc.

And it’s barely watchable. I sat through all 3-4 episodes (the first is a double-episode so your counting system might vary) wondering when it was going to get good. I sat through O’Mara doing all kinds of stupid things, able assisted in this by a somewhat criminal nurse Jessica Szohr. I sat through any number of scenes of poor old Beth Riesgraf (Leverage) having to play Generic Wife 3 – you know, the one who spends all her time nagging the husband, who can never tell her his deep dark secret, even if it means he might destroy his marriage?

But it never got good. Almost the show’s only redeeming feature is gang ‘fixer’ Chris Chalk (best known from The Newsroom but about to be a regular on Gotham as Lucius Fox), who quite rightly gets all the show’s good lines.

The show thinks it’s saying something. And if you watched the first episode, you might think it was going to say something, too, something interesting even – perhaps about what happens if a doctor ‘breaks bad’ or what it means for a doctor to ‘first, do no harm’, with O’Mara working through with psychiatrist Constance Zimmer (UnREAL) all the possible other permutations of medical morality and what happens when you introduce it to the real world. I’m sure over the course of the season, Complications is going to come back to all this at some point at least, but it doesn’t within the next two episodes to any appreciable degree.

Instead, all it does is show you semi-plausibly how to commit some really stupid instances of medical malpractice and get away with it. Even then, it does so in an utterly implausible framework and without any joy, excitement or attempts to engage the audience.

As I remarked earlier this year, USA has had such faith in the show that it’s effectively kept it in a box for a year. Now it’s dumping all the episodes as quickly as possible. I’d say that’s actually a pretty astute move on their part, since for a summer show, Complications is about as enjoyable as septicaemia contracted from some broken glass you stepped on on the beach.