What have you been watching? Including Travelers, Falling Water, The OA, Shooter and Dix pour cent (Call My Agent!)

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently and your chance to recommend anything you’ve been watching. 

I did promise you on Monday one potential last WHYBW to sign off with before the Christmas hols to mop up the few shows with remaining episodes this week. And here it is! How exciting. How reliable of me for a change.

After the jump then, the finale of Falling Water and as Netflix released all of Travelers today in the UK, I was able to binge-watch the final episodes, so I’ll be looking at them, too. Thanks to its delayed airing, I’ll be looking at the latest (not final) episode of Shooter, and I’ve also watched a few more episodes of The OA since I started it on Monday. 

On top of that, I also managed to catch up with another of Netflix’s French imports:

Dix pour cent (Call My Agent!) (France: France 2; UK: Netflix)
Sort of the French equivalent of ExtrasDix pour cent is set in a talent agency, where the various members of staff have to deal with all the problems that beset the ‘talent’, including the talent themselves. Except there’s all manner of inter-agency rivalry, poaching et al to deal with, too, once the head of the agency pops his clogs.

The show’s selling point in France is that series producer Dominique Besnehard was one of the biggest talent agents in France for 20 years and managed huge numbers of top actors, actresses and directors. He then persuaded a select range of these stars to appear as ‘themselves’ in the show to send themselves up, with episode one seeing Cécile de France (The Young Pope, Around The World in 80 Days, Mesrine) finding herself ditched from a Quentin Tarantino movie for being – gasp! – too old.

Which is a problem for UK audiences, since although there’s a chance that some of us will be familiar with some of the stars such as Audrey Fleurot from Engrenages (Spiral), most of the stars are like de France and are going to leave virtually everyone scratching our heads in exactly the same way every American did when Les Dennis turned up in Extras, for example. Even if you do know the show features such cameos (which isn’t obvious), most people aren’t going to know fictional character from cameo, let alone know an actor’s public persona and what they’re sending up.

On top of that, it’s just not that funny. Quelle surprise, given it’s France 2, but the show’s few jokes went flashing past unaccompanied by laughs. Oh, and the subtitling is terrible.

One to avoid unless you really know your French acting scene, I’m afraid.

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Streaming TV

Yep, definitely peak TV. Until next year…

455 scripted TV shows in the US in 2016, up from 421 in 2015. My.

However, that general number’s a bit quibblable since it includes English-language acquisitions, rather than just ‘true’ originals, as well as anything longer than 15 minutes on Vimeo, YouTube Red et al. Indeed, if we remove online services from the mix, broadcast TV is down by five shows from 2015 to 145, pay cable’s down by one show to 36 and basic cable’s down by seven to 181. Overall, everything’s gone down since 2015 except online.

Whether that means that peak TV actually peaked in 2015 or we are seeing a true move by long-form content from broadcast to online, where there’s an explosion of content starting, I couldn’t say.

More details at Variety.

When’s that show you mentioned starting again, TMINE? Including Beyond, You Me Her and Riverdale

Every Friday, I let you know the latest announcements about when new, imported TV shows will finally be arriving on your screens – assuming anyone’s bought any, of course.

I know what this feature’s called, but for once I can’t help you, since all the acquisitions this week have been shows that haven’t even aired in the US yet or which I didn’t bother watching since they were on Audience and sounded a bit pervy. All the same, Netflix wants them.

  • Beyond (US)
    Netflix UK: January 3rd
  • You Me Her (US)
    Netflix UK: January 18th
  • Riverdale (US)
    Netflix UK: January 27th

Seeing as I haven’t reviewed them, have some trailers instead.

News: The Lymond Chronicles adaptation; Cruel Intentions dead; extended Riverdale trailer; + more

The Daily News will return in January. Happy Kwanzaa everyone!

New UK TV shows

US TV

  • Wednesday ratings

New US TV shows

Question of the year: what were your favourite new shows of 2016? Here’s my Top 13!

TMINE’s about to take its traditional Christmas and New Year break. I’ll be back tomorrow but after that, normal business won’t resume until January 3rd or 4th with the Daily News et al. But a new tradition I started last year was to leave you with a specific question to keep you occupied: what were your favourite new shows of the year? As always, let everyone know your choices and the reasons below or on your own blog.

For the record, after the jump are my Top 1213 from all the countries around the world, as well as that new-fangled Internet thing, in no particular order, with the addition of one I mysteriously left off this morning. Merry Grafelnik, everyone!

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