Year: 2016

US TV

Review: Those Who Can’t 1×1-1×2 (US: TruTV)

16 February 2016 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

In the US: Thursdays, 10.30/9.30c, TruTV

TruTV. It wasn’t so long ago when you were just CourtTV, but then you decided to start focusing on reality TV, and TruTV was born. That seemed reasonable. Then you decided to have a go at short-form comedy programmes, but at least they were more ‘prank shows’ than sitcoms. But now you’re having a go at long-form comedy. So what’s Tru now, TruTV?

Like TV Land, which is trying to bust out of its previous demographic, too, TruTV has decided to spearhead its edgy new style by getting a troop of improv comedy performers to come up with a sitcom about teachers. But while TV Land handed Teachers over to a group of female performers working with small children, TruTV decided that a group of male performers pretending to be high school teachers would be the best option for Those Who Can’t. Looking at the differences is instructive. Or maybe it isn’t. But let’s look at them.

While Teachers was basically about a bunch of female teachers who brought their own personal issues to school, resulting in incompetent teaching, Those Who Can’t is about a bunch of guys who never grew up into men and so aren’t very good at teaching nearly-men. Indeed, they largely get bullied by them or each other.

And that’s pretty much all the jokes: nerdy men trying to out-alpha each other while being out-alphaed by all the kids they teach. That and lots of jokes about dicks. And balls. And dicks and balls.

There is the occasional gay joke, just to break up the monotony. And one about the Spanish teacher teaching Castillian Spanish rather than Latin American Spanish – gosh, those lisped c’s are just so amusing, aren’t they? But that’s it for variety.

Despite only 42% of US high school teachers being male, the entire faculty appears to consist of men, from the principal (Ground Floor‘s Rory Scovel) downwards. The sole exception is the librarian (Maria Thayer), who’s there for the guys to hit on and be rebuffed, when she’s not acting like ‘one of the boys’ and making jokes about dicks… and balls… and dicks and balls, of course.

But that’s it. Pretty much everything about Those Who Can’t is predictable and the show is bereft of any hint of reality. Even when the mean kids turn up at a teacher’s house and YouTube themselves paintballing him, nothing happens, so naturally the teachers have to then go off and plant heroin in the lead kid’s locker to get him expelled. Sounds fun? Don’t worry – it isn’t.

Those who can’t? Make comedy show for TruTV, it turns out.

Weekly Wonder Woman

Weekly Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman ’77 #15, The Legend of Wonder Woman #14, Injustice: Gods Among Us – Year 5 #8

15 February 2016 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Last week was quite quiet on the Wondy front. Sure, we had the last trailer for Batman v Superman before the movie hits the big screen next month. That featured not only a leaping/flying Wonder Woman…

…but also the first lines of dialogue we’ve heard her utter so far.

But in the comics book world, there wasn’t much to shout about. Unsurprisingly, given the ideas of romance demonstrated by DC in the first issue, there was no Young Romance this year to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Instead, we only had the concluding part of Wonder Woman ’77‘s fight with Clayface, young wartime Wondy going to the movies in The Legend of Wonder Woman #14 and alternative Diana doing some punching over in Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Five #8.

All of that after the jump.

Continue reading “Weekly Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman ’77 #15, The Legend of Wonder Woman #14, Injustice: Gods Among Us – Year 5 #8”

News: Daniel Craig’s Purity; Ashley Judd in Twin Peaks; Apple’s Dr Dre series; Damon Wayons in Lethal Weapon; + more

15 February 2016 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Internet TV

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

  • Daniel Craig to star in adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s Purity
  • Syfy green lights: series of Oculus Rift-enabled futuristic cop drama Halcyon

New US TV show casting

What have you been watching? Including The Man From UNCLE and Sicario

14 February 2016 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

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’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

It’s been if not a bumper week for TV, one that’s certainly full. Elsewhere, I’ve passed verdicts on:

After the jump, the regulars: American Crime, Angie Tribeca, Arrow, Billions, The Flash, Limitless, The Magicians, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agent Carter, Okkupert (Occupied), Second Chance, The Shannara Chronicles, Supergirl and The X-Files, as well as the return of The Doctor Blake Mysteries. At least one of those is for the chop, one of them earned a last minute reprieve and another could be departing soon.

I’ve a few new shows from Thursday night onwards that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet, but which hopefully I’ll be able to let you all know about this week: Wanted (Australia: Seven) and Those Who Can’t (US: TruTV). Otherwise, I’m bang up to date.

In fact, I’ve had a go at a few movies, too.

Sicario (2015) (iTunes)
Emily Blunt is an FBI agent drawn into the moral greys of the drugs war, as she joins an inter-agency taskforce with Mexican drug dealers in their sights. Despite some lovely cinematography, and a good cast that includes Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro and Jeffrey Donovan, it’s something of a yawn fest that thinks it’s saying something clever about the lengths good men must go to to fight evil. Except it’s all been done before. There are two excellent, tense sequences, but otherwise it’s a yawnfest, and Blunt’s neophyte is practically superfluous requirements – had it simply about our ‘grey areas’ friends, it would have been a much leaner and more interesting movie.

Fantastic 4 (2015) (iTunes)
Yet another origin story for the Fantastic Four, in which plucky scientists and their friends and relatives get given special powers through a cosmic accident. This version is probably the worst so far, however, despite taking more than a few liberties with the original story, swapping out cosmic rays in favour of some inter-dimensional travel experiments. The lovely wife and I tried to watch this a few months ago, but quickly gave up through sheer boredom. This rewatch revealed it was a full hour and 20 minutes before anything that could be quantified as ‘mildly exciting’ happened in the movie – that being the 10 minute final battle between the Four and evil hacker/scientist Victor Von Doom. An excruciatingly painful bit of movie-making that proves that everything Marvel is not gold and that superheroes need to have both personalities and fun to be worth watching.

The Man From UNCLE (2015) (iTunes)
Guy Ritchie’s reboot of the 60s TV series attempts to do what Sherlock Holmes did for Sherlock Holmes. Here, we get an origin story of sorts – how CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB agent Ilya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) end up working together to defeat a greater enemy, with the help of Mr Waverley (Hugh Grant). The first 15 minutes isn’t half bad, as we learn a lot more about Solo than we did in the TV series (he’s a former war profiteer who agreed to join the CIA to avoid prison) and get a decent version of post-war Berlin to enjoy. Unfortunately, the intellectual, cool Kuryakin of the TV series here is yet another stereotypical Russian, ex-Spetsnaz soldier, and there’s almost zero cameraderie between the two of them.

At least for the first half, after which I turned off because it was just so astonishingly boring.

Fast and Furious 6 (2013) (Channel 4)
Seeing as both Gina Carano (would have been good as Wonder Woman) and Gal Gadot (fingers crossed, will be good as Wonder Woman) were in this, I thought I’d tune in for this, having studiously avoided all the previous installments of this ‘fast cars, fast criminals’ movie franchise. Unfortunately, it was just as awful as I thought it would be, with no trace of acting skill displayed by anyone, characterisation that’s beyond insulting and almost zero grasp on reality. I didn’t even make as far as any of the stunts. Oh well.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Man From UNCLE and Sicario”