I'm Sorry
Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including I’m Sorry, Friends From College, GLOW and Game of Thrones

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

First up, it’s a warm welcome to the returning “TMINE recommends“, which went missing in action during the recent TMINE redesign while I worked out how to reproduce it in WordPress. To be honest, though, I hadn’t updated it in a couple of years, so it wasn’t quite as useful as it was before. But I spent a little bit of my weekend recommending things in the system, so it should now be as complete a list as it was in its glory days.

I’ve also been working on some variably useful A-Z indexes of reviews, including ones for all the TV reviews, audio play reviews and Internet TV reviews. More to come when I’m not exhausted. With all of these, though, I’ve yet to work out a good way of including the weekly mini-reviews from WHYBW, so they’re not 100% complete, but they’re the best they’ve ever been all the same.

Trawling through them reminded me of all manner of shows that I’d completely forgotten about, too. Remember Mr Sunshine and Pepper Dennis? Of course you don’t.

Right, now the admin’s out the way, let’s talk TV.

Things are starting to hot up again in TV around the world so expect some actual reviews later in the week and the start of next week. You’ll certainly be getting a third-episode verdict of Will tomorrow and I’ll probably be doing you a third-episode verdict of Snowfall next week, since I haven’t got round to watching last night’s episode yet. After the jump, I’ll be looking at the latest episodes of the now very short list of regulars: Ronny Chieng – International Student, Twin Peaks and the returning Game of Thrones. I’ve also managed to work my way through the whole of GLOW and I’ve tried two new shows: I’m Sorry (US: TruTV) and Friends From College (Netflix). See you on the other side!

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George Romero
Film

Sadly, George Romero has died – but he’ll live on through his work… or zombification – one of the two

Yesterday wasn’t a good day for the great and the good. Martin Landau of Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999 fame passed on; Trevor Baxter – best known as Professor Litefoot from the Jago and Litefoot stories is no more, too.

But another great was lost to us, as well: George Romero, who basically invented the modern zombie drama and opened up the doors to other horror directors such as Sam Raimi and John Carpenter, too. See that Walking Dead? That’s there because of Romero. See that Ash vs the Evil Dead? Wouldn’t have happened without Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Even subtler things, such as having women and minorities fighting back and being heroes in horror, you can trace a line back to Romero’s work to find their origins.

Night of the Living Dead started it all and it’s the one you should watch if you want to see what Romero achieved. Completed on a $114,000 budget, it grossed $12 million in the US and $18 million internationally and spawned five sequels. True, it’s basically what its own writer John Russo describes as a “rip-off” of  Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, but does that matter? Not at all, because Night of the Living Dead is as much about look as plot, and it’s Romero’s direction that makes the movie something far more than a simple rip-off.

Oddly, the movie is now in the public domain. US copyright law used to require a copyright claim on a movie’s print for it to be copyrighted and a cock-up at the distributor meant that as the movie changed name from Night of the Flesh Eaters to Night of the Living Dead, someone forgot to include the credit. That means you can watch the whole movie guilt-free on YouTube. Although buy it if you like it, so that Romero’s estate gets something after all, hey?

Harrison Ford in Blade Runner 2049
News

News: a new Blade Runner 2049 trailer; Mariah Carey drama; a High & Dry series; + more

Film

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US TV

US TV show casting

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The Twilight Zone
Events

The Almeida theatre enters The Twilight Zone this December

Well colour me surprised – the Almeida Theatre in north London is putting on some adaptations of classic episodes of The Twilight Zone from this December. I wonder who’ll play Rod Serling?

Between light and shadow, science and superstition, fear and knowledge is a dimension of imagination. An area which we call the Twilight Zone.

Adapted by Anne Washburn (Mr Burns) and directed by Olivier Award-winner Richard Jones, this world premiere production of the acclaimed CBS Television Series The Twilight Zone lands on stage for the first time in its history. Or its present. Or its future.

Stage magic and fantasy unite as the ordinary becomes extraordinary.

The stories chosen are by Rod Serling, Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson, so that should narrow things down – but only a little bit.

The production runs from 5th December 2017 to 27th January 2018, with a post-show discussion with members of the company on 11th January. Tickets cost £10-£48 and available here to the public from July 27.