And it’s Danny McBride playing him in Dundee.
[via]
Film
Month: January 2018
News
Paul Bettany is the new Prince Phillip; Lisa Edelstein is a sociopath; new Muppets show; + more
Internet TV
- Netflix developing: adaptation of ME Thomas’s Confessions of a Sociopath, with Lisa Edelstein
- Paul Bettany joins Netflix’s The Crown
- Sarah Baker joins, Emily Osment, Susan Sullivan, Graham Rogers et al and Lisa Edelstein to recur on Netflix’s The Kominsky Method
US TV
US TV show casting
- Will Yun Lee to guest on ABC’s The Good Doctor
- Tessa Ferrer joins Audience’s Mr Mercedes
- Drew Carey to guest on CBS’s NCIS
- Shannon Kook to guest on The CW’s The 100
- Keinan Lonsdale swaps The CW’s The Flash for DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
- Ryan Michelle Bathe to recur on Fox’s Empire
New US TV shows
- ABC green lights: pilot of 1970s-set Irish-Catholic family comedy…
- …developing: new Muppets show
- Fox green lights: pilots of African/Midwest culture clash comedy Our People, single dad comedy Rel and romantic musical drama Mixtape
US TV
Review: Black Lightning 1×1 (US: The CW; UK: Netflix)
In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, The CW
In the UK: Tuesdays on Netflix. Starts January 23
Oh look. Another superhero show on The CW. Who saw that coming? I mean it’s only got Arrow. And The Flash. And Supergirl. And DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. How can any TV network manage to get by with only four superhero shows. It seems inconceivable.
Yet here we are with Black Lightning, which on the face of it doesn’t look a radical departure. It has a black superhero at its core, but Arrow already has Mr Terrific, so admirable though it is, it’s not new for The CW. The budget’s no bigger than Arrow and the rest’s – indeed, it looks cheaper most of the time, despite all the night shooting intended to conceal the fact.
Yet, on the network for young adults, Black Lightning is indeed radical, because it’s about a middle-aged man. Throwing aside conventional origin stories, the show picks up nearly a decade after electrically-charged superhero Black Lightning (Cress Williams) hung up his costume and lightning bolts so that he could settle down, look after his family and become the principal of a local high school.
However, despite the best efforts of the police, particularly Damon Gupton (The Player), a new gang called The 100 has moved into town and is taking over. When they start threatening his school and his teenage daughters (China Anne McClain and Nafessa Williams), Williams decides enough is enough and with the help of an old pal (appropriately enough, former Thunder God James Remar), steps up to protect the neighbourhood by resurrecting Black Lightning.
Easy middle-age
Now, it has to be said, despite being even older than I am, Cress Williams seems to be having a super-powered middle age. Not for him clicky knees when he stands up and without having trained in martial arts for years, he can still do a speedy roundhouse kick without pulling a tendon. Getting shot? A mere flesh wound.
Okay, he’s got super strength, as well as the ability to control electricity, but let’s have some sense of reality. Clearly this a show written by young people, who don’t really know what’s still to come for them. Even if you couldn’t have guessed from the school setting that the network is hedging their bets about the strength of the show’s appeal to the ‘starting to grey and where’d that tummy come from?’ demographic, the end of the first episode suggests that younger superheroes are going to be around. Maybe they can let him have a breather now and then.
All the same, kudos on not only having most of the action revolve around family man Williams and his family problems, but also having the even older Remar as Williams’ quasi-Alfred.
DC’s Luke Cage
Trouble is, while Black Lightning may stand apart from the rest of The CW shows in terms of age, it then gets lumbered with having to deal with all the same issues as Marvel’s Luke Cage. He’s going to stand up and look after his community (check). He’s got to demonstrate how to be a Good Black Man (check). He’s got to deal with gang violence (check). He’s got to survive encounters with the police without being shot on suspicion of being black (check).
There’s a certain “been there, done that” to the plot, if not the character himself.
Nevertheless, the show is different enough from the Arrowverse, which it fortunately doesn’t occupy so crossovers are off the cards for now, that Black Lightning doesn’t feel like YA superhero show. It could do with having better fights. It could do with having a different kind of enemy to face. But it’s a good start at least.
I just hope he doesn’t get a bad back.
US TV
Review: Corporate 1×1 (US: Comedy Central)
In the US: Wednesdays, 10/9c, Comedy Central
Normally, my go-to take-home going forward from a review of a Comedy Central comedy is that it would have been funny – or at least funnier – if I’d been smoking something illicit while watching, which is pretty much what most of the target audience will be doing.
However, Corporate would fire me for that, unless I managed to find a scapegoat instead.
Set in the completely evil conglomerate of ‘Hampton Deville’, Corporate is actually a marvellously dark and edgy piece that looks like something David Fincher might have done in his Fight Club days, given half a chance. It’s written by and stars Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman as two minor executives at the aforementioned evil corporation who are already on their own life’s Plan B and have seen all hope and joy leave their existences thanks to Hampton Deville and its corporate culture.
Episode one is ostensibly about the company’s launch of a new tablet “eight times as large as the iPad”, which goes wrong when someone in the social media department creates an ill-taste Tweet about hurricane victims. CEO Lance Reddick (The Wire, Fringe) is enraged so sets mid-tier execs Anne Dudek (House, Covert Affairs) and Adam Lustick to find the culprit. They in turn delegate to Ingebretson and Weisman, who react very differently to being given power for the first time in their five year careers at the company.
Office Space
The first episode’s jokes are mostly about corporate culture (eg who gets first dibs at bagels, how open you should be about stress caused by your job, who should be cc:ed v bcc:ed and why, how to get free cake), which are reminiscent naturally enough of Office Space and its TPS reports. It’s also done very well and raised plenty of laughs from me along the way.
However, this is clearly Office Space for the social media generation, and the show understands the Twitter and the Facebook well, as well as its limitations, with the second half a great take on the power of social media to create bad publicity – and how easy it is for a ‘social media guru’ to change that and for corporations to end up not actually doing anything.
The void
However, the show’s equally interested in darkness, depression and crushed dreams. Plenty are the jokes on suicide and the death of hope – indeed, the first episode is called ‘the void’.
“Plan B failed – time for Plan C”
“Suicide?”
“That’s right! You’re such a good friend to know that.”
Flailing against corporate culture? Don’t. You can’t fight it. No good deed will go unpunished. All you can do is climb to the top so that you’re no longer under anyone else’s thumb.
Again, here it’s as accurate as with its analysis of office politics…
Conclusion
The fact it’s attracted the cast it has should be enough to convince you that this is at least a cut above the normal Comedy Central output. The more you know of the corporate world, the funnier you’ll find it, I suspect. Bleakly funny.
Airdates
When’s that show you mentioned starting, TMINE? Including The Bold Type and The Mechanism
Every Friday, TMINE lets you know when the latest global TV shows will air in the UK
This week, we’ve seen a few new acquisitions. Romper Stomper (Australia: Stan), the update to the old Russell Crowe movie about neo-Nazis, has been picked up by BBC Three to air some time this year. Meanwhile, Syfy’s picked up Outpost, Dean Devlin and Jonathan Glassner’s series about a strong female hero and the lone survivor of a race called ‘Blackbloods’ who discovers her magical powers as she seeks revenge. That should start some time late this year.
We also have a couple of premiere dates:
The Bold Type (US: Freeform; UK: Amazon)
Premiere date: Friday, February 9
Stupid old person’s idea of what smart, talented bold young women working on a magazine like Cosmo must be like. Virtually every line of dialogue is not just empowering, it tells you how empowering it is. Even though very little of it actually is empowering and usually simply reveals the ineptitude at real-life results of those with nothing much more than social media experience.
Episode reviews: 1
The Mechanism (Netflix)
Premiere date: Friday, March 23
Character-driven original series inspired by real events in Brazil in which a small group of dogged investigators comes to discover the inner workings of a monstrous corruption scheme and the impact their pursuit has on everyone involved – including themselves.
DVD releases
Yes, bet you forgot I did these, too. Well, there’s one of note announced this week: BBC One’s Ghost in the Water.