The Orville - The Road Not Taken
US TV

What have you been watching? Including Game of Thrones and The Orville

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

Yes, it’s Thursday! After a temporary relocation to Tuesday, WHYBW is back on its God-ordained day thanks to last week’s viewing queue cull. Fingers crossed, that’ll allow me to start boxsetting again at the weekends. Fingers even more crossed, we won’t need to reschedule anything for a while.

Elizabeth Laidlaw and Noel Fisher in The Red Line
Elizabeth Laidlaw and Noel Fisher in The Red Line. Photo: Elizabeth Morris/CBS ©2018 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This week’s reviews

There’s been a trickle of new shows over the past week, although I’ve skipped the likes of Netflix’s Chambers, on the general grounds it sounded rubbish. But elsewhere, I’ve reviewed:

And this week’s Orange Wednesday took in Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Godzilla (1954)

Cobra Kai - season 2
William Zabka, Martin Kove and Ralph Macchio in season 2 of YouTube’s Cobra Kai

What’s coming this week

The observant will have noticed that I’ve been watching the second season of YouTube’s Cobra Kai. I’ll be reviewing all of that tomorrow.

I’ve also started watching TVNZ’s The Bad Seed and as that ain’t bad, I’ll hopefully be doing that as a boxset on Tuesday (it’s another Bank Holiday in the UK on Monday).

That makes Netflix’s Dead to Me unlikely to fit into the schedule when it starts on Friday, but I might do that later next week. The Spanish Princess starts on Starz (US) on Sunday, but I’ll be working to Lovely Wife’s schedule on that one, her being the Tudor/Philippa Gregory expert.

There’ll be other stuff, too, I’m sure, maybe even in countries other than the US. But I’m not sure what.

HBO (US)'s Game of Thrones
Apparently, there was a big fight this week in HBO (US)’s Game of Thrones

The regulars

After last week’s cull, we have a much more stable stable of regulars to talk about this week. However, as WHYBW has been pushed back a couple of days, some of them are on double-episode duty.

After the jump then, Doom Patrol, Game of Thrones, The Twilight Zone, Warrior, and What We Do In the Shadows – one of them is getting promoted to the recommended list. Can you guess which one? It was also the season (and possibly series) finale of The Orville, so I’ll be talking about that, too.

See you in a mo.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Game of Thrones and The Orville”
Ramy
News

Ramy and PEN15 renewed; Ghost Rider returns; Evangeline Lilly’s Albedo; Dutch This is Us;+ more

Every weekday, TMINE brings you the latest TV news from around the world

Canadian TV

European TV

UK TV

  • Molly Windsor, Laura Fraser and Jennifer Spence to star in Alibi’s Traces

US TV

  • Trailer for season 3 of Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale
  • Teaser for Hulu’s Veronica Mars
  • Teaser for season 2 of HBO’s Succession
  • Hulu renews: PEN15 and Ramy

New US TV shows

Godzilla
Film reviews

Orange Wednesday: Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Godzilla (1954)

Two reviews this week, both of which are a moderate disappointment to myself. Last week, I worried that I was only reviewing superhero movies. To be fair, most new movies these days seem to be superhero movies, but I was trying to quit the habit…

…just as the concluding part of the Avengers‘ 11-year-long, 21-part series of movies hit the silver screen in the UK. Doh!

Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up superhero movies.

Avengers: Endgame review after the jump. I’ll try not to be too spoilery.

Secondly, last week, as you may recall, I took out a free trial/subscription to the BFI Player to try to ensure I watched something moderately cerebral for a change. Look at all those Kurosawas, I thought to myself. Yet, while I did end up watching a black and white Japanese movie, it wasn’t a Kurosawa.

Yep, original Godzilla after the jump, too. Sigh.

Continue reading “Orange Wednesday: Avengers: Endgame (2019) and Godzilla (1954)”
The Chi
News

The Chi, Empire renewed; Spider-man universe TV series; + more

Every weekday, TMINE brings you the latest TV news from around the world

Internet TV

UK TV

  • Lisa Kudrow, Sophie Thompson and Charlotte Ritchie join E4/Netflix’s Mae and George
  • Horror Bites and CBS Catchup Channels added to YouView
  • Greenacre developing: adaptations of Thrity Umrigar’s The Space Between Us and The Secrets Between Us

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

Noah Wyle and Aliyah Royale in The Red Line
US TV

Review: The Red Line 1×1 (US: CBS)

In the US: Sundays, 8/7c, CBS
In the UK: Not yet acquired

Every so often, one of the major US networks decides to do something Important. I don’t know why – the shows always tank in the ratings, no matter how good they are, as has already happened with The Red Line – but they do. Maybe it’s to make a statement about the kind of network they are or want to be. Maybe it’s to suggest to viewers that they don’t need to take out a cable subscription to watch TV that has meaning beyond simple entertainment.

Whatever the reason, they do.

Following on from ABC’s remarkable American Crime, Fox was the last network to try to do something Important, with Shots Fired, in which a black cop shoots an unarmed white guy. Nearly a year later, we now have CBS’s The Red Line, which flips the scenario to something more familiar.

Elizabeth Laidlaw and Noel Fisher in The Red Line
Elizabeth Laidlaw and Noel Fisher in The Red Line. Photo: Elizabeth Morris/CBS ©2018 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Red Line

Created by playwright Caitlin Parrish and frequent collaborator Erica Weiss and produced by Wunderkinder Greg Berlanti and Ava DuVernay, The Red Line follows three separate groups of people following a fatal shooting by a white Chicago cop of an unarmed black man (Corey Reynolds).

The first group are Reynolds’ husband, Noah Wyle (ER, The Librarian, Falling Skies), and their adopted daughter Aliyah Royale; the second is the cop who shot Reynolds (Shameless US‘s Noel Fisher) and his co-workers; and the third is Royale’s real mother (Emayatzy Corinealdi) – a rising politician who gave Royale away when she was just a teenager – and her husband (The Musketeers‘ Howard Charles).

Six months after the shooting, Wyle and Royale are still trying to adjust to life without Reynolds and want justice from the system. Fisher, meanwhile, is devastated by the tragedy but thinks he did everything right. Corinedaldi, meanwhile, wants to change the system, particularly the training of police officers, and thinks she’s the person to do it.

Continue reading “Review: The Red Line 1×1 (US: CBS)”