Archive: US TV

Archives of reviews about US TV

US TV

Review: Lost 5×1-5×2

23 January 2009 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Lost 5x1

In the US: Wednesdays, 9/8c, ABC
In the UK: Sundays, 9pm, Sky One. Starts 25th January 2009

Ah, don’t we all remember those glorious days when Lost was simple and easy to understand?

No? Just me? Oh wait, it was always a bit tricky, wasn’t it? Now I remember.

However, relative to season five, season one was a breeze where everything was clear, well understood and you wondered where all the mystery was. Ever since then, we’ve been getting flashforwards, flashbacks, time travel, ghosts, Jacob, the others, the Dharma Initiative, Jim from Neighbours, mysterious not-French women and smoke monsters.

Season five carries on directly from where season four left off. Except three years later. And in the 70s. And the 40s. And possibly in the year umtidllyumptious as well. The dead walk the earth and maybe come back to life. Yes, it’s the fabled zombie season, here at last.

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US TV

Review: Flight of the Conchords 2×1

22 January 2009 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

Flight of the Conchords

In the US: Sundays, 10pm, HBO
In the UK: BBC4 at some point within the next two months

Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. You begged, pleaded and even demanded that I try to watch and enjoy Flight of the Conchords when it came back. And I really wanted to.

See, I wasn’t much impressed by the first season, featuring those loveable New Zealand folk singers Jermaine and Bret and their inept manager Murray. There wasn’t really much diversity. Okay, the songs were good pastiches, but I’ve never been much of a fan of a spoof song.

My problem (which is mine) was that there was a joke. It was funny the first time. It’s just that every single other joke was the same joke. One of the trio says something, trying to sound bigger, more important or more street than he actually is, then the others spend time cutting him down to size. Oh, wait, there was another joke: it’s that New Zealanders are a bit inoffensive, a bit polite and nice, etc. Which is kind of related to the first one if you think about it.

Funny as that joke and a half was, it didn’t really keep me wanting to watch it again and again over the course of a whole season, so I gave up after a while.

Now it’s back, have they got a new joke?

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US TV

Review: Kyle XY 3×1

16 January 2009 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, ABC Family
In the UK: Trouble, BBC2, Living in that order, at some point this year and next

Since Kyle XY first started, it’s gone through something of a mutation. At first a sci-fi mystery series – Who is Kyle and why doesn’t he have a belly button? – along the lines of John Doe crossed with Dawson’s Creek, it slowly became something of a Roswell – teen angst set against a backdrop of weird sci-fi-ness. Revealed as a cloning experiment designed to unleash the full potential of the human mind and body, Kyle has slowly accumulated more – and occasionally better – superpowers than Peter Petrelli. However, much of the mystery has disappeared, replaced by the thrills of conspiracies and shadowy organisations.

When we left Kyle at the end of last season, his girlfriend had been abducted by one of the aforementioned shadowy organisations; Jessi XX, his slightly demented, equally super-powered friend, was just about to run out of town with clone mum Ali Sheedy; and everyone else was worrying about whether to shag their partners after the prom or not. So far, so complicated.

With the return of the show for its third season, it looks like Heroes is going to have a run for its money this year.

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US TV

Review: 24 – 7×1-7×4

14 January 2009 Rob Buckley Post a comment

In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, Fox
In the UK: Mondays, 9pm, Sky One

Sometimes a year off can be a boon. Like a gap year or backpacking round Europe, it can give you new perspectives and distance on things you used to take for granted.

24‘s been stuck on the TGV of TV for over a year now, its last season cancelled by the writers’ strike, with only an anaemic and turgid TV movie to keep us going since then. But as this four-episode, two-night intro to the new season shows, it’s come back a whole lot more vigorous than when it left and it’s brought a bunch of old friends with it.

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