Articles by Rob Buckley

About Rob Buckley
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
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US TV

Review: Leverage 2×1

16 July 2009 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Leverage

In the US: Wednesdays, 9/8c, TNT
In the UK: No one’s bought it. Seriously, what’s keeping you guys?

Leverage is one of those shows that’s there purely to entertain. It’s kind of smart, but not brainy. It’s kind of funny, but not laugh out loud funny. It’s action-packed, but not adrenaline-pumping.

Despite its grifter credentials, it won’t convince you it’s the best show in the world, but it’s personable, it’s fun, the characters are enjoyable: it’s an hour of entertainment that won’t make you feel like you’ve left your brain at the door, and it’s clear everyone making it is having a whale of a time.

Like Ocean’s 11 and Hustle, it’s about a group of criminals who pull off confidence tricks; however, these guys do it to help the little people fight the rich corporations. At the end of last season, the gang split up to go their separate ways, but since then, there’s become a whole load more little people, and a whole load of corporations doing suspiciously well during an economic meltdown.

Continue reading “Review: Leverage 2×1”

Welsh TV

I hate you Sky+ – Caerdydd’s back and you didn’t tell me!

15 July 2009 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Caerdydd - Series Four

A while ago, I mentioned the virtues of Sky+. ‘Series link’ was one of those virtues – press the magic green button when you have an item selected in the TV planner and it’ll record the entire series for you.

Except, apparently, if it’s a new series. I’ve been scouring the listings for a while now but completely failed to notice that series four of Caerdydd has been running for five weeks now! Five weeks! And Sky+, despite that series link having been set up for series three, has been ignoring series four completely. Damn you Sky+!

Anyway, thanks to the miracle of the Internet, we can catch up through the S4C web site, although there’s only four days left to watch the first episode before it disappears. I heartily encourage you all to watch it right now if you’re not because it’s ace. You can get Welsh or English subtitles online, so don’t you be a-worrying you won’t understand what’s going on.

Incidentally, I have Dylan over at shitclic.blogspot.com to thank for this information – go visit him, too, because he’s a very kind and useful person!

Hey Rob. Love the site – I log on regularly to get my daily fix for TV news and reviews. I noticed you were an avid fan of the popular Welsh soap-drama “Caerdydd” on S4C last year… and surprised you haven’t mentioned the third series currently shown on Sundays at 9pm (repeated with onscreen subtitles for our English friends 😉 on Thursdays at 10.30pm. Check out the great new mini-website www.s4c-caerdydd.co.uk… oh, and my tv blog in the lingo of heaven as noted!

Cheers/Hwyl fawr!

Dylan

See? Kind and useful.

Just as a quick reminder, here’s how series three ended. And for all you Torchwood lovers, here’s Ianto Jones (aka Gareth David-Lloyd) when he appeared on the show opposite Siwan Morris.