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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Meme of the Week: your favourite ‘TV transplant’

8 July 2009 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

No. Not that. Well, not unless you really want it to be, you sicko.

No, this week’s Meme of the Week is inspired by Frasier, Ashes to Ashes, After M*A*S*H, etc. You have a favourite TV character – or merely favourite TV show. You take that character or a character from the show and you transplant them to a new environment. That’s a ‘TV transplant’. So…

What’s your favourite TV transplant?

I’ve given you a couple already, but feel free to suggest your own: after all, TV is littered with plenty of spin-offs (K9 and Company, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Private Practice, Going Straight, Highlander: The Raven). But what’s your favourite?

For advanced students, what’s your least favourite, or perhaps you’d like to create your own: Frank Spencer on Batllestar Galactica? Neil Burnside on The Brittas Empire? Jack Bauer on Pushing Daisies? What do you fancy?

As always, leave a comment with your answer or a link to your answer on your own blog.

US TV

Review: 10 Things I Hate About You 1×1

8 July 2009 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

10 Things I Hate About You

In the US: Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC Family

10 Things I Hate About You was a teen comedy in 1999 that had two distinct advantages over other teen comedies: it was smart and it had a great cast, including Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Allison Janney, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and David Krumholtz. Based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and set in Padua (High School), it depicted the various attempts – some fair, some foul – by boys of the school to woo the two sisters, Bianca and Kat.

Ten years on, ABC Family have tried to recreate the magic of the movie in a TV series, by dragging in its original director and most of the script. It’s not a bad try, but it’s just not all that.

Continue reading “Review: 10 Things I Hate About You 1×1”

US TV

Deadliest Warrior: IRA vs the Taliban

8 July 2009 Rob Buckley 19 Comments

Deadliest Warrior

Charlie Brooker’s You Have Been Watching started on Channel 4 last night. I won’t bother with a review: it was pretty good, I thought, but I think we’re getting a bit meta when we start reviewing shows that review shows.

But it was gratifying to see that he picked up on, Deadliest Warrior, which I nominated at the start of last month for the title of the stupidest TV programme ever. There weren’t any clips available on YouTube at the time, but there are now, since in case you missed it – and it’s still on 4oD if you want to give it a whirl – here’s the match you’ve all been waiting for: the IRA vs the Taliban, handled as tastefully as you’d expect from Spike TV.

Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Sid and Nancy

8 July 2009 Rob Buckley Post a comment

The wonderful Zooey Deschanel and the perfectly acceptable Joseph Gordon-Levitt have a new movie out called 500 Days of Summer. I haven’t seen it, but I hear that despite them, it’s not very good. Oh dear.

But in the movie, there’s a scene where the two young lovers compare their relationship to Sid and Nancy’s. Here it is:

Cinemash is doing a new project in which various actors re-enact scenes from famous movies. So it’s appropriate that they start off with our Zooey and Joseph Gordon-Levitt re-enacting a scene from Sid and Nancy. Unfortunately, you can’t embed the vids (easily), so you’ll just have to go to Cinemash to watch it.

Also coming up: Cheech and Chong do Tron (seriously), Milo Ventimiglia from Heroes doing Oldboy and Will Arnett and Xavier from Adult Swim do Carrie. Should be interesting.

Wednesday’s rejuvenated Caruso news

8 July 2009 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Doctor Who

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US TV