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

Just how are the current US shows being advertised?

25 September 2008 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

My Own Worst Enemy

Getting people to watch your shiny new show (or returning old show) is always tricky. Billboards are among the main media you can use to get people to tune in, provided you create enough impact.

Here’s a shiny collection of billboards (and a couple of magazine spreads and covers) for the current and returning shows in the US, as featured by The Hollywood Reporter, complete with rating. Where I’ve reviewed the show, I’ve included a link to the review

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Sapphire and Steel – Wall of Darkness

25 September 2008 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

There are species of sloth faster than me. I really do learn incredibly slowly sometimes. Case in point: the Big Finish Sapphire and Steel audio plays.

These have been a largely hit-and-miss affair, with the distinct emphasis on ‘miss’. Yet I’ve kept on getting them and wasting my time with them. Doh! Still, once in a while, a good one turns up, so I’m not wholly insane.

Where I’m learning impaired is in forgetting to note who writes each story. In particular, if it’s producer Nigel Fairs, the Sapphire and Steel supremo at Big Finish, you can pretty much guarantee that the first part of the whole play is going to be absolute drek, with a second part that manages to make the misery you’ve experienced almost worthwhile.

Turns out that for this, the final play in the series, possibly ever, pretty much the whole of the second part is absolute drek as well. The final ten minutes or so? Now that’s where it gets really interesting.

Continue reading “Review: Sapphire and Steel – Wall of Darkness”

Thursday’s “hi ho and ahoy Silver” news

25 September 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

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The CarusometerA Carusometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Fringe

24 September 2008 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Time for a third-episode verdict on Fringe, JJ Abrams new show for Fox about investigations into the weird areas of fringe science. After a first episode that was really rather good indeed, we’ve had a severe drop-off in quality. The problem is that although we have the fantastic John Noble as the equally fantastic Dr Walter Bishop, a mad scientist to whom all other mad scientists should bow down to and worship as their god, everything else is a little dull.

While Joshua Jackson as Bishop’s son is almost interesting, Anna Torv’s FBI heroine is about as involving as a 700-page instruction manual on repairing a steam iron. Even the magnificent Lance Reddick can’t rescue her boss from mere stern untrustworthiness. 

The plots and direction have also lacked all the promise of the pilot, with the Cronenbergian coldness and body horror now MIA, replaced with simple weirdness and an X-Files-esque conspiracy theory of outstanding tedium. Those stupid location-naming graphics are irksome, too.

On the whole, probably not worth sticking with, even though there are hints that there’s more plot to come. I might well keep watching, just to see if I’ve been proved wrong – I’ll let you know if I have.

So The Medium is Not Enough has great pleasure in declaring Fringe a three or ‘Minor Caruso’ on The Carusometer quality scale.