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.
TMINE doesn’t usually cover US events, but since the whole world has gone teleconferencing event crazy, we’ve opened our minds to new possibilities. As has the US.
US trade magazine Deadline, with which readers of TMINE’s Daily Global TV News will by now be intimately familiar, has started organising TV events via Zoom and it’s got a very interesting international TV event lined up for this week, with some very interesting speakers. And as far as I know, all you have to do is RSVP to attend.
Face to face with German writers: serious about stories
Date: Thursday, September 10, 5pm
Deadline sits down with three of Germany’s hottest writers to find out how the country has put itself at the forefront of high-end European drama production. From How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) to Dark, Germany is making TV content that not only delivers in the local market but appeals to large diverse audiences around the world, particularly through VOD platforms. Behind any great series is a great writer – we’ll discuss how our panellists are crafting stories that cross borders.
Speakers
Christian Ditter – showrunner/writer/director, Biohackers, How To Be Single
Every so often, TMINE flags up what new TV events the Royal Television Society is holding around the UK
It’s been a bit of a break since the previous rundown of RTS events, so there’s a bumper crop to work our way through this week, some this month, some next. In fact, one’s tomorrow.
There’s a quiz, there’s something worthy with Richard Curtis and then there’s the Baird Lecture. Full details are after the jump…
It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
Previously on TMINE
I had a holiday. So it’s been a while, basically, since TMINE has reviewed anything.
I did watch some TV but not a huge amount, and what I did watch, I watched a little while ago, so I’m a little hazy about it. But I’ll do my best to recap, ready for September and the Autumn schedules.
Although…
Next on TMINE
…it’s worth noting that the US networks have basically pushed all new scripted shows to January 2021. Because of You Know What. So that means there won’t necessarily be a lot of new TV for the next few months. Or this week. But we’ll see what I can see.
In the schedules, at least, is Woke (US: Hulu) and The Duchess (Netflix), but I’ll probably give the latter a miss since I’m not the biggest fan of Katherine Ryan. So Woke it is.
Aya Cash and Antony Starr in The Boys
What TMINE has been watching
Long-time, observant readers will note that I didn’t apply my usual ‘Can I be arsed to catch up with this when I get back?’ rule to the Regulars list before I went. That’s because, with viewing fare scant, there was a big chance that even shows I couldn’t be bothered with I might still stick with. Conversely, holidays being what they are, there was also the possibility that I might not have stuck with shows I actually really liked.
So rather than second-guess myself, I decided to use empirical science to determine what I could actually be bothered catching up with and/or starting retrospectively.
The good news (for fans of those shows) is that I stuck it to the end of Baron Noir, Condor, Corporate, Doom Patrol, and Stargirl. I’ll discuss all of them after the jump.
The bad news (for fans of those shows) is that I really couldn’t be bothered watching any more of Das Boot, Dark or The Twilight Zone. I won’t be discussing them after the jump, but I watched a couple more episodes of Brave NewWorld before giving up, so I will talk about that after the jump, as well.
In terms of new and returning shows, The Boys was back on Amazon on Friday with three new episodes, so I watched them. Young Wallander also showed up last week on Netflix, so I gave that a whirl, too. Earlier in August, The Umbrella Academycame back for season two, and I watched all of that. My thoughts on all of those after the jump as well.
I gave the second season of The New Legends of Monkey a go, but that was feeling a little too young for me this time round, so I never made it to the end of the first episode, although at least Monkey got his cloud powers back. But I might give that another go at some point.
That made me want to watch old episodes of The Water Margin, so I caught of couple of those, which were actually really good. You remember that, don’t you? I might watch more of them at some point…
And in an unrelated development, Lovely Wife saw that Cobra Kai (seasons one and two) had come to Netflix, so we watched them in the space of about three days. She loved it for more or less the same reasons I did when I made it one of my top shows of 2018 and it really does hold up well on a second viewing, too. So if you’ve not watched it, I recommend you do.
Well hello. How are you all? I hope you had as good an August break as I did and are already enjoying September.
TMINE returned last week with something of a soft relaunch. Just News, because after nearly a month off, my work backlog was something huge. Plus there wasn’t that much TV to talk about.
But things are nearly back to manageable levels now, and so now it’s time to handle TMINE’s backlog. Hopefully, today (or maybe) tomorrow, WHYBW will return so we can talk about all the lovely tele we’ve been watching (or not) for the past month.
After that, there’ll be the usual round-ups of BAFTA, RTS and BFI events (what there are) this month and next. With cinemas back, Covideodrome is being mothballed in favour of Orange Thursday, which will return on (you guessed it) Thursday with Tenet (2020) and one other movie from the various ones I’ve seen in the past month.
Lastly, Friday will bring all the premiere dates for imported TV shows.
August didn’t have a huge selection of TV, mind, and TBH, since I’m still not commuting anywhere for work, I still don’t have the time I’d like to watch TV, so I’m drawing the usual line in the sand for shows that started in my absence. But from now on, if it’s new, I’ll try to watch and review it.
