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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UK TV

Preview: The Tunnel (Tunnel) (UK: Sky Atlantic; France: Canal+)

11 October 2013 Rob Buckley 14 Comments


In the UK: Wednesdays, 9pm, Sky Atlantic. Starts 16th October
In France: Canal+. Starts in November

Well, here we are again, on a border, two dead women’s bodies cut in half and stuck together, two different police forces from two different countries having to investigate the crimes, and resolve their personal and cultural differences. 

The Swedish-Danish co-production Bron/Broen – known in the UK as The Bridge – was a big success in both countries, one of BBC4’s biggest successes of 2012 and has taken the rest of the world by storm, too. Given the story involved co-operation between two countries’ police forces, it was always a natural for remakes, too.

We’ve already seen one example of such a remake in the US: The Bridge, which sees a US and a Mexican investigator pairing come together to solve a crime on the exact border of the US and Mexico. In some ways an almost exact duplicate, in others an improvement, but overall a blander dilution of the original, it’s been renewed for a second season.

Chances are, we probably won’t see it in the UK for a while, though, because the rights have already been acquired by the makers of a new Sky Atlantic/Canal+ co-production, The Tunnel. Yes, this time there’s been a murder but because there’s no bridge to France, it’s all happening underground in the Channel Tunnel.

Starring Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones, Hunted, The One Game) and Clemence Poésy (Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire), The Tunnel is once against an almost exact replica of that original show, but surprisingly enough, there are still a few things the format can offer that we haven’t seen before. Here are some trailers.

Continue reading “Preview: The Tunnel (Tunnel) (UK: Sky Atlantic; France: Canal+)”

Full season and a returning agent for SHIELD, and Richard Belzer leaves L&O:SVU

11 October 2013 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Daily News will return on Wednesday. Or Thursday. It depends how tired I am

Doctor Who

Film casting

Trailers

  • Trailer for Ambushed with Dolph Lundgren, Vinnie Jones and Randy Couture

Canadian TV

New UK TV shows

US TV

US TV casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

  • Natalie Zea to star in Amazon’s Outlaws, Peter Jacobson to recur on Lifetime’s HR
  • Ray Liotta and Mamie Gummer join HBO’s The Money
Weekly Wonder Woman

Review: Superman/Wonder Woman #1

10 October 2013 Rob Buckley 15 Comments

So after a dormant period of a few months – long enough to dodge the crappy and pointless Trinity War, anyway, if not to quite miss the end of Forever Evil – I think it’s time to revive the Wonder Woman reviews. Rather than save them up and do them all in one go, though, I think it’ll probably make more sense and give me a higher chance of succeeding if I review each comic as it comes out. 

Appropriately enough, for my first new review, it’s Superman/Wonder Woman #1, which horrifyingly enough is only the first new second title for Wonder Woman in 61 years. As you may have noticed, though, she has second billing in this to Superman, because to mirror the successful bromance of Superman/Batman, we have here what DC hopes will be the successful romance of Superman and Wonder Woman.

Indeed, one of the most controversial aspects of the DC’s nu52 has been the jettisoning of the Lois Lane-Clark Kent-Superman triangle of days gone by and the Steve Trevor-Diane Prince-Wonder Woman triangle of even farther off days gone by in favour of this new pairing, hinted at in pre-nu52 issues, fulfilled in alternative continuities but never official canon in DC’s main lines. Until now.

Now, following brief flirtations with the relationship by writers in Superman, Justice League and more bizarrely Young Romance (but notably, thanks to Brian Azzarello, not in Wonder Woman), we finally have a title that’s dedicated to it. Hooray!

One question is: will it be a success? An even better question is: will it make for a good comic. Let’s answer that question after the jump. Beware of epic spoilers ahead (sorry).

The gatefold cover for Superman/Wonder Woman #1

Continue reading “Review: Superman/Wonder Woman #1”

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Agents of SHIELD (ABC/Channel 4)

10 October 2013 Rob Buckley 12 Comments

In the US: Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC
In the UK: Fridays, 8pm, Channel 4

Three episodes into Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and it looks like the show is finally finding its feet as a show separate from The Avengers/Avengers Assemble and the rest of the ‘Marvel Universe’. Episode one was a derivative affair, no different from Knight Rider and NCIS in set-up but with even prettier casts and Whedongags and constant references to the movies to differentiate it from other ensemble action shows that deal with the hunting down of ‘terrorists’. 

With Joss Whedon apparently absent behind the scenes of episode two, taking his jokes with him (although rumours are they he did do some re-writes on it), the show made an unfortunate shift sideways in the direction of Torchwood, giving us a rubbish, bickering team, trying to save the world from alien artefacts, while making yet more references to the movies. And we just don’t need another Torchwood – one was enough.

Episode three was considerably more pleasing, though, giving us some juicy flips of a standard plot, some actual personalities for the prettier members of the cast and a guest appearance by an accent-laden Ian Hart. While still not quite up to Whedon-standard, there were better gags than before and the laying down of some new mythology for the show so it doesn’t have to keep drawing on the Marvel movie universe. It did have some weird ideas about Malta, though, and some pretty poor fight scenes, so let’s not get too carried away.

Agents of SHIELD is clearly a show finding its way. It’s not trying to be as clever or off the wall as previous Whedon efforts, and while its playing with the tropes of mainstream action and comic-book shows gives a certain edge on the po-faced likes of Criminal Minds and NCIS, it doesn’t yet have good enough writing or a good enough cast for it to quite get by without the goodwill brought about by the movies.

But it’s got enough good things about it and enough strengths that given time, it will be a decent enough show and could possibly grow into something innovative. We can at least keep our fingers crossed.

Barrometer rating: 3
Rob’s prediction: Will last at least one season, but needs to find its own place in the Marvel and TV-viewing universes for it to go beyond that.