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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Tuesday’s “The Doctor fights Moriarty, a Neil Gaiman Sandman prequel, and Michael Palin returns to acting” news

2 July 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Doctor Who

  • The Doctor to fight Moriarty with the help of Q and the Queen

Trailers

  • Trailer for the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis with Carey Mulligan, John Goodman et al
  • Trailer for Ride Along with Kevin Hart and Ice Cube

Comics

  • Vertigo to launch six new titles this year, including a Sandman prequel by Neil Gaiman

UK TV

UK TV casting

US TV

US TV casting

New US TV show casting

  • Jenna Elfman replaces Parker Posey on NBC’s Growing Up Fisher
US TV

Question of the week: have you ever abandoned TV shows during the final seasons?

1 July 2013 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

Dexter

Dexter has been going on for seven seasons and has just started on its eighth. Now I loved the first season – it was great. The second season was excellent, too, after a faltering start. Then came the Jimmy Smits season and the first sense that maybe the show was losing its edge. Season four gave us John Lithgow as Trinity, which was a much more promising affair.

All seemed to be good.

But then along came season five, with Julia Stiles as an abuse victim who turned the tables on her abusers with Dexter’s help. Despite the presence of Stiles, Chris Vance and Jonny Lee Miller, it was very Mamite-y: you either loved it or hated it. I loved it… right up until the end of the season, which had possibly the stupidest ending imaginable.

After that, things just got ridiculous, with Edward James Olmos and Colin Hanks as the Big Bads of season six, with a twist you probably saw coming, but even if you didn’t, you wondered how Dexter got so stupid the rest of the time. And then Debs decided she fancied Dexter. Ugh.

Then last year gave us season seven, the stupidest of them all, which despite a good start, gave us Dexter shagging one of his victims while she was still on his ‘table’, all the while Debs was trying to wean Dexter off this murdering thing. Before murdering someone herself.

So Dexter‘s eighth season started last night. I hear it had some good elements. Yet despite having watched seven seasons already, I find myself not wanting to watch it. At all. I just can’t see, short of Dexter being killed or stuck in prison, how they could make it interesting enough and smart enough again for me to want to watch it. Not even Charlotte Rampling can do that.

Now this isn’t the first time I’ve bailed on a show at the last moment, as a result of a show’s increasingly insipid nature. I gave up on Chuck for much the same reason. So this week’s question is:

Have you ever given up on a long-running TV show just as it’s hit its final season? If so, why?

As always, leave your answers below or on your own blog.

Monday’s “More Wonderland, Sky Living’s drama casting and a Jacob’s Ladder remake” news

1 July 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film

Film casting

UK TV

US TV

  • Trailer for season 3/4 of Strike Back

US TV casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting