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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What did you watch this week? Including Life of Crime, Elementary, Arrow, Vegas and Hannibal

17 May 2013 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

It’s “What did you watch this week?”, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I’ve watched this week that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

First, the usual recommendations:

  • Arrow (The CW/Sky 1)
  • Continuum (Showcase/SyFy)
  • The Daily Show (Comedy Central)
  • Doctor Who (BBC1/BBC America)
  • Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)
  • Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living)
  • Modern Family (ABC/Sky 1)
  • Vegas (CBS/Sky Atlantic)

These are all going to be on in either the UK or the US, perhaps even both, but I can’t be sure which.

Still in the viewing queue: new show The Goodwin Games, which I’ll be reviewing on Monday, and I’ll be playing catch up with New Zealand show Harry, too.

I did give Life of Crime a go, too, in which Hayley Atwell plays a cop in three different time periods at different stages of her career. Entirely fits the template of ITV crime dramas and you could predict virtually everything that happened in each time period, with the corresponding Attitudes written in neon lights all over every character.

Now, some thoughts on some of the regulars and some of the shows I’m still trying:

  • Arrow (The CW/Sky 1): No League of Shadows, surprisingly, but everything played out in the finale pretty much as you’d expect, beyond the final twist. Overall, a very decent season, although it started to lost its edge and become a tad more Smallville than Batman Begins by the end. One to look forward to next season, certainly.
  • Continuum (Showcase/SyFy): There I was complaining there wasn’t enough cool sci-fi in the show, when up it pops in spades. For my next trick, can we have some more intelligent schemes from the terrorists, please. 
  • Elementary (CBS/Sky Living): Everything played out pretty much as I expected in terms of revelations, but in many ways better than Sherlock‘s handling of similar Sherlock Holmes facets. I also liked the fact they made Irene Adler and Moriarty one and the same. It’ll be great if they bring her back and make her a maths professor, too. A good explanation for an in-story bad accent, too. PS, New York can try to pass itself off as London, but it will always fail.
  • Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living): I’m not convinced that Hannibal should be that good in a fight, particularly not up against Demore Barnes who was in The Unit. All the same, another fascinating episode, Gillian Anderson getting more to do this week. What surprises me is that the show, which I’m thinking more and more of as a cross between Touching Evil (US) and David Cronenberg’s oeuvre, is actually capable of instilling dread in me, which is a very novel emotion of a TV show to be able to create in its audience. Magnificent, but its fate is in the balance at the moment. Please renew it, NBC.
  • Vegas (CBS/Sky Atlantic): And so it’s gone, in a somewhat underwhelming finale that mostly just tied up loose threads, left a couple dangling and let everyone pat each other on the back and say goodbye, all while Carrie Anne Moss had nothing to do, which was par for the course. A shame, since it started off with so much fire.

“What did you watch this week?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?

US TV

The CW’s upfronts 2013-4 – a rundown and clips from the new shows

17 May 2013 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

It’s the end of upfronts week for the major networks now, with “oh yes, we forgot about them” The CW rounding it all off yesterday. The LA Screenings start today and buyers from around the world, including the UK, have descended from all the major networks to see these pilots and decide whether to buy any of them.

Last year, The CW decided to end its policy of targeting almost exclusively young women with a collection of new shows that included the rather good Arrow and the rather poor Cult, as well as the more traditional for The CW The Carrie Diaries, Beauty and the Beast and Emily Owens MD. It was a strategy that was only partially successful, with Arrow getting renewed for a second season along with The Carrie Diaries and Beauty and the Beast, but Cult dying a death with Emily Owens.

Nevertheless, The CW is pressing on with its gradual expansion into (what it thinks are) male realms this year, while continuing to provide (what it thinks is) young female-friendly output that falls into roughly the same areas as its existing programming, with just a hint of originality in there, too.

Here’s the line-up:

  • The Originals: A Vampire Diaries spin-off
  • Reign: Mary Queen of Scots as a young woman
  • The Tomorrow People: Beauty and the Beast style remake of the old paedo-friendly ITV show, with the mandatory two white guys, one BME guy and a white girl + Mark Pellegrino
  • The 100: 100 young people return to a devastated Earth
  • Star-crossed: Romeo & Juliet + aliens
After the jump, summaries, trailers, clips and a schedule.

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More religions added to the blog’s handy guide

17 May 2013 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Last week, I unveiled this ‘ere blog’s handy guide to all the Western, English-language TV shows that have portrayed particular religions to be true in some way. At the time, I said it was a work in progress, and I’ve already separated the original entry out into separate posts, mainly to avoid crashing browsers with too many videos.

Anyway, following various people’s suggestions that my memory is full of holes…

…I’ve added a few new shows to the various pages.

Friday’s “BBC2’s Cold War, Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut and Warehouse 13 and Nikita to end” news

17 May 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film

Film casting

Trailers

  • Trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim
  • Trailer for Last Vegas, with Morgan Freeman, Robert De Niro and Michael Douglas

UK TV

US TV

New US TV shows

US TV

Vikings invade London

16 May 2013 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Vikings on the Thames

Normally I wouldn’t bother with a press release like this, but they went to such an effort and, you know, VIKINGS!

VIKINGS RETURN TO LONDON
For the first time since the original 842 AD London invasion, a 35-foot Viking longboat complete with fifteen Viking raiders sailed down the River Thames today.

Two replica boats used in the critically acclaimed US TV series VIKINGS were sailed along the Thames and parked up alongside iconic London landmarks including Buckingham Palace, the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament to mark the UK release of the show on Amazon’s LOVEFiLM.

The company struck the landmark broadcasting deal with MGM Television late last week (Friday 10th May), which sees all nine episodes of the Norse action-drama released exclusively at once in full high definition through the LOVEFiLM Instant online streaming service as opposed to traditional terrestrial and satellite broadcasting channels.

Starring Travis Fimmel (The Beast, The Experiment), Golden Globe winner Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects, Miller’s Crossing) and Katheryn Winnick (Love and Other Drugs, Bones), VIKINGS chronicles the epic adventures of notorious Norse hero Ragnar Lothbrok (Fimmel), a Viking warrior who yearns to explore – and raid – the distant shores of the ocean. VIKINGS also stars George Blagden (Wrath of the Titans), Jessalyn Gilsig (Glee), Gustaf Skarsgard (The Way Back), and Clive Standen (Camelot).

Created and written by Michael Hirst – one of the most respected historical storytellers in the industry (Academy-Award® winning film Elizabeth; and the Emmy and Golden Globe nominated series The Tudors), VIKINGS is a tale of warfare, sex, bloodshed, ambition, family and brotherhood. The epic drama is the number one new cable series of the year in the U.S.

Simon Morris, Chief Marketing Officer at LOVEFiLM, said:

“Geneticists say there’s a bit of Viking DNA in all of us so we’re delighted to give our members the opportunity to indulge in first class entertainment and feast on the story of their ancestry. This is a landmark moment in the history of LOVEFiLM as it is the first time a major TV series has aired on our service before traditional broadcasting channels. We are serious about securing the best film and TV entertainment for our members and this demonstrates how content creators view LOVEFiLM as an effective broadcasting medium for high-quality and premium entertainment.”

VIKINGS will premiere on LOVEFiLM Instant in the UK on May 24th 2013 and Germany on 15th June 2013 and will be available exclusively on the streaming service in both countries. MGM Television is serving as the international distributor in all markets outside of the U.S., Ireland and Canada.

LOVEFiLM Instant is available on PC, Mac or via Nintendo Wii and Wii U, Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony Playstation®3, Kindle Fire HD and Kindle Fire, Apple iPad® and a growing number of Internet-connected TV sets and Blu-ray players, giving members immediate access to a huge range of the latest films and premium TV shows from as little as £4.99 a month.

More vikings in Piccadilly Circus and Parliament Square after the jump. If you want trailers, boy, do I have the entry for you.

Continue reading “Vikings invade London”