Wednesday’s “William Peteresen in Hurt People, Spartacus casts Caesar and Mandrake The Magician movie” news

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Tuesday’s “a William Wallace TV series, Endeavour gets 4 more episodes and David Cronenberg comes to TV” news

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What did you watch last week? Including Archer, Kung Fu and Colossus: The Forbin Project

David Carradine in Kung Fu

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

First, the usual recommendations: Archer, Being Human (US), BeTipul, Cougar Town, The Daily Show, Happy Endings, House, Modern Family, Portlandia, Ringer, Shameless (US), Southland, Spartacus, Suburgatory, 30 Rock and Top Gear.

Still in the backlog: the second episodes of Awake and GCB. But largely, the regulars are chugging along, doing their regular thing, and I’ve not much to say about them, except to say keep watching them, particularly Archer which had a very odd homage to Midnight Cowboy last week.

But I have also been watching:

  • Kung Fu: Slowly watching the first season again on CBS Action. Because everything is very slow on Kung Fu in a way that’s surprising for US TV. Fights, despite the title, are a bit dreadful, and you can tell the stunt guy actually only knows judo; Carradine’s take on being half-Chinese is also borderline racist. But it’s a lovely lyrical show, almost fairytale in its way, that makes it virtually unique in the annals of US TV. Go watch it on CBS Action or investigate the pilot movie over here.

And in movies:

  • Colossus: The Forbin Project – One of the first of the decent sci-fi movies of the 70s, nevertheless, it has dated quite a bit. But it’s still really good, and you have to love a downbeat ending and a German lead.

How about you?

“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?

Film

Question of the week: what adaptations do you think are better than the originals?

Sex and the City

Many films – and TV series – are, as you’re probably aware, based on books and comics these days. As a rule of thumb, most of these adaptations aren’t as good as the originals, and there’s many a group of fans who will decry what their beloved book/comic becomes when it gets adapted (The Vampire Diaries especially comes to mind, here).

But sometimes, just sometimes, the adaptations are better than the originals. The TV version of Witchblade was leagues ahead of the comic; Colossus: The Forbin Project is a classic sci-fi movie of the 70s, whereas the book itself is fairly dreadful; I find The Walking Dead to be significantly better than the comic it was based on; and even Sex and the City is better than Candace Bushnell’s original book.

So today’s question is:

What TV and movie adaptations do you think are better than the original books or comics?

Answers below or on your own blog, please

Monday’s “Dragon Tattoo’s Nyqvist’s US show, Julian McMahon spying and Carlton Cuse checks into the Bates Motel” news

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