Joe Pasquale as Frank Spencer
News

Nurse Ratched Cuckoo’s Nest prequel; Veep, Blood Drive cancelled; + more

Theatre

  • Joe Pasquale to play Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em stage show

Internet TV

  • Roku to add free The Roku Channel movie service
  • Netflix green lights: two seasons of Ryan Murphy One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest prequel Ratched, with Sarah Paulson

International TV

  • Julia Davis joins Channel 4 (UK)/Amazon’s Philip K Dick’s Electric Dreams

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

  • Tim Reid and Alkoya Brunson to recur on CBS’s Me, Myself & I
US TV

What have you been watching? Including Odysseus, כפולים, and Halt and Catch Fire

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you each week what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently and your chance to recommend anything you’ve been watching. TMINE recommends has all the reviews of all the TV shows TMINE has ever recommended, but for a complete list of TMINE’s reviews of (good, bad and insipid) TV shows and movies, there’s the definitive TV Reviews A-Z and Film Reviews A-Z. But it’s what you have you been watching? So tell us! Ah go on. Go on, go on, go on

Here we are at the third of my post-August WHYBW catch-ups. If you recall, the first was to catch up with all the boxsets I’d been watching; the second was to catch up with all the movies; and this third one will deal with new shows and episodes of all the regular shows I’ve been watching over August.

However, as you may have noticed, as always things haven’t quite gone according to plan. Already, I’ve slipped in a review of the complete third season of Narcos. But on top of that, I’ve gone and watched some more movies, too. Whoops. You’ll see which ones in a tick.

I’ve also not seen as many new shows as I’d wanted to. My usual “if it starts in August, I ain’t watching it” rule means that 21 Thunder, Gone, Get Shorty and The Sinner, to name but a few, aren’t even getting a plot summary out of me – let that be a lesson to you, broadcasters! – but as well as a couple of Amazon boxset shows that need my attention – The Last Tycoon and Comrade Detective –  I’ve still to watch some new shows that just about slipped in under the wire.

That means Get Krack!N (Australia: ABC) will probably be getting reviewed on Thursday, seeing as episode two goes out on Wednesday. I’m also in two minds as to whether to review The Deuce (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic). On the plus side, it’s from David Simon (The WireTreme) and stars James Franco and Maggie Gyllenhaal; on the minus side, it’s about the rise of the porn industry in New York in the 1970s, so might be a bit too risqué for my blood. Still, it doesn’t officially premiere until 10 September, so I’ve still plenty of time to preview it.

All of that cunningly means that after the jump, I’ll be reviewing:

  • Movies: Just Friends (2005) and Doctor Strange (1978)
  • New (ish) showsOdysseus (France: Arte; UK: TV5)
  • Regular shows: כפולים (False Flag), Game of Thrones, Shooter and Twin Peaks
  • Returning shows: Halt and Catch Fire and The Last Ship

Yep, I gave up on Will – as did TNT, to be fairSee you in a mo…

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Odysseus, כפולים, and Halt and Catch Fire”

False Flag
Israeli TV

Preview: כפולים (False Flag) 1×1 (Israel: Channel 2; UK: Fox UK)

In Israel: Aired on Channel 2 in October 2015
In the UK: Mondays, 9pm, Fox. Starts Monday July 31st

If Israeli TV has a preferred genre, it’s spy shows. Think of Hatufilm (Prisoners of War), פאודה (Fauda) and even the more comedic likes of Mossad 101. No surprise then that with all that practice, it produces some of the world’s best spy shows.

It’s too early for me to say whether Fox’s כפולים (False Flag) is one of the world’s finest spy dramas, but judging by the first episode, it’s certainly up there. Made by Keshet (Prisoners of War) for Israel’s Channel 2 back in 2015 and featuring many faces familiar from its previous shows, the show sees five seemingly ordinary Israeli TV citizens turn on their TVs one morning to see their passports plastered all over the news. Unfortunately for them, the Russian government has fingered them as Mossad agents responsible for the abduction of Iran’s minister of defence.

The show’s big questions are:

  1. Did they do it?
  2. Will people, including their loved ones, believe them when they say they didn’t do it?
  3. How does it affect them?

Continue reading “Preview: כפולים (False Flag) 1×1 (Israel: Channel 2; UK: Fox UK)”

Woody Harrelson as LBJ
News

Friends’ sisters reunited; Old Man Samuel L Jackson; Chris Pine’s TV show; Animal Kingdom, Angie Tribeca, Harlots renewed; + more

The Daily News will return on 4th September. Have a nice August!

Film trailers

Internet TV

  • Trailer for Amazon’s Comrade Detective

French TV

International TV

  • Trailer for AXN’s Absentia with Stana Katic
  • Hulu (US) – and maybe ITV Encore (UK) – renew: Harlots

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

BBCs 1, 2 and 3 comedy pilots; Shooter shortened; Queen Sugar renewed; + more

Internet TV

  • BBC Three green lights: pilots of comedies Chinese Burn (with Yennis Cheung et al), Hailmakers (with Akemnji Ndifornyen and Samson Kayo), Wannabe (with Liz Brazier) and Enterprice (with Kayode Ewumi et al)

International TV

New UK TV shows

  • BBC One green lights: pilots of comedies Mister Winner (with Spencer Jones et al), Time Vine Travels Through Time and Static (with Rob Beckett)
  • BBC Two green lights: pilots of comedies The Other One and The Pact

US TV

US TV show casting

  • Li Jun Li joins Fox’s The Exorcist
  • Elizabeth Banks, Ed Begley Jr, Carrie Brownstein et al to guest on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm
  • Mahershala Ali to star in HBO’s True Detective
  • Jaylen Moore promoted to regular, Nikolai Nikolaeff joins, Katherine Evans to recur on History’s Six
  • Breeda Wool to guest on NBC’s Midnight, Texas
  • Rachelle Lefevre and Missy Peregrym to guest on NBC’s The Night Shift

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting