Nordic TV

News and reviews of Nordic TV

What have you been watching? Including Vinyl, Wanted and Vikings

20 February 2016 Rob Buckley 11 Comments

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

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

Apologies for the silence this week – you can blame Windows 8 for that. It wasn’t even my Windows 8 (like I’d have it in the house), but the Windows 8 of somewhere at which I do volunteer work. My advice? Don’t try to fix Windows 8 – just wipe it and start again. Which is what I eventually did.

Anyway, that meant I couldn’t write about tele for several days, but don’t worry – it didn’t mean I couldn’t watch tele. Elsewhere, of course, I’ve reviewed the first episodes of:

And after the jump, I’ll be dealing with the regulars: American Crime, Arrow, Billions, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, The Flash, Limitless, Lucifer, The Magicians, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agent Carter, Okkupert (Occupied), Second Chance, The Shannara Chronicles, Stan Lee’s Lucky Man and The X-Files. At least one of those gets the chop this week. Can you guess, which? This week also saw the return of Vikings, so I’ll be having a go at that, too. 

Out yesterday was Netflix’s Love, and I’ll try to give that a watch over the next few day; I’ll probably be playing catch-up with BBC4’s showing of Iceland’s Trapped, too.

But there was a couple of new shows out in the past week or so that although Windows 8 stopped me from reviewing them, I did manage to get a chance to watch them. Largely while I was fixing Windows 8.

Vinyl (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic)
Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger co-created this story of the 70s music business, in which Bobby Carnavale (Cupid, Boardwalk Empire, Nurse Jackie) plays the boss of a struggling company trying to work out what’s hip and cool, as punk et al arrive on the scene. Scorsese directs, there’s a soundtrack including Slade and Abba, there’s a strong supporting cast, including Ian Hart, Paul Ben-Victor, Juno Temple, Olivia Wilde, Ray Romano and Birgitte Hjort Sørensen. What could go wrong? Well, lots apparently. Maybe it’s just because it’s about the music business, in which I have minimal interest. Maybe it’s because of the sexism, racism, et al of the period. Maybe it’s some of the dodgy English accents floating around. Whatever it was, despite its having a certain degree of authenticity, I barely made it to the end of the extremely long pilot episode. Not for me.

Wanted (Australia: Seven)
Continuing her majestic stranglehold on all of Seven’s drama output, Rebecca Gibney stars in this odd-couple-on-the-run drama that she also created. Gibney plays a rebellious, free-spirited but broke checkout woman; Geraldine Hakewill is an uptight accountant with a nerdy boyfriend and a criminal secret. They’re both waiting for a bus when a car chase ends in front of them and they witness a murder. Unfortunately for them, crooked cops are involved in the action and before you know, there are more bodies, everyone thinks they’re responsible and they’re on the run, while trying to clear their name and avoid getting caught by bad cop Nicholas Bell or good cop Stephen Peacocke. It’s mildly diverting stuff, but everything goes pretty much how you expect, the jokes are weak, and neither Gibney nor Hakewill make you want to hang out with either of them, let alone go on the run with them.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Vinyl, Wanted and Vikings”

What have you been watching? Including The Man From UNCLE and Sicario

14 February 2016 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

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

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

It’s been if not a bumper week for TV, one that’s certainly full. Elsewhere, I’ve passed verdicts on:

After the jump, the regulars: American Crime, Angie Tribeca, Arrow, Billions, The Flash, Limitless, The Magicians, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agent Carter, Okkupert (Occupied), Second Chance, The Shannara Chronicles, Supergirl and The X-Files, as well as the return of The Doctor Blake Mysteries. At least one of those is for the chop, one of them earned a last minute reprieve and another could be departing soon.

I’ve a few new shows from Thursday night onwards that I haven’t had a chance to watch yet, but which hopefully I’ll be able to let you all know about this week: Wanted (Australia: Seven) and Those Who Can’t (US: TruTV). Otherwise, I’m bang up to date.

In fact, I’ve had a go at a few movies, too.

Sicario (2015) (iTunes)
Emily Blunt is an FBI agent drawn into the moral greys of the drugs war, as she joins an inter-agency taskforce with Mexican drug dealers in their sights. Despite some lovely cinematography, and a good cast that includes Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro and Jeffrey Donovan, it’s something of a yawn fest that thinks it’s saying something clever about the lengths good men must go to to fight evil. Except it’s all been done before. There are two excellent, tense sequences, but otherwise it’s a yawnfest, and Blunt’s neophyte is practically superfluous requirements – had it simply about our ‘grey areas’ friends, it would have been a much leaner and more interesting movie.

Fantastic 4 (2015) (iTunes)
Yet another origin story for the Fantastic Four, in which plucky scientists and their friends and relatives get given special powers through a cosmic accident. This version is probably the worst so far, however, despite taking more than a few liberties with the original story, swapping out cosmic rays in favour of some inter-dimensional travel experiments. The lovely wife and I tried to watch this a few months ago, but quickly gave up through sheer boredom. This rewatch revealed it was a full hour and 20 minutes before anything that could be quantified as ‘mildly exciting’ happened in the movie – that being the 10 minute final battle between the Four and evil hacker/scientist Victor Von Doom. An excruciatingly painful bit of movie-making that proves that everything Marvel is not gold and that superheroes need to have both personalities and fun to be worth watching.

The Man From UNCLE (2015) (iTunes)
Guy Ritchie’s reboot of the 60s TV series attempts to do what Sherlock Holmes did for Sherlock Holmes. Here, we get an origin story of sorts – how CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) and KGB agent Ilya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) end up working together to defeat a greater enemy, with the help of Mr Waverley (Hugh Grant). The first 15 minutes isn’t half bad, as we learn a lot more about Solo than we did in the TV series (he’s a former war profiteer who agreed to join the CIA to avoid prison) and get a decent version of post-war Berlin to enjoy. Unfortunately, the intellectual, cool Kuryakin of the TV series here is yet another stereotypical Russian, ex-Spetsnaz soldier, and there’s almost zero cameraderie between the two of them.

At least for the first half, after which I turned off because it was just so astonishingly boring.

Fast and Furious 6 (2013) (Channel 4)
Seeing as both Gina Carano (would have been good as Wonder Woman) and Gal Gadot (fingers crossed, will be good as Wonder Woman) were in this, I thought I’d tune in for this, having studiously avoided all the previous installments of this ‘fast cars, fast criminals’ movie franchise. Unfortunately, it was just as awful as I thought it would be, with no trace of acting skill displayed by anyone, characterisation that’s beyond insulting and almost zero grasp on reality. I didn’t even make as far as any of the stunts. Oh well.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Man From UNCLE and Sicario”

News: Neil Gaiman’s Likely Stores; BBC4 acquires Modus; Master of None renewed; + more

12 February 2016 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Film trailers

Internet TV

UK TV

New UK TV shows

US TV

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

What have you been watching? Including Okkupert (Occupied), Lucifer and Marvel’s Agent Carter

6 February 2016 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

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

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

Well, I’ve culled and the fact I’ve culled means that alles in Ordnung now. If I hadn’t been doing some last minute editing of articles for the Financial Times yesterday (ook, hark at me), WHYBW would have been with you then. Now it’s today, so that means I’ve been able to slip a couple more shows into my viewing schedule.

This week I’ve already passed third-episode verdicts on:

But I’ll be saving my third-episode verdicts on Stan Lee’s Lucky Man (UK: Sky1) and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow (US: The CW; UK: Sky1) until Monday. That means that after the jump you can see what I thought of the latest episodes of American Crime, Arrow, The Flash, Lucifer, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agent Carter, Okkupert (Occupied), Second Chance, Supergirl and The Shannara Chronicles. This week’s theme? Relationships with fathers. Can you guess which shows feature them? Other than Lucifer, obvs?

I might watch the latest 100 Code tonight. Or I might watch Sicario instead. The latter seems a better a choice. Anyone got any better suggestions?

I’d let you know what I thought of Guy Ritchie’s movie version of The Man From UNCLE, but we only watched 10 minutes of it last night before my wife fell to sleep, which is probably not a good enough sample of it to pass a fair judgement. And to be fair, we both thought it wasn’t bad. Not proper Man From UNCLE and quite silly, too, but interesting in its own right so far, particularly the take on Napoleon Solo, and a good recreation of Berlin and Checkpoint Charlie.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Okkupert (Occupied), Lucifer and Marvel’s Agent Carter”

What have you been watching? Including Room, Marvel’s Agent Carter, Arrow and Endeavour

23 January 2016 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

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

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

It’s been another huge week, full of new shows, continuing shows and returning shows. I’ve struggled manfully with them, but despite delaying WHYBW to Saturday to give me a little extra time to get through everything and then write about them, I’m still to cover three new series:

  • Mad Dogs (Amazon Instant Video): Shawn Ryan’s US remake of the Sky 1 original brings back Ben Chaplin in a different role but none of the other cast for this relocated show about a bunch of old friends (in both senses of ‘old’) who reunite for a plush holiday in the middle of sunny nowhere. Before you know it, everything ends up going a bit criminally pear-shaped and holiday heaven becomes holiday nightmare. I haven’t even watched the pilot of this, which has been sitting on Amazon for a while now, but given the original didn’t overly impress me and I gave up after about three episodes, I’m not sure I’m going to be in much of a rush to watch this version either. I do hope they explain why it’s called Mad Dogs, given the lyrics are ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun’.
  • Baskets (US: FX): Co-created by Louis CK, Zach Galifianakis and Jonathan Krisel, this sees Galifianakis playing dual roles as twin brothers, one of whom aspired to clown school in Paris, but who ended up becoming a rodeo clown. It’s apparently a bit Marmite, but I’ll try to review it in the first half of next week.
  • Stan Lee’s Lucky Man (UK: Sky 1): Marvel’s Stan Lee gives us James Nesbitt as a Brit cop, down on his luck, who gets a magical bracelet that reverses his fortunes. It’s Stan Lee, so could be fun, but it’s also Sky 1 so could be stupid/mediocre beyond belief. Again, first half of next week for this one.

Despite those three failings, I have managed to cover rather a lot this week already, with reviews or previews of the first episodes of:

As well as a third-episode verdict on Cooper Barrett’s Guide To Surviving Life (US: Fox).

The meat of the week’s viewing has, however, been continuing and returning shows, so after the jump, you’ll find reviews of the latest episodes of (deep breath): 100 Code, American Crime, Arrow, Billions, Byw Celwydd (Living A Lie), Colony, Endeavour, The Family Law, The Flash, Grandfathered, Limitless, Man Seeking Woman, Occupied (Okkupert), Rebellion, Second Chance, Les hommes de l’ombre (Spin) and Supergirl. Oh yes, and the two-hour premier of the new season of Marvel’s Agent Carter. Pardon me if you were hoping I would carry on with Idiotsitter, but no thank you.

I’m pretty sure something’s going to have give on that list soon, but I’m not quite sure what yet. Pity the first show to turn in a duff episode.

This week, I also moseyed on down to the cinema to watch a movie:

Room (2015)
Adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s book of the same, which sees five-year old Jake (Jacob Tremblay) discovering that the small room he’s lived in his whole life may not be the extent of the universe and that his mother (Brie Larson) has been keeping some important and very disturbing details from him. While that scenario (inspired by real cases) doesn’t sound like a very enjoyable subject matter, both the book and the movie quickly switch things around and give us a genuinely moving tale of parental love, the adaptability of children and finding hope in extremis, so if you think it’s not your thing, you might find you’re completely wrong.

Not quite as initially claustrophobic as the book, the movie is still a magnificent piece of work, with Larson and Tremblay justifiably getting all kinds of award nominations. William H Macy appears for almost no good reason, except to remind you of all the roles he used to get before he ended up doing Shameless (US). Recommended – you won’t even be able to watch the trailer again afterwards, without wanting a cathartic little cry.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Room, Marvel’s Agent Carter, Arrow and Endeavour”