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Celebrating a decade of The Medium Is Not Enough

22 June 2015 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

Gentlemen prefer blondes

Bloody hell. I’ve been doing this for a decade.

Yes, 10 years ago back in 2005 (sort of, subject to blog migration, blog splitting, blog reunions, etc), this blog emerged into the light of the Internet with its first two posts: a preview of Prison Break, the not-unpopular Supernatural and the still-unseen Global Frequency; and tedious cruft about The Omega Factor.

Since then, The Medium Is Not Enough has celebrated nine birthdays, and for a little nostalgia, you can look back and see what I’ve learned over the years:

  1. 2006
  2. 2007
  3. 2008
  4. 2009
  5. 2010
  6. 2011
  7. 2012
  8. 2013
  9. 2014

In that time, TMINE’s changed a lot and after the jump, I’ll do my regular once-a-decade potted history of the blog. I won’t pretend it’s made me rich and famous, but it’s led to my writing for a fair number of magazines, a few appearances on the BBC, write-ups in the likes of The Guardian weekend guide, getting quoted in newspapers around the world, a couple of awards, Charlie Brooker owing me a favour, and drawing the attention of Adam Buxton (in perhaps the wrong way).

It’s also helped me to meet and make friends with a lot of very lovely people online. Indeed, one thing’s remained constant: how great you guys are who come here, read TMINE and comment nicely on things I’ve said, even if for some bizarre reason you don’t always agree with me. Hopefully, I’ve helped you and certainly you’ve all helped me, so I’d like to thank everyone who over the years has regularly commented here and been lovely. Yes, all of you:

Year one
Anna, Holyhoses Rob, Jason, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Rosby, Scott, Stu

Year two
Anna, Holyhoses Rob, Jason, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Rosby, Scott, Stu, Iko, Poly, Mark, espedair, Linda, cindylover1969, Fraser, Kev, Craig, Lesley, Jonathan, Phoenix

Year three
Anna, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Rosby, Scott, Stu_N, Stu, other Scott, Stuart, Iko, Poly, espedair, kaballa, Electric Dragon, Linda, cindylover1969, Fraser, Kev, Craig, Lesley, Jonathan, Cackle Jr, Murray, Mark, Toby and Phoenix, Persephone, Jane, TemplarJ, Vin and Andrea

Year four
Anna, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Rosby, Scott, Stu_N, Stu, other Scott, Stuart, Iko, Poly, espedair, kaballa, Electric Dragon, Linda, cindylover1969, Fraser, Kev, Craig, Lesley, Jonathan, Cackle Jr, Murray, Mark, Toby, Phoenix, Persephone, Jane, TemplarJ, Vin, Chris, Andrea, Dan, Rev/Views, Aaron, Jaradel, Nik, Joe, Bob and Sister Chastity

Year five
Aaron, Almost Witty, Andrea, Anna, Bob, Cackle Jr, Chris, Craig, Dan, Electric Dragon, George, Iko, Jane, Jaradel, Joe, Jonathan, kaballa, Kev, Lesley, Lisa, Marie, Matt, Nik, Phoenix, Poly, Rev/Views, Rosby, Scott, other Scott, Sister Chastity, Stu_N, Stu, Stuart, TemplarJ, Toby, Vin, Brian Clegg, DOPEaddict, dreamer-easy, ecg, Erin C, Jemima, Jonathan Burt, Julie Paradox, Karen, Mark Carroll, Mark Clapham, Rachel, redscharlach, Robin Parker, Sabine, Skreee, SK, Steerforth and Virginia Moffatt.

Year six
Toby, Marie, Jane, Rullsenberg, SK, Bob the Skutter, Stu_n, Aaron, Hannibal, Electric Dragon, Mark Carroll and the other David (and everyone else I couldn’t mention that year!)

Year seven
Toby, Rullsenberg, SK, Bob the Skutter, Aaron, Mark Carroll, Stuart Ian Burns, Robin Parker, Adam Bowie, benjitek, TheReader76, Craig Grannell, the other David et al

Year eight
Mark Carroll, Gareth Williams, GYAD, Toby, Rullsenberg, SK, Bob the Skutter, Robin Parker, Hazel, Julia Williams and benjitek

Year nine
Mark Carroll, Gareth Williams, GYAD, Toby, Rullsenberg, SK and benjitek.

Year ten
Mark Carroll, Gareth Williams, GYAD, Toby, Rullsenberg, SK, benjitek, Andy Butcher and Ian Mond.

I’m hoping you’ll all stick around for more!

I’d also like to thank those people lurking behind RSS feeds and Twitter who push up the web traffic, even if they never feel the need to comment (my wisdom is truly awesome and can inspire silence in those who receive it), as well as those whom I talk with regularly on Twitter, including @SnarkAndFury, @IainMHepburn, @cathoderaytube, @cameronyardeJnr, @AlexRomeo, @ThierryAttard, @Ladyteruki, @crimetimeprev, @paulwhitelaw and @lukecustardtv.

Here’s to another 10 years of television, my writing about television and your good health.

Continue reading “Celebrating a decade of The Medium Is Not Enough”

TMINE

Question of the week: is genre important to you?

9 March 2015 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

When it comes to TV viewing, lots of people live and die by genre. Maybe they’re a ‘soaps’ fan or a ‘comedy’ fan. Maybe they like historical dramas or sit in front of Alibi all day watching murder-mysteries and crime shows. Maybe they like action shows.

Not everyone’s like this, but many are. The question is: how important is genre to you, if you’re one of those people? 

The reason I’m asking is because of Fortitude, Sky Atlantic/Pivot’s new TV show. Now, when it started on its 10-episode run, it seemed to be a perfectly ordinary Nordic Noir-style murder mystery. Then, with the arrival of Stanley Tucci, it started to look a bit Twin Peaks-ish. So far, so ordinary, and I imagine that Twin Peaks is still sufficiently close in style to The Killing et al that anyone tuning in for the latter might not have been turned off by the arrival of the former. 

However, the latest couple of episodes have pretty much taken the show (as far as can I see) into territory a bit closer to horror movies and even (spoiler alert) The Strain/Helix. Which are very different genres again. Bold and daring on the one hand – the show has been very unusually ‘shaped’, revealing to everyone, not just the viewer, the identity of the killer midway through the series, for example.

But, on the other, is it too much for the genre addict? If something is a hybrid genre (action-romance, dramedy, horror-comedy from the outset, that’s one thing and fans of both genres can appreciate that show for what it is. But what if something changes genre midway through? Is that going to ostracise existing viewers, while failing to bring in fans of the new genre at this late stage? Or doesn’t it matter? Is genre completely unimportant?

How do you feel?

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: State of Affairs (US: NBC)

3 December 2014 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

In the US: Mondays, 10/9c, NBC

Normally, TV shows go up and down from episode to episode on the Barrometer, the world’s finest measurer of TV quality that doesn’t wear sunglasses. Occasionally, they stay the same, but only by consistently offering the same good or bad features that earned them their first rating.

So State of Affairs is a rare beast indeed: a show that changes from episode to episode, giving the viewer new things to think about, yet still being consistently the same on average. It’s enough to make the Barrometer burst into a show tune of surprise.

Starring Katherine Heigl as the double-surnamed Charleston Tucker, a CIA analyst who happens to be the president’s ex-daughter-in-law-to-be (it’s complicated), the first episode surprised almost everyone into singing show tunes with its first episode by being on NBC, starring Katherine Heigl yet not being appalling. In fact, in places, it was quite good.

Since then, the show has managed to kill off some of its stupider features (no one calls Heigl ‘Charleston’ any more; she rarely wears cocktail dresses, not even to see her psychiatrist) while adding in some new ones (stupid potential office romance; stupid husband for the president; James Remar in a stupid hat) and maintaining the status quo on some others (the stupid ongoing conspiracy theory that requires Heigl to nip out of important operations to have chats on park benches). Thus the show has managed to preserve its overall ‘well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be’ Barrometer rating for three episodes.

Despite the somewhat mixed bag that the first episode presented, the show has now firmly become Homeland lite, with Heigl a network TV Claire Danes with the much more fun ‘drunken promiscuity’ replacing ‘bipolar disorder’ and all her nemeses seemingly coming from Africa rather than the Middle East. Just for luck and a little variety, the show tried to go a bit Tom Clancy by having a Russian nuclear submarine be the subject of episode two (and even referenced The Hunt for Red October for luck), but that wasn’t fooling anyone.

Indeed, the show’s biggest Achilles Heel is its tendency to pluck stories from the headlines for inspiration. While that can work in the right hands, sorting out Boko Haram inside an hour for example verges on the distasteful rather than the inspired.

The show does its best and sometimes succeeds at being a relatively gritty bit of spy fun, despite its protagonists confined to sitting around in rooms talking. This can be done, as The Sandbaggers demonstrated, but it’s hampered by its network, its own superficiality and its pulling of punches. 

Worth watching if you like Heigl and find Homeland to be too frustrating, probably not worth watching if you have much else to do.

Barrometer rating: 3
Rob’s prediction: Will probably make it to at least a season, perhaps more, with some judicious scheduling, since if it faces any real competition, it’ll probably perish into the firefight

TMINE

Weekly Wonder Woman: Sensation Comics #16

2 December 2014 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Sensation Comics #16

It’s the usual problem: after the previous week’s glut of comics, last week’s Wonder Woman quotient was woefully low, with only one comic featuring the Amazon princess. So after the jump, we’ll have a look at Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #16 and only Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman #16.

And no, despite the cover, Superman isn’t it. Yet.

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