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.
You can tell the summer’s season now fully under way, can’t you? New shows everywhere, as well as returning shows, with more to come. But all is in hand. Elsewhere, you can find my reviews this week of the first episode or two of the following exciting new shows:
And after the jump, I’ll be updating you on the latest episodes of Animal Kingdom, Cleverman, Feed The Beast, Outcast, Secret City, Uncle Buck and Silicon Valley, as well as the returning The Last Ship and Westside. Two of those shows are for the chop and one is being promoted to the recommended list – but which are which? There’s also a whole bunch of potted third-episode verdicts, since I can’t be bothered to do them all individually.
I’ve also been doing some more laggardly box-setting, so I’ll be chatting about the final five episodes of Ófærð (Trapped) as well as the entire third series of Plebs, too. That’s all after the jump. TTFN!
In the US: Tuesdays, 10/9c, TBS In the UK: Not yet acquired
Me: Hey guys, this is an interactive one. So, are you ready?
You: Yes we are!
Me: Cool. What’s the secret of comedy?
You: We don’t know, Rob. What is the secret…
Me [interrupts]: Timing!
Rubbish, hey? Doesn’t work at all written down. But I laboured with it because I think it makes a valuable point – timing is very important in comedy. Get it wrong and your joke just isn’t funny.
What’s the right time for a TV parody of another TV show then? The answer’s not immediately obvious. Consider, ‘Allo, ‘Allo, one of the most successful British sitcoms of the 80s and early 90s, running for 85 episodes over 10 years from 1982.
Huge numbers of people watched (or were too offended to watch) this sitcom about the wartime French resistance without being even slightly aware it was a parody of Secret Army, the BBC’s outstanding and very dark wartime drama, which ran between 1977 and 1979.
Three years between the finish of Secret Army (not including Secret Army spin-off Kessler in 1981) and the start of ‘Allo ‘Allo, and yet everyone had already forgotten what the show was parodying. Thank heavens ‘Allo ‘Allo was funny, hey?
So spare a thought for Wrecked, which has bizarrely chosen to parody Lost, which aired between 2004 and 2010. That’s six years ago Lost finished and 12 years since its first episode aired, yet here’s Wrecked doing an almost scene-by-scene parody of its first episodes, but imagining what would happen if only the ugly no-hopers, rather than the pretty talented ones survived the crash.
How good’s your memory? Good enough to laugh at how accurate Wrecked is? Probably not.
The first two episodes tread the familiar-ish terrority of the initial plane crash, waking up on the beach, the tending to the wounded, the investigation of the island, looking for satellite phone signal, et al. The show’s anal enough about its Lost lore that it even kills off its Jack (James Scott) in the first episode, as per Lost‘s original pilot script. In his stead, he leaves three also-rans (Zach Cregger, Asif Ali, Brian Sacca), who all look like someone more famous but certainly aren’t quite as good; there’s Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords) as the Locke of the piece, albeit a Locke who can’t walk; there’s a generic bunch of millennial women who whine a bit (Ginger Gonzaga, Jessica Lowe, Ally Maki); and there’s a couple of people who hang around being dicks in different ways (Will Greenberg, Brooke Dillman).
Wrecked tries to get its laughs by doing sixth-form grade pastiche of the original, while throwing in general ineptitude, people arguing over whether a podiatrist is a proper doctor or not, and pointing out that no one knows any phone numbers any more so can’t call for help using someone else’s phone. As an example of the level of humour we’re dealing with here, when Sacca’s dad appears to him and Sacca wonders if they were coincidentally on the same flight, dad replies: “No, this is a dream sequence… were you not getting that?”
Oddly, Lost‘s most iconic storytelling technique – the flashback/flashforward/flashsideways – isn’t used in Wrecked in these first two episodes, everything being told linearly. Too complicated, the writers had forgotten about it or something being saved for later? I don’t know, but it’s a bit like setting Allo Allo in Swindon during the Cod War without it.
Neither an incisive parody of Lost nor funny in its own right, Wrecked is a great big dud, despite the obvious cash spent on CGI and location filming in Puerto Rico and the occasionally interesting guest cast (eg Eliza Coupe from Happy Endings). I guess timing really is everything.
Here’s the first six minutes and a trailer, just so you can see if you agree with me.
In the US: Sundays, 9/8c, CMT In the UK: Not yet acquired
We’ve been talking quiteabit about remakes and shows ‘inspired’ by others in the past couple of weeks, but I hadn’t realised until now just how quick the remake cycle has become. Take Still The King, which is ‘based on a treatment by’ and stars Billy Ray Cyrus (CMT – that’s Country Music Television. All clear now, isn’t it?). It sees Cyrus playing a former one-hit-wonder turned Elvis impersonator who winds up in jail in Tennessee after crashing into a church sign while drink-driving. He’s released, but on condition that he remain in the state for a year, that he do community service at the church he wrecked and that he start paying child support. Child support? Oh yes, he has a 15-year-old daughter (Madison Iseman) he never knew about as his manager hasn’t been passing on the letters from Iseman’s mother (Chasing Amy‘s Joey Lauren Adams).
Wait. There’s more. Because when Cyrus turns up at the church, he’s mistaken for the new pastor who’s supposed to be arriving in town soon. Needing a job, Cyrus assumes the pastor’s identity and uses his performance skills to liven things up during services.
So there you have it – it now takes almost exactly a year on US television for an off-cycle, new show to get copycats on the airwaves.
That aside, is Still The King any good? After all, CMT isn’t exactly known for scripted anything, let alone comedy, and Cyrus isn’t the world’s best or most experienced of actors.
Surprisingly, it was actually quite likable and even innovative. The first episode isn’t that great, but does feature a dream sequence that includes both Elvis Presley and a black Jesus Christ, perhaps the first sign the show isn’t going to be quite what you expect. The second episode is a slightly better affair, dealing with the question of the real pastor Cyrus is impersonating with a surprising solution. There are some touching moments as Cyrus realises what he’s been missing out on with both Adams and Iseman. And Cyrus’s character is surprisingly charming, too.
It’s not yucks-a-minute stuff. There’s a slight whiff of homophobia whenever the show features Adams’ deadbeat boyfriend (Jon Sewell), although he does provide some of the most laughs as he tries unsuccessfully to be the alpha male of the house. There’s also not much depth to any of it.
All the same, given how bad and derivative it could have been, Still The King is a surprisingly decent, genteel, warm-hearted dramedy that shows promise, has all manner of famous guest stars lined up and might be worth your checking out.
Sometimes, I wish it were summer all year round. Not because of the weather or vacations, but because it’s when the US networks decide to relax their formulae and let loose a little.
Take CBS. Most of the time it’s the home of nasty, unfunny comedies (eg Mike and Molly, Mom) and a neverending stream of formulaic procedurals (eg Code Black, Elementary, Blue Bloods). Then come’s the summer, it lets down its hair and (ironically) acts like it’s on spring break, giving us the likes of Under The Dome, Extant and Zoo. True, none of these have actually been much good, but at least they’re different, at least they’re trying to shake things up – I’d much rather have them than yet another Criminal Mindsor NCIS spin-off.
So what does CBS have for us this summer? Savour this moment. Brace yourself. You’re going to enjoy this.
This summer, CBS is giving usBrainDead, a sci-fi political satire in which the intractable problems of the US Congress are revealed to be the result of alien ants taking over the politicians by eating their brains and forcing them to listen to The Cars’ ‘You Might Think‘.
Don’t you just love summer?
Here’s a trailer. Minor spoilers, etc, after the jump.
In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, ABC . Starts tonight (June 14) In the UK: Not yet acquired
Not so very long ago, I ventured the opinion that remakes weren’t always inferior, awful and unnecessary – with the caveat that maybe you needed to start with something that wasn’t very good to begin with to notice an improvement. Now along comes Uncle Buck to test that theory.
I have fond memories of Uncle Buck, but only in the sense that it was the movie I took Jo Mercer to see on my first ever date, back in 1989. Those are the fond memories – I have almost no recollection of the movie itself, other than it starred John Candy. It was a date, after all. Here’s a trailer for it in case your memory needs jogging, too.
That helped a bit, actually. I also almost laughed a few times. I can see why you might want to remake that.
Now the mistake you might be making with Uncle Buck, ABC’s new sitcom with Mike Epps (“Black Doug” in The Hangover), is that it is indeed a remake of that original Uncle Buck. After all, they do share the same name. They also share more or less the same plot of a ne’er-do-well helping out his brother by looking after his kids for a weekend and despite making cataclysmic mistakes, somehow doing a good job (± some odd definition of ‘good job’). They even share a number of scenes, although largely they’re done far more weakly because who remembers Dragnet these days so why don’t we just have a kid asking some serious questions instead?
But that’s a rookie mistake. Uncle Buck is really just a remake of ABC’s black-ish, with its upper middle class, rich black family professional parents struggling to work out what it is to be black when you’re no longer back in the hood and your kids are all pampered nerds, brother Buck replacing Laurence Fishburne as the reminder of the ways of the street and the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Where it differs from this true original is having nothing cutting edge or intelligent to say. It occasionally elicits a mild guffaw, usually by treating kids amusingly badly, but largely this is weak stuff that for some reason didn’t bother to pinch half the funny ideas from even that mildly related 1989 relative’s trailer. To be fair, I quite liked the parents (Nia Long and James Lesure) and their relationship, which was mercifully gentle and loving for primetime US TV. But is it funny or better than either the (trailer for the) 1989 movie or black-ish? No. So bang goes that theory of mine.
Possibly one to show your kids as a cautionary tale, but definitely not one to show anyone on their first date.
