TV reviews

A complete archive of The Medium is Not Enough’s reviews of TV programmes since 2005

What have you been watching? Including Wolf Creek, Banshee, The Tunnel and Game of Thrones

16 May 2016 Rob Buckley 7 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. 

It’s been another quiet week for new TV, as the various networks around the world let their older shows run their course, so they can leave the field clear for the newbies to wow us in just a week or two. That doesn’t mean a few shows haven’t tried to jump the gun and show us what they’ve got ahead of the others. I’ve already reviewed Raising Expectations (Canada: Family), but over in the US, there’s also been Submission on Showtime (so inevitably will be coming to Sky Atlantic at some point). Why haven’t I reviewed it yet? Well, here’s the plot synopsis:

Beautiful but unfulfilled Ashley has her eyes opened to the tantalizing possibilities of BDSM when she discovers the popular erotic novel SLAVE by Nolan Keats. But her fascination with the mysterious Mr. Keats leads her into a sexy but dangerous love triangle, and tests the boundaries of her own sexual limitations. Part romantic drama, part mystery, this tale of seduction, obsession and sexual power from acclaimed adult writer/director Jacky St. James will leave you breathless and begging for more.

Yep, it’s lady porn. You can rely on Showtime, can’t you?

But I have watched one other new show:

Wolf Creek (Australia: Stan)
Based on hit Australian horror franchise of the same name and with John Jarratt reprising his role as outback serial killer Mick Taylor, Wolf Creek is a pretty effective but overly gory thriller in which the poorly accented Lucy Fry (11.22.63) plays an American teenager on holiday with her family in Australia, who are trying to help her get over her drug addiction. Unfortunately, pre-credits they bump into Jarratt, who slaughters everyone except Fry, who then goes on a quest to bring Jarratt to justice, helped and hindered along the way by cop Dustin Clare (Spartacus).

Never having watched the movies and not being a huge fan of horror, I don’t know how much the series has in common with the originals. For the most part, it plays like a standard crime drama and it’s nice to have the reversal of the ‘last girl’ becoming the one doing the chasing. But whenever Jarratt shows up, it becomes something else almost comedic at times, part mockery of the Crocodile Dundee stereotype that people hold of Australians and Outback denizens in particular, part embracing of that stereotype, almost in the style of Ronnie Johns’ Chopper impression, with Jarratt hacking to death anyone who needs to harden the fuck up, particularly anyone who does yoga. 

Horror ain’t my scene and the first five minutes of chainsaw and machete misery almost made me want to switch off. But when the action is focused on Fry and her quest, it’s actually pretty good. Not for me, might be for you.

After the jump, the dwindling regulars: 12 Monkeys, The Americans, Arrow, Banshee, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley and The Tunnel (Tunnel). When will something new be along to join them, I wonder?

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Wolf Creek, Banshee, The Tunnel and Game of Thrones”

Canadian TV

Review: Raising Expectations 1×1 (Canada: Family)

12 May 2016 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

In Canada: Sundays, 7:30pm ET/PT, Family

Some shows just invite you to slate them, simply by their names. Remember Bonekickers? Even if it hadn’t been absolutely dreadful in and of itself, there was that name, begging for me to hate the show.

Raising Expectations isn’t in Bonekickers‘ league, in that sense, but it’s definitely an invitation to pre-emptively reply “Yes, but you’re still absolute sh*te. Who told you you were above average?” After all, most Canadian comedies are dreadful. There’s about one good one a decade.

Yet here’s one that stars, wait for it, not just Jason Priestley from Beverly Hills 90210 and Tru Calling but also Molly Ringwald. Yes, Molly Pretty in Pink Ringwald.

We’re talkin’ ’bout my generation here – raising expectations indeed. 

So I was prepared to give Raising Expectations the benefit of the doubt, despite airing on Canada’s Family channel and having the following plot:

The Wayneys are an amazing family. They’re good looking, smart, talented, athletic, and popular. Paige Wayney is a best-selling author, and her husband Wayne is an architect. They have worked hard at raising their five children to be “multi-exceptional”, and they succeeded… four times. Adam is an honours students and football quarterback. Bentley is a brilliant poet and cellist. Conner is a gifted dancer and actress. Derek is a master of gadgets. Their youngest son, Emmett, is a work in progress. Emmett may not be the most academic, athletic, or artistic of the Wayneys, but he makes up for that with his “street smarts”.

If I could punch a plot, I would. But I really wanted to like it, all the same.

Unfortunately, the show isn’t funny. There’s a mild titter every so often and the show saves its sole actual laugh for literally the final line of dialogue, but the humour’s generally of the order of background radiation, rather than Silicon Valley. 

In part, that’s because it’s Canadian intended for a family/young audience, and the show isn’t pushing any boundaries. It’s not even aware there are boundaries to be pushed, it’s so young and innocent. It’s coming to this humour thing as though its audience is as equally young and innocent that they’ve never heard any jokes before and so all the old ones can still be used. You might as well be watching early 90s Canadian-British co-production Spatz for all the differences: 

Perhaps that’s a little unfair, since so much of this first episode is as down with modern kids’ social media obsession as The CW’s Containment, with Ringwald’s online lecture garnering troll comments that not only are mean about Ringwald, but expose Priestley as having lied to her on one of their first dates. The children then use their ‘unique, character-defining, all other characteristics-excluding’ skillsets to organise a SWATing (well, pizza- and poo-ing) the trolls in revenge, while Priestley has to re-retroactively disprove the lie by climbing up a rope with an egg in his pocket (don’t ask).

It’s a bit hard to like any of the kids, though. Apart from the odd choice of three sons, one daughter, all with stereotypical interests and abilities, it’s hard not to look at both Priestley and Ringwald and think “These look like normal people” and then to look at the kids and think, “These look like they’re made of plastic.” Times have changed and standards of on-screen pulchritude have unfortunately increased, but I was genuinely surprised when any of them managed to have a facial expression.

If you’ve got to watch something with your kids, Priestley and Ringwald are a sufficient draw in themselves – and, in fact, toghether – that you could probably make your way through an episode or two without your brain revolting.

Otherwise, stear clear of Raising Expectations and always remember: Caroline laughs and it’s raining all day, she loves to be one of the girls, she lives in the place in the side of our lives, where nothing is ever put straight. She turns herself round and she smiles and she says, “This is it that’s the end of the joke,” and loses herself in her dreaming and sleep, and her lovers walk through in their coaches.

 

Streaming TV

What have you been watching? Including Marseille, Captain America: Civil War and The Americans

9 May 2016 Rob Buckley 8 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. 

Quiet, isn’t it? Where has all the new TV gone? Despite a fortnight in between WHYBWs, all I’ve managed to cover are the third episodes of Containment (US: The CW; UK: E4) and Game of Silence (US: NBC). I’m sure there’s something somewhere that I can review, but I just haven’t spotted it.

Okay, so there’s a new series of comedy pilots on Australia’s ABC on Wednesday, but being pilots, there doesn’t seem much point in reviewing them – I did like the sound of Ronnie Chieng: International Student, though. There’s a new Canadian Molly Ringwald/Jason Priestley sitcom, Raising Expectations, that started last night on the Family Channel – I just need to work out a way of watching it.

Amazon Prime’s picked up Hulu’s Casual, too. I didn’t watch that when it first appeared on Hulu since I figured “What’s the chance any UK network is going to pick up something on Hulu, hey?” There’s me duped. I might watch that, too, but I suspect the ship has sailed on that one.

In fact, the only new thing I’ve spotted that I haven’t yet reviewed, and had both the inclination and the ability to review was…

Marseille (Netflix)
Following on from last year’s Narcos, which was effectively Netflix’s first Spanish-language original drama, now we have Marseille, the company’s first French-language original. It stars – who else? – Gérard Depardieu as the mayor of Marseille, having to balance the competing demands of a degenerative disease, his family life, a drug habit, his back-stabbing protégé, a project to renovate the city with a new casino, and the mafia.

And it’s nothing special. I did say ‘original’, but for all intents and purposes, it’s Starz’s Boss but in French, with just a hint of Les hommes de l’ombre (Spin). It’s got the usual misogyny of such shows. It’s got the slightly tedious offsetting of power and crime. It’s billed as ‘steamy’ but is surprisingly perfunctory (and again misogynistic) for a French show. None of the characters are especially engaging and Depardieu oddly doesn’t have half the presence that Kelsey Grammer did in Boss. Subtitling loses quite a bit in translation and you’ll often have points where you wonder what people are reacting to as a result of what’s allegedly said (eg there’s a point where two women are laughing when one of them says ‘chick’. It makes a bit more sense if you know she actually said ‘poof’). And oddly for Netflix, the production values are pretty low, with more than a hint of ‘stuck in a cheapo studio with a cheapo video camera’ at times.

More laughable than gritty, it’s hard enough to get through one episode, let alone all eight, so I’m not going to try.

After the jump, it’s the regulars: 12 Monkeys, The Americans, Arrow, Banshee, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Game of Silence, Game of Thrones, Lopez, Silicon Valley and The Tunnel. Most of those are double helpings, since there was no WHYBW last Monday, it being a Bank Holiday everywhere; two of them will be getting crossed off the viewing list, too. I’ll also be looking at the season finales of both Limitless and Lucifer.

But before that, a movie!

Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Depending on how you want to look at it, this is probably better titled Captain America: Winter Soldier 2 or The Avengers 2.5, since it sees Cap continuing his mission to find and rehabilitate his brainwashed pal, Bucky “The Winter Soldier” Barnes, with various members of The Avengers either trying to help him or hinder him after Barnes is implicated in an act of terrorism.

Otherwise, the plot is more or less identical to that of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, with its concerns about collateral damage from superheroics and the consequent need for legal limits on superhuman powers. Yet despite the huge cast from the other movies (only Thor and Hulk are absent) and the necessity to launch both Black Panther and Spider-Man off its back, it manages to be a million times better than DC’s drudgefest. Once again directed by Winter Soldier‘s Russo Brothers (who got the gig directing, of all things, the paintball episode of Community), it manages to make all previous superhero movies look plodding and stupid, balancing comic book fun with gritty Euro thriller aesthetics, while serving all its characters well, being by turns tear-jerking, funny, breath-taking and tense.  

It’s a little longer than it needs to be, but nevertheless, afterwards we came out so drained by the spectacle, it took about three hours down the pub to recover. It also rendered Age of Ultron unwatchable. Some would argue it already was, but we’d enjoyed it at the time.

Best Marvel movie so far.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Marseille, Captain America: Civil War and The Americans”

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Containment (US: The CW; UK: E4)

4 May 2016 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c, The CW
In the UK: Acquired by E4 for Summer airing

“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”

– Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

There is a yawning gulf between the ambitions of Containment and their implementation. An adaptation of Belgium’s Cordon, it sees a Syrian migrant come to Atlanta, Georgia, apparently infected with a bio-engineered avian flu that kills 100% of people who comes into bodily contact with him and anyone they subsequently infect. The US authorities decide that the best thing to do is erect a cordon sanitaire around the infected area, in an effort to stop the disease spreading. But is there more to the story than this and will the cordon be effective?

So far, so catnip to TMINE, which does love a good killer virus story. But as we discovered from the first episode, Containment is desperate to be down with the kids. This isn’t the story of a terrible threat to the world, of bioterrorism, of secret government conspiracies. This is “yes, there is a terrible threat to the world, but can we talk about our relationship now? Ooh, look! Someone’s posted something on Twitter!”

I kid you not – the horrifying cliffhanger at the end of episode three is (spoiler alert) the cordoned off area loses its Internet and mobile phone access. Maybe that sends shivers down the spine of the previous average CW viewer, but I’m actually the median age of the current crop and it simply made me laugh, so it’s probable the show has misjudged its audience.

The show also doesn’t seem to know if it has a point. Despite its pretensions at wisdom, it’s one part “don’t believe the government”, with its suggestion that the bioweapon might have been engineered by the US government, perhaps to justify further military action in Syria as retaliation for its supposed act of terrorism, to one part “trust in authority”, as it’s very clear that its dogged Internet journalist (Trevor St John) is behaving very irresponsibly by telling people the truth about the outbreak and what’s happening, since people can’t be trusted to behave sensibly and they really just need to do what the government is telling them. It’s a universal cynicism that could possibly be summarised as “trust in yourself and other good people”, but that’s ultimately the same empty philosophy that leads to all those people behaving irresponsibly because they know what’s right.

Otherwise, the action is mainly emotional. As soon as anyone has to make a hard decision, they have to have a little 😢. The investigation of the conspiracy theory largely consists of goodie cop 👼🏿 (David Gyasi) being 😡 at suspicious government doctor 😈 (Claudia Black) to tell him what’s really going on and her refusing, while 👺 (St John) is 😡 at  👼🏿 as he’s such a government stooge, both of which leave 👼🏿 feeling 😰. Meanwhile, couples, who are inevitably on either side of the cordon, spend their time wanting to 🏃🏻to the other and feeling 😰 when they can’t. And everyone inside the cordon is just 😡 they can’t get out because it’s just so unfair and wishing they had 😷 and 🍞.

It doesn’t help either that most of the show’s big, horrifying reveals are just basic science. What’s that, early third-episode reveal? Everyone inside the cordon might get sick and die because they’re near the sick people? Stunning. Who’d have thought it? Why didn’t the government tell us that sooner?

Containment is basically low-rent bobbins for people who quite fancy watching The Walking Dead but find it a bit too slow and scary, and wish there was more texting in it. Nothing about it rings true, the emotional challenges people face are trite and ersatz, there have been approximately two Southern accents deployed the entire season, and no one seems that interested in suggesting any real terror. Avoid.

Barrometer rating: 3
Would it be better with a female lead? Yes
TMINE prediction: A limited series so supposedly wouldn’t be coming back for more episodes anyway, but if there were any plans for a second season, I imagine they’re being dropped ASAP

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 2

Third-episode verdict: Game of Silence (US: NBC)

28 April 2016 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

In the US: Thursdays, 10/9c, NBC
In the UK: Not yet acquired

Does a show have to be miserable to be good? Some people, usually quite pretentious/depressed/Buddhist ones, will argue that all life is suffering and therefore to depict life correctly, you must depict suffering. Always.

Whether that’s true or not, if a TV show is good but miserable, will you still want to watch it?

Game of Silence, NBC’s remake of Turkey’s Suskunlar, is prime misery, with a bunch of childhood friends finding their past catching up with them decades later, when one of their number bumps into one of the men who abused him in prison and kills him. The gang the dead man was with – largely composed of people who were also in prison – end up killing him and before you know it, there’s a mounting war as the remaining friends try to find evidence that will put the baddies in prison, and the baddies try to stop them.

Just like ABC’s American Crime, Game of Silence is surprisingly grown-up and well made for network TV. While it’s nowhere near as realistic as that show and is often downright unbelievable, it’s surprisingly nuanced. Rather than simply go in all guns blazing, our heroes try to put together a legal case, collecting evidence along the way. And rather than paint the abusers as nothing but monsters, the show is at pains to show that it’s the penal system that caused the problems – both the heroes and the abusers did terrible things because of the nature of prison life, becoming hardened and inhuman. There are frequent flashbacks not just to the heroes’ childhood and what happened to them, but also to the abusers’, and there are side plots that illuminate this central thesis and argue that prison should be the last possible punishment for crimes, as it makes people more likely to become worse versions of themselves, not better.

The show is also, while unwilling to actually show anything happening, more than happy to describe and imply paedophile parties, repeated raped, physical abuse and more, as well as depict all the traumatic effects that can have on the psyche.

The trouble is that none of this is fun to watch. It’s not helped by the lack of humour, any real human warmth, or decent acting. To be fair, the show does try hard to depict some real camaraderie between the friends, but everyone’s so traumatised and/or soon-to-be-dead, that it doesn’t work. The fact, as the title suggests, that no one’s talking about this with anyone except each other, means that everyone else in the show is an outsider to this group of not especially joyful people.

Game of Silence is a good show, not a great one, and it would really have benefited from better casting and a bit of humour from time to time. I’ll probably stick with it for a couple more episodes, but I’m not expecting to be enjoying myself as I do.

Barrometer rating: 2
Would it be better with female leads? Yes, although might be a bit exploitative
TMINE’s prediction: With bad ratings, this is unlikely to last more than a season, if that.