TV reviews

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

US TV

Preview: The Flash 1×1 (The CW)

1 July 2014 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

The Flash review

In the US: Tuesdays, 8pm ET, The CW. Starts October 7

Superheroes are all the rage at the cinema right now. In the comics book world, DC and Marvel predominate, but for many years, DC was the only real name at the movies, with Batman and Superman movies galore. However, Marvel has now not only caught up, it’s setting the pace and showing how comics should be adapted. So while DC has gone dark, gritty and important in the past decade, an attitude that the Lego Movie mercilessly mocked…

…Marvel has gone for relatively light, fun movies, such as Iron Man, Thor and the forthcoming Guardians of the Galaxy. DC’s movies have also been self-contained, while Marvel has had its superbeings unite in The Avengers and guest in each other’s movies and TV shows with aplomb.

But DC is picking up the pace, both at the movies and on TV. The forthcoming Batman v Superman is going to feature not only the eponymous two heroes, it’s also got Wonder Woman, Cyborg and various other members of the Justice League lined up to appear, with more movies together and individually lined up if these are a success. And on the small screen, it has the continuing adventures of Green Arrow in Arrow and Batman prequel Gotham lined up for the autumn/fall.

But it’s still all a bit dark and gritty, isn’t it? However, DC appears to be well aware of its gloomy reputation so it’s giving us something a bit lighter and a bit more fun. And since The CW did so well with first Smallville (the Guinness World Record holder ‘longest consecutive running sci-fi TV show’) and then Arrow and believes that superheroes are the best way to attract male viewers who might have been scared off by all that Gossip Girl and The Carrie Diaries, it seems appropriate for it to be the launchpad for this new show based on one of DC’s (literally) lightest characters: The Flash, a character who ends up being able move even faster than Superman, following a laboratory accident.

Indeed, for the past season of Arrow, The CW has been slowly introducing The Flash and his helper monkeys to viewers, inserting him (and them) pre-powers into various episodes, originally intending to turn one episode into a backdoor pilot. It backed off from that idea and instead decided to give him a launch episode all of his own.

And not only is it very good, in some ways better even than Arrow’s first episode, it’s really just what DC is looking for – fun, light and full of crossovers from other superheroes. Just don’t be too surprised if it all seems very familiar and a bit… light.

But first, here’s a dark and gritty (hugely spoilering) trailer – it seems some habits die hard.

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What have you been watching? Including Belle, Halt and Catch Fire, and Continuum

27 June 2014 Rob Buckley 14 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.

The heat’s back on again, both in terms of the summer weather and the arrival of new shows, so I’ve not been able to get round to/force myself to watch FX’s Middle Eastern-yet-largely Caucasian dictator and familial rapist show, Tyrant. I’ll try to get round to that by Monday, assuming that all these Dulux swatches I’m keeping my eye on have lost enough moisture that I can compare them accurately. But I have reviewed two new shows:

One was better than the other.

I also managed to watch a couple of movies. Well, one and a half.

Belle (2013)
Jane Austen but with a black woman and slavery. Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Undercovers, Bonekickers (yikes), and Touch, but best known as Martha Jones’ sister Tish in Doctor Who) excels as the daughter of a slave whose aristocrat father places her with his uncle to look after – his uncle being the highest-ranked judge in England (Tom Wilkinson). Based on a true story, it’s a two-threaded piece, on the one hand examining the place of black and mixed race women in 18th century society, with Belle too high-born to eat with servants yet because of her skin too low-born to formally eat with her own family. She may have a £2,000 income a year, unlike her impoverished, equally-illegitimate white cousin, but that doesn’t mean anyone wants to marry her either. Contrasted with that is a case being examined by Wilkinson in which slaves are thrown overboard a ship and the ship’s captain tries to claim on the insurance for loss of cargo. The two threads mirror each other, with Wilkinson’s growing awareness of Belle’s station informing his opinion on the case and vice versa. The cast are fabulous, with Penelope Wilton, Miranda Richardson and Emily Watson shining, too, although Tom Felton (Murder in the First, but best known as Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter) is horribly typecast as an evil racist aristo. Some tear-jerking moments and a lovely romance, but a little too gently paced and in need of trimming in places.

Monuments Men (2013)
Another film based on a true story, this sees George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman and others as somewhat past-it art experts at the end of World War 2 flying out to Europe to try to rescue whatever art they can before the Nazis steal it or destroy it – or the Allies bomb the hell out of it. That’s the first half-hour anyway, but we gave up after that because pretty much nothing much happens. There’s no good dialogue, the direction is limp, there’s no action, no scenes of note: there’s more excitement in a Pathé newsreel.

After the jump, a round-up of the regulars, with reviews of 24, Continuum, Enlisted, Halt and Catch Fire, Old School, Penny Dreadful, Suits and Undateable.

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

US TV

Review: The Last Ship 1×1 (TNT)

25 June 2014 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

The Last Ship

In the US: Sundays, 9/8c, TNT

In the Venn diagram of TV genres, TNT’s The Last Ship would appear to be in an almost unique intersection that’s targeted at me.

I love things to do with ships, period or modern day, surface or sub-surface. I loves me a Master and Commander, A Hunt for Red October, a Warship, Making Waves or a Hornblower. Although Last Resort wasn’t great on land, as soon as it put to CGI sea, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The Final Countdown might not have been the best time travel movie ever made but I am so geared up to write an article about how you definitely must watch it because of its naval accuracy. I so am.

Provided you give me enough proper naval content per episode – I’m staring at you here, Black Sails – I’ll watch you, no matter how bad the rest of the show is.

As I remarked when I reviewed Helix, another thing I love is the killer virus genre: The Andromeda Strain – (both versions) – Outbreak, The Burning Zone, The Satan Bug. All aces, provided there’s a real threat of a wide-scale outbreak of a potential lethal virus.

So imagine my nerdy joy, given those facts, when I heard about The Last Ship. An adaptation of the 1988 post-nuclear apocalypse novel set on a US naval vessel that was at sea when the nukes went off, this TNT update instead gives us a guided missile destroyer that happens to be at the Arctic when a global pandemic breaks out, wiping out half the world’s population and leaving the remaining half on the verge of death, too. With the world falling apart, its crew has to survive and fight off enemies while scientists on board have humanity’s best – and perhaps only chance – to create a cure for the disease.

Brilliant, hey? Hell, it’s even got Adam Baldwin as the XO. Nothing could tarnish this, surely?

Not even the fact that Michael Bay is the executive producer?

Well…

Here’s a trailer.

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The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Murder In The First (TNT)

25 June 2014 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

In the US: Mondays, 10pm (ET/PT), TNT

You know, it’s one thing to get Steve Bochco in to make your latest TV show because he made a lot of good cop shows in the past. It’s quite another to get him to basically remake one of his best, Murder One. But that’s what TNT appears to have gone and done. Kudos on your chutzpah, guys.

Admittedly, there’s more than a hint of Law & Order to it, but ultimately this is starting to look like the same show, with a rich famous person who has dodgy sexual kinks being accused of killing a woman and a charismatic legal team set to defend him, all while the ‘case of the week’ is added in to give a little variety to the formula.

Still, there are much worse things you could remake than Murder One and Murder In The First has a few decent touches. Since the first episode, the investigating cops have started to grow personalities, James Cromwell and Richard Schiff are showing everyone else what top notch acting is like and we have the first forensic science team in a while to arrive that are happy to show that science – and budgets – aren’t what CSI would have you believe.

All the same, it still feels like the sort of crime show that you watch while drinking a warm cup of Horlicks, with the occasional bit of basic cable backside nudity and swearing to pep things up. Most of the cops’ lives revolve around dating – usually other cops – the female cop seems to be largely taking a back seat to the male cop (and even went on a date with the main suspect) while the other female characters are mostly just victims or potential love interests. And there are just no real surprises, beyond the occasional bit of sparky dialogue.

It’s not terrible and for a summer show, it’s actually pretty good. But there are better crime dramas out there, many of them written by Steve Bochco.

Barrometer rating: 3
Rob’s prediction: Will last a season, but probably not more than that.  

US TV

Review: Dominion 1×1 (SyFy)

24 June 2014 Rob Buckley 10 Comments


In the US: Thursdays, 9/8c, SyFy

It used to be that there was a reason for adapting movies into TV series. Not necessarily a good one, but there was a reason: people liked the movie so why not cash in on that? It always helped if it was a good movie, because that tricky difficult bit – coming up with a proven good idea and a source material that people would enjoy – was already out the way.

So I’m at an absolute loss to understand Dominion. SyFy might as well have beamed onto our screens a picture of a six-legged cat attacking Luke Goss from Bros with a packet of instant custard and a small porcelain statue of the Ayatollah Khomeini and that still would have made more sense than Dominion.

Remember the 2010 movie Legion, in which Paul Bettany was involved in a war on Earth among the angels after God absconds? Liar. Of course you don’t. Even if you had seen it, your brain would have tried to purge the whole unpleasant experience from your memory. You’re probably just thinking of season five of Supernatural. Easy mistake to make.

Fact: There are literally no fans of Legion. None whatsoever. Science has proven this.

But supposing you were bitten by a rabid bat and in your fevered state, your memory became clear, you suddenly remembered Legion and you decided to make a TV version of it. Wouldn’t you want to at least call it Legion or maybe have something in common with the original movie?

Not so with SyFy. Dominion it is and the whole show is set decades after that war between the angels. Humanity is now living in semi-feudal socities sealed off inside gated cities, while humans possessed by lower angels, particularly those in league with the evil archangel Gabriel (cough, cough, The Prophecy, cough, cough), try to assail those cities and infiltrate them. 

Meanwhile, there’s a prophecy of a saviour child who will come to end the stalemate and the war (cough, cough… oh, done this already). Except no one’s quite sure where the good archangel Michael hid him.

Throw in something about nuclear reactors, Anthony Head from Buffy and Alan Dale from Neighbours as human leaders pairing their offspring off with each other, missing dads with angelic script on their bodies, a bit of Battlestar Galactica, a bit of Mad Max, an angelic orgy, some sword fights, some gun fights, some anti-aircraft batteries, some Las Vegas cage-fighting and a cast of British, Australian and South African actors faking US accents for no good reason and without much success and you have just the first two episodes of Dominion – a candidate for the title of ‘worst TV programme ever made’.

Here’s a trailer.

Continue reading “Review: Dominion 1×1 (SyFy)”