TV reviews

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

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 2

Third-episode verdict: Secrets and Lies (Network Ten/Channel 5)

18 March 2014 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

In Australia: Thursdays, 9.30pm, Network Ten
In the UK: Acquired by Channel 5

While on one side of the Pacific, Martin Henderson is a cop being blackmailed after someone else finds the body of a child, on the other side of the Pacific and closer to home, Henderson is a regular guy being investigated by the cops after he finds the body of a child. However, the big difference between The Red Road and Secrets and Lies is that Secrets and Lies is actually enjoyable.

Effectively Australia’s answer to Broadchurch, much of it is focused on the community’s reaction to the boy’s death, most of it focused negatively on Henderson. However, here the police are the bad guys, trying to pin the crime on Henderson, while it’s left to Henderson to investigate his own community and find out who actually killed his neighbour’s son.

After a first episode that was all set up, little mystery, the second and third episodes have been more satisfying affairs, finally giving us alternative suspects (Ben Lawson from The Deep End), possible motivations, clues to the identity of the possible murderer and more. They’ve not been totally satisfying, however, largely because the suspect pool is so small at the moment, the murderer either isn’t a member of it or is being very well concealed by the writers, and as soon as one suspect is introduced, he or she is almost instantaneously given an air-tight alibi. So far, so The Killing, though. 

Despite making the investigating police officer as plausible as an Agent from The Matrix, largely this has been a quality affair, despite its Network Ten home. Henderson makes a pleasing, if continually 50% naked everyman, one who makes a glorious series of mistakes every episode and gets beaten up in fights at almost every turn. The show keeps the screws on him just tight enough that there’s a palpable tension as we feel the fear of possibly being arrested for a crime we didn’t commit, one that everyone else we know thinks we did. There’s an additional tension from the show having the real murderer doing his or her best to frame Henderson, too, and from watching Henderson and his family’s lives slowly fall apart.

It’s definitely worth a watch, something few people in Australia are currently doing. Give it a whirl if you can.

Rob’s rating: 2
Rob’s prediction: Cancelled after one season

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: The Red Road (Sundance TV)

17 March 2014 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

In the US: Thursdays, 9pm, Sundance TV

We’re now three episodes into The Red Road, Sundance TV’s new drama in which ex-con native American Jason Momoa blackmails local sheriff Martin Henderson when Henderson’s alcoholic, schizophrenic wife knocks over a kid with her car. However, the best that can be said about it is that while it has many good elements and considerable promise, if it’s ever going to capitalise on them, it’s taking it’s time about it.

It’s easy enough to praise individual parts of it. Martin Henderson and Jason Momoa are best known for taking their tops off a lot, but both deliver excellent performances, particularly Momoa (even if he’s more Hawaiian than New York in the accent department). The script is intelligent and thoughtful, dealing with life in a small town, bringing up teenagers, less than organised crime, the heartbreak of mental illness, and Native American/non-Native American politics and racism with clarity and subtlety.

But, as you might expect of a Sundance show, not a lot happens. At all. There’s a degree of tension, the innocent forced to do things they would never normally do in order to protect the people they love, but the most that’s really happened so far is that Momoa has asked Henderson to let off one of his friends with a warning. It’s not exactly high-stakes at the moment. Instead, this is more a manly character piece in which we observe one man in a crucible, another in control of that crucible but still having to pick a safe path through his community. 

To be honest, though, I’m not sure I care. I can envision this spiralling into darker and darker territory in later episodes. But I’m not sure I actually care about any of the characters and ‘criminal blackmails a cop’ isn’t exactly new territory. The script is so joyless, so bereft of anything that would make you want to see what happens next that unless you enjoy watching people suffer through emotional hardship, finding the motivation to watch each week might prove very hard.

And since life is short, I’m not going to bother. Your mileage may vary, but I think I’m going to call it a day on this one. It could still become a very good series, perhaps more worthy of a box set viewing, but beyond seeing Momoa prove his acting chops, I can’t see the appeal at the moment, particularly since Henderson’s Secrets and Lies is proving to be a far more engrossing and enjoyable show already.

Barrometer rating: 3

US TV

What have you been watching? Including Growing Up Fisher, Secrets and Lies, Red Road, Suits and Agents of SHIELD

14 March 2014 Rob Buckley 12 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.

Despite my having been away for a while, I’ve managed to catch up with many of the regular shows and even tried out plenty of new shows. Although I’ve now got three episodes of new Canadian medical show Remedy to wade through, I’ve been able to post reviews of:

I did also try one other new show:

Growing Up Fisher (US: NBC)
DJ Nash’s semi-autobiographical series, in which the Fisher family – blind attorney JK Simmons, mother Jenna Elfman and son Eli Baker – surprisingly grow closer after the parents get a divorce and Simmons finally gets a guide dog called Elvis. It’s nice, it’s got Jason Bateman doing the voiceover for that Arrested Development feel and David Schwimmer from Friends is an exec producer, too. Elfman and Simmons are both good. However, it’s not very funny, just mildly uplifting, and most of the humour revolves around Simmons’ blindness. If you find people being blind and trying to do things funny, it might be more up your street.

But after the jump, reviews of Agents of SHIELD, Helix, Red Road, Secrets and Lies, 19-2, The Americans, Banshee, Community, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Elementary, Hannibal, Line of Duty, Suits and True Detective.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Growing Up Fisher, Secrets and Lies, Red Road, Suits and Agents of SHIELD”

US TV

Review: Resurrection 1×1 (ABC)

14 March 2014 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

Resurrection ABC

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

Sometimes, miracles really do happen. I’m not talking about the dead coming back to life – well, not yet I’m not. I’m talking about the fact that two people around the world can have practically identical ideas and for both these ideas to be turned into TV series.

In France, for example, there was a movie called Les Revenants (‘The Returned’), which in turn became the basis of a Canal+ TV series by Fabrice Gobert called Les Revenants that was shown on Channel 4 in the UK and the Sundance Channel in the US. In it, the dead come back to life in a small town, revealing all kinds of issues and relationship problems, including in some cases mysteries about how they died. In particular, there’s a weird boy who’ll do your head in.

Meanwhile, over in the US, a man called Jason Mott wrote a book called The Returned, which has new become the basis of ABC’s Resurrection, in which the dead come back to life in a small town, revealing all kinds of issues and relationship problems, including in some cases mysteries about how they died. In particular, there’s a weird boy who’ll do your head in.

Spooky, huh? And I haven’t gotten started on the fact that the almost identical Babylon Fields is being remade right now, as is Les Revenants.

Here’s a trailer.

Continue reading “Review: Resurrection 1×1 (ABC)”

US TV

Review: Working The Engels 1×1 (Global/NBC)

13 March 2014 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Working The Engels

In Canada: Wednesdays, 9 et/pt, Global
In the US: NBC. Airing in 2014

Now the story of a wealthy family who lost everything and the one sondaughter who had no choice but to keep them all together.

I’m in something of a dilemma here, since my lovely categorisation system has broken down. Working the Engels is a co-production between Canada’s Global network and the US’s NBC network – the first ever Canadian-American sitcom. So does it suck because it’s Canadian or because it’s on NBC?

The show starts with a lawyer dying, leaving his wife (Andrea Martin from My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and family in debt to the tune of $200,000. US or Canadian? It’s not clear since this is one of those shows of nebulous geographical location. Neither is it clear why he wasn’t in a limited liability partnership. Presumably he was a very bad lawyer.

Anyway, the kids rally round, or at least the mousey lawyer daughter (Kacey Rohl who played Abigail Hobbs in Hannibal) does, and her pill-popping, airhead sister (Azura Skye who was Jane on The WB’s Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane) and minor criminal brother (Benjamin Arthur from CityTV/HBO Canada’s Less Than Kind) come along to both help and accidentally hinder her efforts to bring the family legal practice back into the black. Except it turns out that most of the deceased’s clients were either pro bono or stupid.

Written by Miss Congeniality’s Katie Ford and her sister Jane Cooper Ford, Working the Engels‘ comparisons with the much revered Arrested Development are obvious. Unfortunately, that’s merely in terms of set-up since it’s not very funny.

The script is short on laughs and pretty much every joke is signalled a mile off and has exactly the punchline you expect. Rohl underplays, everyone else overplays in exactly the same way that virtually every Canadian sitcom you care to think of demands (cf Satisfaction, InSecurity, Seed, 18 To Life, Men With Brooms, Hiccups). The equally requisite physical comedy is ineptly handled and directed. Skye and Arthur’s characters do slightly bad things but do it so nicely, it’s hard to consider them the drop-out liabilities the script demands. The supporting characters are mere stereotypes – the overbearing female boss, the obsequious male Indian, the valley girl client and so on.

In short, there are no redeeming features. Other than a naked Asian guitar-playing character. I’d not seen one of those before but I think she’s only in the pilot.

If I wanted to find something positive to say, I’d say that it is at least well meaning and gentle, rather than insultingly poor and crass, with everyone trying to ‘zing’ each other, like so many US sitcoms of late (e.g. Mom, The Millers, Super Fun Night). I only felt the urge to turn off a couple of times while I was watching it and that was more because I was bored than because I hated it.

But that’s about it and I think the fact NBC hasn’t announced an air date for it yet should speak volumes – if NBC won’t show it, it must be bad.

Here’s a trailer anyway.