TV reviews

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

Review: Wedding Band (TBS) 1×1

16 November 2012 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

The Wedding Band

In the US: Saturdays, 10/9c, TBS

Straight men are, in general, catered for very well by US television. Or so you’d think. Not all straight men are created equal, however. There are, in fact, two genres that really don’t seem to want us at all: romcoms and musicals. Glee, Nashville and Smash laugh in our faces, while The Mindy Project is still trying to work out what straight men want.

It’s discrimination, I tell you.

Never fear, though: TBS is here to balance the scales. Now, despite its catchline of “Very funny”, TNT’s sister channel should really have been promoting itself as “Cack – for men”. Glory Daze and Men At Work, I’m particularly looking at you here. But in an effort to stop making appalling television, as well as picking up Cougar Town now that ABC had dropped it, TBS has come up with Wedding Band, a romcom musical for men.

A cross between The Wedding Singer and The Hangover, it sees perennial bachelor Brian Austin Green (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) as the lead singer of a wedding band that includes his married-with-kids Ed Helms-alike best friend, his Jack Black-alike slobby brother and the quasi-hip Harold Perrineau from Lost. The band has been doing weddings for years, but they’re ready to go big, possibly with the help of big-time wedding planner Melora Hardin and her novice associate – and possible romantic interest for Green – Jenny Wade.

And while it’s very male-oriented, features fight scenes and has quite a broad sense of humour, it’s surprisingly funny, nuanced and unmisogynistic. And you get about three or four classic rock and pop cover versions per episode: a romcom musical for men.

Oh, and in case you don’t read the tabloids, Brian Austin Green is married to Megan Fox in real life. Which is probably why she’s in the next episode in a leather outfit. Here’s a trailer:

Continue reading “Review: Wedding Band (TBS) 1×1”

What did you watch last week? Including Arrow, Dexter, Elementary, The Mentalist, Skyfall and Prometheus

12 November 2012 Rob Buckley 12 Comments

It’s “What did you watch last fortnight?”, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I watched in the past two weeks that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

First, the usual recommendations: 30 Rock, Don’t Trust The B—– in Apartment 23, Go On, The Last Resort, and Modern Family.

Which, as long time readers may have noticed, means a few shows have left the list: Happy Endings, Dexter, Homeland, The Mindy Project and Suburgatory. More on why in a moment, but I will add that Arrow is now on the recommended list.

Still in the viewing pile: last night’s Misfits, Bomb Girls and Red Fern Now, which is an Australian show. But here’s a few thoughts on what I have been watching.

  • Arrow: While episode four was possibly the most Smallville-like of the series so far, episode five more than compensated with thrills galore. John Barrowman seems to be acting again, which is weird, and even Deathstroke’s mask worked well in context. Added to the recommended list.
  • Dexter: Last week’s episode had possibly the worst ending of any Dexter episode ever. And that’s up against some stiff competition. This week’s episode did slightly redeem things, but the entire Yvonne Strahovski storyline is ridiculous and it doesn’t help that she gives exactly the same performance as she gave in Chuck, just with more nudity. Ray Stevenson is great, though, but the show has lost its recommended status, all the same.
  • Don’t Trust The B—– in Apartment 23: Doing well. The Happy Endings ‘crossover’ last week was very odd, but so’s the show, so I guess that kind of worked.
  • Elementary: The episode a couple of weeks ago was probably the worst so far, but last week’s properly felt like a Sherlock Holmes story, with proper mysteries and deductions. Roger Rees did well – will we see more of him, I wonder? – and, of course, there was that name at the end, which made my day…
  • Happy Endings: Suffering from “difficult third season” syndrome. It’s just not funny any more, entirely implausible, and Elisha Cuthbert and her goofiness are the only thing worth watching.
  • Homeland: Last week’s episode had an ending made of pure 24 and this week’s episode was full of people doing stupid things in stupid, implausible ways, too. You could guess pretty much everything that was going to happen. Such a shame, because it was so good last season.
  • The Last Resort: The first downright poor episode so far, although it did have a good pay off at the end. What are they down to now? About five crew members left?
  • The Mentalist: Well, I haven’t watched it since the first season, but I thought I’d tune in for its 100th episode, which was a flashback to how all the characters first met and Simon Baker started solving crimes. Well done, as always, and Baker’s great, as always, but absolutely identical to all the other episodes of the show that I’ve seen, which is why I gave up on it in the first place.
  • The Mindy Project: Off the list. As the show accelerates rapidly away from being the anti-romcom romcom towards being just another workplace comedy, so it stops being funny. There were more than a few good moments, but I’d not say I’d actually recommend it any more.
  • Misfits: Obviously just passing time now, rather than telling any proper stories. You’d think with only one surviving character from the original cast, they’d make more of Curtis, but apparently not. Plus its attitude to women isn’t improving much, either. But not without some good qualities.
  • Modern Family: A slight reset of the show, but I liked it.
  • Red Dwarf X: Quite a decent ending, actually, albeit one that threw most continuity out of the window. Probably the best season since either two or three.
  • The Secret State: Channel 4’s remake of A Very British Coup, with Gabriel Byrne. I watched about a minute before I started laughing, which clearly can’t be good for a show that thinks it’s Very, Very Important. I’ll try watching the rest later in the week if I can.
  • Suburgatory: Off the recommended list. It’s just too silly and too many men writing episodes (as we discovered last season, Suburgatory is only funny when women write the episodes).
  • Vegas: Unmemorable.

And in movies:

  • Skyfall: Didn’t like it as much as I thought I was going to, but that might have been down to the constantly chattering teenagers next to me. It also doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense? What was Javier Bardem’s plan? Why Scotland? Why go to Skyfall? Why Bond, rather than the SAS? It’s also a tad sexist (really? Bond? The shower? And the ending). Having said that, it was almost as good as Casino Royale – it does need a proper Bond woman now to give it some romance for a change – it had some great individual moments, it’s all worth for the back story and the last five or 10 minutes, Ralph Fiennes is really good and in this 50th anniversary and Olympic year, it’s appropriate that one of the exotic locales for the film should be London.

  • Prometheus: Absolutely dreadful. While all the Alien prequel elements were a treat and the body horror stuff actually grows in retrospect, the plot and story are just dreadful and mostly just set-up for a much better planned sequel. Looks great, boring to watch. And frankly, it rips off a lot from Hangar 18, which was twice as entertaining.

“What did you watch last fortnight?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?

US TV

Mini-review: Malibu Country 1×1 (ABC)

8 November 2012 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

MalibuCountry.jpg

In the US: Fridays, 8.30c/7.30c, ABC

Dreadful. Even less funny than one of those jokes you find on the stick in a Mini Milk ice lolly and the worse of the two dreadful country music-based shows ABC now has. And while country star Reba McEntire being in it is understandable, Lily Tomlin – what the hell’s the matter with you?

Here’s a trailer. Don’t watch even a second more of this show than that. Even the trailer might be a step too far.

US TV

Mini-review: Mockingbird Lane (NBC)

30 October 2012 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

Mockingbird Lane

In the US: Friday 26 October, 8/7c, NBC

Well, it was a backdoor pilot but its ratings weren’t very good, so I don’t think Mockingbird Lane – Bryan Fuller’s ‘reimagining’ of CBS’s The Munsters for NBC – warrants a full review.

For those of you who don’t remember the original, it essentially saw the Universal Pictures’ ideas of Dracula, the Wolfman, the Bride of Dracula and Frankenstein’s Monster all living in a house together with a relatively normal woman as an everyday blue collar US family called the Munsters. Herman the monster is the bumbling father, Lily the bride is the practical mother, Grandpa the vampire is a cooky old man and Eddie the werewolf is an average kid. The humour came largely from the juxtaposition of their standard horror film appearances and powers with their normal behaviour and activities.

Here’s the original pilot, so you have an idea of what it was like, even if they recast Phoebe Munster and made her Lily afterwards:

The show was popular in syndication, popular enough to have reunion movies and even an updated series made in the 80s called The Munsters Today. Now, we have Mockingbird Lane – named after the road the original Munsters used to live on. And, to coin a phrase, Mockingbird Lane is a very different beast.

For starters, all the Universal Pictures iconography has gone, replaced in favour of more modern horror films: Eddie Munster turns into a proper CGI wolf, Herman Munster (Jerry O’Connell) is intelligent and handsome but a patchwork of parts à la Ken Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Lily (Portia di Rossi) looks normal but can become mist, control insects and spiders, and bewitch men; while Grandpa Munster (Eddie Izzard) is a full on Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, able to change into a man-bat, dissolve into rats and enslave others with his blood.

More than that, it’s actually surprisingly horrific. While there is the same sort of humour as the original’s in the background, the only people really trying to fit in are the new Eddie Munster, who doesn’t know that he’s a werewolf, and Lily who just wants to raise her son. Meanwhile, Grandpa wants to drain the local population of its blood; and Herman needs his heart replacing using neighbours’ spare parts. And you get to see all of this, from Grandpa ripping apart mountain lions with his teeth to neighbours having their hearts ripped out.

In keeping with this new vibe, the show’s main point of difference from the original is that there aren’t that many jokes, and what there are seem to come mostly from Eddie Izzard’s occasionally James Mason-esque delivery and more frequent ad libbing. As a result, there’s not much drama and not much comedy, so the pilot feels like it’s just there to exist and to give us some nice visuals and nice ideas, without really giving us much by way of story. We don’t really know why the Munsters have moved into town, beyond the fact they had to leave the last one; we don’t really know what their motivations are, particularly Lily’s; we just know they’re here and creepy.

To be honest, despite Fuller’s pedigree on Heroes and Pushing Daisies, it was only okay, lovely to look at thanks to Bryan Singer’s directorial skills, but hampered by a lack of clarity in what it was trying to achieve. As a pilot, it serves up some visual treats, but doesn’t give you much of a reason to watch the hypothetical next episode that would have come.

All the same, it’s actually not bad. Jerry O’Connell has never been better or more likeable than he is here; Eddie Izzard gives a great performance and is entertaining, even when the script isn’t; and it looks great. It’s just a shame there wasn’t more meat on its bones. Here’s a trailer so you can see what you missed:

And if you’re in the US, you can still watch it on the NBC site or below.

What did you watch last week? Including Don’t Trust The B—– in Apartment 23, Happy Endings, and Vegas

29 October 2012 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

It’s “What did you watch last week?”, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I watched in the past two weeks that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

First, the usual recommendations: 30 Rock, Dexter, Don’t Trust The B—– in Apartment 23, Go On, Homeland, The Last Resort, The Mindy Project, Modern Family, Red Dwarf X, Suburgatory and The Thick of It.

Still in the viewing pile: Misfits. But here’s a few thoughts on what I have been watching.

  • Dexter: A little silly, but still as tense as it used to be.
  • Don’t Trust The B—– in Apartment 23: A delightfully daft way to introduce new viewers to the show, with the B in question demonstrating extreme insanity, and the show offering 20somethings extreme TV nostalgia fun with cameos from Busy Philipps from Dawson’s Creek, Frankie Muniz from Malcolm in the Middle, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar from Saved By The Bell – all, in standard, Don’t Trust The B—- style, as ‘themselves’. M-P G was actually good, which makes a difference from Franklin & Bash then.
  • Go On: The first post-pilot weepy episode. Which is moderately embarrassing when you’re commuting on a train.
  • Happy Endings: Dreadful, but redeemed by some good performances and Elisha Cuthbert. Hope the next episode is better.
  • Homeland: It’s so hard to keep up with the producers and their twists and turns. Not absolutely convinced by the speed of the events in the episode, but handled well nevertheless.
  • The Last Resort: Another tense one, although the end result was somewhat corny. The best action show on TV at the moment, though (although maybe Strike Back: Vengeance is good – will let you know when I watch it).
  • Modern Family: They always do really good Halloween episodes, don’t they?
  • Red Dwarf X: Rubbish. More like series four or five than previous episodes and correspondingly bad.
  • Suburgatory: Back on the recommended list. Quite sweet, but it feels like no one pays much attention to character continuity.
  • The Thick Of It: A low-key way to end the series. You really wanted Malcolm to go out on a high, but a realistic way to end it all, I guess. What can replace it?
  • Vegas: Perilously close to the quality of the first episode, with only minor hobbling from the procedural aspect of things. Also good to see a few black faces in the story for a change.

And in movies:

  • This Means War: Tom Hardy and Chris Pine are spies who are both dating Reese Witherspoon. Who will she pick? You won’t care, because it’s largely rubbish and McG directed it. But it actually does have a few decent moments in, include a very funny paintball tournament, and both Hardy and Chelsea Handler liven the whole thing up beyond the standard drek. Also features Til Schweiger.

“What did you watch last week?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?