TV reviews

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

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 1

Third-episode verdict: Arrow (The CW/Sky1)

25 October 2012 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

In the US: Wednesdays, 8/7c, The CW
In the UK: Mondays, 8pm, Sky1
In Canada: Wednesdays, 9pm, CTV2
in Australia: Nine Network. Air date to be confirmed

And we have another winner from the Fall 2012 season. Arrow, somewhat unpromisingly based on a comics strip character virtually no one has ever heard of and who isn’t that much cop anyway, on a network with minimal viewers and that’s been almost exclusively targeting young women with the likes of Gossip Girl and America’s Next Top Model for years, has managed to turn in the closest we’ll probably ever get to Batman Begins: The Series.

As I noted in my review of the first episode, the show has its flaws, not the least of which is its entire premise, for which we can blame the original comic – a millionaire playboy, Oliver Queen, running around town, redistributing wealth and fighting crime after learning survivalist skills on a near-deserted island, with only a bow and arrow as a weapon. It also has an embarrassing voiceover, which ruins from the outset almost any real sense that the show might have some decent writers behind it.

But so far, it’s proven to be a remarkably good and tense watch. Stephen Amell is proving surprisingly charismatic as Oliver Queen, sometimes very Zen, sometimes very party boy, as the role needs it; it has excellent action sequences; the residual Smallville visual resemblance left behind by director David Nutter in the pilot episode has fortunately been exterminated; it has strong characters, both male and female, and it’s doing well at developing its supporting cast; it’s slowly dripping through back story and format, without descending into the formulaic; Dinah Lance, former Arrow girlfriend, and, judging by the third episode, still set to be the future Black Canary is being served well, as is Thea Queen, Oliver’s sister; there are some genuinely exciting cliffhangers; and it’s keeping most of the possible comic book implausibilities to a minimum.

True, some of them are still feeding through. Oliver Queen, stranded on an island for five years, not only has the physique of a protein-shake addict eating five whole chickens a day, but is somehow gifted with a computer hacker’s ability to search police databases and do forensic analysis – yet still needs to go to IT support to recover data from a damaged computer. Comic book villains China White (Martial Law‘s Kelly Hu) and Deadshot (Michael Rowe) turned up in the second and third episodes respectively, with Hu having to endure a white wig while Rowe got wrist guns and a targeting monocle – while that’s nothing compared to what their comic book characters have, it did somewhat ruin the show’s attempts to be gritty and realistic. There’s also the backstory involving Queen’s mother, which is feeling a bit silly already.

We also have Paul Blackthorne, who while a decent enough actor in shows like The River, The Dresden Files and The Gates, here seems to be having trouble believing the whole thing, never quite immersing himself in the role – something Strictly Come Dancing‘s own Colin Salmon is managing to do marvellously as the Green Arrow’s new step-dad.

But despite these failings, the show is just about as good as you’re going to get from a comic book show on The CW, easily trumping Smallville and pulling off the almost unimaginable feat of making Green Arrow look cool.

One to watch, if you like a comic book action show with at least a bit of thought put into it.

Barrometer rating: 1. Of course, the Barrometer might be biased since John Barrowman’s going to be a recurring star, starting from the fifth episode.

What did you watch last fortnight? Including Dexter, Homeland, The Last Resort, Nashville, The Thick of It, Suburgatory and 30 Rock

22 October 2012 Rob Buckley 11 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, Dexter, Go On, Homeland, The Last Resort, The Mindy Project, Modern Family, Red Dwarf X and The Thick of It.

So here’s a few thoughts on what I have been watching – a bit of pruning with the viewing schedule this week, but also a few changes to the recommended list:

  • 30 Rock: We’ve only watched the first episode so far, and while it’s definitely as funny as always, the gamble that NBC’s entire season was going to do terribly in the ratings, which might have seemed a good bet a couple of months ago, is now looking like a complete misfire. As a result, 30 Rock‘s satire is now wildly off target, even if it’s still accurate about the actual quality of NBC’s programming.
  • 666 Park Avenue: Tried watching the second episode, but that was as dreadful as the first, so I abandoned it. Don’t watch.
  • Beauty and the Beast: See 666 Park Avenue
  • Dexter: And it’s a return to form for our old pal, Dexter, which although as ludicrous as it always has been, hasn’t been anywhere near as stupid as it was last season and now has the wonderful Ray Stevenson from Rome/Punisher: War Zone to improve everything. It’s also very tense as well. It’s also got bland woman from Chuck, but you can’t have everything. Back on the recommended list.
  • Go On: Promoted to the recommended list, because although it’s a pale shadow of Community, it now has enough going for it that it’s worth watching.
  • Homeland: After two absolutely ridiculous episodes in a row, episode four thankfully has restored sanity to the show and had some marvellously unexpected twists and turns.
  • Hunted: See Beauty and the Beast.
  • The Last Resort: Promoted to the recommended viewing list, because it’s a real cracker. Some tense fight scenes and submarine scenes and the Washington antics are starting to become less ludicrous. One to watch, particularly in the UK now Sky1 has acquired it.
  • Lie To Me: Went onto Netflix to watch the episode where Lennie James turns up. Just horrifying watching him and Tim Roth outclass the other ‘actors’ in every possible way. Practically a cruel and unusual punishment.
  • Nashville: Like having bleach poured in both ears. Couldn’t even make it through the first episode. Just dreadful.
  • The Neighbors: While the second episode was a distinct improvement on the first and there were some surprisingly decent moments from the alien side of the cast, this is still a pretty dreadful show. Don’t bother with it.
  • Red Dwarf X: Episode three wasn’t as good as the previous two, but otherwise a welcome return to season 1/2 form after a few series of complete dross.
  • Royal Pains: Finally watched the season finale, which was terrible. We’ll probably catch the Christmas movie, but I think we’ll be dropping this from the viewing schedule afterwards.
  • Suburgatory: It’s back with a surprisingly awful first episode, so awful that I’ve removed the whole show from the recommended list. Let’s be cautious embracing this season.
  • The Thick Of It: a lovely Leveson spoof to round off what has probably been the best season of the show so far. Surprising way to end it if it is the last episode, as suggested, but brilliant nevertheless.

And in movies:

  • Dark Shadows: The Tim Burton remake of the 70s soap opera. A weird mix of humour and horror, mostly relying on odd-colourings, particularly of hair, and the usual Tim Burton suspects (Johnny Depp, Helen Bonham-Carter, Michelle Pfeiffer) as well as a few newbies (Chloe Moretz, Jonny Lee Miller, Eva Green) for any real interest, since the script is largely a bore. Surprisingly okay, though, given how bad it could have been, but not exactly a movie I’d recommend to anyone.

  • Taken 2: Although not as bad as a lot of reviews would suggest, and although several elements of it are basically just retreads of the first movie, it’s actually not that bad. Not as much action or depth as the original, but it has a few good scenes and the first half hour is dedicated to characterisation rather than fist fights, which is unusual. All the same, there are some absolutely ludicrous elements, largely involved a sealed room and some hand grenades, and Liam Neeson is clearly getting too old for this shit.

“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?

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)

22 October 2012 Rob Buckley 16 Comments

In the US: Thursdays, 10/9c, CBS
In the UK: Tuesdays, 9pm, Sky Living. Starts tomorrow

Three episodes into CBS’s Elementary and I can conclusively report that Steven Moffat has nothing to fear from CBS’s modern-day Sherlock Holmes retelling. Now this isn’t just because the two are so radically different that beyond the names Holmes and Watson, there’s very little in common. No, it’s because although Sherlock is itself flawed, Elementary just isn’t as good.

The show’s biggest problem, as I remarked in my first episode review, is that it’s a procedural. Nothing wrong with that in itself, because in a sense, the Sherlock Holmes stories were procedurals. But problematically for Elementary, which is a crime procedural, the Holmes stories were mystery procedurals: a mystery that needs solving – strange behaviour, a secret code, etc – rather than a killer that needs to be found. A lot of the time, the perpetrator of the crime is known in the Holmes stories – it’s what he wants and how he’s doing the crime are what have to be revealed, and that are the unusual and interesting aspects of the story.

Elementary, however, mostly just uses Holmes’ headline inductive/deductive powers to work out what happened at a crime scene so that the not-especially-interesting killer can be revealed. Not always – the second episode is more of a mystery than a crime procedural – but largely this is the same old CBS police show with a twist, in the same vein as The Mentalist.

The show is also very Holmes-lite. Apart from his deductive skills and his drug-addiction, there’s very little of the man himself in this Holmes, with the writers adding a little reference or quote each episode from the original, just to reassure you that this still is Holmes, even though there’s been nothing quite as brilliant as even Conan Doyle’s weakest observations in the originals.

Disappointingly, just as Jonny Lee Miller isn’t an especially charismatic Holmes, albeit one who takes his top off a lot to show his tattoos, Lucy Liu is a somewhat bland Watson, the producers giving her very little to do beyond talk about Holmes’ drug addiction. Attempts to make them a sort of Odd Couple really just aren’t working. And the supporting cast are practically non-existent, with even Aidan Quinn’s Captain Gregson largely there just to say ‘Yes, Holmes’ and, more frequently, ‘No, Holmes.’

But it’s not terrible. It’s no worse than any random given episode of any other CBS procedural. If all you want to do is unwind at the end of the day in front of the tele, you could do far worse. But don’t expect to have your brain challenged in any way.

Barrometer rating: 3

US TV

Review: Beauty and the Beast 1×1 (The CW/E4)

12 October 2012 Rob Buckley 12 Comments

In the US: Thursdays, 9/8c, The CW
In the UK: Acquired by E4
In Canada: Thursday 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT

You know, if I hadn’t just tried to watch Nashville, I would have described this as the most painful new drama on TV this season. But I have, and since Nashville was like having bleach poured into both ears while having my eyeballs scrubbed with an electric sander, I’m going to be relatively charitable to Beauty and the Beast, even though it almost certainly doesn’t deserve it.

For those with long memories like me, Beauty and the Beast isn’t just a Disney movie*. It’s also a 1980s CBS TV series starring Terminator‘s Linda Hamilton as Catherine (aka The Beauty) and Sons of Anarchy‘s Ron Perlman as Vincent (aka The Beast). Thorny gender politics to one side for a moment, what was interesting about the series was that it asked the question: can you truly love someone who’s just downright ugly? Okay, Vincent looked like a fluffy lion crossed with Jon Bon Jovi – and they’d have been better off leaving Ron Pearlman au naturel if they’d wanted to really go for the beast angle – but bestiality isn’t exactly the flavour of the day now any more than it was then:

Beauty and the Beast on CBS

25 years on, CBS is remaking its old show at The CW’s behest. Not such an eccentric idea – in fact, ABC was considering making a live action version of the Disney movie this year, too, but eventually decided not to.

But a quarter of a century later, ethics and aesthetics have moved on. Twilight has come and is just about to go. Manscaping has arrived, moisturiser is everywhere and any man who hasn’t had a protein shake in the last two days isn’t a real man. So the question is, can a show in which a woman falls in love with a man who isn’t hunky, smooth and glittering but because he has a nice personality, possibly get off the ground?

The CW asked the computer, the computer said ‘No’, and lo and behold, for the modern day Beauty and The Beast, we have something a bit more Twilight – a man who turns into a bit of an animal when the adrenaline flows but otherwise is king of the pretty boys beyond a bit of a scar on his cheek. 

Beast? More like an 8, maybe a 9.

Here’s a trailer:

Continue reading “Review: Beauty and the Beast 1×1 (The CW/E4)”

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 2

Third-episode verdict: Vegas (CBS/Sky Living)

12 October 2012 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

In the US: Tuesdays, 10/9c, CBS
In the UK: Acquired by Sky Atlantic HD
In Canada: Tuesdays, 10pm, Global

Funny, isn’t it, how the drive to force a story into a procedural format can ruin a perfectly excellent show? Perception, for example, is a really good and touching look at a man afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia… who every week has to solve trivial and ridiculous crimes. 

And then there’s CBS’s Vegas, which could be a really excellent almost The Wire-level bit of work looking at systems, how they try to inhibit change – in one case, the police force, in another, the Mob – and which instead has to survive having to deal with a largely uninteresting murder of the week every episode. 

Vegas is frustrating. It’s most interesting aspect, laid out in the first episode, is the battle of wills between the force of good in Vegas, sheriff Ralph Lamb (Dennis Quaid), and the force of evil, Vincent Savino (Michael Chiklis) – both based on real Vegas characters of the 60s. But everything is shades of grey in the set-up. Quaid is a rancher and former MP who believes in his own form of informal justice and who’s against the modernisation of Vegas. Chiklis, on the other hand, has a code. He also wants to civilise Las Vegas and turn it into the city it is now.

Much of the interest in the otherwise slightly dull third episode, which is mainly concerned with the investigation of a somewhat uninteresting crime, is watching Chiklis essentially spelling out what Vegas has to become – and does indeed become. He’s trying to get the Mob to fund the building of a luxury restaurant and arena in his Savoy casino to bring in tourists and gamblers. He’s the voice of reason, advising against Mob shootings, because Vegas needs law and order if it’s to keep its clientele. And the Mob doesn’t like change.

Quaid, now largely having to survive on facial ticks to inject his character with more personality, has been reduced to running around town solving crimes, rather than having the ambiguity he displayed in the first episode, which is a shame. But he still has more to do than Carrie-Anne Moss, who just drives from place to place providing plot exposition.

Episode two did at least introduce another woman to the cast, this time on the side of the Mob – the daughter of a mobster whom he sent to college and now has ideas on how to improve the casinos. Unfortunately, she seems to be there to demonstrate that there’s more to running a casino than maths and book learning, and to boost Chiklis’s character. I’m hoping she’ll get more to do off her own bat – ditto Moss – in later episodes.

The show’s main draw is still the cold war between Quaid and Chiklis, each making move and counter move against each other without ever drawing blood, Quaid unable to get enough evidence to prove what Chiklis is really up to, Chiklis unwilling to shoot his own business in the foot by shooting Quaid. The procedural element is largely unremarkable, although given the period setting, it does have the benefit of not having to deal with forensic science and other modern techniques of investigation: essentially, it’s cowboy justice and cops asking questions and having to make deductions like they did in the old days. 

But as the third episode shows, Vegas desperately needs to avoid becoming a murder of the week show, since it has the clear potential to be a lot more. The period setting, the mob intrigue and the fact we know how Las Vegas will eventually end up gives the show a lot of range that it uses to its advantage when it can. But CBS’s saddling it with the need to be as episodic and as procedural as possible is ruining it. Fingers crossed it can slip its tether and be free.

Barrometer rating: 2