TV reviews

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

US TV

Review: NYC 22 (CBS) 1×1

17 April 2012 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

NYC22

In the US: Sundays, 10/9c, CBS

Have you noticed how much US network TV is like Las Vegas? As soon as one Las Vegas hotel gets something (e.g. an IMAX 3D ride), suddenly every Las Vegas hotel has to have it?

So stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A cop show on CBS (why haven’t you stopped me yet?) all about rookie cops (why haven’t you stopped me yet?), their love lives (why haven’t you stopped me yet?) and the thorny dilemmas they face on the streets that academy hasn’t prepared them for (why haven’t you stopped me yet?).

Do you see where I’m going with this? I hope you do. Because I have to ask myself, you and CBS: Do we really need another Rookie Blue? Do we really need a show that isn’t even half as good as Southland, simply because these shows aren’t on CBS and CBS is the home of the procedural?

No, it doesn’t matter that Robert de Niro is one of the producers, or that this features a surprisingly diverse cast, including Adam Goldberg (Friends), Leelee Sobieski (Joan of Arc) and Brit actor Tom Reed. Why? Because ultimately, despite a slight hint of the Southland in terms of detail, this is no better and no different than any other generic cop show, put together because all the other networks had one and CBS wanted one, too.

Here’s a trailer:

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US TV

Review: Girls (HBO) 1×1

17 April 2012 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

In the US: Sundays, 10.30pm, HBO

And so HBO’s quest for the new Sex and the City continues. Take four women, stick them in a city, let them talk to each other a lot, particularly about sex. Hey presto! You have a new Sex and the City. Magic or what?

Clearly, it’s not as easy as all that, though, or Cashmere Mafia, Lipstick Jungle, Women’s Murder Club, and all the other SatC knock-offs US TV has thrown at us over the past half-decade or so all would be hit TV shows and movies by now.

However, HBO’s Girls has a lot better chance of being the new Sex and the City. I think. Trouble is, unlike Sex and the City which really was a truly universal show (if you took the trouble to watch it), Girls is a show that maybe only girls will watch. And I mean girls – or at least young women, here – because this is a show that (probably) has its finger so close to the pulse of young American women’s lives (or at least East Coast, white, straight, middle to upper-middle class women’s lives) that if it gets any closer, there’ll be arterial spray hitting the walls in thousands of houses. And by girls, I also mean girls who love indie movies since this is effectively Sex and the City if it had been written by Ibsen on one of his cheerier days.

But I’m not a girl, so how should I know?

If you’re in the US, you can see for yourself with the whole of the first episode on YouTube:

Otherwise, you’ll have to make do with this trailer:

Continue reading “Review: Girls (HBO) 1×1”

US TV

Review: Don’t Trust The B—- in Apt 23 (ABC) 1×1

17 April 2012 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23

In the US: Wednesdays, 9.30c/8.30c, ABC

If there’s one good thing about this year’s season of shows, it’s that there are women in them front and centre. All kinds of women. Good women. Bad women. Secret agent women. Policewomen. Criminal women. PR women without children. Stay-at-home moms. Moms with careers. Playboy bunnies. Air hostesses. Christian women. Rich women. Broke girls. Bent women. Drunk women. Gifted women. Scared-of-commitment women. Fairy-tale women. Girls (more on them later). Not many female scientists – although what did Leslie Hope do in The River? – but a pleasing variety of women nonetheless.

Less pleasing is the growing fear of women in some of these very same shows. Apart from shows such as Last Man Standing and Work It, which are essentially about men’s fear of women, we have GCB – the show formerly known as Good Christian Bitches – which is all about grown-up mean girls. Ringer has Sarah Michelle Gellar being persecuted by her own twin sister. Revenge sees a woman trying to bring down the women (and men) who led to the ruin of her father.

Shows, in other words, in which women should fear women.

Now we have another show which can’t bring itself to use the word ‘bitch’ but kind of includes it in the title anyway – Don’t Trust The B—- in Apt 23. It’s all about a naive woman who moves to New York and finds her life falling apart, in part because of a new, female, sociopathic roommate, whom she absolutely should not trust.

Apparently. Even though the bitch is friends with con artist James Van Der Beek. Yes, Dawson from Dawson’s Creek. He’s out to get you and your money. Turns out you can’t trust actors either. Here’s a trailer.

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What did you watch last week? Including Magic City, Best Friends Forever, Tower Heist and Arrested Development

10 April 2012 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

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

First, the usual recommendations from the first-run shows: The Almighty Johnsons, The Apprentice, Awake, Being Human (US), BeTipul, Community, The Daily Show, Happy Endings, Mad Men, Ringer, Shameless (US) and 30 Rock. Hunt them down.

You’ll notice that after last week’s episode and this week’s mindbender, Awake has now been promoted to the A-Team – go and watch it.

So first a few shows I’ve tried over the past week but didn’t have the time to review separately:

  • Arrested Development: Miracle of miracles, Netflix actually has something to watch (even if its new releases section hasn’t changed in two months) so I thought I’d catch up with my list of shows that everyone loves that I’ve never found the time to watch (next up: The Sopranos). I’m now up to episode eight of AD and I’m not laughing much, but it’s promising at least. When does it get good? I’ll probably keep watching for Portia De Rossi for a while at least – she’s a lot hotter than I remember.
  • Best Friends Forever: NBC’s latest attempt to do a female-oriented comedy show does at least not insult your intelligence unlike Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea? It has a quirky line in dialogue and the central characters are fun and idiosyncratic. But it’s another of those shows that seem to have been written by women who have never met any men before, only seen them on TV, and which assumes that women want to watch shows in which other women want to talk about waxing, relationships, divorces, etc, and nothing else. Not funny enough to keep watching unfortunately.
  • Magic City: Not even a knock-off of Mad Men, this is a terrible Starz knock-off of The Playboy Club of all things. Basic set-up: mobster hotel boss in 1950s Miami. And that’s it. No other distinguishable characters and although it looks fantastic, it’s only real appeals are lots of nudity, that Ukranian woman who was in the second Daniel Craig Bond movie (I think it’s her anyway) and Christian Cooke from ITV’s Demons, putting on his Sontaran Stragem accent. Utterly forgettable.
  • The Syndicate: Well, I did try to watch some more of it, but the only scenes I could get through were the ones with Joanna Page that didn’t involve any stereotypical, overacting northerners. So not much of it.

And a few thoughts on the regulars:

  • The Almighty Johnsons – A really, really good episode, with some actual swordfighting in it. The goddesses got to do something for a change, although they’re still being treated badly by gods and scriptwriters alike, and Loki got to do more than just posture.
  • Being Human (US) – I haven’t finished yesterday’s episode yet, which has been really good so far. But last week’s was a bit wishy washy although the writing out of a certain character was unexpected and well handled.
  • Community – A decent pastiche of civil war documentaries, and the Britta photography was fabulous, as was the reference to The Cape , but not as funny as last week’s.
  • Happy Endings – Overall, a disappointing second season, lacking the bite of the first. Disappointing was the increasing flamboyance of Max, the gay character, who had been refreshing unstereotypical last season. Plenty of fun to be had, though, although the finale had a little bit of a forced cliffhanger.
  • Mad Men – More interesting than the first episode, Betty getting some intriguing nuances, likewise Don.
  • Missing – a big improvement: the fights were decent, Sean Bean, John Carradine and Gina McKee were back. The predictions I made in my first review are coming true, it seems, which means that it’s all a double-bluff, since my predictions can never be true.
  • Ringer – Even Ioan is finding it hard to keep a straight face at times, but it’s still gripping me.
  • Shameless – which I should have written about last week, but didn’t. All in all, an odd season that consisted mainly of writing out characters and returning everything to the status quo after going in several directions for the first half of the season. But the journey was still very much worth taking.
  • 30 Rock – better than the previous episode.
  • Touch – it seems like all the guest characters might actually start getting linked together, which hints at a greater story arc that should make the show that much more interesting to watch. But I showed my wife the episodes and as predicted, blood nearly came out of her ears whenever they showed a supposed health or social worker interacting with special needs boy.
  • Two and a Half Men – Sophie Winkleman’s still in it and is making it watchable, but otherwise a horrible, horrible show.

And in movies:

  • Tower Heist: Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy – with associated extras – get their own back on the 1%. Has its moments, but directed by Brett Ratner so as entirely average as you’d expect.

“What did you watch this 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?

What did you watch last week? Including The Syndicate, Punisher: War Zone and Steven Seagal’s True Justice

2 April 2012 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

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

First, the usual recommendations from the first-run US shows: The Almighty Johnsons, Being Human (US), BeTipul, Community, The Daily Show, Happy Endings, Mad Men, Ringer, Shameless (US), Spartacus and 30 Rock. Hunt them down.

For the love of Joanna Page, I’ve been trying to watch The Syndicate, but it’s hard going. I know it’s written by Kay Mellor, who’s both quite good and a Leeds native, but like every BBC drama about ‘regular people’, it’s just so patronising, with every Northerner written as or acted as a stereotype. Heaven forfend that you might overlap with another stereotype, such as ‘the overweight woman’ because then you’ll be comedy relief in a show in which everyone is pretty much self-pastiching anyway. But I’m going to keep giving it a try. Apparently, they focus on one character every week and Joanna’s episode four.

Now, some thoughts on the regulars, apart from last night’s Mad Men, which I’ve still to watch:

  • The Almighty Johnsons – There’s light at last! A bit more of a season one-style episode than some of the latest efforts have been and I’m hoping it’s a sign that there’s going to be a bit more balance to the show in the next few episodes.
  • Awake – Interesting ending, which suggests some more possible story arc and for once, the story was really more about relationships than the procedural. But there were bits I didn’t get at all (why did he go to the warehouse, just because it was the one his wife used?). Surprisingly though, as the series is progressing, I’m glad there’s no sci-fi reason for what’s happening being suggested and that one reality might actually turn out to be a dream.
  • Being Human (US) –  Nice to see some funny in what has become quite dark, even if it was for a limited time only, but a bit of a soapy episode and the return of the “less fun than she used to be” Nora wasn’t as welcome as I thought it would be.
  • Community – Who would have thought that last year’s KFC product placement show could ever have been topped? John Goodman was marvellous, but the show’s starting to sideline Pearce and Chiang a bit too much at the moment.
  • Happy Endings – Would have made more sense if I’d watched Three’s Company, but some good moments, largely from Elisha Cuthbert, and a great end sketch saved it. Feels better in retrospect than when I was actually watching it.
  • Mad Men – Interesting but dull, like all Mad Men season openers. But how messed up were Don and Megan? Ouch. Oh and that song? WTF?
  • Ringer – Well, it all seems to be coming together, suggesting there may all have been a cunning plan all along. But there were too many obvious misdirects that you could see coming a mile off. Fun to see them happen though.
  • Spartacus – Bloody, with some very interesting choices that mostly neutralised most of this season, with the deaths (you knew there would be some) predominantly the ones who have been wandering around without much story this year. I’ve started to notice, incidentally, that the least effective stories are typically the ones written by Steven DeKnight and this finale was no different. Despite everything that happened, there wasn’t quite enough surprise and good writing to really lift this beyond the good. But it was still good.
  • True Justice – Quite how I could have missed this when it aired on 5 USA this year, I don’t know, but now it’s airing on Reelz, I’ve finally caught up with it. Written by Steven Seagal, created by Steven Seagal and starring Steven Seagal, this is the first TV show I’ve ever watched that’s made from pure Carusonium, the most talentless element in the known universe. Just fascinatingly bad, borderline (if not actually) racist, terribly acted, sometimes impenetrable Canadian accents (seriously, when have you ever heard an impenetrable Canadian accent before this? And it’s supposed to be set in Seattle, FFS), horribly exploitative (it actually has one of the female leads poledancing in the titles) and the fight scenes are so badly directed, you can’t see what’s happening half the time – which given the only good thing about a Steven Seagal movie or TV series is watching some excellent aikido, entirely removes the only good thing about the series even before it starts.
  • 30 Rock – Possibly the first duff one this year, although the meditation scenes were fun.

And in movies:

  • Punisher: War Zone – I wasn’t expecting much of this, which I was largely watching to see how Ray Stevenson did in a lead role and how Lexi Alexander did in her own element (fights – she’s a former world karate and kickboxing champion, who even taught the US marines), but this was substantially worse than I was expecting. More or less everyone appears to be in it for the cash, particularly Dominic West, sporting possibly the worst Brooklyn accent committed to celluloid; Colin Salmon’s US accent isn’t much better, although Stevenson’s is acceptable. The violence is incredibly sadistic, although given the nature of the subject matter and the fact they’re trying to get closer to the comic, maybe that shouldn’t be too surprising. The writing is abysmal. Julie Benz is entirely wasted. Don’t watch. Well, watch this trailer to see how bad it is and how awful West’s accent is.

“What did you watch this 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?