TV reviews

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

Classic TV

Old Gems: The Baron (1965-66)

1 September 2011 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

In the transfer between book and TV series, a lot can change. A case in point: the ITC adventure series, The Baron, a sort of prototype Lovejoy and the first ITC show filmed entirely in colour that featured people rather than puppets.

Based on John Creasey’s series of novels, The Baron starred American actor Steve Forrest as John Mannering, a former Texas ranch owner and antique dealer who takes on missions for ITC’s catch-all British spy service, Diplomatic Intelligence*, aided by his glamorous spy colleague Cordelia Winfield (Sue Lloyd) .

What’s interesting about this is that in the books

  1. Mannering is British
  2. He’s a former jewel thief
  3. He’s married
  4. He doesn’t own a cattle ranch
  5. He doesn’t work for British intelligence

Basically, ITC bought the name and made another version of The Saint but starring an American. Nevertheless, it was a fun little action show, with lots of fights, car chases and running round, even if the scripts themselves were largely unremarkable. The theme tune was great, plus anything with Sue Lloyd in it has to be good. And for ITC lovers, this was the very few show to feature the notorious "white jaguar driving off a cliff scene" that later appeared in virtually dozens of subsequent ITC shows.

Largely written by Terry "I created the Daleks" Nation and Dennis Spooner, another former Doctor Who script writer, the show was very much in hoc to American financing. As well as the US lead, the show was redubbed for the American market, with words like ‘petrol’ changed to ‘gas’. The original assistant planned for Mannering, David Marlowe (played by Paul Ferris), was replaced by Winfield at US instigation as well.

However, those who live for the American market, die by the American market because when ratings suffered, a second series for the show was out of the question, despite doing well in the UK. Happily, you can buy it on DVD still.

* At the time, SS/MI5 and SIS/MI6 didn’t officially exist

UK TV

Review: Doctor Who – 6×8 – Let’s Kill Hitler

31 August 2011 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

Let's Kill Hitler

In the UK: Saturday 27th August, 7.10pm, BBC1/BBC1 HD. Available on the iPlayer
In the US: Saturday 27th August, 9pm/8c ET/PT, BBC America

Can’t quite muster up the enthusiasm for a full review, so this is largely a placeholder so you can add your own thoughts and comments, as well as links to your own reviews.

On the whole, though, I liked it. It was all over the place and full of colossal amounts of Rusty-grade hand-waving. I’m not sure having River Song end up dedicating her life (twice, making this the third time) to a man was a positive role model thing. And I’m not sure where they’re going with Rory – he doesn’t work as an action hero and the constant spodness with which they offset any steps forward in growing a spine is getting to the “Ha, ha, look at the special kid” level of mocking.

But it was funny, had pathos and explained all manner of plot points. Matt Smith was excellent, the pre-credit sequence was fantastic, as were the constant anti-Scottish jokes. The numb-skulls were an odd idea but I’m sure they worked for kids. Tears were jerked, expectations exceeded, etc, etc, and it was all good enough that we could ignore the fact most of it was talking in a room and Hitler wasn’t actually in it much.

But what did you think?

Classic TV

Weird old title sequences: Hardcastle & McCormick (1983-1986)

4 August 2011 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Hardcastle & McCormick

1983 was a time of change in the US. Ronald Regan was president. The power of technology was on the ascendant. Manliness was back in vogue. And people were worried about law and order and being soft on crime. Indeed, one frequent claim made was that guilty criminals were escaping the justice system on technicalities.

Hardcastle & McCormick was one of the shows that latched onto all those concerns and prospered for three seasons on ABC as a result. The show was created by TV wunderkind Stephen J Cannell, who wrote 450 episodes of TV shows, produced or exec-produced over 1,500 episodes, and created or co-created no fewer than 40 television series including The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team, Wiseguy, 21 Jump Street, Silk Stalkings and The Commish.

Its set-up was relatively simple: Judge Milton C Hardcastle (Brian Keith) is about to retire. However, he’s kept track of 200 criminals who escaped on technicalities and he plans to go after them in retirement and get them locked up. His final case is Mark McCormick (Daniel Hugh Kelly), a car thief who steals a prototype sports car, the Coyote X, which was designed by his best friend before he was murdered. Through a legal technicality, Hardcastle is able to take McCormick into his custody and McCormick accepts rather than go to jail. With McCormick living in the judge’s guest house, together they go after those 200 crims, helped just a little – and with a compulsory number of award-winning stunt scenes – by the Coyote X.

Curiously, the show had three different title sequences and two different theme tunes. The more famous and the best theme tune was ‘Drive’, written by another TV wunderkind, Mike Post, who composed the themes for shows including Law & Order, NYPD Blue, The Rockford Files, LA Law, Quantum Leap, Magnum, P.I., Hill Street Blues, The A-Team, CHiPs, MacGyver and Murder One. That accompanied the first season’s title sequence:

Then for the second season, the show switched to a dreadful country music theme.

Viewer outcry was enormous and it wasn’t long before ‘Drive’ was reinstated for the rest of the second season as well as for the third season.

While no classic of writing, Hardcastle & McCormick‘s appeal was relatively clear: as well as the camaraderie between the two leads, this was largely an adrenaline-fuelled show, with some surprisingly well directed high-speed car scenes involving the Coyote X, in actuality a Manta Montage kit car based on the McLaren M6GT with a Porsche 914 engine.

All the same, after three years, Hardcastle & McCormick‘s appeal had diminished enough that it wasn’t renewed for a fourth season. But for adrenaline junkies, it is at least all all available on DVD.

US TV

What have you been watching this week (w/e August 2)?

2 August 2011 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

WebTherapy.jpg

Time for “What have you been watching this week?”, my chance to tell you what I’ve been watching this week and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case we’ve missed them.

My recommendations for maximum viewing pleasure this week: Burn Notice, Royal Pains, Penn and Teller: Fool Us, Sirens, Suits, The Daily Show, and Wilfred.

The shows I’m watching, which you might like, but which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend: Come Dine With Me, Top Gear, and True Blood.

Now to the irregulars and new things, as well as a few thoughts on some of those regulars. We’re still watching BSG, although we got slowed down with the “worthy but choresome” season four, which was hard going. But that’s left little time for other TV:

  • Web Therapy: Lisa Kudrow has been doing a little three-minute web-based series called ‘Web Therapy’ for some time. In it, she plays an unlicensed and very broken therapist who offers people therapy over the Internet, including exs, her husband and others. Now Showtime has bundled them all together into 30-minute episodes, with little interstitials between them to act as glue. It has to be said, it’s not all that funny, although it has its moments of wry grinning to offer you. It’s clearly something, however, that could be good once it has a bit more budget for script editors and the like. Just not yet.
  • Franklin & Bash: As promised, I tuned in again to see if it had improved. While it’s not quite as misogynistic as before, it’s still stupid and immature, but without any real pizzazz. Surprising guest star: James van der Beek, who’s having something of a career revival of late – just not here.
  • Top Gear: Dull.

And in this week’s list of movies:

  • Captain America: Not as fun as I hoped it was going to be, but not bad, with a surprising Indiana Jones vibe. Obviously not as good as Thor, it’s pretty much the first part of The Avengers, with everything interesting postponed until that movie, including a decent finale. It’s also a little underpowered, with not much action worth mentioning at all. All the same, it has some nice touches, the romance is quite touching in places and the action when it does turn up is good.
  • Thor: Yes, the fourth time we’ve seen this now. Still awesome.

But what have you been watching?

“What have you been watching 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 this week. 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? And keep an eye on The Stage‘s TV Today Square Eyes feature as well for British TV highlights or you’ll be missing out on the good stuff.

Adrianne Palicki As Wonder Woman
Weekly Wonder Woman

Review: Wonder Woman (2011) (US: NBC)

28 July 2011 Rob Buckley 40 Comments

In the US: Made in 2011 for NBC (US) (never aired)

So I’m going to out myself as a bit of a Wonder Woman fan. I love her in the comics (with the right authors such as George Perez, Gail Simone and Greg Rucka), we have the whole 1970s TV series on DVD, we have the animated movie on iTunes and lovely wife has a Wonder Woman mug to drink from. I even have a couple of Wonder Woman encyclopaedias on the shelves.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to buying Wonder Woman-related products directly from the market, you can also design and customize something different yourself. Whether it’s for personal preference or to surprise your friends and family who love Wonder Woman, custon pins from Custompins.ca can be a great choice.You can easily turn your favorite artwork into the delicate, beautiful and quality trinkets with the help of the efficient and professional team. Designing something that belongs to you is meaningful and interesting, have a try!

I know. Sad.

But I’ll tell you for why. As well as Wonder Woman being one of the very few iconic and powerful female superheroes out there, the DC universe is such that while Superman is off fighting sci-fi enemies, Batman is fighting human grotesques and Captain Marvel is off beating up magical villains, Wonder Woman is the fourth iconic pillar: she’s the mythological hero, fighting gods and monsters. Her stories are unique and she has a necessary, irreplaceable area of the comics world to call her own.

But there’s still more to her: she is literally an emissary from the Greek gods, who are second to none in the DC universe (no Christian or any other monotheistic gods at the top of this pantheon), and they have imbued her with their powers to give their mortals a message: there’s a better way to live than patriarchy.

In other words, despite what you may or may not think about her costume, she’s just about the only feminist and indeed religious superhero out there and when she prays, her prayers are answered.

Wonder Woman's prayer is answered

Wonder Woman’s TV and movie career is a little checkered. There was a dreadful 1967 pilot that tried to do for Wonder Woman what the Batman TV series did for the caped crusader – camp it up. Then Cathy Lee Crosby did a quite awful TV movie version that preserved most of the trappings of Wonder Woman, but robbed her of all her powers.

Lynda Carter had a much better time of things from 1976, with three seasons of The New Adventures of Wonder Woman. The first season, set as the original comic was during World War 2, wasn’t bad and did a reasonably good job of presenting the Wonder Woman of the early comics.

However, the later seasons, set in quasi-modern/futuristic times, became very camp sci-fi affairs.

Nevertheless, none of these versions have really depicted the comics version of Wonder Woman, who can fly, is as strong and as fast as Superman, can talk to animals, has the wisdom of Athena and is a trained Amazon warrior. That means it’s largely been left to animated shows and movies to depict the real Wonder Woman halfway decently.

Recently, however, in this, Wonder Woman’s 70th anniversary year, NBC tried to make another TV version of Wonder Woman. For some reason, however, they got David E Kelley of Ally McBeal, Boston Legal and Harry’s Law fame to do this. It’s not been picked up for series, so will probably never get onto TV (just like that very first Wonder Woman pilot), but just for the sake of completeness and curiosity, I’ve watched it and, well, it’s exactly what you think it would be like: never has a superhero worried so much about the law, jurisdiction, search warrants and the difficulties of her love life, as well as the pressures of running a company and being a woman in today’s world.

Here’s the intro and a fan-made compilation-trailer – the full pilot is at the end!

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