TV reviews

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

Canadian TV

Review: Good Dog 1×1

28 March 2011 Rob Buckley 12 Comments

Good Dog

In Canada: Sundays, 8pm ET/MT, HBO Canada

Never let it be said that “What have you been watching this week?” has no effect. Last Friday, MoreTears pointed out that a new Canadian show called Good Dog had escaped my notice (I was on holiday when it started, to be fair) and I should give it a try. Well, I have, so here’s a review of the first episode at least.

Now Ken Finkleman is probably a name you won’t know unless you’re Canadian. Amongst other things, he was the creator of CBC’s The Newsroom, which first aired in 1996 and was revived nearly a decade later in 2004. A sort of cross between Larry Sanders, The Office and Drop the Dead Donkey, The Newsroom was a darkly satirical show looking at TV news broadcasting and starred Finkleman as a slightly mild-mannered TV producer called George.

Well, George is back – although this might be a different George altogether, even if he is played by Ken Finkleman and is a TV producer who’s obsessed with ratings – in Curb Your Enthusiasm. Hang on, it’s not Curb Your Enthusiasm. Maybe it’s Lead Balloon?

Because we have here something that’s suspiciously like both – so suspiciously, that most of the first episode is about how similar the show is to Curb Your Enthusiasm. Because we’re in meta-land here.

See, George the TV producer has this great idea for a reality TV show in which he and his 30-year-old model girlfriend (Lauren Lee Smith – Riley from one season of CSI, as well as things such as The Listener and Mutant X) are the stars. It’ll follow him and her around, doing their thing. And that’s about the extent of his idea.

As a result, the network is worried. They don’t even live together, so how’s that going to work? Of course, she can’t move in because she has kids and he hates kids, which makes the network worry their relationship won’t last. So to get the show on the road, George proposes to his girlfriend and she – and her kids, her dog, her Austrian nanny and her furniture – all move in.

That causes George all manner of grumbles.

If you’re in Canada, you can watch some clips of it over here, but if you’re not, here’s Ken Finkleman talking about the news for 15 minutes, instead.

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US TV

What have you been watching this week (w/e March 25)?

25 March 2011 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

White Van Man

It’s been a little while since the last one, but it’s time for "What have you been watching this week?", your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV 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?

My usual recommendations for maximum viewing pleasure are: Archer, Being Human (US), Community, The Daily Show, House, The Killing, Modern Family, Shameless (US), Stargate Universe and 30 Rock. Watch them (and keep an eye on The Stage‘s TV Today Square Eyes feature as well) or you’ll be missing out on the good stuff.

  • Chuck – an okay episode this week, but it’s still miles away from entertaining. I keep saying this but I might be giving up on it soon.
  • House – rewatched a season one episode the other day, and again, here’s a show that’s forgotten what made it so good in the first place. It needs to recover its edge. It’s still above average TV, but it’s a shadow of its former misanthropic self.
  • Shameless (US) – has slowly been becoming must-see TV, despite William H Macey’s slightly implausible performer as Frank. Emmy Rossum is fantastic though.
  • White Van Man – BBC3’s sitcom starring Will Mellor. I say ‘sitcom’ but it’s not actually funny. I tuned in this week because our Joanna Page was on it as a Star Trek-obsessed single mum and web designer and while she did raise the comedy level considerably, everything else about it was horrid. The cast – with the exception of the slightly bland Georgia Moffet – are fine. It’s the script, which just isn’t funny. Poor.

UPDATE: Many thanks to Chloe for pointing out that the new series of Engrenages (Spiral) starts on BBC4 next Saturday! Tune in, everyone!

But what have you been watching?

Classic TV

Lost Gems: Hot Metal (1986-1988)

24 March 2011 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Hot Metal

Anyone who was around in the 80s will remember the fun Rupert Murdoch brought to the newspaper industry here in England. The move from Fleet Street to Wapping, his acquisition of The Times, his fights with the unions – I’d go on, but it would only depress me.

Such ‘fun’ was actually ripe for satire and David Renwick and Andrew Marshall, who’d written a previously vicious and satirical sitcom, Whoops Apocalypse, decided they would do the same for the Murdoch press. Made by LWT, Hot Metal (the name given to printing presses by the industry) ran from 1986 and 1988 and followed the fortunes of The Daily Crucible, the world’s dull newspaper, after its acquisition by Terence “Twiggy” Rathbone (Robert Hardy). Its editor, Harry Stringer (Geoffrey Palmer), gets ‘promoted’ to managing editor and a new, more exciting editor found: Russell Spam (Robert Hardy – again. The running gag is, of course, that everyone thinks they’re the same person, until they’re spotted side by side; but metaphorically, Spam and Rathbone are two sides of the same coin, just as say Kelvin MacKenzie and Rupert Murdoch were).

Spam then takes the paper downmarket, turning The Crucible as its now called into a sensation-seeking red top. He’s helped by journalist Greg Kettle (Richard Kane), who intimidates his victims by claiming to be “a representative of Her Majesty’s press” and produces stories such an allegation that a vicar is a werewolf. Throughout the first series, there was also a running plot involved cub reporter Bill Tytla (John Gordon Sinclair) gradually uncovering an actual newsworthy story that went to the very heart of government.

Come the second series, Stringer has left after vanishing in a mysterious aircraft accident, to be replaced by former daytime chat show host Richard Lipton (Richard Wilson), while John Gordon Sinclair has been replaced by Maggie Troon (Caroline Milmoe). In all, 12 episodes were made as well as a Comic Relief special in which Rathbone moves into satellite TV (just like Rupert Murdoch) with the aid/opposition of the returning Stringer.

It was a delightfully funny, delightfully vicious satire of the industry that’s as relevant more than two decades later as it was at the time. There’s not much of it I can show you right now bar these two bits from the first episode and that Comic Relief special, but enjoy – it has a great theme tune by Alan Price, best known for his work in the pop group The Animals as well as the various Lindsay Anderson films O Lucky Man! and Britannia Hospital. Happily however, you can get it on DVD.

US TV

Third-episode verdict: Breakout Kings

23 March 2011 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

Breakout Kings

In the US: Sundays, 10/9c, A&E

One of the things about holidays, work, et al, is sometimes it takes me a while to catch up with everything, particularly new shows that don’t look especially brilliant from the outset. That’s why I’m three episodes behind on Breakout Kings, which looked anything but appealing – except for one thing…

For starters, Breakout Kings has had something of a chequered history. Originally in development at Fox, the show got a pilot episode in January 2010. However, Fox didn’t pick up the series but tried to sell it to other networks instead. A&E picked up the show in June 2010 and after a wee bit of recasting, here it is.

Now, not to suggest that the writers are stuck for ideas, but we have here the story of a bunch of criminals who help US marshals track down escaped prisoners. Want to guess which Fox show the writers used to work on?

That’s right: Prison Break. They even brought T-Bag (Robert Knepper) along for an episode.

Cue the trailer.

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Canadian TV

Review: Endgame 1×1-1×2

23 March 2011 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Endgame

In Canada: Mondays, 10pm ET/PT, Showcase

“If the art of the detective began and ended in reasoning from an arm-chair, my brother would be the greatest criminal agent that ever lived.” – Sherlock Holmes describing Mycroft Holmes in The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter

It seems that no matter where you go in North America, more and more cable channels (and even Netflix) are reckoning that the key to getting good ratings and making money is to actually make TV programmes rather than simply air re-runs. HBO, Showtime, AMC, Starz: they’re all at it.

Canada’s no different and with CBC currently suffering budget cuts everywhere (and churning out crud like InSecurity instead of The Border ), we have to look to lovely subscription TV to find bolder attempts at quality TV.

Showcase, which has been having a brave stab at quality (with varying degrees of success) with the likes Lost Girl, Blackstone, Moderation Town, Cra$h & Burn and Haven, has now waded into the problematic world of detectives. I say problematic because there have been so many detective shows already. As a result, detectives in TV shows need to have quirks to stand out from all the others – that’s the law. Everyone knows that.

So we’ve had fat detectives, thin detectives, gourmet sandwich-eating detectives, 80s-TV obsessed detectives, detectives with OCD, working class detectives, upper class detectives, detectives that live on house boats with their robots (Riptide, in case you couldn’t place it), detective brothers and more. But generally they’ve all had one thing in common: they actually want to solve crimes. Okay, maybe not Jonathan Creek, but everyone else, largely yes.

So let’s add to this mix a very unique detective: Arkady Balagan, a Russian chess grandmaster with agoraphobia. He can’t leave his hotel so wanders around in his pyjamas and dressing gown all day. He’s also a bit of an a-hole – is that why the KGB have been trying to kill him? But because he needs to pay his hotel bills, he starts solving crimes to claim the reward money rather than because of any sense of altruism.

And he turns out to be quite good at it.

Cue the trailers, one with a particularly funky bit of music, one with a bit more explanation.


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