TV reviews

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

US TV

Review: Running Wilde 1×1

22 September 2010 Rob Buckley 12 Comments

Running Wilde

In the US: Tuesdays, 9.30/8.30c, Fox

After years of fielding comedies that only fit loosely into that category – laughter while watching them was a somewhat rare occurrence – Fox clearly sat up and paid attention last year when ABC blew everyone out of the water with Modern Family. Now, as well as a Greg Garcia comedy, they’ve rolled out a second single camera show, this time from the team that brought us Fox’s previous good comedy – Arrested Development.

Starring Will Arnett (Arrested Development, 30 Rock) and Keri Russell (Felicity), this sees aimless rich boy Steve Wilde (Arnett) reunited with his childhood love Emmy Kadubic (Russell) who’s been trying to saving some Amazon natives from the terrible oil workers his father has hired. How are they reunited? Her daughter feigns mutism for six months since she wants to have a normal life back in the States.

With guest appearances by David Cross and Peter Serafinowicz, this pilot episode is actually pretty funny, but is it Arrested Development funny? Not quite. All the same, it shows enough sparks of life to make me think Fox is no longer the comedy wasteland of yesteryear.

Here, enjoy a lovely trailer for the first ep, featuring footage from the slightly different pilot, complete with alternative guest cast. It’s pretty much the same though:

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US TV

Review: Raising Hope 1×1

22 September 2010 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

In the US: Tuesdays, 9/8c,Fox
In the UK: Sky1 this autumn

Greg Garcia has made something of a career for himself with a very peculiar writing specialty: he writes sweet, not especially funny sitcoms, filled with stupid but well meaning members of America’s underclass. As much laughing with the underclass as at them, his shows are a useful antidote to the middle class and upper class shows that dominate the airwaves, but you’re always left feeling after a given episode that it should have been a whole lot more – and that you have a slightly nasty taste in your mouth, as though you’ve somehow ended up bullying one of the stupid kids in the class, despite your best intentions.

After the demise of My Name is Earl on NBC, Garcia has made the trek over to a network whose comedies (‘Til Death, Brothers, Happy Hour) are more commonly associated with feelings of violation and misery: Fox. His new topic of amusement? A young underachiever, who just as he’s decided to make something of his otherwise dead-end existence, finds out he’s a father and has to bring up the baby with his gormless family. The baby’s name? Princess Beyonce.

No. Hang on. That’s not right. It’s Hope. So here’s a trailer for Raising Hope.

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US TV

Review: The Event 1×1

21 September 2010 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

The Event

In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, NBC
In the UK: Channel 4. Starting in October

Remember Flash Forward (maybe you had a flashback as soon as I asked that)? Brace yourself, because here’s something that at first looks quite similar but hopefully won’t prove to be so frustrating.

The Event is a complex bit of weirdness. You can’t be sure exactly what The Event is. The entire pilot episode is told in multiple flashback. You know that a regular guy (Jason Ritter – The Class, Parenthood), taking his fiancée on a cruise, ends up hijacking a plane. You know that the President of the United States (Blair Underwood – LA Law, In Treatment) is going to shut down a weird facility in Alaska that does research on what seems like people. You know he’s going to call a press conference to announce something that the CIA et al don’t want him to.

But after that and the first episode, it’s all a mystery filled with a whole load of questions. And it’s surprisingly engrossing, even if you do have the feeling that just like with FlashForward you are going to be strung along for a while – but, fingers crossed, only for a while.

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US TV

Review: Hawaii Five-0 1×1

21 September 2010 Rob Buckley 7 Comments

Hawaii Five-0

In the US: Mondays, 10/9c, CBS
In the UK: Bravo in October (assuming it’s still around by then)

I don’t know about you, but I have hazy memories of the original Hawaii Five-O. Steve McGarrett with a quiff, a bloke called Danno, it was all set on Hawaii, it had a cool theme tune and a cool title sequence, and it was about the police. I suspect I’m not uncommon in this regard, so before anyone starts complaining about sacrilege, just ask yourself exactly how well you remember the original.

There are other reasons to complain, so why let yourself be an open target like that?

This time, as well as a very slight renaming – Five-O is now Five-0 – we have an entirely new plot that still homages the original. Navy intelligence officer (and terrorist hunter) Steve McGarrett – Alex O’Loughlin, whom you might remember from Moonlight and probably won’t remember from Three Rivers – decides to return home to Hawaii when terrorists strike close to home. When offered the chance by Hawaii’s governor to run a special police unit that’s above law, he hesitates a bit, before assembling a motley team of crime fighters, including an old quarterback friend of his (Daniel Dae Kim from Lost), his cousin (Grace Park from BSG and The Border) and a New Jersey cop (Scott Caan from Ocean’s 11) who’s transferred over so he can be closer to his daughter.

His name’s Danno. Hmm. That rings a bell.

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US TV

What have you been watching this week (w/e September 17)

17 September 2010 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Pen Talar

There’s enough new stuff this week that I’m a little bit behind (Olympus knows what it’ll be like next week as the US networks start up in earnest). That means that I’ve the first new ep of Parenthood to watch, as well as eps of Mad Men, Mad, The Gates, Terriers, Nikita and Hellcats to get through, as well as that landmark new S4C show Pen Talar. But, in addition to University Challenge, Come Dine With Me, The Daily Show, Britain’s Next Top Model, Australia’s Next Top Model, and America’s Next Top Model, I have managed to watch

  • Covert Affairs: Ooh, they went overseas to do some filming. Look, it’s London! Look as they drive round Picadilly Circus then Parliament Square, then Picadilly Circus, then Camden, then Picadilly Circus. Look at the appalling green screen. Look at them get out of the car into the obvious backlot somewhere in Canada. Listen to the terrible English accents. Now they’re off to Sri Lanka where there are people with real English accents for some reason. Look, they forgot to take Piper Perabo with her. Look her hair’s up in this scene, then cut to overseas with her body double whose hair is down. Now let’s cut back to her with her hair up again. Now let’s cut to an obvious backlot somewhere in Canada. All the same, it was a moderately good way to end the season, with lots of bluff and double-bluff. Sendhil Ramamurthy is proving to be a proper action hero. Still felt a little flat. The show really hasn’t managed to find a real spark, so although it’s been doing well at some proper tradecraft, it hasn’t really caught fire in the relationships between characters. Good cast though. Hopefully, they’ll fix everything for next season.
  • Dark Blue: I wasn’t joking about this being Light Blue now. Clearly being burnt off by TNT since they don’t plan on renewing it for a third season, the second season was flawed, with the occasional good episode towards the middle. But we had a god-damn happy ending for everyone except the black guy, of course. They ruined that then.
  • Don’t Tell The Bride: So the bridegroom gets £12,000 to spend on the wedding, the catch being he only has three weeks to organise everything and the bride can’t have anything to do with the arrangements? Well, nothing could possibly go wrong there. Apart from the £12k of course, why would you put yourself through that on your wedding day? The ep we watched saw the bloke organising the wedding to take place on board the HMS Belfast. I’m not kidding. What degree of mental do you have to have to think that’s a good plan?
  • Him and Her: Gave up 10 minutes into the second episode because we were bored.
  • Mad Men: Loving it.
  • Rubicon: Ooh, things are happening! A bit! We’re on episode eight now. It’s all strangely engrossing, in the same way a conference on quantity surveying might be if you happen to pass it in a hotel. But I’m still not seeing the big fun yet.

But what have you been watching?

As always, no spoilers unless you’re going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you’ve reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might get killed by the spam filter).