TV reviews

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

Abby's
US TV

Review: Abby’s 1×1 (US: NBC)

1 April 2019 Rob Buckley Post a comment

In the US: Thursdays, 9:30/8.30c, NBC
In the UK: Not yet acquired

There’s a long tradition of multi-camera US comedies been prefaced by one of the cast members pointing out that it was “filmed in front of a live studio audience”. It’s supposed to make you think that the laughter isn’t canned, which is what the likes of M*A*S*H* had to endure.

M*A*S*H’s Larry Gelbart explains this history of canned laughter and why it is so awful

However, I must confess that with multi-camera comedies now being so rare, I was taken aback when NBC’s new sitcom, Abby’s, rolled out its own disclaimer about having a studio audience. That wasn’t the only reason, though. See if you can work out the other reason I was surprised:

NBC (US)’s Abby’s was filmed in front of a live outdoor audience

Yes, it’s filmed before a live outdoor audience. Have a think about that. An outdoor audience. That’s going to sound different, isn’t yet? No echoes, more diffuse. That sort of thing.

Given the fact that there are no echoes, the cast never leave gaps in the dialogue for when the audience are supposedly laughing and no one’s really delivering lines like they’re expecting anyone 30 metres away to be able to hear them, I’m going to go with the theory that Abby’s was both filmed in front of a live outdoor audience and has canned laughter.

A trailer for season one of NBC (US)’s Abby’s
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What We Do In The Shadows
US TV

Review: What We Do In The Shadows 1×1 (US: FX; UK: BBC Two)

28 March 2019 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

In the US: Wednesdays, 10pm, FX
In the UK: Sundays, BBC Two. Starts May 19

As a rule, TV versions of films aren’t usually that much cop. Sure, there are exceptions (eg Hannibal, La Femme Nikita), but largely you watch a movie, tune in to see the TV series and are disappointed that either it doesn’t capture the strengths of the original or it’s just the movie again and doesn’t do anything new. FX (US)’s adaptation of What We Do In The Shadows is therefore a rarity, as it both embodies many of the movie’s best qualities and transcends them to become its own, even better beast.

I wasn’t hugely impressed when I recently watched 2014’s What We Do In The Shadows in preparation for this FX adaptation. Three vampires flat-sharing in New Zealand? You could predict most of the jokes just from that description. Lots of jokes about whose turn it is to clean up after the latest round of blood-sucking, house meetings, that sort of thing.

Perhaps what you might not have predicted is just how many darker vampiric horror tropes the movie would incorporate, but given it was by Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) and Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarok), I was expecting something a whole lot funnier.

Directed by Waititi and written by Clement, the first episode at least of What We Do In The Shadows seems to be an attempt to get the formula right this time.

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The Murders
US TV

What have you been watching? Including The Murders

27 March 2019 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week

The OA - Part II
The OA – Part II

This week’s reviews

‘Tis the lull before the Easter storm, as there’s a plethora of new and returning shows about to hit the world’s airwaves. Indeed, WHYBW is momentarily shifting to Wednesday and maybe to Tuesday next week to take account of the fact that not only is Wednesday now the busiest TV night of the week (incumbents: The Magicians, Whiskey Cavalier, The Good Fight), a load of shows are joining them tonight (Happy!, What We Do In The Shadows) , so I won’t have time to watch them all tomorrow. I do need to do some work.

This week, however, I was able to review:

Orange Wednesday is taking a break this week, too, since

  1. I haven’t watched any movies yet this week
  2. I can’t do both WHYBW and Orange Wednesday on a Wednesday

Fingers crossed for next week, though, assuming WHYBW moves to Tuesday, which it probably will.

CityTV (Canada)’s The Murders

New shows

After the jump, I’ll be looking at The Murders (Canada: CityTV; UK: Universal). Last week, I did mention Hulu’s The Act; however, I belatedly realise that’s not just an anthology show but a dramatised true crime anthology show, so that’s now off the menu.

Coming our way tonight is FX (US)’s What We Do In The Shadows and later on in the week there’s NBC (US)’s Abby’s, so I’ll definitely be reviewing them. But I suspect there’ll be more shows for me to look at than that.

Friday, for example, should be bringing us Netflix’s French sci-fi original Osmosis and despite last week’s claim to the contrary, Amazon’s Hanna will also be hitting our screens on Friday, so either one of those is likely to be next week’s Boxset Monday.

CBS (US)’s Magnum P.I.

The regulars

Since we’re a day early, I’ve not had time to watch any more episodes of Il Miracolo (The Miracle) and lovely wife hasn’t yet felt the urge to watch the latest Star Trek: Discovery, so they’ll both have to wait until next time.

But Magnum P.I. and The Orville are both back. Can you guess which episode of Star Trek they knocked off this week in The Orville? All will be revealed after the jump.

Joining them are Doom Patrol and The Good Fight. See you in a mo!

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Murders”
Hudson and Rex
Canadian TV

Review: Hudson & Rex 1×1 (Canada: CityTV)

26 March 2019 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

In Canada: Mondays, 8/7c, CityTV

For those of us growing up in the 70s and 80s, there was only one real Canadian TV show of note (or indeed one that aired at all in the UK): The Littlest Hobo. It was a jaunty, Lassie-esque affair married with the ‘wandering hero’ theme of shows such as The Fugitive, The Invaders and The Incredible Hulk, in which a homeless German Shepherd wanders from Canadian town to Canadian town, using its colossal intellect for a multitude of philanthropic ends and to solve all manner of crimes.

The Littlest Hobo

Running between 1979 and 1985 in Canada, the show left a lasting memory in the UK collective unconsciousness, and judging from the likes of Cavendish, the Canadian group mind, too.

It might also explain why Canada is now one of the few countries on Earth to remake Austria’s Kommissar Rex, in which a policeman and his multi-talented police dog solve crimes together:

Hudson & Rex

In contrast to Austria’s somewhat jokey comedy-drama Kommissar Rex, CityTV’s Hudson & Rex is a far more po-faced affair that seems to think that it’s a plain old police procedural… that just happens to co-star a dog. It stars John Reardon as a ‘cunning’ major crimes detective for the St John’s Police Department who teams up with German Shepherd Rex (Diesel von Burgimwald – no, really: they even have ‘introducing Diesel von Burgimwald’ in the titles).

Rex’s heightened senses keep Reardon hot on the trail of his suspects and together, they investigate puzzling crimes, from a kidnapping which reveals a much larger conspiracy at play to an art theft murder which runs deep into the world of high society. With Charlie’s deft detective work and Rex’s keen canine senses, this crime-fighting pair is unstoppable.

From the CityTV web site

To be fair, CityTV does bill the show as ‘lighthearted’ so it’s not intended to be 100% serious. But in terms of actual humour, the most I could detect from it are attempts to basically be The Littlest Hobo. I think that might actually be the joke.

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The OA
Streaming TV

Boxset Monday: The OA – Part II (Netflix)

25 March 2019 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Available on Netflix

When The OA first came to Netflix, it was to minimal fanfare. Just as Stranger Things came to us with almost no publicity, so The OA came with a not especially informative trailer and a title and that was about it.

Then, of course, we got to watch them and marvel in projects that at times bordered on genius. The first season of The OA wasn’t exactly plain sailing or without its ups and downs, however. Indeed, it took me a little while to get through all the episodes, rather than just boxsetting them (episode reviews: 1, 2-4, 5-8).

But Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s story about a blind girl (Marling) who disappeared and then reappeared seven years later, her sight restored, and now claiming to be ‘The OA’ (the original angel), was nevertheless a stunningly original piece of work, unlike pretty much anything you’ll see on TV, outside David Lynch’s most auteured piece. In parts supernatural, in parts fairy tale, it was a musing on a musing on the power of storytelling – and of the need to tell stories – as well as of art, music, dance, nature, life, love, masculinity, femininity and more.

The ending, however, wasn’t so much ambiguous as diminishing, suggesting that the whole thing was just made up by The OA based on things she’d seen and read, in the style of The Usual Suspects.

Marling also suggested that she hadn’t even considered a second season and that was that for the story – until the show’s success inevitably resulted in its renewal.

Britt Marling in Netflix’s The OA

A fairytale sequel

What then for season two – or Part II as it now is? How do you create a sequel to a fairy tale? And how do you do it when you no longer have the element of surprise, as you did with your first season?

As you might expect, Marling’s answer is not whatever answer you just came up with but is something staggeringly different. Indeed, there’s one key line in Part II that sums it up: “I think logic is over-rated.”

And I mean that in a good way, because in terms of ideas, I’d say Britt Marling is the closest we now have to a young, female David Lynch. Or maybe David Lynch is just the older male version of Marling.

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