TV reviews

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

US TV

Season finale: Heroes

6 December 2007 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

The finale of Heroes

Here’s novel. It’s the middle of winter and I’m doing a season finale. Even more novel, I’m doing a season finale for Heroes and I’ve already done one this year for the first season, and that only aired on the BBC last night.

That last point is very useful because I did have visions of a spoiler-free review of this finale for UK viewers that basically went along the lines of “some stuff happened involving some people”. As it is, I’ve had to use this generic picture from the finale (is she alive? I“m not saying, but remember time travel, etc are all possible in Heroes, so assume nothing, UK viewers) to avoid any real spoilers. Fingers-crossed, I won’t be spoiling anyone when I get down to the details.

Brace yourselves: we’re going in…

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US TV

Preview: Canterbury’s Law

6 December 2007 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Canterbury's Law

In the US: Thursdays, 9/8c, Fox. Starts January

In the UK: Not yet acquired

You may be aware of the phenomenon of “TV a-holes”. There’s a lot of them about. We’re talking about TV shows, such as House and Shark, that revolve around brilliant but obnoxious professionals. They get the job done better than anyone, but not before they’ve told you that your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.

In all these cases, you’ll notice two things

  1. They’re still the hero and you still kind of like them
  2. They’re all blokes

Now we have what looks like a prima facia case of “you’ve come a long way baby, but just how far?”. Canterbury’s Law stars ex ER star Julianna Margulies as a defence attorney prepared to do whatever it takes to prove her client’s innocence, even if that involves breaking the law herself. And she’s a complete a-hole. The question is, will we like her as well?

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US TV

Preview: New Amsterdam

3 December 2007 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

New Amsterdam

In the US: Fridays, 9pm, Fox. Starts February 22 2008

In the UK: Not yet acquired

Ah, the Danes. What a bunch of wrist-slashers hey?

Okay, bit of a dodgy cultural stereotype*, but I’m pretty sure someone in a US casting office somewhere thought to themselves: “Script about a clinically depressed immortal who’s yearning to meet the love of his life just so he can die? Get Denmark on the line, now!”

Hence the casting of Nikolaj Coster-Waldau in New Amsterdam, in which a Dutch settler of the region that was to become New Amsterdam and then New York does a good deed, ends up immortal and then mopes around a lot for four centuries.

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US TV

Review: Battlestar Galactica – Razor

27 November 2007 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Cylon centurion

When Battlestar Galactica first arrived on our TV screens, it was a surprise. It took a really bad old show that for some reason we all fondly remembered from our childhoods and turned it into a really good show that took military authenticity and married it with misery, dystopia and authentic human relationships.

But as time went on, the clean, uncluttered hardness of BSG got a little dulled both by the weight of its own mythology and the occasional lapse into dramatic cliché. That’s not to say it was bad – it was still one of the best shows on TV. It was just up its own arse a little bit.

Razor, an almost direct-to-DVD movie that aired on the SciFi channel over the weekend, is a distillation of the good and the bad of BSG. On the one hand, it’s tense, well acted, gritty and has fantastic effects. On the other, it’s more than a little bit pretentious, suffers from a few hackneyed plot strands and has yet more heavyweight mythology bundled on top.

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UK TV

Review: Doctor Who – 3×14 – Time Crash

19 November 2007 Rob Buckley 10 Comments

Time Crash

So what are you all thinking about Time Crash, the sort-of, maybe official fifth and tenth Doctor meet-up on Children in Need? It was a bit short to warrant a full review and it would be a tad odd to do a full review anyway, but I liked it – with a couple of reservations.

On the one hand, it was rather a touching love letter from Steven Moffat (and David Tennant) to the Peter Davison era of Doctor Who. It was also rather lovely to get probably the only Doctors meet-up we’ll ever get from the RTD era of new Who.

On the other, it was a tad Blinkish in its “the future creates the past” plot and it was perhaps a little too super-textual, with all that love implausibly coming out of the Doctor’s mouth directly from Moffat.

All the same, good fun, very likeable and I’ll probably re-watch it a couple of times in the immediate future. Plus it was for charity so let’s not quibble too much.

What did everyone else think though? I know Anna liked it, but everyone else has been silent (post links to your blog below if you haven’t been silent and I’ve lazily/blindly missed your comments elsewhere).

Incidentally, my wife, on the strength of this and implausibly enough Learners (which SHE WATCHED WITHOUT ME), has decided she’s falling in love with David Tennant and would quite like him to move in with us. Him and Peter Jones from Dragons’ Den.

I’ve put my foot down and said no.

In case you missed it, here it is on YouTube.