TV reviews

In the US: Mondays, 8/7c, Fox

In the UK: Not yet. But it’s Fox, so Sky One will probably get first stab

Each network has its own style, and producers have to tailor their projects to the networks they’re pitching to. USA Network has that “character” thing going, so it’s no use pitching a giant ensemble piece with indistinguishable, normalish people, such as Law and Order. NBC tries to go for classy and/or comedy, so don’t pitch that Jackass follow-up you’ve always wanted to do.

Fox, despite attempts to clean up its act with shows like House, is still pretty much the network that doesn’t like to confuse its audience with too many complicated thoughts. So imagine what Tim Minear, exec producer of shows like Angel and Wonderfalls, must have used as his pitch when talking to Fox about his latest project, Drive.

“It’s got lots of fast cars. And they go really fast. And they have crashes.”

Disheartening, huh?

Continue reading “Review: Drive”

In the US: Fridays, SciFi, 10/9c

In the UK: Not yet acquired

For at least a couple of decades now, we’ve been told that comics are a grown up, complicated medium. We have the likes of Sandman, Hellblazer, Doom Patrol, Preacher and many other fantasy titles to prove it, as well as straighter stories like Maus, a harrowing recounting of the holocaust but with rodents instead of humans.

But for every Maus, there’s ten Painkiller Janes: silly piles of sci-fi rubbish, bereft of intelligence, logic, originality and point. The SciFi Channel clearly thought mouse holocausts didn’t fit their target demographic, because now, from the star of Uwe Boll’s Dungeon Siege 2 and BloodRayne, yes, it’s that woman who played the female Terminator in Terminator 3, comes Painkiller Jane, a crippling blow to the spine in the rehabilitation of the comics medium, as well as to television sets everywhere.

Continue reading “Review: Painkiller Jane”