US TV

In the US: Sundays, 8/7c, The CW

Valentine is one of those high concept shows that could, depending on how they’re implemented, turn out to be fundamentally excellent or fundamentally awful. “The Greek gods are alive and well and living among us”. Brilliant, hey? I’d buy that book/watch that TV show, because it’s a great idea.

But, and here’s the problem, if the gods just sit in front of the TV all day, it’s going to be very dull; if they demand human sacrifices or set nation to war with nation to reduce the excess population, it’s going to very dark and scary. So pitch is very important.

US TV tends to go for light and/or fighty when dealing with the Greek gods. Hercules (yes, I know he’s Roman) and Xena (completely made up) went for light and fighty on the few occasions when they went modern-day; Cupid (also Roman and coming around for a new series some time soon, despite having been cancelled once) went for light. They were all fun in their way, sometimes extremely imaginative, but generally nothing to make you mourn their passings too much.

Valentine (yes, not even Roman but early Christian), in which Aphrodite, Eros, Hercules/Heracles and other gods try to fix mortals up with their soul mates, goes for light in a big way. Starring Jaime Murray (Hustle, Dexter) as Aphrodite aka Venus aka Grace Valentine, it’s imaginative, quite fun, but at times excruciatingly bad – as well as instantly forgettable.

Continue reading “Review: Valentine 1×1”

In the US: Fridays, 10pm ET/PT, CBS
In the UK: Five, Five US, ITV1 and ITV3 in some sort of rota system, some time next year

Think CBS and if you know your US networks, you’ll probably think ‘procedural’ immediately afterwards. If it’s not existing stalwarts like the entire CSI stable, NCIS and The Unit filling the airwaves, we’ve The Eleventh Hour and The Mentalist this season as well.

Then there’s Numb3rs, which seems to exist simply to add yet another procedural to the CBS body count – and to win family programming prizes. A sub-exciting series in which the FBI seem incapable of solving even the basic crimes without recourse to a genius mathematician and his nerdy friends, it’s been lurking on Friday nights for years and has now reached season five.

And I’m still watching it. I have no idea why.

Continue reading “Review: Numb3rs 5×1”

In the US: Wednesdays, 10/9c, ABC
In the UK: Channel 4, probably sometime in January if their acquisitions budget holds up

As we’ve found out already, the US writers’ strike has proved to be a boon creatively (if not ratingsly) for a host of shows. Heroes has come back refreshed, albeit daft as a brush as always; My Name is Earl is back on track, but still not desperately funny; and The Unit is vibrant and exciting again.

Other shows haven’t quite fared as well. Chuck‘s a little better, but is pretty much the same old, same old; while Life‘s intricate storyline is proving hard to get back into without sufficient incentive for the viewer.

Dirty Sexy Money is having similar issues. Last season, it was confused. It thought it was intelligent television and so needed to have a message – something like rich people aren’t to be envied since they’re messed up. But it never really could work out what its message was and got its head all confused, poor thing. The result was an extremely convoluted storyline of extreme silliness, involving bed-hopping, Catholic priests with illegitimate sons living in Brazil, politicians with transgender mistresses and murder.

Over the break, though, the writers have sat down, meditated, and decided they know what’s wrong. Screw intelligent TV, screw messages: let’s just have fun. And even more convoluted silly storylines.

Continue reading “Review: Dirty Sexy Money 2×1”