An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.
So it’s all over. It was cancelled; it was renewed after a peanut-based fight back; now Jericho‘s been cancelled again, after a second season of just seven episodes.
Was all that effort worth it? Has this last mini-season left Jericho a better show than it was at the end of its first season?
On the whole, I’d say yes.
In the US: Thursdays, 8/7c, ABC
In the UK: Not yet acquired
A third-episode verdict without a first-episode review? What’s going on here?
Well, if certain US networks want to air their new comedy shows so quickly that I haven’t even finished watching the first episodes before the third episodes have come and gone (and the show’s been cancelled in the case of The Return of Jezebel James), what do they expect?
It saves a bit of time, mind.
Anyway: Miss Guided.
Did you like school? Yes?
You jock douchebag. School sucked. Everyone knows that.
Of course, if you knew then what you know now, it would have been so much easier for you to survive its many trials, wouldn’t it? So here’s a question: would you go back to your old High School as a teacher and conquer those demons? And have you really changed as much as you think you have?
Just in case you happen to like The Tudors, the first episode of the second season (slightly edited) is now on YouTube for your delectation. Or you can watch it above.
Film
British TV
US TV
In the UK: Sunday 23rd March, BBC1, 9pm. Series starts next year
In the US: HBO, but no airdate yet
Some TV programmes are easier to review than others. Some are a lot harder.
Take The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, for instance. I’ve not read the book or any of its sequels. But that’s all right, surely? As the name suggests, it’s a crime novel (of sorts) about a detective agency, and it’s easy enough to judge a show on its own merits, just as you can judge The Tudors without having a degree in history – although it would help.
But another obstacle is the fact it’s set in Botswana, which is where the TV series is shot. What do I know about Botswana? I know where it is, thanks to my recent, slightly pointless project to memorise the map of Africa. But I’ve never been there. I know some Africans, and quite a lot of my neighbours are from Africa, but none, to my knowledge, are from Botswana. I know nothing about its culture, its people, or its languages. I can rip the piss out of Lost for making London a tad too rainy and not putting a Belisha Beacon in front of Covent Garden underground station. But a TV show could stick a giant inflatable statue of Norman Wisdom in every town in Botswana, say he was their Prime Minister, and I wouldn’t know if that was authentic or not without a good deal of Googling and Wikipediaing – although I’d have my suspicions.
All the same, let’s give it a go with a little assistance from my viewing panel: my mother-in-law, who has read all the Alexander McCall-Smith books, and my wife, from whom she borrowed them and who is to reading books what I am to watching tele (but who spends the time she would have spent blogging reading more books instead of writing about them).
Continue reading “Review: The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency 1×1”
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