US TV

An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.

US TV

Review: The Office 3.1

26 September 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Office US

In the US: Thursdays, 8.30pm/7.30pm Central, NBC

In the UK: Season 2 is on ITV2, on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Season three after it.

Characters re-cast: 0

Major characters gotten rid of: 0, I think

Major new characters: None as far as I can see

Format change percentage: No idea. 10%, I’d guess.

Episodes seen previously: 1

I have a disclaimer to make. Three actually. I’m not talking about the $1 million NBC pays me every year to write favourable reviews about its shows on this blog: that’s something best kept secret.

No, my disclaimers are these:

  1. I’ve only seen one episode of the US version of The Office
  2. I didn’t like it
  3. I didn’t like the UK original very much

The third sounds like heresy, I know, but I don’t like cringe comedy that much. I’ll hand in my nationality papers on the way out.

But here’s the third season of the US version of The Office and I feel like reviewing it anyway. And you know what, I kind of liked it – more than the UK version anyway.

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Standoff gets an Angel producer

26 September 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Variety confirms suspicions that Fox hasn’t given up the ghost on Justice and is saving it from probable death at the hands of Lost. It seems Fox execs are learning patience.

I also fingered Standoff as another possible victim of early cancellation fever. Variety reveals that Standoff is now on unofficial hiatus since scripts are taking their time coming through. They’re also adding Tim Minear as a consulting producer; Minear was consulting producer on Angel and also exec produced Wonderfalls and Firefly. Maybe he can make it interesting…

Bad news for Justice and Happy Hour fans

25 September 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Both Justice and Happy Hour have been placed on early hiatus by Fox, suggesting their time on this earth is not going to be a long one. Justice is potentially being spared the attack of Lost in a fortnight and is at least being replaced by its own re-runs. But Happy Hour is being replaced by repeats of ‘Til Death (now that has to hurt) and some people are already claiming it’s been cancelled.

Let’s wait to see which new show’s next. My money’s on Standoff.

US TV

Review: My Name is Earl 2.1

25 September 2006 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

My Name is Earl

In the US: Thursdays, 8/7c, NBC

In the UK: Repeats of the first season begin on Channel 4, 6th October. Second season planned for the “near future”

Characters re-cast: 0

Major characters gotten rid of: 0-2 (we’ll see in the next episode)

Major new characters: 0

Format change percentage: 50%

Bad deeds performed: Many

My Name is Earl is nice, isn’t it? A regular joe decides to make up for all the bad things he’s done and in return, good things happen to him, thanks to karma. Now Earl is back, he still has his list of bad deeds to tick off, but times they are a-changing.

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