An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.
There’s a trailer for Al Gore’s (yes, former vice president of the USA Al Gore. That Al Gore) latest movie up on YouTube, thanks to the folks behind Futurama (and Al Gore).
I’ve reviewed the first episodes of Saved and Windfall already. They’ve now passed the third episode stage so as is tradition round here, I’ll give you my (brief) verdicts on whether you should stick with them:
Saved: Less dark now, still not much fun, less interesting than it was. Probably not worth soldiering on with if you have any doubts.
Windfall: Has now succumbed to every cliché and obvious plot development possible. Save yourself: don’t watch it!
Oh well. I’m just going to have to start looking for the next great US TV show again, now. Sigh.
Normally, there’s nothing quite like the word ‘family’ (as in ‘a family show’) to inspire fear in the heart of any seasoned TV watcher. In general, ‘family’ equates to inoffensive, moralising, bland and unchallenging. When you have a whole network with ‘family’ in the title – as in ABC Family – you can pretty much write off its entire output as the visual equivalent of Saga magazine. Once in a while though, a programme comes along to buck the trend. Not much, but a little.
Good news for Dennis Haysbert fans in the UK. The Unit (about which I have written reasonably extensively) has been picked up by Bravo as a replacement for the now-dead Alias. No word on when it will air, but that’s good news all the same, even if it is Bravo.
Also being added to the mix is the TV version of the Blade movies, unsurprisingly called Blade. This has had reasonably poor reviews in the US, so may not be such a great addition to the Bravo line-up. But you’ll be able to see my review of it some time over the next couple of days, I hope, so I’ll be able to let you know if those crazy critics are right or wrong.
Some excellent (and very funny) ‘advice’ from scriptwriter Jeremy Slater on how to write scripts for US TV shows. The sample Two and a Half Men script is a delight to behold. If only I’d had this 15 years ago…
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