US TV

An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.

Classic TV

Nostalgia corner: Prey (1998)

5 June 2014 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Whenever science fiction deals with “the next step in human evolution”, it always sounds so cool and liberal. The more evolved species gets special powers but because it’s in a minority, those racist humans always try to oppress them. Let’s not be species-ist! All X-Men are created equal! Power to the Tomorrow People!

But what if the liberals were wrong and genetic advancement isn’t a cool metaphor for racism at all? What if that next step in evolution was actually as bad as the humans feared? What if the new species in fact thought of humans as inferior and wanted to wipe them out? What if Homo sapiens suddenly was no longer at the top of the food chain and was instead the prey of a superior species?

Cue the aptly titled 1998 ABC series Prey. It starred Debra Messing (Grace from Will and Grace) as an anthropologist studying genetic variation in humans. She discovers that a number of violent criminals and indeed serial killers share a number of genetic markers that render them as genetically different from humans as humans are from chimpanzees: they’re more intelligent, more aggressive and have certain psychic powers, but have little or no empathy for human beings, regarding us the same way we do animals. Importantly, the new species can interbreed with us – the women even have four uteruses and have already evolved to have children from the age of nine without complications – but the offspring are always of the superior species, resulting in the species getting the classification Homo dominant.

Messing comes together with other scientists and law enforcement officials (including Frankie Faison from The Wire and Larry Drake from LA Law) to learn more about the new species, its origins, how many there are, and to find out if peaceful co-existence is possible. Along the way, they come across a friendly Homo dominant (Adam Storke) who wants to be human and feel normal human emotions.

How do you think that works out?

Here’s the entire series for you to watch on YouTube – well, the entire series except, helpfully, the final episode – but we’ll talk more about Prey after the jump.

Continue reading “Nostalgia corner: Prey (1998)”

US TV

Review: Crossbones 1×1 (NBC)

5 June 2014 Rob Buckley 16 Comments

Crossbones

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

At its height, the British Empire was the most powerful force humanity had ever known. Fully 1/5 of the world’s population lived and died under the British flag. Yet its true power was not on land but on the sea where they ruled with the most brutal and efficient military force that has ever been: the British Navy.

But the oceans that this navy sought to control were vast, unknowable and full of terrible danger. And for all the Crown’s might, its ships were often lost to starvation, to storm and tempest, and to pirates.

So it was in 1712, the Crown offered a prince’s fortune to whomever could create a device that would allow its navy to navigate this great emptiness with a precision never before known. With this device, the Empire would increase its dominion over the world. But without it, the ships of the Crown would continue to be easy prey, not only from the gods and monsters of legend, but from a monster far more brutal and far more real.

– The opening narration to Crossbones

Back in the 00s, when I was watching BBC2’s Coupling, the last person I expected to become a US action hero was Richard Coyle. To be fair to Coyle, I didn’t expect any of the cast of Coupling to become US action heroes, but Coyle was right up there at the top of the list of cast members who wouldn’t become US action heroes. Because he was Jeff.

Of course, Ryan Reynolds was “the second guy in Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place” before he became the action hero we now know, so perhaps that’s a warning for you of the danger of typecasting comedy actors.

Indeed, since Coupling, Coyle’s been a Persian prince in Prince of Persia…

…a suave Russian ex-special forces soldier-cum-spy in Covert Affairs…

…and now a British government agent and assassin in NBC’s Crossbones. Good for him – he’s made it to the big time: the broadcast networks.

I think it’s fair to say, though, that all you need to know about Crossbones can be encapsulated thus: John Malkovich is Blackbeard the pirate; he does not have a black beard. All the same, it does also need the following addendum: Crossbones is much, much better than Black Sails.

Here’s a trailer.

Continue reading “Review: Crossbones 1×1 (NBC)”

News: L&O:UK cancelled, more Penny Dreadful, adaptations of MaddAddam and The Son + more

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UK TV

US TV

  • Trailer for season 4 of Teen Wolf

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

US TV

Mini-review: Halt and Catch Fire 1×1 (AMC)

4 June 2014 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

In the US: Sundays, 10/9c, AMC

Of all the events in history you might have expected to have seen dramatised on TV, the quest in the early 1980s to develop 100% IBM PC-compatible computers by reverse engineering IBM’s proprietary BIOS chip probably wasn’t one of them. Leave it to AMC, then, to expand the envelope, because here we have Halt and Catch Fire – named after an obscure assembly language instruction – which seeks to do just that.

Starring Lee Pace of Pushing Daisies as Joe MacMillan (the Steve Jobs of the piece), Scott McNairy as Gordon Clark (the Steve Wozniak), it sees former IBM salesman MacMillan go rogue and turn up at a fictitious Texan computer company a year later. There he meets Clark and persuades him to help him build a PC-compatible. Along the way, he’s also recruited a bright young engineer, Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis) who’ll help them both to make MacMillan’s dreams a reality.

And actually, it’s very good. While Silicon Valley and the BBC’s similar Micro Men decided to take the comic route to deal with computers, this is as serious and as hardcore as AMC’s Mad Men. Although it’s not based on a real company or people, it draws elements from real events to look at the somewhat overlooked Texas companies that helped to create the PC revolution and recreates the early 80s as convincingly as The Americans, albeit that portion of the 80s that led to Tron, right down to the synthesiser incidental music and theme tune. Lee Pace is compelling as the visionary and ruthless MacMillan, who’s prepared to destroy an entire company to get what he wants. The technical details are impressive and assume a level of knowledge in the audience, whether it’s a discussion of firmware, the use of hexadecimal notation or comments familiar to anyone in IT (“No one ever got fired for buying IBM”).

And although it’s an AMC show, this first episode actually clips along at a reasonable pace. Admittedly, the first 15 minutes or so are a bit shaky, thanks to an Armadillo accident (no, really) and Clark’s sheer lack of charisma next to MacMillan’s overwhelming personality. And Davis’ character is somewhat undermined in that after a cracking introduction that shows how bright she is, that’s initially only to show why MacMillan wants to sleep with her and his near-sociopathy.

But by the end of the episode, it becomes a compelling watch. Definitely one to stick with.

News: Robert Downey Jr’s rehab drama, Malin Akerman comes back to The Comeback + more

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Film casting

  • Maggie Star to star in The Lady in the Van adaptation

Trailers

  • Another trailer for Brett Ratner’s Hercules with The Rock, Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell et al

Internet TV

  • Richard Kind to co-star in Amazon’s Red Oaks, Jenessa Grant and Joseph David Jones join Amazon’s Hysteria

UK TV

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting