US TV

An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.

Thursday’s “Titans really will clash” news

24 March 2011 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Doctor Who

Film

  • Trailer for Captain America: The First Avenger (with Richard Armitage!)
  • Bill Nighy to play Hephaestus in Clash of the Titans sequel (which will feature actual Titans this time)
  • Teaser for Mr Popper’s Penguins (which will feature actual penguins)

Theatre

British TV

  • The cost of BBC soap operas, including £10.1m for Pobol y Cwm

US TV

US TV

Third-episode verdict: Breakout Kings

23 March 2011 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

Breakout Kings

In the US: Sundays, 10/9c, A&E

One of the things about holidays, work, et al, is sometimes it takes me a while to catch up with everything, particularly new shows that don’t look especially brilliant from the outset. That’s why I’m three episodes behind on Breakout Kings, which looked anything but appealing – except for one thing…

For starters, Breakout Kings has had something of a chequered history. Originally in development at Fox, the show got a pilot episode in January 2010. However, Fox didn’t pick up the series but tried to sell it to other networks instead. A&E picked up the show in June 2010 and after a wee bit of recasting, here it is.

Now, not to suggest that the writers are stuck for ideas, but we have here the story of a bunch of criminals who help US marshals track down escaped prisoners. Want to guess which Fox show the writers used to work on?

That’s right: Prison Break. They even brought T-Bag (Robert Knepper) along for an episode.

Cue the trailer.

Continue reading “Third-episode verdict: Breakout Kings”

US TV

Compare and contrast: The Killing and Forbrydelsen

23 March 2011 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

Forbrydelsen

Over here in the UK, the Engrenages (Spiral) and The Wire-deprived portions of the population searching for decent crime TV (or indeed decent TV) have been eagerly watching Danish thriller The Killing (aka Forbrydelsen) on Saturdays on BBC4. Not that we’re behind the times, but it was actually made in 2007. Ho hum.

Anyway, airing in two-parts on Danish TV (two blocks of 10 episodes), Forbrydelsen details the police’s investigation of the murder of a school girl, with each episode showing a day’s worth of investigation. And although I’m only up to episode five, I’d have to say it’s damn fine TV and you should all watch it if you can. If you can’t, it’ll be out on DVD from April 4th.

Since that first series, it’s gone on to have a sequel series and a third series is in production right now, but hey, guess what, AMC in the US (home of Mad Men, Breaking Bad et al) is remaking it and is going to air its version from April 3rd. So you can compare and contrast, here’s an English language trailer for the Danish version and a trailer for the US version. If you’ve seen the first few episodes of the Danish version, you’ll be able to see they’re making it very, very similar to the original, don’t you think, right down to the music?

Question of the week: what do women want from a TV channel?

23 March 2011 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Obviously, this question is as easy to answer as the question “what do men want from a TV channel?” but let’s give it a go, since Sony is launching a TV channel in the UK called Sony Entertainment Television on April 7th (Sky Channel 157). According to their PR, “The channel is aimed at females offering a wide range of programmes and movies from engaging comedies to heartfelt dramas.”

This apparently means Hawthorne, The Da Vinci Code, Las Vegas, Til Death and Hotel Babylon among other things. Oh dear.

My initial thought when I heard this was “Why does Sony hate women?” or ‘females’ as they put it. But who knows? After all, Sky Living and Oxygen have both managed to attract loyal, predominantly female audiences through a combination of tear-jerking movies, reality TV, make-over shows, low-quality action shows that happen to have female leads and stuff about psychics. So let’s ask a question:

What do women want from a TV channel? Is it as complicated as “Good TV” or is Sony onto something here? Or perhaps the question should be “Women, what do you want from a TV channel?”

Answer whichever question you feel like answering.

As always, leave a comment with your answer or a link to your answer on your own blog