US TV

An archive of articles about US television programmes and production.

US TV

What have you been watching this week (w/e September 17)

17 September 2010 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Pen Talar

There’s enough new stuff this week that I’m a little bit behind (Olympus knows what it’ll be like next week as the US networks start up in earnest). That means that I’ve the first new ep of Parenthood to watch, as well as eps of Mad Men, Mad, The Gates, Terriers, Nikita and Hellcats to get through, as well as that landmark new S4C show Pen Talar. But, in addition to University Challenge, Come Dine With Me, The Daily Show, Britain’s Next Top Model, Australia’s Next Top Model, and America’s Next Top Model, I have managed to watch

  • Covert Affairs: Ooh, they went overseas to do some filming. Look, it’s London! Look as they drive round Picadilly Circus then Parliament Square, then Picadilly Circus, then Camden, then Picadilly Circus. Look at the appalling green screen. Look at them get out of the car into the obvious backlot somewhere in Canada. Listen to the terrible English accents. Now they’re off to Sri Lanka where there are people with real English accents for some reason. Look, they forgot to take Piper Perabo with her. Look her hair’s up in this scene, then cut to overseas with her body double whose hair is down. Now let’s cut back to her with her hair up again. Now let’s cut to an obvious backlot somewhere in Canada. All the same, it was a moderately good way to end the season, with lots of bluff and double-bluff. Sendhil Ramamurthy is proving to be a proper action hero. Still felt a little flat. The show really hasn’t managed to find a real spark, so although it’s been doing well at some proper tradecraft, it hasn’t really caught fire in the relationships between characters. Good cast though. Hopefully, they’ll fix everything for next season.
  • Dark Blue: I wasn’t joking about this being Light Blue now. Clearly being burnt off by TNT since they don’t plan on renewing it for a third season, the second season was flawed, with the occasional good episode towards the middle. But we had a god-damn happy ending for everyone except the black guy, of course. They ruined that then.
  • Don’t Tell The Bride: So the bridegroom gets £12,000 to spend on the wedding, the catch being he only has three weeks to organise everything and the bride can’t have anything to do with the arrangements? Well, nothing could possibly go wrong there. Apart from the £12k of course, why would you put yourself through that on your wedding day? The ep we watched saw the bloke organising the wedding to take place on board the HMS Belfast. I’m not kidding. What degree of mental do you have to have to think that’s a good plan?
  • Him and Her: Gave up 10 minutes into the second episode because we were bored.
  • Mad Men: Loving it.
  • Rubicon: Ooh, things are happening! A bit! We’re on episode eight now. It’s all strangely engrossing, in the same way a conference on quantity surveying might be if you happen to pass it in a hotel. But I’m still not seeing the big fun yet.

But what have you been watching?

As always, no spoilers unless you’re going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you’ve reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might get killed by the spam filter).

Friday’s “Paradise Lost” news

17 September 2010 Rob Buckley Post a comment

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Review: Nikita 1×1

16 September 2010 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

Maggie Q as Nikita

In the US: Thursdays, 9/8c, The CW
In the UK: Living. Starts October. Available on iTunes

La Femme Nikita is probably one of the most influential French movies of the last couple of decades or so. It got remade in the US with Bridget Fonda, it span off a TV series with Peta Wilson and now The CW is spinning off another TV series called Nikita. But it’s also influential in other terms: you can look to shows ranging from VR.5 to Covert Affairs to even Buffy to see the descendants of Nikita – the kick-ass heroine who has a potentially romantic relationship with her less action-packed but still strong, emotionally shut down male ‘handler’.

The plot of the original movie, followed by all the other versions, is that a female junkie is arrested committing a robbery. She’s sent to prison and while there is told that the government has taken an interest in her and want her to join their top-secret agency. She agrees and after faking her death, she’s taught not only how to be a spy and fight the bad guys with potentially unethical techniques, she learns how to be a Lady rather than a common street thug. After a while, ‘Nikita’ as they call her decides she wants to leave ‘Division’ and has to escape from her new bosses, helped by the handler who’s grown to love her (‘Michael’).

Now the last TV series, despite the escapism, was clearly for adults: it was masterminded by neo-con Joel Surnow before he went on to co-create 24 and enjoys many of the same attitudes, concepts of how terrorists operate and what our responses should be. There was frequent torture and murder. It was still obviously escapist, and made 24 look realistic in comparison, but it was clearly a show with some real guts.

But the new Nikita is on The CW, which is best known as the home of Smallville, America’s Next Top Model, Gossip Girl, 90210, Privileged, Life Unexpected and a whole variety of teenage/young adult programming (Supernatural being the strange exception).

So how are we going to get teenagers into this? Well, the answer here is that this Nikita instead of recreating the movie carries on a few years later. Nikita, now played by Maggie Q, is still on the run but has now decided to get her revenge on Division. Meanwhile, Division is still recruiting – and guess what: it’s got a whole bunch of new teenage girl recruits.

Continue reading “Review: Nikita 1×1”

15 mostly rare TV intros

16 September 2010 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Following on from last week’s ‘immensely’ successful look at some rare 1960s TV title sequences, I thought I’d have a look at another batch, this time of 15 rarer intros from both the 50s and 60s.

For your delight, here are:

  • Richard Diamond, Private Detective with David Janssen (The Fugitive)
  • The Thin Man with Peter Lawford (of the Rat Pack) and Phyllis Kirk
  • The D.A.’s Man with John Compton
  • Danger Man with Patrick McGoohan (The Prisoner)
  • Philip Marlowe with Philip Carey (One Life to Live)
  • The Roaring 20’s with Rex Reason (This Island Earth)
  • Jack Gower with Jack Warden (Crazy Like A Fox)
  • The New Breed (a QM Production) with Leslie Nielsen (Police Squad)
  • Court Martial with Bradford Billman and Peter Graves (Mission: Impossible)
  • The Rogues with Gig Young, Charles Boyer and David Niven (yes, David Niven!)
  • The Loner with Lloyd Bridges (Airplane). Created by Rod Serling
  • Cowboy in Africa with Chuck Connors (The Rifleman)
  • Run For Your Life with Ben Gazzara
  • Blue Light with Robert Goulet (Toy Story 2)
  • Garrisons’ Gorillas with Ron Harper (Planet of the Apes)