Thursday’s Lost in Hollywood news

Doctor Who

Film

Comic

Theatre

Technology

British TV

Canadian TV

  • Broadcasters’ profits plummet  

US TV

US TV

Review: Heroes 3×15 – Trust and Blood

Not a proper review as such, more like a question and a brief look-over: anyone actually want episode by episode reviews of Heroes, given it’s finally getting good again?

Given I don’t normally do e-by-e reviews of US shows, only the occasional Brit show (there’s only so much time in the week and let’s not commit to anything we can’t sustain), I thought there was an atypical lack of symmetry there that might need fixing. Besides, it’s about the only US show I’d want to review e-by-e, apart from 24, but my 24 reviews would just be me giggling insanely because each episode has more well executed action scenes in it than any other US show has per season (with the honourable exceptions of The Unit and Battlestar Galactica, of course).

Of course, if Heroes goes pants again, I might regret the offer, but I thought I’d put it out there – over to you.

As for this week’s episode, for a mini-review, join me after the jump.

Continue reading “Review: Heroes 3×15 – Trust and Blood”

Wednesday’s famous Triffids news

Doctor Who

  • Matt Smith getting paid £1 million for five years’ work
  • Big Finish to record unmade Doctor Who scripts, and Highlander audio books

Comics

  • Marvel to sell comics through iTunes

Film

British TV

US TV

  • More Human Target and Absolutely Fabulous casting
  • More HBO pilot casting
  • FX goes for even more manly pilots
  • Katherine Heigl and TR Knight leaving Grey’s Anatomy
  • ABC doing pilot based on ITV’s No Heroics
  • NBC picks up another comedy pilot, Community
  • United States of Tara gets a second season
  • Clip of Chuck featuring Andy Richter and Jenny McCarthy [US only]
  • Local TV stations planning to end analogue broadcasts early

Tuesday’s gods behaving very badly news

Doctor Who

Awards

Film

  • Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin to star in a comedy directed by Nancy Meyers
  • Universal acquires rights to Spencer Quinn’s Dog On It
  • James Mangold to direct a legal thriller about an oil rig disaster
  • Mickey Rourke to star in Walter Hill-directed hitman movie St Vincent
  • New Watchmen TV spots
  • Moneypenny and Q back for next Bond movie?
  • McG trying to get Arnie into Terminator: Salvation

Comics

  • The Shield’s Michael Chiklis to launch comic book about Greek gods returning to the present-day Earth

Theatre

British TV

  • Beeb adding HD programmes to iTunes

US TV

Meme of the week: Top 10 TV characters to be stuck in a lift with

Thanks to Joe Bua for pointing this one out to me: it’s a list by The Guardian‘s Anna Pickard of the Top 10 TV celebrities (real or fictitious) to be trapped in a lift with. I’m not sure whether that means all at the same time or in 10 separate lift-trapping incidents, but meme of the week is to list your 10 celebs, either in the comments below or at your own blog, leaving a link below.

Here are mine, in no particular order:

  1. Dr Tom (from Being Erica): he’d have solved all my troubles, provided a quote for the occasion and created an exit door from the lift, all before the emergency services got there.
  2. Joanna Page: to keep our spirits lifted and to fill us all with a sense of happiness in case Dr Tom didn’t show up. Plus she’s only 5’1" so she wouldn’t use up much oxygen. And just because.
  3. Derren Brown: who’d convince us it was all in our minds
  4. Neil Burnside (from The Sandbaggers): because whatever needed to be done, he’d do it, no matter what the personal sacrifice was or who he had to kill to do it, as long as it was in Britain’s best interests. 
  5. Stephen Fry: because all such lists have to include Stephen Fry and for the conversation, even though he’d use up twice as much oxygen as everyone else – except Joanna Page who, now I think about it, can talk like the clappers when she’s nervous.
  6. Peter Parker: because, well – I know this is a secret but – he’s Spiderman, and thus obviously very useful in such situations.
  7. Ali Larter: just because. And because she’s very fit, which is always useful in a "scaling your way out of the lift and up the cable" scenario. And who knows? Maybe she does have super powers. Which would be useful (see 6). But mainly just because.
  8. Jill Goodacre: because then I could call Joey and tell him about it in our secret code.
  9. Tina Fey: because she’s bloody funny, and it’s better than being stuck in a lift with Sarah Palin.
  10. Jonathan Creek: because he’d find the secret panel at the back that would let us all out. Bloody Creek. Why didn’t he tell us about that sooner?

If 10 seems like too many, you can just name a few instead. Or if you’d like to be trapped with more, fair enough, although remember the oxygen and weight issues.

I have actually been stuck in a lift in real life – in the Hoover Dam, halfway up, with 40 other people, in the dark, without aircon, for nearly an hour. Electricians had to abseil down the lift shaft to rescue us. It wasn’t fun, and I didn’t get to choose any of the people in the lift with me.