Friday’s “First Day of Advent” news

1 December 2011 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

Film

Comics

British TV

  • BBC3 commissions and re-commissions series including Him & Her
  • The South Bank Show to return on Sky Arts
  • DCI Banks to get a second series [subscription required]
  • David Morrissey to star in C4 riots drama [subscription required]
  • Sue Perkins developing a comedy-drama [subscription required]

Canadian TV

  • YTV developing Dark Horse
  • Netflix acquires The Hour

US TV

A bit of A Bit of Fry and Laurie

A bit of A Bit of Fry and Laurie: Tricky Linguistics

30 November 2011 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie

For no other reason than because I feel like it and because people seemed to like the old Big Train feature, today marks the start of a new regular feature of the blog: ‘a bit of A Bit of Fry and Laurie‘. For those who don’t know, A Bit of Fry and Laurie was a sketch show that ran between 1989 and 1995 in the UK. It starred the now very famous Stephen Fry and the globally famous star of House, Hugh Laurie. And it was very, very funny.

And between now and probably 2020, I’ll be sticking up one sketch a week from the show to prove it. This week, we’re going to start with a sketch about language that clearly shows that Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie were at Cambridge.

Question of the week: what’s your favourite part of TV Christmas?

30 November 2011 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Christmas on TV is a decidedly different affair from normal. The Christmas/Holiday special is the most obvious example.

However, there are differences on either side of the Atlantic as to how TV celebrates Christmas. Largely, around now, the regular US TV shows start winding down, to be replaced by movies, light entertainment shows and Christmas specials, usually ones that have been show every year since the dawn of TV time.

Meanwhile, in the UK, as well as a whole bunch of movies that have been shown since the dawn of TV film time…

…the tradition for most shows to continue up until nearly Christmas and for other shows to return with all-new, one-off, sometimes feature-length episodes.

So this week’s question is a two-parter:

Which approach do you think is better? And what’s your favourite Christmas show ever?

Answers below or on your own blog, please.

Wednesday’s “call off Christmas” news

30 November 2011 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Doctor Who

Film

British TV

US TV