Tuesday’s worst kept secrets

13 February 2007 Rob Buckley 9 Comments

It’s the news, my friends.

Doctor Who

  • Australia says ‘No’, to Torchwood
  • More on Recovery from the ever-classy Mirror
  • Billie Piper is ‘attached’ to an adaptation of Belle de Jour. The blog/book, that is, not the movie.

Film

  • More details on the Watchmen movie, which is still happening, it seems.
  • Adrien Brody as The Hulk?
  • Tom Cruise and Ben Stiller as The Hardy Men is on.
  • An interview with Ioan Gruffudd, a proper Welsh super-hero. None of that English rubbish.

British TV

German TV

  • ZDF is making a mini-series based on Stanislav Lem short stories

US TV

  • Here’s something you probably never thought you’d hear: Michelle Ryan, aka Zoe Slater from EastEnders, is the new Bionic Woman.
  • The Sarah Silverman Program has already been commissioned for a second season.
  • Former Wonder Woman Lynda Carter is to play Chloe’s mum in Smallville
  • Louise Lombard from CSI has a pilot, as does Sarah Clarke (Nina Myers from 24)
  • Battlestar Galactica has been given a fourth season. Only 13 episodes at the moment, though.
  • Classic TV coming to YouTube?
  • Kristin’s got scoops and spoilers, including the return of a certain character to Supernatural.

Review: The Sandbaggers – Series 3

12 February 2007 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

The Sandbaggers – Series 3
by Network

This will be popping up on the Action TV web site at some point soon, but you lucky people get to see it first.

On paper, The Sandbaggers could have been one of many lesser shows. Detailing life for the “Special Operations section” of MI6/SIS, it could have been a James Bond-esque tale of daring-do. It could have been a slightly more sedate, John Le Carré-style affair, all intrigue, politics and back-biting. Instead, it proved to be a combination of both worlds, marrying the excitement of a Fleming book with the authenticity of Le Carré.

Throughout the show’s three series, the agents of the piece – the eponymous Sandbaggers – and their boss, former Sandbagger Neil Burnside (Roy Marsden) were faced with as many murky plots from the depths of Whitehall and from the UK’s supposed allies as they were by Soviet espionage. They failed or died in their missions on any number of occasions because of office politics back home, all while being paid a civil service salary.

The success of the show was as much due to the authenticity of the scripts as it was the mesmerising central performance of Marsden. Much of that was a result of the (possible) inside knowledge of the show’s creator, former naval officer Ian Mackintosh, who wrote all the scripts for the show’s first two series. At the very least, it was because of his talent as a scriptwriter.

Tragically, Mackintosh died in an aircraft crash before the start of the third series of the show. He’d managed to write a number of scripts, including the final episode’s, but without his continued input, the show failed to hit the creative heights of the previous two series.

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Adrian Edmondson and Ben Elton: together again

12 February 2007 Rob Buckley Post a comment

A brief heads-up for those of you who lived through the 80s.

TEENAGE KICKS

A brand new sitcom by Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Smith.

Vernon (Adrian Edmondson) moves in with his teenage kids after a spectacularly nasty divorce. He’s genuinely excited about living in their student flat. A rebel in his youth (or so he thinks), it’s his chance to be young again. Naturally, his kids are mortified.

Vernon’s only refuge from his nagging children is the pub where he meets his oldest mate Bryan (Ben Elton), now a reasonably content, slightly smug, primary school deputy head whose ‘sorted’ life is in direct contrast with Vernon’s. However, neither is quite sure who’s getting the best deal.

At heart it’s a family sitcom, but the normal family structure has been turned upside down: here the young kids can’t get rid of their stupidly rebellious father.

The show will take place at Teddington Studios, TW11 on Saturday 24th February at 7pm. Minimum age limit is 16 years old.

You can apply for tickets by calling 020 8684 3333 or online at http://www.sroaudiences.com.

UK TV

Review: Primeval 1×1

12 February 2007 Rob Buckley 14 Comments

Primeval

In the UK: Saturday, 7.20pm, ITV1. Repeated on Sunday, 4.25pm.

In the US: Probably BBC America at some point, but not acquired yet.

Normally, tuning into ITV1 on a Saturday night is about as appealing as swigging back a family fun-sized bottle of sulphuric acid (aka anything you’ve bought from Threshers). But then, before Doctor Who turned up, the same was true of BBC1. Now, Saturday is where it’s at.

ITV has noticed this. Never ones to come up with an idea of their own if someone else’s will do, the powers that be have decided that if coming up with family-friendly sci-fi worked for the Beeb, that same idea can be ‘borrowed’ and made to work on ITV1 as well — after everything’s received approval from 17 focus groups, five sub-comittees, two consultants and a man specially hired just so he can be fired if it all goes wrong, of course.

But just as The Tomorrow People, ITV’s ‘answer’ to Doctor Who in the 70s, turned out to be something completely different and acceptable in its own right (until the puppets turned up), so Primeval isn’t simply Doctor Who with the TARDIS serial number filed off.

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Things I learnt from television last week

12 February 2007 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

24: There is a law of the television universe called the “Conservation of Family Goodness”. The total net goodness of any TV family must be 0. The more good one family member is, the more evil the other ones must be. If a family member disappears for some reason, their goodness or evil must be redistributed among the remaining family members.

The Class: There really is nothing funnier to American sitcom writers than English people. Or English people faking American accents. Or Americans faking English accents.

CSI: All the best ones die young.

CSI: Miami: No matter how stupid you think the show is right now, it just keeps getting stupider. David Caruso can heal people now, just by touching them.

Heroes: If you need a load of superheroes, in-breeding seems to be the way forward.

House: Sometimes, it’s the simple explanations that are the most interesting.

Lost: When Lost dawdles, it’s rubbish. When it starts explaining stuff, it’s great

My Name is Earl: No matter how good you think the show is right now, it will just keep getting better.

Prison Break: All cabals and conspiracies require a cigar-smoking room for their headquarters.

Smallville: Lana Lang is the western world’s biggest stalker magnet. She should be stuck at one end of Hollywood Boulevard to draw out the crazies.

Supernatural: After a while, the phrase “yellow-eyed demon” stops being scary and starts to become a bit funny.

Scrubs: Developing characters in a long-running show is a good idea.

Studio 60: Aaron Sorkin really can’t write women well. Also, after a given point in any Sorkin show, it will actually become impossible to work out what characters are talking about.

The Unit: A show, no matter how good, automatically jumps the shark as soon as the psychics episode arrives.