News

One British network gets vodcasts

29 November 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

History Channel vodcastAll the talk of late (at least, among certain groups of people. Probably not in Tescos though) has been about podcasts and how great they are. Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Lost and others have all got their own variants. But despite being about tele, few of the regulars have embraced video podcasts (aka vodcasts), with only Lost producing a vodcast and that was a one-off.

One network has gone further though. The History Channel. Weird, huh? The ubiquitous Adam Hart-Davis* has put together four vodcasts to accompany his show, How London Was Built, that give you a guided tour of London. You can either watch them online or download them to your MP3 player (aka iPod) and watch them as you tour the streets of London. How useful’s that, history buffs?

* To be fair, he’s ubiquitous because he’s very good.

News

The Loop gets cut

29 November 2006 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

The cast of The Loop The Loop, which I rather liked but which hasn’t yet set the world on fire, is still coming back for a second season in 2007. However, Fox has cut its episode count from 13 to 10. Apparently, they’ve already got enough returning shows that they don’t need the extra three.

As I mentioned in my review of it, the work side of our hero’s life was far funnier than his home life and Fox has taken note, asking the creators to focus on the work side of things – something that might produce a cast cull. Hopefully, it’ll also produce a funnier show, although it was pretty funny to start with.

In case, UK viewers, you’re worried if you’ll ever see it, be glad to hear that Trouble TV has picked it up. Joy, huh? It’s now officially teenage TV.

Sectarian violence starts tomorrow, thanks to MTV Dance

28 November 2006 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

Ofcom has been investigating a few complaints again. For some reason, The Baby Mind Reader was given the all-clear, despite being obvious rubbish. Maybe the fact it was on Five lowered their standards a little.

But more interesting is the complaint against MTV Dance. This, apparently, has been letting some dodgy text messages get through, unvetted, from viewers.

One complaint was received after “all u Fenons [Fenians] out there – die” was shown on screen. The complainant also noted that there had been references to Bobby Sands and the UDA.

So the first thing of interest is that the moderators would have stopped this if they’d known what Fenons meant. Yet they let it through because they thought it was just a regular message of death. Okay…

But why exactly are those little scamps using MTV Dance as a conduit for political propaganda, do you think?

US TV

Fifth-episode verdict: Smith

27 November 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Smith

I was wondering a while back if three episodes were enough to really know if a show is good or bad. I then expanded my reviewing policy to include fifth episodes if the third episode was on the cusp.

Smith was very much on the cusp by its third episode, after which it was cancelled. But CBS was nice enough to put the remaining episodes onto its InnerTube service. So it’s an interesting test of this new policy: cancel at episode three, or wait till episode five before making a final decision.

I’ve now managed to wade my way through the remaining four eps and I have to say, if they’d let it get as far as the fifth episode or possibly even the sixth, I think Smith would have started to have found its feet. While Ray Liotta’s and Virginia Madsen’s storylines were still a bit dull, Jonny Lee Miller and Simon Baker were starting to develop an entertaining double act. They were also managing to inject some excitement into the storylines. Had the show progressed, I’m pretty sure TPTB would have given them more to do and made Smith a lot more entertaining to watch.

So the moral of the story is, if it’s on the cusp, always wait until the fifth episode. At least. Particularly if you’re a big US network.