I’m back, slightly jet-lagged but ready for action. Sooty, the weather-forecasting puppet bear, was right and it did indeed chuck it down something chronic while I was there. Thank you, Sooty. And if you’re ever thinking of going to Raleigh, North Carolina, the main/only attraction is the Angus Barn, BTW.
Since this ‘ere blog is The Medium is Not Enough, I’d probably be letting the side down if I didn’t review the in-flight entertainment system.
I’m going to be heading off to sunny North Carolina (what’s that, Sooty? It’s winter in North Carolina? It’s just going to be a load of rain and snow? I’ve been lied to? Oh)… I’m going to be heading off to North Carolina for a few days, so I’m probably not going to be blogging until Wednesday or more probably Thursday. Have fun while I’m gone!
PS If anyone’s been trying to comment and has been getting a strange error message about making “too many comments in too short a period of time”, I have no idea what the problem is, although I’m working on. Might be this pesky hosting service of mine which seemed to set the server to PST for a few hours this morning. Hopefully everything will all right in eight hours or so…
UPDATE: My diagnosis was correct and it’s all fixed, I hope. Comment away, if you so wish…
Here’s new: a co-prod (I want to say cod-prod, but won’t) between BBC America and BBC1. Whatever next? BBC Scotland and BBC Factual? BBC Knowledge and BBC Sport?
Anyway, here’s a show I had high hopes for. Good cast: Jason Isaacs (Brotherhood), Lennie James (Jericho), Sharon Gless (Cagney and Lacey). An interesting premise: a terrorist attack and the UK and US governments’ response to it plus a great big conspiracy underneath the surface.
But tarnation. It was mostly pants.
Once upon a time, Channel 4 was well known for being the home of quality US dramas – and rubbish US dramas, so notorious is probably a better word to pick. But with Lost having slipped through its fingers – to a sour grapes Channel 4 chorus of “Well, it wasn’t very good anyway, the ratings were dropping and we didn’t want it any more so you can keep it Sky One!” – Channel 4’s acquisitions head Jeff Ford is pondering whether the network can even afford to buy US shows any more:
“Acquisitions always used to be there (in our schedules) because they enabled us to afford to do other (more expensive) things,” Ford said. “If they get more expensive, we are going to have to say goodbye to them.”
Hmm. Won’t that put you out of a job, Jeff? For some reason, I missed the point in Channel 4 history when Desmonds was more expensive to make than Friends. Perhaps a bit of history rewriting in order to get a better deal out of the US networks? Some might well argue that Channel 4 used to be chock full of US shows because they got good ratings and were better than a lot of the rubbish that Channel 4 used to put out.
But if not, sounds like we can anticipate more Big Brother and cobblers like NY:LON in our C4 future then.
Since BBC Wales has the whole sci-fi thing sewn up for the Beeb, BBC Scotland has decided to create its own niche by ploughing a more supernatural course: the slightly poor Sea of Souls is back for a new two-part special but two new dramas have been commissioned. Empathy is about a former convict who has visions that he uses to help the police investigate a murder. Less exciting is Life Line, a supernatural love story written by Stephen Gallagher, who brought us the atrocious Eleventh Hour.
© 2022 The Medium is Not Enough
