Desperate though he and Terry Pratchett may be to see Good Omens made into a movie by Terry Gilliam, Neil Gaiman has decided that Gilliam needs to pay the sum of one groat before he can have the movie rights. This and other stuff in a very long Gaiman interview at 10 Zen Monkeys.
Now Smith has gone
Another one bites the dust: Smith has just been pulled from the schedules, although it’s not been officially cancelled.
News
Showtime’s free content weekend
Someone at Showtime has just written to me to let me know that this weekend (6th-8th October), Yahoo! is offering free access to Showtime programming, including Dexter, Weeds, L Word, Brotherhood, Sleeper Cell, Penn and Teller: Bullshit and The Tudors (currently in production in Ireland with Jonathan Rhys Meyers). If you’re in the US and Showtime’s available in your cable package, you’ll have free access to it this weekend, too.
It’s worth pointing out, UK readers, that unlike similar streaming facilities from ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, you can actually watch the Yahoo! videos in the UK. Since you’ll need FX, which is only available on Sky, to watch Brotherhood and Dexter when they turn up later in the year and in early 2007, now’s the chance to find out what you’ll be missing if you don’t have Sky.
US TV
Third-episode verdict: Six Degrees
Tricky one this. Not just because I keep wanting to write “Sixth-episode verdict: The Three Degrees”. No, the trouble is I’ve been sucked in now.
It’s not a terribly exciting show. The freaky coincidences are dying down and the implied pairings-off that looked inevitable have now gone into remission, making the possibly supernatural aspects of the show less of a draw.
It’s really the characters and the actors that are the draw. The writing’s good and manages to avoid most clichés, although the characters themselves are somewhat clichéd in concept. The ensemble cast is a whole lot better than on some shows I could mention (eg Jericho). And you do actually want to find out what happens to everyone.
If you want to avoid being sucked in, don’t watch. I don’t want to watch, but now I have to.
US TV
Third-episode verdict: Shark
Shark, the legal version of House (I’m not saying that House is illegal, only that Shark is about lawyers), has continued from weakness to weakness over the past few episodes. James Woods, who has been the show’s only real acting asset since the first episode, is still the only thing really worth watching about the show.
The producers have done their best to liven things up, with a new office and the introduction of a new investigator to the team, but the second and third episodes left me in a state of extreme torpor. The plots are dull, the legal sneakery just isn’t as good as Justice‘s and the characters are uninvolving.
I might still watch further episodes, simply to watch James Woods, but if you don’t like him, I’d say there’s nothing for you in this show worth watching. Sorry.