A rare fourth-episode verdict here, but the third-episode was so bad compared to the first two that I felt delayed judgement was required.
Well, the fourth episode was definitely better than the third, but it still didn’t quite have the charm of the first two. Maybe I’ve just fallen out of love with it. I suspect it’s only going to be good when Jenny Bicks writes it.
A reluctant thumbs down, then. What a pity.
In the US: Showtime, Sundays, 10pm
In the UK: Acquired by FX for showing in early 2007.
You’ve got to hand it to Showtime. For years, the ITV1 to HBO’s BBC1, it’s finally got its groove back and is putting out some great stuff, like Weeds, Brotherhood, Sleeper Cell, The L Word and now Dexter.
All the same, you’d have thought serial killer dramas like Dexter would be a bit passé . They’re unrealistic and pretty much all the same: bad man who attacks women gets chased by nice police people, who build up clues and an idea of the killer’s mind until he’s apprehended or killed.
So Dexter, if it’s possible to feel welcoming towards a gory serial killer drama, is indeed welcome for providing a new twist. The eponymous ‘hero’, Dexter, is indeed a serial killer. But he’s a member of the police – a CSI in fact. And get this: he only kills other killers.
My Name is Earl‘s second episode just aired in the States. About halfway through the episode, UK viewers, someone will say a line. It’s a great line. And you’ll realise the entire episode has been crafted simply to allow that line to be said. Amazing. I won’t spoil it for you now, but you will recognise it when you hear it.
It’s an interesting contrast, for once, with House, which took a sledgehammer out, smashed lines out of the way and put people through contortions, purely to get a character to say “cunning plan” for the benefit of Blackadder fans in the second episode of the season. Weird.
In the US: ABC, Thursdays, 8/7c
In the UK: Don’t know. Can’t seem to find anyone who’s picked it up. But it will be. Oh yes.
“Telenovelas” are this South American thing (apparently. I’m just taking the word of others here, since I have no knowledge of the South American TV industry whatsoever). They’re like soap operas except they’re of fixed length, with a pre-defined beginning, middle and end.
Ugly Betty (aka “Yo Soy Betty La Fea”) is one of Colombia’s most popular telenovelas and now ABC has adapted it and made it its own. Given that the first episode cranked up 16 million viewers or so, making it the most popular of the new TV shows of the season, how much do you want a bet that ABC, the network that likes to say “Can we have more Lost? Or something that’s like an anagram of Lost? Or something a bit like Lost anyway?”, is going to be able to call it a day once the story is over?
In the UK: Fridays, 9pm, BBC2. Repeated Saturdays, 6.40pm on BBC2.
In the US: National Geographic at some point
God, I’m getting old. Friday night and what am I doing? Watching a nature documentary. Sigh.
That’s not to say it wasn’t a very good documentary. Even if it weren’t about the Galapagos Islands, which I’ve be curious about for ages (even before Master and Commander whet my appetite even further), I’d have probably tuned in just to watch. It’s like The Blue Planet: you’ve just got to, haven’t you?
Still, and I suspect this was the real point of it, it made me wish I’d got high def TV.
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