In the UK: Acquired by Hallmark and the BBC. Hallmark has the first-run rights, the Beeb second-run. No air date yet.
There’s something a little eerie about the USA Network’s new series Psych. I’m not talking about the fact the main character is a psychic with an uncanny gift for solving crimes. For one thing, Shawn Spencer (James Roday) isn’t a psychic. He was just raised by his cop father (Corbin Bernsen) from a very early age to be extremely observant. Every time they’d go into a diner, his father would make his shut his eyes and answer questions about things he’d seen (‘How many people are wearing hats?’ ‘What’s the manageress’s name? She greeted you on the way in and it was on her name tag’). Now Shawn just has to observe a crime scene and the behaviour of the suspects to know exactly what’s been happening.
No, the eerie thing is James Roday: he is a homeopathic Will Ferrell.
As is tradition round here, once they’ve reached the third-episode stage, I report back again on shows whose first episodes didn’t totally suck. Kyle XY showed quite some promise, so I’ve stuck with it and here’s how it’s going.
After the promising start, we’ve continued to have more mysteries throw at us, with precious little extra information – ‘Did you miss any clues?’ the continual pop-ups demand. Clearly, I have.
How did Kyle manage to go for two weeks without sleep? How can he jump from the roof of a house and land unharmed? Why can he only sleep in a bath tub? How come a teenager has completely perfect teeth, like they’ve never been used? Why does Nicholas Lea from The X-Files keep stalking Kyle in a battered pick-up truck? And why did Lea murder that man yet leave the body lying around in the middle of nowhere, right where Kyle was found, with an odd playing card by his side? Who is that man Lea keeps phoning?
No answers yet, although I’m heading towards the ‘genetically engineered super-soldier, grown in a vat’ theory of Kyle’s existence.
We’ve also started veering into heart-weaming morals territory. This week, the lesson was “lying is bad”, although there was enough nuance in it that any grown adult watching didn’t laugh their socks off.
But, I’m prepared to wait and put up with the morals. It’s not quite as intriguing as it was, but I can understand why they wouldn’t want to divulge all the secrets just yet. It’s got just enough mystery to make you want more, but not so much that you’re wanting to throw a rock at the tele and shout, “Just tell me something, will you!”
Since this is airing on the ABC Family channel, I’m also wondering if perhaps Kyle XY is Asperger’s/autistic propaganda:
“Hey, shallow stupid high school kids! You’re dumb and malicious aren’t you? But you know that guy at school who acts a bit odd and you all take the piss out of? You know, the one who likes maths and computers? Really smart, bit child-like and naive, has a monotone voice, muted emotional reaction, doesn’t know how to act in social situations, intense stare? Well, isn’t that exactly like that really hot Kyle XY guy? Accept him and his gifts for he has much to offer. Plus he could be a genetically engineered super-solider. Or an alien.”
Which sounds like an admirable thing to me. So along with supporting the return of John Doe in teenage form and family programming that doesn’t suck totally, you can help Aspie kids get accepted by society by watching Kyle XY.
Here’s a clip from this week’s episode, presented in association with my sponsor Sour Patch Kids.
Coming up with movie titles is hard. We all know the tales (true or otherwise) of the problems faced by various filmmakers on learning that their audiences didn’t understand their carefully planned and balanced linguistic allusions:
License Revoked: What does revoked mean? Became License To Kill
The Abyss: What’s an abyss? Decided to keep it anyway
The Madness of George III: What happened to The Madness of George 1 & 2? Became The Madness of King George. (Actually, there’s a touch of the urban myth about this one. But only a touch)
There’s plenty more where that came from, too.
The problem becomes even greater when you’re dealing with a foreign language movie.
Yesterday, I was so excited by the impending release of Dark Season and Century Falls that I forgot to check the Action TV DVD news page to see if there was anything else coming out this month that would be worth watching. Turns out there is.
First Born was a 1988 serial that saw Charles Dance have sex with a gorilla. Hang on. That doesn’t sound right. Let me just check that. Ah. Let’s start again.
First Born was a 1988 serial that saw genetic researcher Charles Dance decide that the human race is just too nasty and aggressive and if, paradoxically, we still acted a bit more like our ape ancestors – or, better still, gorillas – we’d be a whole lot nicer. So he decides to create a human-gorilla hybrid using his own sperm.
Eventually, he succeeds and the rest of the serial follows the growth into adulthood of young Gor (short for Gordon as well as the obvious) as he braves the sorts of things we all have to when our mum’s a gorilla: not being able to speak, having colossal strength and being born with a fur coat.
Charles Dance was on fine form, despite the obvious eyebrow-raising potential of the script, and while it was at least thought-provoking, it lacked the punch of Edge of Darkness, say (while that particular masterpiece asked a whole load of important questions about the nuclear industry, as a result of First Born, I’m sorry to say no one campaigned parliament to ban human-gorilla cross-breeding, just in case the resulting children wouldn’t make good army officers). It also provided future Hollywood star Gabrielle Anwar with one of her earliest TV roles (her other most notable appearance being Press Gang, of course).
It’s out on the 24th and you can pre-order it from Amazon, if you like, or you can find out more from the IMDB.
There’s an odd sort of meeting being planned at The Office. This one involves The Office. Confusing, huh?
Let me explain. The makers of the US version of The Office, which stars Steve Carrell from The Daily Show and The 40 Year Old Virgin, have a special episode planned for next season that will feature cameos by some of the cast of the British original.
In an interview with the New York Post, US executive producer Ben Silverman is quoted as saying: “Expect some cameos from the UK paper company. There’s a lot of love between the casts and crews of the two versions of the show.”
No word on which cast members will appear, although Ricky Gervais is unlikely to be one of them. He is, however, writing an episode for the US series, of which he is an exec producer.
As is tradition round here, once they’ve reached the third-episode stage, I report back again on shows whose first episodes didn’t totally suck. Kyle XY showed quite 
