It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.
The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’sLocate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.
A couple of days away and once again the new shows descend! It’s like they know. I’ve done my best to watch them all, and you might have noticed my reviews of The Last Man on Earth, CSI: Cyber and Battle Creek over the past week. I’m putting off my review of ABC’s remake of Secret and Lies until tomorrow when I’ve had a chance to watch the third episode (yes, they showed the first two on the same night) and American Crime only arrived on the scene on Thursday so I’ll be giving that a go either tomorrow or Wednesday. Netflix’s also dumped the whole of the new Tina Fey sitcom The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt onto our queues on Friday, which I’ll at least try to make a start on this week, too.
Which just leaves the following, which I have actually managed to watch but which don’t really merit full reviews of their own.
Dig (US: USA Network)
Tim Kring (Heroes) and Gideon Raff (Homeland, Tyrant) collaborate on what is essentially Touch 2, with FBI agent Jason Isaacs coming to Jerusalem to hunt down a murderer, only to be drawn into Jewish mysticism and Dan Brown-style prophecies and conspiracies involving a red-haired archaeology student and the guy who played Hardman in Suits (the fabulous David Costabile) having a big collection of cloned kids and a black-hair-free cow in Norway. It’s novel to have both the Israeli location shooting and the solely Jewish rather than Christian mythology as the foundation of the plot, but already it’s so intricate and beardy weirdy that I’m not really tempted to watch any more of the silliness. But there are enough bonkers elements, including Richard E Grant, to make me watch at least one more episode, I think.
Maximum Choppage (Australia: ABC2)
Asian guy returns to Melbourne after three years away in Beijing at a martial arts school, whereupon his family and friends demand that he protect them from local gangs. Unfortunately, it turns out he’s actually been at Marshall Arts School, learning how to paint and edit videos, which means he and his female kung fu-tastic best friend have to pull off a series of elaborate con tricks on everyone to keep the neighbourhood in check by convincing the baddies that he really is a true warrior. Written by and starring Lawrence Leung, it works best when it’s sending up the plots of 70s and 80s kung fu movies and transposing them onto modern Melbourne, worst when it has a bad guy called ‘Kai Lee’ who likes to sing ‘The Locomotion’. Not bad and occasionally quite titter-worthy, but not as good as the average episode of Hong Kong Phooey.
After the jump, the regulars: 12 Monkeys, 19-2, The Americans, Arrow, Banshee, The Blacklist, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Forever, Fortitude, Gallipoli, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agent Carter,Suits and Vikings.
What were you doing in 1992? Watching tele? Going to the movies?
Well, if you were Italian, you were probably a member of the government, the mafia or the police, fighting for control of the First Republic. At least, that’s what new Sky Italia series1992 suggests.
For those of you in the UK wanting to watch the latest show from the producers of Gomorrah, it should be airing simultaneously on Sky Arts with its Italian broadcast, starting March 24. But if you happen to be in Italy, I’m sure you’ll be delighted to hear that until then, from this Saturday, Sky Italia is going to be creating a temporary new channel dedicated to the year 1992. Featuring movies including Wayne’s World and Mediterraneo,and classic sports events of 1992 including John McEnroe versus Andre Agassi at Wimbledon, it will also feature TV shows such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Family Matters, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and Baywatch.
Suddenly, looking at that list, I’m not so nostalgic for 1992. Oh well.
When it comes to TV viewing, lots of people live and die by genre. Maybe they’re a ‘soaps’ fan or a ‘comedy’ fan. Maybe they like historical dramas or sit in front of Alibi all day watching murder-mysteries and crime shows. Maybe they like action shows.
Not everyone’s like this, but many are. The question is: how important is genre to you, if you’re one of those people?
The reason I’m asking is because of Fortitude, Sky Atlantic/Pivot’s new TV show. Now, when it started on its 10-episode run, it seemed to be a perfectly ordinary Nordic Noir-style murder mystery. Then, with the arrival of Stanley Tucci, it started to look a bit Twin Peaks-ish. So far, so ordinary, and I imagine that Twin Peaks is still sufficiently close in style to The Killing et al that anyone tuning in for the latter might not have been turned off by the arrival of the former.
However, the latest couple of episodes have pretty much taken the show (as far as can I see) into territory a bit closer to horror movies and even (spoiler alert) The Strain/Helix. Which are very different genres again. Bold and daring on the one hand – the show has been very unusually ‘shaped’, revealing to everyone, not just the viewer, the identity of the killer midway through the series, for example.
But, on the other, is it too much for the genre addict? If something is a hybrid genre (action-romance, dramedy, horror-comedy from the outset, that’s one thing and fans of both genres can appreciate that show for what it is. But what if something changes genre midway through? Is that going to ostracise existing viewers, while failing to bring in fans of the new genre at this late stage? Or doesn’t it matter? Is genre completely unimportant?
It’s time for our regular look at the TV that the BFI is showing, this time in April 2015. Quite an epic amount of TV this month, thanks not only to previews of BBC One’s forthcoming adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and ITV’s remake of Thunderbirds, but also to a season of forensics dramas and documentaries, a season of some of Verity Lambert’s lesser known works and a night of Marc Karlin’s experimental works.
