Canada’s Salamander remake, A&E’s edgy Highway to Heaven, and Showtime is Happyish

17 January 2014 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Trailers

  • Trailer for The Quiet Ones with Jared Harris

Canadian TV

  • Bell Media developing 29 drama projects, including Salamander remake, Mighty Quinns, Ice, AKA, Cardinal Mysteries and Tranquility

UK TV

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

Classic TV

Nostalgia corner: Kinvig (1981)

16 January 2014 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Nigel Kneale is best known as the creator of legendary BBC science fiction character Professor Bernard Quatermass. As you might expect, that attracted science-fiction fans to him. 

I can’t help but feel he didn’t have a very good experience with them, because after parting ways with the BBC in the 1970s and heading over to ITV, he came up with a sci-fi comedy, Kinvig, that took the serious piss out of sci-fi fans.

It starred Tony Hagarth as Des Kinvig, UFO enthusiast, sci-fi fan and owner of a small electrical shop. One day, ‘Miss Griffin’ (Prunella Gee) enters the shop wanting help. Kinvig soon deduces that she’s an alien from the planet Venus – except she turns out to be from Mercury. Oh well. Close.

The trouble is, all of this could be the Walter Mitty-like delusions of a science-fiction fan, desperate for some excitement with a beautiful woman. The audience is never sure as Kneale takes us through seven episodes of one ridiculous sci-fi situation and set after another, mocking everything and everyone along the way.

It’s not the funniest thing you’ll ever see but it’s interesting to see Kneale trying to do comedy and sci-fi at the same time. It’s available on DVD but you can watch it on YouTube below. If you like it, buy it:

Michael Palin returns to acting, no new Wonder Woman TV show and a Veronica Mars spin-off

16 January 2014 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Film casting

Trailers

  • Trailer for Walk of Shame with Elizabeth Banks, James Marsden and Gillian Jacobs
  • Trailer for Date and Switch with Dakota Johnson et al

UK TV

New UK TV shows

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

US TV

Review: Enlisted 1×1 (Fox)

15 January 2014 Rob Buckley 11 Comments

Enlisted

In the US: Fridays, 9.30/8.30c, Fox

If there’s one genre of comedy that the US does particularly well, it’s military comedy. Think The Phil Silvers Show. Think MASH. Think Private Benjamin. Don’t think Down Periscope.

But there’s been a bit of a lull of late. Wonder why. In fact, despite largely the conclusion of the Iraq war and the withdrawal of US troops from both there and Afghanistan, many are questioning if it’s ‘the right time’ for another military comedy.

Is there ever a right time?

All the same, a cautious greeting I think to Fox’s Enlisted, a welcome, funny comedy from Kevin Biegel, a former Scrubs writer and the co-creator of Cougar Town, that sees a ‘super soldier’ (Geoff Stults) sent back from Afghanistan for punching a superior officer. He winds up at a ‘rear detachment’ base in Florida, which coincidentally happens to be the same base where his two younger brothers are stationed – one who hates the army but is quite a good soldier, the other who loves the army but is a terrible soldier. Put in charge of them and the rest of their platoon of losers, Stults finds himself having to deal with not just his new, less prestigious mission, but competition from another sergeant (Angelique Cabral), his superior officer who also happened to raise him after his parents died (Keith David)… and a lost dog.

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