Ali Larter

Entries that mention Ali Larter, the eighth wonder of the world

General thoughts about and weirdnesses of last week’s television

1 December 2008 Rob Buckley 16 Comments

As mentioned in my asides, I didn’t have much time for blogging last week. Sorry about that. But here’s a round-up of a few of my TV thoughts:

Survivors
Pretty rubbish. Couldn’t even be bothered to watch episode two. Interestingly, probably the only instance of a TV show adapted from the novelisation of an older TV show, and there was the name-switch of a couple of characters to fake out the seven people who could remember the original series/novel and who lived/died.

But still very tedious, with no really interesting characters and no real sense of disaster or tragedy. “Oh my God, I’ve had to burn the body of my dead husband. Right, anyone for chips?”

To a certain extent, the problem is with the format, since although it’s got a great starting point – almost everyone in the world dies so how will the survivors manage to eke out an existence? – invariably it descends into decisions about crop rotation, government structures and population stabilisation systems that somehow manage to avoid discussing or depicting sex since it’s mainstream BBC.

But the original series still managed to make the characters interesting so clearly not everything can be blamed on Terry Nation.

Knight Rider
We’ve stopped watching it. It really is very, very bad.

Odd BBC2 links
We were watching Top Gear yesterday when up pops a trailer for Louis Theroux’s programme following the police in Philadelphia. Two things:

  1. Theroux needs a different act if he’s going to do serious journalism. To policeman: “What would have happened if he’d drawn that gun?” “He’d have been shot.” “Who by?” Erm… Are you mental?
  2. The BBC2 announcer then said “It’s just like an episode of The Wire“. So now we’re trailing BBC2 programmes with references to a show that’s only on FX and gets about 36,000 viewers. That’s a bit niche, isn’t it?

24: Redemption
God. Hasn’t television moved on since the last series of 24. That felt ridiculously antediluvian. Can 24 only thrive when there’s a Republican presidency – discuss?

Heroes
Getting bored now, mainly because Ali Larter isn’t in it enough, but also because of all the ridiculous personality switches, the fact there are so few characters who act like grown-ups, general inconsistencies, lack of logic, etc. Sigh. Roll on volume four (hopefully) although some of the spoilers I’ve heard don’t fill me with much enthusiasm. How would you fix the show?

Dexter
Told you you have to wait for a while to see if it gets good. Always around the seven or eighth episode.

The Unit
Why aren’t more people watching it? It’s brilliant.

The IT Crowd
Thank God it’s back. Officially the only comedy show in which Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade have ever appeared in that’s funny. Katherine Parkinson’s great – and a redhead again. Yey! And that magician was great. If only bluffball.co.uk were a real site…

Thanksgiving
Is all good television banned on Thanksgiving in the US?

US TV

Heroes 3×4 – I am Become Death

8 October 2008 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

In what’s likely to become a weekly, "Hang on but…?" brief look at the current US episode of Heroes (UK fans can join in in about a fortnight and a day, or maybe less if they have BBC3 – it’s simultaneous broadcasting, the BBC way), I have a think about various things that puzzled me this week. Perhaps you can help? At the very least, we might be able to come up with a title for the feature.

Join you after the jump.

Continue reading “Heroes 3×4 – I am Become Death”

Today's Joanna Page

Today’s Joanna Page: What the Butler Saw

29 September 2008 Rob Buckley Post a comment

What the Butler Saw

Today’s Joanna Page is What the Butler Saw, the last play of Joe Orton, which our Joanna appeared in in 2005. And which I didn’t see, of course, so can’t tell you if it was any good, but here’s a review from The Stage. At some point, I’ll get on to watching some more of JP’s movies and do some proper reviews, but work’s a bit busy at the moment.

In What the Butler Saw, Dr Prentice, a psychiatrist, attempts to seduce his prospective secretary, Geraldine Barclay (JP). But his wife is being seduced and blackmailed by Nicholas Beckett. She therefore promises Nicholas the post as secretary, which adds further confusion, including Nicholas and Geraldine dressing as the opposite sex. Dr Prentice’s clinic is then faced by a government inspection. The inspection, led by Dr Rance, reveals the chaos in the clinic.

As you might have guessed, it’s a farce.

The pic above is just about the only pic of JP from the production that I could find (any others gratefully received). So as a special treat, here’s a truly delightful picture of two Ali Larters in Heroes to round it all off nicely.

Ali Larter in Heroes

US TV

Review: Heroes 3×1-3×2

23 September 2008 Rob Buckley 15 Comments

Heroes 3x1

In the US: Mondays, 9pm, NBC
In the UK: Mondays, 9pm, BBC2. Starts October 1st

Heroes was the show everyone loved during its first season. The one real breakout hit of that year’s new entries, it was an ensemble Unbreakable for the small screen: ordinary people suddenly find they have superpowers and have to work out what to do with them.

Then came its second season and then it wasn’t quite as loved as it was before. Apart from its crimes against Ireland and the disappointingly unsuper finale to the first season, the second season just plodded along like it was Lost or something. Bah. Where were the superfights and the superpowers? Why did we have to deal with all these rubbish new heroes when the old ones didn’t have enough screen time as it was?

Fortunately, along came the writers’ strike in the US and curtailed the second season, forcing it to speed up and giving the writers more time to think of a decent third season.

So now, it’s back, finally, after a hell of a wait. The writers have regrouped. Have they managed to fix their mistakes and return Heroes to the glory of the first season?

And more importantly, since it’s the only really important question in the whole of this introduction and perhaps even the world, is there any point to life any more or is Ali Larter definitely still in the cast list?

Continue reading “Review: Heroes 3×1-3×2”