Wednesday’s “Vikings trailer, Tippi Hedren visits Cougar Town and James Callis vistits Arrow” news

Film

Film casting

Trailers

  • Trailer for Identity Thief with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy

Comics

UK TV

US TV

US TV casting

New US TV shows

  • Starz developing drama about the birth of hip-hop
  • Fox developing sibling comedy starring Natasha Lyonne
  • Trailer for Vikings

New US TV casting

News

Wednesday’s “More Arrested Development, Weird Desk shelved and three modern day period dramas” news

Community - season four

Film

Film casting

Trailers

UK TV

US TV

US TV casting

New US TV shows

  • ABC shelves Weird Desk
  • ABC Family developing two Romeo and Juliet dramas
  • Lifetime developing modern day Pride and Prejudice Darcy’s Town
  • CBS buys single mum comedy from Chuck Lorre
  • Bravo developing Moguls
  • Discovery working on first scripted series, Klondike
  • AMC developing period comedy We Hate Paul Revere

New US TV show casting

Monday’s “The return of The Saint, a new-look TARDIS and Pan’s Labyrinth musical” news

Doctor Who

Films

Film casting

Trailers

Theater

Comics

Canadian TV

  • Andrew Gower and Thomas Howes guesting on Murdoch Mysteries

UK TV

  • Andrew Davies to write Dylan Thomas biopic for BBC
  • Sky 1 commissions two new dramas
  • Sky Arts launches location-specific culture app
  • Guest stars for second series of This Is Jinsy
  • Dave orders pilot of Undercover
  • BBC3 2013 trailer
  • A second series of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher

US TV

US TV casting

New US TV shows

  • ABC’s Only Fools and Horses remake not going ahead
  • Trailers for Masters of Sex and Ray Donovan
  • USA orders World War 2 sci-fi pilot from Gale Anne Hurd
  • Bravo working on series of Death Becomes Her
  • ABC developing cop comedy with Hannibal Buress

New US TV show casting

What did you watch last week? Including The Amazing Spider-Man, Arrow, The Killing 3 and Homeland

It’s “What did you watch last week?”, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I watched in the past week that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

First, the usual recommendations: 30 Rock, Arrow, Don’t Trust The B—– in Apartment 23, Falcón, Go On, Grand Hotel, Last Resort, and Modern Family.

Still in the pile to watch from the weekend: Dexter, Wedding Band and The Killing. But here’s a few thoughts on what I have been watching.

  • Arrow: I’m not sure what’s more implausible: that John Barrowman could have a grown-up son or that Tahmoh Penikett could be beaten in a fight so easily. Still, this was the first effort by DC’s very own Geoff Johns, and noticeably the first clunker of the season, despite the arrival of Helena Bertinelli – Huntress, herself. FIlled with dreadfully bad dialogue and poor characterisation, it felt like a bad Geoff Johns comic rather than a TV script. Stick to what you know, Geoff. And just to reiterate, Tahmoh Penikett!

  • Elementary: A bit more procedural than the previous week’s episode, but funnier, which the show could certainly do with. Definitely starting to feel like Sherlock Holmes, too. The one caveat: kind of demeaning to suggest that (spoiler alert)a woman in need of seed funding would become a prostitute. There’s a joke in there somewhere, possibly deliberate by the writers.
  • Falcón: Just noticed it’s got that nice Santiago Cabrera from Heroes in it. It’s also getting harder not to notice that no one – apart from Cabrera – knows how to pronounce Spanish words, and even he pronounces them in a Latin American way, rather than a Castilian way. We even had Falcón himself pronouncing General Pinochet’s name in a French style to rhyme with ‘croquet’ rather than ‘jet’, which is a little silly. Those niggles aside, it’s a compelling series, albeit quite a gruesome one, although frankly Falcón is a little self-obsessed and needs to man up. Sad to see Maurice Roëves get killed off within about two minutes, mind.
  • Go On: Oh yes. There’s an old blind guy in it. They seemed to have forgotten him for a while, but now he’s back for an episode with a reasonable amount of pathos. It also had Hayes MacArthur back and Laura Benanti had something to do for a change, which was nice.
  • Homeland: 15 minutes of probably the stupidest TV since season four of 24, followed by a decent half hour and ending. Why is it fundamentally so hard for Homeland to be consistent this season?
  • The Killing 3: So I’ll confess that I gave up after episode eight of the original – not because I didn’t like it but because two hours a week was a bit of a push for me. I didn’t bother with series 2 either. But I thought I’d give it a try for series 3. And… it’s okay. The acting’s good, the production values are good. But the plot, with the cunning kidnapper, feels very The Bridge (lite) – so much so that I started watching that again immediately afterwards – and the familial problems of Sarah Lund felt very implausible and cliched: it’s the standard trope that any woman who works hard in a police show will always lose her partner and end up with estranged kids as punishment for her transgressive ways. And of course she has to bump into her son at the station and get distracted. And of course the kidnapper has to call while she’s talking to her son and she can’t just say “It’s the kidnapper! I must take this! Lives depend on it!” But I am enjoying it and I’m going to try my best to keep up with it. BTW, is Danish politics really so low budget and amateurish that it seems more like Torquay council elections? And I’m assuming the name of the ship is a red herring, too (possible spoiler): that it’s not the mother who had her daughter abducted as punishment for the husband’s failings, as with Euripides’ Medea?
  • Last Resort: Apart from my complaint about the producers seemingly not knowing there’s a difference between the Caribbean and Hawaii, a decent enough episode that highlighted the problems of rape in the US military. Daisy Betts failed to rise to the acting challenge, however. A decent enough fight scene on the action side, but the show’s just kind of chugging along at the moment.
  • The Mindy Project: Not the funniest thing ever, but the “Iron Man novelisation” moment made me laugh out loud.
  • Vegas: The procedural was slightly duller this week, although the historical background to it was interesting. The episode did have some nice insights into Dennis Quad’s military background, with his sparring with the USAF investigator working well. Carrie Anne Moss also had a little more to do, now that the separate “Women Only” storyline is up and running, plus we have an extra female character to add to the mix, too. Needs to find some more verve if it’s to survive for a second season, though.

And in movies:

  • The Amazing Spider-man: The best Spider-man movie so far – far more Nolan-esque than the previous outings – with proper acting, some deeper moments than the first three, Emma Stone (redhead going blonde)’s Gwen Stacey being far less of a cipher than Kirsten Dunst (blonde going redhead)’s Mary-Jane, and Rhys Ifans doing a wonderful job as Dr Curt Connors aka The Lizard. Some great stunt scenes and the CGI felt solid, too, like it was actually a man doing the stunts, but the film still couldn’t avoid some cheese towards the end. Could have done with being more fun and shorter, though.

“What did you watch last week?” is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid – and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I’ve watched. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you’ve seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed?

Monday’s “Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell TV series, 50 Cent and Molly Ringwald: TV producers, and lost Anthony Burgess epic” news

Doctor Who

Film

Trailers

Radio

Theatre

UK TV

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

  • Robin of Sherwood‘s Mark Ryan joins Black Sails
  • Breakout KingsSerinda Swan promoted to regular on Graceland