Banshee

What have you been watching? Including The Tunnel: Sabotage, 12 Monkeys and Scott Pilgrim vs The World

15 April 2016 Rob Buckley 15 Comments

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. 

I promise it’s not deliberate: “What have you been watching?” has not gone fortnightly. But work got a bit silly on both Friday and Monday and I couldn’t string two sentences together by the end of the day, so WHYBW had to take an enforced break. 

It’s back now. You can exhale.

I’ve been doing my best to catch up with all the new shows, although I’m afraid to say that a certain ‘can’t be arsed’ feeling has permeated my viewing schedule. I have at least reviewed the following new shows in the past two weeks:

I’ve also passed a third-episode verdict on TV Land’s Lopez. However, I really just couldn’t be arsed to watch:

Dice (US: Showtime; UK: Sky Atlantic)
The new eponymous Andrew Dice Clay comedy, because it stars Andrew Dice Clay

The Path (US: Hulu)
This cult drama (no, not like The Tripods) has managed to air four episodes so far and I got through a minute of it before I decided to do more enjoyable things and gave up.

The Girlfriend Experience (US: Starz)
This may be a beautifully directed drama produced by Steven Soderbergh and based on his film of the same name, but it’s still on Starz and it’s still about New York escorts, so is basically going to be porn, isn’t it? I managed 5 minutes of internship interviews at various attornies (oh, how will she make ends meet?) before giving up.

The Ranch (Netflix)
Ashton Kutchner stars as one of two brothers trying to run a business together on a Colorado ranch. It looked potentially interesting until it turned out to be a multi-camera comedy with an audience, at which point I gave up.

The Durrells (UK: ITV)
Keeley Hawes takes her family of future authors to live on Corfu in the 30s. I gave up, mainly because of Keeley Hawes. However, I might come back to it at some point.

Watch those trailers (or even an episode) and tell everyone if you could be arsed, why don’t you?

I also couldn’t be arsed to watch any more episodes of:

  • Blå Ögon (Blue Eyes) (Sweden: SVT1; UK: More4)
    As I said in the previous WHYBW, the show has two plot threads: a conspiracy thriller and a right-wing terrorist drama. The latter is great, the former is bobbins. Unfortunately, the third episode was 75% of the former, only 25% of the latter, so I gave up after 15 minutes.
  • The Catch (US: ABC; UK: Sky Living)
    I almost can’t remember what the episode was about, but the desperate attempt to do Ocean’s 11 with a cast desperately under-equipped for the challenge was more than I could bear.

That means that after the jump, we’ll be looking at the final episodes of 11.22.63, Billions and The Magicians, as well as the latest episodes of Arrow, The Americans, Banshee, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Limitless, Lucifer and Supergirl. We’ve also had the return of both 12 Monkeys and The Tunnel (Tunnel) – how well will they hold up in their second seasons, I bet you’re wondering.

Before that, though, a movie, and I should also offer as a side-note that Netflix has acquired RTÉ One’s Rebellion, which makes my decision to review the first few episodes not quite as insanely stupid as it looked at the time, hey? 

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) (Amazon Instant Video)
The movie that almost killed off director Edgar Wright’s Hollywood career before it began – the fuss behind the scenes over Ant-Man eventually did that – is a comic book adaptation that has so many things going for it yet ultimately never quite works. A fusion of comic book and gaming logic and visuals with the real world, it sees nerdy inadequate college student Scott Pilgrim (Arrested Development’s Michael Cena) wanting to date new girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) but finding he has to fight her seven evil exes first. Literally.

We did try to watch this a couple of years ago, but we switched off, bored, after the first 40 minutes or so. Giving it another go last weekend, I have to say that wasn’t an entirely incorrect decision, but it does get a lot better in the second half. It has many individually visually beautiful moments, dozens of nerdy heady nods to the expected and the unexpected (Flash Gordon), and is frequently hilarious, but stuck together, none of it quite works – the narrative falters like watching all the narrative scenes from a video game stuck together.

All the same, six years on, it’s fun to see not only its influences (I’m pretty sure The World’s End owes a lot to it) but also what a marvellous supporting cast it had, with people who were already quite big to start with or who went on to many big things later on (Alison Pill, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Mae Whitman, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman, Thomas Jane).

My wife’s been vegan for the past few months and this clip is now her new favourite thing, too – I’ll make sure she doesn’t drink any half-and-half, don’t worry.

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including The Tunnel: Sabotage, 12 Monkeys and Scott Pilgrim vs The World”

What have you been watching? Including Banshee, Blå Ögon (Blue Eyes), The Catch, Supergirl and The Americans

2 April 2016 Rob Buckley 15 Comments

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. 

Despite the Easter break and being somewhat occupied this week, I’ve actually managed to watch quite a few of the new shows that have popped up on our screens and monitors in the past week or so. Elsewhere, you’ll find shiny reviews of:

I’ve also passed a third-episode verdict on Damien (US: A&E). Still sitting in the viewing pile, however, are the first two episodes of Hulu’s The Path – I think I’ll wait until the third episode next week and review them (or as many as I can bear, depending on how good it is) all in one go.

Last night, Dice started on Showtime, Netflix offloaded The Ranch in one go (not as an April’s Fool) and Syfy also started airing Wyonna Earp. Despite being away for a few days next week, I’ll hopefully be reviewing them all at some point – although as I’m old enough to remember Andrew Dice Clay when he was doing horrendous stand-up in the 80s, it’s possible I might not bother with that.

But I have watched one other new show:

Blå Ögon (Blue Eyes) (Sweden: SVT1; UK: More4)
Well, the plot summary and trailer are back here, so I won’t bother repeating myself. But having now watched the first two episodes, my advice would be stick with it. The show is a mix of the implausible and the very plausible, with Elin Hammar’s plotline, in which she gets plucked from a life of waitressing to return to politics, only to discover her predecessor has gone missing, is eminently daft, with all kinds of odd conspiracies going on that remind me of the silliness of Byw Celwydd (Living a Lie) crossed with 24. Similarly, everything involving the right-wing party Trygghetspartiet is embarrassingly bad.

However, where the show does do well is develop over the course of these first two episodes a frighteningly nasty, anti-immigrant, anti-everyone, racist right wing terrorist group, Veritas, with foot soldier Adam Lundgren quietly frightening and ultimately violent, like a slightly malnourished, prettier Russell Crowe in Romper Stomper. Here, the viewing gets very uncomfortable, but after the uninspiring first episode, the second episode managed to sell the show to me.

From a UK perspective, what’s also interesting is how similar the rhetoric of Trygghetspartiet is to UKIP’s, presumably without the writers borrowing directly. I guess that makes UKIP either very European or very fictional.

After the jump, I’ll be covering the return of Banshee, as well as reviewing two weeks’ worth of episodes of the regulars: 11.22.63, The Americans, Arrow, Billions, The Catch, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, The Flash, Limitless, Lucifer, The Magicians, Second Chance, Stan Lee’s Lucky Man, Supergirl and Vikings. Apart from the ones that are finishing anyway, two of these are getting dropped from the viewing schedule altogether, while a recommended show is going to get demoted. Can you guess which one, tigers?

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Banshee, Blå Ögon (Blue Eyes), The Catch, Supergirl and The Americans”

What have you been watching? Including Vinyl, Wanted and Vikings

20 February 2016 Rob Buckley 11 Comments

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’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

Apologies for the silence this week – you can blame Windows 8 for that. It wasn’t even my Windows 8 (like I’d have it in the house), but the Windows 8 of somewhere at which I do volunteer work. My advice? Don’t try to fix Windows 8 – just wipe it and start again. Which is what I eventually did.

Anyway, that meant I couldn’t write about tele for several days, but don’t worry – it didn’t mean I couldn’t watch tele. Elsewhere, of course, I’ve reviewed the first episodes of:

And after the jump, I’ll be dealing with the regulars: American Crime, Arrow, Billions, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, The Flash, Limitless, Lucifer, The Magicians, Man Seeking Woman, Marvel’s Agent Carter, Okkupert (Occupied), Second Chance, The Shannara Chronicles, Stan Lee’s Lucky Man and The X-Files. At least one of those gets the chop this week. Can you guess, which? This week also saw the return of Vikings, so I’ll be having a go at that, too. 

Out yesterday was Netflix’s Love, and I’ll try to give that a watch over the next few day; I’ll probably be playing catch-up with BBC4’s showing of Iceland’s Trapped, too.

But there was a couple of new shows out in the past week or so that although Windows 8 stopped me from reviewing them, I did manage to get a chance to watch them. Largely while I was fixing Windows 8.

Vinyl (US: HBO; UK: Sky Atlantic)
Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger co-created this story of the 70s music business, in which Bobby Carnavale (Cupid, Boardwalk Empire, Nurse Jackie) plays the boss of a struggling company trying to work out what’s hip and cool, as punk et al arrive on the scene. Scorsese directs, there’s a soundtrack including Slade and Abba, there’s a strong supporting cast, including Ian Hart, Paul Ben-Victor, Juno Temple, Olivia Wilde, Ray Romano and Birgitte Hjort Sørensen. What could go wrong? Well, lots apparently. Maybe it’s just because it’s about the music business, in which I have minimal interest. Maybe it’s because of the sexism, racism, et al of the period. Maybe it’s some of the dodgy English accents floating around. Whatever it was, despite its having a certain degree of authenticity, I barely made it to the end of the extremely long pilot episode. Not for me.

Wanted (Australia: Seven)
Continuing her majestic stranglehold on all of Seven’s drama output, Rebecca Gibney stars in this odd-couple-on-the-run drama that she also created. Gibney plays a rebellious, free-spirited but broke checkout woman; Geraldine Hakewill is an uptight accountant with a nerdy boyfriend and a criminal secret. They’re both waiting for a bus when a car chase ends in front of them and they witness a murder. Unfortunately for them, crooked cops are involved in the action and before you know, there are more bodies, everyone thinks they’re responsible and they’re on the run, while trying to clear their name and avoid getting caught by bad cop Nicholas Bell or good cop Stephen Peacocke. It’s mildly diverting stuff, but everything goes pretty much how you expect, the jokes are weak, and neither Gibney nor Hakewill make you want to hang out with either of them, let alone go on the run with them.

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The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 2

Third-episode verdict: Stan Lee’s Lucky Man (UK: Sky1)

11 February 2016 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

In the UK: Fridays, 9pm, Sky1

Stan Lee’s Lucky Man‘s biggest asset is also its biggest problem – Stan Lee. He came up with the idea for the show, it’s his name that probably got the show made and it’s that name that will get most viewers tuning in.

Trouble is, as soon as you stick the name Stan Lee in the title, there’s a certain expectation there’ll be superheroics and super-fun. Unfortunately, in the hands of series writer Neil Biswas (The Take), there’s neither.

The show sees James Nesbitt play a cop with a gambling problem who suddenly gets a mystical lucky bracelet that helps him both to win big at the casino and to solve crimes, but at a price to others. There’s the occasional bit of supernaturalness thanks to said bracelet, but we’re largely talking about things falling on the floor at opportune moments so that Nesbitt can spot there’s something under a table, rather than Final Destination-style domino effects resulting in bags of money to fall into Nesbitt’s lap. Not at all the time – there’s a speedboat chase in episode one and an impressive sprint across a busy motorway in episode two, for example, but that’s as superheroic as the show has managed to get.

Rather than superheroics, what we’ve had in spades instead is Nesbitt moping around, getting upset by his good luck’s flipside effects on others, and investigating murders, all while leather-clad motorcylist Sienna Guillory drops by to provide the occasional hint about the bracelet’s powers and various members of the police grouch about Nesbitt’s supposed corrupt tendencies. An interesting character study mixed with a bit of fantasy and a police procedural? Yes. Something to rival Daredevil? Not in the slightest.

If you keep that in mind, chances are you might enjoy the show. There’s a decent enough supporting cast, even if Nesbitt is miscast; the story’s not bad and is even a bit edgy; and what supernatural qualities the show does have it does well. It’s even got Banshee‘s ‘Albino’ (Londoner Joseph Gatt) as the big bad who’s after Nesbitt’s jewellery. 

It’s just not the new superhero show you might have been looking for.

Barrometer rating: 2
Would the show be better with a female lead? Yes
TMINE’s prediction: Unlikely to get a second series unless it gets any overseas sales

News: Arrow finds Vixen, Netflix’s Mortal Instruments, Beowulf trailer, Amazon’s High Castle et al renewed + more

21 December 2015 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Internet TV

UK TV

New UK TV

US TV

US TV show casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

  • Matt Nable to guest on The CW’s DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
  • Casting on ABC Family’s Nicki
  • Casting on Comedy Central’s Bad Couple