Battlestar Galactica

Top 10 films and TV shows of the year? Let’s meme!

12 December 2006 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

The American Film Institute publishes two top ten lists each year: the top 10 movies and the top 10 TV shows. This year’s has just come out. What do you think? And if they’re right, what does it say about 2006: a good year or a bad year?

AFI Movies of the Year

  • Babel
  • Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan
  • The Devil Wears Prada
  • Dreamgirls
  • Half Nelson
  • Happy Feet
  • Inside Man
  • Letters From Iwo Jima
  • Little Miss Sunshine
  • United 93

AFI TV Programmes of the Year

  • Battlestar Galactica
  • Dexter
  • Elizabeth I
  • Friday Night Lights
  • Heroes
  • The Office
  • South Park
  • 24
  • The West Wing
  • The Wire

I think there are some good ones in the TV list, but it’s not been a great year for movies, by the looks of it.

Still, let’s meme. I can’t help out with the films list for once, since I doubt I’ve seen 10 films in the cinema this year (Casino Royale and The Prestige would both be on such a list, and Inside Man was all right, I s’pose). But here’s my pick of the top 10 shows of the year, in no particular order, with links to my various comments on them.

Ooh. By the looks of it, I must be the only person in the world who hasn’t written about how great Planet Earth is. Well, it is. That’s all that’s needed.

So there’s the meme: top 10 TV shows, top 10 films or both. Any channel, from any country of origin, any language, so long as they aired or were distributed in 2006 and weren’t a repeat/re-run.

The morning’s news

12 December 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment
  • The Hollywood Reporter reckons the Sci Fi Channel is working on a remake of Flash Gordon. Part of an article looking at how US networks are warming to science-fiction.
  • A few spoilers over on E!’s Watch with Kristin: interesting snippets about Heroes, including confirmation that Claire’s gay best friend isn’t gay any more; more on Jack Bauer’s family in 24 (with one very important spoiler); useful stuff about Liev Schreiber’s forthcoming character in CSI; and some nuggets on BSG and Scrubs.
  • Mel Gibson’s new Mayan film, Apocalypto, might look historically authentic but it isn’t.
US TV

Revelations of the podcasts

11 December 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

BSG podcastThere are a couple of podcasts that I keep recommending that really are worth listening to: Battlestar Galactica‘s and Lost‘s. The latest episodes of both have been revelatory.

BSG‘s is always good because you get an insight into the thought processes and techniques that go into the writing; they’re also entertaining, as exec producer Ronald D Moore has a go at viewers, forum posters, himself and anyone else he thinks deserves it that week (he’s usually right though).

Recently, we got treated to a three-hour roundtable that featured various BSG actors, including Jamie Bamber and James Callis, as well as RDM. What’s interesting about the roundtable is that Jamie Bamber goes off on one about how disappointed he is by the Cylons and how they could be better. The great thing is you have RDM there, going “That’s a great idea. I never thought of that.” You can practically hear him writing stuff down for future scripts. There are also various significant hints about what’s happening later in the season, so watch out if you don’t like spoilers.

Lost podcastMeanwhile, back in the latest Lost podcast, it’s a very different Damon Lindelhof and Carlton Cuse answering viewers’ questions. The cockiness has gone. The frequent “If you don’t like the way we tell stories, go off and watch Criminal Minds” comments aren’t so funny, now portions of the audience have done just that.

Instead, we have the two contrite execs answering questions, and begging listeners to hang on in there for a few more episodes since there’ll be plenty of answers coming up soon (“Will you find out what happened to Desmond? Yes! Will you find out about the Dharma Initiative and The Others? Yes! Will you…”). How the mighty have fallen. One for the Schadenfreudic among you. I found it thoroughly amusing.

News

News that happened while I was away and over the weekend

11 December 2006 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Some of it you might know, some of it could well be news:

Runway Bride Torchwood

Doctor Who

  • Jessica Stevenson, who is 5’6″ and has grey/green eyes, is filming a two-part Doctor Who episode.
  • There’s going to be a hint of Torchwood in this Christmas’s episode (see pic. Click on it to make it bigger and look for the logo at the back).
  • Newsround has a load of publicity shots from that episode, too.
  • The Daily Mail (and other ‘newspapers’) are claiming that new companion Martha Jones and the Doctor are going to wind up in bed together – fully clothed, mind. Adds The Sun, ”TV Biz can reveal feisty Martha (Freema Agyeman) has a huge crush on the doc (David Tennant). The pair are forced to bunk up together in one scene and Martha moves in for the kill. But her love intentions are ruined — by a monster.“
  • There’s an interview with Dan Zeff, director of Love and Monsters, over on Ain’t It Cool News.
  • There’s a clip from The Sarah Jane Adventures available from the Beeb’s Doctor Who web site.

Film

  • There’s a preview of Mitchell and Webb’s Magicians over on Ain’t It Cool News, based on a test screening.

British TV

  • Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse are re-uniting for a new sketch show.
  • The Beeb is planning a show about Merlin. It’s going to be a ”3g“ show, which now means ”three generations“ apparently. Because that’s what family television needs more of – shows about slightly dodgy wizards that live their lives backwards and have a demon for a dad.
  • Instead of doing something sensible like getting State of Play 2 together, Paul Abbott has created another bollocktile drama for ITV1 (cf the UK version of Touching Evil). Called Butler Did It, this ”three x 120-minute returnable franchise“ (urgh) tells the story of a top MI5 officer who is ”imprisoned for murder but, after the government realises his potential as a powerful weapon, he is reprogrammed as a ruthless, state-controlled assassin“.
  • Lucy Davis, star of The Office and rising star of Studio 60, got married on Saturday at St Paul’s Cathedral – handily, her dad Jasper Carrott is an OBE.
  • Matt Lucas is reportedly being lined up to play Friar Tuck in the next series of Robin Hood. He’s already set to appear as Toad in The Wind in the Willows this Christmas.

US TV

Ronald D Moore to write new version of The Thing

17 November 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Battlestar Galactica exec producer Ronald D Moore is to write the script for a new version of The Thing, according to Variety (via SciFi Wire). The classic John Carpenter movie isn’t going to be remade: instead, the new film is to be a ‘companion piece’ to the original (itself a remake of 50s film, The Thing From Another World, which was based on a John W Campbell short story, Who Goes There?).

I have high hopes for it. If there’s one thing RDM has demonstrated in the last three years, it’s that he’s the king of remakes…