Burn Notice

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26 July 2010 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

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What have you been watching this week (w/e June 25)

25 June 2010 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Lots of new shows in the US, and I’ve Memphis Beat, Boston Med, Rookie Blue and Rubicon still to watch, as well as the second ep of the uninspiring Hot in Cleveland. Otherwise, here’s what I’ve been watching:

  • Burn Notice: Still a week behind, but last week’s was a bit throwaway and lacked Robert Wisdom. All the tradecraft stuff was fun, but Jesse grates and the relationships among the regulars and their development appears to have been put on hold in favour of Jesse’s development.
  • Leverage: I was so unenthused by the first episode that I actually gave up on the idea of writing a review. Woo hoo, “Sophie” is back, but the first episode felt like a by the numbers bit of plot mechanics to get the show back to its standard format, with the same old tricks being used time and again. The arrival of the Italians is an interesting move although doesn’t look like its going to affect every episode. The second episode, a slight riff on Gross Point Blank was a lot better though, with the chemistry between the regulars returning and something looking like character development manifesting as well. There were also some new tricks that look like they were cribbed from a Derren Brown show, but hey I’m not complaining and it’s always good to see Arye Gross getting work.
  • Royal Pains: Pretty painful stuff – a Royal Pains/WWE Raw crossover with one of the WWE’s wrestlers playing the star of some really, really dreadful movies that for some reason, everyone in the Hamptons likes. The one redeeming feature was the arrival of Anastasia Griffith from Trauma as (spoiler)Boris’s new concierge doctor. Nice to see they’re making Evan less of a tit, too.

But what have you been watching?

As always, no spoilers unless you’re going to use the <spoiler> </spoiler> tags, please. If you’ve reviewed something on your blog, you can put a link to it here rather than repeat yourself (although too many links and you might get killed by the spam filter).

US TV

Preview: Covert Affairs 1×1

24 June 2010 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

Covert Affairs

In the US: Tuesdays, 10/9c, USA Network. Starts 13th July

Piper Perabo should have had a great career in the movies. Okay, Coyote Ugly wasn’t exactly a great starting point, but she’s a good actress, she did well in The Prestige – exciting things should have happened but didn’t. Maybe it’s because most people confuse her with Jennifer Garner.

So it’s good to see her getting her own TV show, Covert Affairs, even if it does appear the producers were trying to remake Alias and got her confused with Jennifer Garner as well.

In Covert Affairs, Perabo plays a new recruit to the CIA whose language skills and aptitude for the job get her rushed into the field by her occasionally helpful bosses Arthur Campbell (The OC‘s Peter Gallagher) and his distrustful wife Joan (Kari Matchett from Leverage and 24). While out and about, she gets to have fights and car chases, while putting on array of accents to fool the police, FBI and even, sometimes, the enemy. No wigs mind. That would have been too obvious.

But since this is about a “single woman [with a] double life” (as the show’s posters and ads say) and the show is called Covert Affairs (emphasis on the second word), we also have possible romantic interest for her in the form of the helpful Auggie Anderson (Jake 2.0/Ugly Betty‘s Christopher Gorham), the smooth Jai Wilcox (Sendhil Ramamurthy from Heroes, but only from episode two) and whomever her unknowing sister (Anne Dudek from House and Mad Men) sends in her direction. If only she weren’t pining for that guy she met on vacation all those years ago…

While it’s not quite up there with Burn Notice, Covert Affairs just about manages to blend humour, romance and spy action to create something that while not unmissable, should make any pangs you have for the return of Alias disappear.

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US TV

Review: The Good Guys 1×1-1×2

10 June 2010 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

The Good Guys

In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, Fox

Cop shows tend to be about excitement, don’t they? Shootouts, undercover work: you know the form. But most police work is routine, mundane stuff. Any cop assigned to that kind of mind-numbing tedium would want to be doing stuff more like what you’d seen on TV, wouldn’t they?

In that sense, The Good Guys is cop wish fulfillment. An action-comedy cross between Burn Notice and Reno 911 that would really like to be a 70s show like Starsky and Hutch, it sees Colin Hanks (son of Tom) and Bradley Whitford (Josh from The West Wing) playing a pair of Dallas property crime detectives, who no matter what they investigate, whether it’s a rock being thrown through a window or a burglary, somehow manage to end up facing gunfire, international assassins and all the excitement the genre has to offer.

If only it were as funny as that sounds. Here’s a trailer.

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