Monday’s “RDM to adapt A Knight’s Tale, Treme gets a short fourth season and Helen Mirren to play The Queen again” news

Doctor Who

Film

  • Matt Bomer, Lucy Griffiths and Eva Marie Saint join Winter’s Tale
  • Allen Hughes to direct remake of A Bittersweet Life

Trailers

  • TV spot for Cloud Atlas
  • International trailer for Life of Pi
  • Trailer for Gus Van Sant’s Promised Land with Matt Damon
  • Trailer for Amy Heckerling’s Vamps, with Alicia Silverstone, Krysten Ritter and Sigourney Weaver
  • Trailer for The Details with Tobey Maguire
  • Trailer for Winnie with Jennifer Hudson
  • Trailer for Tai Chi Zero

Theatre

UK TV

US TV

US TV casting

New US TV shows

New US TV show casting

The BarrometerA Barrometer rating of 3

Third-episode verdict: Go On (NBC)

In the US: Tuesdays, 9pm Eastern/8pm Central, NBC. Starts September 11
In the UK: Not yet acquired

So far, if there’s one new comedy acquitting itself on NBC, it’s Go On. Although the idea of a support group for the traumatised – in particular, Matthew Perry channelling Joel McHale in Community as a talk radio sports commentator who lose his wife in a car accident – sounds like a sad idea for a sitcom (and you’d be right), the show is just about managing to find some laughs.

Just about.

Trouble is, we’re still talking about a guy who has lost his wife. And as the first episode demonstrated, that’s not that funny. Even if you can somehow turn adjustment to bereavement into something wacky – Perry not wanting to return home at night so he keeps making his assistant work late and gatecrashing her social occasions, as per episode two, or his gardener erecting a tribute fountain to his dead wife in episode three – we’re still talking about a show that makes you want to cry more than laugh.

And partly, that’s because the writers aren’t writing many jokes, partly because the supporting characters are woefully underdeveloped and partly because 90% of the cast are rubbish. Of the good portion of the cast, John Cho now has something to do but isn’t being given great material, Laura Benanti now has less to do and is getting less material, leaving Perry to get most of the good material and resultingly having to shoulder virtually the entire burden of the show, something that’s seeping into his performance.

Nevertheless, the show is just about treading the right side of the funny-unfunny/watchable-unwatchable line. I’m not recommending it, but I’m going to stick with it for a while, since there is some promise in it, and Perry, Cho and Benanti all deserve a successful TV show after all their previous flops. And given NBC’s ratings, I think it’s likely to get picked up for a full season very soon so it might actually have a chance to find its feet.

And lo and behold, look! Here’s The Carusometer’s replacement The Barrometer to pass verdict on it!

Barrometer rating: 3
Rob predicts: Will get a full season, maybe even 2

 

Wednesday’s “Revolution sets a record, The Mob Doctor tanks and McG’s Alice in Wonderland” news

Film

US TV

New US TV shows

What did you watch last week? Including Robot Chicken, Lilyhammer and Homeland

It’s “What did you watch last week?”, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I watched last 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: Perception and Doctor Who. I’m adding The Thick Of It to the list, which I negligently forgot to mention last week, despite its being brilliantly funny and making Veep look like luke warm cup-a-soup in comparison. The new coalition characters are excellent as well.

So here’s a few thoughts on what I have been watching:

  • Perception: Fabulous episode that took the precepts of the show to their logical conclusion. You’ll spot exactly where the episode is going about 10 minutes in, but knowing actually makes it more painful and heart-breaking to watch. Worth watching a few episodes before, if you haven’t already watched any, so that it’ll have the maximum impact.
  • Hunderby: Not quite funny enough to make me watch the whole of episode 2.
  • Screenwriters – The BAFTA and BFI lectures: showing on Sky Arts, a series of half-hour interviews/lectures by famous screenwriters. A bit variable, but with some great names (William Nicholson, Moira Buffini, Charlie Kaufman), with John Logan (Gladiator, Coriolanus, et al) being a great way to finish the series.
  • Go On – episode two was actually okay, a bit more Community-ish, although less ensemble than that show. Still an odd combination of the tragic and comedic, but it’s now starting to pick up, I’d say.
  • Robot Chicken – The DC Comics special, this was actually really funny. Not as funny as it could have been, but if you know your DC Comics, it had a lot going for it, particularly the relentless kicking of Aquaman.
  • Lilyhammer – a BBC4/Netflix piece about a New York gangster relocating to Lilyhammer in Norway as part of a witness relocation scheme. Baffling, rather than funny, it essentially has every joke in Norwegian, followed by a character saying “Oh, you don’t speak much Norwegian, do you?” then repeating the joke in English. It’s therefore at least 50% less funny than it needs to be, and I suspect most of the jokes work better in Norwegian. And Norway. I switched off after about half an hour. Fargo‘s a better bet, I reckon. Some people seemed to love it though – maybe they watched the second half.

  • Homeland – the first 20 minutes of season two only, mind. After watching the original Israeli show Prisoners of War, it’s a little harder to watch the more escapist Homeland than it used to be, but this preview does a good job of re-establishing everything, showing how Carrie and Brodie’s lives have changed, and we even get to go to Beirut. If you’re worried that season two won’t be as good as season 1, your fears should be assuaged.

“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?

Cougar Town is back and here’s a song to prove it

ABC, in its infinite wisdom, decided that it wasn’t going to renew Cougar Town for a fourth season. However, TBS, normally reliably unfunny and witless, decided to buck the trend and pick up Cougar Town itself.

The show will be returning on January 8th and here’s the cast singing a song to prove it. There’s a few cameos in there, including one of the cast of Community, but also a couple of other notable people…