It’s “What did you watch this week?, my chance to tell you what I movies and TV I’ve watched this 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:
Continuum (Showcase/SyFy)
The Daily Show (Comedy Central)
The Fall (BBC2/Netflix)
Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living)
These are all going to be on in either the UK or the US, perhaps even both, but I can’t be sure which.
On Monday, I was somewhat incapacitated with food poisoning (oops), so spent the whole day in bed. Faced with the prospect of an entire day without brain stimulation, I decided to bite the bullet and try watching…
Game of Thrones
Yep, season 1 all in one go. And now I’m halfway through season 2. So no spoilers. On the whole, I’m liking it more than I did on my first attempted viewing a couple of years ago, but that might be because I made a stab at reading the first book to ease me in. I didn’t love the first season, but I did enjoy a lot of the elements of it and the potential that it was building. I like the mix of mythic influences – the story’s northern stories are more in keeping with Germanic and Scandinavian myth while the eastern stories are more in the style of Middle Eastern stories. I like the fact that a lot of it is about outsiders within a patriarchal system and how they learn to obtain power within that system. I like the fact it’s essentially a good excuse to give overlooked British and Irish character actors (and Peter Dinklage) decent, regular, well paying jobs for a change.
Season 2 so far is feeling a bit of a filler season; the amounts of female nudity are ridiculous; and the increased magic quotient is unappealing. There’s also no single Nedd Stark figure around which the second season revolves, which makes it feel a little rudderless. But both Patrick Malahide and Stephen Dillane have turned up, which can only be good news, and Charles Dance is marvellous.
Still in the viewing queue: Up The Women, BBC4’s suffragette sitcom written by and starring Jessica Hynes, and last night’s Graceland, USA’s new cop show. My thoughts on those next week, I suspect.
Now, some thoughts on some of the regulars:
Continuum (Showcase/SyFy): A near return to form this week, with sci-fi fun, some important revelations for both viewers and characters, and hints that all the standalone episodes we’ve been having actually had an arc in them (spoiler alert)that another corporation from the future is trying to acquire all its competitor companies and their technologies in the present, including Alec’s. Still not up there with season 1 and we could do with Liber8 getting its act together, but it slightly restored my faith in the show.
The Fall (BBC2/Netflix): Less about misogyny, more about Belfast this episode, as well as some expansion on the background of Gillian Anderson’s character. The revelation from Archie Punjab was a little too deus ex machina (spoiler alert)she knew someone who went out with the serial killer at university, but I’m hoping they can pull back from that.
Hannibal (NBC/Sky Living): Last week’s saw Ellen Muth (Dead Like Me, another Bryan Fuller show) turn up as someone who thought she was dead, making for an interesting piece of deconstruction. As in previous weeks, the episode ended with an entirely throw-away but stunning moment of horror that’ll stick with you. The idea of Lecter and his friend withholding information like that was also ghastly, but in an entirely different way. This week’s episode was slightly let down by Eddie Izzard turning up again and was a little low-key, but was also disturbing and affecting in its own way. I’m wondering what’s up with Gillian Anderson’s character – are they ever going to do anything with her, or is that for later seasons?
And in movies:
The Hangover 3
Not an especially funny film, yet still better than the second. Weirdly, though, it didn’t actually feel like they were trying to make a funny movie, more an action drama with the occasional joke. All the regular characters were back plus John Goodman, but unlike 2, this didn’t rehash the plot of the first movie, instead sending the ‘Wolf Pack’ to go looking for gold (literally) because of naughty old Ken Jeong. Weirdly, it’s clear they could have made a funny film if they’d wanted to, judging by the end titles.
“What did you watch this 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?
So it’s that time of year again – the upfronts. For the uninitiated, it’s when the main US broadcast networks reveal to the world what new TV shows they plan to give us, starting in what Americans call the fall and we Brits call autumn, but with a few ‘mid-season’ replacements (that usually never see the light of day) in there as well.
After last year’s drekfest, which followed on from the previous year’s more promising offering in almost all getting cancelled, we have a somewhat similar situation this year, with perhaps one or two shows that look decent out of a multitude of cobblers. Here’s a rundown:
Comedies
About A Boy –
Based on the Nick Hornby novel, and starring David “Death to any NBC show I’m in” Walton
The Family Guide – ‘It’s not every family that’s brought closer together by divorce, but then again, the Fishers aren’t exactly typical.’ This is a comedy, BTW.
The Michael J. Fox Show – Guess who stars in this
Sean Saves The World – Sean Hayes, that is
Undateable – A refreshing comedy about the “do’s,” “don’ts” and “duhs” of dating. Except it looks wretched
Welcome To The Family – Teenagers get married. Hilarity unsues.
Dramas
Believe – The new Heroes, except with JJ Abrams and Alfonso Cuaron in charge
The Blacklist – James Spader does The Following crossed with White Collar
Chicago PD – A Chicago Fire spin-off about the police. Like the world needed one of those
Crisis – All the kids of the nation’s politicians are kidnapped. Sure. That would happen, wouldn’t it?
Crossbones – John Malkovich is Blackbeard the pirate. Nuff said
Dracula – Jonathan Rhys Meyers is a vampire. Nuff said
Ironside – Blair Underwood in a remake of the 70s classic. I’m assuming that the guy pushing the wheelchair will be white, this time.
The Night Shift – A hospital night shift. Yawn.
After the jump, full summaries and even a trailer or two, as well as both the fall and mid-season schedules. And remember, children, that if you can spot Hannibal in either of those schedules, it’s because it’s neither been cancelled nor not cancelled, but if it had been cancelled, so that one of these new shows can replace it.
In the US: Mondays, 9/8c, SyFy In the UK: Tuesdays, 9pm, SyFy UK
Sigh. What a waste. Of all the things SyFy could have been pouring its money into, this is the one it chose: Defiance, a sci-fi cash-in on Game of Thrones that’s big on world-building but poor on characters.
Now, it wasn’t unreasonable of them. The first, feature-length episode wasn’t half bad, showing signs of imagination and proper science-fiction concepts at the heart of it all. True, in terms of people’s relationships, gender politics et al, it was extraordinarily conventional, but at least there was some promise and Game of Thrones isn’t exactly going to give The Left Hand of Darkness a run for its money in the feminist stakes either.
Since then, though, things have progressed to beyond ordinary, dropping all that expensive world-building and fun in exactly the same way that Terra Nova did, in an effort to build up the characters. Unfortunately, as a result, the show has become a simple tale of a conventional, slightly roguish sheriff having to solve mysteries against a backdrop of people with weird foreign customs who need to be shown the wisdom of truth, justice and, above all, The American Way. Particularly that bit of The American Way about husbands/men being in charge and the few women around needing men’s support if they’re going to make any decisions.
It still looks good and it’s got Julie Benz in it so it can never be entirely terrible, but everything in it has been done to death and done better elsewhere, and while it has a whole lot of imagination, it’s an imagination that doesn’t know much about people.
Barrometer rating: 4 Rob’s prediction: With so much money sunk into it, it’s a cert for a second season, but it’ll need a major revamp if it’s to do anything but erode viewers over time.
