Strike Back

The Swede, Almost Human, Veronica Mars and Diane Keaton’s Last Tango in Halifax

29 October 2013 Rob Buckley Post a comment

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What did you watch last week? Including Breathless, Once Upon A Time in Wonderland and Witches of East End

14 October 2013 Rob Buckley 4 Comments

It’s “What did you watch last week?, my chance to tell you what 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.

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.

As usual, a bevy of reviews up last week, including:

I gave up on Ironside, midway through the second episode, on the grounds that it was rubbish and derivative, and spent all its time trying to prove what a man Ironside was. Sean Saves The World was only marginally funny and relied completely on Sean’s boss for those funny moments, so that’s being abandoned, too. Super Fun Night wasn’t even that funny and was actually kind of sad instead, so that’s being consigned to the “not interested” heap, too.

I tried the first episodes of a few other shows, none of which were good enough to continue being watched:

Breathless (ITV)
Jack Davenport is a 1960s surgeon/hottie in an ensemble piece that looks like a bad carbon copy of Call The Midwife, The Hour and Mad Men, without any of the interesting qualities of any of them.

Once Upon A Time In Wonderland (ABC)
Even duller spin-off from Once Upon A Time, this time focused on the grown-up Alice and her efforts to find her genie boyfriend Silas, aided by the Knave of Hearts (Michael Socha from Being Human) and the White Rabbit (John Lithgow). Almost completely impenetrable to anyone who hasn’t watched however many seasons it is of Once Upon A Time, and best described as having ‘scenes of mild peril, romance and humour, but nothing more’.

Witches of East End (Lifetime/Lifetime UK)
Julia Ormond is a witch. She has lots of witch daughters who are all grown up but don’t know they’re witches. There’s a bit of shagging, a bit of voodoo, but this is really one for fans of the book series this is based upon and for people who really loved Charmed when they were teenagers and have been hoping for something less complicated and interesting ever since. The only tolerable and enjoyable part of it was Madchen Amick.

Still in the viewing queue are last night’s Homeland and Serangoon Road. The third episode of Atlantis is about 15 minutes too long, 10 times too unfaithful to myth and about 7 times too dull to be enjoyable, but I’m bearing with it for now.

Shows I’m watching but not necessarily recommending
Strike Back (Cinemax/Sky 1)
Something of a return to form in terms of action scenes, with some hugely impressive shoot-outs. Good ending, too, even if you could probably see it coming a mile off.

Recommended shows
Arrow (The CW/Sky 1)
The usual second season partial reboot we’ve come to expect from US shows, with people changing jobs, doing odd things, changing relationships, redecorating, etc, purely because there’s been a gap of a few months. Nevertheless, a really excellent first episode, the introduction by the looks of it of Black Canary and some decent stunt scenes. The flashbacks to the island are a bit unnecessary, though, now, even if does give us lots of Manu Bennett.

Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)
After a decidedly regular and uninspired episode, a genuinely moving ending featuring a guest vocal appearance by Natalie Dormer as Jamie Moriarty which only made me want more.

Modern Family (ABC/Sky 1)
Funny and a determined improvement on the previous few weeks.

“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?

What did you watch last week? Including Isabel, Mysteries of Lisbon, Agents of SHIELD and Atlantis

7 October 2013 Rob Buckley 13 Comments

It’s “What did you watch last week?, my chance to tell you what 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.

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. 

With the US fall season upon us, naturally there’s a lot of new shows for me to review. Last week’s bonanza includes:

I also started watching the second episodes of several shows. Unfortunately for them, they were less than engrossing or funny, so I also stopped watching the second episodes of Trophy Wife and Back In The Game.

The first episode of Betrayal – ABC’s tale of rich professionals feeling unsatisfied with their lives so cheating on/murdering their partners – was just dreadful so not even worth a review. Hello Ladies, in which Stephen Merchant chats up lots of American women badly, was very well written but was distilled essence of Merchant’s brand of cringe comedy so I just found it unpleasantly unwatchable. 

Still in the viewing queue are: the third episode of the rather good Serangoon Road and Witches of East End, both of which I should be reviewing in full tomorrow. 

Other shows I tried
Mysteries of Lisbon (Sky Arts)
Acclaimed Portugese period drama, involving a school, a locked-up noblewoman and a lot of people describing things in flashback and then other people saying how interesting that was and then describing some other things in flashback. Very melodramatic in the truest sense of the world, so more for those with greater patience than I have.

Isabel (Sky Arts)
Game of Thrones but in Spanish and based on the real-life Queen Isabel I of Castile, one of the most important women in Spanish history. A lot more fun than I was expecting, although the subtitlers seem to get a bit confused by gender (“Isabel and Alfonso are his brothers” and when discussing a chess game, “If the queen is so important, why can she only move one square at a time?”, being some of the most amusing). Definitely one to try.

Shows I’m watching but not necessarily recommending
Agents of SHIELD (ABC/Channel 4)
Not even a cameo by Samuel L Jackson could enliven this extremely dull affair, which lacked Joss Whedon’s gift for dialogue and was basically an episode of Torchwood. In fact, worryingly, this is now almost exactly Torchwood and I’m not sure the world is ready for another one. Channel’s 4 re-editing of the episode to shift Jackson’s cameo to before the end credits was enjoyable hilarious, though. First episode review.

Atlantis (BBC1/BBC America)
Even more like Merlin than the first episode, right down to some distinctly British forest scenes. Even more liberties taken with myth. Jemima Rooper’s turned up, but even she – and some surprisingly good fight scenes – can’t lift this into the level of decently good. First episode review.

The Blacklist (NBC/Sky Living)
A good second episode for NBC’s most promising new drama. A bit of back-pedalling from the pilot and some fun duplicity from Spader’s character. Megan Boone’s character could do with some more personality, but enjoyable disposable tatt. First episode review

The Bridge (US)
Essentially, an episode designed not to wrap up ends but to ensure the series gets a second season. Not much that was good about the episode, though, and to be honest, it’s a minor echo of the original, so I’ll probably drop out for season two. Looking forward to seeing how Sky and Canal+ handle things when The Tunnel starts this month.

Strike Back (Cinemax/Sky 1)
Lots of soft-corn porn, some involving Stuart Sullivan shagging a Russian woman, the rest involving Philip Winchester running around naked in a medical experimentation unit, which I’m pretty sure happened two seasons ago, too. Some fun fire fights, although baddies can’t appear to shoot straight, but overall, this is turning into a distinctly less impressive season, buoyed up only by constant deaths.

Recommended shows
Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)
Back to the regular routine for Elementary, which was a somewhat mundane tale, enlivened only by having its entire plot ripped off from Sneakers and making mathematical problem P vs NP the centre of the action.

Modern Family (ABC/Sky 1)
A decent enough set of three episodes to start the season with, the gay marriage episode being particularly good. But it’s basically business as usual here, without much innovation.

And in movies….

Agent Carter
Not technically a movie, being a bonus 15-movie Marvel One-Shot on the Iron Man 3 Blu-ray, but an enjoyable enough period romp with Haley Atwell reprising her role from Captain America, Carter now a spy for the US in post-war America. Unfortunately, her boss (Bradley Whitford) thinks that women shouldn’t be doing men’s work, now the men are back from war, so Carter has to prove her worth. 

I really do hope this becomes a TV series, as rumours are suggesting, since it shows more promise than both episodes of Agents of Shield and has as many fun cameos (keep watching until after the titles…).

“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?

What did you watch last week? Including The Almighty Johnsons, Elementary, Sleepy Hollow, The Bridge (US) and Strike Back

30 September 2013 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

It’s “What did you watch last week?, my chance to tell you what 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.

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. Since I was a bit more on the ball last week than the week before, I’ve reviewed elsewhere the following new shows:

Still in the viewing queue, though: Isabel on Sky Arts and Mysteries of Lisbon, which is on on-demand at the moment but starts tomorrow, also on Sky Arts; as well as ABC’s Betrayal, which began last night, and HBO Asia’s first original TV series Serangoon Road.

I should point out that the final episode of The IT Crowd was great, a fitting conclusion to the series, and that we probably own a copy of Textile Merchant – Norfolk Expansion pack somewhere.

Shows I’m watching but not necessarily recommending
The Bridge (US)
For what was basically the first original episode of the show, with absolutely nothing to draw on from the Danish-Swedish version, a surprisingly good bit of work that ties up all the loose ends involving secondary characters who largely got overlooked by that show. Fascinated to see how they end it, since the original’s conclusion was the most disappointing aspect of it and this could pip the US version ahead. Also of note is that Sonya Cross has essentially become a more plausible aspie, going from teenage aspie to adult aspie in her behaviour in the space of 12 episodes, which is equally fascinating to behold.

The Bridge TV Schedule

Sleepy Hollow (Fox/Universal Channel)
After a very promising first episode, Sleepy Hollow rapidly degenerated into a dull, mythology-bound, sillier X-Files with a hint of Buffy thrown in. A couple of digs at the British, of course, but a few jokes about modern-day technology didn’t lift the show much up beyond the average Grimm episode.

Sleepy Hollow TV Schedule

Strike Back (Cinemax/Sky 1)
Strike Back team go into Russian prison. Cue implausible fights, bad acting and more. Nevertheless, surprising in some aspects, including tolerance towards a transvestite prisoner.

Recommended shows
Elementary (CBS/Sky Living)
The return of the other modern-day Sherlock Holmes series, this one set in New York. Except this episode went all the way to London. I was braced for some eye-rolling but actually, it was a very good TV England, with few Americanisms in the piece beyond the occasional weird bit of dialogue that hasn’t been said in England for 50 years (“Up to snuff”). Everything looked nice, and we had Rhys Ifans as a very different Mycroft Holmes from the ones we’ve seen before, and Sean Pertwee nicely hammy as a similarly different Inspector Lestrade. There were some great references, some subtle (Langdale Pike, The Norwood Builder), some not so subtle (221b), to the original stories. It was also one of the few Elementary episodes that actually felt like a modern day Holmes story, with a problem that seemed unsolvable and which was eventually solved with staggering insight but Holmes. A great start to the season and I’m looking forward to the rest of it now.

Elementary TV Schedule

The Almighty Johnsons
Wow. Superb ending to the season and perhaps even the series. If that’s it, it’ll be a great way to go out, even if not quite every story arc was resolved. Probably the best season of the show overall. Watch it if you haven’t been watching it already.

The Almighty Johnsons TV Schedule

“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?

What did you watch last week? Including Dads, Welcome To The Family, We Are Men, Sleepy Hollow and Brooklyn Nine-Nine

23 September 2013 Rob Buckley 8 Comments

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.

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. Reviewed this week elsewhere: Back In The Game.

Normally, of course, this would be the time of year when the blog would be billowing with great big reviews and previews of all the new US shows heading your/our way. However, unfortunately (well, fortunately from my point of view, being self-employed), epic quantities of work have been keeping me busy this past week and will do for the rest of this week. Which is why this post is coming out today rather than last Friday.

However, I have watched a lot of the new shows so here are some previews and reviews of some of the new US shows, in potted, easily digestible format.

Dads
In the US: Tuesdays, 8/7c, Fox. Starts 24th September
In the UK: Not yet acquired

Seth Green (Buffy, Robot Chicken) and Giovanni Ribisi play two guys, one a care-free single womaniser, one an up-tight married man, both have to learn to deal with their dads. You’d think with the talent involved (Seth McFarlane is behind it) it would be hysterical. Instead, it’s cliched, predictable and, thanks predominantly to an asian female character being the butt of a whole end of dodgy jokes and stereotypes, incredibly racist. Avoid at all costs.

Dads TV Schedule

Welcome To The Family
In the US: Thursdays, 8.30/7.30c, NBC. Starts 3rd October

Junior, the son of a Latino family, and Molly, the daughter of a Caucasian family, discover that Molly is pregnant. The pair decide to get married and the two families have to come together. Now while this is scrupulously careful to avoid too many Latino stereotypes – these are hard-working people and Junior is a mathlete – to get comedy, that means there has to be a stereotype somewhere else so Molly is a blonde, party-girl bimbo. What an advance.

While not horribly offensive like Dads though, it’s also not funny either. Avoid, unless you’re old enough to have teenage kids about to leave home, in which case you might be able to stomach an episode.

Welcome to the Family TV Schedule

We Are Men
In the US: Mondays, 8.30/7.30c, CBS. Starts 30th September
In the UK: Acquired by Comedy Central

There’s an unwritten rule of ‘comedy’ that while divorced women go off, find strength in themselves and with female friends as they face up to living alone and looking after their children without their partners, divorced men go off and become extraordinary, bitter losers who go off to find the company of other loser men and moan about what bitches their exes.

No surprises here then, despite a cast that includes Kal Penn (House, Harold and Kumar), Tony Shalhoub (Monk) and series-killer Jerry O’Connell (Sliders, The Defenders, Carpoolers), this is essentially a sad, depressing show about a bunch of guys who wind up living in short-term rental complex together, hating women yet desperate to find a ‘good one’. If you’re a woman, you’ll end up hating men; if you’re a man, your faith in other men will plummet.

We Are Men TV Schedule

Brooklyn Nine-Nine
In the US: Tuesdays, 8.30/7.30c, Fox
In the UK: Acquired by E4

Cops that are a bit rubbish and muck around a lot (especially Andy Samberg from Saturday Night Live) find their new, no-nonsense boss (Andre Braugher) isn’t so keen on hijinks. Hilarity ensues when Braugher tries to bend Samberg to his will.

Actually, deeply rubbish until Braugher shows up, after which it’s a bit more promising. I’ll hold out until episode two to see if it’ll continue to get better.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine TV Schedule

Sleepy Hollow
In the US: Monday, 9/8c, Fox
In the UK: Acquired by the Universal Channel

Ichabod Crane wakes up modern day Sleepy Hollow, where he must face the Headless Horseman again, in order to prevent the end of the world.

Absolute nonsense that doesn’t make a lick of sense, yet the show doesn’t care about that and it is surprisingly enjoyable. Definitely one to stick with.

Sleepy Hollow TV Schedule

Shows I’m watching but not necessarily recommending
Under The Dome
Well, that was absolute nonsense but not in a good way. The finale didn’t answer anything and it was fundamentally ridiculous. What’s more, there’s another season of it coming your way next year. Overstretched? Not at all. Oh wait. Yes, totally.

Under the Dome TV Schedule

The Bridge (US)
A slightly modified version of the original ending that was faithful yet tinkered with it ever so slightly. But there’s another two episodes still to go. Huh.

The Bridge TV Schedule

Strike Back (Cinemax/Sky 1)
Eye-rollling, soft-core lesbo rubbish last week. This week, eye-rolling silliness of a different kind, but some excellent shootouts as always. Robson Green’s simulated 80s haircut was daft as a brush, though.

Recommended shows
The Almighty Johnsons
Gosh. Did they really just do that? Brave if they have. A fun dig at Burn Gorman’s Hobbit role, too. I’m hoping that we’re not going to have a retread of the season one finale, though.

The Almighty Johnsons TV Schedule

The Newsroom
Here’s a show that really has no idea what it is. For its finale, it wasn’t sure if it was a comedy or a romance, perhaps even a drama. Very Aaron Sorkin, in other words, and in some ways quite lovely. On the whole, a better plotted, less ridiculous season, but one that lost out on the human side, with relationships downplayed as much as possible. And the less said about Maggie’s hair plot line, the better.

The Newsroom TV Schedule

Suits
And thus we have a cliffhanger plucked from thin air that’s pretty much the same as the cliffhanger to the first season. Probably the first season that’s felt like a mis-step, with way too much attention paid to the Hessington Oil storyline and Louis now too ridiculous to take seriously. Still a good quality show, though.

Suits TV Schedule

“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?