It’s “What have you been watching?”, your chance to recommend to fellow TMINE readers anything you’ve been watching this week
Previously on TMINE
I did one of those movie review things: Greyhound(2020)
Netflix’s Signs
Next on TMINE
The upcoming week’s going to be quite busy, with work mounting up pre August break, but I’m going to give reviewing Aladdin (2019) another try.
Helping to ease my workload, however, is that looking ahead through the schedules, we have practically no new shows scheduled to come our way any time soon. In fact, all I could see was Signs on Netflix, which is an imported Polish cop show from 2018.
You can tell the summer season is here, but added to Covid, we’ve hit what I assume must be the opposite of peak TV – trough TV?
I’ll just have to stick with the regulars, I guess. Talking of which…
What TMINE has been watching
So it’s patently clear I can’t do boxsets right now. And trying to do them is, ironically, making it less likely that I watch/review things (sorry, Babylon Berlin). So rather than keep muttering on about Dark et al, I’ll carry on doing what I did with Das Boot and review now what I’ve seen so far and then just treat them as shows I watch weekly.
Which given next week is the last week before TMINE’s August holidays is probably just as a stupid as trying to watch boxsets.
Anyway, that means from now on, the usual regulars will be: Baron Noir, Condor, Dark, Das Boot, Doom Patrol,Stargirl and The Twilight Zone. We can talk about them after the jump.
I did try to watch season 2 of Humans (UK: Channel 4), given it’s now on Netflix. We made it through half an episode and quite enjoyed it, but it seems to have lost its metaphor and is basically an excuse to have androids/gynoids chatting and working out their feelings. The arrival of Carrie-Anne Moss on the scene did make me consider watching more, though.
And as mentioned in my Greyhound review, I’ve started rewatching ITV’s Hornblower, which stars a rather young Ioan Gruffudd. It’s very disconcerting watching it now, because… it’s really good. It’s a really good, scripted ITV show that isn’t a crime drama, a period crime drama or something that involves the aristocracy and country houses. The dialogue is also straight out of Forester. And it’s surprisingly dark, too, straight from the outset. Plus what sets! It’s like being on the Victory in Portsmouth, they’re so good.
So I know what I’m probably watching on my holidays at least.
But in contrast to this forthcoming week, last week brought us three new shows, so after the jump, we’ll be talking about: Brave New World, Cursed and United We Fall.
All through ‘upfronts’ week, TMINE will be revealing the new shows that are going to be hitting US TV screens from September 2019
It’s that time of year again – the ‘upfronts’. What’s that, I hear you ask?
What are the upfronts, TMINE?
It’s when all the US networks reveal to advertisers the new shows that are going to be hitting the TV screens some time from September 2019 through to nowish 2020. However, this isn’t the same as the international screenings, where buyers from TV networks around the world turn up to see what they’d like to acquire, so we won’t know what will be heading our way for quite some time.
This weekend, US TV networks killed off a whole bunch of existing shows (prompting howls of protest from their fans) and are about to commission a whole bunch of new shows (prompting howls of ‘you cancelled x for this rubbish?’ from said-same fans).
3. ABC’s upfronts
NBC and Fox have come and gone – now it’s the turn of ABC. ‘The alphabet network’ traditionally ends each year’s schedules with mass cancellations of all its new shows from the previous year, pick-ups of numerous identikit replacements of dubious quality and continuing renewals of its tired out regulars.
Which is actually better than both NBC and Fox in terms of longevity and a lot better than ABC has done for the past few years. As a result, for a change, ABC isn’t actually commissioning that many new shows. Just three for the Fall:
Emergence
Mixed-ish
Stumptown
And for mid-season:
The Baker and the Beauty
For Life
United We Fall
Can you spot the spin-off and the identikit replacement of dubious quality?
Still, want to know more and exactly when these (and the surviving old shows) will be airing? And do you want to get TMINE’s hottest of hot first takes? Follow me after the jump if at least one of those things interests you…
