– The FBI finallyarrested Whitey Bulger yesterday after a 16 year hunt. It only took ten years to track down Bin Laden. What’s next? Finding Jimmy Hoffa?
– The Archbishop of Canterbury was guest editor New Statesman, a position he used to criticize the British government’s austerity measures. Which is funny, because the Archbishop of Canterbury is the last person who should be critical of the leadership of others. The Anglican Communion has imploded on his watch, yet he has time to criticize David Cameron for cutting programs to keep the British government from drowning in debt. It’s like Herbert Hoover complaining about Jimmy Carter’s “leadership skills”.
– North Carolina’s gas tax is set to become the third highest in the nation. Maybe it’s because the state is shrinking (thanks to Jill Wagner for the link!).
– Is Gordon Ramsey’s star waning? So few people turned up to audition for his show MasterChef that producers “enhanced the crowd” by digitally copying the people who did. Nice.
– When a California man’s cable went out, he called Cox Cable and threatened to kill himself. The Cox technician, taking no chances, called the cops on the man.
– Someone is leaving huge bags of vomit outside a Bed Bath & Beyond store in Philadelphia. Police don’t know if the perpetrator(s) have a beef with the chain, or are perhaps paid to dispose of the waste and are just being lazy.
– Ever seen a $156,679 bar tab? Now you can, as someone took a picture of the receipt from when the Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins recently visited the Foxwoods Casino.
– Lastly, New York magazine has a good “nostalgia piece” about the 1988 film Heathers. How has it aged? Read the article and find out!
The year is almost halfway done. Let’s take a look at what worked on TV so far, what didn’t, and what fell somewhere in between. And let’s wonder why the Brits are kicking the Yanks’ ass in the TV department…
THE EXCELLENT
The Shadow Line (BBC) – A drug kingpin is mysteriously granted a pardon and released from prison… and on his way home he’s shot and killed. This series is about how both sides – the police and the underworld – investigate the crime, and how neither side can claim the moral high ground. This series is already generating comparisons to The Wire, and for good reason: it has a gigantic cast of morally realistic characters in which the police aren’t necessarily “good” and the gangsters not necessarily “bad”. Early episodes have a lot of nice touches. There’s one scene where a pair of police officers have a conversation about the murder at a police station whilst a pair of gangsters simultaneously have a similar conversation at their hideout. The scene is edited so that the police ask a question and the gangsters answer it, or vice versa. It’s not unique, but the length of the scene allows the viewer to learn a great deal of information in a short time, and it’s not too long to be annoying, like an SNL skit. And the cast is full of heavy hitters like Christopher Eccleston (who plays a reluctant successor to the murdered man), Stephen Rea (as “Gatehouse”, a mysterious man behind the scenes) and Chiwetel Ejiofor (as DI Jonah Gabriel, a cop who developed amnesia thanks to a gunshot to the head, and who may not be the “good” cop he thinks he is). Highly recommended.
Silk (BBC) – For a British lawyer, there are few honors higher than becoming Queen’s Council. Having the initials “QC” after your name means you can get a job in almost any law firm in the realm, and you’ll probably even be able to pick and choose your clients or causes at will. “Taking silk”, from the distinctive silk robes QCs wear in court, is British legal slang for becoming a QC. This show features two attorneys – Martha Costello (Maxine Peake) and Clive Reader (Rupert Penry-Jones) – fighting to become QCs. There’s also a “case of the week”, as well as lots of gameplaying and backstabbing from other members of the firm, including their respective interns, Nick Slade (Tom Hughes) and Niamh Cranitch (Natalie Dormer, with her natural blonde hair!). The show was created by Peter Moffat, a former barrister and creator of other classic Brit legal dramas like Kavanagh QC, North Square and Criminal Justice. It’s a serious drama that’s also great fun and, according to experts, is quite realistic… except that the actors are generally “too young and pretty” for the average British law firm.
Mad Dogs (Sky) – Four high school friends – John Simm and Philip Glenister from Life on Mars, Marc Warren (Band of Brothers) and Max Beesley (Hotel Babylon, Survivors) – take a trip to Spain to celebrate the early retirement of a fifth friend, Alvo (Ben Chaplin). But all is not what it seems. Alvo is coy about his line of work, and takes a few heated phone calls from his “associates”. When Alvo winds up dead, it’s up to the other four to figure out what’s happened. As the series goes on, the friends become ever more paranoid about Alvo’s “associates” and corrupt local cops.. and you can almost feel the tension coming through your TV set. I almost wanted to hide behind something while watching the last two episodes! And Alvo’s murder scene is one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen on TV! The series ends abruptly on a cliffhanger… but fear not: season 2 is coming in 2012.
My #1 celebrity crush, Jill Wagner, is leaving her co-hosting gig on the ABC show Wipeout.
This is good in a way, as Wagner has wanted to get back to acting, and even has a new show, Teen Wolf, due to start soon. It’s also good because I’ve been tiring of Wipeout for some time now. I DVR the show, and mostly just watch the parts with Wagner. I think I can get through an entire episode in around 14 minutes these days.
But it’s also bad, because I’ll miss getting my weekly “Jill fix” on the TV. But, as they say, ever upward! I hope Jill goes on to something bigger and better… so I can watch her every week! 😉
Here’s a pic from her Twitter feed, one of the last from the Wipeout set:
Some good news and some bad news for Mad Men fans.
AMC has officially greenlit season 5 of the Emmy-winning series. Talks between show runner and creator Matthew Weiner and AMC\Lionsgate had nearly broken down, not over his 2 year, $30m deal, but because AMC demanded more product placement, cutting episodes by two minutes, and axing two regular cast members.
I don’t have a problem with product placement per se; the show’s been doing that for years, and as long as it’s appropriate to the era it can be easily worked into the script.
In the past, AMC has accommodated Weiner by letting the show run long (say, an hour and five minutes instead of an hour) instead of cutting content to run more ads. I don’t see why AMC just can’t keep this up.
Weiner is adamant about not cutting cast members, so this might be a genuine sticking point. Betty (January Jones) is remarried, so as much as I enjoy looking at January every week, there’s little reason for her to be there. I’m not sure how much money Robert Morse (Bert Cooper) makes, so having him die of a heart attack might be a possibility, if necessary. Who else would you cut if you had to make the choice?
So the good news is that far from negotiations “collapsing”, the series is absolutely on. The bad news? Season 5 won’t air until 2012. As crappy as that is, I can wait for quality programming, ya know?
– If you read my Ashes to Ashes recaps, you might remember this screencap from season 1 episode 4:
In the recap, I commented on the poster behind Gene Hunt’s head, and how funny it was to see it again after all these years. Well guess what? A woman named Fiona Walker has come forward and taken credit (or blame, depending on your gender politics ) for being the girl who bared her bottom. Although it’s not quite “What happened to Amelia Earhart” or “Who was Jack the Ripper”, it’s still nice to have one of life’s little mysteries solved.
– Justified is a show about a US Marshall who is transferred to his native Kentucky after shooting a drug dealer in Miami. It’s based on a short story by Elmore Leonard, and it’s pretty damn good. Stephen Root (Jimmy James from News Radio and Milton from Office Space) occasionally plays a judge on the show… and it’s nice to see he hasn’t forgotten his red Swingline stapler:
– Lastly, here’s Mad Men’s John Slattery in the new music video from The National, where he plays a Secret Service agent in love with the (female) president:
The pic features stars Alison Brie (who also appears on Mad Men) and Gillian Jacobs in a near kiss. Thanks to Brie for posting this on her Twitter feed.
Community airs at 8pm on Thursdays on NBC. You know I’ll be there… especially since tonight’s episode is about Dungeons and Dragons!
Here are a few things I’ve stumbled across lately, mostly funny stuff with a couple of “cool” things thrown in just to “keep it balanced”:
– I have a passing interest in stock photography. It stems from when I subscribed to several IT magazines and saw the same hot girl, standing in a server room with her arms crossed and a smile on her face, used in different ads over and and over again. So I was amused to see one site ask why stock photo women laugh when they eat salad, and why black women are so happy to shop. Any guesses?
– Paula Deen gives us her “wisdom” in this recipe for English peas. Don’t want to click the link? The recipe has two ingredients (butter and peas) and I’ll let you figure out the rest of the recipe. More culinary genius from the folks at FN!
– Here is the alleged intro for the Japanese version of 30 Rock:
Looks like an 80s sitcom on CBS, no?
– Speaking of TV, here’s a cool behind-the-scenes look at the CGI used in Boardwalk Empire. Aside from the obvious (but well done) CGI used for backgrounds, the video shows us how they make Richard Harrow into a grotesquely maimed WWI vet.
– The folks at Failblog have a picture of the best anti-shoplifting sign ever:
– Some Charlotte filmmakers are making a documentary about the rise and fall of The Penguin. Check out the teaser:
– And lastly, Android has jumped ahead of iOS in the US smartphone market! Woo-hoo!
2010 is almost in the history books, so here are my thoughts on the year in television, beginning with a list of my 10 favorite new scripted shows of 2010. Remember that it’s a list of new shows that debuted this year. So you won’t find long-time favorites like Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Dexter on this list, nor will you see limited-run miniseries like The Pacific and The Pillars of the Earth on the list either.
After that, there’s a list of runners-up and several “awards” of dubious distinction.
My Top 10 New Shows of 2010
10) Outsourced(NBC) - It took a few episodes for this show - about a man who is sent to India to head the call center of his novelty company after the rest of the American employees are fired - to gain traction, but its charm has grown on me. I have problems with the main character, Todd Dempsy (played by Ben Rappaport). He still seems to be completely ignorant of Indian culture (if you were being transferred to another country, wouldn’t you read a few books on it, or at least spend five minutes on the country’s Wikipedia page?). I also think the TV series is a bit more… cavalier and stereotypical than the movie it’s based on. But it’s still worth watching.
9) Human Target(Fox) - This show has the best action sequences on TV, hands down. Many of the show’s first episodes were like mini action films, with a new one beamed into my home each week. But Fox isn’t happy with how the show is doing ratings-wise, and has strong-armed the showrunners into adding needless characters and cutting costs. Indira Varma (Niobe from Rome) and Janet Montgomery are pretty, but not only do they not add anything to the show, they actually distract from the show’s former “cop buddy” kind of theme. I’m not too impressed changes, and if it keeps up I won’t be sad when Fox cancels it.
8) Covert Affairs (USA Network) - Man, does USA have a lock on great light entertainment or what? No one would ever accuse Psych, Burn Notice or Covert Affairs of being “deep” or “meaningful”, but as far as mindless television goes, no network does it better. Affairs has outlandish plots and plenty of deus ex machina endings… but it also has kick-ass action sequences and a pretty blonde lead in Piper Perabo. I’m hooked!
Christopher Gorham and Piper Perabo in "Covert Affairs"
7) The Walking Dead (AMC) - After the disaster that was Rubicon, AMC needed a hit with this show, about a group of strangers who band together after a viral outbreak causes most of the human race to turn into zombies. I initially watched the show just because it was set in Atlanta… in fact, I used to drive on the road seen in the show’s promo poster every day when I worked for my dad. I really came to care about the characters as time went on. But the season finale of this show was just plain awful. It was so bad that it pushed this show several places down the list. It was so bad that I honestly don’t know if I’ll be back when season 2 comes.
6) Sherlock (BBC Wales) - Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat’s re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes as a modern detective was sheer genius. Although longtime fans of Basil Rathbone era Holmes cringed at the thought of Sherlock using a mobile phone, it was refreshing to see a new take on the characters, especially one that has Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman) as someone who is actually smart, instead of the buffoon that Nigel Bruce often played him as. The only problem with this series is that there were only three 90-minute episodes. We’ll have to wait until next spring or summer for the next three.
