stuff
Premiering today:
The series premiere of Oh Sit! on the CW at 8/7c
I am going to watch this out of morbid curiosity.
Hm...just realized Parade's End is out soon too. Is there a channel in Canada at all that plays it yet? Or am I waiting for a bit?
It's a co-production between the BBC and HBO, so I'd imagine that HBO Canada will eventually play it?
The New Normal - Really great. I'm the president of the Ryan Murphy hate club, and it was one of the best pilots he's produced.
I'm glad you liked it! I was offered an associate producer role on the series and took the gig. I started yesterday and watched the pilot on my lunch break. NBC is advertising it like a Modern Family clone, but in reality it's far more dramatic and touching than the adventures of Mitchell & Cam. I think it has the potential to stick around for a while.
If FX’s animated “Archer” were a live-action series, it might look something like “Bullet in the Face.” This happily deranged new IFC series is an over-the-top spoof of a TV crime drama, with a cast of characters who are human cartoons of TV’s usual suspects. Za villains shpeak vis really really bad German accents, kind of like Boris and Natasha from “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show” by way of Deutschland.
I’d say “Bullet in the Face” is hit or miss, but in a comedy series like this one, the hits are meant to be misses. The jokes are so bad they are funny, if you have a twisted sense of humor, which I do. I do think that IFC is doing the show a disservice by airing the first three episodes back-to-back Thursday, and the final three Friday night. That approach suits the network’s “Bullet Vision” theme of the week, but not necessarily the show. Each half-hour is so exaggerated and crazy, you need a break between them in order to brush the stupid off your brain.
“Bullet in the Face” is, hands down, one of the strangest things I’ve ever watched. It’s a black comedy that has clearly drawn inspiration from the Nicolas Cage/John Travolta absurdist action-fest “Face/Off.”
The absurdist tone throughout “Bullet in the Face” helps the black, ultra-violent comedy work, and it makes the intentionally contrived noir storytelling and shocking twists feel more fun than distracting. Just be warned, this is one eff’d-up show to consume, especially considering it’s airing in two three-episode chunks over two nights.
I just finished watching"Oh Sit". It's fun in a sort of Wipeout kinda way. Actually the show is pretty much Wipeout except ran in a continuous circle as opposed to a straight course. After each obstacle, the player gets chunk of money added to their account, then when the music stops they have to race to an island in the center to sit down on chairs which are also worth money. Each round two people are eliminated, the player who can't find a chair and the player with the lowest cash amount.
The only problem I really had is there's a certain random component to each race. The obstacle value is a set amount of cash, but the chair amount is unknown until the end of the round. This means that it's possible for someone to come from behind based solely on luck alone.
I was offered an associate producer role on the series and took the gig. I started yesterday and watched the pilot on my lunch break. NBC is advertising it like a Modern Family clone, but in reality it's far more dramatic and touching than the adventures of Mitchell & Cam. I think it has the potential to stick around for a while.
pics
A Touch of Cloth (Sky1) – Film - Airs: 31st August
Premiering today:
The series premiere of Oh Sit! on the CW at 8/7c
I didn't know that started already. Completely ridiculous premise but it looks kinda fun.Bullet in the Face, wtf did I just watch. Has some horrible acting, sets, writing, etc. I will probably still watch it. I don't know how it even got greenlit.
I didn't know that started already. Completely ridiculous premise but it looks kinda fun.
Maybe Wes or some other Brit can answer this, but why do some British shows only have a vague premiere date . Like for instance Downton Abbey is supposed to be in September, but i haven't been able to see an actual date announced.
Most shows usually have a date nailed down and begin advertising ad putting the word out fairly early, to not have a date a month before premiere seems weird to me.
"Copper" is very much a work in progress, but it's a work in progress from a creative team whose track record all but demands investing the time to see what it becomes. Fontana isn't infallible, but the pieces are certainly here for him to do something special down the road.
This is BBC America's first original scripted series, Barry Levinson is an executive producer and its head writer is Tom Fontana ("Oz," "Homicide"), so my expectations were robust when it came to "Copper," in which Tom Weston-Jones plays a New York detective working the rough Five Points district in 1864.
As it is, the decent but unspectacular "Copper" comes off as "Deadwood Cop," minus the Milch: It's more or less a police procedural with added corsets and waistcoats. In the first two episodes, the drama doesn't do much with the character-building opportunities offered by cable, and that's very strange, given that British dramas (especially the top tier of U.K. cop dramas) are usually so meaty in that regard. Weston-Jones' character has a troubled past, but his personal quest feels a little shopworn, and the police cases aren't that complex or unpredictable.
Copper so far feels flat and undistinguished, a series that might have seemed novel on cable five or ten years ago, but now feels surprisingly unsurprising. It introduces us to Irish NYC cop Kevin Corky Corcoran, a Civil War vet who suffered a family tragedy while he was off fighting the Confederacy, and his war buddies: an uptown dandy, Robert Morehouse (Kyle Schmid), and Matthew Freeman (Ato Essandoh), an African American doctor who secretly helps Corky solve cases. The general approachtortured male (anti)hero with a dark past and ruthless methodsis standard-issue on cable now. The specifics, especially Corkys backstory, feel a lot like a citified Hell on Wheels. Call it Hell on Foot.
Yet Coppers story could, potentially, be absorbing and distinctive enough to make you look past that. Theres a lot here, starting with the novelty (from our perspective) of police work in the 1860s, long before Miranda rights and DNA analysis. Morehouse and his well-connected family provide entree to the story of the 1864 Presidential election, in which the already-torn nation was struggling over how best to resolve the war. And potentially, the life of Freeman and his family, in pre-Harlem upper Manhattan, could be a fascinating look at an underexplored part of Americas racial history, like Chalky Whites Atlantic City neighborhood in Boardwalk Empire.
Still, the show has enough raw ingredients, enough potential in its ideas, and a strong enough creative team that it deserves more patience than Id otherwise give it. The beginning of Copper puts a lot of elements into its sepia photograph. Lets hope it can make that picture move.
Based on the ambition alone, its probably worth sticking with Copper to see where it goes, though its a little slow out of the box. The story Levinson and Fontana are trying to tell here might add up to a fascinating novel, particularly if BBC America keeps footing the bill -- and theyd better: This is a series absolutely geared for the long haul, not the short reveal. Unfortunately, the first couple of chapters seem a bit off. The acting is stiff, as if everyone is still trying to make sense of the times and the mannerisms. The writing tends to be a bit obvious and long on exposition (even given the immense story being undertaken). In some ways, Copper has the same problems AMCs Hell on Wheels does, which is that theres an excellent show there somewhere, just not on the screen. If the actors and writers can hit their stride, whatever grand visions Levinson and Fontana have for Copper could be realized. But in the competitive world of scripted drama, the series is going to need to kick in quick.
Bullet in the Face, wtf did I just watch. Has some horrible acting, sets, writing, etc. I will probably still watch it. I don't know how it even got greenlit.
It was literally the worst TV episode I've ever seen.
Well, my list is gonna be pretty whack to most but I'll do it anyways.
I need to watch season 2 of Boardwalk Empire so I can catch up. Worth it, right? Yes
Need to do the same with Walking Dead. Worth it? Did you like the first season? If so, then yes. If not, then no.
I'd also like to watch the first season of Homeland. How bout that? Sure, but I'd keep my expectations in check.
Two days ago I watched the entire first season of Louie and LOVED it, so I think I'm gonna try to plug away at the second season this week and hopefully get caught up.
Archer? yeah? Yes.
Sons of Anarchy? yay or nay? I haven't seen it, but it's supposed to be good.
Well, my list is gonna be pretty whack to most but I'll do it anyways.
I need to watch season 2 of Boardwalk Empire so I can catch up. Worth it, right? Yes. Much better than season 1.
Need to do the same with Walking Dead. Worth it? No.
I'd also like to watch the first season of Homeland. How bout that? Yes.
Two days ago I watched the entire first season of Louie and LOVED it, so I think I'm gonna try to plug away at the second season this week and hopefully get caught up.
Other shows I wanna get into:
Deadwood (I've only seen the first season) God-tier.
Justified (I need to finish the second half of the newest season) Excellent.
Mad Men (Never seen) Excellent.
Archer? yeah? Yes.
Sons of Anarchy? yay or nay? Hit and miss. Mostly hit.
The Wire (Never seen) God-tier.
The Shield (Never seen) God-tier.
Luther (Never seen) Yes.
Other comedies I want to start are Arrested Development and Parks & Rec. Arrested Development is amazing, Parks is excellent.
Need to do the same with Walking Dead. Worth it?
I'm not sure precisely. Dates seem to appear 2-3 weeks before a confirmed date. You usually hear in the media that the BBC and ITV are often duking it out as to when to air certain shows. They are the two main terrestrial broadcasters here and likely take audiences away from one another.
Here is an article about a fight they had over their two big talent shows (BBC's The Voice and ITV's Britain's Got Talent) - the BBC won this.
Remember BBC don't have advertisements so in that sense they don't have to worry about contacting advertisers to sell slots. All they are concerned with is viewer share so they just watch to see when they can best fit in their new shows compared to what the competition (generally ITV) will be airing at the same time.
BBC1 are probably waiting to see when ITV announce they're airing Downton Abbey. That show is such a behemoth that anything BBC puts up against it is probably going to die a quick death. The Sunday evening 9-10pm slot is when Downton typically airs (if I remember right) so BBC would not likely put up a new drama against it.
The date probably says September because they know they have to get through at least 8 episodes and they can move it around to cause as much hassle to BBC as possible whilst also aiding their run in to their Christmas programming. I also think this is one of the reason's why the high profile Parade's End is airing soon rather than later in the year.
I should all stress this is just theory and hyperbole, to be honest I haven't found much concrete fact about how scheduling between the two big terrestrial channels is actually performed.
Coming-of-age comedy suffers in comparison to Brit original.
Isn't Peep Show returning this fall?
Update: Not in the post below, but the second season premiere of Boss on Starz drew just 317,000 average viewers at 9pm, less than half the 659,000 that watched the first season premiere in October, 2011. The weekend total viewership for Boss was 950,000 down from 1.1 million for the first season premiere.
Plus encores, it reached 509,000 on Friday, over the course of the weekend it went up to 915,000.
In a competitive situation, Michael J. Fox’s new family comedy project has landed at the same network that aired the family comedy which made him a household name 30 years ago, Family Ties. NBC nabbed the single-camera comedy co-created by Sam Laybourne (Cougar Town) and Will Gluck with an 22-episode series order for fall 2013 premiere. The setup for the Sony TV-produced comedy, loosely based on Fox’s real life, has him play a husband and father of three from New York City dealing with family, career, and challenges – including Parkinson’s Disease. (Fox, himself a father of four, has Parkinson’s and lives with his family in New York.) The pitch went to all four major broadcast networks, with ABC, NBC and CBS in hot pursuit. NBC outbid the other networks by offering an on-air full-season episodic pickup not seen in the TV business in years.
Fox first flirted with returning to TV comedy full-time last development season when he had conversations with ABC Studios but the project never materialized. The idea of a new Michael J. Fox comedy series picked up steam when the actor met with Gluck. The two hit it off, and Gluck introduced Fox to Laybourne. Gluck and Laybourne have been close friends since Laybourne worked as a writer on Gluck’s Fox series The Loop, with the two said to share similar sensibilities. Laybourne has worked on feature projects for Gluck, including Rehab, and has signed a script deal with Sony TV for a comedy to be produced by Gluck’s Sony TV-based company. That pact led to Laybourne’s involvement in the Michael J. Fox project. (Photo: Mark Seliger)
Breaking: NBC gives 22-episode order to Michael J Fox sitcom before anything is shot.
Gluck went to and worked at the same summer camp that I went to (and, coincidentally, Michael Eisner...). Super amazing guy. This is really incredible on all levels.