The New Adventures of Old Christine: A definite miss. Seinfeld's Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays a just-divorced mum who still has a great relationship with her ex-. Ex-husband takes up with a new younger girlfriend, also called Christine, which makes Louis-Dreyfus the Old Christine - hence the title.

I think I laughed only about four times and they were more kind of nose snorts than belly laughs (attractive, huh?). Has one of those annoying precocious kids so beloved by US sitcoms, but most of the snorts came care of his adventures at his new private school (“Where are all the black kids?”), so that can be forgiven. Louis-Dreyfus is good, managing to avoid most of the possible Elaine mannerisms she could have thrown out, but the rest of the cast is insipid. Not exactly worth even half an hour of your time.

The Loop: I reviewed this way back in August when it was still a pilot. It's been retooled, although most of the good stuff - such as the Generation X-style margin notes – is still there. I won't bother with the plot much, other than to say it's about a junior exec at a Chicago-based airline firm who has to go through the various twists life and his job throw at him. The life stuff isn't that amusing, although it has its moments, but the work stuff is on a par with the US version of The Office without the cringe factor. Amusing and should please anyone who's ever hated their job, so I'm hoping it's going to be on the hits side.

I'll let you know what I think of the NBC version of Teachers when it starts on the 28th. It's based on the Channel 4 series, but has been smacked into standard NBC sitcom shape, albeit with the strange inclusion of Sarah Alexander from Coupling as a slightly priggish optimist who thinks she can make a difference in kids' lives. It's had bad reviews, so suspect a demise as swift as NBC's version of Coupling.

For those of you still interested (beggaring the question “Why?”), Joey should be back next month as well. With two of the stars already signed up to appear in other shows next season and abysmally poor ratings when it briefly returned after the Olympics, the writing's pretty much on the wall for Joey, I'm afraid guys.

It's an exciting game you can all play when you're wandering London's media capital. Keep your eyes peeled and score ten points for a movie star, five points for a TV star and one point for a star from any other medium, such as radio or theatre. Double your score if you spot the star inside a building rather than outside. You can also double the score if the person you've spotted hasn't been famous for the last five years. Treble it if they're in a movie on release at the moment.

As an example, I spotted John Hurt on Broadwick Street yesterday. That means I get ten points for a movie star, five points because he also does TV work, one point for theatre work, one point for radio work and that's all trebled because he's in V for Vendetta, making a grand total of 51 points. If he's done stuff in other media, I can't think of it right now, so even if he has, that doesn't count (we're on Cribbage and Poker rules here).

As you can see, the points can add quickly, so regard them as having a conversion rate of 1 celebrity spotting to 1 Nectar point: in other words, you get £2.50 for 500 points, which can be used to buy a pint, rent a DVD, whatever, when you finish playing the game.

Soho's definitely the best place to play this, incidentally. Desmond Llewellyn (Q from the Bond movies) once wandered into our offices, convinced we were an audio dubbing suite, and I scored big. Oh yes: the celebrities come to you at Soho - you don't have to find them.

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Hot on the heels of yesterday's Wonder Stuff cat news comes an update: a more permanent tribute to Susan that really leaves a mark. Shudder.

The Adventurer - The Complete Series

by Network

I've been “radio silent” for the last few days. Judging from the fact I used the phrase “radio silent”, you might have thought I've been enjoying myself watching some gung-ho escapism like The Unit. You'd have been wrong. I've been watching the four DVD set of The Adventurer, prior to its release on Monday.

I'm not exactly sure what I did to deserve that particular fate. Like Earl in My Name is Earl, clearly I'm balancing out some particularly evil act in a former life - I'm hoping it was in a former life, because otherwise there's an act of genocide from my 20s I've repressed and you'd don't want to be bottling that kind of thing up.

Anyway, 26 half-hour episodes of quite some of the worst early 70s television later and I'm ready to rejoin the living again. You can read my review after the break, if you want. I'm going to be out and about most of next week, so I probably won't be blogging much, but you never know.

Continue reading "Review: The Adventurer"

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Weird. David Kelley, producer and creator of Ally McBeal, has bought the rights to make a US version of Life on Mars for ABC. In fact, if he doesn't, ABC will have the right to sue him.

Can't imagine how that's going to work out.

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Some didn't believe me, I know. But David Tennant is a big Doctor Who fan. Now here's some corroboration.

Witness for the prosecution: the fact he knows that the Doctor's home world, Gallifrey, is in the constellation of Kasterborous. I am vindicated.

PS Can you see the tumbleweeds blowing through where my life should be?

UPDATE: Ha! More proof.

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