Doctor Who

• As mentioned by Anna and Stu_N yesterday, Billie's back!

Film

• Why the ending of The Golden Compass is different from the book's
• Horror writers exorcise Warner Bros
• Heath Ledger as Joker pic leaked
• Indiana Jones pics
• Matthew Perry to become 17 again

British TV

• BBC, ITV and Channel 4 announce their joint VoD service
• Not Going Out gets a third series
• Jason Isaacs to play Harry H Corbett in season of comedy-greats biopics for BBC4

US TV

• Corbin Bernsen gets his own game show
• New KITT to be a Ford Mustang?
• No Jason Vorhees for Supernatural
• Moonlight to provide more vampire mythology

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There's a worrying new trend I've just started to notice. Its perpetrator is Channel 4.

As we all know, in the US, TV seasons tend to run from August/September through to May/June (give or take a month depending on which network the show's on, the show, whether it's a summer season show, etc). Now, with 22-24 episodes per season, that's still not enough to allow for new episodes every week. Sometimes, as with Lost and Daybreak, US networks will simply insert a new show into the time slot and then carry on with the old show.

But most of the time, they'll simply put on an old episode of the same show - hence the pressing need for gruff narrators to preface trailers with “next week on an all-new Woof the Sheepdog” or whatever, so that viewers know when a new episode rather than a re-run is going to be on.

This plays havoc with the ratings and annoys fans. But it doesn't seem to be stopping Channel 4 from trying it out for themselves.

Continue reading "Worrying new trend imported from the US"

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Doctor Who

• Pipes' Secret Diary of a Call Girl gets a second series and US networks are interested

Film

• Samuel L Jackson to play the Man That Rocks The Cradle and one of the Soul Men with Bernie Mac
• Two different versions of The Green Hornet have been written

British TV

• Virgin VoD gets more viewers than Five

US TV

• Casting and some plot from the Knight Rider remake
• How the final House three were picked [spoilers]
• Lipstick Jungle will air in ER's time slot
• Final completed Journeyman to air after all
• YouTube promos for The Wire featuring McNulty, Omar, Marlo and Carcetti

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Doctor Who

• Sean Pertwee would love to be the Doctor
• Corrie's Grey O'Brien to appear in Voyage of the Damned

Film

• John Cusack to star in psychological thriller
• Casting on Justice League continues

Radio

• Johnny Vaughan and Nick Hancock to star in Radio 4 drama

British TV

• No more 4oD once 'Kangaroo' launches (free registration required)
• Grange Hill being revamped - but getting original theme and titles back again (free registration required)
• ITV3 acquires Life (free registration required)
• Channel 4 to launch a clips web site (free registration required)
• Cast announced for Monastic's archaeology adventure series

US TV

• Real-life issues around number of House doctors [spoilers]
• All South Park episodes to go online for free
• Casting for ABC's buddy comedy pilot The More Things Change
• SciFi's Tin Man could become a series

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Read other posts about: House

Hot on today's/yesterday's news that Grange Hill is going to be revamped (free registration required) to focus on younger kids and return to the original comic strip titles and theme tune, I thought I'd focus a little on the misery of old age.

As you may – or may not – know, I've got one of those door stops aka Apple TVs that sits connected to my now somewhat senile television and serves up, among other things, all manner of goodies from Bastard, my Mac-based PVR.

I say “among other things” because it also has an Internet connection that allows it to stream YouTube videos directly to the TV as well.

Initially, I thought this was about as useful as a Marxist analysis of Katie and Peter Unleashed. But it's actually turning out to be quite fun, now that YouTube is slowly digitising all its old vids into an Apple TV-compatible format – assuming you can get over having to use one of those old arcade game-style on-screen keyboards to type out “prestidigitation” or whatever you happen to be looking for. Much better than crouching over a computer typing stuff into a web browser anyway. And some of the vids are almost crystal clear.

Being of a certain age, once I'd got over the excitement of the “Will it Blend?” guy, immediately started looking for clips from old kids' TV shows.

Tell you what - not only have times change, everything was a lot more sinister then.

Continue reading "The changing face of kids' TV"

Read other posts about: The Sarah Jane Adventures

He's great. Make him your Mayor.