Film
- Oliver Stone to make George Bush biopic?
- Sarah Michelle Gellar rules out a Buffy film
- Cloverfield got $41 million in its opening weekend
- Chris Pine talks about being the new Captain Kirk
Radio
- Radio 4 celebrates Paddington's 50th birthday
Theatre
- Michael Barrymore to play Spike Milligan in stage debut
British TV
- Beeb adapting Tess of the D'Urbervilles [free registration required]
- BSkyB ups its stake in Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine
US TV
- Selma Blair and Molly Shannon lined up to play Kath and Kim for NBC
- CBS drops 20 development projects because of writers' strike
- NBC close to cancelling Upfronts [free registration required]
- Brotherhood picked up for a third season
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January 22, 2008 | Reply
I don't know whether or not I should take that as a hopeful sign, that NBC - one of the "Big Six" in the AMPTP - has cast a show that they don't have any writers for yet. Maybe it means they think the strike will soon be over?
And I'm curious, Rob - is the WGA strike having any effect on the TV landscape over there? Or have the shows of our current TV season have yet to be even shown in the UK?
January 22, 2008 | Reply
I was going to put up a little post a while back, recapping which shows to look out for on UK TV from the new crop. But so far, I think Journeyman is the only new show that's been on and of course that's already been cancelled. The rest have still to even have air-dates announced, which is why I've held off. I think the networks are holding off from showing them until the strike's over, and since they've been reducing their acquisitions budgets and concentrating on home-grown stuff recently, they've been less reliant on US shows, anyway.
The only thing it is affecting from our point of view are the returning shows, such as Lost, Prison Break and Ugly Betty, but they're relatively few and far between. And all that means is they're holding off from showing the latest seasons of the shows. Even Five US, which only shows US programmes, can pretty much keep broadcasting CSI, Mission: Impossible and Happy Days re-runs until the cows come home.
As for Kath and Kim, that's a remake of an Australian show that's been running for ages over there (and here). I imagine they could take the scripts and pretty much remake them as is, or even get the Aussies to rewrite them for them. Although there have been various calls by writers over here to support the writers in the US by not working on anything for the US networks, I don't know if there's been a similar move in Australia.