Doctor Who

• BBC4 to air Verity Lambert tribute night

Film

• Who won which Oscars
• Odeon bans Rambo
• X-Files 2 talk from cast and crew
• There will be a Bourne 4
• Tom Cruise cameo for Star Trek?
• Iron Man to link up with The Avengers

Comics

• Mr T to feature in a graphic novel

British TV

• Moving Wallpaper spared from cancellation
• Longest ever commission for Taggart, just as Rebus is cancelled

US TV

• Rufus Sewell to take Patrick Stewart's role in Jerry Buckheimer remake of Eleventh Hour
• BBC America buys Primeval [free registration required]
• Six more episodes for Lipstick Jungle
• Three more episodes for Women's Murder Club
• Previews of the next Lost
• Jericho producers looking for a new home for the show

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Read other posts about: Jason Bourne, Jericho, Lost, Primeval, Star Trek

In the UK: Tuesdays, 9pm, BBC3. Repeated 11.30pm, 2.25am; Sunday 8pm, 12.30am
In the US: Nowhere yet, but who knows. Maybe Discovery or BBC America

Anyone fancy a game of monkey tennis?

That if, you'll recall, was one of Alan Partridge's last-ditch pitches to a BBC commissioner in an attempt to get his own TV show. It's easy to imagine a similar conversation taking place in Soho House, not so long ago, between a desperate producer, a little the worse for wear from white wine and 17 rejections, and a BBC3 commissioner looking for new shows.

“Anthropology Agro!” suggests the tipsy prod. “We send six buff men around the world. They meet all sorts of tribes and cultures. They learn about their lifestyles and their customs. Then they pick fights with them.”

“Hmm,” muses the somewhat patronising BBC3 commissioner. “We are the BBC. We are supposed to be educational and informative. Except we're BBC3. We're watched by chavs and morons and Torchwood fans – who are both chavs and morons. The only way we're going to get our target demographic of XYZ9s to be interested in another country and its culture is by sticking it in an XBox360 first-person shooter backdrop and making sure there are plenty of naked tribeswomen in it.”

Decided, she exclaims, “Brilliant! You're hired” and Last Man Standing is born.

Except, it's the BBC. It's too liberal to be sending the prime of British youth around the world to beat up the natives. That's too Raj, too Empire. We can't do that anymore.

So they've stuck in a couple of provisos.

1. Three of the six buff young athletes have to be American
2. They all have to be bollocks at fighting

Continue reading "Review: Last Man Standing 1x1"

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In the US: Sundays, Showtime, 10pm ET/PT
In the UK: Coming soon to Channel 4

Now here's curious. We have a co-production between UK network Channel 4 and US cable network Showtime. It's made by British production company Ecosse Films. It's filmed in Britain. It's set in Britain. It's cast is almost entirely British.

But it's airing in the US first.

How's that work then?

More to the point, it's also very British - very Channel 4, in fact –  which makes me wonder what Showtime sees in it. We have a family, headed by David Morrissey, who have to enter the witness protection programme. They wind up in Kent in a strange little town called Meadowlands populated by strange little people. And it's all very, very bleak – and very very strange.

Continue reading "Review: Meadowlands 1x1"

Read other posts about: Life on Mars, The Prisoner

In the US: CBS, at all sorts of times
In the UK: Not yet acquired

I've been getting an eerie sense of déjà vu watching this. It's not because this is a US version of the UK 2003 show, although maybe some of the animals are the same. It's because Aardman has been doing this show in various guises for a long time now.

Continue reading "Review: Creature Comforts 1.1"

In the US: ABC Family, Mondays, 8/7c
In the UK: Trouble TV at some point

Characters re-cast: 0
Major characters gotten rid of: Several
Major new characters: 2
Format change percentage: 25%

Ah, the Aspy propaganda show returns. Yes, the good-looking genius with poor social skills, muted emotional reactions, monotone voice, obsessive interests and an affinity for computers is once again back and boosting ABC Family's ratings through its (not especially high) roof.

Continue reading "Review: Kyle XY 2.1"

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In the US: Fox, but they're burning it off at a rate of knots so practically all the time now
In the UK: On Trouble TV at some point

Characters re-cast: 0
Major characters gotten rid of: 2
Major new characters: 2
Format change percentage: 25%

Oh dear. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with “Network interference”. It's no secret that Fox wasn't happy with the ratings for the first season of The Loop. But à la Tru Calling, they forked out the cash for a second season all the same. Then cancelled it before it even aired. Now they're burning off the episodes in their back catalogue as quickly as they can.

I can see why. They've been tinkering and messed it up.

Continue reading "Review: The Loop 2.1-2.2"

In the US: Sundays, 9/8c, SciFi
In the UK: Starts on Sky One, February 14th, 9pm

Sigh. I'm old, tired and jaded. I just can't ignore this singular problem any more. I've been around, I've watched a lot of tele. It takes a lot to impress me. Either that or The Dresden Files is just dull and derivative. I'm hoping it's the second option.

Continue reading "Review: The Dresden Files 1x01"

In the US: ABC Family, Mondays, 7/6c
In the UK: Nothing yet, but probably The Disney Channel

What is it that makes a programme a “family programme”? Well, obviously there can't be much swearing, sex or violence - can't have kids knowing about that. Or anything else adult. Or that corresponds much to the real world.

It can't be too complicated for the kids, either, or else they won't get it. So it can't deal with serious issues in a sophisticated way, no matter what it claims.

What to make then of Lincoln Heights? It's The Wire, but for a family audience. How does that work then?

Continue reading "Review: Lincoln Heights 1x01"

In the US: Starts Sunday, January 14th 8/7c, Fox
In the UK: Starts Sunday, January 21st 9pm, Sky One.

Characters re-cast: 0
Major characters gotten rid of: 1 so far
Major new characters: Loads. I've lost count. They'll be dead soon, though.
Format change percentage: 10%. Jack!

Mancrush.

It's a good word, isn't it? It means the perfectly normal feelings of admiration and envy a completely straight, heterosexual, utterly non-gay man might feel for another completely straight, heterosexual, utterly non-gay man.

Apart from anything else, it's good because it allows us men to make jokes about feelings we're not comfortable with - which we all love, right, because manly men like jokes? - and it conjures up far fewer bad thought-scenarios than the phrase “homo-erotic stirrings”.

There are many legitimate targets for mancrushes. Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, Gordon Ramsay: all acceptable. Milo Ventimiglia in Heroes? Absolutely not. That floppy haired girl's super secret superhero power is empathy, for Heaven's sake. Real men don't have empathy – everyone knows that.

Some mancrushes are acceptable at certain times but not at others. It's perfectly acceptable, for instance, to have a mancrush on Captain Jack in Doctor Who. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to have a mancrush on him in Torchwood. It's just unnatural at every level.

Then there's Jack Bauer. Once a time, he was the ultimate mancrush. Any self-respecting man could say he wanted to stay in to watch Jack Bauer, because, you know, he's just so hard and so dutiful and so stoic... The way he chopped off Chase's hand and only cried about it later... Let's face it, he's just so sway, isn't he?

But now, the first four episodes of the latest season of 24 have actually called this into question. Jack Bauer has become a girly-man.

Continue reading "Preview: 24 6x01-6x04"

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