The Medium is Not Enough TV blog

Possibly the worst written, most nonsensical scene in movie history

Rob Buckley — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:52:02 +0000

Unless you can think of a worse one. It's from 1987's Hard Ticket To Hawaii, by the way, which stars Wolf Larson who also starred in the worst ever TV show in history, LA Heat. I wonder if he's been cursed after excavated an ancient druid monument or something.

If that's whet your appetite, you can watch the 'best' bits if you have 10 minutes to waste. You may not be prepared for that degree of awesome, mind you, so ensure you're sitting down first:

Review: Hit and Miss (Sky Atlantic) 1x1

Rob Buckley — Fri, 25 May 2012 15:51:45 +0000

In the UK: Tuesdays, 10pm, Sky Atlantic
In the US: Acquired by DirecTV. Starts July 11

For many years, BSkyB has been seen by many in the UK as something of a scubby parasite. It earns a fortune from sports subscriptions and then what does it do with them? Uses them to price every other broadcaster out the sports market to make even more money, which is uses to acquire all the good US TV shows to make even more money (£6.6 billion in 2011). But does it make any programming itself? No, just tacky reality shows.

But the times, they are a changing. Sky may have poached all the good US TV shows, even signing an exclusive deal to acquire everything HBO makes and air it on a new channel Sky Atlantic, but now it's started to get into the business of making halfway decent, scripted TV shows. It's putting a real effort into comedy on Sky 1, it's got two more-than-halfway decent arts channels in the form of Sky Arts 1 and 2, and despite the confusing name on the tin, Sky Atlantic now has its first home-grown UK drama.

Created by Paul Abbott of Shameless fame and written by writer-film director Sean Conway (brilliantlove, Alex and Her Arse Truck (no really), Rabbit Stories and Kings of London), it's about a trans hitwoman who suddenly discovers she has a son by a former girlfriend. Chloë Sevigny - a Golden Globe-winning US actress who's best known for Showtime's Big Love but also for movies such as American Psycho, Lars von Trier's Dogville and Boys Don't Cry, in which she played a woman who falls in love with a trans man - is Mia, the hitwoman in question, who has to trundle off to meet her new family and to become both father and mother to them.

And unlike a lot of previous attempts by Sky at original programming, it's not half bad. Even though it also stars Jonas Armstrong from Robin Hood, it's about a trans hitwoman trying to raise a family in the Yorkshire Dales and it's called Hit and Miss. Clever, huh?

Here's a trailer.

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Friday's Sitting Tennant (week 21, 2012)

Rob Buckley — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:16:45 +0000

Find out what David's wearing this weekend, after the jump…

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A new episode of Doctor Who for you all

Rob Buckley — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:49:11 +0000

Okay, it was written by kids and is only three minutes long, but it does star Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, features the Weeping Angels and aired on TV yesterday(okay, CBBC).

Does that make it canon? Hee, hee…

[via]

HBO's The Newsroom: a new preview clip, this time featuring Jane Fonda

Rob Buckley — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:45:07 +0000

It's not the first promo, but this one for Aaron Sorkin's latest show about TV does have the benefit of Jane Fonda being in it. The series will air on HBO in the US June 24th and in the UK on Sky Atlantic in October.

Friday's "True Crime, NBC not bottom any more, and The Exorcist mini-series"news

Rob Buckley — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:37:02 +0000

Film

Jon Favreau returning for Iron Man 3
Mads Mikkelsen for Thor 2?
Modern Family's Eric Stonestreet joins Identity Theft

Trailers

Trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter [NSFW]
Trailer for The Apparition

UK TV

ITV1 commissions True Crime from the makers of The Bill
Seann Walsh, The InBetweeners' Blake Harrison, Caroline Quentin and James Fleet to star in Comedy Central pilot Big Bad World
Wednesday ratings: 6.2m viewers watch The Apprentice

US TV

New promo for the final season of The Closer
Fox, CBS, NBC and Dish sue each other over ad-skipper
Touch to have web series starring Sarah Roemer and 90210's Ryan Eggold
2011-12 ratings: The Voice saves NBC from last place for first time in eight years

New US shows

TV Land orders pilots of I'm Not Dead Yet, based on Israel's Zanzurim, and Brothers-in-Law
Jeananne Goossen off The Following
Pablo Schreiber off Made in Jersey
JoAnna Garcia joins Animal Practice
The Exorcist being developed as a mini-series

Nostalgia corner: Sapphire and Steel (1979-82)

Rob Buckley — Thu, 24 May 2012 16:22:01 +0000

All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic, heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel. Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.

Ironically, it was only a matter of time until I got round to Sapphire and Steel. Now I have the time, so let's delve into one of the coolest, scariest TV shows there's ever been on UK TV.

I say ironically, because Sapphire and Steel is a show about time - specifically, Time going wrong, usually as the result of things that live in the 'corridor of Time' but sometimes of its own volition. In the world of Sapphire and Steel - which is also our modern world or at least the modern world of the 1970s and 80s - Time is everywhere and it is the enemy. It wants to break in. It wants to trap you. It wants to steal your parents. It wants to eat your soul. And then it wants to do the same to everything and everyone you know.

And to stop the world as we know it being destroyed when this happens, mysterious entities, apparently named after the elements*, perhaps even the incarnations of the elements themselves, intercede using all kinds of weird, unexplainable powers.

However, if you think they're here to help us, you're sorely mistaken, because Sapphire and Steel, played by Joanna Lumley and David McCallum, are not like you and me. Even when they pretend to be on our side, to empathise with the predicaments of the mortal and human, they're not. And they're ever-so-willing to sacrifice every single one of us if necessary if they have to stop time. They have their own morality, their own rules and they don't care about us. But they're the only thing stopping history making us history, so do what they say.

Allow Sapphire to explain to the nature of Time to these annoying children and then follow me after the ever so scary title sequence to explain a little more about this most engrossing of shows:

Alternatively, there's this rather lovely documentary about the show.

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What the Community cast have been told to tell people about why Dan Harmon was fired

Rob Buckley — Thu, 24 May 2012 07:06:59 +0000

PR is a big part of the television world and it's always amusing when you get to see the nuts and bolts of it. NBC recently fired Community's showrunner, Dan Harmon. As is usual in such matters, they issued a memo about it, with one in particular addressed to the cast so they know what to say in public about the matter.

Entertainingly, the memo has leaked and everyone can see the kind of "robot speak" certain corporate PR people expect human beings to use. Don't they ever read this kind of thing out loud to themselves? Maybe they do and that's how they talk. A lot of them do, you know…

Remember: quirky actors are being asked to say these things to placate an intelligent audience.

Why did Dan get let go from the show?
We're not made aware of why staffing changes take place but I will always be grateful to Dan for his great work on the show and wish him only the best. We're also excited that we'll be back on NBC's schedule in the fall and are looking forward to working on those episodes.

Were you aware that Dan was going to be let go?
No, that's not something we're consulted on. I'm sad to see him go but I am looking forward to starting our next 13 episodes of "Community."

Did the studio or network consult with you about these changes?
No they didn't but we're looking forward to working with David Guarascio & Moses Port on a new season of Community.

What are their plans for the new season?
It's a little early to say at this point but we're looking forward the stories our characters will find themselves in come Sept.

Thursday's "Christopher Guest TV show?, Gary Oldman joins Robocop and Andrea Roth leaves Revolution" news

Rob Buckley — Thu, 24 May 2012 07:00:20 +0000

Films

Disney cancels live-action Snow White because of John Carter failure
Gary Oldman joins Robocop remake

Trailers

Trailer for The Watch with Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade

UK TV

Tuesday ratings: Silk continues with 5.3m viewers

US TV

Teaser trailer for Damages season 5
Christopher Guest working on TV show with Chris O'Dowd?
The Good Wife's Tim Guinee joins Homeland
Tuesday's ratings: Glee finishes with 7.6m viewers

US TV pilots

Andrea Roth out of Revolution
Stephanie March downgraded from regular on Made in Jersey

A bit of A Bit of Fry and Laurie - The Final Three

Rob Buckley — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:21:16 +0000

As you may have guessed from the launch of 'The Wednesday Play' earlier today, 'A bit of A Bit of Fry and Laurie' is coming to an end today – if you like something here, remember to leave a comment or 'like' it or it might go away (particularly if I'm running out of YouTube vids). I asked if anyone had any requests for the final video, and Aaron responded – although he couldn't decide which of three he'd like.

So here we go:

The Bishop and the Warlord… the sequel, which sees Hugh Laurie deploying his pre-House 'American' accent

Shoe brothel

And Gelliant Gutfright presents…

Of course, if you all still really love 'A bit of A Bit of Fry and Laurie', I'll move it to Tuesday. Or Friday. Let me know.

The Wednesday Play: Alice in Wonderland (1966)

Rob Buckley — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:51:01 +0000

Once upon a time, the TV schedules in UK were full of plays. There were strands including The Wednesday Play, Play For Today, Theatre 625, Armchair Theatre, Espionage, Out of the Unknown, Tales of the Unexpected, Play of the Week, Twentieth Century Theatre, The Sunday Night Play and I've barely scratched the surface.

Now, we have Playhouse Presents on Sky Arts and that's about it.

So today, in an effort to boost the 'play count', I'm starting a new strand on TMINE, appropriately entitled 'The Wednesday Play', that's going to feature a different classic play each week. Now, I could start with almost anything, but since we have a taste for the unusual round here, let's start with Jonathan Miller's 1966 adaptation for The Wednesday Play of Alice in Wonderland, starring John Gielgud, Peter Sellers, Michael Redgrave, Michael Gough, Leo McKern, Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Malcolm Muggeridge and Eric Idle.

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A faux Veep PSA commercial - and 'out-takes'

Rob Buckley — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:08:34 +0000

As usual with Veep, it's not as funny as you'd like it to be, but it's still funny. Not the PSA, which is intentionally dull, but the 'out-takes' afterwards.

[via]

The making of SyFy's Defiance

Rob Buckley — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:01:09 +0000

SyFy has a new show coming called Defiance set 35 years in the future after aliens have arrived on Earth. Weirdly, as well as being a TV show, it's also an online multi-player game that will interact with the show's storyline. Here's a great big movie about the making of both. Yes, sadly, it has Jaime Murray in it:

[via]

Damon Lindelof's very long, detailed defence of Lost and its finale

Rob Buckley — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:57:34 +0000

Lost has, amazingly enough, been off the air for two years now, but the controversy about its ending continues. Former co-showrunner Damon Lindelof is in the middle of promoting the movie Prometheus, which he also wrote, but took an amazing 25 minutes to argue and discuss the merits of the Lost season finale with a guy from On The Verge.

I'm not sure the guy in question nails the problems with the finale – and the fact he thought the entire series was imaginary is an obvious issue with his questioning. To me, the problem was that the explanations we got were just either inconsequential and lacked depth (okay there's a man in black and Jacob and their mum and a glowing light under the island. Is that genuinely what this is all about?) or they just didn't answer the questions that needed answering (how did Jacob pick everyone? How did the numbers work? What actually is the nature of the island?).

But what do you think?

Wednesday's "The Great Gatsby trailer, four Smash exits, and True Blood's Alan Ball replacement" news

Rob Buckley — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:22:13 +0000

Film

Natalie Portman to star in Jane Got A Gun
Tim Roth joins Jennifer Lynch's A Fall From Grace

Trailers

Interactive trailer for Snow White And The Huntsman
Trailer for Baz Lurhmann's The Great Gatsby with Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire

US TV

A Fringe regular won't be returning next season [minor spoilers]
Four actors leaving Smash [minor spoilers]
Joan Rivers to guest on Drop Dead Diva
Luck's Jason Gedrick to recur on Dexter
Mark Hudis to replace Alan Ball as True Blood showrunner
Monday ratings: House up for finale