Review: MTV's THE SHANNARA CHRONICLES

★★★☆☆

Adapted from a trilogy of novels by author Terry Brooks, published between 1977-1985, The Shannara Chronicles is a lavish fantasy epic from MTV, written by Smallville creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Those writers were also responsible for the movies Shanghai Knights, Spider-Man 2 and Lethal Weapon 4, and more recently created the AMC TV series Into the Badlands, so they clearly have a bedrock of experience with projects and subject-matter a show like Shannara requires.

Trailer: MTV's SCREAM – THE SERIES

MTV have given audiences a first taste of their new SCREAM television series, based on the successful film saga by writer Kevin Williamson and director Wes Craven. This confirms the series will be taking place in a different town, Lakewood, and begins with a cyber-bullying incident that leads to murder and triggers a killing spree. Not too much here that was funny or memorably gruesome, but I liked the self-aware narration about slasher movies not making good TV shows, and a brief glimpse of the new-Ghostface mask was promising. It resembles the iconic one (which they can't use because of a copyright issue), but with a rubbery Michael Myers vibe.

MTV's SCREAM series won't involve Ghostface, so is it really SCREAM?

The good news? MTV recently ordered 10 episodes of a new television horror drama based on the successful SCREAM movie saga. I'm excited about this because I think the concept could work on television, and it's being developed by Jill Blotevogel (who wrote for Harper's Island, which was a very Scream-esque CBS drama from 2008 that only lasted a season).

The bad news? The Scream TV series won't debut until October 2015, despite the fact they started filming the pilot three months ago, so we still have a whole year to wait. (You wonder if this would be the case if it didn't make marketing sense to launch it around Halloween time.)

MSN TV Review: THE INBETWEENERS [USA]

Today at MSN TV, I've reviewed the American remake of British comedy phenomenon THE INBETWEENERS, which started its first season on MTV last Monday. Will it recapture the magic of the original and echo its success Stateside? Well, probably not.

"Britain can take solace in the fact the best teenage drama and comedy of recent times has come from our shores: Skins and The Inbetweeners. MTV have now remade both for America, but the problem remains that these shows were very British reactions to a genre dominated by US pop-culture (all prom nights, liquor stores, and toga parties). In the case of The Inbetweeners, the subject matter and setup may be universal, but it was particularly refreshing from a UK perspective because the milieu and language was tailored to a home audience gorged on too much American Pie. The problem with MTV's Inbetweeners isn't that it's bad, just that it offers nothing unique for the culture that spawned what the UK show subverted." Continue reading...