I'm back, sort of...

I've landed in the UK from sunny Paphos, Cyprus! I now have a mountain of emails to get through and gossip to catch-up on, although you'll be pleased to know the week-long pursuit of Raoul Moat was known to me thanks to the (atrocious) coverage from Sky News. It'll take me a few days to unwind, and perhaps longer until I'm able to catch-up on everything I missed and post some reviews. I'm not expecting to have DMD back to "normal" until the weekend, really, but there will probably be more news-based posts and whatnot this week.

But hey, what did I miss?

TV Picks: 5-11 July 2010 (Antiques Master, Dive, My Family, The Old Guys, The Sex Education Show, University Challenge, and more...)

MONDAY 5th

University Challenge (BBC2, 8pm) Return of the long-running academic quiz show. Hosted by Jeremy Paxman.
Antiques Master (BBC2, 8.30pm) Six-part series to find an antiques expert. Presented by Sandi Toksvig, featuring Eric Knowles.
The Sex Education Show: Am I Normal? (Channel 4, 9pm) Four-part sex education series, featuring Anna Richardson and Dr Radha Modgil.

TUESDAY 6th

Gok's Fashion Fix (Channel 4, 8pm) New series where Gok Wan gives people fashion makeovers.

WEDNESDAY 7th

The Private Life Of Cows (BBC2, 8pm) Three-part series with Jimmy Doherty reveals the hidden lives of farmyard animals, starting with cows.
In Loving Memory (BBC2, 9pm) Documentary about the modern "tradition" of leaving shrines at the site of roadside accidents.

THURSDAY 8th

Dive (BBC2, 9pm) Two-part teen love story about a 16-year-old Olymping diving hopeful. Stars Aisling Loftus, Jack O'Connell, Chanel Cresswell, Ewan Bremner, Gina McKee & Kate Dickie.
iTunes Festival 2010 (ITV2, 10pm) Live coverage of the 2010 music festival, featuring Ellie Goulding, Scissors Sisters & N-Dubz.

FRIDAY 9th

My Family (BBC1, 9pm) Return of the family sitcom. Starring Robert Lindsay, Zoe Wanamaker & Daniela Denby-Ashe.
The Old Guys (BBC1, 9.30pm) Return of the sitcom about two elderly delinquents. Stars Clive Swift, Roger Lloyd Pack & Jane Asher.

SATURDAY 10th

Nothing.

SUNDAY 11th

Nothing.

Summer Intermission: 3-13 July

It's time for another holiday! Unlike my usual breaks, where I'm in the country and can't resist blogging every few days, this time I'm going to be in sunny Cyprus from 3-13 July for my brother's wedding. Consequently, DMD will be almost completely dead for nine days straight. That's unheard of!

My TV Picks will auto-post on Monday, but that's it. I'll be without a computer and internet while I'm away, so DMD will be in stasis. But hey, why not take this opportunity to peruse my archive of film/TV reviews? There's plenty there you probably haven't read, stretching all the way back to 2006.

And with that: I'll see you in a week or so!

(Please, don't wreck the joint while I'm away).

'THE IT CROWD' 4.2 – "The Final Countdown"

Well, it was better than last week's premiere (thanks to a much better second-half, mainly) but I still think The IT Crowd's missing some inspiration, and the storytelling often jumps around like a drunken flea. Regardless, the idea of Moss (Richard Ayoade) becoming a prestigious contestant on iconic teatime quiz Countdown was great, and writer Graham Linehan certainly had fun with his bizarre take on the show's geeky subculture -- with Moss indoctrinated into the "8+" club by Benedict Wong's Morpheus-like quiz champion. The episode definitely felt confident when it was exploring a nightclub of cardigan-wearing nerds, feted by beautiful babes, using nicknames like "Word" and "Negative One". But the rest of the episode? Spluttering antics, at best.

Roy (Chris O'Dowd) was stuck in one of those "mistaken identity" larks we've already seen on The IT Crowd countless times, digging a deeper hole for himself in his attempt to correct things. Remember when everyone thought he was a disabled man at the theatre? Here comes the less-funny sequel. It all started when Roy bumped into an old friend on the street who revealed he's now an award-winning programmer, only to later give his friend the wrong impression that he's a humble window cleaner. Contrivances ensued with Roy being seen riding around on a window cleaner's bike (his own, incomprehensible window cleaner had implausibly left it behind), and having to be rescued from a rooftop on a window cleaner's cradle just when his friend was passing by below. I get that the joke is sometimes how ludicrous scenarios can be on The IT Crowd, but is that equally an excuse for weak construction? Either way, it felt especially lame, laboured and predictable here.

Worse came from Jen (Katherine Parkinson), who essentially had two-minute sketch stretched over the episode. Jen found out she wasn't invited to Douglas' (Matt Berry) twice-weekly heads of department meeting any longer, which looked suspiciously lewd because Douglas was seen wearing a towel and looking sweaty in his doorway. But the twist was that Jen's boss has been holding an Eric Prydz-esque aerobics class for his employees, which Jen managed to sneak into and immediately regretted because it was exhausting. Quite why the oversexed Douglas wouldn't want hot redhead Jen to attend his class, or why he wasn't too fussed when Jen did manage to gatecrash, is anyone's guess. Or rather, the joke wouldn't have worked if it had followed the truth of the character.

Fortunately, the aforementioned storyline with Moss took antecedence this week and delivered funny lines and silly asides very well. I'm not sure how well this joke will travel overseas (Countdown's a peculiarly British phenomenon in geekdom), but I think it was handled well enough that foreign fans will understand the basic ridiculousness of a cosy intellectual quiz show inspiring a Fight Club-esque "street" version.

Overall, "The Final Countdown" was perfectly fine when focusing on Moss, but incredibly flat everywhere else. And if I'm honest, even the Countdown plot didn't go anywhere unexpected or interesting, although guest-star Benedict Wong was absolutely marvellous and effortlessly stole the show. It was just a shame his character's mysterious entrance and villainous tone wasn't built on, because I became less interested when it became clear he was a goodie and the story instead introduced a street talkin' youth to antagonize Moss.

Asides

• I hope every self-respecting geek knows Moss paraphrased Rowdy Roddy Piper's line from They Live, with "I came here to drink milk, and kick ass... and I just finished my milk." Sorry, Mr Linehan, but you can't claim that.
• Benedict Wong. You may recognize him from Look Around You, Sunshine and Moon (where he actually co-starred with Matt Berry). Or, for HD viewers of Doctor Who, he's in that kid's show Spirits Warriors that airs before it on Saturdays.
• I can't, in all honesty, hate something that at least exposes Rachel Riley to the wider world.
  

WRITER & DIRECTOR: Graham Linehan
GUEST CAST: Benedict Wong & Giles Brandreth
TRANSMISSION: 2 JULY 2010 – CHANNEL 4/HD, 10PM

Better Off Ted on FX

FX have picked up the UK rights to Better Off Ted, the US comedy about a bunch of scientists employed by an evil company. The show ran for two seasons (a total of 24 episodes, with two unaired) before being cancelled earlier this year. I haven't seen it myself, but I've heard great things, so I will likely be covering this series when it starts on 27 July @9PM.

Disney's Doctor Who

Disney/BBC are fast-tracking a 3-D Doctor Who movie starring Johnny Depp for 2012 (see poster above). Actually, don't panic... they're not. This is just spookily plausible concept art from io9.com. Phew! Pay no attention to the abundance of silly rumours floating around the internet just now; this happens every year, almost as if people are intentionally trying to keep Doctor Who in the public's thoughts durings its off-air months.

'DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES' 6.22 – "The Ballad Of Booth"

Guest reviewer Chris Howard continues his weekly reviews of Desperate Housewives' sixth season on Channel 4...

[SPOILERS] The first part of season six's double-whammy finale, "The Ballad Of Booth" was a marked improvement over last week's lagging instalment, providing audiences with an engrossing and well-paced blend of suspense and perfectly-plotted drama, with a sly comedic gloss to still justify the "quirky" label forever hanging around Desperate Housewives's neck.

Serial killer Eddie Orlofsky (Josh Zuckerman) felt it was high-time to get out of the Scavo's house -- and Fairview -- when the bodies of two of his victims are uncovered in the woods. Fingers instantly point to murdered Irina's almost-groom, Preston (Max Carver), but he is soon released after answering some questions regarding his European vacation. Lynette (Felicity Huffman) is slow to join the dots when the police reveal Eddie's AWOL mother has also been dug up, and her compassion for the awkward recluse leads her into his house to break the news he already knows. Things do not look good for poor Lynette as the nervy murderer locks the front door, although we can safely assume that one of the four main stars will not be killed off next week -- especially not as Lynette is heavily pregnant. That said, I am still riveted by this tense storyline and keen to find out what fate awaits a cornered Eddie, especially given his affection for his former saviour...

From one hostage situation to another and vengeful Patrick Logan (John Barrowman) is living with a permanently handcuffed Angie Bolen (Drea De Matteo) while her husband lies recovering in hospital from last week's hit and run. Patrick wants his former lover and protest partner to make another bomb, just like the one that resulted in an unanticipated loss of life and 20 uneasy years on the run. Angie, obviously, is having none of it, but then Patrick pulls an ace from his set and tricks their son, Danny (Beau Mirchoff), into returning from his safe house -- now Patrick has leverage, and a lot of very dangerous terrorist equipment in his possession.

The tension in this sinister storyline was punctuated by humorously uncomfortable visits from Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria Parker), desperate to make hubby Carlos (Ricardo Chavira) a lasagne for his birthday using Angie's traditional Italian recipe. Quite why Gaby didn't call on professional catering queen Bree (Marcia Cross) instead is unclear, but then she would have had zero involvement in this climatic episode -- and we couldn't have that! However, her involvement did allow Angie a ray of hope when the terrified hostage was able to slip an S.O.S note inside Gaby's test batch, and for Carlos to make what seemed like a arbitrary callback to season 1 when referencing his mother being killed in a hit-and-run accident on Wisteria Lane (clearly they have a lot of them in the suburbs).

Ah, but nothing is said without reason in such an intricately-structured drama as this, and by the end of the episode, this necessary prompt to the audience was being exploited in a clever and quite unexpected way: the Hodge clan desperately want dishonest imposter Sam Allen (Sam Page) out of their lives for good, but after Orson (Kyle MacLachlan) and Andrew's (Shawn Pyfrom) banter about using violence fails to impress passive Bree (although Orson's attempt to "hurt" Andrew while in a wheelchair certainly made me chuckle), she tries to pay off her former favourite employee, only for Sam to be hugely insulted and threaten to disclose a dark family secret (something about Andrew being involved in a hit and run some years back..? See what they did there?) if Bree fails to sign over her entire cuisine company to he ex husband's illegitimate son. It is certainly cooking up to be a tense and interesting conclusion for this late starter of a story arc.

Now for the necessary dose of comic relief, delivered in "The Ballad Of Booth" by typically reactionary Susan Mayer (Teri Hatcher), in a bid to claim back some of her financially struggling husband's (James Denton) wages from his equally hard up customers. How apt in a recession. When turning on the waterworks fails to get the required result, Susan gets tough and overly-hyped on an altogether successful adrenaline rush. It was vaguely funny to watch Susan's blunt tactics dissolve into bullying, but it is all in vain when an IRS agent (Dan Sachoff) reveals that their deadline for repayment of Mike's loans has been moved forward, leaving them with no option but to sell their house and move out of Wisteria Lane and into an apartment. Like with Lynette's predicament, Susan is not leaving the show, so whether she leaves behind her plush suburban house to "slum it" for a few episodes or not, the Desperate Housewives cast will be back for more next year. The Bolen's, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about...

WRITER: Bob Daily
DIRECTOR: Larry Shaw
GUEST CAST: John Barrowman, Josh Zuckerman, Sam Page, Shawn Pyfrom, Max Carver, Rick Pasqualone, David Reivers, Vic Polizos, Karl Makinen, Christopher Darga, Dan Sachoff & Angee Hughes
TRANSMISSION: 30 JUNE 2010 - CHANNEL 4/HD, 9PM

Persons Unliked

NBC are moving Persons Unknown from Monday night to Saturdays after the fifth episode on 5 July, picking up on 17 July. The 13-part series debuted with a paltry 1.4 million viewers and has fallen to a disastrous 0.9m after just one month.

I'm not a huge fan of what I've seen so far of this series, but it doesn't deserve those figures. Maybe people aren't interested in getting involved with another long-running TV mystery, unaware it has a finite lifespan of thirteen hours? I wonder if it would have done better if NBC had marketed it as a miniseries? Also, I'm surprised by how many sci-fi fans I know who have no idea it's even on, so clearly NBC's marketing didn't find the show's natural audience.

Anyway, of the 1.4m who did tune into episode 1, they appear to be jumping ship it at an alarming rate every week, so the show is clearly not appealing to many people. I have to agree it's fallen way below my expectations given Christopher McQuarrie's involvement. I'm actually now relieved we never got to see McQuarrie's movie update of The Prisoner, if this show is effectively all his unused ideas snowballed into a project that doesn't tread on intellectual property.

I wonder if Persons Unknown will be left to reach its finale on Saturday, or if NBC will take the drastic step of cutting their losses if ratings worsen, forcing the fans it has to buy the DVD on 31 August just to see the remainder? I sincerely hope not.

'SPARTACUS: BLOOD & SAND' 1.6 - "Delicate Things"

[SPOILERS] After last week's surprisingly enjoyable instalment, I was actually psyched to see how the story would progress with "Delicate Things". The good news is that this episode definitely maintained the quality, as Spartacus (Andy Whitfield) used his newfound celebrity status (vanquisher of the mighty Theokoles) to plan an escape from slavery.

Batiatus (John Hannah) announced the discovery and safe retrieval of Spartacus' wife Sura (Erin Cummings), giving Spartacus a day to prepare for her arrival at the ludus. He used the time to ensure he'll have the ideal opportunity to escape, by using his own money to pay for a night of debauchery for his fellow gladiators and guards (so they'll be hung-over and easier to defeat the next morning), then drugging trainer Doctore (Peter Mensah) by stealing medicine the severely injured Crixus (Manu Bennett) is being treated with.

Concurrently, Batiatus learned that the little boy he ordered Barca (Antonio Te Maioho) to kill last week has been found alive -- meaning that once Magistrate Calavius (John Bach) questions the boy about who killed his family, the finger will be pointed at Barca, and in turn Batiatus. Ashur (Nick Tarabay) overheard Barca assuring his lover Pietros (Eka Darville) that he spared the boy's life and passes the information on to Batiatus, who takes it at face-value and decides to have Barca savagely killed for his misguided act of mercy. Unfortunately, a cruel twist in the tale came when Calavius arrived to give Batiatus the bad news that the discovered boy wasn't the right one, meaning Barca has been brutally killed over a simple lack of trust.

Spartacus: Blood & Sand is starting to do a much better job with its storylines, offering us simple but effective plots that deal in such universal themes and juicy treachery that you can't help but enjoy them. This episode cast Batiatus in a much darker shadow than ever before; shrugging off the unnecessary murder of Barca as a simple "misunderstanding", before revealing the full extent of his despicable nature by having Sura murdered shortly before her arrival, so that his debt to Spartacus to reunite him with his wife would be paid, but in a manner that would keep this most lucrative warrior exactly where he is.

And I have to admit, I didn't expect the show to have already given Spartacus such stature amongst the gladiators, or for Sura to have died halfway through the season. I'm not sure if both developments are unexpectedly brave moves, or premature and misguided mistakes, but it's certainly left me less sure about where the remainder of the season is headed. Which is a good thing, if it leads to somewhere interesting. I just worry that the death of Sura has eliminated the only tangible emotional touchstone to Spartacus's character, who is arguably a thinner character than a supporting player like Crixus (who has a more appealing love-triangle storyline).

Overall, "Delicate Things" was another very good episode (from Tracy Bellomo and Andrew Chambliss, who have a good pedigree), in how it balanced the bloodshed and plot very nicely. It's funny how you become desensitized to things too, as seeing Lucretia's (Lucy Lawless) breasts during a scene where her husband's discussing events while having sex with a slave girl has almost become passé. And I think the show's doing a good job developing some interesting relationships amongst the people of the ludus (both masters and servants), with this episode bringing Ashur's character to the fore and making us realize the apparently noble and honourable Batiatus is just as selfish and corrupt as the rest.

WRITERS: Tracy Bellomo & Andrew Chambliss
DIRECTOR: Rick Jacobson
GUEST CAST: Manu Bennett, Peter Mensah, Nick Tarabay, Jai Courtney, Antonio Te Maioho, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Erin Cummings, Eka Darville, John Bach, Lliam Powell, Mark Mitchinson, Matt Gillanders, Raicho Vasilev, Siaosi Fonua & David Austin
TRANSMISSION: 28 JUNE 2010 - BRAVO, 10PM

DVD/Blu-ray Releases: July 2010 (Ashes To Ashes, Breaking Bad, Clash Of The Titans, The Crazies, Generation Kill, Green Zone, Percy Jackson, White Collar, and more...)

5 JULY

Ashes To Ashes: Series 3 [DVD] (** out of four)
Ashes To Ashes: Complete Box-set [DVD] (**1/2 out of four)
Doctor Who: Series 5, Volume 2 [BLURAY] [DVD] (*** out of four)
Generation Kill: Complete Series [BLURAY]
Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief [BLURAY] [DVD]
Predator (Ultimate Hunter Edition) [BLURAY] (**** out of four)
Stargate Universe: Season 1 [BLURAY] [DVD]

6 JULY

White Collar: Season 1 [DVD]

12 JULY

Clerks [BLURAY]
Green Zone [BLURAY] [DVD]
Green Zone (Limited Edition Steelbook) [DVD]
Leap Year [BLURAY] [DVD]
I Love You Phillip Morris [BLURAY] [DVD]
The Bounty Hunter [BLURAY] [DVD]
The Ricky Gervais Show: Series 1 [DVD] (** out of four)
Waking The Dead: Series 8 [DVD]
Youth In Revolt [DVD]

19 JULY

The Blind Side [BLURAY] [DVD]
Chloe [BLURAY] [DVD]
The Crazies [BLURAY] [DVD]
From Paris With Love [BLURAY] [DVD]
How I Met Your Mother: Season 4 [DVD]
Kevin Bishop Show: Series 2 [DVD] (*1/2 out of four)
The Karate Kid [BLURAY] (**** out of four)
The Karate Kid Part II [BLURAY] (*1/2 out of four)
Nanny McPhee / Nanny McPhee & The Big Bang [BLURAY] [DVD]
Scrubs: Season 8 [DVD]
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo [BLURAY] [DVD]

26 JULY

Brotherhood: Season 1 [DVD]
Breaking Bad: Season 2 [DVD] (*** out of four)
Clash Of The Titans [BLURAY] [DVD]
Remember Me [BLURAY] [DVD]
The Spy Next Door [BLURAY] [DVD]