NBC: 2010/11 premiere dates

NBC have now announced the premiere dates of their TV shows for the 2010/11 season.

Of the shows I'm interested in: Chuck (Mon 8pm, from 20 Sep), The Event (Mon 9pm, from 20 Sep) and Undercovers (Wed 8pm, from 22 Sep).

You can read the full list of dates here.

The Walking Dead: cast photo

AMC have released the first photo of The Walking Dead's cast (see above). The zombie series, adapted by Frank Darabont from the best-selling graphic novels, arrives this October on AMC in the US and FX in the UK. The pilot is actually being shown at the San Diego Comic-Con on 23 July, so expect lots of early reviews around that time.

Status update

As I mentioned earlier this week when I got back from Cyprus, I'm still technically on holiday, so that's why the quantity of posts is still much lower than usual. My plan is to catchup with True Blood and Persons Unknown this Saturday, for a probable Sunday review. Then I'll double-bill the Spartacus episodes I've missed for early next week. That should get me back ontop of things and next week should be a return to normality.

Still planning to season review The Good Wife and Firefly at some point this summer, and I may find time to review Inception this weekend. Oh, and Chris Howard promises he'll get me his review of last week's Desperate Housewives finale in the next few days, so there's that. So yes, lots of activity to come, hope the fortnight's relative slowness hasn't been too bothersome. The break does me good. I was pleased to find the blog's stats didn't slip while I was away, at any rate.

Torchwood: series 4 characters

We already know that series 4 of Torchwood is now a co-production between BBC, Starz and BBC Worldwide, but now comes firm news from Entertainment Weekly that three new characters are being added to the cast. They are: Rex Matheson, a "CIA agent born to make waves" with a "wicked" sense of humour; Oswald Jones, a convicted murderer and paedophile; and Esther Katusi, a young CIA agent "who learns what she's really made of only when she's forced to." The last two characters will be recurring, not regular. John Barrowman and Eve Myles will both return as Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper, respectively.

Update: Apparently, this casting call has just been denounced as "fake". The characters mentioned above are apparently part of the US version of Shameless that's being made. Other sources persist this news is real, but keep an ear out for more official BBC confirmation.

Doctor Who: Simpsonized

I always like seeing "cartoonized" celebrities, so was delighted to discover Dean T. Fraser's blog Springfield Punx because he regularly caricatures people in the iconic Simpsons style. Even better, he's been tackling Doctor Who this week (see above), so click here for many more.

'THAT MITCHELL & WEBB LOOK' 4.1

I used to follow this sketch show every week, breaking it down into sketches, but I'm not going to bother now. This opener for the fourth series was underwhelming, and it irritated me that David Mitchell and Robert Webb have chosen to stick with the Get Me Hennimore and Remain Indoors sketches, which both ran out of steam halfway through series 3. It also opened with a Fry & Laurie-esque moment with the duo standing in front of the live studio audience as "themselves", which for some reason just doesn't seem to work for Mitchell & Webb.

There were a few highlights (like a pedant who kept killing employees for their bad grammar during a pitch meeting, or Caesar being taught how to refer to himself in the third person, a mumbling actor who can't read the line "I don't know what you want anymore" with the required energy, and a scientist for Laboratoire Garnierre being chastised for using his skills to cure Alzheimer's), but even allowing for the "hit-and-miss" nature of sketch shows, this episode felt more weak than usual. And if it's true that all sketch shows broadcast their best half-hour first, to ensure viewers come back for a few more weeks at least, then I'm worried about series 4 as a whole. Still, as usual, Mitchell & Webb's work never patronizes its audience and doesn't rely on recycling jokes and catchphrases, so for that I'm grateful and will still be tuning in.

13 JULY 2010: BBC2, 9PM

Predators (2010)

A victim of the execrable Alien Vs Predator couplet, 1987 action classic Predator gets a second direct sequel, masterminded by Robert Rodriguez (Sin City) as an attempt to repair the franchise's damaged reputation. As exec-producer, Rodriguez's heart's in the right place; a half-decent premise based on his own unmade 1994 screenplay, brought to life with competent direction from Nimrod Antal (Armored), but Predators ultimately fails to deliver much beyond perhaps three enjoyable sequences that are boosted by residual fondness for this beleaguered franchise.

A group of human "predators" (mercenaries, killers) find themselves parachuted onto an alien world -- specifically a planetary "game reserve", where they soon realize they're the kidnapped prey for dreadlocked extra-terrestrial hunters. The strangers are the usual trash-talking stereotypes, spouting banter and rejoinders you can mouth along to: the lone wolf soldier (Adrien Brody), the tough Latina (Alice Braga), the silent Yakuza hitman (Louis Ozawa Changchien), the tribal savage (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), the grizzled Mexican (Danny Trejo), the stoical Russian (Oleg Taktarov), the Southern criminal (Walton Goggins), the timorous doctor (Topher Grace) and, later, the crazy black man (Laurence Fishburne, giving the funniest/worst performance of his career).

Like many sequels, Predators' attempt to provide something fresh yet in-keeping with the original works better on paper than in practice. The twist here is simple and pleasing enough ("baddie" humans on alien turf, facing multiple hunters) and while it's an inevitable direction to take it still inspires early feelings of promise. Sadly, so much of the movie fails to capitalize on its own potential -- perhaps not helped by a relatively low $40m budget and memories of Avatar's own alien jungle still fresh in pop-culture memory. Everything here feels curiously small-scale and unimaginative, and the movie struggles to compensate with anything creative in terms of storytelling and character. Even on a superficial level, the new Predator weaponry is scant and sorely disappointing, while the violence is largely timid. The movie features a scene where a man's skull and spine is ripped clean from his dead body, yet it somehow lacks any sense of actual horror.

Truth is, we as the audience are ten steps ahead of the characters for the first 40-minutes, before it becomes increasingly clear that the Predator mythology has been squeezed almost dry and there's nothing left to say of any substance. There are a few moments where the script throws up an enjoyable new angle on the mythos for fanboys to yelp at, or a sequence works because you're not entirely sure where the narrative's headed (although one key question is annoyingly left unanswered to provide a weak sequel opportunity), but for long stretches you're reminded that the franchise only really had enough mileage for one movie, and everything since has offered fans mild tweaks to the formula.

On the plus side: the Predator beasts themselves are physically closer to the creature from the first two movies (although I still hate how their oversized masks resemble bulky crash helmets nowadays); the CGI is used sparingly and visually improve on the tropes of the franchise (heat-vision, cloaking); there's a fairly enjoyable sense of alacrity to the plot, so the movie doesn't noticeably start to disintegrate until just after the halfway mark; and I enjoyed how the soundtrack reprised the drum-beatin' themes from the original's iconic OST.

But considering the surprise gathering of talented people for what amounts to a B-movie franchise that doesn't deserve or warrant a sequel, Predators is hobbled by a lack of ambition, cardboard characterisation, weak dialogue, obvious plotting, an absence of deep-rooted fear, the fact few of the humans are as badass as they're designed to be, and an open-ended climax that leaves you unsatisfied. When the dust settled after the ruckus, I just felt annoyed that I allowed myself to get my hopes up beforehand.

DIRECTOR: Nimród Antal
WRITERS: Alex Litvak & Michael Finch
CAST: Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, Oleg Taktarov, Louis Ozawa Changchien & Mahershalalhashbaz Ali
RUNNING TIME: 107 mins. BUDGET: $40m

Fox: 2010/11 premiere dates

Fox has announced premiere dates for the start of the 2010/11 season. Of those that interest me: Glee (Tue 8pm, from 21 Sep), Fringe (Thu 9pm, from 23 Sep) and Human Target (Fri 8pm, from 24 Sep). You can read the full list of dates here.

'THE IT CROWD' 4.3 - "Something Happened"

I'm just not enjoying the scattershot approach to this series of The IT Crowd. It all feels very uncontrolled and, worse, often leaves a few decent ideas floating around in a sea of tepid subplots. "Something Happened" was misnamed, as too many things happened over the half-hour, and very little of it made me laugh, and a few storylines actually frustrated me because they had potential for greatness if the episode hadn't been so busy...

This week, Roy (Chris O'Dowd) has a massage from a male masseuse who ended his session with a kiss on the backside, prompting Roy to suffer feelings of social embarrassment and outrage that a gay man may have pushed a boundary. A funny idea, taken to an amusing extreme with a silly court-room sequence towards the end, but I couldn't help feeling it was all too trivial and inconsequential. In the end, it felt like an idea that existed because O'Dowd sulking that someone had kisses his bottom is funny, to an extent.

Jen (Katherine Parkinson) landed an awkwardly set-up storyline where she fell head over heels for Norman, the gormless keyboard player with Sweet Billy Pilgrim, a band she saw play with Roy. Again, enormous potential with the idea of Jen falling in love with a geek who makes Moss (Richard Ayoade) appear extrovert and interesting, but beyond a few nice visuals (Jen and Norman's eyes first meeting across a club; their date on a children's roundabout), this storyline just didn't go anywhere very special. In fact, it got quite ludicrous once Jen had somehow become part of Norman's band. A shame, because had the episode focused on Jen/Norman, it may have been much improved.

Finally, Douglas (Matt Berry) had become a Spaceologist, in a parody of Cosmic Ordering (made famous by Noel Edmonds) that started interestingly with a Scientology-esque cheap video extolling the virtues of the New Age belief, but wound up being nothing but a weak way to do the same joke three times (that Douglas's faith is misplaced, because he's just making his own dreams come true through normal means). In many ways, this was the biggest disappointment of the episode, because a clever satirical swipe at Scientology and its ilk is always welcome in comedy, but Graham Linehan's writing's not really incisive enough to offer anything but surface giggles.

Overall, another flat episode in what's becoming a limp fourth series. I think there needs to be less storylines, more substance, and cleverer ways of knitting each strand together. As it is, I'm laughing at a few moments (Moss getting out popcorn and a drink to hear juicy gossip), and I'm still enjoying O'Dowd and Parkinson's performances, but the jokes aren't really hitting their targets for me, and too many great ideas are being wasted under the weight of too much narrative and subplots struggling to leave an impression given the time constraints of half an hour.

I was never a devout fan of The IT Crowd, but I swear it used to be better than this.

Aside

• Sweet Billy Pilgrim are a real band from Aylesbury, England

WRITER & DIRECTOR: Graham Linehan
CAST: Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson & Matt Berry
TRANSMISSION: 9 July 2010 - CHANNEL 4, 10PM

Primeval: series 4 cast photo

Primeval returns next January to ITV1/HD, and a photo of the cast has been released (above). From left to right; Hannah Spearritt as Abby, Andrew Lee Potts as Connor, Ciarán McMenamin as Matt, Ben Mansfield as Becker, and Ruth Kearney as Jess.