MSN TV: Sky Atlantic's MAD MEN, 6.1-2 - 'The Doorway'

Over at MSN TV today: I review the feature-length season 6 premiere of AMC's MAD MEN, which made its UK debut on Sky Atlantic last night. This an incredibly difficult show to review with an imposed word-limit, but I hope you enjoy it.

"The Doorway", Mad Men's sixth season opener, continued last year's key theme with Don increasingly aware of his mortality and inability to mend his ways. A Hawaiian vacation with beautiful wife Megan (Jessica Paré), as part of research for a Sheraton Hotels campaign, only served to remind him that she's a bad match; too young and too happy-go-lucky. And then there was the chance meeting with a soldier who'd willingly trade places with him - an unsettling echo of his own identity-switch from Dick Whitman to Don Draper (he even accidentally took the man's lighter; a device responsible for killing the real Don Draper in Korea many years ago).

Continue reading at MSN TV...

Video: THE WALKING DEAD - Season 3 Visual Effects Reel (NSFW)

I sometimes post videos that visualize how a TV show managed to pull off its impressive visual effects, usually focused on the imperceptible trickery of Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire. But this one focuses on AMC's zombie drama The Walking Dead, revealing in a gruesome three-minutes how Stargate Studios pulled off the show's many, many, many zombie kills. Seriously, if you were disappointed by the lack of heads and arms being chopped off in previous years, they were clearly saving all that for the third season. Away from the zombies, it also reminds you just how much the show relies on digital buildings and landscapes to bring its apocalyptic world to vivid life.

(Warning: the above video contains non-stop scenes of graphic violence, potential spoilers for UK viewers, and loud music to wake grandad up.)

Chloe Sevigny in THOSE WHO KILL remake

The brilliant Chloe Sevigny (Big Love, Hit & Miss) is taking the lead in A&E's Those Who Kill, adapted from the 2011 Danish series Den som dræber by Glen Morgan (The X Files, Millennium); a show originally inspired by the crime novels of Elsebeth Egholm. The US pilot will be directed by Joe Carnahan (Narc, The Grey).

Those Who Kill centres on a crime unit specialising in serial murder, with Sevigny playing a workaholic detective with an "innate understanding of the mind of a killer", driven by a suspicion her stepfather killed her missing 16-year-old brother. She'll be joined by James D'Arcy (Secret Diary of a Call Girl), playing a forensic psychiatrist who helps her with murder cases, but finds himself dragged into her own personal investigation.

I haven't seen the Danish original, but some of this sounds intriguing. Hopefully it will do better than AMC's remake of The Killing, which replicated the look and feel of the Danish series extremely well... but never got a firm grasp of the plotting. I'll be watching Those Who Kill, if only because Sevigny's a very interesting screen presence. What about you?

Audioboo: BATES MOTEL - episode 1-4

Embedded below is my latest boo, this one offering brief thoughts on A&E's Psycho prequel BATES MOTEL (having now watched the first four episodes). I think these recordings are getting better as I get more confident with them, but it could be my imagination.

Some people appear to enjoy them anyway, and have been very encouraging. The fact they're easy to do has a definite appeal, too. I'm still contemplating exactly how best to use them, but it's likely they'll be embedded in my Doctor Who reviews, and used to briefly cover TV shows I struggle to find time to write about, but am watching weekly.

(I'm also going to buy a proper microphone.)

TV Picks: 8-14 April 2013 (Being Human USA, Britain's Got Talent, Mad Men, The Prisoners, The Real Hustle: New Recruits, The Security Men, etc.)

Below are my picks of the week's most notable TV shows, premiering/returning to UK screens...

DOCTOR WHO, 7.7 - 'The Rings of Akhaten'

Neil Cross is a new writer to the Doctor Who family, having made his name with Spooks before establishing it thanks to the runaway success of Luther. I was rather looking forward to seeing what a writer with his dark and twisted sensibilities would bring to the show, but "The Rings of Akhaten" delivered very little beyond unconvincing alien mythology, melodramatics, and more than its fair share of nonsense.

ARGUMENTELLY: movie-to-TV adaptations

Dirty Dancing: but which one's dirtier?

Apologies for the fortnight's delay, but I did say this Argumentelly would only be semi-recurring.

If you recall, the last instalment asked 'Are television adverts good or bad?'

Rob D Webster argued for their greatness and 27.2% of you agreed with him. I argued the opposite and the majority 72.7% sided with me. So I won! I will crack open a bottle of champagne this afternoon.

This week, there's a new topic up for discussion. 'Are movies adapted into television shows a good idea?' First up, making the case that they're most definitely NOT, is prolific freelance writer Daniel Bettridge:

TV Review: NBC's HANNIBAL - 'Apéritif'

Thomas Harris is largely responsible for creating modern serial killer fiction with his 1981 novel Red Dragon, later turned into the Michael Mann movie Manhunter. His 1988 follow-up, The Silence of the Lambs, made that belief unquestionable after Jonathan Demme adapted it into an Oscar-winning movie. From then, the pop-culture dominance of serial killers being cruel and unstoppable forces of nature (Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Friday the 13th, Halloween) took a back-seat, as audiences were suddenly bewitched by the dichotomy of killers demonstrating sharp intelligence and sophisticated tastes. Lecter was a modern-day Dracula.

TV didn't ignore this trend, most notably in the 1990s work of Chris Carter: Harris's books were undoubtedly an influence on the FBI backdrop for The X Files, although it was the less-successful Millennium that was more indebted to Red Dragon (both in its focus on 'human monsters' and the quasi-psychic gift of its lead investigator).

MSN TV: ITV's SCOTT & BAILEY (Series 3)

Over at MSN TV today: I've reviewed the third series premiere of ITV's detective drama SCOTT & BAILEY, starring Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp.

These days viewers are bombarded with glossy crime dramas of amazing narrative complexity and visual panache; from the various CSI spin-offs, to home-grown hits like Sherlock, or European favourites such as The Killing. Scott & Bailey takes an entirely different approach, with screenwriter Sally Wainwright choosing to emphasise the less "juicier" aspects of a procedural format. In this episode you'd have expected to see a bloody crime scene and perhaps a glimpse of an old lady's severed head, but audiences were denied such shallow pleasures.

Continue reading at MSN TV...

Audioboo: THE WALKING DEAD (season 3)

Enough people responded with encouraging thoughts and advice about my first Audioboo, so I thought I'd give it another go...

This one covers The Walking Dead's third season, which finished on AMC last Friday. (There are no spoilers for UK viewers, don't worry.) It was impossible to cover everything in three-minutes, obviously, but there you have it. I'm still trying to work out exactly how these 'boos work best for me, too -- maybe only to cover things I don't write about? Or for big premieres and finales?

It's all a learning process right now, but I think this second one's slightly better. I've started to think it may be an idea to work from some notes, as this is all very impromptu at the moment!