Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (2009) [Blu-ray]

WRITERS & DIRECTORS: Phil Ford & Chris Miller
(based on the book by Judi Barrett & Ron Barrett)
VOICES: Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan & Bruce Campbell
RUNNING TIME: 90 mins. BUDGET: $100m

Very loosely based on a children's book by Judi Barett that I'm totally unaware of, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (hereafter Meatballs) is the latest release from Sony Pictures Animation, who previously gave us the inauspicious Open Season and Surf's Up. Thankfully, their latest endeavour proves much more encouraging in an industry dominated by Pixar and DreamWorks, thanks to the fact it embraced a style of lunacy most other CGI animations are shying away from. Meatballs' sense of craziness, tethered to a surreal storyline and characters that bend, bounce and contort their bodies ensures it's one of the most imaginative and funny animated adventures of recent times...

Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) is a budding inventor living on the remote Atlantic island of Swallow Falls (literally situated under the "A" on the map), a fishing community that relies solely on sardines for its finances, whose technophobe father Tim (James Caan) runs a boring Bait N' Tackle shop. When the island's Baby Brent Sardine cannery closes for business, failed crackpot inventor Flint resolves to create a device that can transform the plentiful supply of seawater into edible food...

The Flint Lockwood Diatonic Super Mutating Dynamic Food Replicator

Working with his pet monkey Steve (Neil Patrick Harris), whom he has outfitted with a voice translator, the fruit of Flint's labour is accidentally launched into the sky during the unveiling of a "Sardine Land" theme park to attract tourists, and the resulting storm of food that rains down from the sky starts to transform the town's ailing fortunes and rumbling bellies. Flint grows close to a cute TV reporter called Sam Sparks (Anna Faris), sent to cover the extraordinary meteorological events that he can now summon from his lab, but he soon starts to realize that his invention could be detrimental to the health and safety of the townsfolk...

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is a great deal of fun, thanks primarily to its creative, screwy humour. It may lack the heart and finely-tuned emotions that underpin Pixar efforts, or the satirical swipes of Shrek, but it's oen of very few "digimations" that makes an effort to be more of a conventional, madcap cartoon (along with Horton Hears A Who!) I say "conventional", but its contemporaries are actually trying to emulate reality or play to adult sensibilities, whereas Meatballs is content to go crazy with bizarre visuals, slapstick comedy and witty one-liners. The sight of pizza slices, cheeseburgers, banana, pies, and the titular meatballs, raining down from the heavens (eventually becoming the seeds of a global "perfect storm"), are beautifully achieved, and it's actually quite surprising where the film's storyline takes us. Indeed, a lot of Meatballs' success is down to how unpredictable everything feels, and how much its creators seem to be having fun with their crazy visuals and silly gags.

It's raining... men?

It's a film where Mr. T plays an overeager police officer, where a boy and a girl bounce around inside an enormous Jell-O on a date, where a monkey can talk, where the child star of an old sardine commercial is still prancing around in an adult diaper, where spray-on shoes exist, where crossbred Rat-Birds have become a common sight, where a tornado made of spaghetti destroys buildings, and where giant processed chickens come to life to attack people. Let's just say it was of no surprise to me that former-Ren & Stimpy artists Chris Reccardi and Carey Yost had a hand in the film's eccentric design, or that several trendy comic actors lent their vocal talents to this enterprise; from Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader and Andy Samberg, to How I Met Your Mother's Neil Patrick Harris.

Overall, this movie should please kids and big kids alike. There's enough fun and silliness for the under-10s, some heart for the teenagers to enjoy (Flint has a rocky relationship with his emotionally-detached dad, there's a theme of embracing your true potential and not being afraid to be yourself), and some clever little jokes for the adults to chuckle over. It offers something different in its own crowded marketplace, and that can only be applauded.

BLU-RAY DISC REVIEW

Picture: (2.39:1 / 1080P / AVC/H.264/MPEG4) As is typical of movies created inside a computer, there are no major faults to the picture quality, beyond a few speckles of "artifacting" and an aesthetic choice to make the image fairly soft-focused. But, generally; great colours, deeps blacks and strong image delineation.

Sound: (English DTS-HD MA 5.1, Audio Description DD 5.1) I have no complaints with the surround sound audio from the lossless DTS-HD mix, which kept dialogue very clear and threw enough sonics around my living room to keep me happy. Weather-based action sequences, particularly in the finale, are of course the highlights.

The Blu-ray disc release also comes with a DVD as part of its "combi" pack, which is identical to the Blu-ray disc except for the lack of the "Splat Mode" outlined below.

Special Features

Splat Mode (HD) An interesting use of Blu-ray technology, perhaps best suited to very young kids, where you can fling various foodstuffs at the screen as you watch the movie using your remote control's colour buttons.

Flint's Food Fight Game (HD) This is a fun little Space Invaders-esque mini-game, where you have to blast food as it advances down the screen towards you.

Audio Commentaries. Writer-directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller team-up with lead voice actor Bill Hader for this enjoyable, if fairly lightweight yakker track. But it does highlight how nutty Lord and Miller are.

A Recipe for Success - The Making Of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs (HD, 11 mins.) Your standard Electronic Press Kit (EPK) featurette, giving you a broad overview of the process involved in making a CGI animated movie. Lord and Miller are entertaining, though.

Key Ingredients: The Voices Of Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs (HD, 12 mins.) Likewise, this is one of those featurettes where it's of mild interest to see the real-life actors standing in front of microphones and delivering their lines, but nothing to really get excited about. Fun to see Hader and Faris eating junk food while they speak, I guess. Method voicing?

Extended Scenes (HD, 3 mins.) Two scenes from the movie are extended here (Flint's elevator, spaghetti twister), with the first one unfortunately presented in a half-finished form.

Early Development Scenes (HD, 6 mins.) Two fairly interesting rough sequences from the movie's gestation, but nothing special.

Progression Reels (HD, 9 mins.) Here we have 8-minutes of demo's from Meatballs' creative process, commented on by VFX supervisor Rob Bredow. Actually quite illuminating, particularly if you're keen on animation and how it's created.

Music Video (SD, 4 mins.) The "Raining Sunshine" track from the end credits gets its own music video, complete with a Sing-A-Long version, but as it's pretty terrible I doubt anyone will be playing it, much less singing along. Includes a brief Making Of featurette, too. Terrible.

Trailers: Contained on the disc are HD trailers for "Hachi: A Dog's Tale", "Open Season 3", "'Planet 51," "Open Season", "The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep", "Open Season 2", "Surf's Up", "Monster House" and "Daddy Day Camp."

GLEE 1.4 - "Preggers"

WRITER & DIRECTOR: Brad Falchuk
GUEST CAST: Mike O'Malley, Kurt Fuller, Jennifer Aspen, Naya Rivera, Heather Morris & Harry Shum Jr.

[SPOILERS] If there's one thing we're learning about Glee's belief system, it's that every problem can be solved through the medium of song and dance. This week's episode was a return to form after last week's "Acafellas", but I think the show's mix of high school angst, show tunes and soap opera is beginning to lose its immediate appeal to me. It's still fun, but everything seems to be losing whatever tenuous grasp of reality it seemed to have in the "Pilot"; so, while it's still entertaining me, I get the impression Glee's lack of gravitas is going to frustrate me before too long...

In "Preggers", Kurt (Chris Colfer) is caught by his father Burt (Mike O'Malley) dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies" in a unitard with two girls, and manages to limit the embarrassment by claiming he's just joined the football team and this counts as training. Kurt's subsequent try-out for the team ("Hi, I'm Kurt Hummel and I'll be auditioning for the role of kicker") to maintain this cover goes surprisingly well, as Kurt proves to have an aptitude for kicking footballs skyward -- provided he can get in the zone by having "Single Ladies" accompany his run-up to the ball! Later, Will (Matthew Morrison) is drafted into the ailing football team to help them win a big match, by persuading them that learning a few dance routines is a great way for performers to loosen up physically.

Meanwhile, Rachel (Lea Michele) is disappointed that Will is favouring Tina (Jenna Ushkowitz) at the glee club over a West Side Story solo, despite the fact he's insisting it's for the greater good of the group's confidence. Sue (Jane Lynch) sees an opportunity to throw a spanner in the works for Will's club, by blackmailing Principal Figgins (Iqbal Theba) with an embarrassing Indian airline anti-DVT instructional video, and forcing him to rehire Sandy (Stephen Tobolowsky) so he can lure Rachel away from glee by giving her the lead in his next play.

Elsewhere, Terri (Jessalyn Gilsig) confides in her friend Kendra (Jennifer Aspen) about her "hysterical pregnancy", and is given the surprising advice to keep up the pretence to her husband Will. Concurrently, cheerleader Quinn (Dianna Agron) breaks the news to Finn (Cory Monteith) that she's pregnant with his baby, although it's obvious to Puck (Mark Salling) that he's the real father.

And, after hearing about this news from Will sometime later, Terri apparently hatches a plot to use Quinn's pregnancy to her advantage -– although I'm a little confused about what she could be planning. Is it really plausible that Terri could fake her pregnancy for nine months, then secretly adopt Quinn's child? Surely she can't go all that time with fake stomach padding and insisting that Will can't see her stomach. Maybe I've misunderstood what Teri's plan might be, or perhaps Glee really is going to take this ridiculous direction. That actually wouldn't surprise me, if it did. This is a show where a squad of tough footballers eventually win their match by bamboozling their rivals with a group rendition of "Single Ladies" before scoring the winning touchdown and kick.

I guess you just have to go with it, but I find it mildly frustrating that Glee doesn't have a slightly more believable feel to its drama. I'd be overjoyed if we had a musical version of Freaks & Geeks set in modern times, but Glee's pitching things at, frankly, a more extreme and ridiculous level. Still, there are some great lines of dialogue (Sue on Sandy's apartment: "Boy, the only thing missing from this place is a couple dozen bodies limed and rotting in shallow graves under the floorboards"), some interesting characters (great to see Quinn getting some attention here), and at least one song in every episode that you'll be humming the next morning (although I thought it was a shame "Single Ladies" wasn't really Glee'd up, just used in the soundtrack.) In fact, I've been a bit disappointed by the song choices of the past few weeks –- I really prefer it when they take pop songs and give them the group vocal treatment (a la "Gold Digger" or "Rehab")

Overall, I guess "Preggers" was ultimately a fun hour that passed an hour and the show's certainly got plenty of pace to it. Maybe it's too fast, actually. There was a great scene towards the end when Kurt "came out" to his father about his homosexuality, which was both tender and amusingly played by the actors, but I'm a little surprised the writers didn't keep that storyline going for awhile longer. I think it would have landed more punch if we'd really grown to know Kurt's dad and felt the extent of Kurt's nerves. Still, a big part of Glee's appeal is how it's taking various US high school clichés and moving past them without much regard, but at this rate the show may find it's used up too many storyline possibilities and has nowhere very interesting to go. As I've said many times before, Glee still doesn't feel like it has much mileage in the concept, but it certainly doesn't help when they have the pedal to the metal –- does it?

25 JANUARY 2010: E4 / E4 HD, 9PM

Poll: Open Threads; what's the consensus?

It's been a few weeks since I started doing Open Threads, which have ended up looking like "mini-reviews" to kick-start some conversation. QI, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Mock The Week and Bellamy's People have all been targeted, and there was enough response to prevent the whole idea falling flat on its face, but only QI has proved especially popular...

I'm going to continue running Open Threads for a few more weeks, during which time I'll also open-thread the premiere of Skins on 28 January. As it's a show I don't watch, I won't have anything to say myself as a lead-in, so it'll be interesting to see if Skins fans use the post to discuss the show here. If they don't, fine. I won't continue to open thread that show. It's all just experimenting right now; trying to see which shows are popular enough to justify open-threading.

Anyway, to help me weigh up which shows people are interested in discussing here (that don't usually get covered by me, or aren't likely to be reviewed every week otherwise), please vote in the poll below for the shows you'd personally like to discuss. You can also add your own choice in the "other" box. VOTE HERE.

The poll will close on Friday @6pm (GMT), and the most popular picks will help me decide which open threads to carry in future. Also, I'm still considering the possibility of asking people to "guest review" some shows. Maybe we'll have a "trial season" where people can send in their reviews of shows I don't watch. If you're interested in that (and can take rejection!), please leave a comment to that effect below, stating which show you'd be keen to review. I may get in touch.

24, 8.1 & 8.2 - "4:00PM - 5:00PM" & "5:00PM - 6:00PM"

WRITERS: Howard Gordon & Evan Katz (8.1) & Manny Coto & Brannon Braga (story by Howard Gordon) (8.2)
DIRECTOR: Brad Turner
GUEST CAST: Bob Gunton, Doug Hutchison, Benito Martinez, Jennifer Westfeldt, Paul Wesley & Akbar Kurtha

[SPOILERS] Some days, don't you wish you'd just stayed in bed? Jack Bauer's (Kiefer Sutherland) back for another day of familiar action and nail-biting tension. Now retired from the government, the only "mission" Jack has is to babysit his granddaughter Teri (Claire Geare) while daughter Kim (Elisha Cuthbert) and her husband Stephen (Paul Wesley) go about their day; the Bauer family now living in New York City but debating a move back to Los Angeles. Of course, familial bliss lasts all of fifteen minutes, as Jack once again becomes embroiled in an assassination plot...

President Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor), of the fictional Islamic Republic of Kamistan (read "Iran"), has come to the United Nations Building in New York to sign a treaty that will result inn the disarmament of his country's nuclear program, with President Alison Taylor (Cherry Jones) hoping to make history by securing this deal with an Islamic state. Unfortunately, Hassan's intentions have made him the target for a group of assassins, apparently led by a Russian man called Davros (Doug Hutchison), who are currently tying off "loose ends" by killing the collaborators who helped get them into the country. One such associate, Victor Aruz (Benito Martinez), manages to escape with his life after an attack on his colleagues, fleeing to Jack's apartment to request immunity and protection in exchange for detailed information on how Hassan's going to be killed today.

After seven seasons across nine years, totalling nearly 200 episodes, it's little wonder that 24 feels more comfortably predictable than gripping and volatile nowadays. Most of its game-changing tropes for television thrillers (the real-time format, the use of split-screen) have now become so inured to fans that a certain amount of edge has been lost. Some of its celebrated ideas have actually become shackles, as the writers have to somehow fool an audience that are generally too knowledgeable to wrong-foot that often.

We all know that the villains presented here probably aren't the "real" bad guys pulling the strings, that Jack's safety is assured until (possibly) the last few hours, and that the assassination plot itself is probably just one element of a storyline that will feel irrelevant by mid-season. We know all this because we've seen 24 before, many times. All the show can do to combatant its audience's wealth of experience is to try and make us forget to think ahead -- by cranking up the pace, delivering new characters to chew on, and dropping us into a different location so it all feels as fresh as a nine-year-old show possibly can... while ultimately doing much the same as it always does.

Setting the show in NYC this year a great move, mainly because it's a more plausible target for terrorists (as 9/11 taught us in reality), and also one of the more security-conscious places on the planet. The new-look Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) -- which resembles a high-tech perfume counter of a department store, if you ask me[*] -- also means we have one of the core backdrops of 24 back after its absence last season. Of course, this could mean we'll quickly find ourselves playing "guess the mole" and being asked to care about various worker's personal lives, or secret "office romances".

Indeed, Senior Data Analyst Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff) already appears to be living under an assume identity (her real name's Jenny), with her working class family roots returning to bite her, and she's in a relationship with young CTU Head Of Field Ops hotshot Cole Ortiz (Freddie Prinze Jr.), so there's bound to be some drama there. Rather unconvincingly, ubergeek Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub) is back as a series regular – complete with her expression of someone who's permanently three inches away from a plate of dog turds -- but for some strange reason she's having problems coping with nu-CTU's computer infrastructure. And I think it's more complicated than the fact they've gone from Dell PCs to Mac's.

As 24 double-bill premieres go, Day 8's was pretty restrained: Jack had to escort injured informant Victor to a helicopter landing pad, pursued by gun-toting terrorists; President Hassan was revealed to have a sham marriage, and has been seeing beautiful American reporter Meredith Reed (Jennifer Westfeldt) behind his wife's back; Hassan's brother Farhad (Akbar Kurtha) appears to be involved in the plot to kill his sibling; Taylor's new Chief Of Staff Rob Weiss (Chris Diamantopoulos) is displeased that the President won't tell Hassan the full facts about the threat to his life, in order to push the treaty through smoothly; and CTU's Director Brian Hastings (Mykelti Williamson) is going to be one of those frustrating idiots who rarely believes good intel presented to him if it goes against his own gut instincts.

It was a confident, if uninspired start to the new season. There's a basic level of interest in how some of the new characters are going to play out, and they've certainly put together an interesting cast this year. Anil Kapoor's a Bollywood legend who should prove very interesting as the flawed statesman that needs protecting; the reliably creepy Doug Hutchison (The Green Mile) is the current villain-with-a-foreign-accent to boo at; Katee Sackhoff (Battlestar Galactica) is sidestepping her "tomboy" image to play a more feminine, sophisticated computer expert; and Freddie Prinze Jr. is likewise trying to expunge memories of Wing Commander and Scooby Doo by playing against type as a man of action. And, like Renee Walker last season, he has a soft spot for the legendary Jack Bauer.

Overall, I get the impression season 8 might feel like a Greatest Hits album; you know all the tracks off-by-heart, you wish the band would come up with something original (or just call it a day), but you can't help dancing to the tunes because the music is familiar, it hits your pleasure spot, and you're entertained while it's playing.

24 JANUARY 2010: SKY1 / SKY1 HD, 9PM

[*] Okay, sure, a really cool perfumery with snazzy flatscreens and bright, lit panelling.

TRAILER PARK: MacGruber

MacGruber began life as a series of sketches on Saturday Night Live, itself a parody of '80s action-adventure series MacGyver. In some ways that would appear to be a tough sell for most audiences outside of the US, but certainly in the UK. SNL is one of those shows that's never enjoyed much success whenever British channels give it an airing -– although admittedly they tend to schedule it around 12-2am. Similarly, MacGuyver is perhaps most famous for being the show Patti and Selma obsess over in The Simpsons here, so I daresay most people think it's not even real. Or, if you're lucky, there'll be the odd Stargate SG1 fan aware of Richard Dean Anderson's earlier work. And this movie stars Will Forte? Who's he?

However, let's not be too hasty. It's certainly not ideal that so much of MacGruber's genetics hasn't crossed over into non-US pop-culture, but that didn't stop Wayne's World from being a success. If the characters and idea are strong enough, and the humour's there, it stands a chance. It helps that MacGruber is essentially poking fun at a wider genre than just one TV series, as it's ultimately a pastiche of cheesy '80s action in all its guises. The overconfident macho hero, the silly one-liners, the Euro baddies, the scene where you need to disarm a bomb by cutting the right wire, etc, etc.

The trailer for MacGruber is embedded above, and it looks quite fun. It's clearly low budget, but that's perhaps a good sign because it means the jokes and performances have to compensate. It's why Austin Powers International Man Of Mystery is a far, far better movie than either of its big-budget sequels. And I'm personally growing very bored of seeing Steve Carrell, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, Paul Rudd and Michael Cera in every comedy these days –- so the fact Will Forte's a new face to me has its appeal, too. I just hope he's a funny guy. It's hit-and-miss with those SNL performers. This movie also stars Val Kilmer (as the villain Dieter Von Cunth), Kristen Wiig (it's such fun spelling her name), Bill Hader, Ryan Phillippe, Maya Rudolph and Powers Boothe.

Anyway, I chuckled at a few moments in the trailer -– mainly the scene where MacGruber's confronted by a bomb containing hundreds of wires, and not just three of separate colour – but I detected a vibe that it'll perhaps only play best to fans of the SNL sketches, and everyone else may feel like it's a fairly generic lampoon starring a bunch of "nobodies".

Released: 23 April 2010 (US)

Rock & Chips

WRITER: John Sullivan
DIRECTOR: Dewey Humphreys
CAST: Nicholas Lyndhurst, Kellie Bright, James Buckley, Shaun Dingwall & Phil Daniels

[SPOILERS] It's actually rather sad how John Sullivan refuses to let Only Fools & Horses lie; having already destroyed its perfect 1996 finale by bringing the show back for three more ill-advised Christmas specials, allowing the series to "end" on a weak note in 2003, before creating dreadful spin-off The Green Green Grass for supporting character Boycie to headline. Now, Sullivan has penned a prequel to answer some of those questions about Only Fools that nobody was asking...

Peckham, 1960. Derek "Del Boy" Trotter (James Buckley) is a grinning teenaged entrepreneur-in-the-making with an Opedipus complex[*], his father Reg (Shaun Dingwall) is a workshy layabout, his granddad (Phil Daniels) bares no vocal similarity to the late Lennard Pearce, and his mother Joan (Kellie Bright) is a cut-price Bridget Bardot working in a fleapit cinema where her manager Mr. Rayner (Robert Daws) constantly lusts over her. Into the Trotters' lives comes "reformed" safe-cracker Freddie "The Frog" Robdall (Nicholas Lyndhurst) and his accomplice Gerald "Jelly" Kelly (Paul Putner), fresh out of Dartmoor prison for robbery after the war. Freddie takes an instant liking to glamourous Joan, orchestrating an eventual tryst while her useless husband's away, and thus fathering Del's younger half-brother Rodney.

It's a simple story, spread out over 90-minutes, which means there's plenty of unnecessary diversions and moments of business designed to give Only Fools aficionados some thrills; from the simple pleasures of seeing characters like Trigger (Lewis Osborne), Boycie (Stephen Lloyd), Denzil (Ashley Gerlach) and bullied classmate Slater (Calum McNab) when they were youngsters, to the genesis of gags like Del's ineptitude with the French language (his mother's similarly tongue-tied, mistaking "c'est la vie" with "Tel Aviv"), a forbearer of Del's habit of making bad investments (a blue carpet that causes annoying static shocks), and perhaps the Nag's Head pub's inaugural Jolly Boys outing to Margate.

It's all very well-meaning, and Rock & Chips certainly judges a few things just right. It was surprisingly canny to focus on dreamer Joanie and her unhappy marriage, rather than do a lazy retread of the original series with a teenage Del Boy trying to erase memories of David Jason. The second success is some pretty good casting –- from Inbetweeners star Buckley as Del (vocally similar to Jason with moments of familiar body-language, yet never a straight impersonation), Bright as the dim-witted working class girl with a heart o' gold, and Lyndhurst playing his own father as a charming, intelligent man with an unfortunate streak of criminality. The rest of the cast were decent, too, if often difficult to remember exactly who they were supposed to be (as Boycie has yet to develop his braying laugh, nor Trigger his deadpan facial expressions.)

Unfortunately, the downsides were more evident every step of the way. Firstly, it felt very strange to give us a prequel to a studio-based sitcom that played as a micro-budget drama. With the absence of the familiar studio laughter you associate with these characters (younger versions or not), the show seemed to just sit there rather flat; not funny enough to be an obvious comedy precursor to the illustrious Only Fools, yet not dramatic enough to justify the attempt to make this feel like a grownup period piece with a few jokes thrown in.

The gags themselves were either painfully predictable, reassuringly cheesy, or simply unfunny. Worse, the gag quotient was so low compared to Only Fools (even at its lowest ebb) that Rock & Chips often felt like a tedious game of "spot the reference", tethered to a storyline everyone could guess the outcome of after 10 minutes. It also didn't help that Lyndhurst and Bright didn't have much chemistry together, and there was something a bit uncomfortable about seeing them together as lovers. Still, both actors were undoubtedly the acting heart of the show, but if Rock & Chips becomes a fully-fledged series (which I'm sure it will be), it'll be interesting to see what they do with Joan's character -– she may have been the keystone here, but her character just wasn't funny enough to shoulder the comic burden of a weekly series.

Overall, Rock & Chips wasn't a total disaster, but it felt like a pointless excuse for John Sullivan to revisit his biggest success, now that David Jason has called it quits and present-day adventures are impossible. It stands a chance as a regular series (hey, it's already better than Green Green Grass!), but I'd like to see it break from this special's faltering comedy-drama style and become a proper old-fashioned sitcom filmed in front of a live audience. I still say that's the best way to "scare" writers into ensuring there's something for people to laugh at in their scripts. Then let James Buckley move closer to the heart of the plot as Del Boy, and actually make an effort to give us a laugh per minute.

As prequel ideas go, Rock & Chips was akin to George Lucas deciding his own Star Wars prequels should be trio of introspective, character-based dramas -- not really what we want, considering what worked before.

24 JANUARY 2010: BBC1 / BBC HD, 9PM


[*] I must say, it felt very strange to see Del wolf whistling his own mother or commenting on her "pins", particularly as nobody ever mentioned how strange that behaviour is! More innocent times?

BEING HUMAN 2.3

WRITER: Lucy Catherine
DIRECTOR: Colin Teague
GUEST CAST: Nathan Wright, John Stahl, Rebecca Cooper, Ian Puleston-Davies, Lauren O'Neil & Pearce Quigley

[SPOILERS] This episode had a strong relationship theme, with many of the characters assessing their connections to the other people in their lives and doing their best to please or help them. Mitchell (Aidan Turner) realized he's the only vampire notorious enough to fill the gap left by Herrick's death, and help rebuild "the system" for keeping vampire attacks a secret from the public -- spurred into taking action because various wayward neck-biters, like callous Cara (Rebecca Cooper), have started killing innocent joggers and anti-social teenagers, and the police are starting to get wise to the nature of these strange attacks...

It was a compelling storyline and a great way to develop Mitchell's character. His "day job" might be mopping up piss and shit as a hospital orderly, but by night he can become a kind of "vampire Godfather" and command the respect of his peers. Right now, he's just doing this to keep his species a secret, because it's in everyone's interest that things never return to the dark days of the mid-17th-century (witnessed during an opening flashback) where vampires were savagely tortured and killed by god-fearing Bristolians. But I get the impression Mitchell's possibly going to become addicted to the power he temporarily assumed here; rebuilding Herrick's funeral parlour business, agreeing a deal with manipulative DCI Wilson (Ian Puleston-Davies), threatening mortician Quinn's (John Stahl) grandchildren to make him resume covering up vampire attacks, and faking the suicide of a hospitalized jogger who attacked by a vampire that killed his girlfriend and left him for dead.

George (Russell Tovey) and Annie (Lenora Crichlow) were given the light-hearted side of the story this week, as Annie resolved to help her boss Hugh (Nathan Wright) rekindle his romance with a florist he once lived with as an 18-year-old. This involves tracking down his inamorata, Kirsty (Lauren O'Neil), and getting George to take her on an intentionally disastrous date – a three-hour German art film followed by a kebab – to make her realize exactly what she's missing with Hugh. To be honest, this storyline wasn't really necessary or a particularly thrilling use of the characters, but it had a certain fun appeal and helped buoy the darker storyline with Mitchell. Annie playing Cupid is exactly the kind of thing you'd imagine she'd love to do, particularly now she's a ghost, and it was certainly a more entertaining story than it perhaps could have been.

The relationship between Mitchell and Dr. Lucy (Lyndsey Marshal) took a step forward, too, as the pair went on their first date together, which proved nearly as terrible as George intended his liaison with Kirsty to be. Mitchell was too distracted by his dealings with Bristol's vampire underbelly to be his usual charismatic self, which made Lucy begin to doubt the sincerity of his interest in her. The most memorable thing here was how the episode did a great job making us believe Lucy's just a regular, likeable doctor after all, before delivering its twist in the last scene: Lucy's actually the mysterious Professor Jaggart, working alongside Kemp (Donald Sumpter) to eradicate supernatural creatures, and they have taken Nina (Sinead Keenan) under their wing, even allowing her a final phone call to George to put her relationship with him behind her. While this wasn't entirely unexpected to me, I think the story did well to make us second guess our suspicions of Lucy enough, before confirming them.

This third episode was kind of mixed because of George and Annie's more trivial matchmaking adventure together, but I think Mitchell's storyline was strong enough to make up for it. In fact, I'm really excited by the possibilities presented in Mitchell's storyline now; he's determined to rehabilitate his fellow vampires and wean them off blood, but I suspect he's just going to find the power of leadership too much of a drug to kick. With the beautifully manipulative Daisy (Amy Manson) around to pour poison into his ear, it feels like Mitchell's bitten off more than he can chew as the acting vampire leader. He's already bludgeoned poor Cara's face with a rock and left her to starve to death underground, all in an effort to assert his position of authority on the other vamps. Can he really walk away from being the city's vampire "king" so easily, and resume his humdrum existence as a house-sharing hospital worker?

Overall, Lucy Catherine's script was well-constructed and pushed a few of this year's stories on very well. The vampire subculture took on a very interesting tone here, and I really like how they've started to construct a loosely plausible "system" of humans helping vampires get away with murder. DCI Wilson clearly thinks the vampires can be a useful way to tackle crime, if they target criminals and antisocial elements of society, and that's an interesting angle to explore. It remains true that Being Human's not quite as amusing as it was last year, but it's certainly doing a better job in the dramatic stakes. Colin Teague's direction also continues to improve, with less silly flourishes and more wide-angle compositions that give the series a more epic feel, and some often wonderful lighting. I particularly loved the slime-green of the funeral parlour building and the dingy atmosphere of the vampire hideout. How's everyone else feeling about Being Human this year?

24 JANUARY 2010: BBC3, 9.30PM / BBC HD, 10.30PM

Best TV Shows Of The '00s: Full Results

The poll is closed, the votes have been counted and verified, and I can now reveal that... oh, sorry, it all went a bit Big Brother there. Ahem. My mega-poll to find the Best Television Show Of The '00s (amongst my readership) has been running since mid-December, where I asked everyone to vote for their 10 favourites from a choice of 99 (with the option to add your own, unique vote.) That poll closed on 17 Jan, and 11 finalists went through for a weeklong battle to determine the Top 10. That final poll closed yesterday (24 Jan), so I can now reveal the results of the entire poll, in descending order. Owing to the ability for people to add their own choices, the poll actually begins from the collosal height of #120...

120. JPod
119. Outrageous Fortune
118. Rome
117. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia
116. Castle
115. Masters Of Horror
114. Eureka
113. One Tree Hill
112. The Tudors
111. The Lost Room

Most of the shows below 100 are comprised of "other votes" (shows voters could add themselves if one of their favourites wasn't part of my 99-strong list). I would have added a lot more shows if Polldaddy.com allowed me to, but it's frankly not worth my time upgrading my account to do that. Still, great to see a few people remembered The Lost Room, and it surprised me that Rome, Eureka and Castle ended up being placed so low.

110. The L Word
109. Dead Like Me
108. Everwood
107. Saxondale
106. Stargate Universe
105. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
104. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
103. Hung
102. Queer As Folk
101. Pulling

The Sarah Connor Chronicles would have charted much higher, but it was unfortunately one of two shows (the other being Firefly) where fans organized a mini-campaign to skew my poll. So, T:tSCC clawed back some "other votes", but it was a shame a vocal few ruined it for the majority. Anyway, I was pleased to see a few people remember the excellent Garth Marenghi series and Pulling.

100. Spooks
99. Spiral / Engrenages
98. Journeyman
97. Coupling
96. Medium
95. The Unit
94. The Fixer
93. Ugly Betty
92. Entourage
91. Skins

Spooks and Skins should have featured on my poll as one of my 99 choices, as I think they would have charted a lot higher if they had, but thankfully a few people remembered to add them as their "other vote". I was very surprised Entourage didn't prove more popular, though.

90. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
89. Two And A Half Men
88. Survivors
87. Community
86. Smack The Pony
85. Weeds
84. Prison Break
83. FlashForward
82. The Smoking Room
81. Modern Family

I didn't have any of the CSI franchise up for voting, but only a few people thought to add it as their "other vote", anyway. I was quite surprised Prison Break didn't do much better, because it was always entertaining and in the public eye.

80. Phoenix Nights
79. Monkey Dust
78. Big Love
77. Star Trek Enterprise
76. Stargate Atlantis
75. Damages
74. Dollhouse
73. Red Riding
72. Jericho
71. Little Britain

There are some great shows there that didn't get the votes, for some strange reason. Dollhouse, Damages and Big Love were all snubbed for the most part. Big Love doesn't air in the UK, so that may have been an issue.

70. Summer Heights High
69. The OC
68. Californication
67. Gossip Girl
66. My Name Is Earl
65. Flight Of The Conchords
64. Friday Night Lights
63. Carnivale
62. Freaks & Geeks
61. The Shield

Quite a disappointment for Flight Of The Conchords and The Shield, no?

60. Robin Hood
59. Primeval
58. Pushing Daisies
57. Sons Of Anarchy
56. Fringe
55. Alias
54. Curb Your Enthusiasm
53. The Mighty Boosh
52. Generation Kill
51. Psychoville

Another strange batch in mid-chart, with current and popular shows like Fringe and Curb Your Enthusiasm perhaps deserving better. I was also expecting Robin Hood and Primeval to chart slightly higher, purely because those shows are quite popular around here. And have people forgotten Alias already?

50. Misfits
49. How I Met Your Mother
48. Ashes To Ashes
47. Extras
46. The Sopranos
45. Malcolm In The Middle
44. State Of Play
43. The Big Bang Theory
42. Farscape
41. Six Feet Under

The top-half of the chart begins, and the big shock is that The Sopranos only charts at #46! Six Feet Under perhaps deserved a higher placing, too. Misfits has arguably done well to reach #50, considering the fact it's only aired six episodes in the UK.

40. Green Wing
39. Black Books
38. 30 Rock
37. Supernatural
36. The Office (US)
35. The Thick Of It
34. Gilmore Girls
33. Being Human
32. Torchwood
31. Glee

Not much love for the American remake of The Office, really. Can't help thinking Being Human and Torchwood should have charted a little higher, too.

30. Outnumbered
29. True Blood
28. Angel
27. Smallville
26. The IT Crowd
25. The League Of Gentlemen
24. Deadwood
23. Merlin
22. Chuck
21. Gavin & Stacey

True Blood, Chuck and Merlin fans will probably grumble over this, but any show in the Top 30 did very well. I was quite surprised to see Gavin & Stacey had a decent following of voters, too.

20. Breaking Bad
19. Veronica Mars
18. Band Of Brothers
17. Heroes
16. Scrubs
15. House
14. Peep Show
13. The West Wing
12. Mad Men
11. Futurama

These shows all narrowly missed out on being the finalists, particularly the very unfortunate Mad Men. Of course, Futurama was a finalist, but it didn't get enough votes in the final week so it slipped back to #11. Great to see people remembering how excellent Band Of Brothers was, but a sore disappointment that Breaking Bad didn't make the top 15 at least. I guess that's because it's being buried in the schedules here in the UK...

Arrested Development. I really can't say much about this show, because I never really watched it myself. But I know it's greatly respected and the episodes I have seen were always very interesting and funny. I just didn't get stuck in from the start, so always felt a little lost coming into it. But so many great actors were either involved in this (Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor), or have subsequently become big stars (Michael Cera, Will Arnett, David Cross), that it's always irritated me that I never got into it at the time.

Family Guy. I personally find the love for this animation very surprising, because it's always struck me as a ruder version of The Simpsons for people with the attention span of a gnat. I very rarely make it through a whole episode, as they're largely indistinguishable from watching someone's Family Guy compilation on YouTube. Still, I'd be lying if I said I never laugh at it, because I do. It's just... the 9th best television show of the '00s? Well, okay, you voted it so.

The Office (UK). I was very relieved to see the original BBC series beat its American remake by such a huge margin. I know the US version has its fans, but Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's forebearer is far better and more memorable to me. It's darker, more believable, truer to life, and there's the decade's best comic performance in office manager David Brent.

24. It's definitely a shadow of its former self (mostly because we're too accustomed to its format and tropes these days), but I think 24's high ranking is down to how awesome the first few years were. It's had a massive effect on TV and film, and is perhaps the driving force behind the success of DVD box-sets in the '00s. I still get a tingle of pleasure when the ticking clock pounds its beat into my livingroom, too.

Life On Mars (UK). Oh yes, arguably the most high-concept idea of the '00s, in its original BBC incarnation. Sci-fi/time-travel show, crime procedural, '70s period drama, buddy cop series, mind-bending fantasy; Life On Mars was all of those things, and didn't outstay its welcome with a swift two series. And it gave us a new TV icon in the sneering Gene Hunt.

Dexter. What is its secret? The first two seasons were fantastic entertainment, but Dexter has always had a problem making its supporting cast anywhere near as interesting as the eponymous anti-hero. You could pick holes in it all day, really, but I think the premise is just too irresistable and Michael C. Hall's performance so beguiling, that its flaws just melt away.

Battlestar Galactica. It started to lose its way mid-season 3, and season 4 only really kept momentum thanks to a series of mind-scrambling twists and surprises that felt very forced in hindsight, but you can't deny BSG was the decade's best "pure sci-fi" show: telling allegorical modern-day stories with complex characters in a futuristic context. War, politics, religion, life, death, the show covered it all.

The Wire. This is another show that's a blindspot to me, although I did get through the season 1 box-set a year ago, so I think I have a vague idea why it's so popular. It's incredibly dense, realistic and well-acted, basically. I'm told that the subsequent four seasons are just as deep and involving, too.

Lost. Oh, you thought it would be #1? To be fair, it was neck-and-neck with the eventual winner for days, so it was a very close call. Anyway, I know Lost has its detractors (usually people who bailed midway through season 2 and now moan about it from a very outdated point-of-view). Fact is, this has been a marvellously entertaining, clever, exciting, complex and gripping mix of human drama and cool sci-fi. The fact it's won over such a diverse audience is its real success, with half its devotees having never really sampled much sci-fi before Lost lured them into it.

Doctor Who. This was, undeniably, the biggest comeback of the '00s. Doctor Who was a defunct joke at the BBC, until Russell T. Davies revitalized it for new audiences with Christopher Ecclestone and Billie Piper in 2005, before allowing David Tennant to truly make Who a mega-hit. While still only a "phenomenon" in its native UK, the fact it topped my poll speaks volumes about how it's managed to find a place in many people's affections around the world. It was certainly a very close run thing with Lost slipping to #2 in the last day of voting, but Doctor Who was voted the Best Television Show Of The '00s by my readership. And with a new series full of new faces and a new production team, it probably has a chance of repeating that success for the '10s...

Thanks again to everyone who voted -- thousands took part in the first-round poll, and hundreds voted in this final week, so I'm grateful the results therefore have some degree of credibility. I'm sure there'll be some frustrated fans who are annoyed their favourite show did so poorly, or that a few "questionable" picks did so well, but that's just how it goes. What did you make of the results?

Caprica: Season 1 Trailer

Here's a great trailer to promote Caprica's first season, which started airing in the US on Syfy last week. I'm actually very intrigued by this series, because it's taking such an unusual approach to its status as a prequel. The trailer looks classy and visually interesting (perhaps more so than Battlestar Galactica ever was?), so I'm looking forward to seeing how well it develops in terms of a narrative. I just have a concern that there's not enough of a hook to the show, beyond the fact it's playing in the same universe as BSG.

TV Picks: 25-31 January 2010

MONDAY 25th

God Bless You Barack Obama (BBC2, 7pm) Theologian Robert Beckford travels across the US to retrace the US President's journey from sceptic to believer.
Mrs. Mandela (BBC4, 9pm) Drama about how Nelson Mandela's wife Winnie transformed herself from country girl to political activist against apartheid. Stars Sophie Okonedo.
The Good Wife (Channel 4, 10pm) US drama about a politician's wife whose husband is involved in a sex scandal. Stars Julianna Margulies.
Billie & The Real Belle Bare All (ITV2, 10pm) Billie Piper meets Dr. Brooke Magnanti, the real-life "Bell de Jour" -- the ex-prostitute and blogger, whom she plays on the series Secret Diary Of A Call Girl.

TUESDAY 26th

Amanda Holden's Fantasy Lives (ITV1, 9pm) Three-part series where Amanda Holden tries out different occupations, starting with a Parisian showgirl.
I Believe In UFO's: Danny Dyer (BBC3, 9pm) The cockney actor tries to spot a UFO. Featuring Sir Patrick Moore.
Shameless (Channel 4, 10pm) Series 7 of the popular drama.
Too Old To Be A Mum (BBC1, 10.35pm) Series exploring the pro's and con's of women having children in later life.

WEDNESDAY 27th

Midsomer Murders (ITV1, 8pm) Series 13 of the crime drama.
Mad Men (BBC4/BBC HD, 10pm) Season 3 of the award-winning US drama about advertising execs in the 1960s. Double-bill.
Crimewatch UK (BBC1, 9pm) Return of the series trying to solve real life crimes.
Tsunami: 5 Years On (BBC2, 9pm) Documentary catching up with Thailand's survivors of the tsunami.
Desperate Housewives (Channel 4, 10pm) Season 6 of the US drama.

THURSDAY 28th

The Girl With 8 Limbs Grows Up (Channel 4, 10pm) Documentary about the little girl who made worldwide headlines because she was born with four arms and four legs.
Secret Diary Of A Call Girl (ITV2, 10pm) Return of the series about a professional prostitute. Stars Billie Piper.
Skins (E4, 10pm) Series 4 of the popular teen drama.

FRIDAY 29th

Celebrity Big Brother: Live Final (Channel 4, 8.30pm) Conclusion of the last ever celebrity version of Big Brother, where the winner will be announced.
Latin Music USA (BBC4, 9pm) Series looking at the musical/social impact of Latin music across America.

SATURDAY 30th

Total Wipeout (BBC1, 5.30pm) Return of the gigantic obstacle course gameshow. Presented by Richard Hammond & Amanda Byram.
Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1, 7pm) New series of the comedian's humourous look at the week's television.
The Virtual Revolution (BBC2, 8.30pm) 20 years on from the invention of the World Wide Web, Dr. Aleks Krotoski explores how it is reshaping almost every aspect of our lives.

SUNDAY 31st

Mo (Channel 4, 9pm) Biopic about the life and death of politician Mo Mowlam. Stars Julie Walters and David Haig.
Seven Ages Of Britain (BBC1, 9pm) The story of Britain, as seen through its art and treasure. This first episode looks at the Roman invasion and the Norman Conquest. Presented by David Dimbleby.