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What have you been watching on (proper scripted) telly?


Dynamite Duane

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Really enjoying Ray Donovan, interesting story arcs and some great acting.

I've fallen behind but the first three episodes were very good indeed. Must get round to catching up because it's a decent show and- shock horror- my wife watches it too. Always a bonus considering she exclusively watches shite.

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I got bored of Ray Donovan fairly quickly.

 

I thought the performances were weak, and it was all bait too glossy for me. It was like the creators of CSI had a brief to try and recreate The Sopranos. So, it had some great ideas but the execution just wasn't for me.

Edited by d-d-d-dAz
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Spent this evening finishing off a weekend's marathon of Da Vinci's Demons' first season.

 

Shouldn't have bothered. It's actually alright, but in these post-Wire/Breaking Bad/Spartacus times, I'm demanding way more of my TV time than "this is decent enough background noise." Borgia-era Italy has been milked a lot lately, and it's a lot of those same tropes of the Vatican vs. Free Thinkers, and ancient secret orders and conspiracies. I think I was a little thrown because I'd assumed it would be super gritty and knowingly dark, but the Da Vinci character is a right jokester, like someone who debuts in Eastenders by nicking an apple off the market stall while winking at all the ladies. And it does feel like something from the BBC rather than HBO. It's too clean and flatly, brightly-lit, and terrified of taking risks. The real-life gay as a window Leo has a bunch of sex scenes with a woman, and none with a man, although there's always blokes with their dicks out, especially the Pope. At one point:

 

<-- click on 'spoiler' to show/hide the spoiler

He blackmails a corrupt judge by projecting a real-time image of him fucking a pig into the sky above Florence

 

[close spoiler]

");document.close();

 

There is a hilarious episode where they meet Vlad Tepes/Dracula, though, and the actor playing him has the most horrendously Welsh accent of all time.

 

Can anyone else who's seen this confirm that Da Vinci's Turkish friend has stolen Nick Frost's voice? It's uncanny.

Edited by Astro Hollywood
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Under the Dome on Channel 5 has got "Great concept, good pilot, unexplained mystery/conspiracy, plot goes to shit, no resolution" written all over it. Giving it a go for now, but the scars of Flash Forward are still there.

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Under the Dome on Channel 5 has got "Great concept, good pilot, unexplained mystery/conspiracy, plot goes to shit, no resolution" written all over it. Giving it a go for now, but the scars of Flash Forward are still there.

 

Oh, God, get out now while you still can. This is the single worst adaptation of any property, ever. They've taken so little from the book, other than the actual concept of being under a dome, they might as well pretend they're adapting something else entirely. The book Big Jim is King's most despicable character of all time, but the TV version is shit, like everything else. It's a show made for absolute dunces too, with everything spelled out three fucking times in case you didn't get it.

 

They're also clearly terrified of offending anyone. Witness the transition from the book's "Sixty-something retired teacher and his twenty-something girlfriend" characters into a mixed race lesbian couple. And count the amount of times people ask "Two moms? You have two moms?" They turned the meth-addicted radio DJ into a 1990s Lenny Kravitz, and the Big Jim-owned religious radio station into Alt Rock, in case religious people get in a huff. Fuck this fucking committee-led bullshit show. It could have been great.

Edited by Astro Hollywood
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Millard did me a favor by warning me off of Under the Dome a long time ago - it's true, Big Jim in the book is practically demonic, yet still kind of believable, and it sounds like they've utterly cut the nuts off of the whole property.

 

They've literally changed every single character and plot point, barring the dome itself. It's all pointless too, a lesser-version of King's story. I don't know why they even bothered optioning the rights in the first place.

 

Siberia's a lot of fun, though. Anyone else been watching?

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No, but that immediately sounds worth checking out.

 

Anyone stuck with Falling Skies? It's not going to win any awards, but it's a good slice of dystopian warfare, and has this lady in, who might well be the most attractive woman on tv right now:

 

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She's absolutely stunning, and a good actress too.

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Empire have put up a handy mini-guide to some of the new US shows starting this autumn.

 

Having had a look through them, I'll be watching Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D, The Blacklist could be good, and I'll probably try to catch The Michael J Fox Show, but not much else really appeals much.

 

 

Meanwhile, over here, last night I caught the end of an advert on BBC for something called The Wrong Mans. What's that about, then?

 

Also, how far in advance to Sky tend to announce air dates? They've been advertising Yonderland for a while now but I can't seem to find when it's going to be on.

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