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The Inbetweeners
Now this requires a bit of a clarification…
According to the schedule for GO! next Tuesday night The Inbetweeners premieres with S1E1 “The First Day.” The DVD preview I received was actually “The Field Trip,” S2E1.
So I’m not exactly clear what that means…
Suffice to say I really enjoyed what I saw.
This UK comedy penned by two writers from Flight of the Conchords centres around four sixth form students at a public school: Will (Simon Bird) who has relocated following his education at a private school, Simon (Joe Thomas), Jay (James Buckley), and …
B430
I dunno about you, but I always thought of Channel [V] as a music channel.
Apparently it’s a little more youth-based than purely music, as evidenced by replays of Taken Out, Flight of the Conchords, and its interstitial contest Cash Cab.
B430 is another show that broadens its horizons, literally, as a kind of hip version of Getaway. It’s the locally-produced travelogue that takes you to 9 hot spots around the world deemed must-see destinations before you turn 30.
It’s also a show that reminds you TV travel hosts have the best bloody …
Selling Houses Australia
Who doesn’t love a good home makeover?
There are shows that hitch them to the sick and impoverished, others that pit hot, young competing designers, and some that make it seem like an entire neighbourhood has found a heart of gold.
On The LifeStyle Channel’s Selling Houses Australia it’s no-fuss practicality: how can we fix ugly homes so that their owners can sell them for a decent price?
With such a simple premise it’s little wonder this show was voted Favourite Program by viewers at last year’s ASTRA Awards. It even defeated profile shows …
Survivors
It takes just days for the ‘European Flu’ to reach every living human being in the United Kingdom in Survivors. But it takes over a year for the show to reach an Australian television network.
For this ambitious, apocolyptic miniseries, the BBC looks to the work of writer Terry Nation, who created a series of the same name in 1975. He later published a book in which he continued his tale of a plague wiping out the UK. Now with screenwriter Adrian Hodges (Primeval) the novel has been updated for this series.
Survivors …
V
The Visitors have arrived. Again.
They are here to share their technology with Earth. And they offer universal health care. Not even President Obama has managed to pull that one off.
Most of the best science fiction tales serve as allegories for social or political truths. In 1983’s original V miniseries many observers noted the thematic similarities with the rise of the Nazi movement. Glamorous aliens wooed a race, shielding their sinister motives. It was a series that has become renowned for its thrilling plot and camp style. But it wasn’t camp at …
Warehouse 13
When the American Sci Fi Channel changed its spelling to Syfy -and triggered a wave of criticism- it explained that part of the reasoning was it felt boxed in by a misconception that science fiction was alien-based. It overlooked a wide range of story ideas one of which, no doubt, is the odd world of its new Warehouse 13.
In deepest South Dakota is a giant storage facility of scientific, mythological and metaphysical artifacts that have ever been gathered -just a US border away from Nevada’s Area 51.
Eddie McClintock (Bones, The Sweetest …
Wicked Love: The Maria Korp Story
The title alone should be enough to tip you off.
Wicked Love is salacious in tone, suggesting that this telemovie is going to make the most of the juicy details on the 2005 death of Melbourne woman Maria Korp. On that score, it doesn’t disappoint.
Rebecca Gibney stars as Korp, a woman who married a charismatic co-worker Joe Korp, only to become the victim of a love-affair triangle and left to die in the boot of a car. The story attracted headlines around the country, first as a missing persons case, then …
The White Room
“If you are glued to the TV right now, you either have great taste, or ar the victim of a terrible prank,” said Tony Moclair.
I’m picking the second, Tony.
And I’d like to buy a vowel, please.
The White Room, Seven’s answer to Spicks and Specks and Talkin’ ‘Bout Your Generation and Good News Week has arrived following rapid promos and no previews. It’s simple format sees comedians divided into two teams answering television trivia questions and games to the two hosts, Tony Moclair and Julian Schiller.
The genre is one Seven has been …
Sleuth 101
Who doesn’t love a good “whodunnit?”
Mysteries underpin all our procedural dramas. The key ingredients -set up, victims, suspects, red herrings, motives, detection, re-evaluation, revelation- always become writers’ breadcrumbs astutely placed along a plotline.
But it’s been many years since the “whodunnit” made an appearance in a television game show. Ian McFadyen’s Cluedo aired in 1992 on Nine, and the UK’s 1970s series Whodunnit? was an early classic.
The ABC, which has a huge track record in UK crime dramas, improvises with the magnifying glass for the mystery-comedy series, Sleuth 101.
Hosted by comedian Cal …
Cougar Town
If we were to drop in on Monica Geller ten years after her life on Friends, would we find her living in a suburban cul de sac in the state of Florida? Very possibly.
At least that’s what it feels like on Cougar Town. Here is Courteney Cox, still doing schtick, slapstick and sexy, only this time with a teenage son and an ex-husband. The thing is, Cox does this sort of thing very, very well.
Real estate saleswoman Jules Cobb (Cox) spends most of her Friday night with scrabble, wine and her …
Poh’s Kitchen
Poh Ling Yeow is yet another living, breathing example of how coming second in a reality competition is no loss.
She strolls into her very own ABC series with little more introduction than the success of MasterChef. She’s also probably the first reality contestant in Australia to land their very own series. Others who have been given hosting opportunities, were opted to established brands.
Poh is a name just about everyone in the country knows. And even if she was given a second chance on TEN’s reality series (eliminated then returned), she is …
Occupation
As anyone who has seen James Nesbitt’s work knows, he is a force to be reckoned with. In Jekyll, Cold Feet and Murphy’s Law he dominated the screen. It isn’t just because of his thick Irish accent, it is the absolute conviction he brings to his characters.
So it is with Seargant Mike Swift, a soldier on the ground in Iraq during the 2003 invasion of Basra.
American television has visited the subject of the war in dramas such as Steven Bochco’s Over There and David Simon / Ed Burns’ Generation Kill.
Now the …