I have very fond memories of Red Dwarf and I want them to stay that way, so news that it’s to return in a new two part series fills me with mixed emotions. Having never re-visited the crew since the first runs through the late 80s and 90s, my memories are hazy to say the least – that theme tune, ‘smeg heads’ and Craig Charles being monumentally unhygienic. And didn’t Holly change sex at some point? The point being, it was great at the time but a bit like the 70s Incredible Hulk or Kinder Eggs, I suspect it should be locked away in a nostalgic time capsule, revisited only by future generations as a museum piece. I would never recover fully if Chris Barrie’s Rimmer wasn’t the utterly hysterical bastard I remember him as. Speaking of Chris Barrie, the same goes for The Brittas Empire, and Gordon Brittas’ gloriously absurd, farcical leisure centre. A baby kept in a filing cabinet - genius.

Anyhow, the digital TV station Dave has decided to go beyond repeats and show a new series, Red Dwarf: Back To Earth, written and directed by co-creator Doug Naylor. Following the original crew (and cast) of Lister, Kryten, Cat and Rimmer the new episodes will see them finally return to Earth, as part of a Red Dwarf weekend showing over Easter. I want this to be good, I really do. Maybe it will manage to recapture the daft, witty, sarcastic humour and potty Britishness of the original shows, but I’m not sure if I can bring myself to find out.

Not much to say here.  Things are pretty grim and middlebrow even by Oscar standards.  Boo on No Sally Hawkins, Charlie Kaufmann, Let The Right One In, Michelle Williams or The Boss.  Yay on the In Bruges screenplay, Richard Jenkins, The Class, Waltz with Bashir, Mickey Rourke and Man on Wire.

Nominations are after the Jump.

Continue Reading "Oscar Noms Are In.  (The Fanboys Weep; The Arthouse despairs; and the Middlebrow triumphs again)"...

Ricardo Montalban passed away Wednesday, January 14, at the age of 88.  Lorenza Muñoz has written a fine obituary and career overview for the L.A. Times, accompanied by a fantastic photo gallery.  Claire Dederer and Bruce Weber have done the honors for the New York Times.  Both obits acknowledge Montalban’s contributions to stage and screen, as well as the opportunities created for Latinos by way of his activism.  His performance in the film noir classic Border Incident remains one of my all-time favorites as, of course, is his characterization of Khan Noonien Singh, arch nemesis to Star Trek‘s Captain Kirk.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will dedicate the entire daytime lineup for Friday, January 23, 2009 to pay tribute to Montalban.  The collection features musical pairings with Esther Williams in Fiesta (1947) and Neptune’s Daughter (1949), as well as dramatic roles in Border Incident (1949) and Battleground (1949).

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*Updated with artwork and some extras detail. Tvshowsondvd.com are showing the cover art for the series and report that part of the extras will be an assortment of featurettes and audio commentaries on selected episodes by Richter. They also say that the SRP will be 39.99*

Now this makes me a happy happy boy. I don’t know how many of you out there saw this series but former Conan O’Brien sidekick Andy Richter left that show to pursue his solo career as a comedian. What resulted was this TV sitcom that was as absurd and surreal as it was hilarious. The show was about a lowly office worker who gets through the day dreaming about the object of his affection and his interaction with coworkers. Trust me it’s funnier than I describe it. Sadly viewers didn’t think so and the show only lasted a scant 19 episodes spread over 2 “seasons”. Plus it was on Fox so….
The website tvshowsonDVD.com reports today that the show will finally make its appearance on DVD on March 24th and will include all the episodes in one set. No idea if there will be any extras but I doubt it.
Finally I can watch this genius show again and ogle Paget Brewster and Irene Molloy while I’m at it.

Check out the youtubed pilot after the break.

Continue Reading "Suuuwwwweeeet! Andy Richter Controls the Universe coming to DVD"...

We’re one episode away from the conclusion of this round of BSG webisodes, Face of the Enemy. Two remain aboard the lost Raptor. But on to bigger and better things when it comes to Twitch and BSG!

Season 4.5 is just days away. Season 4.0 came out on Tuesday and if you’ve made your way through the extras on disc three, through David Eick’s Video Blogs, we’re pretty sure you’re going to see the first Twitch writer to ever appear on a DVD extra feature. Unfortunately for you guys and gals it’s me! I wasn’t up to putting this in the player but our lord and master insisted. You’ve seen our tag and quotes on DVD covers but hell yeah, we’ve got our name on screen now. I’m just sorry it’s my mug you gotta see this first time. Personally, I think it needed more Grace Park.

Hardcore fans who have watched these blogs previously have seen this footage that was taken when I was back in Vancouver for the SciFi Digital Media Press Tour. But here I am in all my digital glory after the jump. Onwards and upwards from here boys and girls.

Continue Reading "BSG: Face of the Enemy Webisode 9 and Twitch appears on the Season 4.0 DVD!"...

Controversial, misunderstood and elusive, Chris Morris is undoubtedly one of the sharpest satirists working in British TV, so news that funding for his first feature film, Four Lions, has been granted is exciting news indeed. Morris’ past creations are amongst the most vital TV shows of the past 20 years: Brass Eye has yet to be bettered as a current affairs satire and the much underrated Jam must still be one of the most gloriously dark sketch shows ever to grace TV. The former is still astonishingly relevant and, more importantly, funny over a decade on. Sure, the celebrity wind-ups have now been done to death, but rarely have the famous been ridiculed so mercilessly for their ignorance, self-importance and plain stupidity. Brass Eye lampooned the British media’s unqualified hysteria like no other, but since tackling the superb ‘Pedophile Special’ in 2001, Morris hasn’t quite hit the mark with subsequent projects. However, his latest gig directing and writing a fictional story exposing the life of the contemporary British jihad promises to recapture those fearlessly harsh satirical barbs that made his name in the 1990s.

Depressingly but unsurprisingly refused funding by the BBC, Four Lions has secured the cash from FilmFour for production this summer under Warp Films, with a UK cinema release towards the end of the year. More good news is that Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bains, writers of Channel 4’s Peep Show, have contributed to the script. No doubt the Daily Mail’s ilk will complain, but then as with those who chided Brass Eye as tasteless and offensive, they’ll almost certainly miss the point entirely.

Note: To any and all writers out there. Never try to write a post when the nation you live in is vying for its fifth straight gold medal at the junior world hockey championships. It tends to be a bit distracting. I started this post a few hours ago and just finished it now. Almost makes me want to become a Canadian citizen.

Somewhere during the holiday season we got off track with the Face of Enemy webisodes from Battlestar Galactica. And with less than two weeks before the premiere of the second half of the fourth and final season we need to do some catch up. Follow the break for webisodes 4 through 8.

Continue Reading "BSG: Face of the Enemy Webisodes a plenty!"...

Since word came down that David Tennant would soon be ending his run as the titular Doctor Who - if memory serves Tenant currently has four one-off specials left to do and then he’s finished - speculation has been running rampant over who would take over the iconic role.  And last night the BBC ended the uncertainty with, shall we say, a rather surprising announcement.

Meet Matt Smith, the new Doctor Who.  Don’t know who Smith is?  Not to worry, neither does anyone else, really.  The betting money throughout this process was that comedian Paterson Joseph had the inside line to become the first black Doctor but the Beeb opted instead to go with Smith who, at the age of just twenty six, becomes the youngest doctor ever by a margin of three years.  With hardly any significant entries on his resume Smith has just received the opportunity of a lifetime, though also probably one that’s going to typecast him to the nth degree.  Hope you like scifi Matt ...

And then there were 5. Now we’re talking. After a couple episodes of set up and, ahem, character development we’re finally getting to the promised suspense and whodunit aboard a Raptor alone in space. When you come of think of it I don’t know if Hitchcock would dig sci-fi but he would certainly appreciate the confined spaces and suspense of it all.

I digress. You know where to go for webisode 3.

Continue Reading "BSG: Face of the Enemy Webisode 3!"...

So I guess this means that we’re in countdown mode to the January 16th premiere of season 4.5 of Battlestar Galactica! We’ve got episode 2 of the Face of the Enemy webisodes and the full 13 minutes and 10 seconds of Catch the Frak Up! the handy dandy summary of the previous three and a half seasons. Oh, and no more of that ISP bypass crap. We’ve got these babies downloaded to our own player so EVERYONE can enjoy them.

Don’t delay. Follow the jump. So say we all!

Continue Reading "BSG: Face of the Enemy Webisode 2 and ‘Catch the Frak Up’!"...

Oh goody. While I will be one of the first to admit that I found the cliffhanger to season 4.0 of Battlestar Galactica a little expected and underwhelming. I still salivate for more BSG. I need that hit, baby. As is par for the course the media machine behind the show is gearing up for the second half of the final season and have now started a fresh batch of webisodes.

The first one titled ‘The Face of the Enemy’ premiered this week. While on his way to get some R&R Gaeta’s Raptor makes an unexpected detour. Oh, and look for the ‘WTF’ point in the brief 4 minutes. You’ll know it when you see it. Those writers over at BSG are wacky. So ahead of their time.

Just a touch of a hangup. SciFi is putting these webisodes on Hulu, which only caters to those viewers with an American ISP address. Very silly considering the international appeal of the show. But if you were to say… head on over to here and put a certain program on your computer if you are outside of the U.S. this program will help you sidestep that little problem. We’re just saying…

Britain’s Peep Show is a lot like olives.  Sample just one and you’ll wonder why the hell everybody talks about how good it is.  But pop back three in a row and by the time the last remnants of that third one are fading you’ll be hooked for life and swearing on the grave of your long dead grandmother that it’s one of the best things ever.

Now, Peep Show has never exactly been what you’d call a ratings gang-buster but the two principals of the show - David Mitchell and Robert Webb - have apparently entered into a blood-pact with the Devil requiring them to continue working with each other for the rest of their natural born lives.  This may be bad for their souls but it’s good for fans.  The latest effort from the duo?  Playing Shop, a new show they’ve written together and are about to shoot a pilot for in which the pair, freshly laid off, decide to run their own business out of their garden shed but only if they can do so “without getting up before eleven or ever missing Bargain Hunt”.  Yes, please.

‘Giant plants attack people’. Now, there’s a high concept idea from a time when Simpson and Bruckheimer were barely into puberty, let alone slipping Tom Cruise into a fighter jet. It’s also the premise for the BBC commissioned, modern day remake of the (somewhat iconic) 1962 sci-fi flick, The Day of the Triffids. Itself an adaptation of John Wyndham’s 1951 novel, the film is one of those camp relics that, though known well by title and poster, is disproportionately famous when compared to the number of people that have actually seen it. I suspect, much like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Planned as a two part drama for BBC1 the script will come courtesy of Patrick Harbinson, the writing talent behind ER and Law & Order. The Beeb has had a go at a Triffids remake in the past – a 1981 version was set in the late 20th Century – but this version promises to update the story with a topical twist involving the search for fossil fuels in 2011. Earlier this year The Ruins had a go at making flora scary again, but for all its ancient-civilization-with-savage-rituals and copious blood letting, the sorry fact is that giant, angry plants just aren’t that scary. Comical maybe. Scary? Not so much. Hopefully the powers that be will err on the side of sci-fi over horror, and if it comes to budget CGI versus a guy in a rubber plant suit, the latex wins every time.

In the beginning there was Wallace And Gromit and, yes verily, it was good.  And Wallace and Gromit begat Shaun the Sheep - though not literally because that would be impossible for both species and gender reasons - and, also verily, that was also good.  And now Shaun shall beget Timmy Time, a new fifty two episode television series featuring Timmy, the little lamb who made it’s first appearance as part of Shaun‘s flock.

Yep, the shows are getting progressively younger as they go but I’m a sucker for anything Aardman Animation does so I’ll be keeping an eye out for this once it hits the air in 2009.

Tonight sees the first episode of Guardian writer turned film-maker Charlie Brooker’s British zombie mini series, Dead Set. Showing on E4 over five consecutive nights, the show takes the familiar siege set-up of previous zombie movies and stages it in TV’s Big Brother house, replete with contestants and of course brimming with cameras. A zombified version of presenter Davina McCall is said to be a highlight.

Aiming for a tone similar to An American Werewolf in London, and promising not to skimp on the gore, Dead Set sounds like the real deal. Describing the show as “unashamed populist schlock” Brooker (best known for writing Nathan Barley) is keen to acknowledge the debts to what is, after all, a saturated genre, whilst proclaiming this as the first of its kind to be broadcast on UK TV. How far down the satire route the show goes is unconfirmed, but given E4’s teen audience and Brooker’s own comments I wouldn’t expect a Romero social commentary.

The project has been in gestation since 2004, so whilst the reality show format is still in fairly rude health, there’s undoubtedly now an increased level of cynicism around the dubious nature of the housemates and the subsequent ‘celebrity’ status they achieve. This could play into Dead Set’s hands rather nicely – I for one am drooling (blood obviously) at the prospect of seeing the assorted fame-hungry housemates disemboweled in the name of entertainment by zombies with an altogether different hunger. What more fitting revenge for years of tabloid baiting drudgery could there possibly be?