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I've been to Portmeirion...

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

ok here's my rundown so far:

Leverage - 5/5
So far, so good. But then, I enjoy Timothy Hutton's work, even though he's considered bland by many. I kind of like the team they've placed him with, and for the most part the actors really make the show. If T-Hut was on his on, I'd have sailed the shore long ago, so I definitely give the supporting cast A+'s for their addition of comedy, romance and pizzaz. Do they prop T-Hut up? Maybe. All in all, I absolutely HATE show's that have standalone episodes without a story arc, and it occurred to me a couple of days ago that Leverage's story arc disappeared last season, and I'm still watching. A feat. Oh yes.

Hung - 2/5
I am a Thomas Jane fan. I am a Thomas Jane humor fan. For the most part. And I really wanted to love this show - so badly, in fact that I followed the entire season. Painfully followed, I mean. The show itself has a great premise, but it lacks...well, everything! I can only imagine that the writing is awful. How they managed to take a wickedly funny, guilty pleasure, get-back-at-the-world idea and make it depressing? I cant even begin to tell you. All I can say is that it starts out on the right foot with everything going wrong for this average-guy, and they place him in impossible situations - you get it. Somewhere along the line, though, it veers off course and gets stuck in LaLa Land with him getting screwed and screwed over, and it becomes seriously unfunny. The acting is fine, but the casting is not - who in their right mind picked Anne Heche as the ex-wife for this show? That person needs to be fired. Ann Heche cannot act her way out of a cardboard box. The casting of their children and his pimp(s) is another oddity. They spend an inordinate amount of time following all of their thoroughly boring lives, and it leaves you wondering if they are just feeling their way through the script. The show puts you in mind of a very dark humor version of that movie 17 Again, with Matthew Perry and Leslie Mann, but somehow along the way it lost the humor part, and became pathetic.

The Forgotten - 2/5
I am quite the Christian Slater fan, and I hate that the show My Own Worst Enemy got canceled. Truly I do. But I am very very ambivalent about this show - it smacks of Fringe like qualities to me: reptitive, dull, and ultimately having an ambiguous story arc at best. In truth, they lost me on episode 1, when they surrounded him with women. The show was interesting enough, but in truth, it seems to be just another Cold Case File show, with new faces and voice-over narration (which I found irritating and preachy). Yeah. That. What IS with all the obvious and high-handed preachy-ness of the shows nowadays? If I had wanted to truly cry over all the Jane/John Does in existence, I wouldve watched a documentary. Truth be told, if you really want to see interesting old cases solved, check out the old BBC show New Tricks.

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something witty goes here......

Kevin Smith is on the Newsnight Review right now!!!

There's about 20 minutes left. I think it's available on BBC iplayer, but I'm not sure.

Started watching Warehouse 13. About 4 episodes in now and it's ok, though I think I prefered it when it was called "Friday The 13th: The Series".

Still not sold on the partnership though. I've heard people say Mulder and Scully, but I think it's a lot more Booth/Brennan (Bones) myself.

As much as I hate to admit it, I've been steadily tuning in to the third season of Skins for the past few weeks (mainly as background noise), but if the fact that I keep watching it week after week is any indication, I'm actually starting to like it. Even though the drama is either laughable or (in some rare instances) a little close to the bone for my liking, I keep watching it for some reason.

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Just saw the first two episodes of Fringe last night and I really enjoyed it. I don't watch a whole lot of TV and I missed the first season when it was shown here which I am now regretting because it really is an entertaining show. It's obviously heavily influenced by The X-Files of which I am also a huge fan, but the similarities do not bother me. It's definitely something I will continue to watch.

It can be a television show on DVD, right?

The Two Coreys - Season 1 - Episode 7 [ Cold Turkey ]

This was one of those 'it's so bad it's good' type television shows. My main complaint was that the show was so horribly scripted, that no one could even talk themselves into actually believing the stuff they were seeing was "reality TV", but, I've always been a huge fan of Haim and Feldman which is why I love and bought 'The Two Coreys' season 1 and 2.

Top Gear's back but, and this is something that struck me towards the end of their last run, I wonder if they're becoming a tiny bit (more) contrived?

This makes me sad - The Fonz water-ski-jumping over sharks etc etc.

TBH Tacitus, I thougt that happened ages ago with the Caravaning Holiday. Very funny, but so contrived that I couldn't suspend disbelief enough to go along with it. Also, the 'addition' of Top Gear Dog.

I loved the Romanian gypsies bit though. I know he's gotten some heat for it, but I'm sure he cares about that about as much as I do.

Yeah, I know what you mean but sketches (which is all they are, I suppose) used to take place 2 or 3 times a series, now it seems like there's one in every show. It started grating when they did that VW advert thing last series.

The Romanian thing was very good, I agree, apart from the "And a big thank you to the Romanian Government for letting us film in their fabulous country" schtick. It made me wonder if they had the invite before the idea?

I love Top Gear and im loving the new series

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They're still one of the best things on telly, I'm not disputing that, but the sly little wink they did to the camera is occasionally turning into that unsettling thing that Anne Robinson does at the end of The Weakest Link.

Y'know, where she looks like she's had a mild stroke...



Thank God for Google Images!

I completely agree with that. You used to get a race and a sketch a series and then a couple of years ago it became one an episode (of varying length). I think I like the challenges the most now, where they get a certain amount of money to spend on something crap and put them through their paces. My favourite of all time being this one, of course...



I've decided that, with these challenges/races, it's probably someone on the production crew has been on holiday and come back with an idea or, as you say, an invite.

Still, they're minor quibbles really for what is, as you say, one of the best programmes on tv.

Thankgod indeed my friend

I watched it last night and when James May was floating over the airport it was hilarious, also when he landed in the caravan park and he was being dragged sideways through the trees hahahaha I know what you mean about the wink though

I bought the Boxset of the Adventures (Pole, USA, Botswana and Vietnam) last week and the last two had director & crew commentaries. I gave them a listen yesterday and they were really good.

Basically, the ideas for Botswana and Vietnam came from Clarkson himself after he'd (indeed ) been there on holiday and they are a lot less 'staged' than I imagined. The basic structure is worked out beforehand - the vehicles are bought by the crew before the presenters arrive but with their say-so and always adhering to the budget - but then it's mostly down to what Clarkson, Hammond and May can provide, unscripted, on the day and up to the camera crew to make sure everything is captured. Vietnam had something like 140 rolls of film which needed to be edited down to an hour.

I nearly wept at the Lancia segment last night. I was one of the lucky few to have owned an achingly pretty Fulvia HF (10 or 12 years ago now) and it went on fire just like the car in the rally bit, only with me it was at traffic lights in the middle of the day and was put out by a bloke running out of a shoe shop with a fire extinguisher. It sat in a shed for 18 months, needing a complete rebuild, and was finally sold on (for a profit, even in a non-running state! ) after a stand-off with my wife.

Seeing that red and black one last night (mine was silver...silver and burny bits at the end) brought everything back, including the resentment still smouldering at having to sell it.

Saw this today and wondered to myself; who exactly was this news to and why did/does The Mail feel it necessary to 'report' it in such a way?

Top Gear stunt in which airship flew over airport exposed as a carefully orchestrated fake


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...ated-fake.html

What's tomorrow's headline? Woman 'sawn in half' just a trick?

Good grief. The Daily Heil really has it in for the BBC these days, hasn't it?

From the kick-off it was pretty obvious that that airship stunt was one of the set-ups that we'd been talking about a few posts ago ... unless you work for some Tory toilet paper with an agenda, that is.

Are they gonna tell us that the guys really didn't set fire to that caravan during their 'holiday' or that Clarkson wasn't really opening a swimming pool when he drove that old Rolls into it?

Daily Mail readers seem to live in some sort of Terry & June netherworld of curtain-twitching semis in the Home Counties when Maggie was in power.

I remember the original Top Gear with William 'Woolly' Woollard and Noel .. ermm .. 'noelly' Edmonds. Terry and June would have loved that.

Exactly what I thought when I read it. Did this all start with Brand/Ross or was it before that?

Tacitus, did you used to watch Charlie Brooker?



He did another episode about tv 'fakery', but I can't find that atm.

Considering the average age of Mail readers (in my experience) that's probably a little too modern. The late 70's seems to be where they are.

Was William Woollard the little bloke who used to be a rally driver? He's the first guy I remember on Top Gear and, yes, it was much better once Clarkson joined in the mid 80's. Even then, of course, it was unrecognisable compared to today's programme.

I'm thinking the Big Brother race row with Jade Goody, that Scouse girl who now seems to be an exercise machine for footballers and the one nobody fancied out of S Club 7? Hadn't seen that particular Brooker bit but he hit the nail on the head totally - These phone-in reality shows have given viewers a false sense of power.


He had blond hair, shaped like a helmet (a RACING helmet! ) and was a bit, well, dull. Maybe you're thinking of the adenoidal ex-racing driver Tiff Needell (sp?)? I can remember Clarkson joining Top Gear and actually knew who he was because he'd been writing for a magazine called Performance Car (in much the same style as he does today) when I was in my early teens.

EDIT - Hooray once more for Google Images!



I might be wrong but think the story with the new Top Gear went thusly: The old TG was haemorrhaging viewers and got cancelled leaving JC with a BBC contract and no programs which suited him, like that short-lived chat show he did. The Beeb eventually asked him to come back to a new Top Gear but he only agreed to do it if he got editorial control.