Archive for the Unsung Heroes Category

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January and February 2020

Posted in American TV (General), American TV Shows, Americans watching British TV, Behind-The-Scenes, BiogTV, British Shows on American TV, Internet TV, Reality TV, Reviews, TV Acting, TV advertising, TV channels, TV History, TV News, TV Sports, Uncategorized, Unsung Heroes, Watching TV on March 2, 2020 by Tom Steward

New Blog 8.1

I seriously doubt there’s anything in No Time to Die that can compete with Graham’s laser shoe from Spyfall.

Seen through the prism of a constantly buffering HBO Go app, the final season of Silicon Valley was an unintentionally interactive viewing experience for me.

qubo specializes in cartoons from yesteryear that look like they’re being watched from another room.

Have the rights to Ted Bundy recently gone into the public domain?

The Magic Motor Inn episode of Fresh Off the Boat proves that G’s back-door spinoff-dar is military grade.

Netflix’s Cheer is not to be confused with the first screen outing of Ted Danson’s Sam Malone.

Time jump finales in HBO Original Series are now contractually binding.

The advertising for the BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet makes it seems like Earth is a TV show leaving a streaming service in 2020.

I don’t know if I’m more amazed that a musical act on The Bachelor once dated a contestant or that a contestant had prior knowledge of a musical act on The Bachelor.

American quality television is having its own papal war.

HBO’s McMillions recalls Ben Affleck’s comment on Argo that “even the feeblest execution” of such a compelling real-life story would still make for great entertainment.

G was expecting Shrill to be like a live-action Nature Cat, demonstrating that as parents of a toddler we are no longer able to distinguish between adult and children’s television.

New Blog 8.2

The MSNBC reporter’s racist outburst in reporting of the death of Kobe Bryant and the subsequent resurrection of Mr. Peanut in his honor suggests that TV’s priorities on grief may need re-evaluating.

The best media satire I see on network television is in Geico and Progressive Commercials.

Larry David may be Bernie Sanders’ best impersonator but, judging by this season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, he could also be Trump’s most effective speechwriter.

Avenue 5 is a worthy addition to the British science-fiction sub-genre of Shoddy Space.

When Adam Driver hosts Saturday Night Live, it feels like improvised jazz rather than a hit-and-miss sketch show.

Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez made me wonder why there isn’t a rolling news channel devoted to this story.

I urge you to watch reality shows with closed captioning as they put inverted commas around words that don’t exist and they come thick and “fastly.”

The Oscars 2020 really made the case for the continuing importance of commercial cinema with an opening musical number recreating an iconic moment of public television.

U-Verse On-Demand needs to accept that I am not going to rent A Simple Favor.

Season Three is the new Season Two. We need to be talking about Junior Slumps.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is the best argument for only reporting the news when it’s not happening.

If parents are confused as to which version of The Adventures of Paddington Bear is the newest one, just remember it’s not the Canadian one with a bloated expositional theme tune that even The Simpsons couldn’t credibly parody.

New Blog 8.3

Unexpected bonus of AMC’s uncensored airing of The Godfather films Part 1 – 8am boobs.

Unexpected bonus of AMC’s uncensored airing of The Godfather films Part 2 – The Godfather Part II now gives two fucks.

Unexpected bonus of AMC’s uncensored airing of The Godfather films Part 3 – Doesn’t apply to The Godfather Part III so you have an excuse to skip it.

What is anyone on Married at First Sight talking about? They all sound like malfunctioning self-help robots.

The world television premiere of El Camino was somewhat undermined by the fact that millions of viewers had already seen the movie on television.

Haven’t we done enough damage to Pizza Hut crusts without making them their own appetizer?

Bad News Breaking – Breaking Bad Now The Sequel To Better Call Saul.

In terms of romanticizing of the Taliban, the final season of Homeland picks up where Rambo III and The Living Daylights left off.

The commercial for the “Battle for the 2020 White House” commemorative chess set is the best piece of television to play parody chicken with.

I bet the voice actors on Superwings: Mission Teams increasingly regret having ticked the Accents and Dialects box on their online submission for the casting call.

Made my national television commercial debut and now worried about being typecast as “Man in Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirt that doesn’t fit him ignoring Phil Mickelson.”

Apparently, Saturday Night Live having a host and musical guest I’m equally excited to see only happens every four years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Cast Members

Posted in American TV (General), American TV Shows, Behind-The-Scenes, Local TV, TV Acting, Unsung Heroes with tags , , , , , , , on April 7, 2016 by Tom Steward

It’s not often I ask you to do something – except look up words (or so G tells me). But at the end of this post, I’m going to ask you for money. It’s not going to me (not for a long time anyway) instead to a group of talented and ambitious individuals who want to shape the future of television sitcoms. But they need your help to do it!

The true test of a great sitcom idea is this. If you hear it and your first thought is ‘why haven’t they done that before?’, it’s a winner. If you ask that question and get the reply ‘it has’ it’s a loser. Aaron Roberts, Executive Producer of The Cast Members, needn’t worry because his sitcom about a rag tag group of movie theater employees is one of the most original yet obvious (in a good way) premises we’ve had in television comedy for years. In fact, Aaron is hoping to breathe fresh air into the comedy world:

‘Television is at its golden age with dramas, most people believe it is consistently better than the films that flood the box office week after week. But, television sitcoms? The last great ones to go off the air left what was NBC’s comedy block in shambles a few years ago. The bad outweigh good and most networks continue to rehash old premises with new faces or even worse – straight rebooting old IP’

The Cast Members is a grassroots project from independent production company Blue Vision Entertainment, who have already scripted 6 episodes and are ready to shoot an initial season with an insanely talented ensemble cast already assembled (ensembled?!) and an award-winning crew behind-the-scenes. The Cast Members is on Indiegogo to raise funds for a pilot from the 1600+ strong audience they’ve found on social media and actors and crew even got together to shoot some promo videos introducing the ensemble cast in separate scenes to really showcase all the talent attached to the project and obtain a picture of what audiences would expect to find in full length episodes.

What Aaron is doing is highly ambitious, but not unprecedented in television comedy:

‘This is the beginning of another Always Sunny or Broad City type of story; the small production that started on the web that will mark the precipice of some great comedy careers’

Nor is this a flash-in-the-pan. It’s a show that has been evolving in independent development for over 2 years and that – Aaron guarantees – will eventually air somewhere. As for content, Aaron is confident of the sitcom’s broad appeal:

‘With performers from all ethnicities and walks of life…the story has heart and speaks to anyone who has ever held a minimum wage, first employment that they sort of ‘had’ to work’

Aaron is, however, under no delusions as to what the main selling point of the sitcom is; the cast members…appropriately enough:

‘The best possible cast of the rise acting talent possible from California was assembled. Multiple NYT award nominees and recipients. Actors with credits list such as The Daily Show, Modern Family, Faking It, Tangerine and more are finally ready to break out from bit roles and showcase their true comedic chops. Two actors are currently starring in theater productions in New York and San Diego that are receiving rave reviews. Not to mention the couple working stand-up comedians portraying different characters on the show’

I’m glad Aaron said all that, so I didn’t have to. You see, I’m in the cast of this show, playing (movie) theater (concessions) veteran Peter Peterman, who thanks to Aaron’s keen sense of comedic resource exploitation developed an English accent and gained a wife between drafts. I’m even in one of the crowdfunding videos, which you can watch below. See if you can spot me. I do rather blend in:

So take a chance on this production. It’s got an interesting story to tell and 20 absolutely talented actors to do it. If you need more proof for your purchase, you can watch all ten superbly written and performed crowdfunding videos for free via the show’s Facebook page or on Indiegogo, where you can also send your donation. The amount doesn’t matter (but don’t hold back if you don’t have to!) just be sure to help us out and you can say you were a part of sitcom history before anyone else. And – if you need a closer – just remember how critical I’ve been of TV on this blog then re-read this post!

 

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Sound and Television

Posted in American TV Shows, Americans watching British TV, Behind-The-Scenes, TV Acting, TV channels, TV History, TV News, Unsung Heroes with tags , , , , , on January 12, 2016 by Tom Steward

David Bowie was – among other divinities – a consummate self-promoter and it’s for this reason alone I feel justified in exploiting a niche in the market of Bowie obituaries; his appearances on television. Looking back at what Bowie has done on and for TV, it’s all too clear that his genius – like Elvis before and Madonna after him – was in breaking down barriers of genre and generation. His TV – see one thrive:

 

Top of the Pops (1972)

Though in retrospect Bowie only ever flirted with LGBT imagery and shed his public bisexuality as quickly as he did all his other personas – including the one at the root of his sexual ambiguity, Ziggy Stardust – his performance of ‘Starman’ on British chart countdown Top of the Pops in 1972 was a watershed in the visibility of gender and sexual fluidity in the mainstream culture of Britain. Bowie’s androgynous dress and appearance was one thing, his suggestive embrace of guitarist and collaborator Mick Ronson entirely another. Viewers may have been reading between the lines, since Bowie had recently come out as gay (or possibly bisexual) in rock magazine Melody Maker. That this risqué – and risky – display had such an impact is due as much to the three-channel limit of TV viewing in the UK in the early seventies which meant it was seen by most of the country’s television audience as it is to the content of the performance. But that doesn’t diminish the power it had on those who were awakened and liberated by Bowie’s gesture, including future British pop legends Boy George and Ian McCulloch, nor does it make this surreptitious statement of social change less significant.

 

David Bowie and Bing Crosby (1977)

Despite being constantly innovative and revolutionary in his music, Bowie was never one to shun tradition, as evidenced by his affection and appreciation for the cabaret singers and crooners who were the pop sensations of their eras. Bowie seemed to have a particular fondness for American pop music, and became a fully-fledged part of it in the seventies and eighties when – inexplicably – he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the  most legitimate funk and soul artists in the USA. If you take all that into consideration, the awkward chemistry and textbook-illustration culture clash of David Bowie singing with Bing Crosby on his Christmas show in 1977 disappears into thin air. If the lacklustre banter about the irrelevance of a  generation gap in musical tastes doesn’t convince you of their parity – and it won’t – then the complimentary idiosyncrasies in their duet medley of ‘Little Drummer Boy’ and ‘Peace on Earth’ makes a compelling case for their historically inextricable legacies as pop stars.

 

The Snowman (1982)

As a recent orchestral performance of the British animated feature based on Raymond Briggs’ beloved children’s book I witnessed reminded me, the live-action introduction featuring David Bowie as an adult version of the main character remembering his childhood experiences is more often omitted from showings than it is included. It’s not really surprising as the appearance of a clean-cut, bleach-blond Bowie is the only aspect of this timeless film that dates it as a product of the early eighties. But this appearance unlocks a history of extraneous and bizarre movie cameos that is as much part of Bowie’s place in pop culture as his music. The Snowman is aired every Christmas Eve on British TV station Channel 4 and I suspect that in future years the melancholy of this beautiful film about loss and transience will have as much to do with Bowie as it does the Boy.

 

Extras (2006)

Speaking of extraneous and bizarre cameos…Though celebrity appearances like Bowie’s would eventually spell the end of Ricky Gervais’s credibility as comic actor and writer, his industry-set sitcom Extras created a self-contained world in which celebrity sightings were eminently plausible. The irony of Bowie’s appearance in the second episode of the sitcom’s final season is that a music star of his ilk is the last celebrity sitcom actor Andy Milman is likely to run into. It’s not much of a leap to suggest that this might be a sly reference to Bowie turning up in projects he didn’t need to be in. It’s one of the few occasions that Gervais had the humility to credit someone else with his success. Gervais’s self-effacing ode ‘Little Fat Man’ is styled so perfectly for Bowie, it acknowledges the extent to which Gervais’s physical and vocal mannerisms which have won him international adoration – especially as David Brent – are informed by the late performer.

 

 

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Bridging The Map

Posted in Reviews, Touring TV, TV channels, TV Criticism, TV Culture, Unsung Heroes with tags , , , , , , , , , on November 2, 2015 by Tom Steward

It’s not often that I address Americans as a separate entity – at least not since I went native – for that way lies cultural imperialism. But in this case I feel vindicated because I know it’s for your benefit. Besides, I come from a land with a tradition of broadcasting that tells you what you need rather than giving you what you want. I’m not going to tell you to watch British TV, because you’re already doing that and it’s a problem. Instead, I’m going to ask you to embrace television from countries where you don’t – theoretically – share a common language.

...and brains!

…and brains!

Americans, you need to end your embargo on television subtitles. European TV drama is now so good you cannot afford to ignore it just because of an outmoded preference for television in your (our, sorry!) native tongue. You know this because you’ve spent the last five years remaking European TV shows, from Scandinavian police drama (The Killing, The Bridge, Those Who Kill) to a litter of official and unofficial remakes of the French horror series The Returned (yes, I’m looking at you Damon Lindelhof!). You might assume that TV drama from another culture will lose something in translation, and that’s why it’s better to remake them in American settings. Well, not only are these English-language remakes invariably inferior, in my experience they tend to ham up their European origins to the point where they seem more foreign than their forbearer. And that’s beside the point. It’s just a waste of resources. Get over having to read instead of listen (and you can still listen – the soundtracks are always gorgeous) and simply cut out the middleman.

It’s not as if you don’t already have subtitles on TV. Though it copped out of subtitling in Russian in its pilot episode, FX’s The Americans soon switched to subtitles for all the dialogue between native Russian speakers, and it helps the atmosphere and realism of the show no end. Even ABC’s sitcom Fresh off the Boat feels its Tuesday night audience can handle a beat or two in Mandarin without rushing to cancel their cable subscription. You might think that greenlighting European remakes and co-productions, like NBC’s sold-short summer experiment Welcome to Sweden, is meeting the demand halfway, but it’s actually more like going off at the deep end. As far as content goes, there’s nothing American audiences haven’t seen before: Obsessive police detectives, serial killers, cat-and-mouse games, labyrinthine murder investigations. The Returned is just dead people walking and you can’t move for them in American TV currently. It’s not new, just done extraordinarily well, and once you acclimatise to the foreign accents on your screens, nothing else will jar with your TV experience.

British TV imports might seem like a happy medium, since the country is close enough to continental Europe to share similarities with this new wave of television drama (which shows like Broadchurch and The Fall attest to) and yet can be more or less understood by speakers of American-English. British shows are certainly more popular than ever in the States and fill the vacuum for foreign TV that everyone’s told they should watch. Historically, I’d defend British TV drama but when it’s the dire Sherlock, overrated Broadchurch, and diminishing The Fall against what Denmark, Sweden and France has produced over the past few years, there really is no contest. There’s a level of comfort about British TV in the eyes of American audiences that outweighs quality. The memories of cosy sitcoms and period pieces on PBS Sundays cannot be brushed aside in one stroke, no matter how successful the replacement. And that’s the other advantage. TV drama from continental Europe is far more conducive to the American taste for procedurals and portentous horror than Britain.

The Walking Dead en francais!

The Walking Dead en francais!

Hopefully, this argument will soon be moot. Internet video-on-demand services like Hulu and Netflix sell themselves to subscribers – at least those who have been profiled as viewers of sophisticated drama – on the basis that European series are available in bulk. Some of the arthouse movie channels like Sundance and Showtime have found ways to incorporate subtitled TV drama into their remit. And don’t discount the viewer’s desire to bypass network boycotts of foreign-language imports with simple, straightforward piracy. But there really are shows for everyday television. Inevitably, censorship will be a problem but what’s shown wouldn’t be too much trouble for one of the big cable networks like FX and AMC. There really is no reason compelling enough to hold back the revolution…sorry la revolution!

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Peak Viewing Time

Posted in American TV (General), American TV Shows, TV Criticism, TV Culture, TV Dreams, TV History, Unsung Heroes with tags , , , , , , , , , on May 13, 2015 by Tom Steward

There are TV shows we talk about too much. But Twin Peaks isn’t one of them. I’d say the endless chatter about David Lynch and Mark Frost’s early 90s ABC drama by those besotted of the show (whom I suspect have cherry-pie-picked episodes and not endured the interminably drawn-out final quarter) was better spent on less-discussed yet equally worthy TV from this era…if it weren’t for how crucial Twin Peaks is in the history of television. Unusually for a show that ran for only two years and thirty episodes, no-one has ever shut up about it. The supreme production values and self-conscious artistry have ensured that there is never a reason not to re-air and re-box set the programme. Even compared to other 90s TV shows, which generally stand up well visually (especially compared to the previous decade), the colour, focus and cinematography are configured in such a way that HD could not possibly improve upon it. There’s been more talk recently because it’s the 25th anniversary of the series (although there always seems to be an excuse for a retrospective!) and plans are afoot for a revival of Twin Peaks on Showtime. However, if the public statements of Lynch and most of the cast are anything to go by, the revival might have as much to do with Twin Peaks as 10 Things I hate about you does with The Taming of the Shrew.

A title colour only used in 90s television!

A title colour only used in 90s television!

Twin Peaks set in motion models of television storytelling that have been influential ever since it was on the air. Small-town quirk and paranormal procedural would dominate American TV throughout the 90s, through the ‘twin peaks’ of Northern Exposure and The X-Files. The legacy endures to this day with series like Parks and Recreation, Wayward Pines, Fringe and Grimm. The long-form murder mystery has been a staple of quality television internationally in recent years, with Denmark’s Forbrydelsen, Britain’s Broadchurch and America’s True Detective. Indeed, if HBO opened the floodgates of American quality television with The Sopranos, then Twin Peaks’ dream states and cine-literacy were an important precedent for the show. More broadly, Twin Peaks cemented many ideas that we now take for granted. It showed us that fantasy and realism can live alongside one another in TV without contradiction and that every character in an ensemble (no matter how ridiculous) deserved an inner life and a separate storyline to boot. Twin Peaks remains the benchmark for what constitutes good television. When Louis C.K. tried to generate an art movie feel for his sitcom Louie, he went to none other than David Lynch as guest star (and director in spirit) for a 3-part season finale. In 2010, mystery drama Psych aired an episode called ‘Dual Spires’ featuring cast members and storylines from Twin Peaks, acknowledging the longevity of the show’s mythology as TV to aspire to.

If we dwell too much on the originality of Twin Peaks (as a recent Radio 4 documentary did), we are in danger of forgetting how much the show took from television. References abound to classic American series from Dragnet to The Fugitive (complimenting the mid-century Hollywood intertextuality). As the meta-show Invitation to Love indicates, the characters and storylines in Twin Peaks could have easily come out of a daytime soap. But Twin Peaks was also acknowledging how soaps had graduated to primetime in the previous decade, with shows like Dallas and Knots Landing. In fact, the season one cliffhanger bears an uncanny resemblance to the ‘Who Shot J.R.?’ storyline in Dallas that captivated TV audiences exactly a decade before. For all that is made of David Lynch’s ‘cinematic’ influence on the show, Twin Peaks was co-created by Mark Frost, whose formative experience had been writing for television, notably on Steve Bochco and Michael Kozoll’s soap copera Hill Street Blues. Twin Peaks is as remarkable for its adept handling of serial narrative arcs and gradual character development as for its experimental audio-visual style, and there is a clear lineage from Frost’s work on the continuing ensemble drama Hill Street Blues to his teleplays for Twin Peaks. But Lynch and his signature composer Angelo Badalamenti clearly understood the importance of sound to television, creating a soundscape that both compliments perfectly and stands terrifyingly alone from the image.

...or sooner!

…or sooner!

For better or worse, Twin Peaks stands for something bigger than it is. It is the nucleus of a fine art television and a prism through which to see the medium. Laura Palmer said she’d see us in 25 years. She was 25 years over.

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