I am a huge fan of Fred Armisen (Saturday Night Live, Portlandia), a gifted comedian who is able to inhabit all sorts of guises with aplomb and bring characters to life with believability and a straight face (hard when they’re as funny as they usually are). One of those characters Continue Reading
TV
Can you go back? Re-watching “CHiPs” (1977-1983)
SNAPSHOT The show was created by Rick Rosner, and starred Erik Estrada as macho, rambunctious Officer Francis (“Frank”) “Ponch” Poncherello and Larry Wilcox as his strait-laced partner, Officer Jonathan “Jon” Baker. With Ponch the more trouble-prone of the pair, and Jon generally the more level-headed one trying to keep Continue Reading
Falling Skies review: “Search and Recover” (season 3, episode 5)
“Search and Recover” confirmed everything I have ever thought about camping in the great outdoors. It’s damp and uncomfortable, you’ll probably have to build a fire, the food will be questionable (frogs anyone?), there’s a high likelihood you’ll injure yourself, and you might get suck with fellow campers that’ll Continue Reading
The science of being a Muppet
Have you ever wondered what The Muppets would look like as a periodic table that groups all manner of Jim Henson’s much loved creations together? No? Well neither had I. But thank the gods of insanely original imagination that artist Mike Boon (aka Mike BaBoon) had, and did something Continue Reading
Coming to a TV near you: 5 more promising new season dramas #2 – “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland”, “Gang Related”, “Rake”, “Tomorrow People”, “Intelligence”
It’s that time of the year again! Last year’s TV season is dead and buried, but not of course, forgotten, and a jostling crop of hopefuls is waiting in the wings ready to take their place. The shows were revealed a couple of months back during what is known Continue Reading
My 5 favourite modern TV theme tunes
The untimely, enormously sad death of James Gandolfini a couple of weeks ago while on holiday in Italy, prompted me, by way of a tribute, to repeatedly play “Woke Up This Morning” by the Alabama 3, the devastatingly evocative, haunting theme song to the show that brought him fame Continue Reading
“Falling Skies” review: ‘At All Costs’ (Episode 4, season 3)
* Spoilers ahead … and a few antsy Volm no doubt ready to shoot you down * It was a case of up, up and away if you were human or Volm in the blistering return-to-form fourth episode of the third season of TNT’s Falling Skies … Or if Continue Reading
Let’s go to “Camp” this summer!
SNAPSHOT Still reeling from her recent divorce, Mackenzie is ready for a fresh start. She is running things on her own for the first time and scrambling to keep the cash-strapped Little Otter from going under. She considers a buyout offer from Roger Shepard (Rodger Corser, Underbelly), the arrogant Continue Reading
TV review: “Under the Dome” premiere episode
I am not quite sure when the realisation hit. It could have been when a cow came off second best in the bovine vs dome battle that gruesomely punctuated the arrival of the transparent, impervious to sound curved shield that descended without much warning, bar some earthquake-like shaking and Continue Reading
Coming to a TV near you: 5 promising new season dramas #1 – Sleepy Hollow, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Almost Human, The Blacklist, Believe
It’s that time of the year again! The current TV season is coming to a close and as the shows we know and love wrap it up for another year, some of them never to be seen again, a jostling crop of hopefuls is waiting in the wings ready Continue Reading