television news service

[sab]

This week in stuff I know about TV:

1. Courtesy of infinitemonkeys I've learned that they're announcing the 11th Doctor tomorrow. Everyone, stay very calm and we'll survive this unscathed! My money is still on James Nesbitt, or some unknown Indian woman.

2. So, Leverage is its own kind of lame fun, but if you want a good con artist team show, why are you not watching Hustle? Which is to say, if you like Leverage, you will love Hustle. If you think Leverage is lame, you will love Hustle. If you've ever liked Adrian Lester or Marc Warren or Robert Glenister, or Jaime Murray (Lila the 12-step support honey slash lover on Dexter), you will love Hustle. She out-Gina Bellmans Gina Bellman. And Gina Bellman is the best part of Leverage. Which is, let me remind you, a poor man's diluted American ripoff of Hustle. So, you know. Watch Hustle. It used to be on AMC somewhere near Mad Men, but it's def available at your friendly neighborhood UK telly community and/or other ahem-ing comms.

3. Fringe IS lame! But somehow entertaining. Mostly I like watching that blonde girl and waiting for her to slip into her natural accent, and I like the old dude and his cheap, yet interesting and entertaining, wordplay and cluelessness. But as runpunkrun warned me, Joshua Jackson is totally wasted as a glorified babysitter. Sigh.

4. Scrubs is coming back soon, for its final half-season! When is Scrubs coming back?

5. BSG is coming back for its final half-season! I am more excited about Scrubs.

6. As I asked K. -- would I like Merlin? Criteria to consider include the fact that I hate Sarah Connor Chronicles because that kid is way too emo and annoying, I have not a lot of tolerance for low-budg fantasy shows (see also Xena), and pretty underage boys are not enough to sell me on anything. Then again, I like magic, I like Morgan Le Fay (thank you, Mists of Avalon), I like Merlin and Arthur and Lancelot and the round table, and I like questy quests with problem solving and fantastic obstacles. Also witty dialogue. So... would I like Merlin?

7. Watch Hustle.

Comments

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

Re: Merlin, I think you might like it, but you have to commit to giving it through ep four to give a fair chance. First three are a *wee* bit uneven in terms of cheesiness. You'll also like it much better if you go in a) accepting that the creators are deliberately borrowing from several centuries worth of historicalness for a semi-fairytale world and b) viewing it as a reboot/remix of the story, and turn off your "arthurian mythos, ur doing it wrong" filter. Yes, the CG can be shite, but that's really only a minute or two total, each ep, you have to roll your eyes.

Er, yeah. Basically, if the vast, vast, vast majority of my Flist falling like dominos for it is any indication, you'll like it, but you have to give it a couple of eps to find its tone footing. It will totally reward you, particularly toward the back half season. And all season long, it's cracky, cracky fun. Essentially, smallville and harry potter had lots of gay sex and had an ass baby, and that assbaby was an arthrian legend high school AU where Anthony Stewart Head plays out all your Bad Daddy fantasies.

And it's not just pretty underage boys (not to mention, they're all european/interesting cute, not cookie cutter bland WB surf show cute), it's pretty (not particularly underage) boys being as slashy as humanly possible for each other, to the point where you'll be like "Wow, this is as gay as this show can possibly get. It can't get any gayer" during no less than five different eps.