Doctor Who

• Eighth Doctor to meet granddaughter Susan in Big Finish play

British TV

• ITV Player coming to Virgin Media

US TV

• What Mark Verheiden's doing to change Heroes, and one of the cast wants out
• Casting on True Blood, Eleventh Hour, Numb3rs and NCIS [spoilers]
• Some of the differences between new Prisoner and old

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email

Read other posts about: Heroes, Numb3rs, The Prisoner

Three exciting previews here for everyone who's still bothering to watch Heroes. The first and best is from the BBC's Heroes: Unmasked and, because it's the Beeb, will only play for UK viewers. However, it's about three minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, clips and interviews so is worth watching - if only to see who's absolutely definitely going to be in… the first episode of the the fourth volume. And doesn't Ali look fetching in red?

The second is pretty much the same but is shorter, lacks some of the interviews, and is in YouTube quality but should be viewable by Americans and Canadians:

The last is the US "next episode" preview so everyone's probably seen it, it's low quality and you can't really see much. But doesn't Ali look fetching in a sort of pinky-lilac? Hope you're all having some happy holidays!

Read other posts about: Heroes

Doctor Who

• Screw David Morrissey and Paterson Joseph - it's Matthew Horne! [unrelated spoiler]

Film

• Golden Compass director to direct Twilight sequel
• Nightmare on Elm Street remake to shoot in spring
• The Crow to be remade
• Fifth Terminator movie in the works

British TV

• Little Dorrit ends with 4.2m viewers
• Naomie Harris to lead cast of Nigeria-set Sweet Delta
• New characters for The Royle Family
• Coming soon: the Being Human production blog

US TV

• Danny Comden to write temp agency comedy for ABC…
• …and Dave Hemingson to write legal dramedy for ABC
• Robert Carlyle to star in the new Stargate series
• Mark Schwahn to write new Melrose Place
• Virtuality in trouble
• Heroes and Fringe top recorded TV shows
• What to expect in True Blood season two [spoilers]

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email

Read other posts about: Being Human, Heroes, Stargate

Doctor Who

• Torchwood won't be watered down for BBC1 [minor spoilers]
• Spoilers for the Christmas (and following) specials

Film

• Casting begins on M Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender
• Trailers for Dragon Ball Evolution
• New Robocop movie to go hardcore
• Ben Stiller replacing Mark Ruffalo on Greenburg

British TV

• BBC Switch to show modern versions of Greek myths
• The Comedy Unit to make OAP sitcom for BBC1

US TV

• Desperate Housewives to get four more seasons?
• Bryan Fuller's plans to fix Heroes
• A relative for Sylar [spoiler]
• Sarah Chalke to star in adaptation of Maneater

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email

Read other posts about: Heroes, Torchwood

The Daily News will be back on Wednesday 10th December

Film

• Clips from Terminator: Salvation
• Amy Adams to star in adaption of The Ten Best Days of My Life
• Len Wiseman to adapt adaptation of Atlantis Rising
• Hancock 2 definitely happening
• Anna Faris lines up two new comedies

Commercials

• US Burger King ads attract complaints

German TV

• TMG making English-language version of Moby Dick

British TV

• ITV rebrands catch-up service as ITV Player
• iPlayer hits 300m views
• Beehive debuts to poor ratings
• Discovery to launch crime channel in the UK
• Eoin Colfer's Half Moon Investigations becomes a CBBC series
• Coming of Age recommissioned
• …as is Spooks

US TV

• Gossip Girl spin-off to be launched within an episode…
• …and an old character returns
• Joseph Fiennes and John Cho join cast of Flash Forward
• Heroes, Chuck and T:TSCC's ratings improve, while Samantha Who? struggles
• ABC cuts order for Cupid episodes to just nine
• Miranda Richardson to co-star in AMC political thriller

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email

Read other posts about: Gossip Girl, Heroes

Doctor Who

• Minor spoilers about Torchwood's next season

Film

• They Live to be remade…
• …as is Romancing the Stone…
• …and maybe Arthur, too, with Russell Brand…
• …and even Tarzan, but more as Pirates of the Caribbean

British TV

• Competition commission wants changes to Project Kangaroo
• Classic movie channel launching on Sky/Freesat
• Call for a new Welsh TV channel that isn't in Welsh

US TV

• Mentalist doing well in the ratings
• Bryan Fuller set to rejoin Heroes as part of two-year NBC deal
• Third season for Californication
• Fred Thompson to guest star on Life on Mars
• Knight Rider almost certainly cancelled

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email

Read other posts about: Heroes, Life on Mars, Torchwood

As mentioned in my asides, I didn't have much time for blogging last week. Sorry about that. But here's a round-up of a few of my TV thoughts:

Survivors
Pretty rubbish. Couldn't even be bothered to watch episode two. Interestingly, probably the only instance of a TV show adapted from the novelisation of an older TV show, and there was the name-switch of a couple of characters to fake out the seven people who could remember the original series/novel and who lived/died.

But still very tedious, with no really interesting characters and no real sense of disaster or tragedy. "Oh my God, I've had to burn the body of my dead husband. Right, anyone for chips?"

To a certain extent, the problem is with the format, since although it's got a great starting point - almost everyone in the world dies so how will the survivors manage to eke out an existence? - invariably it descends into decisions about crop rotation, government structures and population stabilisation systems that somehow manage to avoid discussing or depicting sex since it's mainstream BBC.

But the original series still managed to make the characters interesting so clearly not everything can be blamed on Terry Nation.

Knight Rider
We've stopped watching it. It really is very, very bad.

Odd BBC2 links
We were watching Top Gear yesterday when up pops a trailer for Louis Theroux's programme following the police in Philadelphia. Two things:

1. Theroux needs a different act if he's going to do serious journalism. To policeman: "What would have happened if he'd drawn that gun?" "He'd have been shot." "Who by?" Erm… Are you mental?
2. The BBC2 announcer then said "It's just like an episode of The Wire". So now we're trailing BBC2 programmes with references to a show that's only on FX and gets about 36,000 viewers. That's a bit niche, isn't it?

24: Redemption
God. Hasn't television moved on since the last series of 24. That felt ridiculously antediluvian. Can 24 only thrive when there's a Republican presidency - discuss?

Heroes
Getting bored now, mainly because Ali Larter isn't in it enough, but also because of all the ridiculous personality switches, the fact there are so few characters who act like grown-ups, general inconsistencies, lack of logic, etc. Sigh. Roll on volume four (hopefully) although some of the spoilers I've heard don't fill me with much enthusiasm. How would you fix the show?

Dexter
Told you you have to wait for a while to see if it gets good. Always around the seven or eighth episode.

The Unit
Why aren't more people watching it? It's brilliant.

The IT Crowd
Thank God it's back. Officially the only comedy show in which Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade have ever appeared in that's funny. Katherine Parkinson's great - and a redhead again. Yey! And that magician was great. If only bluffball.co.uk were a real site…

Thanksgiving
Is all good television banned on Thanksgiving in the US?

Read other posts about: 24, Dexter, Heroes, The IT Crowd, The Unit, The Wire, Top Gear

Doctor Who

• Pics from BBC Christmas specials, including Doctor Who

Film

• Peter Segal to helm Captain Marvel
• Vera Farmiga to star in Up in the Air with George Clooney
• Clint Eastwood to retire from acting
• More cast members for Jackie Chan's The Spy Next Door
• Incredible Hulk 2 to feature The Leader

British TV

• Apparitions's ratings drop to 2.9m
• BBC Trust rejects local video proposal
  
• ITV's winter/spring season [via]

US TV

• Trailer for next season of BSG
• Tim Kring apologises for slagging off fans
• Tricia Helfer joining Chuck for at least one episode

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email

Read other posts about: Battlestar Galactica, CSI, Heroes

Film

• Clip from Transporter 3
• Trailer for Frank Miller's The Spirit
• Gale Anne Hurd gets rights to produce Gearhead adaptation
• Justin Chadwick to direct Ironbow: The Legend of William Tell

British TV

• Dani Behr trying to revive The Word?
• Best ever ratings for Screen Wipe
• ITV Local and S4C team to produce Welsh-language portal

• Shakespeare's Globe to run season of Greek drama

US TV

• Trailer for Cupid, starring Bobby Cannavale and Sarah Paulson
• Cast for 10 Things I Hate About You
• Heroes to stop being a serial?
• 24: Redemption to be dry run for a movie
• Thomas Schlamme and Paul Scheuring working on second American revolution

Subscribe to the daily news by RSS or email

Read other posts about: 24, Heroes

Joe Queenan identified in his classic book, America: Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon, the modern trend of really bad books (eg anything by Tom Clancy) quoting better books (eg anything by William Shakespeare) in their opening pages as a way to make themselves seem better by association.

I'm sure there's an equivalent phenomenon in television, so does it say something about Knight Rider's quality levels that it's outright quoting Torchwood (and Heroes) in the opening minutes of its Halloween episode?

Read other posts about: Heroes, Torchwood