Surprisingly, I haven't much to say about season two of Mad Men. Okay, I've got a bit, which you can join me after the jump for.

Continue reading "Season finale: Mad Men (season two)"

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Film

• Jon Favreau producing The Avengers
• Modern-day Towering Inferno planned
• M Night Shyamalan to write but not direct Devil
• Mike Nichols to remake Kurosawa's High and Low with Mamet script
• Vince Vaughn to star in Sunny and 68
• Colin Firth and Julianne Moore to star in A Single Man
• Universal adapting Viper Comics' Villains
• Christian Bale as Dr Strange??
• New Trek pics

Theatre

• Seat price comparison site launches
• Brenda Blethyn to star in Edna O'Brien's Haunted

• CNN International to replace Nuts TV on Freeview
• Caroline Leddy leaving Channel 4 after 11 years
• Job cuts to come at Five
• Dead Set gets good ratings
• Charlie Brooker to do current affairs version of Screenwipe

US TV

• The CW to revive Melrose Place?
• Matthew Weiner to be replaced on Mad Men?
• Trailer for 24's seventh season

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Read other posts about: 24, Charlie Brooker, Mad Men

Today's TV musing is about writers. Now it can't have escaped your notice but fiction doesn't emerge fully formed from the sea onto our TV screens – there are these people called writers who create all the words and deeds depicted in dramas, comedies and even some 'reality' TV shows.

No two writers are the same, of course, each usually having their own 'voice' – a way of writing dialogue, a way of developing and introducing characters, a way of plotting that is unique to them. But on a TV show, that isn't always a good thing.

On a serial or long-running show, sometimes you don't want individual writers' scripts to stand out from the others; you want them all more or less the same because you have ongoing character arcs, back story, established forms of behaviour for the protagonists and so on. If a writer's script stands out, it's probably because it's inconsistent with the other episodes, which you don't usually want.

On many TV shows, there is a special role specifically for making sure scripts all mesh together nicely. In the UK, that's the script editor; in the US, it's usually the 'show runners' or exec producers – who unlike their film counterparts are typically writers who have ascended the career ladder.

Of course, there can be problems when the script editor/exec producer also writes scripts, because there's no one there to check their work for consistency and because they typically give themselves more latitude than they do to other writers. It's not always the case: you'd be hard-pressed to work out which Lost scripts are by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, which Mad Men scripts are by Matthew Weiner.

But take The Unit, for example. One of the exec producers on that is David Mamet. Yes, the David Mamet – the award-winning playwright and screenwriter who wrote Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-plow, The Verdict and Wag The Dog, to name but a few classics. Who's going to edit his stuff, let alone himself?

So whenever Mamet writes a script for The Unit, it's always massively at odds with all the other scripts and contains an overload of his usual obsessions (martial arts, con tricks, overly manly behaviour). Surprisingly, they're never as good as the scripts by the other producers, sister Lynn Mamet and Eric L Haney, on whose book the show was based.

Callan is another show that comes to mind. Creator James Mitchell resolutely refused to acknowledge there had been any character development in between his contributions to the four series, so whenever he wrote a script, every character immediately reverted back to the behaviours and relationships they'd exhibited in the original pilot play.

Yet there are some shows where different voices are tolerated and allowed. Take Doctor Who. Although show runner/exec producer Russell T Davies can rewrite up to 60% of a script created by one of the other writers, you can still usually tell when Gareth Roberts or Steven Moffat is writing the week's episode – or when it's one of his own. And that's actually a great delight.

So today's question: how much should individual writers' voices be heard on TV shows – does it depend on the type of show and is the reason it's tolerated on some shows because there are only a few decent writers on the show and we just notice when there are some good episodes for a change?

Read other posts about: Callan, Lost, Mad Men, The Unit

Film

• George Nolfi to write script for fourth Bourne film
• Kevin Smith to make sci-fi comedy
• He-Man movie not happening
• Bradd Pitt to star in George Miller's sci-fi adaptation of 'The Odyssey'
• Sam Raimi talks Spiderman sequels

British TV

• Discovery to launch a channel on Freeview
• Pic from Law & Order: London with Freema Agyeman

US TV

• Mad Men gets a third season, but Matthew Weiner's not signed on yet
• Clip from Showtime's United States of Tara, starring Toni Collette
• Brian Cox to co-star with Katee Sackhoff on Lost and Found
• ABC to adapt E4's The Inbetweeners
• Jaime Ray Newman to appear in Eureka
• The French shows going stateside
• Sage gets a love interest in Privileged

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Doctor Who

• Sylvester McCoy to appear on Doctors
• Rusty helped with Merlin
• Rusty willing to come back for Doctor Who movie

Awards

• The results of the Emmys: good news for 30 Rock, Mad Men and John Adams

Film

• Universal turns down Tin Tin…
• …but Pegg and Frost will play the Thompson Twins
• Stephen Chow to direct and star in The Green Hornet
• Nicholas Cage to star in Season of the Witch

US TV

• CBS renews Flashpoint
• William Fichtner to lead TNT's Night and Day
• Uma Thurman joins A Muppets Christmas
• Brendan Fehr to play David Boreanaz's brother on Bones?

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Read other posts about: 30 Rock, Mad Men

Doctor Who

• Photos from Torchwood filming

Film

• Ben Affleck to star in Mike Judge's Extract?
• Alex Proyas to adapt Heinlein's The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag

French TV

• Babies banned from watching TV

British TV

• NBC acquires Carnival, may buy more indies
• Sky launching seven new HD channels
• BBC to adapt The 39 Steps
• QI moving to BBC1
• Secret Millionaire gets best ever ratings
• Irvine Welsh to direct one-off comedy drama for ITV4
• BBC1 to combine natural history and entertainment

US TV

• New brother sought for Brothers and Sisters
• Stargate: Atlantis cancelled, will go into movies
• More DC villains sought for Smallville
• Mad Men ratings down 1m from premiere
• More webisodes planned for BSG

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Read other posts about: Battlestar Galactica, Mad Men, Smallville, Stargate, Torchwood

The Daily News will be back (if there is any news, of course, and I'm not too knackered) on Monday 18th August 2008

Doctor Who

• More Moff talk, including Doctor as the “ultimate liberal”

Film

• John Lasseter the force behind Tr2n
• Colin Firth to star with Ben Barnes in Dorian Gray
• Nicolas Cage teaming up with John Carpenter for Scared Straight
• Trailer for De Niro comedy What Just Happened?
• Angelina Jolie to be Catwoman in third Batman movie?
• Columbia to turn Anabasis into an action film

British TV

• Lex Shrapnel to be Minder's minder
• Fearne Cotton and Holly Willoughby to captain ITV2's “Have I Got New For You meets Heat” game show
• QFS: Living is the channel that's invited Jade Goody back on TV
• Channel 4 and Five to carry extra ad break in movies
• BSkyB to put £10m into entertainment programmes

US TV

• Thomas Jane to star in Hung
• NBC greenlights Dick Wolf's Lost and Found pilot
• Rory Cochrane joins 24
• Mad Men's Christina Hendricks to appear in two episodes of Life

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In the US: Sundays, AMC, 10pm/9c
In the UK: Acquired by BBC4 to air in 2009

Mad Men was something of a surprise for everyone when its first season arrived. Not only was it made by AMC, a network not really known for much – certainly not original dramas – it was very good indeed.

A period piece about Madison Avenue advertising men of the early 60s, it was stylish, clever and eye-opening, and spent considerable time demonstrating how much attitudes to just about everything have changed.

Unsurprisingly, it won a whole raft of awards. Now, here comes the second season, with much to prove. Yet set two years on, it's appropriately relaxed and cool – it has nothing to prove.

Continue reading "Review: Mad Men 2x1"

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Doctor Who

• Which old enemies (and friend) are turning up for The Sarah Jane Adventures [spoilers]
• Steven Moffat on Who and Jekyll [video]

Film

• Darren Aronofsky to remake Robocop?
• Robert Downey Jr to play Sherlock Holmes in Ritchie adaptation

Commercials

• Mr T's back for more Snickers

Theatre

• The Two and Only to close early

British TV

• Father Ted writer says TV comedy lacks imagination

US TV

• Some more details of The Prisoner remake
• AMC would like to remake more classic TV shows and movies
• HBO greenlights Fat Sells
• Courtney Cox to play Kelso's successor on Scrubs
• Mad Men to span 10 years over five seasons

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Read other posts about: Mad Men, Scrubs, The Prisoner, The Sarah Jane Adventures

Today's Joanna Page is Richard Curtis's Love Actually.

Curtis has dominated British comedy, whether it's been on television or in the cinemas, for nearly three decades now. Following an early stint writing for Not the Nine O'Clock News in the 70s, he started to bestride us like a laughing, Islington-loving colossus the following decade with The Black Adder, its three sequel series and a couple of one-off spin-offs. Within a few years, he became the moving force behind Comic Relief and managed to notch up a couple of movies, including The Tall Guy, starring Jeff Goldblum and Emma Thompson.

In the 90s, he stormed through again, first unleashing Mr Bean on us all, before choosing to take over the world and introduce Hugh Grant to us all with Four Weddings and a Funeral. He went on to write Notting Hill and the screenplay for Bridget Jones's Diary. He also spent 13 years laughing at country folk for the mysteriously successful The Vicar of Dibley.

Love Actually, released in 2003, was his first attempt at directing a movie. It's kind of a composite rom com version of Crash (or a sicklier version of This Year's Love, which also featured Jo Page) in which just about every possible facet of love is explored through the inter-connected lives of various people around the world. With an incredible cast of stars, it is occasionally touching, sometimes funny, and usually irritating. But it has Joanna Page in it - provided you don't buy the censored DVD - so we'll forgive it.

Continue reading "Today's Joanna Page: Love Actually"

Read other posts about: 24, Gavin and Stacey, Mad Men