2012 Preview: Bad Sugar & A Touch of Cloth

So far this week I’ve been looking at some series that will be appearing on our screens in the coming months. Today, a very brief look at two one-off British comedy specials I’m looking forward to seeing this year.

First up, Bad Sugar, a 30-minute pilot starring some of the country’s best comic actresses – Olivia Colman, Julia Davis and Sharon Horgan. It’s written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, creators of Peep Show and Fresh Meat, both of which will return later this year. Bad Sugar is described as “a peculiarly British take on telenovela style melodramas” focusing on a dysfunctional, wealthy mining dynasty, with an ailing patriarch and some greedy siblings. Directed by Ben Palmer, fresh from helming the hugely successful Inbetweeners Movie, the pilot will guest star Reece Shearsmith, Peter Serafinowicz and David Bradley. With these talents in front of and behind the camera, this looks like it’ll be worth waiting for.

Sky 1’s line-up of home-grown comedies continues to grow, with one of the latest being A Touch of Cloth, a feature-length spoof of British crime dramas written by Charlie Brooker and Daniel Maier. Starring John Hannah as maverick, boozing DCI Jack Cloth, Suranne Jones as his plucky partner DC Anne Oldman and Julian Rhind-Tutt as their boss, A.C.C. Tom Boss, it follows an investigation into a series of increasingly grisly murders while taking in all of the regular locations seen in detective shows, from the leafy forests and luxury homes of Sunday afternoon fare to the sinister lock-ups and cold forensic labs of the more gritty dramas. It sounds like it’s taking a more silly route than most of Brooker’s scripts, which would be ideal for this sort of thing – as Maier says, “It’s like Airplane! for a detective series except for not being Police Squad”.

No air dates for either of these shows yet, but as soon as I find out I’ll let you know.

Bad Sugar will be on later this year on Channel Four
A Touch of Cloth will be on later this year on Sky 1 HD

2012 Preview: Alcatraz

This week in the US saw the premiere of Alcatraz, a new series from some of the team behind Lost which will be coming to Watch later this year. And it’s not just the credits for executive producer J.J. Abrams, director Jack Bender and writer Elizabeth Sarnoff that link the series. In the first episode, as Jorge “Hurley” Garcia talks about “the island” while Michael Giacchino’s soaring score plays in the background, you could be forgiven for thinking we’d flashed back in time a couple of years.

Incidentally, time travel of some form plays an important part in this show. We start by being told that while we think the prisoners and guards of Alcatraz moved elsewhere when it shut down in the 1960s, some of them disappeared. Garcia plays Dr. Diego Soto, a comic book writer and expert on the infamous prison who is basically the same character as Hurley – loveable, geeky and the only person able to see the absurdities of what’s going on from the audience’s point of view. He’s recruited by Rebecca Madsen (Sarah Jones), a San Francisco cop investigating a murder by an ex-inmate and they both stumble across a secret FBI operation being run by Emerson Hauser (Sam Neill, yes, from off of Jurassic Park) and Lucy Banerjee (ER’s Parminder Nagra). It seems that the prisoners are starting to reappear fifty years after they were last seen, looking no older than they did then, and Hauser is attempting to round them up before they start getting up to their old criminal ways.

The format has been very carefully constructed so that fans of Lost’s mysteries have a puzzle that will slowly unravel throughout the series, while those people who prefer to jump in and out of the show will have a self-contained story in each episode, as every week the team go after a different prisoner. So, one week you have a sniper on the loose, the next it’s a child abductor who needs to be tracked down. Throughout each episode are flashbacks to the 1960s, as we discover from their time on the Rock what motivates the criminal-of-the-week as well as sometimes getting a step closer to discovering who brought them to the present day, how and why.

Now, it certainly isn’t a bad show and it’s a joy to see Jorge Garcia back on the screen (who doesn’t love Hurley?) but the first couple of episodes didn’t grab me as being particularly outstanding. There are a few things that especially bugged me, such as the way the prisoners seem utterly unperturbed by the changes in technology over the last half century (although this admittedly might be partially explained at some point) and the fact that Rebecca and her team seem to be able to turn up at a crime scene and be sure that it must be the work of another Alcatraz prisoner, as if there are no present-day criminals around.

It also remains to be seen how well the balance between the series-long arcs and stand-alone stories will work. There’s still a chance that people who infrequently dip in and out of the show could get confused by the ongoing time travel plots while, speaking as someone who is more intrigued by watching the overall mythology of the show unfold, I can imagine that the focus on the hunt for a different criminal each week might soon get tiresome for someone like me. Besides, if I wanted to see a Lost-related police procedural, I’d have preferred a spin-off featuring Saywer and Miles as a good cop/bad cop, or Locke and Ben setting up some sort of paranormal detective agency.

It’s still worth a look, though, and as a lighter mix of action, sleuthing and sci-fi mystery it’s better than a lot of other shows out there.

Alcatraz starts in March on Watch

Tomorrow: Bad Sugar & A Touch of Cloth

2012 Preview: Being Human

Toby Whithouse’s supernatural drama Being Human returns to BBC Three early this year, and as fans of the show will know, there are some major cast changes for series four. Aidan Turner has left to film The Hobbit by way of a wolf-shaped bullet, and Sinead Keenan decided to leave the show at the end of the last series. What’s more, Russell Tovey has decided that this eight-episode series will be his last as George, leaving Lenora Crichlow’s ghostly Annie as the only remaining original cast member for series five.

Lenora promises that fans of the show need not be disappointed, “I missed Aidan and Sinead a lot, but the essence of Being Human, the love, enthusiasm and integrity of the show, is still there. We still have the same crew and production team behind it, but a different dynamic now we have had some changes in cast. Episode one is high, high drama. Think huge tears, and huge shocks, but it is also very exciting. It will have you on the edge of your seat!”

It looks like there is plenty to look forward to in this series, including new type of supernatural creature and the introduction of baby Eve into the household. Guest appearances this series include Mark Gatiss, Ellie Kendrick, Mark Williams and most excitingly of all, Craig Roberts (star of Submarine, one of my favourite films of the last year) returns as Adam, the middle-aged vampire stuck in a teenage body seen in an episode last series and the online spin-off Becoming Human.

Michael Socha’s werewolf Tom gets a deserved upgrade from guest character to a part of the main cast. He gets a job at a local cafe and slowly fits into the “family” with Annie taking on a motherly role as he adjusts to living in a house, a very different lifestyle to his travelling days. As Michael says, we’ll see Tom going through something akin to an adolescence, “He’s experiencing things probably a 13 or 14 year old would. He tries to adjust to these changes while at the same time is having a hard time coping with different emotions that he has never experienced before. You will discover Tom is quite an emotional character. Tom lost his dad in the last series so now he has to grow up. He copies McNair in a lot of ways, there are a lot of similarities, a lot of things Tom has taken with him, but I think Tom now is his own man.”

And, of course, there has to be a new vampire to fill Mitchell’s shoes. Irish actor Damien Molony, in his first television role, plays Hal, a rather posh legendary vampire of old who has managed to keep away from blood for decades but is coming perilously close to falling off the wagon when he arrives on Barry Island. Damien says he was conscious of not being a clone of his Aiden’s character, “Mitchell was such an iconic vampire, so it was nerve-racking joining a show to replace this fantastic actor and fantastic character. But the more and more I read the scripts and the more I realised where Hal was coming from, I realised they are so different, so the pressure was taken off slightly. I spoke to the directors and writers in length about it, and it was great to be given the freedom to pursue an entirely different character.”

Just like Misfits, Being Human is having to go through some major cast changes that are making some fans worry about the show’s best days being in the past, but with the same creative team being behind the show and some well-chosen replacements in the cast, it looks like it can continue to be one of the most exciting and original British dramas on television.

Need more to whet your appetite? Here’s a prequel introducing you to Hal, the new vampire…

Being Human returns to BBC Three soon

Tomorrow: Alcatraz

2012 Preview: Homeland

After a prolonged break for Christmas, New Year and general procrastination, the blog is back every day this week with some short previews of what’s coming up later this year, starting with Homeland, a thriller starring Claire Danes which (as I type this) has just picked up the Golden Globe for best drama. Broadly based on the acclaimed Israeli series Hatufim and shown on the Showtime channel in the US (also home to Dexter), it begins next month on Channel Four.

Danes stars as CIA officer Carrie Mathison, who we first see in Iraq bribing her way into a jail to try to get some information about a possible attack from a bomb maker who is due to be executed. He whispers in her ear that an American prisoner of war has been turned, something she immediately discredits because there are no Americans being held. Ten months later, Sergeant Nicholas Brody, a US Marine who went missing in Iraq eight years ago and has long been presumed dead, is rescued in a Special Forces raid. Carrie immediately puts two and two together, suspecting Brody of being the convert to al-Qaeda she was told about. Because she has little evidence and Brody is being greeted by America as a returning war hero, she knows the CIA will not support any investigation. Instead, she carries out her own unauthorized surveillance work in an attempt to see if her suspicions are correct and prevent a terrorist attack.

In a few ways, this feels like a more grown-up version of 24, and not just because being made by a cable channel rather than a network means it can have nudity and swearing. As much as I absolutely loved 24, it did often help to switch your brain off while watching, while Homeland seems a lot more intelligent and based in reality. It’s also got a tremendously interesting lead character in Carrie Mathison, who takes anti-psychotic medication and is only interested in men who want one-night stands, a stand-out performance from Danes. Damian Lewis is also excellent as Brody, a man who, whether a terrorist mole or not, clearly has gone through hell for the past eight years. There are no shoot-outs or explosions (in the opening episode, at least) but there are a few things that would be familiar for fans of 24 – the sense of a ticking clock towards a terrorist attack, the surveillance operation with cameras and microphones around the suspect’s house, and our hero having to secretly do their own investigations because their superiors won’t listen to their instincts.

The first episode is one of the best debuts I’ve seen for a while, it drew me in very quickly and introduced the characters in some depth early on. As Brody arrives home to a hero’s welcome, we meet his wife Jess (V’s Morena Baccarin) who, despite tying a yellow ribbon, telling the world she won’t give up hope and even shunning the wife of another missing Marine for remarrying, has been finding solace in the arms of (of course) her husband’s best friend. We’re also introduced to his rebellious teenage daughter Dana and sweet-natured son Chris, who grew up without really knowing his dad. There’s something about this family that made me hope things go well for them and at times I started to doubt Carrie’s suspicions and wonder if Brody really is just a traumatized kidnap victim, before being sent back in the other direction again. I’m sure I’ll be sent back and forth some more as the series goes on.

There are twelve episodes in this first season, meaning it’s not the 20-plus week commitment some American series are, and a second has already been ordered. I’d say Homeland definitely goes in the “don’t miss” category.

Homeland starts in February on Channel Four

Tomorrow’s preview: Being Human

Christmas 2011 highlights

Right then, I suppose it’s about time I do a quick run-down of some of the things I’m looking forward to this Christmas…

Great Expectations

Next year will be the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth and the BBC will be celebrating with a season of programmes, including documentaries fronted by Armando Iannucci and Sue Perkins, plus an adaptation of his unfinished last work, The Mystery Of Edwin Drood. At the centrepiece is this big-budget version of one of his most popular stories, starring Ray Winstone, Gillian Anderson and David Suchet.

Tuesday 27 December, 9.00pm, BBC One

The Borrowers

Mary Norton’s tale of little people who live under the floorboards has been told many times on both the big and small screen, most recently in Studio Ghibli’s beautiful animation Arrietty. This version is a one-off film for the BBC, starring Christopher Eccleston, Aisling Loftus and former Misfit Robert Sheehan.

Boxing Day, 7:30pm, BBC One

The Royal Bodyguard

Sir David Jason takes his rightful place back in the BBC One Christmas comedy line-up. In this new series, he plays Captain Guy Hubble, mistakenly put in charge of royal security due to a terrible mix-up. Quite how good this comedy is remains to be seen, but it’s comforting to have him back on our screens at this time of year.

Boxing Day, 9:30pm, BBC One

Treasure Island

The highlight of Sky’s Christmas schedule is this two-part adaptation of Robert Louis-Stevenson’s adventure, starring Eddie Izzard as Long John Silver alongside such big names as Elijah Wood, Philip Glenister, Rupert Penry-Jones, Keith Allen and Donald Sutherland.

New Year’s Day, 7pm, Sky 1 HD

Absolutely Fabulous

Twenty years after it first appeared on our screens, Eddy, Patsy, Saffy, Bubble and Mother are back in three new episodes, including one where they get involved in the 2012 Olympics.

Christmas Day, 10pm, BBC One

Hacks

Written by Drop the Dead Donkey and Outnumbered writer Guy Jenkin, this is the first comedy to take a look at the recent phone hacking scandals. Starring Claire Foy as a tabloid editor who demands her staff get the story by any means necessary, Hacks also features Kayvan Novak, Nigel Planer, Phil Davis, Alexander Armstrong, Gordon Kennedy, Russ Abbott and Celia Imrie.

New Year’s Day, 10pm, Channel Four

The Bleak Old Shop of Stuff

Another part of the Dickens season, a new four-part comedy adventure set in the Old Shop of Stuff, Victorian London’s most successful purveyor of miscellaneous odd things. Robert Webb plays shop owner Jedrington Secret-Past while Katherine Parkinson is his wife Conceptiva. Look out for appearances by David Mitchell, Pauline McLynn, Johnny Vegas, Una Stubbs and Stephen Fry.

Monday 19 December, 8.30pm, BBC Two

This is England ’88

After the success of This Is England ’86, Shane Meadows’ breathtaking follow-up to his earlier film, This Is England ’90 was commissioned and a Christmas special set in 1988 was also given the green light. As filming went on and the project kept going, it became clear that this would have to be a mini-series in its own right as well. After the devastating events shown in the previous series, this one will focus on Lol and Woody as they struggle to cope with the fallout.

Tuesday 13 December, 10pm, Channel Four

Doctor Who

This year’s Christmas special is a set in Dorset during the Second World War, a time when city children were being sent to the countryside for their safety. With more than a few nods to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, this is set to be the highlight of Christmas Day viewing. Matt Smith is, of course, the Doctor and he’s joined by Claire Skinner, Bill Bailey, Arabella Weir and Alexander Armstrong.

Christmas Day, 7pm, BBC One

Black Mirror trailer arrives

One of the things I’m looking forward to the most during the next month or so is Black Mirror, a series of three twisted Tales of the Unexpected-style comedy-dramas brought to the screen by Charlie Brooker, all on the subject of tech-paranoia and worries about the modern world. The trailer has just landed, so here it is:

The first story, The National Anthem, is the most grounded in reality, with Rory Kinnear as the Prime Minister, caught up in something of a social media storm. Brooker says, “It’s sort of inspired by these news events that get whipped up in the social networks and Twitter, and everything feels like it’s rattling slightly out of control. I’m thinking about things like The Raoul Moat saga and when Gordon brown had to go and apologise to Gillian Duffy. You get this sort of strange centrifugal force that builds up throughout the day with the rolling news networks and public opinion.”

The second was co-written by Brooker and his wife, Konnie Huq. 15 Million Merits is a satire of entertainment shows and reality TV in a dystopian world where the only escape is entering the “Hot Shot” show, not entirely dissimilar to the sorts of ideas explored in The Year of the Sex Olympics, The Running Man and, more recently, The Hunger Games. It stars The Fades’ Daniel Kaluuya and Downton Abbey’s Jessica Brown Findlay, with Rupert Everett and Julia Davis as the talent show judges and is directed by Doctor Who’s Euros Lyn. It also has some rather swish effects, where every surface acts like an iPad.

The final episode (with the working title In Memoriam, eventually titled The Entire History of You) is written by Peep Show and Fresh Meat co-creator Jesse Armstrong. It’s set in a world where everyone has a memory chip in their heads which records everything they see and do – a sort of Sky+ for the brain. Might sound ok, but as the couple in this story discover, it can have a pretty major down side.

So, these are cautionary tales? “Kind of”, says Brooker, “but above all it’s entertainment and satire, they’re all quite dramatic, but there’s humour in them as well, which often tends to be quite bleak. But they’re not finger-wagging, saying ‘all this technology is bad’. It’s not that. It’s exploring a lot of what ifs with technology at their heart. I’m slightly wary of even mentioning the technological aspect to it, in case it makes it sound like someone reading out the instructions to a satellite box. They’re very much rollicking tales.”

Black Mirror comes to Channel Four in December

Here come the Girls

This week, I had the chance to take a first look at two new American sitcoms with the word “girl” in the title. New Girl stars everyone’s favourite indie pixie lady, Zooey Deschenel, while 2 Broke Girls is the new thing from Sex and the City producer Michael Patrick King. Both will be coming to Channel Four early in the new year.

I came to the screening wondering if these might be particularly girly shows, not that it would be a bad thing – I might not have been given any choice about having to watch Sex and the City by my girlfriend at the time, but I got a little caught up with the antics of Carrie and friends, often bemused, sometimes a little scared, but always wanting to know what would happen next. But other times I do find that female-focused drama offers nothing for me, at best they cn often seem quite bland, at worst there’s something like the movie Sex and the City 2, a sequel far more terrifying and morally repugnant to that of The Human Centipede.

As it turned out, while I can see 2 Broke Girls being a little more popular with female viewers, there’s something for everyone there. And New Girl looks like being the best new comedy to cross the Atlantic this season.

Preview: Misfits series 3

It’s been a while, but Misfits is finally returning to our screens at the end of the month and last night I joined the cast and crew, as well as plenty of press and fans, to have a look at the first episode of series three. As many of you will know, Robert Sheehan has left the show earlier this year, so Nathan was given an online send-off with Joseph Gilgun’s Rudy replacing him. Now, I know that Misfits is an ensemble show (and over time Simon and Kelly had taken over from Nathan as my favourite characters), but it is a very big pair of shoes to fill and I was worried about whether the show would quite manage to be the same without him. The good news is that this is the same Misfits we knew and loved – just as funny, just as action packed and just as cinematic.

The first episode opens just where we left off. With a short but sweet nod to Nathan’s misadventures across the pond, we find Simon continuing on his quest to become Superhoodie, Alicia still by his side in their superhero lair, Curtis running the bar we saw in the Christmas special and Kelly… well, being Kelly. But it mainly focuses on new boy Rudy, who finds himself on community service along with a couple of girls who both play an important role in the first episode. It’s no secret that the original cast eventually find themselves back in the orange jumpsuits, but it’s a lot of fun finding out how they get there.

Fresh Meat from Bain and Armstrong

This morning I arrived at University College London, where I managed to avoid interrupting graduation photographs and life-drawing classes (other writers were not so succesful) and was handed a studenty blue folder and ushered into one of the lecture theatres. Preparing to talk to us were Peep Show writers and creators Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, inside the folder were details of their new comedy-drama Fresh Meat, staring this lot:

Preview: Torchwood: Miracle Day:

Tomorrow night, Torchwood returns to BBC One with the first episode of Miracle Day, the new ten-part series co-produced with American cable network Starz. The series started in 2006 as a BBC Three spin-off of Doctor Who, starring John Barrowman as “omnisexual” Captain Jack Harkness, leading a team countering alien invasions in South Wales. It was supposed to be “adult sci-fi”, but at first wasn’t grown-up in the same way as, say, Being Human, instead crowbarring in gratuitous crudity at the expense of some interesting stories. The second series saw a massive improvement, culminating in a fantastic run of final episodes which brought depth to its characters and an emotional pay-off. This continued with 2009’s Children of Earth, which ditched the monster-of-the-week format for a single story played out over five nights on BBC One.