british-related stories
Posted Oct 13th 2009 7:26AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Awards, Emmys, Reality-Free
Before
Dallas and
Dynasty and
Falcon Crest and
Knots Landings captured the imaginations of American viewers, there was a British soap import that was even more compelling.
From 1971-75, PBS aired the British upper crust soap Upstairs Downstairs. And now
Upstairs Downstairs is going to be remade. It'll be filmed and shown in England first before coming to America in 2011.
What made
Upstairs Downstairs classic television – it won Emmys, BAFTAs and Golden Globes – was the way it depicted of the British class system. Upstairs you had the rich, privileged Bellamy family. Downstairs there were the servants who worked for them. The lives of all these characters intertwined in a well-written, brilliantly acted drama series.
Continue reading They're remaking Upstairs Downstairs
Posted Sep 21st 2009 12:34AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Mad Men
(S03E06) What do disappointment, opportunities and snakes have in common? They're all themes in this episode of
Mad Men. The British, in the form of Powell, Ford and Mackendrick came to Sterling Cooper for a visit, but what that visit meant was anybody's guess. The visit wrecking holiday plans for the staff -- no Independence Day for you, colonists -- was obvious irony and true nonetheless. And the Guy walking into the ad agency, well, it would be a hollow joke after this tragedy. More after the jump.
Continue reading Mad Men: Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency
Posted Sep 11th 2009 6:03PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Video, Celebrities
It's Hasselhoffs, as in plural, so I guess there are going to be other family members involved in David Hasselhoff's new British reality series. The clip below shows him going into a pub for...well, it's all kind of odd. He meets a bunch of women dressed in fancy garb and asks them questions. Maybe he's auditioning for the next version of
Baywatch.
The clothes the guy has on will probably give you a seizure, so you've been warned. The show debuts Monday at 10 PM on Living.
Posted Sep 8th 2009 5:03PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Doctor Who, Celebrities, Reality-Free
The new series of
Doctor Who comes closer and closer, and the list of involved talent is really starting to build up. It's been confirmed that
Richard Curtis will write an episode. With some of his more popular work being
Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and
Bridget Jones's Diary, Curtis seems like a rather unusual contributor. Of course, he also did
Blackadder and
The Vicar of Dibley for television, but neither of those things are very sci-fi-related or timey-wimey.
Curtis's films seem to have the most luck when working with ensemble casts, so maybe he can work this same magic on the small screen and introduce some new characters worthy of sticking around. We haven't really had that since Sally Sparrow (and maybe Nightingale, if only to complete the duo) from "Blink". Also, the new Doctor and the new companion are both young and attractive, a combination poised to perfectly fit into Curtis's romantic-comedy specialty.
Continue reading Richard Curtis to pen episode of Doctor Who
Posted Aug 17th 2009 7:13PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Video, Reality-Free, Mad Men
Having a British company take over Sterling Cooper is a rather brilliant move. It gives the show a new focus, a new tension in the office (and out of the office too). In this clip from next week's
Mad Men episode "Love Among The Ruins," Don and Betty go out to dinner with Lane and his wife.
Such a well-written two minutes. It's like you know everything about these four from this one scene.
Posted Jul 27th 2009 2:30PM by Bob Sassone
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Programming
Nadya Suleman, who will always be known as "Octomom" because it's funnier, has
officially signed papers for a reality TV show to feature her and her 14 kids. No word yet on which network will air the show (
it might air overseas first as it's a British company producing the show) or what it will be called, but I'm hoping it's called
Fourteen is Enough or
Nadya & Nobody Plus 14.
Posted Mar 18th 2009 12:00PM by Brad Trechak
Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals
NBC
will be adapting the BBC panel program Have I Got News For You for American audiences. The British version has been running since 1990 and involves a group of newsmakers and celebrities discussing current events in a humorous fashion. Given the unscripted format, this represents a program that NBC could keep going in the event of another writers' strike.
Other than the name value, I don't see the point of NBC doing an adaptation when they could simply create another program in a similar format.
The McLaughlin Report has been doing the panel discussion concept for decades (whether it's for humorous effect depends on the viewer) and I even once attended a taping of
Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn which was the same concept but involved a panel of comedians and included sketches.
I've never seen
Have I Got News For You. For those who have, is it good? Do you think it would fly with American audiences?
Posted Sep 12th 2008 2:03PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: TV on the Bigscreen, Reality-Free
One of the greatest TV mini-series of all time was
I, Claudius. It was riveting TV and every time it's been repeated since it premiered in 1976, I've watched it religiously. The Robert Graves novel about the Roman empire, including the mad Caligula, is now set for a remake.
Director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot) will be helming an adaptation of I, Claudius with Nye Heron and Sheridan penning the script.
At this point, the project seems headed to the big screen. That would be a plus insofar as the set design and lush look. However, one of the benefits of the 1976 version was the length. It was 13 episodes, a hour each (sans commercials). That meant the complexities of Graves' novel -- and there were dozens of them -- not to mention the enormous cast of characters, could be played out.
Continue reading I, Claudius set for remake
Posted Jun 28th 2008 3:01PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Video, Game Show, Reality-Free
From 1986 through 2004, there was a popular English game show called
Catch Phrase (we had a version in America, but like tea drinking and civility, we ditched it after only a very brief run). Here's how the bonus game on the show worked: nine blocks covered up a short video snippet. The blocks were removed randomly and the first contestant to correctly guess what phrase was being represented by the video won some British prize (like a top hat or a subcontinent or something).
In the following video, the randomized blocks' perfect placement over the animation combines with the dirty-minded twelve-year-old that lives inside all of us to hilarious effect. Every time a block is removed, the animation just looks more and more filthy. Even better is the reaction of the contestants and the host, who, about ten seconds in, decide to abandon any hope of getting through the animation without losing their minds with laughter. The video after the jump.
[Via
DIGG]
Continue reading British gameshow pornography - VIDEO
Posted Mar 18th 2008 4:43PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Reality Shows, Food/Home/DIY, Pickups and Renewals
There's more reality being served up by NBC:
a food-based competition show in which couples vie to open a restaurant. British chef Marco Pierre White will be the judge. NBC has greenlit
The Chopping Block for next season, calling it a sort of
Top Chef meets
Hell's Kitchen. Actually, it sounds like a twin for BBC America's
Last Restaurant Standing. That one has nine couples competing for one restaurant with Chef Raymond Blanc as the judge. The NBC incarnation will have eight couples, and unlike Chef Blanc who has earned two Michelin stars for his restaurants, Chef White has three.
Continue reading NBC okays restaurant reality show
Posted Mar 29th 2007 3:02PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, In the Limelight, Celebrities
Last year, after multiple recommendations from my English friends, I got around to watching a few episodes of
The IT Crowd. Unfortunately, it failed to live up to all the wild hype generated by my buddies, but something did stick in my mind... The crazy-haired, nasal Moss character, played by
Richard Ayoade. There was something wonderfully weird about him and, since I was so intrigued by his strange voice, I decided to look him up. Well, as it turns out, his usual voice is really that weird and nasal, which just made him a million times more better in my mind. In fact, Ayoade's the only cast member who has been carried over from the original version of
The IT Crowd to the American adaptation, reprising his role as Moss.
Continue reading Richard Ayoade: In the Limelight
Posted Mar 29th 2007 11:22AM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Animation, South Park, Comedy Central
(S11E04) This was a hilarious episode, and yet I couldn't help but feel it's the sort of episode that comes easy to its creators. The "snuke in Hillary's snizz" gag wasn't exactly inspired, considering the very first episode centered on a gigantic satellite in Cartman's ass and just last season another episode focused on Oprah's "minge." Then there was Cartman's fart torture and the scene toward the end where the Queen shoots herself, both of which I laughed at quite uproariously but that still seemed a bit too easy by South Park standards.
Continue reading South Park: The Snuke
Posted Mar 22nd 2007 8:01PM by Brad Linder
Filed under: Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, BBC, Doctor Who, Sci Fi
Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies
says the show will be back for a fourth series (that's British for season). He made remarks at the London premiere of series three.
What's less clear at the moment is who will be playing the Doctor in series four. Current Doctor David Tennant has remained silent on the issue. Series three has actress Freema Agyeman playing Martha Jones, the doctor's new assistant. She fills the void left by Billie Piper's departure from the program.
It had been widely suspected that a fourth season was already on deck, but Davies' confirmation should come as good news for
Doctor Who fans. Now if only Americans didn't have to wait months or years for each new season to show up on the SciFi channel.
Posted Mar 20th 2007 1:23PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Watercooler Talk, FX, The Riches
One of the things I noticed when I watched last week's pilot of
The Riches was that Eddie Izzard was struggling to maintain an American accent of any kind, much less the southern accent that his character, Wayne Malloy, is likely to have.
But when I watched last night's episode (Brett and I are trading off reviews on this show), I noticed that Izzard's accent had smoothed out, and his British didn't seep out as much as it did in the first episode. This is no small feat; doing an accurate American accent is extremely difficult for Brits, as the many tiny differences between how each country speaks English are tough to keep track of. The effort to make the leap has sunk many accomplished British actors; even ones who do a reasonable job, like Emma Thompson, let their native accents leak through every so often.
Continue reading Is Eddie Izzard's American accent getting better?
Posted Mar 9th 2007 3:23PM by Adam Finley
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Other Comedy Shows, ABC, FOX, CBS, Grey's Anatomy, Celebrities
Oliver Platt, last seen in the Showtime series Huff, will star in the ABC comedy pilot The Thick of It, about workers for a low-level congressman. The show is executive produced by Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz and based on the British comedy of the same name.
Chris Lowell (Veronica Mars) will join previously cast Tim Daly and Taye Diggs in the two-hour Grey's Anatomy episode meant to serve as a springboard to a possible Grey's Anatomy spinoff.
Steve Howey of Reba has been cast in The Beast, about a womanizing veterinarian who hates animals. Tucker Cawley, a writer and executive producer for Everybody Loves Raymond, will also write and executive produce the comedy pilot for FOX. The series is based on the British comedy Beast.
Continue reading Still more network pilot casting news
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