In 10 Words or Less
Back in space with the Red Dwarf crew

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Great sitcoms
Likes: Red Dwarf, Britcoms
Dislikes: Multi-camera sitcoms
Hates: Laugh tracks

The Show
When your humble reviewer was a teen, he didn't live the most adventurous life. While his classmates were off experimenting with any number of illicit activities on a Friday night, he was most likely doing one of two things: watching original-series episodes of Star Trek on a PBS station out of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania or watching Britcoms on the local PBS affiliate. Combining those two interests were the occasional broadcasts of Red Dwarf, a sci-fi Britcom about Dave Lister (Craig Charles), the last ...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
A fake look at the making of the London Olympics

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Mockumentaries
Likes: The Office, Britcoms
Dislikes: British politics
Hates: Idiots in charge

The Show
It's kind of amazing that an event as big as the Olympics is the work of an organization of people. Most anyone knows, if you get more than one or two people together to work on a project, its chances of failing rise exponentially, so if you multiply that by the sheer size and complexity of the Olympic Games, its a miracle they happen at all, no less every four years. Add in the likelihood that a good percentage of the people involved will be at least slightly incompetent, and you arrive at the concept of ...Read the entire review

THE SHOW:

Well, that didn't take long. One-and-half-seasons for the fun, goofy superhero dramedy Misfits to go right down the drain. Still more decent episodes than Heroes, but basically the same trajectory. Pique my interest, string me along, and then blow it hard enough I don't want to ever tune back in after the break.

The basic premise for Misfits is about as simple and direct as superhero stories get. Five teenagers thrown together by circumstance--in this case, they all got busted for something that landed them a tenure in community service--are caught in a freak storm that makes them freaks in turn. The strange weather leaves them with strange powers, all tuned to t...Read the entire review

The Show:
 
In the fourth season of BeingHuman everything changes.  I don'tmean that the three main characters, a ghost, a vampire, and awerewolf, moveto a new house.  I mean most of the maincharacters leave the show.  Is thisprogram up to the Herculean task of convincing viewers to stay with theshoweven though their favorite character is no longer in it? Nearly. They make a valiant effort to keep the feel of the show andinclude someinteresting twists, but the show does take a step backwards overall.
 
As long time viewers will recall, at the end of season threeGeorge (a werewolf) fulfilled a prophecy by killing Mitchell (a vampireand hisbest friend), and s...Read the entire review

The Series:

Shada is, in some ways, more interesting for its history than anything else. Originally intended to be the final serial in the seventeenth season of Doctor Who, this Douglas Adams penned storyline was never finished and therefore never aired on television. Why? Because there was a strike at the BBC and by the time that strike was resolved, the BBC had moved on to their highly touted Christmas programming. The story was eventually 'finished' in a sense when in 1992 Tom Baker was brought in to shoot some bridging segments where he, in character as The Doctor and looking back on his exploits, would simply explain what happened in the missing segments. So we wind up bouncing back and forth between the completed footage from the story and bits with Baker popping up and saying 'and then the bad guys did this to me!' in order to fill in the blanks. It's not ideal, but...Read the entire review

"Call the Midwife...brought to you by the National Health Service's propaganda wing of the Beeb!". The BBC, through Warner Home Video, has released Call the Midwife: Season One, the two-disc, six-episode collection of the hit period medical drama that first bowed in the U.K. last January (its second "series" premieres tonight in the U.K.). Based upon the fictionalized accounts of author Jennifer Worth's years as a midwife in London's East End slums during the late 1950s, Call the Midwife is a surprisingly conventional retread of all those hoary TV medico shows you've seen countless times before, with lots of dimly-lit, mucky sets and mildly graphic childbirths to equal "grittiness," and some questionable revisionist history to make it all go down a treat. A little 10-minute official promo of the series is included in these excellent widescreen transfers.

Read the entire review

The Show:

The journeys of lowly Manchester native and radio producer Karl Pilkington have been well chronicled by his de facto sponsor of these journeys, comedian Ricky Gervais. The former worked on several podcasts of the latter and Gervais decided to fly Karl to visit the Seven Wonders of the World, titling the show (to Karl's obliviousness) as An Idiot Abroad. The show was a hilarious mix of Ricky pranking Karl from afar while serving as a travelogue of sorts to Karl's experiences. It went so well that someone thought a second series would be good, which brings us to where we are.

The series' subtitle this time around is 'The Bucket List,' and judging from that subtitle one could seem to assume that Karl would be in for torture that is more psychological. In the first season, Ricky's desire to p...Read the entire review

Based on the same-named (and partly fictionalized) memoirs of Jennifer Worth (nee Lee), Call the Midwife (2012) is a new BBC series garnering very high ratings and excellent reviews comparable to that other recent transatlantic hit, ITV's Downton Abbey. I was attracted to it because series creator Heidi Thomas was also responsible for the short-lived revival of Upstairs, Downstairs, which in its first of two, too short seasons especially, this reviewer thought was just marvelous. Call the Midwife has many of the same charms, with rich characterizations and intriguing, historically interesting stories and situations.

Call the Midwife - Season One consists of six just-under-an-hour episodes presented across two single-sided DVDs. They're in widescreen with excellent audio and video but, alas, no extra features.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=55790 Wed, 26 Dec 2012 05:27:39 PST Rent It

THE PROGRAM

Competition, Science, Democracy, Medicine, Consumerism, and The Work Ethic. According to Harvard professor, Niall Ferguson, these are the six "killer apps" that allowed Western culture to dominate over the east over the course of modern history. Spanning six, 45-minute episodes, each focusing on one of these "killer apps," "Civilization: The West and The Rest" bills itself as a fresh approach to looking back at historical achievements of both the West and the East and in the process, looking forward to the future to see if the trend of Western dominance will continue to flourish or fall by the wayside.

Hosted by Ferguson, "Civilization" is little more than a step-above your gimmicky History Channel miniseries offering. Thankfully stripped of cheap CGI flourishes and academics with questionable, baseless theories, Ferguson instead goes the safe route of hitting what he ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54996 Sun, 16 Dec 2012 18:24:57 PST Recommended

The TV Series:

The DVD release of the fifth and final season of UK sci-fi series The Sarah Jane Adventures unwittingly serves as a souvenir of that unique TV show quandary: you have a hit show and the star suddenly dies - what to do?

History serves up a few examples. Some shows (Petticoat Junction, Chico and the Man) worked their way around the death by having the late actors' characters venture off somewhere, never to be seen again. Others (NewsRadio, 8 Simple Rules) choose to incorporate their cast members' deaths into the shows themselves, which in the case of sitcoms makes for some strange shifts in tone.

Russel T Davies and the producers of the BBC's kid-oriented Doctor Who spinoff The Sarah Jan...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57949 Tue, 11 Dec 2012 07:54:01 PST Highly Recommended

THE SHOW:

Though I am well aware of it, I have never seen the original 1970s series Upstairs, Downstairs. The influential drama set at the London residence 165 Eaton Place in the early 1930s is largely credited as the inspiration for Julian Fellowes for both Gosford Park and Downton Abbey. The success of the latter is quite possibly the main reason the BBC decided to revive the older program two years ago. It seems that audiences are ready t...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57880 Tue, 04 Dec 2012 16:42:19 PST Highly Recommended

TheShow:

Originally released on DVD in 2003, the Restoration Team hastaken a second pass at a classic Jon Pertwee story, TheClaws of Axos, and the results are excellent. Agreat story coupled with an improved imageand some good new extras makes this a wonderful addition to any Doctor Who collection.

When a spaceship lands in England near a nuclearpower plant,the government ...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57867 Sun, 02 Dec 2012 05:50:21 PST Highly Recommended

The Series:

Copper: Season One is BBC America's latest offering, as well as being solely produced by the BBC America. Copper is a period piece set in 1864 during the troubles of the Five Points neighborhood. Kevin Corcoran (Tome Weston-Jones) is a police officer with the New York City Police Department. He's a former boxer and fought in the Civil War. He left a wife and daughter behind only to find his daughter dead and wife missing upon his return. He now dedicates his life to enforcing the law and trying to figure out what happened to his family while he was gone.

Being that Corcoran is of fierce reputation and is the law of land, he weaves in and out of low and high society. He is a close friend with a wealthy industrialist's son named Robert Morehouse (Kyle Scmid), whom he fought with during the Civil War and they share a bond that cannot be broken, all politics asid...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57997 Sat, 24 Nov 2012 18:57:45 PST Highly Recommended

The Series:

The third series in the long running British sci-fi staple to feature Matt Smith as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor, Doctor Who Series Seven, Part One collects the first five episodes of the season that was originally broadcast in the last half of 2012. Those who don't like Smith in the role won't have their minds changed this go round, but those who do appreciate the manic energy and quirky humor that he's able to bring to the part will definitely appreciate more of the same with this collection.

Since coming back in 2005, the series has gone on to enjoy some newfound popularity thanks in no small part to the guidance of Stephan Moffet. While he only writes the first and fifth episodes in this current collection, they're both highlights of the set. But more on that in a bit, first, a look at the episodes proper.

Asylum Of The Daleks: When this ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56813 Thu, 08 Nov 2012 16:51:15 PST Highly Recommended

The Show:

 
Colin Baker often gets a bad rap when fans gather 'round totalk about Doctor Who.  Alot of that has to do with his introductionin the series:  the regeneration didn'tgo smoothly and he acted erratically:  Hewas egotistical, cowardly, and he even tried to kill his companion,Peri at onepoint.  By his first full season thewriters had gotten their act together and things were much better.  The show was taking on a darker tone, andseemed to be maturing.  One of the bestexamples of this more 'adult' version of the show is the second storyfromseason 22, Vengeance on Varos.&nb...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57950 Tue, 06 Nov 2012 19:07:40 PST Rent It

It may be that BBC Worldwide is marketing Kingdom (2007-09), a dramedy starring actor Stephen Fry, specifically to fans of the better and longer-lasting Doc Martin (2004-present). There's a superficial resemblance: Doc Martin (Martin Clunes) is the respected physician of an eccentric, seaside Cornish community that everyone brings their health and other personal problems to; while Peter Kingdom (Fry) is the respected solicitor of an eccentric seaside Norfolk community similarly besieged by residents, this time with legal issues. Like Doc Martin's Cornish setting, Kingdom's location filming (in picturesque Swaffham) attracted an army of tourists. The major difference though is that Martin is (hilariously) abrasive and misanthropic, while Peter Kingdom is exceedingly kind, thoughtful, and humanistic. That Fry is nearly six-feet five-inches tall and pushing 300 pounds also sugg...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=58731 Sun, 04 Nov 2012 12:12:03 PST Recommended

The Show:

 
During Jon Pertwee's first two seasons playing The Doctor,the Time Lord was exiled to Earth. Unable to make his TARDIS dematerialization he was stranded ononeplanet and in one time, but that didn't mean he wasn't still battlingaliens.  During this period, they came tohim as in the seven-part story the Ambassadorsof Death.  While the story does lastan episode or two longer than it needs to, it's a generally funadventure withan eerie creature for The Doctor to confront along with an internalmenace.
 

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56812 Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:21:02 PDT Recommended

The Show:

Four years before Irwin Allen brought a team of spaceexplorers to a planet inhabited by giants in Land of theGiants, DoctorWho covered the same territory in Planetof the Giants. Similar in a lot ofways to the US series that would come later, this story that opened thesecondseason of the long-running BBC show featured the first Doctor, WilliamHartnelland his companions only an inch tall, and the only witnesses to amurder. While it's not the bestinstallment, it's notparticularly bad either. The originalfour episode story was shorted to three (after all four had been shot)andwhile the end is a little rushed, it is still a solid example of theshow fromits early years.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57801 Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:07:12 PDT Highly Recommended

Tram wires cross Melbourne skies
Cut my red heart in two
My knuckles bleed down Johnston street
On a door that shouldn't be in front of me

(from Wallander's title theme)

Wallander (2008-present) is a superb crime/mystery series, far above nearly everything that's come along since Inspector Morse ended a dozen years ago. Like John Shaw's unforgettable character, Kenneth Branagh's existential Swedish Police Inspector Kurt Wallander is an unhappy, troubled man, and like Morse, Wallander's episodes really aren't about the mysteries except insofar as their particulars reflect upon him. He's in almost every scene, completely dominating the narratives. Where Morse was merely lonely and socially isolated by his tastes and intellectual pursuits (among other things), Wallander is a genuinely, deeply depressed individual who, like many, suppresse...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57889 Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:01:58 PDT Highly Recommended

Grim, engrossing U.K. TV mystery from the best-selling crime novel. No doubt in an effort to soak up some of that ancillary James Bond promotional gravy, BBC and Warner Home Video have released The Ice House, the 1997 television adaptation of Minette Walters' award-winning novel, starring Daniel Craig, Corin Redgrave, Kitty Aldridge, Frances Barber, and Penny Downie. A forbidding, depressing mystery that touches on uncomfortable themes such as pedophilia, homophobia, lawless retribution, and incest, The Ice House is recommended viewing for those U.K. mystery fans who like their "cozy village mysteries" not so cozy. A lengthy featurette on the author is included as a welcome bonus for this good-looking transfer.

Street Grange, Silverbourne. Frightened handyman Fred Phillips (Dave Hill) comes running up to the Grange's owner, Phoebe Maybury (Penny Downie), who's enjoying t...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56828 Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:12:02 PDT Highly Recommended

The Movie:

While not a fan of all Britcoms, I stumbled across my favorite many years ago while browsing through cable channels one afternoon. "Absolutely Fabulous", one of the most popular of the Britcoms of the recent era, has come back more times than "Family Guy". The series concluded a tremendously successful original run, returned for a bit, then was gone again until this past year.

The show starred Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley as Edina and Patsy, two women who consume excessive amounts of alcohol and drugs while attempting to stay hip and high-fashion even while they're getting older. Edina's daughter Saffron (Julia Salwaha) consistently threaten to ruin their fun with those things called "morals".

While the two women are delightfully childish and hilariously mean, the daughter's intelligence eventually wins in the end and only makes the two seem more absurd a...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56221 Sat, 08 Sep 2012 05:56:05 PDT Highly Recommended

The Movie:

The late John Pertwee played Doctor Who for the first time in this four part storyline which ran through the first few weeks of 1970, Dr. Who: Spearhead From Space, the first of the series to be shot on color film. Directed by Derek Martinus and written by Robert Holmes, the story begins when a bunch of meteorites hurtle through space and crash in the charming English countryside. A local man named Seeley (Neil Wilson) comes across them just as the TARDIS pops up and the new Dr. Who (Pertwee) steps out... only to basically fall flat on his face.

With the Doctor promptly shipped off to the hospital, UNIT steps in to see just what exactly is up with these meteors. Complicating matters is the presence of a local factory that specializes in manufacturing mannequins. As they've needed to change with the times, they've shifted from manual to automated labor but this ha...Read the entire review

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