Bad TV

 

1. Ya, they did that with “Girl with the dragon tattoo”. The original 3 part film series from Norway was really awesome but then they did a hollywood skrunched version and it stunk.
   House of cards is so far a decent DC version of power politics but I quit watching when they offed Kate Mara in episode one of season 2.
   One film they got right is “Let Me In”. a brilliant vampire film originally from Norway. If you never saw this one, and even if you don’t like Vamp fliks( this is way so not like the faggy hollywood shit), Im pretty sure anyone here will enjoy the darkness and weird sweetness of it.
   OK, I’m done with the Siskel & Ebert shtick.

   Posted by Rich K       09/04/2014  at  02:51 AM  



2. On the other hand, I much prefer the American version of “Sherlock Holmes in the 21st century” (Elementary) over the original Brit version.

   I keep seeing ads for a new series this fall called “Madam Secretary” - a female Secretary of State..... sounds like it’s going to be a continuous campaign ad for Hitlary. :-(

   Posted by JimS       09/04/2014  at  09:12 AM  



3. I enjoyed Broadchurch so I will give Gracepoint a whirl but I don’t have my hopes up. David Tenant played a very dark and disturbed detective; curious how they spin it in the US version. 

   I find the Brit Sherlock to be much better than Elementary. It’s only 3 episodes per season but the episodes are very long.  Sherlock went on hold while the actors performed in other shows and movies.  Hobbit, Star Trek, and Fargo.  Martin Freeman in Fargo was quite a performance!  Cumberbatch as Kahn and the voice of Smaug/Sauron is also excellent.

   They tried to redo Coupling in the US and it flashed and burned in only a few episodes. The Brit version is absolutely hilarious, especially Jeff (Richard Coyle)!  He’s actually a really good actor in the Crossbones series. 

   British shows are fantastic, Mrs Brown’s Boys (Irish I think but greatly loved by the Scotch) is unbelievably funny and they do it live, like the Carol Burnette show. They go on tour in Scotland and do live shows and every time they sell out.  Its what they do when they need money!

   Copper and Ripper Street were also outstanding shows.  They were both cancelled but I think Ripper Street might be back. 

   The British actors are much better at their craft then the actors in the US. The writing is much better as well. We Americans may seem like we have the attention span of a gnat but we can certainly handle more than we are currently being fed.  Online access and Netflix are allowing the British TV scene to take off in the USA.  So much so they are now trying to target Americans but in doing so they will fail unless they give us the exact same show as it was created.

   Unfortunately a great many good shows get cancelled due to incompetence of the network executives.  They put the shows on the wrong nights, pick the wrong time of the year, and fail to market them properly.  Also the ratings system is deeply flawed, for every good show they kill there are a lot more viewers than they thought.

   There are several ways to view British TV and I would encourage anyone looking for something different to give it a shot.  It may take a few episodes to get used to the accent but I think you’ll greatly enjoy the acting and the deeper story telling or the outrageous humor.

   Posted by MJS       09/08/2014  at  05:00 PM  

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