Coming up in 2010: V

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Have you not had enough big budget, big concept, post-Lost telly fun yet? Well, don’t worry, because 2010 is bringing with it intriguing new US import V. Well, we say new – older readers might remember the original '80s miniseries this is based on. If you do, shhh – no spoilers.

The first episode of the remake aired in the US earlier in the week and is set to come to British TV early next year, courtesy of the Sci Fi channel. Like Five’s current big budget import FlashForward, it’s nabbed itself a blonde Lost supporting actress with a unusually shaped but nevertheless memorable face – fans of the time-bending island drama will have probably seen the picture of actress Elizabeth Mitchell above and squealed, “Juliet!”

Meanwhile, geeks will also be pleased to see the opening episode of V features Firefly favourites Alan Tudyk (looks like a fun ginger version of Michael Douglas, has amusing surname) and Morena Baccarin (Latin lovely whose name's eighth Google auto-complete suggestion is "Morena Baccarin feet").

Anyway, the plot. One morning in New York, the earth starts shaking, planes start falling out of the sky and there are lots of massive explosions. But this isn’t just a run-of-the-mill terrorist attack, as you can see below.



Yep, it’s those blasted aliens again! Non-Americans need not fret – spaceships are also shown hovering above Big Ben, the Pyramids, Red Square and the Eiffel Tower. Weirdly, the Visitors (hence, V), led by the spookily perfect Anna (Baccarin), are not only charming and peace-loving, but they’re universally HOT, meaning the humans – including FBI agent Erica Evans (Mitchell), her horrifyingly good-looking son Tyler (Logan Huffman) and various other characters – rather take to them.

Here’s where it gets a bit True Blood, with the humans separating into pro- and anti- camps over the new arrivals. Are the members of this species really as chummy as they seem – or do they have some kind of dastardly plan?

We’ll have to sit tight for a few months, but with the promising opener packing in a few good twists, a jaw-dropping plane'n'car crash, and a (probably unintentionally) hilarious moment in which the V shockingly suggest introducing universal health care to the US – the horror! – we reckon we'll be tuning in next year to find out.

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Thursday 10.55pm, More4

Posted by Will Parkhouse

The big news for the seventh series of Curb Your Enthusiasm is the reunion of the Seinfeld gang, with Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards and Jason Alexander all set to come together – but it looks like fans will have to wait a couple of episodes for it.

Still, the new run kicked off well. Last season's finale was about as unexpected as you get – it almost felt like a weird dream sequence – with Larry, now completely separated from wife Cheryl, suddenly falling for Loretta, the woman from the hurricane-stricken family he and Cheryl had been sharing their home with. LD dating a black woman – what could possibly go wrong?

Actually, as the episode began, it turned out everything had: Loretta, ill in bed, had turned into a bit of a monster, refusing to cave in to Larry's pleas for central heating moderation (coincidentally, a topic our very own Peep Show tackled in its recent series opener). Meanwhile, Larry's offer to pay a visit to Marty Funkhouser's mentally ill sister Bam Bam ("It was an empty gesture!") backfired, when Funkhouser immediately called him on it.

So Larry and his agent buddy Jeff went to visit, culminating in a rather startling twist: Jeff slept with Bam Bam, a low point even by his standards. Despite Larry's tantalising and rather touching chance tryst with Cheryl, the episode ended in worrying style, with our hero realising he urgently needed to dump Loretta before her biopsy results arrived. Of course, he got there too late, leading to the question: could Larry end up breaking the ultimate taboo and dumping a woman with cancer?

Amazingly, after 60 episodes, it's still a great show and, despite being quintessentially American, one that it's easy for Brits to love. After all, which of us polite, reserved types doesn't aspire to have a conversation as frank as this?

SEE ALSO:
New on Sky1: Modern Family >>
Hot US import True Blood >>
Around the World in 80 days >>

FlashForward, Monday 9pm, Five

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Even though Five was perhaps over-egging the TV pudding a bit by billing FlashForward as "the shiniest, most glamorous and downright phenomenal thing to come out of America since Obama”, there was a bit of a buzz surrounding the show some are also calling “the new Lost”.

And that wasn’t just because FlashForward’s female lead was played by Sonya Walger, aka Lost’s Penny Widmore, or that another of the show’s stars, Dominic Monaghan (whose character Charlie is still missed), is set to make an appearance. No, it’s all about that mysterious disaster-filled opening premise: for two minutes and 17 seconds everyone in the whole world passes out, experiencing a flashforward (ah-ha!) and seeing exactly where they are and what they’ll be doing in six months’ time (shades of the first season of Heroes there, too).

The Mentalist, Thursday 9pm, Five

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Our rating:

I've always wondered what would happen if Derren Brown decided Channel 4 wasn't big enough for him and started using his awesome powers of psychological illusionism for evildoing. Presumably he'd have his hands on millions of pounds and would have recruited an army of hypnotised mercenaries before you could say, "look into my eyes…"

Five's glossy new US import – we know this is a quality drama, because its supporting cast includes two 24 stars and one former West Wing actor – imagines what would happen if Derren had the sunswept good looks of a Lost cast member and got a job as a homicide detective in California.       

24: Redemption, Monday 10pm, Sky1

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Our rating:

Call me a nitpicker, but last night’s 24 special really should have just been called 2, shouldn’t it? Although it used 24’s trademark real-time system, had a few split screen moments and featured, of course, a grizzled Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) running around with a gun and a manbag, it covered just a couple of hours, a new departure for the long-running show.

The breakaway from the main series was obviously so the show’s creators got the chance to do a “Jack in Africa” sort of adventure without then having to follow it with 10 episodes of Jack sitting on a plane looking out the window and watching an in-flight movie.

Heroes, Wednesday 9pm, BBC2

Posted by Tom Murphy

Season 3 of Heroes started off with a bang – the same bang that concluded Season 2. As Nathan Petrelli is about to tell the world all about the existence of people with "abilities", someone puts a few bullets in him. However, in a bold move, we find out straight away the shocking truth about whodunnit. Now we just need to find out why...

After the slow build-up of Season 2 was heavily criticised by fans, Heroes creator and story-juggler Tim Kring made his intentions clear by hurling a lot of balls in the air this time round. After a shocking opening involving the future versions of indestructible cheerleader Claire and scarred power-sponge Peter, the action followed breathlessly from the previous season finale.

We quickly caught up with our favourite characters – and Maya – and saw each of them flung into new storylines that are likely to become as tangled as an explosion at a noodle factory. We also met a promising new character, became reacquainted with people we thought we'd seen the last of, and saw other players in a new and uncertain light.

It's probably not giving too much away to reveal that we're moving into “change the past to save the future” territory. Hiro takes a peek at a future Tokyo that isn't somewhere you'd want to hang around, while it's unlikely that Future Peter got that scar from shaving carelessly.

The classic superhero adage of “great power brings great responsibility” also looks set to run through the series. Just as Hiro is getting bored running his father's company, the true nature of his inheritance becomes clear – a formula that must never fall into the wrong hands. Meanwhile, Mohinder makes a breakthrough in his studies and works out how to activate people's latent powers; he must then decide what to do with the knowledge.

Fans will be expecting Kring and his production team to make up for the failings of the second series by pulling the rug from under them at every available opportunity. With a strong flourish, the opening episode provided a number of intriguing teasers and leaves the viewer hungry for answers. Bring on those cliff-hangers!

Picture: BBC

SEE ALSO:

TV’s new romantic heroes: did Milo make the cut? >>
Series two finale: our blogger’s view >>
What’s Nathan Petrelli’s other job? >>

Lost: Series 4 Finale

As the man on Sky One said at the end - wow! The finale of Lost Series 4 was two hours of the most compelling, thrilling, mind-bending TV since, well, the finale of Lost Series 3. (By the way if you haven't watched it yet and don't want to to read any spoilers skip to the last paragraph now!)

Talking of the end of series three it was nice to see the coffin from that episode make a welcome return. More importantly it was great - and also shocking - to finally find out who was in it. Fans have spent many, many hours trying to figure out just who was being laid to rest.

As series four has progressed and it's been revealed who the Oceanic Six were the suspects were minimal. Then again this being Lost we should have realised that just as we thought we were getting close to an answer the creators would turn things on their head yet again. As any true fan knew a finale would provide some answers but even more questions.

To see John Locke's face staring up from the coffin was one twist I didn't see coming, but boy was it a good one. Did he leave the island in the same way Ben did by moving it in time and space - and what has gone so badly wrong there that he was desperate enough to do that? Could he walk when he did? And who or what killed him? There's no doubt that suicide is not the only possibility. Does it mean Widmore is fighting back in his war with Ben? See what I mean about as many questions as answers.

And that's before we even ask what was that thing Ben used to move the island? Where did it go? Who's still alive? Questions we did get answered were who definitely made it off the island and how. How Jin died - as most of us supected he would. And would Michael survive? We didn't think he would but what did Christian's cryptic message mean just before the boat blew up? Any ideas?

What was amazing - and actually one of the most emotional scenes of this series - was seeing Penny and Desmond reunited as Penny's boat pulled the eight survivors from the helicopter crash from the water. Desmond and Frank - our favourite hippy helicopter pilot - will, of course, have to disappear. But I doubt it's the last we'll see of them.

Ben has already promised to get even with Widmore by killing his daughter Penny. But does he know how Sayid and the others actually were rescued and does he know that Desmond and Penny are together somewhere? And would Sayid go as far in helping Ben as leading him to Penny or is that part of his agenda he has yet to share with Sayid?

Trying to answers all these questions makes your head spin as the writers twist and turn you again. It's the genius of the show and also the thing that drives many people wild and turns them off it. I guess you either love it or hate it. If you love it then it's going to be a long wait till series five.

Season four meanwhile has been outstanding - maybe we have the writers strike to thank for that as a shortened season meant no padding, no extraneous detours just gripping, heart-pounding stuff that at times left you as breathless and emotionally drained as the best movies. Forget Indiana Jones or Iron Man two hours of your life engrossed in the weird world of JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof is far more satisfying. How long to season five?

In the meantime check out an engrossing theory and some interviews with the cast.

A Lost theory
Matthew Fox interview
Naveen Andrews interview
Lost inspired holiday ideas
Lost on IMDB.com

Farewell, Dexter

Posted by Cameron Countach

After 12 weeks of more twists and turns than a series of Lost can throw at us, Dexter, the show about a serial killer with a conscience, came to a dramatic end last night.

We entered the final episode of the first series knowing that Dexter’s sister Deborah had been kidnapped by her boyfriend Rudy, who has also turned out to be the gruesome Ice Truck Killer, a serial murderer who had been playing mind games with Dexter throughout season 1.

But never could I have seen the ultimate twist, where Dexter finds out Rudy is his long-lost brother. For anyone who has been following the show, it was a superb finale in what has been one of the best dramas to be shown on ITV in years – actually, probably ever. But before I get all gushy about it, let’s give some context for its greatness.

Nathan Petrelli's other job

Posted by Will Parkhouse

It's time to offer your monthly sacrifices to the Gods of American TV, because Heroes is back.

Normally, to get you in the mood, we'd bang on about how much we're looking forward to seeing how much little Miss Hayden Panettierre has grown, or speculating as to whether Sylar has changed his evil ways.

But then we stumbled across this little treasure trove. It seems actor Adrian Pasdar – or Nathan Petrelli if you prefer to think of the Heroes as real-life people – has been filming and posting a series of arty but charming clips on YouTube, which include the likes of Milo Ventimiglia (who plays Peter Petrelli) Zachary Quinto (Sylar), Hayden (Claire Bennet) and Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman).

You can watch our faves below, or, if you're as beguiled as we were, head over to Adrian's channel to watch the lot.

SEE ALSO

Time for Heroes >>
Heroes series one: the finale >>
Heroes: top five moments >>

Shark, Friday 10pm, Five

Posted by Will Parkhouse

Our rating:
To all those glassy-eyed Heroes24Lost fans who believe American television is the answer to all of life's problems, the new series of Shark should be a big fat kick in the teeth.

James Woods plays unconventional shades-loving deputy district attorney Sebastian Stark, an LA prosecutor who spends his time conversing at speeds of up to 3000mph with a bevy of unnaturally beautiful female prosecutors.

This opening episode begins with one of Stark's witnesses losing his nerve while testifying against a murderer. And, just as our hero tells his team he's going to threaten the chump with perjury and obstruction of justice, said chump hops on a bus, which immediately blows up, at huge expense to the programme-makers. (We know this because they show us a replay halfway through the episode.)

It's all unbelievably frenetic – so much so, in fact, that I actually started having to muck around with a stopwatch to check my preview DVD was playing at the right speed. Then answering my phone midway through, I had to wade through a conversation that felt so snail-like in comparison, it was like time itself had stopped.

Anyway, despite a cocksure performance from Woods, which sees him moving his head around a lot to show what a good actor he is, the whole thing's both confusing and startlingly unoriginal. Unique selling point? Forget it: it's as if the script has been generated using computer software by a man with a broken lightbulb where his brain should be.