After all the red herrings you could wish for, this week's Fringe confirmed all my suspicions. I was right all along, but where exactly does that leave the show?
Bango
I got to the stage a few weeks ago where I was beginning to think that Being Human US was going to eclipse its big British brother of a show. It's not. The climax to Sally's whiny but well thought out story arc concluded with a bite and a whimper and is it me or do they have more full moons in Boston than anywhere else in the world?
Bongo
Tim Kring invented Heroes. That was, for a while, a really daring idea that sort of disappeared up its own arse and not in a weird and self-important way, but because they just pfaffed around too much. Touch, Kring's new show, stars Kiefer Sutherland and by the time I got 20 minutes into episode two I realised I was watching Quantum Leap with a retard rather than a hologram. Awful, mawkish and a bit like a comic in that they needed to throw in a repeated oral synopsis of the premise to remind people what they were watching. Quite a dreadful programme which I can't see being remotely successful, but I'm probably in a minority.
Bungo
I have also officially given up on Grimm. I shall keep the first season on disc in case I break my leg or slip another disc and need some superfluous entertainment to prevent me from seizing up. The problem I have with it is the profundity of demons and monsters. In a show like Buffy there was a 'plausible' reason for the amount of nasty creatures running around, Grimm doesn't have this and is dogged by special effects that look like they might have been produced in the same era as Whedon's cheerleading vampire slayer's first movie outing.
It's a clever little idea and it has been recommissioned, but, you know, there's other stuff on.
Bengo
Awake awaits and I'm already feeling a bit of dread. The idea seems wacky enough to have come from the minds of the Lost boys, but even without seeing an episode, I get the impression that this is going to be a weird concept played entirely without weirdness. Imagine Being Human being about three people who think they are monsters, but only when they are at home; which is unfair considering I haven't seen more than a 45 second clip, but, you know, it needs to be good and weird or it's going to be going the way of Touch.
Byngo
I still think Shameless US is the best thing on my TV at the moment; but at least The Walking Dead finale went out with a rediscovered sense of menace. However, I have just about zero expectations from the next series because I think you're going to discover that there's no mileage in a zombie TV show once you start making the humans far more menacing than the zombies. The casting call for season 3 might have a couple of dozen comics fanboys splurting in their grubby jeans, but I think the introduction of Michonne and the Governor might be stretching the average viewers sense of (un)reality a little too far. There is also a huge potential for repeating the Herschel's farm meander again, now that the prison looms large in the distance. The comic spent a shedload of time there, the TV series and the pace it goes could feasibly see us watching the Qatar World Cup in 2022 before the zombies overrun that place as well.
Dr Who's new assistant has been named. I have no idea who she is, but hopefully she'll ask the question that hasn't been asked at all since the revamp; why on Earth doesn't the Doctor just go back to a point in time before anything horrible happens and prevent it, especially as time has gone all timey-wimey. If I had the chance of being his sidekick, I would bore him stupid with lots of paradoxical questions.
Alcatraz hasn't been bad; it's a bit like Fringe meets The Rock with less action and Hurley. I have fallen three episodes behind because I can't quite see what the raison d'etre is once they discover who is responsible for the anomaly and why and it is the kind of show that probably needs to give a bit more away or it will end up cancelled before anything is revealed. It isn't Lost Mark 2.
Is it me or are the news channels relying a little too heavily on the thoughts of the Twitterati, Facebook morons and other anti-social networking sites for literary content on news stories. As difficult and painful to watch as the Fabrice Muamba situation was, is Wayne Rooney saying he's praying for the DR Congo-born Bolton player really news?
I also find it quite painful that respected friends of mine watch shit like The Voice (or Dragon's Den: The Musical as some wag put it), Britain's Got (No) Talent and the God-awful The Apprentice. I do, however, recall a Harry Enfield sketch called Call Me Wanker and somehow those two unconnected sentences make perfect sense.
The Good Food channel is showing episodes of Man v Food I haven't seen before, unfortunately the allure of watching a slightly fat wannabe TV star eating his own weight in meat has lost its appeal. I do still like the way Richman says, 'Oh my goodness, oh, my, goodness' but that came in a later season.
I do at least have Haven to look forward to in the summer. I say 'look forward to', what I actually mean is look forward to not downloading it, not watching it and not subjecting myself to the worst SyFy programme in existence, with the exception of Sanctuary, Lost Girl and most other things they produce. Oddly enough this is the (premature) final season of Eureka, it was obviously far too classy for such a Troma-like TV network.
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