Film & TV – Welshtroll

Station Life

Season 6 of The Expanse kicked off at the start of December, I have only recently caught up on the first 5 seasons after two of my friends insisted that I should watch it, it made for good lockdown viewing. I am of course totally hooked and really enjoying the show and the new season is as gripping as expected.

As much as I’m liking the current story and plot, some of the original elements that drew me in have since diminished with each passing season.
For me a huge element that I really enjoyed was the focus on station/colony life, the personal interactions and background characters. Add into that mix the gumshoe element and a whole lot of mistrust/conspiracy and it was a blend that I really felt at home watching.

Once I was all caught up on the first 5 seasons of The Expanse, was itching to watch something else so I decided to start a re-watch of my favourite space themed show Babylon 5.
Turns out the elements I originally liked in The Expanse were the staples baked into almost all of Babylon 5, which is most likely why it appealed to me so strongly initially.

Since the announcement of the ‘from the ground up’ B5 reboot, with JMS at the helm, I have to admit that I am a little on the excited side.

Hawk the Slayer’s rubbish!

So yesterday was the anniversary of one of my all time favourite TV shows: Spaced.
Fifteen years ago it aired in the UK on Channel 4 and quickly obtained a cult following despite it’s limited run of two series.

What?

Spaced featured two strangers who have to put on a charade in order to rent a flat, during the show we learn more about them, their assortment of friends and the other occupants of the house . During the series we follow their struggle with day-to-day life with often surreal results.
The show set the trend long before other shows with home made fighting Robots, paintballing and black-ops dog rescues (I got nothing to link here 🙂 ).

Who?

The show brought together a number of actors that I had seen previously on comedy shows (Pegg, Frost, Hynes, Heap) and many of whom, along with the director and producers (Wright and Park), would become bigger stars in their own right.

It’s said that without Spaced there may never have been A Cornetto Trilogy and I can believe that.

Why?

Each episode was jam packed with stacks of cultural reference touching on tv and films, comics, games and music, in fact when watching it for the first time you may only spot the obvious ones.
I know some of them I didn’t spot until much later when rewatching. Admittedly some of them will only make sense to British folks and then only those of a certain age will laugh at the in-jokes.

The one of my favourite quotes and it’s in the very first scene:

If you can’t see the video here is a substitute:
pegg

#TV #Spaced

Much Ado

Rach got a Guild Wars account so after setting that up we teamed up and played through the start of NightFall to get some levels under our belts, I rolled a new character for the occasion a rather nice Elementalist/Paragon.

Dok was off work last weekend so we got down to some film watching on Saturday evening, with the feature films being Wanted, Hulk and since we were on a comic themed roll X-men.

Wanted was rather better than I had expected, I haven’t read any related material before so I can’t comment on how true to original story line it is. The film was nicely captivating and it didn’t leave much time for clock watching. I quite like the fact that Jolie was rarely the centre of camera attention, a rather nice change I thought.

The Hulk was quite enjoyable with Ed Norton delivering so great acting, the film is quite fast moving and housed a vast selection of battle scenes. All that aside the storyline/plot was still clear and didn’t get too lost. Very enjoyable and sets up nicely for future films to.

Monday seen the release of Ironman on DVD, Dok and myself went to the cinema to watch this, even tho I had seen the film recently it was a pleasure to watch again, definately one to see if you get the chance.

Remember to watch to the end of the credits of both the Marvel films 😉

So as for the rest of things, everything ticks over rather nicely. I’m still adjusting to having daylight in the mornings, even if it is for the next couple of weeks only.

Dead set

Someone at work pointed out this mini-series http://www.e4.com/deadset/ due to appear on E4 in the near future.

Here is the blurb from the E4 website:

[blockquote]Britain has a big problem. The dead are returning to life and attacking the living. The people they kill get up and kill – and it’s spreading like wildfire. Curiously, there are a few people left in Britain who aren’t worried about any of this – that’s because they’re the remaining contestants in Big Brother. Cocooned in the safety of the Big Brother house, they’re blissfully unaware of the horrific events unfolding outside. Until an eviction night when all hell breaks loose.[/blockquote]

I must admit it does look rather promising and with the added bonus of Kevin Eldon being in the cast will make it a “must watch” for the upcoming winter months.

It certainly demonstrates a use for the BB house during the off-peak session, I wonder what other uses they will dream up for it in the future.

You weren't there at the beginning

So following the standard method of taking a hit UK TV show and remaking it for the US. Sadly their eyes falls to one of my favourite shows of all time, Spaced.

Dok pointed out that there is an American version of Spaced going to be made.

Here are some extracts from Edgar Wrights journal post over on MySpace:

“Aside from all the legal aspects to my involvement, any self respecting fan of the show knows that along with Simon, Jess and Nira Park, I put my heart and soul into that series. So the implication in the trades by Wonderland and Granada USA that we may be involved in this new version absolutely pains me. “

“my beef with the trade announcement is more a matter of principle. I'm told after the fact that the makers of McSpaced had wanted to get us involved, but were told they couldn't pay us to be consultants (great!).

Either way, to not even make a courtesy call prior to making that announcement just a little rude. (And let's not even get started on the fact that Jessica's name was all but erased from the press releases.)

So forgive me for calling out Peter Johnson and co. at Wonderland (who I've never met, obviously) on this one, but if you truly are the huge fans of our work that you profess to be, then would it not have been smart to get in touch before you trumpeted our potential involvement in this?”

My annoyance over the fact that Granada America want to remake the series pales in comparison with the obvious fact that they completely lied about having Pegg and Wright onboard. After their hits with Shaun and Fuzz, was it an attempt to draw peoples interest in the project? Or maybe they are just another bunch of money grabbing gits.

Sadly it seems that none of the original writers or director have any control over the rights to the series, so unless minds are changed this will go ahead. 🙁

“McSpaced is rubbish”