Veteran television writer Troy Kennedy Martin has died at the Age of 77. His impressive CV includes Z-Cars and The Italian Job but it is the atmospheric environmental thriller Edge of Darkness that is perhaps his finest work.
The six-part drama starring Bob Peck and Joanne Whalley was highly influential and perhaps only matched by Paul Abbot’s State of Play in terms of mini-series as art.
Martin Campbell’s film adaptation of the series starring Mel Gibson will be released in 2010.
Well this time I have an answer. It’s coming to E4 from Friday 4th September and will be on every week night. The show’s first season aired on BBC2 probably on the back of Alison Hannigan’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer following. Season 2 turned up on the now defunct Ttrouble before the show disappeared in to the UK television abyss. Well now’s back on tv and that news is legen………wait for it………
In the UK we are lucky to get the best scripted dramas from the US. If one channel isn’t interested then there are plenty of competitors to pick them up. For example, Sky One began showing Nip/Tuck but then dropped it and it was picked up by F/X. Shows like Dexter and Medium get airplay on satellite channels F/X and Sci Fi respectively before screening on terrestrial channels. However, some shows slip through the net.
The new US television season will begin next month. If you just can’t wait for your favourite shows to get cancelled then here’s a treat for you. To celebrate we look at the top five series finales ……..
John Hughes died on August 6th while out walking in New York aged just 59. He had been retired from the movie business since 1994 but in his short time has a film maker he had left an incredible legacy of films. The quality of his teenage movies is something that has long since been forgotten by the industry.
This is the full trailer for Stargate Universe. The show stars big names Robert Carlyle, Ming Na and Lou Diamond Phillips. The show looks like a step up in quality of production design and ambition with all planets no longer represented by Canadian forrests. It has to be an improvement over the last two years of Atlantis which became predictable and repetitive. That show never fully met the potential of an outstanding pilot, perhaps the darker tone and serialised nature can help this show outshine the franchise’s mother show SG-1. Expect cameos from Richard Dean Anderson and Michael Shanks in the pilot.
Stargate Universe airs premiers on 2nd of October on Syfy. Expect in later month on Sky 1 in the UK. Thanks to Gateworld for the trailer.
Could the Bayside High class of ‘93 be getting back together? It certainly looks like a reunion of some kind might be happening. Last night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon Mark-Paul Gosselaar appeared in full bleached-blonde character as Zack Morris. Incredibly he seems not to have aged even slightly since 1993.
Gosselaar was the star of the show that ran for four seasons and defined what was cool in the early 1990s to choldren on both sides of the atlantic. Saved by the Bell also starred Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Dustin Diamond, Mario Lopez, Elizabeth Berkeley, Lark Voorhies and Dennis Haskins as high school principal Mr Belding. With Gosselaar on board the reunion should be on.
This is no attempt to cash in on nostalgic fame. Gossellar has had a successful acting career with starring roles in NYPD Blue, Commander in Chief and he currently plays Jerry Kellerman on TNT’s legal drama Raising the Bar. His co-stars have also had varying degrees of success with Theissen appearing in Beverly Hills 90210 for several seasons and Elizabeth Berkeley shed her nice girl image in Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Lopez finished second in the 2006 season of Dancing with the Stars.
The show was a spin-off from the Junior High Drama Good Morning Miss Bliss starring Hayley Mills. Set in Indianna the show ran for one season on the Disney channel before being dropped. It was the brainchild of NBC President Brandon Tartikoff, who after the failure on Disney re-pitched to his own network. The show was rebranded and the location was shifted to California. The characters of Zach, Screech(Diamond), Slater (Lopez), Lisa (Voorhies) and Mr Belding (Haskins) were joined by Kelly (Theissen) and Jessie (Berkeley). It became one of the most successful teen programmes of all time.
The show had spin-offs of its own both starting in 1993. Firstly there was Saved by the Bell: The College Years which had much of the original cast but just failed to recreate that Bayside magic. That one season led into mini-series Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas. Running concurrently was Saved by the Bell: The New Class which sadly ran far longer then the original at seven seasons. Crossover was provided by Screech and Mr Belding. The show never achieved the same iconic status as the original and suffered from a regularly changing cast.
It is always the original that will be remembered and maybe they’ll be dining at The Max just one more time.
Films that make money get sequels.That’s not always a good thing. Toy Storyis a modern classic. Not just a great kids film or a great animation but a great film. The makers achieved the impossible with Toy Story 2 and made an even better film. Can they complete the trilogy? Third parts can be notoriously difficult. Superman 3, The Godfather part 3, Spider-man 3 and Shrek the Third are all examples of franchises looking tired and lacking creative clarity.
However, there are reasons for hope. This is Pixar. Other than the inexplicable Oscar winner Ratatouille they have yet to make a bad film. Toy Story was their baby and they have every reason to protect it. The original cast have returned and Pixar veteran Lee Unkrich is in the directors chair with a Screenplay from Little Miss Sunshine’sMichael Arndt.
Fifteen years after the original film, and eleven years on from the sequel could be too long for most children to remember so those films will be released in new 3-D versions as a promotion for the new installment.
Later this year Disney will release The Princess and the Frog. It is the company’s first venture into traditional animation since 2004’s Home on the Range. At the time it was announced that this would be the last traditional animated film the company would produce. The box office numbers for these films could not compete with the computer animations made popular by Pixar and distributed by Disney. With the rise of 3-D animation it appeared as though hand drawn animation as mass entertainment was dead.
The 1990s saw Disney rejuvenated after ambitious flops such as The Black Cauldron (1985). In 1989 Disney’s child-friendly take on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid was released. With a new confidence they produced hit after hit from Oscar best-picture nominee Beauty and the Beast (1991) through to The Lion King in 1994. This period known as the Disney Renaissance ended with Tarzan in 1999. After this period Disney moved away from the traditional fairy tales taking on new concepts like the sci-fi take on treasure island with Treasure Planet (2002) and drawing on Inuit mythology in 2004’s Brother Bear. During this period Disney continued to exploit their back catalogue making unnecessary straight to DVD sequels like Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamp’s Adventure and Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True (2002).
As success for traditional animated films dwindled the Pixar revolution continued. Monster’s Inc (2001), The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007) and WALL-E (2008) each took over $500,000,000 at the worldwide box office while Finding Nemo (2003) brought in more than $850,000,000.
With the success of Pixar other companies entered the world of animation production. The Shrek franchise proved lucrative for Dreamworks while Warner Brothers produced The Ant Bully (2006) and Monster House (2006). Disney no longer had a monopoly and the bar had been raised by the company they funded.
Pixar set a high standard not only for animation but for films. The writers and directors had a love of cinema creating memorable characters and classic films that appealed to both children and adults. At the turn of the century this was something the traditional animation could not do.
Ironically it was the Disney aquisition of Pixar that put them back on the path to hand drawn cartoons. One of the conditions of the sale was that John Lasseter, co-founder of Pixar and director of Toy Story, became the Chief Creative Officer of the Walt Disney Animation Studios. It was he who insisted that Disney stop the DVD sequels and start producing original animated movies leading to the production of The Princess and the Frog.
It is a new take on the frog princess story set in the French Quarter of New Orleans following Disney’s first African-American Princess, Tiana. This represents a return to the world of fairy tales that made first made Walt Disney animations so popular including songs by Randy Newman who worked on many of the Pixar films. It has been written by Ron Clements and John Musker who previously collaborated on The Little Mermaid (1989) and Aladdin (1992). They were also involved in the less successful Hercules (1997) and Treasure Planet (2004).
The Princess and the Frog is due to be released on December the 11th 2009 in the United States.
With May comes the Network upfronts and news of all the renewals, cancellations and new shows coming this autumn. Here’s some of the news that may interest US television fans living in the UK.
For genre fans there is mixed news. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is gone after poor ratings on a Friday night. Its Fox sister show Dollhouse was surprisingly given a 13 episode second season pickup despite low ratings albeit with a reduced budget. However creator Joss Whedon has a loyal fan base and DVD sales are expected to be globally strong. Also returning with less cash to play with is NBC’s Chuck with a 13 episode 3rd season. Lost will return for a 16 episode final season in the new year. Psychic shows Ghost Whisperer and Medium are also to return now both on CBS.
New genre shows include a remake of V starring Morena Baccarin and Alan Tudyk of Firefly fame, and Flash Forward created by Brannon Braga and David Goyer who previously worked together on the extremely dull Threshold. A new version of The Witches of Eastwick has also been picked up.
On the comedy front Scrubs comes back for an unprecedented 9th season although much of the cast will depart including leading man Zach Braff. CBS has renewed The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother which remains bizarrely homeless in the UK.
Returning Drama’s include all the CSI shows, Numb3rs, Bones, Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS,House,The Mentalist, Gossip Girl and Cold Case.
Cancelled are Without a Trace, Life and Prison Break. ER has also bowed out after 15 years long service.
New shows for UK viewers to perhaps look out for will be the NCIS spin-off NCIS: Los Angeles and Parenthood starring Peter Krause and Maura Tierney based on the Steve Martin vehicle of the same name. There is also a new Kelsey Grammar sitcom entitled Hank about a sacked CEO forced to move to suburbia. Melrose Place has been resurrected to compliment the new 90210. It’s great to see so many original ideas out there.
