'NO ORDINARY FAMILY' 1.13 - "No Ordinary Detention"

There was a tweak to the usual format of No Ordinary Family this week, as three separate stories were told that all involved members of the Powell family being detained/trapped in some way. Jim (Michael Chiklis) found himself entangled in a hostage crisis at the police department with George (Romany Malco); Daphne (Kay Panabaker) and JJ (Jimmy Bennett) were held back at school for detention; and Stephanie (Julie Benz) had to deal with an emergency lockdown at the laboratory after Katie (Autumn Reeser) tricked her sick boyfriend Joshua (Josh Stewart) into work for medical treatment.

Coincidentally, "No Ordinary Detention" is the second TV show this month to take inspiration from the movie Die Hard, following a similar storyline to Human Target's "Imbroglio" recently. As I mentioned before, John McTiernan's '80s hit must rank as one of the biggest influences on modern TV screenwriters, who often riff on Die Hard's core premise because it lends itself brilliantly to comparatively micro-budget productions aiming to save cash by only filming on their standing sets. It may be a clichéd setup, but seeing Jim enact John McClane, using his super-powers to immobilize the criminal gang who've escaped from custody, one by one, was an entertaining use of his character. It helped spice things up that Jim had to keep his everyday identity a secret, not just his powers, in order to keep his cover, because Internal Affairs officer Rachel Jacobs (Joanne Kelly) is investigating her theory there's a vigilante cop in the city.

The least involving storyline was foisted onto the Powell teens, with a storyline for Daphne and JJ that evoked The Breakfast Club. Writers Zack Estrin and Leigh Dana Jackson sure did raid their DVD shelf for pop-culture muses this week, huh? The result was a pleasant but forgettable story, where a group of kids (including JJ's curiously distant girlfriend, the boy Daphne knows lied about possessing drugs, and the "mean girl" Daphne beat to the position of student president) came to better understand each other. I appreciated this storyline making the effort to utilize some supporting players, having recently bemoaned how No Ordinary Family doesn't have many throughlines and seems to use and dispose of its guest stars. I hope this continues and the show starts to build a social group for JJ and Daphne that doesn't feel like it gets rebooted every week.

Finally, in terms of the mytharc, Stephanie's storyline offered the biggest thrills for fans. Joshua became a quivering wreck as he went cold turkey from Dr King's super-serum, and after being taken to Katie's workplace under false pretenses, came under attack from shapeshifter Victoria (Rebecca Mader), Dr King's wily new henchman. It wasn't the most plausible of subplots (why did Joshua agree to accompany Katie to work if he's so ill?) and the lockdown was an awkward way to avoid the problem Stephanie's workplace would ordinarily be crawling with scientists the show can't allow to witness super-antics, but otherwise I appreciated the steps forward it ultimately achieved.

Katie now knows that Joshua has super-powers (although she didn't press Joshua for details on how he obtained them?!), and Stephanie knows Victoria is a shapeshifter who may return in a different guise -- but was this reveal done too early, considering Victoria was only introduced last week? I think it would have been nicer to play around with Victoria awhile, and the fact Stephanie appeared to disregard so much of the weirdness was a little annoying. In the denouement, it was played for laughs that every character was reticent about going into the details of their day, but it felt very strange that Stephanie wouldn't be gossiping about a shapeshifter having an unexplained interest in herself and Katie.

Overall, I'm probably too soft on No Ordinary Family, but for what the show's intended to be I think this was a very good episode. Some firm developments told within three entertaining storylines, together with an improved performance from Josh Stewart (who isn't a dynamic actor, but plays victimized well), and an impressive turn from Mader as the boo-hiss villain. I often find myself making a list of nitpicks and issues as I watch No Ordinary Family, but the show's a pleasant viewing experience and the fact it's so unpretentious makes me forgive its holes.

WRITERS: Zack Estrin & Leigh Dana Jackson
DIRECTOR: David Petrarca
TRANSMISSION: 18 January 2011, ABC, 8/7c

'10 O'CLOCK LIVE'

It can't have escaped your attention Channel 4 have launched a brand new satirical news show for Thursday nights; what with so many promos, billboards and online adverts swirling around the UK media over the past few weeks. 10 O'Clock Live is the latest in a string of attempts to find a British version of The Daily Show, which has proven to be tougher than it appears. But, following the success of the Alternative Election Night last May (which put a comedic spin on the General Election coverage, attracting a sizeable audience), that format's been repurposed for weekly live episodes poking fun at current affairs.

10 O'Clock Live is hosted by four familiar faces: comedian Jimmy Carr (8 Out Of 10 Cats), comic actor David Mitchell (Peep Show), columnist/presenter Charlie Brooker (Newswipe), and DJ/presenter Lauren Laverne (The Culture Show). They're the bantering pillars that give the show a vague Blue Peter-for-adults feel, situated as they are in a large minimalist studio divided into special areas: a zit-like roundtable for discussions; a counter, for Brooker to address the camera from; a desk, for Carr to interview people across; and an area with chairs, for Mitchell to do likewise, or Laverne to deliver pieces to camera.)

Each presented comes with a particular skill set and role, too: Mitchell chairs hot debates, interviews politicians, or rants to the audience (in "Listen To Mitchell", ostensibly based on his popular vodcasts), Brooker inevitably spews bile or introduces VT of him savaging a politician (this week, Sarah Palin), Carr delivers political standup (a précis of the week's top stories, poking fun at "holiday hotspot" Tunisia), and more lighthearted interviews (this week, environmental skeptic Bjorn Lomborg); and Laverne seems to take the lead when they gather for a four-way discussion, or else appears in the odd pre-recorded sketch (this week, co-anchor of a tacky celebrity news channel).

By and large, I thought 10 O'Clock Live worked rather well, although there are inevitable irritations and problems that will hopefully be ironed flat. Primarily, the hour-long format felt like a drag, being a show that's 80% discussion, 10% interview, 10% standup. There is variety, but the content's not varied enough to make you feel like you're given a break from comical political discourse. I was able to skip the adverts and it still felt languorous, making me wish the format was a tighter 30 minutes. Hopefully the producers will find ways to revitalized the show after every ad break, going forward.

The quartet of presenters largely did a very good job. I don't really associate Jimmy Carr with political comedy, but his experience with live TV made him a reassuring presence. Charlie Brooker's a no-brainer for this show, particularly in the wake of his excellent Newswipe series, but it does feel like he's only added to formats where it's possible to shoehorn in his patented, effusive VT funnies. That said, Brooker has never looked happier in a live TV environment than here, and I was heartened to see his reliance on pre-recorded videos was kept to a minimum. Lauren Laverne is probably the weakest of the bunch (although pleasant and capable), mainly because I don't see the connective tissue between her and political humour -- which feels like a bigger stretch than being asked to believed she cared about Renaissance art and Seamus Heaney while on The Culture Show.

By far the biggest triumph was David Mitchell, who was simply marvelous throughout. He had the toughest job of everyone, having to chair a debate on banking and interview a politician on student expenses, all while ensuring they were informative and constructive, but also funny and entertaining. He achieved this with great aplomb; demonstrating a depth of knowledge and sharp wit that can only get better as he gains experience and extra confidence. Whenever Mitchell was on-screen, 10 O'Clock Live was delivering exactly what was expected of it -- making politics feels accessible through comedy.

Overall, 10 O'Clock Live started its run with a confident first step, but more variety to the features would be appreciated. Also, not that this is likely to happen anytime soon, but I can't help thinking two half-hour episodes each week (Tuesdays, Fridays?) would also be an immediate improvement. I'm also not convinced the show justifies having four big-name presenters, as this episode made me crave a half-sized version with David Mitchell as permanent host and regular contributions from Brooker.

So, the format's a mixed bag and there's a feeling of overkill with the presenters outnumbering the guests, but 10 O'Clock Live provided fairly studious political comedy that (mostly) didn't fallback on ridiculing the image of public figures, as happens with numbing regularity on panel shows like Have I Got News For You. For that alone, I'm glad it exists and hope it manages to improve over time.

Thursdays, Channel 4, 10PM

'THE CAPE' 1.3 - "Kozmo"

I didn't think NBC's new superhero drama The Cape could sink much lower than its opening few episodes, but the "Kozmo" was a full-blown stinker it's tough to defend. My expectations were low, but it still managed to plumb new depths. If a show's this cheesy and ridiculous, it should at least be fun! What's frustrating is that the core idea behind the episode wasn't that bad, with Russian convict and escapologist Gregor Molotov (Thomas Kretschmann) escaping from prison through a tiny escape hole, to arrive in America and demand the return of his magical cape from circus ringmaster Max Malini (Keith David).

In the episode's early scenes, we were given information about the cape's legendary status; the fact it's inherited by successive generations of circus performer, al going by the stage name of Kozmo (which even included Max), before Molotov started to use its abilities for evil. I quite liked The Phantom-esque idea of Kozmo being considered "invincible" because when one cape owner's killed the garment's simply passed to another man -- even if that seems to conflict with the idea Vince Faraday (Michael Bublé David Lyons) is the first person who's decided to become a real-life superhero. With a bit of a rewrite, this story could even have explained why there's a comic-book being published starring "The Cape", as that fictional character could have been based on a previous incarnation of Kozmo The Invincible. But the opportunity appears to have slipped the writer's attention.

Anyway, "Kozmo" felt like it had some promise in the first 10 minutes, but then it floundered and quickly became a laughable, second-rate, messy joke. It's hard to see how you can make such a basic idea die on-screen so badly, but writer Craig Titley (Cheaper By The Dozen, Percy Jackson) managed it. The fact Molotov had the ability to dislocate most of the bones in his body, turning him into a version of iconic X Files villain Tooms, didn't even figure into the plot after his initial escape from prison. Why setup the idea of your week's villain being the ultimate escape artist, only to ignore all that in how he goes about dealing with his enemies? All we got was an unintentionally hilarious scene where Molotov cut the throats of poker players by flicking playing cards into their necks at high-speed.

Overall, I really can't summon the enthusiasm to discuss anything else that happened in this pitiable episode, beyond call on Summer Glau to fire her agent. Are there really no decent roles for her in TV? The best thing about this show is the opening titles, which mix animated comic-book panels with live-action sequences, and hints at the potential for a series that fully embraces the cheesier aspects of old-school superheroes, in a way that's imaginative, witty and tongue-in-cheek. The Cape isn't that show. It's a turgid stew of ideas stolen from a variety of better sources, thrown together in the vague hope they'll stick and produce something that transcends its roots. It hasn't worked. I won't be watching again.

WRITER: Craig Titley
DIRECTOR: David Jackson
TRANSMISSION: 17 January 2011, NBC, 8/7c

'Red Dwarf' returning to Dave for six-part series

It's been confirmed that cult sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf is returning to TV with a brand new six-part series, to be broadcast on the digital channel Dave, who commissioned the three-part special "Back To Earth" in 2009. Craig Charles (who plays Lister) apparently spilt the beans during a radio interview, and his co-star Robert Llewellyn (who plays Kryten) today confirmed the story on Twitter and his blog.

We already knew Dave had approached Dwarf's co-creator Doug Naylor about writing more episodes, because their 2009 special was an enormous ratings success for the channel, but now fans can rest assured a proper run of Red Dwarf is definitely on the way. Filming will apparently take place this November for three months, so it's likely the new series will premiere in the second half of 2012. The most exciting thing about this news is Llewellyn's reveal that they plan to film infront of a live studio audience, which hasn't happened since 1998.

Now, my thoughts on Red Dwarf are well-known here, but for the benefit of new readers: I was a massive fan of the series during its original run (seriously, I even owned merchandise), but I disliked Series 6 and grew to despise everything that followed. Series 7, with the introduction of Kochanski and deficit of Rimmer? Atrocious. Series 8, with the resurrected crew? Pretty bad. The Easter weekend "Back To Earth" special? Awful. For me, Red Dwarf was a product of the late-'80s/early-'90s and should have been allowed to fade into a cherished memory. Instead, it's been kept alive way past its creative peak, and the early magic's never been recaptured. I consequently refuse to get excited about this new series (which will apparently bridge the gap between Series 8 and the BTE special), not least because the cast are mostly in their 50s now, and far from how I prefer to remember the fresh-faced characters.

However, news they're filming with a live studio audience has brightened a small part of my fanboy soul. It's undoubtedly a wise move. As I've said many times before, performing sitcoms with a live audience in attendance has two huge benefits: (1) the actors can calibrate their performance using the immediate audience feedback; (2) the scripts will have to focus on regular jokes to entertain the audience, rather than indulge moments of straight drama. It's easy to scratch your dramatic itches as a writer when you're not standing in the wings of a TV studio, watching a bored audience's stone-faced reactions. Knowing fans will be watching the filming will hopefully scare Doug Naylor into raising his game.

What do you think? It's been on the cards for awhile now, but Red Dwarf's definitely returning to TV for a proper six-week run! Is that cause for outright celebration, cautious optimism, or indifference?

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

David Slade, the director who filmed a castration for the unflinching Hard Candy, places his own testicles in the vice of studio commercialism here, forever staining his filmography by involving himself with The Twilight Saga. The good news is this overblown franchise does improve with each release, so maybe the fifth and final movie won't leave me curled up in a gibbering ball with my brain turned to slush.

Continuing six months after the events of New Moon, melancholic Bella (Kristen Stewart) has taken to lolling around in sunny fields with twinkly vampire beau Edward (Robert Pattinson), desperate for him to turn her into one of the undead, if only so she can lose her virginity to him without the fear of physical injury. He likes it rough, does the sullen Cullen. It's always the quiet ones.

I have to lie here 16-hours a day for perfect "bedhead"

But while Edward's won the heart of misery guts Bella, he's unsure condemning her to life as a vampire is the right thing to do -- possibly because the poor girl's pasty enough as it is, or maybe because an eternity of mutual moping is a big turn-off. Added to this, Bella is still conflicted about her feelings for strapping wolfboy Jacob (Taylor Lautner), whom she's been avoiding for months, before feeling compelled to reacquaint herself with his cobbled abs. Knowing werewolves exude copious body heat, Jacob's stomach must feel like hot stones in a pillow case, whereas Edward's tummy must be like a slab of cold gammon.

The plot, which would struggle to fill 20-minutes without the film's heavy use of flashbacks and love triangle posturing, concerns tongue-twisting vampire villain Victoria (Christina Hendricks Bryce Dallas Howard) amassing an army of "newborn" vamps to defeat the Cullens, with the help of a Forks native called Riley (Xavier Samuel) she's turned into her bloodsucking toyboy. As newborn vamps are extremely strong and dangerous, the Cullens decide to form an alliance with the local wolf pack, defending their town and Bella from redhead Victoria and her adolescent mercenaries from Seattle. (Incidentally, I've never understood why peaceful, vegetarian vampires can't get along with peaceful, spiritual werewolves. Surely they're ideal neighbours? "E-bon-y and i-vo-ry, live together in perfect har-mon-y...")

Eclipse isn't a skid mark on the towel of cinema like its predecessors, but it's still resolutely average and languorous. What helps is that Slade's a gifted director capable of delivering some half-decent action sequences (albeit with a whiff of Narnia thanks to those silly wolves), and there are a few character moments that actually work. Notably, a scene where Edward's forced to allow love rival Jacob to sleep alongside Bella in their mountainside tent, knowing Jacob's acute body heat will prevent his girlfriend dying of hypothermia. A scene that plays out very nicely because Lautner and Pattinson both get a chance to act, and the antagonism between their characters develops a speck of depth as they reach a mutual understanding. It's the first time they've been treated as anything other than paranormal alpha males using Bella for a game of sexual tug o' war.

The auditionees for Homoerotic Baywatch

I find that the Twilight movies are, outside of themselves, an oddly interesting talking point. Bella's a role model for schoolgirls, yet she's a character wholly defined by her need for a relationship with boys -- so do older girls find her lack of independence and narrow interests a turn-off? As a man, Bella evokes loathing from me, because she's a girl leading two men on, and that naturally makes me dislike her. And yet I realize that if the genders were reversed, and Twilight was about a despondent teenage boy having to decide between a sexy vampiress and she-wolf, that wouldn't seem half as bad. It's an example of the "slut versus stud" argument, which is undoubtedly very unfair. So maybe men should accept this saga is speaking to a fantasy they can't connect with. But that still doesn't excuse the atrocious underwriting of Bella, who has no hobbies outside of... well, dreary voice-overs and riding pillion on the back of motorbikes.

Overall, Eclipse is the best of a bad bunch, thanks to watchable action beats, more realism to its asinine love-triangle, better acting from the lead triptych, slicker special-effects, some entertaining origin flashbacks, and its ability to inspire debate between Twilight supporters and detractors. The plot is merely a flimsy cobweb holding a collection of moments together, and the core of these movies is insipid piffle aimed at 12-year-old girls, but it's clearly working its magic on the impressionable demographic it's aimed at.

DIRECTOR: David Slade
WRITER: Melissa Rosenberg (based on the book by Stephenie Meyer)
CAST: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Dakota Fanning, Ashley Greene, Elizabeth Reaser, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Sarah Chalke, Anna Kendrick & Michael Welch
RUNNING TIME: 124 mins. BUDGET: $68 million

'V' 2.3 - "Laid Bare"

I can't deny V's doing a better job with pacing, action, and sense of forward momentum this season. Those are improvements the show desperately needed and the writers have delivered them. There's barely a five minute window before something visually stimulating happens (explosions, torture, car crashes, CGI tails, Jane Badler's cleavage), but unfortunately V's still missing one key ingredient: gripping characters you actually care about and want to watch. The fact the people on-screen are mostly nonentities who exist to deliver exposition and nudge the plot along to the next inciting tent-pole is a weakness I can't see V overcoming. I like maybe four of the regulars (Morena Baccarin, Laura Vandervoort, Mark Hildreth, Morris Chestnut), while the rest could die shocking deaths and I'd probably punch the air.

"Laid Back" offered another tangle of storylines: Erica (Elizabeth Mitchell) fought with alien Agent Malik (Rekha Sharma) following last week's car crash, eventually gaining the upper hand and taking Malik to the resistance hideout for interrogation; Anna (Baccarin) asked Chad (Scott Wolf) to give Father Jack (Joel Gretsch) a media outlet so his anti-V dogma can be aired, only to manipulate events to paint the priest as a bigoted, violent hypocrite; Lisa (Vandervoort) realized her body's going through changes as she reaches maturity, while being brainwashed by her mother into becoming a callous dictator; Ryan (Chestnut) was blackmailed by Anna into reporting details of the Fifth Column to her, in order to keep his baby daughter safe; and Malik was cruelly skinned to extract information about a runaway girl the V's are going to kidnap for experimentation.

I approve of the direction V's taking and the fact it's less ambiguous and easier to understand motivations and points of view, but I still don't feel connected to most of the characters. In fact, quite a few can be exasperatingly inept or naïve -- best exemplified here with Father Jack blindly walking into what was clearly going to be a trap, despite Chad warning him Anna would have ulterior motives for allowing him to speak freely. But there are flashes of subtle inspiration, such as the way Erica's becoming maternal towards her enemy's daughter (turning her more human), while Anna is likewise becoming a mother figure for Erica's son (turning him more alien).

This episode was rather uncomfortably violent, though. While there's a distancing effect to screen brutality when it involves fictional elements like aliens, "Laid Bare" was still delivering scenes of someone having flesh torn off their back. When you think about it, that's a more extreme torture than anything 24 served audiences over seven seasons, and I'm not sure the fact Malik's only an alien-lizard excuses it. I get the feeling the writers are trying to make V more shocking to draw in an older teenage crowd who, they assume, didn't watch last year because it wasn't nasty enough. Is that the way to go?

Asides

• Does anyone else feel awkward when characters almost retch when they realize the V's are green reptiles beneath their human skin, whenever Ryan's in the room? Why does Ryan never say anything when his people's appearance is being insulted?
• It's revealed that Tyler's (Logan Huffman) DNA has been scraped of half its structure by the V's, making him genetically as empty as his personality. Someone tell him he's dating a space lizard now, please. There's no reason not to, if his girlfriend and mother are in cahoots.
• Remember season 1's finale, when Hobbes (Charles Mesure) was seen being blackmailed by Marcus (Christopher Shyer) into helping the V's? That hasn't even been mentioned since! Have the writers forgotten? Has that idea been quietly dropped? It seems like the writers realized any blackmailing worked better with Ryan's character, hence his daughter storyline this year.

WRITER: Gwendolyn M. Parker
DIRECTOR: David Barrett
TRANSMISSION: 18 January 2011, ABC, 9/8c

Poll: What did you think of 'Being Human' USA?

Syfy's remake of the BBC's Being Human debuted last Monday, to decent ratings but mixed reviews. Personally, I thought it was a decent pilot and I'm interested to see where it goes once more original elements come into play. But what did you think of it? Is it a worthwhile or pointless remake? Does it only suffer in comparison to the UK version, or did it improve on the BBC series in some ways? Vote in my poll, and leave your thoughts below if you'd like:




This poll will close on Monday 24 January @5pm (GMT). The results will be revealed shortly after.