Catching up on New Telly!

In h-America (where first you get de sugar, den you get de wiimin),  they're coming out with their fall season of new shows.  Here's a few that I'm liking and `not' liking this far. Keep an eye out for them either on the bit-torrents or if you're an Aussie, remember to watch them several years in the future when they get aired on TV here.
Smallville
I'm a huge Superman fan so the final 10th season of Smallville is the one I've been waiting most for.   No it's not a guilty pleasure for me - it's a out and out big, cheesy, overwritten Superhero, joyful bag of biff and general heroeness pleasure. This is the season where the young Clark Kent finally leaps into the sky ready to take on his destiny as Earth's greatest hero.  Over the past nine seasons the writers have taken some huge liberties with the well known origin story of Superman. The've said in the past (the recent past, not the distant one) that everything will be wrapped up by the end and all will be restored to the Superman `canon'.  But how will they wrap up not giving Clark Kent glasses? Will they bring Jimmy Olsen back to life?  How are they going to reveal the butt plug or whatever other apparatus actor Tom Welling must be using to give himself the pained, earnest look he's been wearing since he began playing Clark Kent?  As of writing, there are about 5 episodes of the new season and I've gotta say, it's a corker. The ninth season I found a bit of a mess and couldn't really follow what was going on and with who. But being the final season, this seems to have focused the writers and producers on what's important to bring the series to a satisfying conclusion. It seems like they're setting up the whole DC Comic's universe.

$#*! My Dad says
I put this in because I love William Shatner and I want to be clear that he's not the problem with this show. To be fair, I did watch an episode last week that I quite enjoyed (though it could have been food poisoning) but for the most part, it seems to have been written by writers from `Who's the Boss'. Yes. It's at that level. Cheesy, cloying, nauseating, moralizing and unfunny Television. Only watch if William Shatner is for you, a sexual fetish or you're a `hip' religious fundamentalist trying to get into the pants of a thirteen year old girl...or boy.


Boardwalk Empire
Now this is what we in the Adult Theatre cleaning business call the `classy shit'. Co-Produced by Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlburg with the first episode directed by Herr Scorsese. This is a big production centred around `Nucky' Thompson, (Steve Buscemi) the charismatic and corrupt Council Treasurer of Atlantic City on the eve of and beginnings of prohibition.  He's a great, complex character. Strong in ego and bluster but also lonely and insecure. Plus there's a fascinating group of supporting characters around him ranging from dwarf performers and show girls to cynical Republican politicians and mob bosses.  This is as much about the people of Atlantic City as it is about the events of the time, there's even a young, sadistic Al Capone to give you a sense of where this story is heading. Boardwalk Empire is don't miss telly. It's like reading a chapter of a good novel each week that you don't want to put down and don't want to end.


The whacky world of Entertainment
More to come but for the moment here's a roundup of the latest news I've found around on the net.

Goodbye Caprica
The Battlestar Galactica spinoff prequel series Caprica has just been cancelled by the Syfy Network. Not enough people watching is the official line and I can understand that. Caprica is, or was, a very interesting show and possibly as website i09 put it, `ahead of it's time'. It was set fifty years before the beginning of Battlestar Galactica and was about the creation of the Cylons and the multi deity society they were created in. Unfortunately it was, I reckon, a bit too clever for it's own good. For all of the interesting concepts and insights that propelled each episode, it was let down by that old chestnut of unlikable characters. 

Hello Batman
The Los Angeles Times blog `Hero Complex' reports that the new Batman movie will be called `The Dark Knight Rises' and will not have the Riddler as the main villain. However it's said elsewhere that director Christopher Nolan is presently casting his female lead so speculation is rife that Catwoman may take centre stage.

Pot Pie??
Ang Lee is the latest director attached to the adaption of the popular novel by Yann Martel, `The Life of Pi'.  It's due out in 3D in 2012.
But 3D?? I haven't read the book but I'm aware of what it's about and it kinda seems out of place for this story. If I'm wrong - let me know in the comments.

Here kitty kitty...
And this just in... Sam Neill, Frances O'Connor and Willem Defoe have just gone into production on a new Australian psychological thriller called `The Hunter'. It's about a mercenary who's employed by a bio-tech company to travel to Tasmania and to hunt down the last Tasmanian Tiger.   Well of course!!
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