Showing posts with label The Bridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Bridge. Show all posts
Sunday, 29 September 2013
News Brief : Renewals and Cancellations
.... Lifetime cancels Army Wives after 7 seasons
Lifetime has decided to divorce Army Wives—its longest-running original series—after several mostly happy years together. The show concluded its seventh and now final season this past June.
continue reading.....
.... FX Renews The Bridge for Season 2
I get the feeling that FX wasn't too sure about this one, but the network has gone ahead and ordered a second season of The Bridge anyway. Season 2 will run for another 13 episodes and reclaim the show's status as a summer series in 2014. The renewal comes late in The Bridge's first season.
... ABC Renews Mistresses for Season 2
Mistresses, the trashy summer series will be back for a second season. That's right, Mistresses, the ABC soap starring Alyssa Milano, will be back next year. Apparently, the show was the number-two scripted network drama of the summer behind Under the Dome.
Mistresses left literally dozens of viewers hanging by a thread with a Season 1 finale that was bloated with awesome and full of insane, unresolved cliffhangers. Now we'll finally find out whether Milano's character Savi survived her terrible merge onto the freeway in her sweet ride, we'll see how her white husband reacts to her half-black baby (oopsie!), and we'll learn whether Yunjin Kim's character was shot by a crazy Penelope Ann Miller.
.... HBO renews Boardwalk Empire for Season 5
HBO has put some extra cash in the pockets of organized crime and re-upped Boardwalk Empire for a fifth season, just three episodes into Season 4. The move continues HBO's tradition of quick renewals, and was likely nudged along by Boardwalk's performance at this year's Primetime Emmy Awards: In addition to Bobby Cannavale's surprising win for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama on Sunday, the series also bagged trophies for Outstanding Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series, Outstanding Hairstyling for a Single-Camera Series, Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series (One Hour), and Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series. HBO hasn't announced an episode count or target air date for Season 5, but if history is any indication (and shouldn't it be, for a period piece like this one?) "12" and "fall 2014" would be pretty safe bets.
Boardwalk Empire's still-young fourth season is averaging 7.5 million viewers per episode, according to HBO, and the show is almost certainly hoping that it will continue to earn critical recognition now that it's introduced even more potentially award-winning characters in Ron Livingston's Roy Philips and Patricia Arquette's Sally Wheet. Jeffrey Wright's Dr. Valentin Narcisse may even be an Emmy lock. Only three episodes in, the guy is quite an intriguing villain, and a perfect foil to Michael Kenneth Williams' criminally underutilized Chalky White.
... BBC America cancels Copper
I regret to inform you that BBC America has decided to pull the plug on its period drama Copper after only two seasons. The series followed Detective Kevin Corcoran (Tom Weston-Jones) in post-Civil War era New York City as he struggled with his own personal demons and the demons that plagued the slums of Five Points New York. The Season 2 finale on September 22 will now serve as a series finale.
Saturday, 28 September 2013
Masters of Sex : new time piece drama about human sexuality
Masters of Sex, Showtime's new drama.
Set in the mid-1950s, Masters of Sex focuses on the work of Dr. William Masters, a regionally famous OB/GYN at Washington University in St. Louis who wants to research human sexuality. Masters meets quite a bit of resistance from the higher-ups at the hospital and university, leading to a whole lot of time spent in brothels, but he finds a willing assistant in former lounge singer and single mom Virginia Johnson. The two take on the project in secret, drumming up various personal frustrations along the way.
Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon, Twilight, 30 Rock, and a slew of other things) plays the brilliant and kinda curmudgeonly Masters, and the even lovelier Lizzy Caplan (Party Down, New Girl, True Blood) is the curious and sexually open Johnson. Beau Bridges toplines a recurring cast full of somewhat-recognizable people including Caitlin Fitzgerald, Nicholas D'Agosto, Teddy Sears, and Annaleigh Ashford. The show was created by Michelle Ashford, who previously worked on The Pacific and John Adams. It's based on Thomas Maier's biography of the lead characters, Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson.
The show debuts this Sunday, September 29 at 10pm on Showtime, right after the Season 3 premiere of Homeland, and at just about the same time as the final act of Breaking Bad.
Masters of Sex is mostly unlike the pay-cable, gritty, anti-hero stuff we've all grown accustomed to over the last decade-plus. You might think of making a Mad Men comparison because of the historical period, but Masters of Sex isn't as internal, or as bleak. And although it's from two character (Male and Female) points of view like many other shows we've seen recently (The Killing, The Americans, The Bridge, Broadchurch), there's no murder investigation. Masters of Sex won't feel unfamiliar to you, but it's not your typical cable drama.
The show isn't quite as interested in the meticulous period details that drive Mad Men, but it makes great use of the time period as far as cultural perceptions of sex and sexuality go. This is a premium-cable series about sex and sex research, so sure, there's a whole lot of nudity and plenty of amusing asides about the general prudishness of the time, but it never feels like those things are used egregiously. Because of their roles as researchers, Masters and Johnson often talk while other people are having sex, which is a fun spin on sexposition. But in general, Masters of Sex plays everything straight, from Masters' professional challenges to Johnson's personal ones, and to great effect.
It helps that the two leads are fantastic. Michael Sheen could've easily turned in an over-the-top, showy performance, but it's so much better to see him really dig into Masters' psyche to create a character that's taking on this big research project at least partially because he's as personally frustrated with sex as he is professionally confused. Lizzy Caplan more than holds her own as Virginia Johnson, a woman who has desires and dreams and who isn't really afraid to do whatever to achieve them. Together, she and Sheen have the type of great unresolved sexual tension that makes audiences go nuts.
Although the supporting cast is pretty strong, once the show starts following various characters outside of the study, it's simply not as compelling. Upcoming episodes suggest some lame stuff with Masters' family history, but the larger world is still solid. Other than that? Not a whole lot. I mean, unless you don't like watching people have simulated sex, or dildos with cameras on them. If that's the case, maybe this show isn't for you.
Masters of Sex is, without question, the best new series of the fall; it's not even close (sorry, Marvel fans). The show is smart, straightforward, well-acted, and very well-produced. And perhaps best of all, at least at this early stage, it has the confidence to just tell the stories it wants to tell, without piling on some of the more familiar ( tired) cable drama tropes.
Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon, Twilight, 30 Rock, and a slew of other things) plays the brilliant and kinda curmudgeonly Masters, and the even lovelier Lizzy Caplan (Party Down, New Girl, True Blood) is the curious and sexually open Johnson. Beau Bridges toplines a recurring cast full of somewhat-recognizable people including Caitlin Fitzgerald, Nicholas D'Agosto, Teddy Sears, and Annaleigh Ashford. The show was created by Michelle Ashford, who previously worked on The Pacific and John Adams. It's based on Thomas Maier's biography of the lead characters, Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson.
The show debuts this Sunday, September 29 at 10pm on Showtime, right after the Season 3 premiere of Homeland, and at just about the same time as the final act of Breaking Bad.
Masters of Sex is mostly unlike the pay-cable, gritty, anti-hero stuff we've all grown accustomed to over the last decade-plus. You might think of making a Mad Men comparison because of the historical period, but Masters of Sex isn't as internal, or as bleak. And although it's from two character (Male and Female) points of view like many other shows we've seen recently (The Killing, The Americans, The Bridge, Broadchurch), there's no murder investigation. Masters of Sex won't feel unfamiliar to you, but it's not your typical cable drama.
The show isn't quite as interested in the meticulous period details that drive Mad Men, but it makes great use of the time period as far as cultural perceptions of sex and sexuality go. This is a premium-cable series about sex and sex research, so sure, there's a whole lot of nudity and plenty of amusing asides about the general prudishness of the time, but it never feels like those things are used egregiously. Because of their roles as researchers, Masters and Johnson often talk while other people are having sex, which is a fun spin on sexposition. But in general, Masters of Sex plays everything straight, from Masters' professional challenges to Johnson's personal ones, and to great effect.
It helps that the two leads are fantastic. Michael Sheen could've easily turned in an over-the-top, showy performance, but it's so much better to see him really dig into Masters' psyche to create a character that's taking on this big research project at least partially because he's as personally frustrated with sex as he is professionally confused. Lizzy Caplan more than holds her own as Virginia Johnson, a woman who has desires and dreams and who isn't really afraid to do whatever to achieve them. Together, she and Sheen have the type of great unresolved sexual tension that makes audiences go nuts.
Although the supporting cast is pretty strong, once the show starts following various characters outside of the study, it's simply not as compelling. Upcoming episodes suggest some lame stuff with Masters' family history, but the larger world is still solid. Other than that? Not a whole lot. I mean, unless you don't like watching people have simulated sex, or dildos with cameras on them. If that's the case, maybe this show isn't for you.
Masters of Sex is, without question, the best new series of the fall; it's not even close (sorry, Marvel fans). The show is smart, straightforward, well-acted, and very well-produced. And perhaps best of all, at least at this early stage, it has the confidence to just tell the stories it wants to tell, without piling on some of the more familiar ( tired) cable drama tropes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)