Damages is the BBC's latest US acquisition which seems to be getting the sole high(ish) profile slot on BBC1 - just after the news at about 10.20pm on Sunday evenings.
Originating earlier last year on US cable channel FX which is home to Rescue Me, The Shield, and Nip/Tuck, you've got to be hopeful about this new series. Glenn Close stars at Patty Hewes a formidable New York lawyer who takes on big business in multi-million lawsuits. This series, which is to be set around a single case, sees her firm take on Ted Danson's Arthur Frobisher. Frobisher, we learn, has persuaded his employees to buy stock in his company, before selling out himself just ahead of a massive collapse thus seeing him clear, but his employees losing out.
We follow the case through the eyes of Ellen Parsons, who we see in the first scene emerging from an elevator covered in blood, rushing out into the New York streets. We flash back six months, to follow her as she turns down a good job at another firm before joining Hewes' company.
But all is not as it seems, with Parsons' sister being seemingly involved in the case, and an apparent firing not quite being what it seems. Indeed, it looks as though Hewes is quite as devious and evil as her apparent nemesis in Danson's character.
How this plays out over 13 episodes, I don't yet know, but I'll be there for the other 12. It's not quite as confusing as Nancy Banks-Smith has it. She obviously hasn't noticed the graininess of the flash-forwards that are inserted into the storyline indicating the two different timelines.
Incidentally, you can catch up via the BBC's iPlayer, so here a link to the first episode if you didn't see it.
"It's all gone quiet over here."
I see that my last entry in this little sidebar was back in July for the wonderful Flight of the Conchords (go buy the DVD. Go on. I'll wait.)
Anyway, in the absence of a promised revamp of this site, I thought I'd at least bring you up to speed on another couple of shows.
I felt duty bound to watch Bike Squad because, well, it was all about bikes - the bicycle sort. It certainly wasn't because I'd seen lots of trailers for it on ITV. I hadn't. I only found out about it during a trawl of the Sky+ EPG looking for things to record (New Year - newly wiped Sky+ thanks to the purchase of a new DVD recorder to backup stuff I wanted to keep).
Now perhaps ITV were trailing the hell out of the show, and I'd missed the ads because the only thing I watched on ITV over the whole Christmas period was Harry Hill. But somehow I doubt it.
The pedigree of the programme should have been good. It was written by Guy Jenkin who co-created Drop The Dead Donkey with Andy Hamilton, and has a decent record of other comedy dramas. IMDB tells me that he even penned an episode of Life on Mars.
And the show starred Mark Addy and Maxine Peake amongst others, and was produced by Hattrick.
But it was terrible.
Evidently it was a 90 minute pilot for a potential new series, yet the way that ITV snuck it out under the cover of New Year, but before their big relaunch this week and next, said enough.
The idea is that under instructions from superiors above, the Met has to set up a squad of police officers on bicycles. The police in London do ride bikes and they look pretty much like the ones here, although whether or not they're a "squad" as such, I don't know. Anyway, idiot bosses being what they are in lame comedy dramas, nobody wants the squad to succeed, so they people it with all the dross around the station that they can't get rid of. We have the overweight and fed-up Addy, the insubordinate Peake, a simpering women who can only put her hand up and say "stop" when she sees a criminal, a drug-using and the stupid black officer who runs around like a lunatic without thinking.
So with that premise, how do you think it's going to pan out?
Yup - that's right. After the usual turmoil where everyone's despondent, the team all get together and bring in the evil criminal masterminds behind the theft of superbikes from riders at traffic lights. The culmination of the show - and I apologise if this is a spoiler for you - involves a bike chase between the devious masterminds on a motorbike, and our intrepid team on their mountain bikes.
No contest you might think? Well that's not so, because they trap the evil wrong-doers in an abandoned hospital and with clever use of oil on the ground, and a posh mounted policewoman (didn't I mention her? She seems to ride her horse around central London police stations without stables), they down the bike snatchers. I should point out that the chase was the most woefully put together sequences I've seen for a long time. The cycling in reality was evidently pedestrian, since they were working with the real actors. So they had to resort to very quick editing to give the impression of speed. Even then, it really didn't come across well.
The programme ended with a massive set-up for the following series. It's really safe to say that we won't be seeing said series. This was woeful.
[UPDATE] Amusingly, the programme won its slot. It still won't be made into a series though.