Phil Newton casts an eye on the TV scene letting you what you've missed and gives also give you the heads up on what to look out for.
 

No. 3 - 5th March 2008.

This edition I'm casting my TV Eye Stateside to take a look at some of the new shows from our US neighbours. First up is Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (Virgin1) blazing a trail ahead of McG's franchise reboot in 2009. The series picks up the story in 1997, two years after the events of Terminator 2 with Sarah (Lena Headey) and son John (Thomas Dekker) - soon to be leader of the resistance - living a life plagued by nightmares, on the run from a dogged FBI Agent. When another Terminator is sent back in time to kill John, his life is saved by classmate Cameron (Summer Glau - better known as River from Serenity) and she soon jumps the three of them forward to 2007 in order to work on sabotaging the impending Skynet threat.

There are some initial issues here with the casting: Lena Headey is a decent actress but looks too scrawny for the role of Sarah and doesn't quite muster Linda Hamilton's steely determinedness; Thomas Dekker meanwhile looks far too old to be the sixteen year old saviour of mankind; and finally there's Summer Glau who I like, but again just doesn't convince in her Terminatrix role. In the first episode she acts all human, but in the subsequent two she seems to remember she's supposed to be a cyborg and plays it cold and detached. What's also annoying is the need to ape the movies, with Sarah's overly portentous voiceovers and, most jarringly, "Come with me if you want to live!" thrown in as Cameron comes to the rescue. What it lacks in originality it certainly makes up for in familiarity! I don't really see the need for a Terminator series, but that said it's perfectly watchable, boasting plenty of action and should appeal to fans of the films.

Less successful is The Bionic Woman (ITV2, coming soon) a revival of the popular seventies series which now stars British actress Michelle Ryan (Jekkyl) in the title role as Jaime Summers. Armed with amazing strength and superhuman capabilities after surviving a horrific car accident she finds herself working for a covert agency under the tutelage of Jonas Bledsoe (Miguel Ferrer - a great character actor who you might remember from RoboCop) and pitted against an earlier Bionic Woman in the shape of Sarah (Katee Sackhoff – Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica).

Saddled with too many wafer-thin secondary characters and no clear direction (a multitude of writers took turns to try and steer this stricken show) The Bionic Woman suffered caustic reviews and looks unlikely to make it to a second season. With its plethora of conspiracy theories and rival agents it comes across like a poor man's Alias and it's clearly a problem when the most charismatic character is the villainous Sarah - Sackhoff bringing real depth to the role, a pleasant surprise since I find her to be one of the weaker cast members in Battlestar Galactica. Like the Terminator series it also delights in rehashing some classic genre clichés - watch out for Movie Cliche #1003 when Jaime's car is suddenly hit by another vehicle as we watch from the passenger seat. I managed three episodes of this nonsense and then gave up - life's too short.

Another old show to receive a makeover this season is Knight Rider (NBC, UK broadcast tbc) whose new TV movie debuted this month to a very respectable audience share of 12.7 million viewers. Charles Graiman (Bruce Davison - X-Men) the inventor responsible for designing KITT is now working on Prometheus, a remote weapons guidance system for the Pentagon. When he's attacked in his home, KITT (voiced by Val Kilmer, replacing Will Arnett who dropped out at the last minute) embarks on a mission to find Graiman's daughter Sarah (Deanna Russo) and childhood friend Mike (Justin Breuning), who we soon discover is the son of Michael Knight. Together they must team up to stop the sinister Black River security firm from obtaining Graiman's research and taking control of Prometheus.

It's not exactly groundbreaking stuff, but with such a strong template from the original series, it would be hard to f*ck it up. Neither Breuning nor Russo excel in their respective roles, but there's solid support in the form of Davison and Sydney Tamiia Poitier (Death Proof) as FBI Agent Carrie Rivia. And yes, The Hoff does make a cameo appearance! It's all about the car though, and the new Knight Industries Three Thousand (still nicknamed KITT, handily) is a black Ford Mustang, equipped with all sorts of useful gizmos that repel bullets and repair windscreen cracks, and even allow it to morph into a less conspicuous model. Some would argue it's an 80 minute advertisement for Ford, but putting aside the copious amounts of car-porn on show here, the 2008 version of Knight Rider does exactly what it sets out to do. A full series is surely a safe bet when NBC announce their forthcoming schedule in May.

One of the brand new series to hit our screens this year has been Reaper (E4), a comedy/drama about an ordinary guy whose parents sold his soul to the Devil. Each week Sam (Bret Harrison) and his two best friends have to track down an escaped soul and capture it in a vessel which the Devil (Ray Wise - who doesn't seem to have aged a day since Twin Peaks) provides. These vessels always take the form of everyday items such as a toaster, a remote controlled car or a knitted jumper. So that's the Ghostbusters element of the series. The rest of the show plays out like a TV version of Employee Of The Month, as the three friends battle their domineering manager at The Work Bench and Sam struggles to woo his sexy colleague Andi (Missy Peregrym - who played shape-shifter Candice in Heroes).

With Kevin Smith (Clerks) on board as consultant and director of the pilot episode, my hopes were high for Reaper, yet I found the initial episodes quite underwhelming and was close to giving up on the series. Sam and Andi make a likeable pair, but some of the supporting characters are weak, especially Sock (Tyler Labine), a tubby Wolverine lookalike who clearly wishes he was Jack Black, and the scripts from creators Tara Butters & Michele Fazekas are functionary rather than sparkling. Yet, half a dozen episodes in and the show seems to be finding its feet and growing in confidence so I'm sticking with it. The soul-of-the-week setup works fine, but the real test of whether this can become a truly great series will come with the overlying story arc and how long the makers can string along the will-they-won't-they relationship between Sam and Andi while keeping it fresh.

Moving on to a couple of well established series, and we come to season three of Prison Break (Sky One) which has just finished its shorter run - another victim of the recent WGA strike, with a curtailed season of just 13 episodes. Maybe that's not such a bad thing as this season has been the weakest of the three by far. With season one concentrating on Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) and chums locked up, and season two following them on the run, what could the producers come up with for season three? Yes, lock them up again! Whilst Sona prison provided a lawless setting, the storyline – Scofield is blackmailed to break out a con named Whistler – never really took off and the only real pleasure came from seeing the likes of Mahone (William Fichtner) and Bellick having to make uneasy alliances to stay alive.

Lost (Sky One) is also back for its fourth season and finally seems to be moving along a bit more rapidly now that the makers have a finite number of episodes in which to wrap up the story. Using flash-forwards instead of flashbacks, the intrigue comes from trying to figure out who the ‘Oceanic Six’ are, how they got off the island – and more importantly – why they feel a need to go back. With a couple of new cast members poached from Grindhouse (Jeff Fahey and Zoe Bell) added to the mix, Lost is firmly back on form after a patchy third season and I really hope they can maintain the high quality of episodes right through until the end of the show now.

Finally, I know a number of FrightFest regulars have been full of praise for Dexter (ITV1) which recently premiered on the FX channel. Now everyone can catch up with the charming serial killer who works forensics for the Miami PD as the show begins its terrestrial run on Wednesday nights.

Keep watching until the next time,

Phil.

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