When 24
For this reason the producers and stars of FlashForward
The series is based on a book
Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) is an FBI agent chasing down a van in heavy traffic, suddenly he blacks out, and finds himself in a room, people are out to get him. He wakes up and everything is in chaos, car crashes, people screaming, very quickly he realises something bad has gone down. They soon find out everyone on the planet blacked out at exactly the same time. As they look into the causes Mark admits that he did not just black out, he had a memory… only of the future. It soon transpires that everyone flash forwarded to the same date and time 6 months into the future, the fact that some people have the same memories lends weight to the idea that this really is the future. So the investigation begins, recalling what he saw he starts trying to recreate the wall of clues he saw why blacked out, of course other people’s visions are cause for concern.
As I said at the top, a show like this needs to grab the audience and hold on to them, like Heroes the show has given a target to aim for. In Heroes
The big question is do we really care about the characters, or are we just interested in the device. Even in the pilot most of the characters are just functional and forgettable, even Fiennes who is leading the charge is just too goody good to have any real depth. In the coming episodes we are certainly going to have to get to know these people better if we are to get behind them. For now this is big budget flashy TV that is doing enough to hold my often shallow attention.
Created and Written by: David S. Goyer & Brannon Braga
Directed by: David S. Goyer
Starring: Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, Jack Davenport, Zachary Knighton, Peyton List, Brían F. O’Byrne, Courtney B. Vance, Sonya Walger, Christine Woods
Date premièred: 24th September 2009
UK Details: Channel 5 – 27th September 2009
, which itself was based on the 
of the same name by John Updike. This is not the first time someone has tried to make The Witches of Eastwick into a TV series, the first attempt was in 1992, a pilot was shot and aired, but NBC failed to be picked up. Things then went quiet for 10 years, but in 2002 FOX tried again, with Marcia Cross who, when the show failed to be picked up, went to on star as Bree in 
. Third time lucky and with a whole new cast, ABC finally picked it up the show for an initial order of 13 episodes. The release of 
in 2008 and the stage musical probably helped raise the profile of the source material, making it a slightly more tempting offer for the commissioners.
, 
or not… the show was quite forgettable.
and Ricky Gervais’ quirky friend in 
), Billie has recently broken up with her boyfriend since he was not going to propose and now 37 she is feeling a little over the hill. Then she gets hit on by young 20 something chef Zach (Jon Foster), they go back to his bachelor pad and make babies on his mattress on the floor.
, 
, 
, Melrose Place (yes this is a reboot for the popular 90s late night soap – I’ll review it soon, don’t worry),
, 
creator Mike Kelley and the show is executivly produced by Ashton Kutcher, which will no doubt lead to a cameo later in the series. Despite a huge marketing drive online and print ads featuring nude shots of the stars, the show failed to bring in the ratings and really there is nothing to stick around for. Early word is that the show is already be eyed to be replaced mid-season by Life UneXpected, so the chances of a full season pick up or second series seems extremely unlikely.
looked like a desperate attempt to grab the cinema going audience who enjoyed 
and when ITV tried that with 
it didn’t work that well. Since the pilot had been hanging around since it was tested after the American Idol finale in May, I thought I better get around to reviewing it.
and 2000s
, this is an ambitious show but easy to see why it will be a hit. The characters are sterotypes, but the writing is tight with a tongue firmly placed in the cheek. At Comic-Con someone was heard to describe it “as if High School Musical had been punched in the stomach and had its lunch money stolen.”This might me taking it a little too far, but the appeal is certainly wider than the tween audience who enjoyed those films. While there are shades of light and dark, the shows primary purpose is to entertain and well make you gleeful and at this it is a 100% successful guilty pleasure.
, CBS’ 
and Lifetime’s 
on TV, while in the meantime 
was hitting cinemas for the teens and Swedish vampire flick 
was appealing to the more artistically inclined. So with all this vampire buzz the CW said, “We want some of that Pie! Find us a series of books based on vampires.” They dug up the 
by L. J. Smith a series of books written in 1991 (Yes that is 3 books in one year, under pressure from fans she wrote a 4th the following year.).
and although I am not that keen on True Blood either, this show certainly pales in every conceivable comparison. Considering this show comes the pen of Kevin Williamson the visionary creator of 
it is a huge disappointment, maybe he used up all his good ideas in that one franchise… or the first film in that franchise.
, 
is a drama series where at least one character is killed each week until only the killer and a handful of survivors remain. Having already broadcast in America searching online for information on the show could result in giant spoilers that will further ruin an already sketchy ending to the series. Venturing on Wikipeadia (on a bad day) for example, will present you with a table informing you who dies in which episode, who the killer is and lives to tell the tale – so be warned. But enough talk about the future, this is about the pilot.
and on stage with 12 Little Indians, but an idea that works over the course of 90 minutes seems in danger of being stretched out way too long in a TV series. Not as funny, scary, clever or original as Scream, this is just not an idea that plays well over so many TV hours, it gives you too much time to pick holes in the plot. Still it is fun to guess who is next for the chop and who the murderer might be, although there is no escaping that this is waster TV.
