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  • 4 weeks later...

UTOPIA

 

Utopia - Channel 4 - Info - Press

 

Dennis Kelly's enigmatic thriller Utopia centres around The Utopia Experiments, a legendary graphic novel shrouded in mystery. When a small group of previously unconnected people who have met on a forum, find themselves in possession of an original manuscript of the fabled book, their lives suddenly and brutally implode, relentlessly pursued by a shadowy unit called The Network who will stop at nothing, to keep its origin and meaning secret. Whilst three of the forum members - Ian, an I.T. dropout, Becky, a student, and Wilson, a conspiracy theorist - meet in the pub, another is confronted and killed by two Network henchmen.

 

The only witness to the murder is the 11-year-old Grant - the fifth forum member - and when he flees with the manuscript, the henchmen give chase. Unable to return home, Grant finds himself alone. Elsewhere, Ian and Becky find themselves set-up for crimes they have not committed, and Wilson's hacking skills attract the attention of Network henchmen Arby and Lee. Will he be able to escape their grip before it is too late?

 

As the trio's lives begin to fracture, the world of civil servant Michael Dugdale is also torn apart as he is blackmailed by The Network over his affair with a prostitute. Just as things are looking increasingly desperate for Ian, Becky and Wilson, they come face to face with an enigmatic stranger who claims to offer them a way out.

 

Paul Higgins (In the Loop, The Thick of It), Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Misfits), Alexandra Roach (The Iron Lady) and Neil Maskell (Kill List) head up a stunning ensemble cast of UK talent including James Fox (Sherlock Holmes, A Passage to India, Performance), Geraldine James (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) Simon McBurney (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Fiona O' Shaughnessy (Outcast, Malice, Aforethought), Adeel Akhtar (The Dictator, Four Lions), Oliver Woollford (Blackout) and Michael Smiley (Kill List) who find themselves embroiled in a cult conspiracy theory turned terrifyingly real in this brand-new six-part drama series.

 

[YOUTUBE]6EaP3cH9d-I[/YOUTUBE]

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  • 4 weeks later...

 

First episode of The Americans will be shown tonight.

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I don't normally watch British drama, but I think I might give Dancing On The Edge a blast on Monday. I think John Goodman's a mark of quality, so that's what I'm basing it on.

Has this been trailed much..or is it a reflection of how little terrestrial tv I've been watching because I only came across this by accident but I'll be giving it a go

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I'm quite interested in that series,I hope its a good one.

 

I just caught it and I thought it was very good, Vlad. Up there with Sherlock and Last Resort as one of the better pilots I've seen recently. I read that ITV have the rights to it and are planning on showing it in the Spring(no confirmed date).

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Has anybody been watching this?

 

It's brutal, but quite interesting and funny. Plus, filmed in Liverpool which is funny as it is set in London.

 

First episode of The Americans will be shown tonight.

 

I normally wait until a full series has been shown and watch the lot in one go, rather than week by week, so I'm not watching either of these yet. However, I'm making an exception for The Following and I'm planning on watching the two shown so far tonight.

 

Apparently a S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series has recently begun filming and Agent Coulson stars in it, even though he bought it in the Avengers and it's set after that.

 

S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Please god let this stop at the pilot - Beverly hills cop tv show featuring Axel Foleys son.

 

BBC News - Beverly Hills Cop TV show planned

 

Eddie Murphy is to reprise his Golden Globe-nominated performance as free-wheeling detective Axel Foley in a TV version of 1984 hit Beverly Hills Cop.

 

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the US CBS network has commissioned a pilot episode of a Beverly Hills Cop show, based around Foley's adult son.

 

Brandon T Jackson will portray Aaron Foley, a cop working in Beverly Hills trying to escape his father's shadow.

 

Murphy, one of the show's executive producers, will appear in the pilot.

 

If a full series is commissioned, it is understood the 51-year-old star will appear intermittently.

 

The original Beverly Hills Cop, directed by Martin Brest, was followed by two sequels, directed by Tony Scott and John Landis respectively.

 

Jackson - who, like the Foleys, hails from Detroit, Michigan - is a comedian and rapper who has been seen in such films as Tropic Thunder and Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief.

 

In 2011 comedy sequel Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son he played the stepson of Martin Lawrence's cross-dressing undercover FBI agent.

 

This could be interesting:

 

Ronald D. Moore To Adapt ‘Outlander’ Book Series For TV

 

The man behind the Battlestar Galactica reboot, Ronald D. Moore, has reportedly begun working on his next project, now that Sony Pictures Television has nabbed the rights to author Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling book series, Outlander.

 

Reportedly, Moore has started work on adapting Gabaldon’s seven book series (an eighth is set to be released in 2013) with plans to pitch the idea to cable networks as early as next week.

 

The incredibly high-concept Outlander series concerns a former British combat nurse, Claire Beauchamp Randall, who returns to the Scottish Highlands to be reunited with her husband following the end of WWII. Soon thereafter, Claire finds herself transported back in time to 1743, where she meets the sadistic Black Jack Randall – from whom her present-day husband is descended. Claire soon finds herself seeking escape in the company of a gang of Highland Scots who force her to marry one of their own, or else she’ll be handed over to Captain Randall.

 

So, as is usually the case in time-hopping, period romances set in the Scottish Highlands, Claire’s adventures consist of attempts to escape her Scottish captors, evade the cruel Captain Randall and find a way back to her time – all the while dealing with the fact she may be falling in love with the Scottish fellow she was forced to marry.

 

The Outlander series has proven a successful endeavor for Gabaldon, with over 20 million copies of her novels having been sold. In addition to the core Outlander novels, there exists a series of spin-offs and companion pieces, which will no doubt offer Moore a healthy supply of material should the series come to fruition. After the wild success that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have had adapting the works of George R.R. Martin into HBO’s Game of Thrones, cable television is clearly on the prowl for more unique takes on familiar genres that would make for not only lucrative adaptations, but could also be seen lasting several seasons.

 

For Moore, Outlander is another question mark in a succession of projects to which he’s been attached that have unfortunately gone nowhere. Recent endeavors like NBC’s 17th Precinct – which would have reunited Moore with several of his key Battlestar Galactica cast – the western Hangtown and a remake of the Wild, Wild West all failed to gain enough traction to see them to series.

 

Outlander‘s prospects are undoubtedly running high, considering the potential series comes with the promise of a built-in fan base and loads of material to work from. The complexities in the series’ plot seem tailor-made for Moore – who, lately, seems to gravitate toward genre mash-ups such as this – so news of this series stalling out would be surprising, to say the least. It will not be surprising, however, when names like Jamie Bamber, James Callis and Tricia Helfer start being tossed around in relation to potential casting for the show.

 

Also:

 

Frank Darabont Confirms ‘L.A. Noir’ Retitled ‘Lost Angels’; Reveals Simon Pegg’s Role

It’s been over a year since Frank Darabont unceremoniously departed (or, rather, was forced out) as showrunner on The Walking Dead, but he’s kept busy since then putting together a period crime-drama TV series with the working title L.A. Noir for TNT; in addition to, more recently, revising the Godzilla reboot script.

 

Darabont is confirming that L.A. Noir has been retitled Lost Angels, under threat of legal action from Rockstar over similarities to their L.A. Noire video game. He’s also singing praises for the show’s leading man John Bernthal (formerly known as Shane on The Walking Dead) and spilling details about Simon Pegg’s role in the pilot episode.

 

Lost Angels is based on John Buntin’s book “L.A. Noir: The Struggle For the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City,” about the mid-20th century battle between Los Angeles police chief William Parker (Neal McDonough) and corruption in the City of Angels – in the form of crooked cops, corrupt politicians and East Coast gangsters like Jewish Mafia boss Meyer Harris ‘Mickey’ Cohen (the real-world character Sean Penn plays in Gangster Squad, a film that occupies the same historical territory as Darabont’s show).

 

Bernthal headlines the series as Joe Teague, an L.A.P.D. officer who leads the fight against Cohen and his criminal empire. Darabont offered io9 his appraisal of the actor’s talents and his screen presence in the Lost Angels pilot:

 

“He projects this effortless masculine quality, which we don’t have a lot of in movies anymore. He’s definitely a throwback. He reminds me of, if you were to genetically mix John Garfield a young Charles Bronson this is the guy he’s playing on screen. And it’s not an effort for him, he projects this fantastic testosterone without showboating it…”

 

Darabont also confirmed the title change and explained the rational as follows:

 

“Yes, it was going to be called L.A. Noir, based on the book by John Buntin. But the video game company with the video game called L.A. Noire (with an e!) threatened to sue the s**t out of me, TNT, every company that actually ever worked in Hollywood. And they have the billions of dollars to back it up, apparently…”

 

The Lost Angels supporting cast includes Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes), Alexa Davalos (Clash of the Titans), Jeremy Strong (Zero Dark Thirty), Amin Joseph (G.I. Joe: Retaliation) and Star Trek Into Darkness costar Pegg. It’s been acknowledged the latter is featured in a limited capacity, but Darabont has unveiled a few details that point to one of the fan-favorite English actor’s more memorable appearances onscreen:

 

“… He plays a stand up comic in 1947. It’s not a funny role. It’s a serious role. He’s laying down a dramatic performance in a flawless, American dialect of the era… People who are Simon Pegg fans will be blown away by what he has done in this. I am his friend, and I’ve always known he’s a very good dramatic actor and I expected great things from him, even my expectations were knocked on my ass by how good he is. So, you have that to look forward to.”

 

Here is a rundown of the show’s pilot episode cast (via /Film):

 

Lost Angels stars Jon Bernthal as Joe Teague, an ex-Marine now working as an LAPD cop in an era rampant with police corruption. Jeffrey DeMunn plays Detective Hal Morrison, who heads the LAPD’s new mob squad, with Jeremy Strong as Detective Mike Hendry, Morrison’s second in command. Neal McDonough is Capt. William Parker, Teague’s boss who is determined to weed out corruption and bring down Cohen. And Milo Ventimiglia plays Ned Stax, who fought alongside Teague during World War II but who now works as a lawyer with connections to the mob. The project also co-stars Ron Rifkin playing Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron, who makes it his mission to clean up corruption in city government; Pihla Viitala as Anya, the head bartender at Bunny’s on Central Avenue, the West Coast center of the black jazz scene; and Alexa Davalos as Jasmine, a beautiful woman whose past has come back to haunt her.

 

Da Vinci's Demons

 

[YOUTUBE]EUc2xrscH0E[/YOUTUBE]

 

This April, the Starz network is unleashing Da Vinci’s Demons, a historical fantasy series chronicling Leonardo Da Vinci’s early life as an inventor.

 

The series is brought to us by prolific film screenwriter David S. Goyer, who is best known for the Blade series, The Dark Knight and the upcoming Man of Steel and based on the trailer, it looks like he’s using those action roots to make Da Vinci as much of a fighting force against injustice, as he is an innovative genius. There is certainly a Robert Downey Sherlock Holmes-type feel to the proceedings, which may be a fun direction for the character of Da Vinci.

 

Da Vinci’s Demons is actually only one of several similar action-hero projects involving the Italian Renaissance man in production. Warner Bros. picked up a film treatment for a project titled Leonardo Da Vinci and the Soldiers of Forever about two years ago and Universal acquired a spec script for an untitled Da Vinci action movie a year later, but with Da Vinci’s Demons treading on very familiar ground and in what is presumed to be a similar style, the studios may ultimately pass on the idea and move on to something else.

 

And finally a trailer for Hemlock Grove

 

[YOUTUBE]rlZUsPcChgI[/YOUTUBE]

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The game done changed.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/business/media/netflix-to-deliver-all-13-episodes-of-house-of-cards-on-one-day.html?hp&_r=0

 

Television producers have turned bingeing, hoarding and overeating into successful prime-time shows for years, but now they are having to turn their attention to another example of overindulgence — TV watching.

 

Binge-viewing, empowered by DVD box sets and Netflix subscriptions, has become such a popular way for Americans to watch TV that it is beginning to influence the ways the stories are told — particularly one-hour dramas — and how they are distributed.

 

Some people, pressured by their peers to watch “Mad Men” or “Game of Thrones,” catch up on previous seasons to see what all the fuss is about before a new season begins. Others plan weekend marathons of classics like “The West Wing” and “The Wire.” Like other American pastimes, it can get competitive: people have been known to brag about finishing a whole 12-episode season of “Homeland” in one sitting.

 

On Friday, Netflix will release a drama expressly designed to be consumed in one sitting: “House of Cards,” a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Rather than introducing one episode a week, as distributors have done since the days of black-and-white TVs, all 13 episodes will be streamed at the same time. “Our goal is to shut down a portion of America for a whole day,” the producer Beau Willimon said with a laugh.

 

“House of Cards,” which is the first show made specifically for Netflix, dispenses with some of the traditions that are so common on network TV, like flashbacks. There is less reason to remind viewers what happened in previous episodes, the producers say, because so many viewers will have just seen it. And if they don’t remember, Google is just a click away. The show “assumes you know what’s happening all the time, whereas television has to assume that a big chunk of the audience is always just tuning in,” said Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer.

 

Glen Mazzara, the executive producer, took a similar approach to AMC’s “The Walking Dead” this year. In the second half of the season, which will start in mid-February after a two-month break, “we decided to pick up the action right away — to just jump right in,” Mr. Mazzara said. Fans of the show, he said, have little tolerance for recaps, since many of them will have just watched a marathon of the first half to prepare for the second.

 

That the fans even have a choice in the matter is a testament to the fundamental changes under way in the television business. Digital video recorders, video-on-demand capabilities and streaming Web sites have given viewers command of what they watch and when, not unlike the way the invention of supermarkets gave food shoppers a panoply of new choices. In both cases, some consumers love to binge.

 

While a large majority of TV is still watched live, not recorded, the ratings for some series — like FX’s “Sons of Anarchy” — double after a week of recorded viewing is counted. A first-of-its-kind Nielsen study last fall found that a handful of shows gain an extra 5 percent after another three weeks.

 

Nielsen does not routinely count viewers who wait more than a week to watch an episode, nor does it count most of the viewers who watch online, so it’s hard to estimate the true amount of bingeing. Some hoarders wait years: Mr. Mazzara, for instance, said he’s waiting to watch HBO’s “Girls” until the whole series is over, several years from now. This stockpiling phenomenon has become so common that some network executives worry that it is hurting new shows because they cancel the shows before would-be viewers get around to watching them.

 

Kevin Reilly, the Fox Entertainment chairman, whose network has already canceled two of the three shows it introduced last fall, alluded to this problem at a news conference earlier this month. “If I bumped into one more person that was doing a ‘Breaking Bad’ marathon in the middle of our fall launch...,” he said, trailing off as reporters laughed.

 

But the networks are adapting to the generational shift from on-a-schedule to on-demand viewing. When Fox introduced its biggest bet of the season, “The Following,” last week, it bought ads saying “Set your DVR now!” And sure enough, episode No. 2 this week out-rated the premiere, suggesting that the ad campaign had worked.

 

In recognition of the change, some networks are pushing to expand the metrics that determine advertising rates — from the current three-day ratings to a seven-day rating that would better account for on-demand habits.

 

Binge-viewing has been around at least since the advent of videotapes, when companies started to sell box sets of shows. But it has come of age because of the catalogs on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and other Web sites.

 

Some media executives like to call the behavior “marathoning,” since bingeing can have negative connotations. Either way, the behavior “extends the life of a show,” said Anthony Bay, the vice president for digital video at Amazon.

 

That’s been true for “Lost,” which ended its run on ABC three years ago, but is still a hit on Netflix and Hulu. Damon Lindelof, a co-creator of the mystery, said he has found that some people enjoyed it more by watching from start to finish, without the weeklong and monthlong waits for answers. Bingers, he said, “were spared the anxiety and the stress of the weekly episodes.”

 

For a creator, he added, speaking to a roomful of producers and distributors in Miami this week, it’s comforting to know that “ultimately the way your work is going to be viewed is more like reading a novel.”

 

That said, the traditional TV cliffhanger is far from dead. The producers of shows — even the five beginning on Netflix this year — know they have to satisfy multiple types of audiences. Said David Fincher, the acclaimed film director who is working with Mr. Willimon on “House of Cards” for Netflix, “I want to make sure that people who set the book down on the night stand are able to connect the dots, but I also want the people who are rabidly turning pages to go, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got all that.’ ”

 

In some corners of Hollywood there is deep skepticism about Netflix’s all-at-once release of “House of Cards.” Mr. Willimon acknowledged the advantages to stretching out a season — it’s a format viewers are used to, there’s more time for marketing — but said that as a storyteller (he’s best known for the play “Farragut North,” which inspired the film “The Ides of March”) he prefers the “House of Cards” approach.

 

As television becomes less beholden to the schedule and more acclimated to the Web, he said, “it might even dispense with episodes altogether. You might just get eight straight hours or 10 straight hours, and you decide where to pause.

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Defiance

 

Defiance (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The series is set in the near future, where aliens known collectively as Votans have come to Earth seeking a new home after their star system was destroyed. However, upon reaching Earth they found that they were not welcome. The Votans waited in orbit for six years as prolonged negotiations with Earth governments for settlement on the planet ultimately proved fruitless. With supplies on their ships running low, eventually in desperation the Votans began a war with humans to force the issue and make Earth their new home. During the war, Votan ships shot down by human militaries accidentally released terraformer technology, which made haphazard and radical changes to the biosphere and even the geology of Earth, making the planet dangerous to both humans and the aliens. The earth was scorched, chasms opened in the ground, and the surface of the planet was covered with dust and debris. After decades of war, both sides had fought to the point of mutual exhaustion, and a ceasefire was declared. Few organized governments remained for either the humans or the aliens, and both sides factionalized as their members began looking out for themselves. In several areas, local human and Votan militias began to band together when they realized that they had to cooperate if they hoped to survive on this new, almost alien planet.

 

The series largely revolves around the character of Jeb Nolan. Jeb was only ten years old when the Votans arrived and he served in the military during the war. With the war now over, he returns to his hometown of St. Louis to find that it is no longer the city he left; it is little more than a refugee camp renamed "Defiance." Deciding that his services are needed, Jeb takes up a position as the Chief Lawkeeper in Defiance, so he can protect the town from dangerous clashes between humans and aliens, military scavengers and other dangerous visitors who occasionally enter the town.

 

[YOUTUBE]18p1cmWs-RM[/YOUTUBE]

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Ray Donovan

 

Ray Donovan (TV series) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The show takes place in Los Angeles, California and stars Liev Schreiber as the title character. He plays a "fixer" for the rich and famous, but experiences his own personal problems when his father, played by Jon Voight, is unexpectedly released from prison.

 

[YOUTUBE]HeEwqq9EgWs[/YOUTUBE]

 

Zero Hour

 

Think this is the one I labelled The Scoop in an earlier post.

 

[YOUTUBE]HUHdtSW2WEE[/YOUTUBE]

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I've been watching Banshee, I'm not sure if it's any good as it's quite ridiculous, but it's very entertaining. Main character spends virtually all his time scrapping with people, it's like Russel Crowe fighting around the world; there's also a healthy stream of nudity, not Spartacus level, but a steady supply. In fact, the lovely Ivana Milicevic spends a good deal of her on-screen time naked. Commissioner Burrell is also in it and they've got a guy who I would describe as a white brother Mouzane.

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I've been watching Banshee, I'm not sure if it's any good as it's quite ridiculous, but it's very entertaining. Main character spends virtually all his time scrapping with people, it's like Russel Crowe fighting around the world; there's a healthy stream of nudity, not Spartacus level, but a steady supply. In fact, the lovely Ivana Milicevic spends a good deal of her on-screen time naked. Commissioner Burrell is also in it and they've got a guy who I would describe as a white brother Mouzane.

 

 

I think Banshee is awesome. It reminds me of 80's exploitation films with a dash of Twin Peaks. An absolutely insane amount of nudity, it's either fucking or fighting.

 

Very entertaining.

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Haha, yeah. The fight with the MMA guy was as ridiculous a TV scene I've seen and I have watched 24. The - I'm not sure what the correct term is here - gender-challenged male is really funny in it.

 

I was thinking it might get cancelled, but I just checked and it could renewed for another season last Tuesday. Cool.

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