ITEM! A writers' strike is looking imminent, and it appears that the first casualty is the Heroes: Origins series, as NBC needs to free up the budget money for non-scripted programming (i.e. crappy reality programs).
ITEM! One quote I read about the upcoming strike (I forget from whom and where) was that "a lot of novels are going to get written." With the number of writers from television moving into comics these days, I suspect there will be a lot of comics scripts written too; who knows, maybe this'll mean that Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk finally gets finished!
ITEM! Despite the troubles, FOX has greenlit a new series from Joss Whedon starring Eliza Dushku called Dollhouse for probably the 2008 season (unless the strike is still going on...) Reportedly Tim Minear will be involved too. Hmm, Minear + FOX = Cancelled within four episodes, so don't get too attached.
ITEM! Not really comics or television, but related to both, is the news that a new X-Files movie will begin shooting in December for a Summer 2008 release.
ITEM! And from a land (Australia) where there is no strike looming: I've always thought that a public library would be a perfect setting for a television comedy, and finally someone agrees with me! Yesterday marked the debut of The Librarians, a six-episode series on ABC (That's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Of course you can't see it on the telly outside of Australia, but for the time being you can go to the ABC Website and watch the pilot episode in YouTube-like-quality streaming video. It's not a laugh-a-minute sitcom, but rather a workplace comedy in the humour mode of the UK version of The Office. There were also some great background gags, and those of you who have worked in libraries will recognize the characters who work at the fictitious library, no matter which country you are from.
1 comment:
American and Australian humour can be very different, but if Americans don't find "The Librarians" amusing, it's not because of cultural differences. As you mentioned, it's not a laugh-a-minute ; many reviewers in Oz have pointed out that it's not even a laugh-every-thirty-minutes. A lot of Australian television comendy derives from revue and skit-type comedy, where an over-the-top personality can be funny. Too often, as in the case of The Librarians, this is transferred into a series ; the neglect of plot and storyline becomes obvious, and the pacing is all over the place.
Suffice it to say that reviews of The Librarians in Australia have been poor ; some viewers like it, some say "not as bad as I expected", but others are more frank, using terms such as "absolute crap".
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