Reilly2040's Blog

Check out Part 1.

Best UK Network/Channel.

I’m really torn on this one.  There’s not many real contenders, although some of the smaller channels are quietly building themselves up a solid programming base, be it Sci-Fi UK with quite a few new shows lately that I’m enjoying (in fact a large percentage of my TV viewing at the moment is in their direction with Knight Rider, Dollhouse and My Own Worst Enemy).  Likewise FX has some notable shows, including Dexter, and True Blood which starts this week.

I’m really torn for this award, and I think I’ll have to wimp out and split it.

BBC/Sky One

Both have distinct merits.  Sky One for me is one of my favourite channels for import shows as they treat them very well.  Yes, its a subscription channel, and yes, there’s adverts, but they show them very close to the US broadcaster (in some cases only a couple of days afterwards, and in some cases before the US).  Its a pet peeve of mine the channels like Channel 4 and Virgin 1 who buy high profile shows, and then sit on them for 6 months.   Sky One’s also recently started developing its original programming with the Terry Pratchet TV movies, and Skellig (which, granted I never watched, but its nice to see them trying).

The BBC has become the stronghold of British-made cult TV.  Obviously, Doctor Who, Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures, but also Robin Hood, Merlin and Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes.  Yes, they’ve also made utter rubbish like Spooks: Code 9 and Bonekickers, but its just nice to see cult TV being treated seriously in this country again.   The only real black mark was when the Beeb put Ashes to Ashes opposite its own showing of Heroes series 3.  That really annoyed me.

The Pirate Bay award for Services to bit-torrent,

This is basically the opposite of the previous award, and as I mentioned above, there’s really two contenders for me, in the form of Virgin 1 and Channel 4.  Both of which have a habit of buying high-profile US shows, and then sitting on them, meaning we get to hear from all the US people online all the spoilers and how great/bad the season was, and then just as they’re about to get the next season, we’ll finally get it.

I think though I’ll go for:

Virgin 1

Largely for sitting on Chuck season 2 until Sarah Connor was finished, but also for the bizarre move of shifting Sarah Connor’s timeslot forward by an hour halfway through the run.  It moved it from something I would watch on Thursday nights, to something I would tape and watch later.  And it wasn’t like they were freeing up the earlier slot for some other high-profile show, just yet another of their reality ones.

For a channel that constantly used Terminator idents to hype their rights to the show, it just struck me as a weird and annoying move.

Only the Good Die young award,

Lord knows there’s plenty of competition of this one.  Middleman is an obvious contender, but Pie Man created an award for it anyway (next).  Knight Rider had just found its footing when the axe fell.  I believe My Own Worst Enemy got the chop at 9 episodes as well.  Journeyman is really tempting as well, but sadly falls outwith my 12 month limit.

So I’m going to go with:

Primeval

The show had always been one I’d enjoyed, not afraid to be a bit daft and revel in its own silliness.  The third season saw a lot of upheaval with several main cast members leaving and being replaced, but none-the-less the show did very well in the ratings, and the new cast were starting to gell.  The show also ended on a cliffhanger which the writers have admitted they’d have never done if they’d thought there was any danger of the axe falling.

There’s still the vague hope out there that the Beeb might buy the rights, but for now, Primeval will be missed next year.

Never given a proper chance award,

This award looks at the shows that were great, but never seemed to get the backing they deserved.  Knight Rider to an extent applies here.  While they initially got a lot of backing from the studio, creative differences between the producers and the studios led to problems early on.  The studio got the show to change direction, and in all fairness to them, it was the right move, with the later episodes showing a vast improvement in fun and quality.  However, despite their changes being made, by this point the studio seemed to have lost interest and gave the show virtually no advertising, which meant it was just left to fall in the ratings and die off.

However, despite this, I’m going to say:

Middleman

While Knight Rider could’ve been treated better in the later part of its run, Middleman got no hype or advertising attention straight out the gate.  A brilliant show that those who saw it only found by accident.  Annoyingly this has also translated into international markets as well, as I haven’t seen any UK network pick it up yet.  I’m holding out hope that Sci-Fi UK will nab it and give this brilliant show lots of backing and a chance at a great run over here.

Most promising 1^st Season.

Not counting shows that have been axed, there’s not many shows that fall into this category.  Merlin is a strong contender, but I’ll have to go with Pie Man on this one.

Being Human

A brilliant cast, a great storyline, some real horror and laughs along the way.  While I never saw the original pilot, this sucked me in straight away.  There were some brave plotlines, and you really sympathised with Mitchell as he attempted to be more human, despite the efforts of his fellow vampires.

Most Off the Boil Series.

Not necessarily a series that was once great but now failing, but just perhaps a series that needs to find its footing.  And for me its got to be

Heroes

Heroes exploded onto our screens with an amazing first season, but since then it’s really struggled to find its way.  Volume 2 got too soapy, Volume 3 faced criticism for being over complicated and full of technobabble.  Volume 4 seemed to go down better, although it didn’t really click for me.  While I really enjoyed volume 3, despite the complaints, I thought volume 4 required a little too much suspension of disbelief and the way they nerfed two of the show’s main powerhouses was disappointing.  Granted, I’m now getting used to Peter’s new powers, but Hiro without his mastery of time and space doesn’t seem as much fun.

Sometimes I wonder if they might’ve been better with their original idea to radically shake up the cast each season, allowing them to develop new heroes.  Instead they’ve built up a huge cast of regulars now that they sometimes struggle to give something to do.

I’m still looking forward to season 4 (volume 5).  The ending of season 3 promised to introduce a twist on the usual lingering menace of Sylar and how the characters approach the situation with “Nathan” will be interesting.  I’d like to see them try to build up more of a stable of super-powered menaces though.  Sylar’s really the only recurring big villain they’ve got and it’d be nice to have a few more characters built up as real threats.

Stay tuned for part 3.

Fellow Blogger and regular commenter Pie Man 70′s done his own TV awards, and it was such a good idea, I thought I’d rip it off.  It helps that I agree with a lot of his choices, thus making it easier to cut and paste most of this post

You can check out his awards here: The Pie Man Television Awards 2009.

The only real rule I’m sticking to is that its focusing on cult/sci-fi/fantasy type TV shows.  The time frame is fairly vague, but pretty much anything in the last 12 months.

Best New Series

There’s been a load of good new shows over the last year.  Sadly most of them are now axed thanks to the recession and the usual keenness of US networks to axe anything that doesn’t have brilliant ratings from the get-go.   I was personally very tempted to give this to My Own Worst Enemy, which is currently airing on Sci-Fi UK and is ruddy brilliant.  However, its still halfway through its run, so in fairness I should give it to a show that’s shown all its episodes.  And this is the first award where I’m in complete agreement with Pie Man 70.

The Middleman

Its difficult to understate just how much I enjoyed this series, and how gutted I was when it was axed. Apparently ABC completely failed to realise what a potential hit they had on their hands and neglected to advertise it. Which has been a real shame, as every review I’ve seen of the series raves about it. Gloriously silly, great sense of humour and visuals and a great cast. Grab the DVDs, buy it on iTunes, pray Sci-Fi UK buy the rights, but see this show.

Best Returning Series

I’ve slightly tweaked the name of this award from PieMan’s version just for clarity.  There were loads of really good returning series this year.  Heroes followed up its slightly lackluster volume 2 with a great volume 3, but volume 4 didn’t click nearly as well for me.  Battlestar Galactica headed towards its finale with confidence, Prison Break delivered a brilliant payoff in its finale that was a real treat for fans following the show from the beginning, Dexter continues to be superb television, delivering a great story every year and Lost continued to be must-watch TV, revelling in its own backstory.  However for me, the ultimate winner has to be:

Chuck

Despite barely escaping cancellation this year, season 2 delivered on everything that made season 1 so popular.  A brilliant sense of humour, great action sequences, a stellar cast and most of all, heart.  Be it Chuck dealing with the carnage his double life causes to those closest to him, the Buymore staff dealing with their latest evil deputy manager, you really care about all these characters.  Cap it off with some superb guest stars, and really, its amazing this show had to struggle for a third season.

Most Improved Series,

This one’s very tough.  Partly due to so many shows getting the axe these days after their first season.  Galactica was a serious contender for me.  I felt that season 3 seemed to lack focus, and I wasn’t hugely impressed with the first ten episodes of season 4.  However the final ten episodes turned everything around and reminded me how much I loved this show.  Ashes to Ashes also improved a lot over its not-brilliant first season.

However for me the winner has to be:

Torchwood

Granted, the time period this is covering is pretty vague, but for me it works for either series 2 or especially series 3.  See the numerous other blog posts about how good series 3 was, but even series 2 was a marked improvement over a ropey first season, dispensing with the almost adolescent aspects in its approach to being the “adult” Who spinoff (a feeling they nailed with the third series), giving us a great new character in Captain John and delivering a great storyarc with Owen’s “death” leading up to his and Tosh’s final sacrifice.

Most gratuitous T&A in a series.

Dollhouse is probably the only other contender in this award, but even it doesn’t match up to the winner:

Knight Rider

Really the only choice.  Its arguably one of the main areas in which the show was misjudged and thankfully calmed down as the show went on.  They were a bit too fond of the gratuitous numbers of women in bikinis in the first half of the season.

The Andromeda WTF is this still running award.

Like Pie Man, I can’t really give this award to anything.  As shows have been axed left, right and centre.  There’s probably a soap opera or something that it applies to, but there’s nothing particularly on my radar for this.   Dollhouse is a potential contender for this next year unless it really blows me away, and Heroes is dangerously close to going off the bubble unless they manage to recapture some of that series 1 magic.

This is going on a bit long, so I think I’ll split it up a bit.  Look for parts 2 and 3 in the near future.

Its been a strong year for new genre shows from the States. Granted, some didn’t survive their first season, but still Journeyman, Terminator and Chuck have all been really solid offerings.

Coming a bit later than the others is The Middleman, originally conceived as a television show, before being launched as a comic series, things have come full circle with the show finally being made.

Wendy Watson is enjoying a normal day at her temp job at the genetics factory when a monster escapes from the lab and attacks her.  She tries to fend it off but is rescued by a mysterious man, who goes on to recruit her as his new assistant.  It turns out that the kind of alien warlords and insane scientists that comic books love also exist in real life, and its his job to stop them.   He’s supplied with an impressive array of advanced technology, but he doesn’t know where it comes from.   He’s just the Middleman.

This is a brilliant show.   Daft as a brush and not afraid to show it.   The show follows Wendy as she goes into training to become the next Middleman, working alongside the current one.  This involves her dealing with the aforementioned insane scientists and alien warlords, as well as dealing with the impact her new job has on her personal life (her friends think she’s working for a temp agency), while receiving training from the likes of Sensei Ping in the art of being a Middleman.

If I had to compare this show to another, its probably the closest (and most successful) we’ll get to an American version of the Avengers.  There’s a very similar vibe coming off of it (although this show played more for straight out laughs than the Avengers was).

Definitely one to check out.  I hope this enjoys a long run.