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Critic's Review
Lion King
Ian McShane rules on NBC
By Nancy Franklin, The New Yorker - March 30, 2009



“Kings,” a new NBC drama, inspired by the Biblical story of King David and set in what seems to be the near future, is about new beginnings, or, looked at another way, about the continuity of history, but there is an end-of-days feel to it in at least one sense: “new NBC drama” is a phrase that will become largely a thing of the past this fall, when Jay Leno takes over the network’s 10 P.M. time slot, Monday through Friday. Another new NBC drama, “Southland,” a police show set in Los Angeles, begins on April 9th, but it, too, has the Ghost of NBC Past’s fingers on it. It will succeed “ER” (and comes from the production team of John Wells, “ER” ’s creator), which ends on April 2nd, after fifteen seasons—fifteen seasons of drama you could count on being there same night, same time, every fall, every year, with each season but one lasting a now almost unthinkable twenty-two episodes or more. Not that it isn’t time for “ER” to go; it’s just that its departure reminds one of the ongoing unravelling of the old system, though those reminders, as the series winds down, have been interrupted briefly and sweetly by the pleasure of seeing cameos by the show’s early stars. Admit it: you really, really liked seeing Julianna Margulies and George Clooney share the screen again, as they did two weeks ago, and finding out that their characters, Nurse Carol Hathaway and Dr. Doug Ross, were still together after all these years.

“Kings” airs on Sundays, which seems appropriate, given the show’s origins in old-time religion—not to mention the fact that Sunday nights still ring with the echoes of a magnificent performance by the star of “Kings,” Ian McShane, in the HBO series “Deadwood,” cancelled, too soon, two and a half years ago. Now, as then, he plays a vigorous, brutal, sympathetic, ragingly leonine, charismatic character; in the NBC show he is King Silas, the leader of the newly unified kingdom of Gilboa, whose capital, Shiloh, is being inaugurated as the series starts. At the beginning of the first episode, we alternate between scenes at an idyllic farm, where a family is watching Silas’s speech on television, and scenes at the capital, as Silas walks through the palace and out onto a balcony overlooking a vast crowd. (Think Obama’s Inauguration.) The size of Silas’s ego matches the size of the moment, and he speaks in a booming voice of the work that went into transforming “the ruins that would become Shiloh.” What was there before was “nothing—ashes, an empty shell of a city bombed ten times over by three armies.” He tells of an epiphany that changed his life, the sign from God that told him he was meant to bring long-warring factions to peace: butterflies appeared and danced in the air above him, and then came to light on his head in the form of a crown. Meanwhile, back on the farm, David Shepherd (Chris Egan), a golden youth nearing manhood, whose father died in the war for unification, has had his eyes opened as well; the King’s religious conscience, Reverend Samuels (Eamonn Walker), had car trouble on his way to the ceremony in Shiloh and alighted, so to speak, at the farm. David, a mechanic, fixed the problem easily. Then Reverend Samuels, as a courtesy, wiped a smudge from David’s forehead. The gesture clearly meant something, and David knows it; the look in his eyes tells us that he’s been touched by destiny. We skip ahead two years, and David is a soldier in the desert, fighting Gilboa’s enemy, Gath. This is where that destiny takes shape; disobeying orders, he crosses enemy lines to free two Gilboan hostages and, against all odds, succeeds, by taking out a menacing tank that has the word “Goliath” painted across its front.

Obvious, yes, and deliberately so. The story’s bone structure is always evident, but “Kings” manages not to seem patly transported into some random future, where burlap is now Kevlar and slingshots are laser sticks. It’s imaginative, and its familiar outlines don’t prevent it from being engrossing moment by moment. In fact, it’s engrossing in a rather maddeningly clever way, in the sense that you can’t tell exactly when the series is taking place. It could be ten years from now, it could be thirty years from now, or it could be that the world being depicted is an alternative version of the one we’re in right now; it looks like it, give or take a few buildings and the place-names. Watching the show, you feel a tension as you try to decide whether it’s holding a mirror up to the present or whether it’s making an argument about where the world may soon be headed. We have already noticed, in the aerial establishing shots of Shiloh, that “Kings” is filmed in Manhattan, and that the city isn’t just a film location. It’s never stated, but it’s clear that Shiloh was New York City, before it was destroyed to the point where even its name disappeared. There are inconsistencies that give you pause: the Time Warner Center is still standing—in fact, it’s the home of the King’s court—but the Empire State Building, I noticed with an actual start, is gone, as is the Chrysler Building. A tall building that resembles the planned Freedom Tower is (thanks to special effects) in midtown. The exterior of the palace is a well-known apartment building, the Apthorp, on the Upper West Side, a block from Zabar’s and H & H Bagels. (We don’t see those emporiums in the show, but I’m going to assume that they still exist in the world of “Kings”; otherwise, let me tell you, there is real cause for despair in the realm.)

David, after his triumph in the desert, becomes an instant folk hero, a status that he can’t avoid, since one of the hostages he saved was Silas’s son, Jack (Sebastian Stan), and, besides, a camera captured an iconic image of David standing in front of the Goliath tank. Silas instinctively knows that David is someone he must keep an eye on—this largehearted young man could be of use to him, or he could be a threat. Silas “rewards” him with a post in Shiloh as a military press liaison—the last thing that a true soldier would want. Sure enough, David chafes at how life in the big city just keeps rolling along: his former company is fighting just a few hours away and yet “it’s as if nothing’s happening except on TV.”

“Kings” is about David’s journey and his inevitable clashes with Silas, but there’s also a fair amount of intrigue and family psychodrama all around them, which makes “Kings” almost as much fun as “Dynasty.” Jack is gay, and bitter about David’s golden-boy position in the court. (Little does he realize that his father has come close to having David killed.) In public, Silas’s wife, Rose (Susanna Thompson, from “Once and Again”), is a non-threatening middle-aged helpmeet, the perfect accessory for a king; behind the scenes, she expertly pulls strings to keep her family in power and her husband and children in line. David early on is drawn to Silas’s daughter, Michelle (Allison Miller), but her mother warns her not to get involved with him, which would be fine with some viewers, as Miller, who is in her early twenties, looks like a generically pretty high-school freshman and makes no impression in the show. Michelle also lobbies her father at court on health-care issues, and is equally uncredible as a policy wonk. Jack’s part, and his ruined appearance—a pulpy mouth and a squinty-eyed look of calculation and overindulgence—are right out of “Gossip Girl”; in fact, Stan appeared on that show in its first season and just brought his Lothario act back last week. Then, there are a few issues going on in the country itself: an impending financial crisis, and a war. The plot is confusing when it comes to the war. For one thing, the show—at least as far as the first few episodes go—has made Shiloh real but not the rest of the kingdom. Apart from the farmhouse where David lived and the desert, we never have a sense of how big the kingdom is, what’s at stake, and whether a battle with the enemy, Gath, over water rights is significant or not—whether it’s the equivalent of Maine trying to steal New Hampshire’s entire eighteen miles of coastline, or just two countries’ egos clashing.

What makes “Kings” compelling is McShane’s tremendous life force and confident storytelling by Michael Green, a former writer and producer of “Heroes,” who created “Kings” and wrote six episodes, and Francis Lawrence, who directed four of them. The masterly camerawork pulled me along—there were great shots that reminded me of comic-book panels in the DC Comics I used to read (as it happens, Green co-wrote a movie version of “Green Lantern” that is coming out next year), where artists were able to depict points of view that cameras couldn’t. Yet the cameras do it in “Kings”; in a good way, watching the show is like reading a comic book.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...ision_franklin

It's orange, which means ratings are low and in danger of cancelation but it's not dead yet.

Damn it.

I searched for Dollhouse in this thread because the previews looked like they might be trying to wrap things up next week.

That post came up and Dollhouse was red because of the match to the search, not because it was red in the original post.

Nielsen Notes
1,400 New Englanders decided what you watched last night. Who are they?
And why is there growing concern that their views don't add up?
By Johnny Diaz, Boston Globe - March 28, 2009

Every day and every night, 600 households in New England decide which TV shows the rest of us are watching.

With a click of their remotes, these 1,400 panelists - known as Nielsen families - tune into their preferred programs. A small box called a "people meter" on their TV set logs their age, gender, and the programs they watch. That information provides stations with numbers to court advertisers. These select few families operate in secrecy.

Yet there's growing controversy over whether the number of these families are too small, how they are recruited, and whether the meters accurately log what they watch.

As station managers pore over their ratings, they evaluate which programs perform well. And sometimes questions arise when the numbers don't look right.

The TV industry pays incredibly close attention to these ratings. A slip in ratings can cost the stations ad dollars and bragging rights, so they are at the mercy of the Nielsen families, who represent 2.4 million households in the Boston TV market, which includes most of Massachusetts, part of New Hampshire, and one county in Vermont.

"By and large, I think they get most things right," said Bill Fine, president and general manager of WCVB-TV (Channel 5). "But on the fringes, there are enough areas of concern for us that it makes a big difference. If the margin between winning and losing a time period is one tenth of a point, you want it to be on your own efforts and not on errors with the ratings system. That is where our confidence level has been shaken a bit."

Fine's faith in the ratings system has been rattled in the past few years. He questioned a drastic drop in viewership for three New England Patriots home games, which typically generate huge ratings. WCVB investigated and learned that a technical problem credited the majority of its viewership to ESPN, which had simulcast the games on WCVB. Last year Nielsen recalculated the ratings and restored the missing viewers to WCVB. For one game in particular, the new numbers credited WCVB with three times the ratings points.

"Nielsen ratings are like currency," said Geoff Klapisch, media and advertising professor at Boston University. TV stations, he said, "absolutely do live and die by them. The Nielsen methodology is constantly under scrutiny."

Gary Holmes, a spokesman for the Nielsen Co., said the system - and the people meters - are accurate despite sporadic hiccups. "We sometimes do get questions on particular shows," he said, "and if that's the case we always investigate to make sure there is no sample issue or technological issue."

Nielsen is funded by television networks and local TV stations, which subscribe to its service and pay for its research. Nielsen recruits people to serve as panelists, and their participation is kept confidential. The company would not help the Globe find current or former Nielsen families unless the paper promised not to print their full names or towns.

"It's very important for people that no one in the industry know who the panelists are," Holmes said. "There would be an incentive there to target them somehow."

Nielsen representatives use census information to pick panelists randomly. Age, race, and ethnicity are not factors. "None of the characteristics of that household come into play," said Michael Link, a chief methodologist for Nielsen. "If you do the random selection properly, they should fall out as a natural selection process."

To find families, field representatives descend into neighborhoods in the 16 counties that constitute the Boston TV market, looking for volunteers. When a household agrees to serve, workers affix the "people meters" to its TV sets. Families are paid a small stipend for their work. Nielsen would not say how much, but one former panelist who asked not to be named said she earned $300 for one year. Panelists can participate for up to two years.

Each member of the household is assigned a code that represents them by age and gender. Whenever they turn on a TV or enter a room in which a TV is already on, they are supposed to punch in their code, which tells the meter who is watching and which program is on. If the viewer leaves the room, he or she must again punch in a code. If a family has guests at the residence, those people are also given codes so their viewing habits can be measured.

Some media buyers, who use ratings to buy TV airtime for clients, find the methodology limiting because the numbers depend on how active the panelists are with their viewing habits inside their homes and how accurate Nielsen is in tracking them.

"It's an imperfect science," said Tracie Manna Chinetti, a senior buyer at Blitz Media in Needham. "If you are off by even 1 percent of the audience, it can have a dramatic effect on the station's spot costs and their revenue . . . We are still relying on people to tell the system what they are doing. You get a phone call and you leave the room - did you remember to click yourself out? There's a lot of viewing that is not being measured."

Lisa Gomes of Stoughton can relate. She participated in 2000, when the Boston market still used paper diaries to track viewing. She wrote down every show she, her husband, and two young sons watched on three TV sets, mostly at night.

"I had to do it all myself because no one else would do it," said Gomes, 45. "It was too much work. I also worked full time, and I had to do all that. It was crazy."

Greg Angland, 38, of Mansfield was a Nielsen panelist last year for the Providence TV market, which still uses diaries. "You have some say in the success or failure of a TV program," said Angland, who has a wife and two young children.

"The challenge of it was trying to keep it accurate while having a very difficult busy lifestyle," said Angland, who also works at Blitz Media. "It was hard. I have kids in one room and my wife in another. I watched 'Curious George' a lot because I was in the room when my kids were watching it."

Another problem that some TV managers have with the system is that only homes are counted. Many programs - sports in particular - are viewed in public places such as gyms, bars, restaurants, and college dorms, but Nielsen does not sample those viewers. Nielsen began exploring the idea of adding meters to businesses but says it suspended plans because of the recession.

"Across the country, we would love to have the service extended to the transient nature of the viewing, which would be in hotels, bars, and dormitories," said Ed Piette, president and general manager of WBZ-TV (Channel 4) and WSBK-TV (Channel 38).

It is these kinds of issues that can make station managers wary of the ratings figures. WHDH-TV (Channel 7) noticed that ratings for last January's Golden Globes Awards came in unusually low compared to previous years. WHDH officials, who declined to comment for this story, also complained to Nielsen. The ratings company reprocessed the numbers and awarded higher ratings to WHDH, according to a letter from Nielsen.

Officials at WFXT-TV (Channel 25) and WBZ say they haven't had major problems with Nielsen. "They are as accurate as you can find," Piette said. "There have been some technical issues that have come up, and those little anomalies are worked out."

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles..._who_are_they/

Critic's Review
Botswana is the real star of HBO's No. 1 Ladies'
By Maureen Ryan, Chicago Tribune

The opening moments of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (7 p.m. Central Sunday, HBO, two stars) contains some of the most gorgeous imagery you're likely to see on television this year. As the camera swoops over an African landscape, animals roam and flock; majestic serenity pervades the scene. Those opening minutes certainly made me dream of taking a vacation in Botswana.

What follows is a faithful adaptation of the debut novel in Alexander McCall Smith's series of popular novels about the first female private detective in Botswana.

But perhaps the adaptation is too faithful. What comes across as charmingly spare on the page frequently ends up lacking complexity on the screen. And if you've read the novel, the first of the six-part Ladies TV project will contain few surprises. It can actually be quite slow going at times.

On other networks, there are examples of terrific performers elevating what could have been prosaic fare. In the NBC show's early going, Damien Lewis made Life watchable even when the plots were somewhat formulaic. And Ian McShane's forceful charisma has given the new NBC drama Kings more of an impact than it would otherwise probably have.

Unfortunately, Ladies star Jill Scott lacks that kind of presence.

Best known as an R&B singer, Scott is competent and certainly gives her all to the role of Precious Ramotswe, a plucky and resourceful detective whose observational skills and knowledge of human nature help her crack cases.

But there's very little subtext in Scott's performance. Given that the books from which the TV show are derived are so slight to begin with, this show is often less than the sum of its parts.

Still, the African landscape and the supporting performers are all draws. In particular, the excellent Lucian Msamati gives nervous vulnerability to J.L.B. Matekoni, the owner of a local car repair shop and Ramotswe's eventual suitor. Desmond Dube brings light comic relief as the owner of a hair salon next to Ramotswe's office. And as the detective agency's high-strung secretary, Anika Noni Rose gets maximum comedic mileage out of her role.

As befits a project that was directed by Oscar winner Anthony Minghella and produced in part by Oscar winner Sydney Pollack (both of whom died last year), the pilot episode of Ladies gets the details right and looks quite handsome.

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune....-1-ladies.html

Critic's Review
'Little Dorrit' on PBS
At eight hours, the adaptation by Andrew Davies is short, by some standards. But the essential breadth is here
By Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times

Charles Dickens wrote big, long books, and when his books become movies it's good to make them big and long as well. His many-tendriled, twisty plots can be pruned and compressed with some success -- orphan meets Fagin, Fagin gets orphan, Fagin loses orphan -- but plot isn't what makes Dickens great. There are the huge cast of characters (not always engaged in moving the story forward), the splendid set pieces and the passages of social observation that all go into creating a world you can get lost in.

"Little Dorrit," Dickens' story of money, debt and love in the 1820s -- and whose depiction of a Bernie Madoff-style scandal gives it an eerie currency -- is a very long book. Back in the 1980s, Christine Edzard made a big-screen version that came as two interlocking films, lasting six hours together but telling more or less the same story twice; much was left out. The marvelous new BBC import that begins Sunday night on PBS under the banner of Masterpiece lasts eight hours, tells the story straight through and touches most of the novel's many bases, albeit some quite lightly.

The book has been adapted by Andrew Davies, Britain's go-to guy for making miniseries from Victorian classics -- his screenplay credits include last year's "Sense and Sensibility," the 2005 "Bleak House," 1998's "Vanity Fair" and 1995's Jennifer Ehle- Colin Firth "Pride and Prejudice." His road through the material emphasizes mystery and suspense over social comment and satire. The Marshalsea debtors prison (where Dickens' own father, like his heroine's, was imprisoned), the red tape-entangled Circumlocution Office, the straitened circumstances of Bleeding Heart Yard, the financial meltdown -- these are secondary elements in what plays primarily as a love story haunted by a crime melodrama (with Andy "Gollum" Serkis as a sociopathic Frenchman).

At 34, Matthew Macfadyen (Mr. Darcy in the 2005 feature film "Pride and Prejudice") is too young for Dickens' Clennam, but he communicates sober maturity and makes attractive a man whose goodness is exceeded only by his obtuseness. Claire Foy is strong yet vulnerable as the titular Amy Dorrit, her steadfastness to a less than grateful family, and a less than responsive Clennam, coming across as something better than masochism. And as William Dorrit, the "Father of the Marshalsea," and of Amy, a riveting Tom Courtenay paints a delicate portrait of self-deluded gentility clutching at straws and of a superficially stern parent who is at heart a manipulative (but not unloving) child.

They are joined by a large and wonderful cast that includes Bill Paterson ("Comfort and Joy"), James Fleet ("The Vicar of Dibley"), Eve Myles ("Torchwood"), Freema Agyeman ("Doctor Who") and the always excellent Ron Cook as prison gatekeeper Chivery. Also worth particular mention are Eddie Marsan as rent collector cum detective Pancks and Russell Tovey, dignified and sad as Chivery's lovelorn son.

Not every character is exactly as described on paper; some don't stay around long enough to register and others who have earned our interest just disappear. And the story can be confusing at times. But all in all, this is a dynamic, addictive rendition of a complicated novel that catches the spirit of Dickens' "roaring streets" where "the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar."

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...,1364897.story

9:00PM on Telefutura (Univision's Sister Network): FIFA World Cup Qualifier soccer match, United States at El Salvador.

Today around the world national soccer teams are competing for the few remaining free spots in the 2010 FIFA World Cup tourney (check your local non-HD sports channels: Gol TV, Fox Soccer, ESPN Deportes, etc.) Between these soccer matches and today's day-long "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" marathon on USA Network my day is set!

TV Notes
Dylan Ratigan of CNBC's Fast Money' Leaves Network
By Billl Carter, The New York Times - March 28, 2009

Dylan Ratigan, the longtime host of the CNBC program Fast Money, abruptly left the cable channel and the show on Friday, after a discussion with the network's president, Mark Hoffman.

The move came after contract negotiations between CNBC and Mr. Ratigan ended with just a week left until the end of his current deal.

Mr. Ratigan said in a telephone interview Friday that despite rumors that he had an offer to move to ABC News, he had not made an agreement with any other network. No deal is pending with anybody, Mr. Ratigan said. All options are being considered.

ABC could certainly be one of them, he said. Asked why he would walk away from a successful program where he had built a reputation for fast and funny delivery of the day's financial news, Mr. Ratigan said, I had the benefit of my contract coming to an end. This is an opportunity to take a pause and evaluate all my options.

Mr. Ratigan said he decided not to appear on Friday's show after he and Mr. Hoffman agreed it would be a distraction. He said he was grateful to CNBC for the opportunity to create and host a show like this.

Brian Steel, a spokesman for CNBC, said: Dylan told us he was leaving effective today. We thank him for his quality work. Mr. Ratigan, 36, who has been at CNBC for five years, has hosted Fast Money since 2006.

Several CNBC colleagues suggested Friday that Mr. Ratigan, while talented, was easy to anger and difficult to work with and that he had told people that at some point he envisioned himself heading an entertainment show like David Letterman's.

Mr. Ratigan dismissed the comments about his personality as the kind of thing that always gets leaked when someone leaves a television job. As for wanting to emulate Mr. Letterman, he said, That's an idea from two years ago. He said he was now dedicated to covering the economy, the story that is affecting every American in every setting.

An executive from a network that has interest in Mr. Ratigan said the reason no other deal was in place with ABC or anyone else was that his CNBC contract though it ends March 31 contains a clause that will prevent Mr. Ratigan from working elsewhere for some period of time. The executive requested anonymity so as not to tip the network's hand in negotiations.

Mr. Ratigan would not comment on whether such a clause existed, but he said, You may next see me in six months, or it may be three months.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/bu...ref=television

Critic's Review
'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency'
By Tim Goodman, San Francisco Chronicle

There is a lyrical sensitivity to "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," a new seven-episode series on HBO based on the wildly popular novels of Alexander McCall Smith that feature a detective in Botswana named Precious.

The series, shot on location in Africa, was delayed after the unfortunate deaths of film director Anthony Minghella (who co-wrote and directed the two-hour premiere) and filmmaker Sydney Pollack, who was an executive producer. The series was picked up and continued by Richard Curtis (who won an Emmy for the HBO movie "The Girl in the Cafe" and who was Oscar-nominated for "Four Weddings and a Funeral"). In addition, powerhouse brothers Bob and Harvey Weinstein are executive producers.

Clearly a lot of people care for "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," and it is lovingly shot and deftly acted all the way, from Jill Scott as Precious to cute little Mosako Mogara as Wellington, the Botswana street kid who helps out at the agency. In fact, there's so much sweetness and kid-glove comfort in this series that it ought to be on CBS. That's probably something you'll ask yourself if you're an HBO subscriber.

Which gets at one of the few problems with "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency": It doesn't feel like an HBO series, if there is such a thing. That whole "It's Not Television - It's HBO" thing was concocted for a reason - and not to come back to bite the channel in the hind parts because it created an innocent little series that would make the Hallmark people proud.

If you have no content restrictions from nervous advertisers or the possibly meddling Federal Communications Commission, do you have to show nudity, raw sex, extreme violence and ceaseless profanity? Clearly not. But HBO has prided itself on delivering some semblance of real-life grit, be it "The Sopranos," "The Wire," "Deadwood" or even the modern musings of "Entourage" or "Sex and the City."

A CBS-like series

More to the point, people actually pony up cash for premium channels so they can get what they can't find on a network. If HBO is CBS, is that a bad thing? No - because CBS makes some superb examples of professional-grade television. And an argument could be made that CBS would not have shot in Botswana. They might have tried to find something similar - in Canada.

And yet, given that "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" is both enriching entertainment and of high quality, what's to complain about? Doesn't HBO have the right to go against type, to have a quaint heroine instead of a vile antihero?

Sure, it's just television, right?

Beyond the arguments of place, what's to be discussed about an adaptation of popular books by a collection of talented film people? Well, they certainly loved the polite, bordering on languid, everyday interactions between Precious Ramotswe and the people she meets when she opens her detective agency. Her secretary, Grace Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose), is a detail-oriented perfectionist who graduated with the highest scores in secretarial school and has enough good manners not to ask about getting paid for her work until there's a paying client (of which there are not many to begin with).

Precious also meets the gentlemanly auto mechanic JLB Matekoni (Lucian Msamati), who has enough good manners not to make a pass at Precious. And there's sweet and sage hairdresser BK (Desmond Dube), who has enough good manners not to sass people who notice that he acts like, well, a hairdresser. Everybody is nice. They mill about the little town of Gabarone as if they were in an English costume drama being filmed by the BBC.

Obviously the intended tone of the series is a kind of mannered, harmonious pro-Botswana lilt. It was a hell of a lot rougher in Jessica Fletcher's Cabot Cove. (Maybe CBS didn't make this series because it was too soft?) Fine - perhaps that's harsh. But you half expect the bad guys in "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" to carry white gloves for face slapping instead of big pistols for forehead whipping.

Sweet appeal

On the other hand, had HBO turned this into a dark, pulse-pounding thriller, fans of Alexander McCall Smith would be livid. Part of the appeal for many might be the fanciful sweetness, the beautiful location and the charming smarts of Precious herself as she takes her first tentative steps at solving crimes (and if not crimes, then small transgressions of the heart or ethical lapses in dentistry).

Scott, a Grammy-winning singer, puts a lot of love into Precious. She drinks tea and thinks until theories and motivations for crimes come to her, often by accident. You might want to hug her, but hire her?

Rose plays the uptight secretary thing to the hilt, and it takes a couple of episodes before the writers give her more range; by then it's almost too late. Msamati is definitely the kind of mechanic - and gentleman caller - you might want in your life. And Dube's infectious smile makes DK adorable; they don't call him gay.

Ultimately, everybody's affable in this series. There are no sharp right angles, no emotional elbows.

If that's what you subscribe to HBO for, then you might love this show. Otherwise, it might be too precious.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Drama. 8 p.m. Sundays on HBO.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...DD1716N286.DTL

And HERE'S a bit of news about probably my LEAST FAVORITE "celebrity!"

http://www.popeater.com/television/a...ested%2F402541

I wonder if he used Sham-Wow to mop up the blood?!?
Jeff

^^^ I was debating whether to post that story here. Thanks for taking the responsability off my hands!

It is on ESPN2-HD!

Goodman does know this is a BBC co-production doesn't he?

Apparently not, and it might also explain some of his comments about it being too "CBS-like".

It's certainly not "The Sopranos", but it's definitely different, the fact that it's set in someplace other than New York or LA was enough for me to watch it. It's not real deep, but it's not candy-coated fluff either. It was enjoyable to me simply because it was different.

Me too, it's like he's having an awful lot of bad days come time to write his column lately, if he doesn't get over it soon, I'll stop reading him.

I dig Goodman's reviews most of the time (his podcasts and "Bastard Machine" blog are smug to the point of being unbearable though). Despite his ego the man writes better than most so-called professional TV reviewers (Stasi at the Post, Owen at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Perigard at the Boston Herald, etc.) and, when he can reign it in (as he did for his 'Detective Agency' review), the man makes good points. I hadn't thought how much of a CBS-like show this HBO show is (even after reading many other reviews) until Goodman actually used the term 'CBS' in his review. Goodman's my hero.

Well, maybe his mind is on the fact that any day he could lose his job if the Chronicle goes under.

Critic's Review
'Little Dorrit' (PBS)
Dickens and the Business Cycle: The Victorian Way of Debt
By Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times - March 28, 2009

The fund promised high and unwavering annual returns, but you had to know someone to get in on it. And that was really all it took to attract credulous investors, that and the sterling reputation of the banker behind it, a financier revered in privileged circles as “the Man of the Age.”

“I’ve looked into it,” is how one investor reassured a friend who wondered what would happen if the fund should fail. “Name up everywhere, immense resources, high connections, government influence — can’t be done.”

It’s not Bernard L. Madoff’s fund, it’s the one created — and wrecked — by Mr. Merdle, the legendary London banker who brings masses of wealthy, well-meaning people to ruin in Charles Dickens’s classic “Little Dorrit.” And that uncanny parallel is one of many reasons that this adaptation by Andrew Davies, which begins on PBS this Sunday, is so timely.

Mr. Davies, whose interpretations of the classics include the 1995 BBC version of “Pride and Prejudice,” as well as “Middlemarch” and “Vanity Fair,” has become the Cecil B. DeMille of the A.P. English canon. Here he flushes out the similarities between The City of Victorian London and 21st-century Wall Street without losing sight of the larger vision of Dickens’s story.

“Little Dorrit” is particularly apt and enjoyable at this moment in history because the story focuses intently on something deeper and more universal than real estate bubbles or bank runs: unfairness.

And there are so many variations on injustice in the tale. Matthew Macfadyen, who starred in “MI-5” and the film version of “Pride and Prejudice,” plays Arthur Clennam, a fair-minded businessman who returns to England after decades in China and finds himself stymied by the Office of Circumlocution, a suffocating, impenetrable government agency.

William Dorrit, played magnificently by Tom Courtenay, is the title heroine’s father, a man of pride and breeding who has spent more than 20 years in the infamous Marshalsea debtors’ prison for unpaid bills he cannot remember, let alone ever repay, while wealthier, better-connected cheats and fat cats elude creditors in government sinecures, private clubs and villas overseas — too fat to fail.

Rent collectors stalk working-class families crammed into a crumbling neighborhood named Bleeding Heart Yard. As soon as they can pay up, the landlord ruthlessly raises the rates.

And there are inequities of feeling as well as of station, like the myopia and self-absorption of a self-deluding father like Mr. Dorrit, who exploits the kindness and filial piety of his youngest daughter, Amy (Claire Foy), who was born in the Marshalsea. Tiny, tender-hearted and taking care of her relatives with what Dickens described as a “pitiful and plaintive look,” Amy is known as Little Dorrit, beloved by the good and the brave and mistreated by almost everyone else.

Dickens heroines are rarely spirited or saucy; his world was not populated by the likes of Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet. Mostly, they are closer to the mold of the meek, self-sacrificing girl in “The Old Curiosity Shop,” who drove Oscar Wilde to joke, “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.”

Little Dorrit is boringly good, and that highlights the deliciously bad characters around her. The story’s main villain, the French thief and murderer Rigaud (Andy Serkis), is the exception, Gothic and one-dimensional. “Little Dorrit” is as rich at the margins as at the center with strange, and strangely believable, characters from almost all levels of society, rendered in quick, firm strokes.

Pancks (Eddie Marsan), an unsavory debt collector, is especially well drawn. He seems at first like a heartless and decidedly repulsive specimen, but beneath his coarse speech and strange facial tics, Pancks reveals a good heart and a sharp nose for unraveling secrets; he forms an unlikely alliance with the genteel Clennam to revive the Dorrit family fortunes.

Mrs. Merdle (Amanda Redman) is a great beauty and social tyrant who bullies her banker husband while trying to prevent her idiot son, Edmund (Sebastian Armesto), from marrying Amy’s older sister, Fanny (Emma Pierson).

Fanny, a dancer, is as callous and greedily ambitious as Thackeray’s Becky Sharp, but she feels genuine love for her little sister, though she takes advantage of her kindness and belittles her naïveté.

Even the Marshalsea has its pecking order and social intrigues, and the relationships between jailers and prisoners are as delicate and complex as those in the wealthiest bankers’ drawing rooms. Mr. Chivery (Ron Cook), the turnkey, has kept a watchful eye on the prison for decades, treating Dorrit, despite all his airs and delusions, with courtesy and also calculation.

Mr. Chivery is determined to keep his son John (Russell Tovey) in the family business, and that means helping the young man woo Little Dorrit. John and his father have the power to punish and even coerce their prisoners, but both display unexpected moments of nobility that few other characters can match.

Mr. Davies is well known for giving minor characters their humorous due; he is even better known for spicing up the most strait-laced classics with hints of sex and carnal yearning.

“Little Dorrit” is no exception, adding a hint of lesbian attraction to the opaque friendship between Miss Wade (Maxine Peake) and Tattycorum (Freema Agyeman), a girl adopted and perhaps exploited by the otherwise kindly Meagles family. In the novel Tattycorum is a dark-haired orphan, a status that in Victorian times was likely to condemn her to be treated more as a servant than as a companion. In the television version she is black.

Both Ms. Foy, as Amy, and Mr. Macfadyen, as Clennam, are persuasive and touching. But William Dorrit is at the core of this tale, and Mr. Courtenay does the role full justice, layering the pathos of the elderly debtor with rich swaths of self-pity and vanity.

Mr. Merdle’s fund is too good to be true, but “Little Dorrit” lives up to Dickens’s every word.

LITTLE DORRIT
On most PBS stations on Sunday nights through April 26 (check local listings).

http://tv.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/art...ref=television

Critic's Review
'No. 1 Ladies' is a sunny diversion
By Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe

When you hear that a TV drama is "HBO-y," you know what that means, right? Morally challenging, R-rated, and, inevitably, bleak. As the networks and cable channels increasingly refine their brands in order to stand out from the crowd, you can pretty much turn any of their names into an adjective. A show is FX-y when it flirts with sexual promiscuity and amorality, and it's CW-y when it's a soap featuring 25-year-olds playing teenagers.

And so it's strange to say that HBO's new series "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" is not very HBO-y at all. Indeed, this mystery series is kind of CBS-y, with some of the old-school crime-solving charm of "The Mentalist." About an astute woman who investigates cheating husbands and missing dogs, "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" - with an endearing lead performance by Jill Scott - is actually kind of heart-warming.

Oh right - and this HBO series, which premieres Sunday night at 8, is very Travel Channel-y, too. "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" is set and filmed in Botswana, in the city of Gaborone, and it plays out like a sunny love letter to a country that, despite the political chaos and famine of its neighbors, has remained relatively stable. Just as the series defies our expectations of HBO, it challenges our assumptions about Africa as the home of only bad news. "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" is all about honoring the simplicity and politesse of the Botswanans we meet, including Scott's Precious Ramotswe, her secretary, Grace Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose), and JBL Matekoni (Lucian Msamati), a mechanic who is smitten with Precious.

Based on the series of books by Alexander McCall Smith, the show has an enormous amount of talent and clout behind it. The two-hour (and slightly overlong) premiere was directed by the late Anthony Minghella, who co-wrote it with "Love Actually" writer-director Richard Curtis. They are the executive producers of the series, along with the late Sydney Pollack and Bob and Harvey Weinstein. And yet there's something modest about the show's ambitions, as it avoids big themes and moral gray areas in favor of little kooky vignettes and happy resolutions. I can't say you'll want to follow "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" religiously, like so many other HBO efforts, but it is an easy-to-like distraction.

Scott's Precious is a divorcee whose longtime dream of being a detective comes true after an inheritance from her beloved father. It's corny, but Precious deeply wants to help her fellow Botswanans, especially after having survived an abusive marriage. She doesn't have policing experience, but she is blessed with acute observational skills, a savvy take on human nature, and a sense of justice. With little-girlish enthusiasm and naivete, she rents an office in a shopping center, hires the eccentric Grace, and waits for business to pick up, which, eventually, it does.

Scott, an American R&B singer, seems born to play this character. She's just a natural, and she makes it easy to root for Precious as she looks for lost children and faces off with organized crime. She gives us a heroine of great humor and heart, but she never lets Precious's desire to help others seem sanctimonious. And Rose is dear as her assistant, Grace, a socially awkward creature who is as loyal as she is clueless. "That man is very much like a woman," Grace comments about a gay hairdresser in a nearby storefront.

The challenge for "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" writers will be to develop the characters despite the show's light-hearted genre atmosphere. If the writers can add some serial intrigue and let Scott reveal more of her dramatic potential, the show could evolve into something as poignant as its African landscape.

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles...nny_diversion/

trekker reminder: family guy has the ST:TNG cast in it.

DVR already set to record