I do apologise, but the second post I planned to put up this evening is going to be delayed until tomorrow.

So you'll have to wait about twelve hours or so before I reveal my favourite animated shows.

Again, my apologies for this, but I'm falling asleep at the keyboard here right now and I've only written half of it.

At least this means there will be some weekend content on the site!
Direct Link

In the first of two posts due to come out today, I'm going to continue the theme of film Fridays and mix it with the current 'My Top Shows' run (which has just a few more entries left then it's back to business as usual). Which means here I'll be listing my personal favourite films.

I'm not going to go into them with as much detail as I do television shows, writing about films here is just a diversion to mix things up and see if people are remotely interested in the odd film post (the answer seems to be no by the way).

Without further ado here's an alphabetical list of the twenty films which I've enjoyed the most over the years.

Aliens
As Good as it Gets
Back to the Future Trilogy (I can't separate my favourite from these)
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Die Hard
Ghostbusters
Groundhog Day
Heat
Hellraiser (oh yes!)
Kung Fu Hustle
Monsters Inc
Oldboy
Pulp Fiction
Rocky (1, 2 & 3)
Sin City
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Spaghetti Western Trilogy (For a Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More & The Good The Bad and the Ugly)
The Three Musketeers
The Usual Suspects
Wall·E

I make no apologies for this selection at all, they're all movies I can re watch and still find enjoyable and fresh. Some of them are classics from when I was younger, others are just films I like watching at least once a year (Die Hard is my Christmas movie of choice) and a few are just plain amazing.

There is one set of classic films from my childhood which I no longer enjoy, it's the original Star Wars trilogy. Somehow the magic has gone from them now.

A bit later today I'll continue the Rev/Views Top _____ series with Animated shows.
Direct Link

I feel it's appropriate to put out my favourite drama shows on the 9th of September 2009, as that's 9/9/9 - the number you dial when calling for the police (and other emergency services) in the UK.

And let's face it, this is a genre which is going to be dominated by police shows as anyone who's spent any time reading here should be able to realise immediately.


Dexter is in a precarious position in my top shows because he's in serious danger of dropping out of the list after the third season's decidedly average and hum drum run.

But looking beyond that the first two seasons still hold up as exceptional pieces of work, they're both gripping thrill rides that nearly reach the heights of emotion and excitement. Michael C. Hall is nothing short of fantastic as Dexter Morgan, he's a good enough reason to watch the show all by himself. But Eric King is also fantastic as Doakes, and his departure was one thing which weakened the third season severely.

The fourth season is going to be make or break time for myself. It's looking very promising, but Dexter is in danger of falling into a rut. Mostly caused by the weak supporting cast (the writers have NO idea what to do with them) and the show's tendency to rehash the first season plotline over and over with only a few variations.

Complaints aside it's a unique show and is worth watching, even if only for Michael C. Hall and the lovely Julie Benz's performances alone.



Probably the lightest member of this lot, Burn Notice doesn't make it onto the list due to an exceptionally deep and clever storyline or Shakespearean level acting, it makes it on here by consistently improving on itself from season to season and providing just buckets of fun and spy hi jinks.

Jeffery Donavan is great as Michael Western, the spy stuck in Miami with a burn notice preventing him from working. But for myself it's Bruce Campbell's performance as Sam Axe which keeps me coming back. Well that and the fact that the show keeps getting better and better.

It's light, fun, clever and fast paced. Perfect summer viewing.




Part Drama, part Comedy, wholly irrelevant and fun - Boston Legal was one of the most enjoyable legal shows I've ever had the pleasure of watching. If you can call it a legal show, it could also be accurately described as a 'bromance' story between Denny Crane and Alan Shore.

The show is a little uneven, unfortunately cast members tended to get switched about, brought in and dropped for no reason other than the writers were having trouble thinking of things to do with them. So the show suffers a little here, but when it's good - it's very good. Even if sometimes it can get a little soap-box preachy.

I'm of the opinion that the best seasons are the earlier two and then the final one; but it's very dependant on the actors. William Shatner and James Spader are constantly great, but it's Christian Clemenson, Tara Summers and Mark Valley's characters who remain my favourites.

The show is energetic, fun and witty. Plus how can I not love a show which so brazenly flirts with the fourth wall, and gets away with it?


Watching Deadwood can, at first, feel like you're watching a show written in a foreign language, but one which uses English words as it's base. The dialog is thick and feels very authentic, as do the sets, the costumes and the acting.

Once you get past the initial 'what the hell are they saying?' there's a marvelous show beating underneath. One which is filled with corruption, unpleasantness, ruthless action and swearing. So much swearing you wouldn't believe it. It's almost impossible to watch this show and not get infected by the dialog yourself, it just happens and all of a sudden you're in trouble for calling a co-workers a bunch f***ing c***suckers.

Unfortunately for Deadwood it suffered cancellation-itis and hasn't had that final bit to finish it off. It's also rather inaccessible for many viewers - the dialog and brutal nature of the show mean it isn't for everyone. So it doesn't break into the top five, but it's definitely top ten material.


Constructed of equal parts of wit, soapy moments and drama with a huge slice of death, Six Feet Under is one of drama's landmark shows. It's frank and open approach to the subject of death, cast in contrast by the focus on the lives of people who live and work around it. Featuring a staggeringly high (and often amusing) body count, the show took huge strides towards legitimising the occurrence of death in TV drama.

Here's one of my favourite openings from the show:



This is without even mentioning that this is Michael C. Hall's second appearance on the list. He's absolutely fantastic and completely different to Dexter in Six Feet Under. The man is awesome acting talent.

Oh and this show also gave us the quintessential Narm trope. (Warning MAJOR Spoilers for this show lurk beyond that link).



For an individual with absolutely no interest in politics at all I was genuinely surprised just how much I did engage with, and enjoy The West Wing. But I surely did, mostly thanks to Aaron Sorkin's superb scripting which brought the characters to life and gave them dialog which really just sizzles and shines like diamond sausages in a pan.

While the cast is studded with superb actors and actresses there are a few in particular who stand out for myself. Martin Sheen is of course brilliant as 'Jed' Bartlet and throwing praise out for the lovely Allison Janney is practically a cliche (but a deserved one). Likewise Bradley Whitford, Dulé Hill, Rob Lowe, John Spencer, Janel Moloney and Richard Schiff are all superb.

And it would be completely amiss if I didn't acknowledge that the episode "Two Cathedrals" is one of the best episodes in any show, all time.

But it's more than the sum of it's parts, it's just a fantastic show which is filled with quality and while I personally prefer the first four seasons, it's still something everyone who enjoys good drama should watch in it's entirety at least once.



Part dramatisation, part historical retelling, all action. Band of Brothers works both as a companion piece for Saving Private Ryan and as a stand alone piece of television. The show follows the members of Easy company during the second world war. It's a powerful piece of storytelling that highlights the brutality of war while also showing the fundamental humanity of the men who were involved in it.

The stand out performance is of course from the awesomely talented Damien Lewis as Richard Winters. But there are so many others who also give great perfomances as well. Some of them are so great you end up forgetting what else they're famous in and just get sucked into believing that they are there.

It's nothing short of quality television and one of my favourite war stories, the unbelievable events that occur in it are living proof that no matter how outlandish television can be - there's nothing stranger than real life.



The father and spiritual predecessor to another show on this list; Homicide (for me) remains the quintessential police procedural show. I can't exactly place what it is which makes it far more enjoyable for me than any other investigative style show, but if I was to guess it would come down to the low key nature of the setting combined with an unrelenting dirty, grimy feel to the show which just made it feel so real. You add into this a fantastic bunch of characters; especially Munch, Bayliss, Pembleton and Lewis; and you've got something which has had a profound affect on me despite it's relatively new status (I only watched it last year).

It's dark, it's witty, it's clever and it doesn't always wrap everything up in a neat little bow at the end of an episode (or season). There's just so much to admire about it and it's a show I relish returning to in a future year.



Considering that I've written forty posts about this show (so far) I should imagine it's no surprise that The Wire ranks highly amongst my favourite drama shows (and my favourite shows all round). It's the most complete vision in the world of television, providing stories which are meaningful and poignant while also filled with intense characters who feel alive.

No other show manages to depict both sides of the story as well as The Wire. A show which lets it's viewers identify with not only police detectives but also with the criminals they're chasing after. From low level drug dealers to dock workers and all the way beyond The Wire tells a story of Baltimore City via it's characters and institutions.

It's almost certainly the most culturally significant show of this decade and one of the greatest televisions shows of all time. Intelligent, thought provoking, moving and subtle, this is one for the thinker in you.

This should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone who's read my posts over the past year or so. The Shield remains firmly as an example of the perfect show for myself. From the very first episode, which all those years back just blew me away (much like the ending to The Usual Suspects it completely turned around my perception of the show and expectations from television drama). Then for seven seasons it ran off at break neck speed with each season being better than the last. Which is pretty much unheard of elsewhere, I can't name another show where I can honestly say each season improved on the previous one.

But The Shield had it all for me; tension, action, excitement, sorrow and so much more. No show has ever engaged me as much emotionally as The Shield has. While The Wire is intellectually my favourite show, it's the guts and instincts of The Shield which put it ahead of the rest, and those final two episodes which ended it all. I'm still speechless about them and it's been about three quarters of a year since they aired.

It really is perfection wrapped up in a brutal package of justice and corruption.

Finally I'd like to give Chuck an honorable mention here, it nearly made it onto the list. But I still haven't seen the second season. Carnivale likewise gets one, failing to make the top ten because of it's cancellation - which makes it feel unfinished and frustrating to watch.
Direct Link

While Science Fiction/Fantasy is a genre I only dip into to watch occasionally Sitcoms are on the other hand an entirely different beast. They are pretty much my default genre for watching when I want to relax and unwind without engaging too much in the program I'm watching - demanding shows like say The Wire and The Shield are great, but sometimes they're a little overwhelming. Sitcoms on the other hand are just relaxing.

There's a particular note to make about this, you won't see any British sitcoms in the list, this is because I've decided to dedicate an entire section of this feature to British shows and British shows alone. Why? Because I can - but this does mean that the vast majority of shows on this list will be American, mostly because I haven't managed to acquire many Canadian or Australian sitcoms so far.

Additionally, animated shows aren't present here, they've got their own section as well.



Spawned from Cheers and almost equalling the success of it's parent, Frasier is a rather unusual sitcom in that it tends to avoid the low brow humour which many other sitcoms fall back on at times. Kesley Grammer is (almost literally) in the role of his life as Doctor Frasier Crane, who's left the bar to pursue a career in radio.

It's a tightly written and exceptionally clever show, but the reason it appears so low on this list is because of it's tendency to rely on the same style of gag over and over in the later seasons. Essentially things become one big long 'misunderstanding' with Frasier either trying to conceal the issue or making it worse.

Don't get me wrong, I still dig the show and I just adore Peri Gilpin who is all kinds of hot. But at times it's a little much to watch.


It's pretty low on my list because in all honest time hasn't been that kind to the original 20/30 something in New York sitcom. The later seasons in particular suffered a lot from a drop in quality and at times were just plain not funny.

But, it was a huge part of the 1990s and you've probably seen every episode more than once. The earlier seasons in particular are still an absolute delight to watch, when the show is on form it's so funny it's right up amongst the best. For myself it's Matthew Perry's performance as Chandler which remains the high point of the show, he's fantastic and remains so throughout.

Let's get the bad out of the way first. Yes, around the fifth, sixth and seventh season or so Scrubs did become rather tired and a smidge unfunny. But the first four and the eighth one were just superb and I for one am looking forward to the revitalised and remade show, allthough I do hope they change the name to something like Scrubs: The Next Generation - to distance it from the original a little and turn it into a spin-off.

This is the show which made a star out of Zach Braff and brought us comedy which could hilarious, utterly bizzare and exceptionally thoughtful and touching at the same time. It's nearly the very definition of 'bitter-sweet television' (another show pips it at the post, but more on that later).

Now if you'd asked me during the sixth or early seventh season, Scrubs might not have got a look in, as it was struggling a little then, but after that superb eighth season finale, which really should have closed the curtain on J.D. for us, I can say at the moment it's one of my favourites. Which is as it should be, because Scrubs is one of the shows which set me on the track of watching American television.

I just hope this ninth season slash spin off doesn't spoil it for me.


A relative new comer to this list and practically a baby compared to the other shows, 10 Items or Less is something which I've only watched over the past month or so. But wow, it's an absolute gem. Like Curb Your Enthusiasm the show is loosely scripted with main plot points and then the scenes are improvised.

It's set in a small fictional grocery store (supermarket for we Brits), Leslie Poole inherited the place after his father passed away and is now the manager (and owner) of the Greens & Grains. He's a well meaning chap who tries hard but is a little dim and rather unethical. His staff is small, but loyal - even if they're not willing to put up with his larger eccentricities at times.

The first season is pretty good, gets going fast and has some great moments. But the second season is better and the third season is just fantastic. This is a show which gets better and better with each (short) season.



The brain child of the lovely SNL alumni Tina Fey, 30 Rock follows the back stage antics of the staff and stars of the fictional "Girly Show". It's an energetic and fun show with masses of laughs and great performances from most of the cast. Tina Fey is superb as Liz Lemon, likewise Alec Baldwin is in the role of his life as Jack. In fact just about every cast member is nothing short of great in this.

My personal favourites are Kenneth - the NBC page with a heart of gold and the naivety to match, Jenna the self centered and insecure star of The Girly Show and Pete Hornberger, the producer and sounding board for Liz's issues (played by the woefully underused Scott Adsit).

A great show which is something you should catch up on, pick up the first and second season combined today!

Why You Should Watch 30 Rock




Heading towards it's seventh season, the hugely improvised sitcom about the fictional version of Larry David's life is just sheer brilliance. It's not for everyone, because this is a show genuinely about cringe worthy comedy and misunderstandings (like Fawlty Towers). But it's just so brilliantly paced and acted that at times it's almost staggering to think that it's mostly improvised.

Curb Your Enthusiasm will be giving us the Seinfeld reunion in it's next season. Which is such a fantastic move in my opinion. Bringing back Seinfeld without actually bringing it back. I have no hesitation in saying that I think the next season of Curb will be nothing short of amazing.



Frankly I can't stand the British version of this show, it's cringe worthy tripe of the highest order and I will always turn the television off or change the channel when it's on. But the US version somehow manages to keep that cringe factor, but dials it down just enough to allow for the shows other virtues to shine through.

I attribute a lot of this to Steve Carrell, who's just a fantastic comedic actor, he made the decision from the start to model Michael Scott not after David Brent but as he felt the scripts read. So he avoided watching the British version of The Office before starting this. The result is that the manager of the Scranton branch of Dunder-Mifflin is still headed by a gigantic dufus who manages to offend and upset people almost every time he opens his mouth, but he's also far more sympathetic and human.

To me David Brent just comes across as a petty, self-centered jerk with no redeeming features what so ever, but Michael Scott on the other hand is a caring human being who just can't relate with others correctly. It really changes the tone of the entire show and as such the entirety of the thing has become a show I'm very fond of.



I wrote yesterday that Neil Patrick Harris (NPH) would be making another appearance in this list, and for those of you who've seen HIMYM it shouldn't be a surprise at all why.

How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is a fun story which bills itself as 'A love story in reverse'. Father of two, Ted sits down with his children and gradually unfolds the story of how he met their mother. A story which must be absolute agony for the children to sit through, because it's due to start it's fifth season this year.

While the kids might be stuck there being tortured by their boring dad and his overly long story, we as the viewer have a far more exciting treat. We get to watch the events unfold as Ted and his four friends - Marshall, Lily, Robin and the frankly awesome Barney (NPH) - experience them. It's a show which has some mild parallels with Friends; there are five of them, they're in New York. But these superficial similarities are just not important, the show is so funny, clever and original that it's great fun to watch. Especially NPH who is without a doubt the star turn in the show as the frankly awesome Barney.

Lighthearted, fun and filled with just good old laugh out loud comedy it's one of the best sitcoms on our screens at the moment.

The second entry from the mind of Larry David and possibly the most significant sitcom of the previous decade, a show which in essence is about about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to each other and other innocents who just happen to enter their lives. All of it's nine seasons are great, though it's the third/fourth season where it really starts to hit it's stride, and it's a show I can watch repeatedly without getting tired of it.

The entire cast is fantastic, the stories are hilarious and the guest stars are astounding. It bucked the trend that most sitcoms followed during the 1990s and paved the way for Curb and more importantly my favourite sitcom.

At some point I'll probably put together a Seinfeld tribute week in order to celebrate it's return to the screens via Curb Your Enthisuasm. , I adore the show that much.



Make no bones about it, Arrested Development is my all time favourite comedy show bar none. In many ways I look on it as an evolution of the sitcom and also the spiritual successor to Seinfeld. It's (again) a show about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to everyone in reach, but this time it's presented in the subtle form of a documentary narrated by Ron Howard.

It centers around the Bluths, a wealthy family who built their fortune around developing properties. But at the start of the show George Bluth Senior is arrested for various counts of fraud (and possible light treason). Leaving the entire company and family in the hands of the middle son, Michael Bluth.

Unusually for a sitcom, Arrested Development features an ongoing storyline which not only builds on previous events but makes extensive use of both callbacks to previous moments/jokes AND significantly it also foreshadows upcoming events as well. This, combined with the sheer quantity of short and subtle jokes makes Arrested Development such a deep, layered show that you can watch it multiple times and still find new things to laugh about.

And what other show has an aged Henry Winkler doing the Fonzie thumbs in the mirror and jumping over a shark before being replaced by Scott Baio?

Unparalleled brilliance and excellence in comedy.

Why You Should Watch... Arrested Development
Direct Link

I'm not a massive Science Fiction buff as such. I grew up with a lot of shows like Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Quantum Leap, Star Trek, Doctor Who and Babylon 5 around on the television. Mostly shows my father liked to watch, I watched as well because they were more exciting than the soap opera's my sister and mother prefered and because I loved Star Wars and Doctor Who as a kid. Say what you like, I'll always be fond of Sylvester McCoy's time lord, especially in Rememberance of the Daleks.

But on the whole it's a category I'm not so forgiving about, I guess it's because Science Fiction in the media tends to become about the gubbins and the writers often have an overly strong reliance on convienient devices which do anything like say, the sonic screwdriver, or which magically fix the day.

But on the whole I can forgive these ommissions and other similar issues if the show itself is good enough in other aspects, solid characters, interesting plots or exciting villains. So this list does indeed contain the shows which have managed to rise above the limits of the standard science fiction tropes through one method or another.



Opening up this relatively short list is a real favourite of mine, starring the brilliant and craggy Lance Heinrikson as Frank Black; this dark science fiction/mystery/thriller/horror show is set in the same universe as The X-Files but was something I much preferred to watch.

A lot of this I can attribute to the dark and relatively low-key nature of the show, but also Lance and Terry O'Quinn's performances are a huge part of why I loved watching it. It's just a shame it was cancelled before being given a chance to reach the Millennium itself and close out it's meta-plot. Even the short X-Files episode 'Millennium' wasn't satisfying enough as it was clearly an X-Files episode with Frank Black in it - making it very different in tone to the rest of the show.

This seems as good a place as any to also mention Dan Owen's fan fiction 4th season of the show.



No matter how hard I try and put my finger on what it is exactly about Anthony Michael Hall's rendition of Stephen King's The Dead Zone, the actual reason eludes me somewhat. But for many reasons (some of which I wrote about a while back) The Dead Zone is one show I'll always have fond memories of. Memories somewhat sullied by the shows abrupt cancellation just as it was getting really amazing, but there is little I can do about that except hope to see

In essence the show was a riff on King's original book idea, introducing one new character near the beginning - Bruce, Johnny's physiotherapist - and seeing how his influence changed the outcome of the story. Without Bruce (as the show demonstrates in one episode) Johnny spirals off and becomes the driven, possessed lunatic who appears in the book. But with Bruce's aid the Johnny in this show instead becomes a more balanced individual, someone who's influence and psychic powers change the lives of others for good.

The last season did make some abrupt decisions about various characters and weakened the show a little. But the final trio of episodes ended on such an amazing set of notes that I was left clamouring for one final season to bring everything to a head. Sadly this was not to be.



Almost a summer companion show to The Dead Zone (for myself at least) The 4400 could almost be described as the precursor to Heroes. Over the past hundred or so years four thousand four hundred people were "abducted" or went missing for unknown reasons. Suddenly they are all returned at the same time in a flash of light, each and every one of them 'changed' somehow and then sent back for an unknown reason.

While it was a superhero science fiction show at heart, the show also dealt a lot with the issues of displacement and the losing of family ties. As the series progressed it dealt with a huge meta plot explaining and understanding why 'the 4400' were returned, who the opposition were and so forth. It was a fantastic story handed out in tantalising drips and drabs.

The show wasn't without it's hiccups though, there are a few moments which at the time felt almost like shark jumping incidents, the third season in particular was a little rough. But the fourth season hit a stride which was just staggering, especially towards the end of it's run - where it moved things into a whole new level and just left me almost speechless at it's cancellation. All it needed was one more season, but sadly it was retired by USA to make room for new shows - shows which still haven't made a significant splash...

And that's why I think any decent network would cancel a show before it's finished it's production season, in order to give the writers a chance to wrap things up for the viewers before ending.



Short lived, offbeat and wonderful. These three words could be used to describe any of Bryan Fuller's creations, the man seems to be able to create these marvelous shows with an off-beat and cultish style to them. Shows which always seem to die before their third season.

Dead Like Me is the longest lived of them, it ran for two seasons and managed a straight to DVD video which, while flawed and hurting from the lack of Mandy Patinkin and Laura Harris, did have some great moments. It's a show which charts the (un)life of one George Lass, a girl killed by a falling toilet seat on the first day of her first job. But for George that isn't the end, it's the beginning - as Rube (Patinkin) explains to her, she's been chosen to become a Reaper. One of the undead who has the job of ushering souls into the next life.

George joins Rube's group, a small selection who deal in people who die through accidents and murders - there's Mason, Roxy, Betty, Betty and later on Daisy. They meet Der Waffel hause where they are assigned their given souls (or reap) by Rube.

The show is eccentric and charming, on the surface it's dealing with the subject of death in a light but meaningful fashion. But deeper beneath that the show also deals with loss and depression, every single major character in the show is clinically depressed (apart from maybe Betty) but manifests it in a different manner.

It's this combination of humor, drama and Rube Goldberg style death sequences which make the show an enjoyable watch. It's got real heart and soul.


Witty, action packed, exciting and nothing short of plain brilliant - as the first of three shows from Joss Whedon to make it on this list Buffy is proof of Joss's writing talent. Not to mention the fantastic performances from the cast as well. Buffy is very much a modern classic of television, revitalising the horror genre by making it suitable for mainstream pre-watershed consumption.

The combination of wit, humour and horror works exceptionally well for Joss's style and gave the viewers an amazing freshman season which cemented the show's return. But it was the sophmore season that gave us the show's most memorable character - Spike. James Marsters' performance throughout the show is just magnetic, entertaining and all kinds of superb; ao personally it's Spike who really gives the show it's veritable bite and remains the primary draw for myself.



In essence a spiritual successor to Buffy, I personally prefer Supernatural - a decision I'm happy to admit is somewhat controversial. I can't exactly explain why of the two I rank this one ahead. But mostly I think it's because the show has learnt from Buffy, it's a humours and charming pastiche of the horror genre; willing to touch on any element of story telling, from folk lore and legends all the way up to B-Movies.

It also provides not only season long plots but also has run a five year meta plot which will close out this year. At every step of the way this plot has been interesting, gripping and each segment has ended with an incredible cliffhanger which leaves you just dying for more (and sometimes leaves the characters just dying). It's capable of being dark like Millennium but also light and witty like Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and Buffy itself.

Final judgment is reserved until I've seen the rest of the fourth season and the fifth one, but at the moment I have no hesitation in putting this one here in my Top Science Fiction/Horror/Fantasy Shows.




I thought about splitting this one into the pre and post cancellation versions of the show, as they do indeed have quite different feels to them. But in all honesty they are the same show, even if some of the style has altered somewhat.

The older, classic shows, have a quirky feel to them which is ramshackle and almost whimiscal. While the newer ones manage to keep some of that energy but improve on the style and substance of the show. Now yes, there are many flaws in this show - the most recent set had quite a few terrible episodes (Daleks in Manhattan and Love & Monsters to name two) and Russell T. Davies - while an exceptional writer for character emotion - always struggles to come up with a satisfactory conclusion for his stories short of just using some 'magic reset button'. But these can easily be forgiven when the show has such fantastic performances from it's leads (David Tennant, Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper and Catherine Tate in particular) and then even goes and gives us episodes like Blink, Human Nature, The Girl in the Fireplace, Father's Day and The Empty Child.

It's a show which started long before I was born and will mostly likely carry on long after I'm gone, and for that - and much, much more - I'll always love watching it, despite it's cheesy nature and varied episode quality.



Was there any doubt this would make an appearance on the list? When BSG is good, it's very good; and while the run wasn't perfection, some moments were decidedly ropey, the third season has vast tracts of episodes which I'll always skip if given the option and the end of the series really dragged on - it still managed to achieve an believable universe with some exceptionally awesome villains.

It's quite possibly one of the best shows of the decade and will most likely remain the definitive vision of the series. Far greater than it's fun but flawed 1980's counterpart and almost certainly stronger than any possible reimagining which might be lucking in the mind of Brian Singer.




Part science fiction, part superhero comic and part musical. Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog is one of three shows which demonstrate just how effective embracing the new age of media can be. Distributed for free on the internet Doctor Horrible swept up and carried along myself along with so many more watchers with it's brilliant blend of drama, comedy and singing.

The absolute star and gem of this is the talented and wonderful Neil Patrick Harris (a man who will make another appearance in one of the other lists) who gives a top notch performance as the titular Doctor Horrible. Supported with a commanding performance from Felicia Day and the lovely vision that is Nathan Fillon (wait, is that the right way round?) The show tapped into the public's love of super powers, villains and tunes you can really sing along to. Creating something which became instantly a classic while also showing where the future of television could be.

And fortunately for us, a sequel has been announced!


For such a short lived show it's almost surprising that I'm willing to put Firefly up there in the top position. But as I explained before there's so much to love about Firefly, and it's quite possible that the short lived nature of the show aids this. There are many shows which push on for just far too long, they keep churning out more and more seasons until things become tired and hackneyed or just plain stink. So the short length of the show is quite possibly of benefit here; Firefly just didn't have time to produce a bad episode, instead it's wonderful short run (and movie sequel) stand up beautifully and leave a lot of room for "what if" speculation about where things could have gone.

Add to this the western theme, witty dialog and fantastic performances from almost the entire cast combined with a fun (if rather unrealistic) 'universe' and you end up with a show I can go back and re-watch repeatedly.
Direct Link

So Rev/Views is approaching the two year mark and in the run up to the actual (non) event I'm revisiting the list I wrote a while back featuring my top 50 shows. But this time it's running under the guise of My Top Shows, because I'm not entirely sure at this point how many shows are going to be making an appearance.

This is because I've decided to split things up into genres rather than try and come up with a list of fifty or one hundred shows from television in general. It's very difficult to compare sitcoms to dramas for example, there's little to go on apart from a somewhat subjective case of "how much do I love this particular show?"

So instead I'll be looking at (and rating) my favourite shows in broad categories of genre. These categories include Action, Drama, Sci-Fi/Fantasy (not that any fantasy is likely to make it in right now - most TV Fantasy is bloody awful), Sitcoms, British, Documentaries, Kids and Other (Which will include things don't really fit anywhere else). Of course these genres are very arbitrary, most shows don't fit into just one genre, but doing it like this makes it easier to place shows without having to watch them compete for the top ten (which happened last time). Likewise the actual number in each category will be exceptionally arbitary as well; some might have five shows, others twenty. This isn't science you know!

This list starts later today and will run for the next few days in lieu of any DVD reviews or other random bits and bobs, but as the Fall season hasn't really kicked off yet it seems like a good time to get this out there now.

I hope you'll be willing to ask or talk about your favourites in each particular section!
Direct Link

I've been a fan of Chinese action Kung Fu movies for something around a half to two thirds of my life, ever since Channel 4 started showing classic Jackie Chan movies like 'A' Gai Wak (Project A), Long Xiong Hu Di (Armour of God), Se Ying Diu Sau (Snake in the Eagle's Shadow) and my personal favourite Kuai can che (Wheels on Meals). But of all the various martial arts movies I've watched over the years it's Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle which holds the (somewhat dubious) distinction of being the only movie more gripping than going for a pee.

Now that's a title which probably needs a little explanation; unfortunately the story isn't a gripping or exciting as the movie is. The short version is as follows, I went to watch the movie with several friends - including Snark and Fury (if I recall correctly, at the least I was sat next to his housemate of the time); and around twenty or thirty minutes into the movie the soft drink I'd consumed while watching the previews (side question: Do you also consume most of your snacks before the movie actually starts?) started to wreak it's vengeance on me. Normally if this happens I'll either pause (when at home) or wait for a lull period in the film (like a romantic scene or some extended talking/extrapolation) and nip out quickly. The problem here was that at no point did I find a spot where I wanted to walk away, I didn't want to miss a single moment of the movie - so for the remaining hour I had to exercise an iron will and banish the thought from my mind. The movie was entertaining and exciting enough that this was possible and it was only when the credits started that I had to run out of there at high speed, quite literally jumping over a few of the seats and the stairs to get out as fast as I could. The comment of 'There's someone who really needs the loo.' following after me.


To this day I can't exactly put my finger on what it is about Kung Fu Hustle which appeals so much, I suspect it's due to the sharp contrast it portrays when placed alongside the other style of kung fu movie which was in ascendancy at around that time, movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Accomplished and beautiful movies with spectacular fights and wire play, but lacking in that sense of fun and wit that first drew me to those Jackie Chan movies years back.

Kung Fu Hustle is nominally set in 1940's Shanghai, but it's not a semi-realistic adaptation of a traditional Chinese legend (like the Once Upon A Time in China series), instead it's an energetic and fast paced story which borrows and parodies elements from many other films and genres. Including, but not limited to The Matrix, Spider-man, Looney Toons cartoons and more. While it's definitely a member of the kung fu action comedy house, it also provides a story with heart and soul.


Sing (Stephen Chow - Writer, Producer) is a down and out street punk, surviving with his friend Donut (Zhi Hua Dong) by grifting hardworking peasantry by pretending to be members of the infamous and dangerous Axe Gang who have recently risen to ascendancy in the city and now control most of it. One day they attempt their special brand of con artistry in a low rent set of tenaments called 'Pig Sty Alley' and the resulting debacle sets up a series of events. Events that gradually escalate until the lines are clearly drawn between the inhabitants of the alley itself (who just happen to have some Kung Fu masters living there) on one side and the Axe Gang. Sing spins out of control through all of this, torn between his basically good nature and his desire to be a genuine bad ass criminal.

Eventually the Axe Gang turn towards increasingly dangerous kung fu masters in the hope to crush and defeat the masters of Pig Sty Alley and an arms race of a kind breaks out. Until the most dangerous master of them all, a man known only as The Beast, is released from the asylum in which he is kept by Sing (acting under the orders of the Axe Gang).

The only one who could possibly beat him and save would be a one in a million natural born kung fu master, 'The One' as referred to in a pastiche of The Matrix, and the final climatic series of fights result in some incredible moments of martial art skill mixed with wire play and CGI.


It's not like Kung Fu Hustle is a clever movie as such, but it has a real charm and wit to it which I enjoy immensely. It feels like the spiritual sucessor to those 1980s martial arts movies, but updated to take advantage of modern technology. The story as well feels like an evolution (or perhaps a parody) of the style used in the afformentioned movies; it's very fast paced, filled with convienient moments and plot holes but it just doesn't matter. The whole is just complete, unadulterated fun - high action, comedy and even a little romance thrown in to boot. It's my favourite Stephen Chow movie and one of my top martial art films as well.


All of which leaves me somewhat excited about Kung Fu Hustle 2.
Direct Link

First season review.

In my continuing mission to decide if the first three seasons of Family Guy are better than the later ones we move onto the second season. The first season turned out to be pretty decent, but was a little lack lustre in the earlier episodes, only really taking off after the halfway mark.

The second season marks an expansion to the cast with the addition of Adam West as, well, Mayor Adam West and Mila Kunis taking over from the lovely Lacey Chabert as Meg. Both of these changes prove to be fantastic, especially Adam West - who gives a wonderful self-deprecating performance as a deranged and frankly idiotic version of himself. Also, as I mentioned previously the change from Lacey to Mila allowed the show to take a more aggressive direction with the character of Meg, Lacey made her very sympathetic. But while Mila is accomplished at playing an unpleasant and shrill individual with great comic effect, the second season doesn't really take advantage of this, Meg remains somewhat normal and is treated (mostly) like any other member of the family.

The running order for my DVD set is different to the one listed elsewhere; as such I'm never quite sure which episodes are from the first and second season, but the set I have here contains Da Boom, Brian in Love, I Am Peter, Here Me Roar, A Picture is worth A 1000 Bucks, Fifteen Minutes of Shame, Road to Rhode Island, Let's Go to the Hop, Dammit Janet!, There's Something About Paulie, He's too Sexy for his Fat, E. Peterbus Unum, The Story on Page One, Wasted Talent, Fore Father and When You Wish Upon A Weinstein.

Some of the best running gags make their first appearance in this season; Adam West being one of them, but the excellent series premiere Da Boom also introduces the Chicken Fights, overly extended and exciting action sequences which occur between Peter and Ernie, the giant chicken. It also contains a few of my favourite one off TV Show spoofs, especially 'Sherry and the Anus'. Unfortunately it also introduces the terrible running gag of 'overly long moments' which is most typified by Peter scraping his shin in Wasted Talent. I've never found a single of those moments funny, I find them highly irritating and boring instead. Waste of my precious seconds those scenes are.

The best episodes in this season are Da Boom - with it's superb plotting and hilarious Dallas reference at the end; Fifteen Minutes of Shame - which partially parodies reality TV shows and partially attacks shows who replace an actor but keep the same character (something with Family Guy is guilty of, making the joke a double whammy); the amazing Let's Go to the Hop - an episode with a great musical number and one of the best stories in the season; He's Too Sexy for his Fat and Wasted Talent - with the brilliant (if over used) parody of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But on average the season is a lot tighter and better than the previous one, the pacing on the stories is stronger and the tempo of the show beats better. Likewise the voice acting has improved, and while the actors haven't found their exact groove yet they're getting there.

The second season shows a vast improvement over the previous one, which (as I've said before) is always desirable, a show should get better as time passes, not worse. You expect each season to show improvements otherwise there really wasn't much point to having a new season. This is the case here as the second season contains some of the best episodes in the show and a introduces a lot of the best running gags - alongside one really duff one (see above).

But it's the presence of Adam West who makes this such a great season to watch, he's dynamite!

Extras:
As before, there are none on my version, but I believe later editions have some.

Details:
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Rating: 15
Region: 2
Run time: 333 mins
Soundtrack: English 2.0 Surrounf
Subtitles: English HOH

*I wonder if I can manage to get to 101 DVD reviews before Rev/Views reaches the two year mark. Worth a try.
Direct Link

We're approaching the time where American television explodes in a huge burst of returning and brand new shows and I'm now figuring out exactly which ones I'd like to watch and which I can probably hang back on. I'm not so sure there are going to be that many good new shows this year, we seem to be in something of a creative drought as less risks are being taken. But there are many good shows returning to make up for this.

Sons of Anarchy:
If you've not watched the first season of this show then you've got a little time to catch up by doing so. Starring Ron Pearlman, Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal and more besides, this show is one of the semi-spiritual successors of The Shield, but is focused around a motorcycle gang and their lives. It's action packed, exciting, dark and uncompromising. Fans of action drama shows would do themselves a huge favour by checking this one out.

Nip/Tuck:
The show is winding down for their (apparently) final round of cutting and stitching. While Nip/Tuck's finest moments were mostly in the first two seasons it's remained consistently entertaining by not taking itself too seriously. I'm half a season behind on watching this one, so I'll probably catch up when it's shown on UK Terrestrial TV - but it's still something I'm looking forward to seeing the close of.

Dollhouse:
I won't be watching this one as it airs, because I found much of the first season to be very lackluster and weak. But I will be keeping an eye on it for later consumption by reading reviews on other sites. If there's enough praise going around I'll catch up on what I've missed and get back on board. Because anything from Josh Whedon needs attention paid to it.

Scrubs: The Next Generation
Or whatever they decide to call it. I will be swinging by to watch this one as I felt the quality returned to Scrubs in the eight season and I'm interested in a show starring Turk and Cox. It's one which could go either way if I'm honest, but it needs to be tried out before it's judged.

The Office & 30 Rock:
As long as they keep making these two I'll keep watching them, I don't think the quality has dropped at all in the entire time they've been on screen and right now I'm looking forward to many more years of them. I don't have much more to say, they're great shows.

Dexter:
While I felt the third season was pretty poor (by Dexter standards) I'll definitely be tuning in for the fourth season as Michael C. Hall's performance as Dexter alone should be enough to keep things interested - and from what I've seen of the previews John Lithglow should be exceptionally interesting as well. The show just needs to avoid being trapped into the same tropes it rehashed last season, it's needing to evolve and grow up a little. This season will be make or break for me, if it's like the previous season I'll probably stop watching the show for a long time.

How I Met Your Mother:
The end of the last season was so damn good it would be impossible for me to not want to watch this. They've taken another step forward in the story and brought us closer to finding out who the mother is. But frankly as long as Neil Patrick Harris continues to be in this, I'll continue to watch.

Supernatural:
This one might become a DVD show, because I missed out on the second part of season four when I moved home and it still hasn't been released on DVD here in the UK because the manufacturers are desperately trying to shift the seperate two parts of the season instead. As such it won't be until November before I can watch the entire fourth season. Stupid manufacturers.

There are also some shows which are now falling to the wayside. Heroes is one of these as I'm tired with the constant failures Tim Kring and his creative team keep bringing to the screen - so I won't be watching it again, ever (welcome to limbo Heroes, enjoy your time here with 24). House is something I've relegated to watching when it's released on DVD, likewise Bones.

And as for new shows, I haven't seen any which catch my eye yet apart from maybe Cougar Town; The Cleveland Show just looks like a terrible idea - but I'm open to suggestions right now.
Direct Link

Boasting to contain "The Beers and Tears of Twenty-Something Life" Two Pints of Lager & A Packet of Crisps has been running for so long that I can barely recall a time without it on the screen. In actual fact it's only been around since 2001, but this particular Brit-com can be considered to be an institution of the BBC - it's due two specials this year and a ninth series in 2010. (Wow, doesn't 2010 sound incredibly futuristic? Where's our flying cars?) But by reaching all the way back to 2001 we can find the first two series - which remain as entertaining and funny as when they were first released.

Two Pints is a fairly low brow comedy which derives a lot of it's humour from the low social state of it's characters, stereotypical reactions (especially the male ones) and their tendency to drink for recreation. It's part of the slight minority in British comedy due to it's working class feel, many other British sitcoms like Lead Balloon, My Family, Green Wing, Red Dwarf and so forth tend to feel more middle class (even when they're actually about working class people - Only Fools and Horses is a great example of this). I don't know exactly what it is which causes this, perhaps in Britain the vast majority of writers have parents who are Teachers, Doctors or Bureaucrats.

Whatever it is which does cause this distinctive feel to the comedy it's something which makes Two Pints an endearing and exceptionally British show; it's as British as the pub, chip shops and headbutts. And exceptionally funny to boot.

The first two series hold together as one story set over twelve episodes; I always appreciate sitcoms which have a sense of on going events and the passage of time. It's one of the reasons I love Arrested Development so much, and it's something I do like about Two Pints. The following episode will normally build on or continue the storyline from the preceding one, which makes things feel more seamless and also causes 'just one more' syndrome when watching on DVD - it's an exceptionally hard show to put aside.

Over the twelve episodes which make up the first and second series we're introduced to Jonny (Ralf Little), his girlfriend Janet (Sheridan Smith), his best mate Gaz (Will Mellor), Janet's best mate Donna (Natalie Casey) and the resident oddball Louise (Kathryn Drysdale) who embodies all things detestable about students, especially middle class female ones. The episodes themselves deal with a wide range of subjects, from strained bollocks and pregnancy through dogs and marriage all the way to infidelity and S&M with plenty of references to farting and drink along the way. Sophisticated Frasier type humour this is not, but it's still dead funny.

Performances across the board are fantastic; Ralph Little is superb as Jonny effortlessly playing a slightly bewildered man-child who barely manages to handle life at times. Will's performance as Gaz is so good I've almost forgiven him for appearing in not just Casualty but also Hollyoaks, and I've completely forgiven Natalie Casey for her stint in Hollyoaks as she's so lovely in this. Kathryn is wonderfully annoying as Louise - but I still can't forget the fact that she appeared in Love & Monsters (the worst Doctor Who Episode of all time). Finally there's Sheridan Smith, who's just so amazingly fantastic as Janet - she clicks perfectly together with Ralph Little, but that's not surprising as they played boyfriend and girlfriend on The Royale Family as well (A comedy show I've never gotten along with).

If I had one criticism it would be that both Ralph and Gaz are a lot less rounded than Donna and Janet (Louise is essentially a walking single punch-line), they often react in very stereotypical ways, especially from the point of view of a woman. But this series is written by Susan Nickson, so the slightly shallower moments can be forgiven - the fact that they're often funny as well helps.

Still, Two Pints is a show which remains laugh out loud funny even though these two series airred at the start of the decade, perhaps things haven't changed enough in our society as the vast majority of the jokes remain relevant and fresh even to this day. I do know it's one of the few shows I can watch alone and still laugh at, which makes it unusual because I normally only laugh when watching something with company. And that's a ringing endorsment for a great show.
Direct Link

I've chosen to write about Ridley Scott's classic horror/sci-fi movie Alien in the first part of the new Film Friday series for a few reasons. Alien is a film which has influenced or at least been involved in a lot of my life, back when it was first released in the UK my parents went to go and see it (or at least my father dragged my mother along to watch it). But, as my mother is also prone to reminding me, I also went along to the cinematic showing of this film as she was pregnant with me at the time. I can only imagine how being pregnant would have influenced her experience of the film, it's certainly resulted in her consistently mentioning that same anecdote just about every time the movie Alien is mentioned. I'm not sure how I should take this and sometimes I wonder if I'm being compared (by her) to the Alien in the movie.

Fast forward about a dozen or so years and one of the more vivid memories from my childhood is my father proudly sitting me down before bedtime and showing me the opening scenes from Alien. The scenes with the lights coming on inside the Nostromo and the stasis pods opening up remain branded into my consciousness even to this day. Mostly because after showing a few of the opening scenes my father stopped the film and said "The rest of the film is horrible and scary so I won't show you it." and then sent me to bed. I didn't sleep well for quite a few nights after that, there's nothing quite like an active imagination to keep one from falling asleep without disturbing dreams...

It is worth saying that Alien was not actually the first movie in the franchise I watched in full, that prize goes to it's action packed sequel Aliens (which I'll probably touch on in a later issue of Film Friday), but it is definitely the one which left the biggest mark on me thanks to the actions of my parents. And there is no doubt that it's an iconic and brilliant film which holds up alongside and even shames many modern films (especially some of it's own later sequels).

It's hard to write anything original about Alien as it's such a critically acclaimed, influential and iconic movie, as has been noted numerous times before the structure of the movie is very simple - it's a haunted house/slasher movie in space, but the execution of the movie is something which turns the whole thing into much, much more than that.

The start of the film builds very slowly; establishing the setting, the technology and the characters with an almost leisurely pace. From the reflection of the computer screen on the empty space suit helmet onwards the show almost effortlessly crafts a world which feels real with it's low-tech approach to science fiction. The Nostromo is a brutish, ugly construct and the interior scenes continue the functional style of the exterior. There are no elegant, swooping curves or doors that go 'swoosh, beep' on this ship. Instead there are broken pipes and crew members complaining about their cut in the shares.

Which brings me smoothly onto the characters, the slow build of Alien gives us a chance to get to know these people - the engineers Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) and Parker (a pre-Homicide Yaphet Kotto), their amusing cliquishness towards Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and complaining about money. Ripley herself is also far more interesting here than in later movies and Weaver gives a great performance as the sole survivor while Tom Skerritt is on top form as the bearded and pragmatic Dallas. It's only Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) who is somewhat forgettable in this. But the most memorable performances (aside from the barely glimpsed xenomorph) lay with Ian Holm as the semi-villainous artificial human 'simulant' Ash and of course there is John Hurt who was described as "The Man" in Coupling because of the power and disturbing nature of that famous dining scene. Embodying all the male fears about pregnancy in the space of a few moments it's a scene which has been homaged, referenced and parodied more times than I'd care to count. It's a scene for all ages it's the most memorable of all the deaths in the movie (the other two which I always recall are Ash's - because of the sheer brutality and crudeness of it and Dallas' for the tension and sudden release at the end).

The final two characters in the film are the computer Mother (voiced by Helen Horton) and the titular alien itself, who was played by the 7' 2" tall Bolaji Badejo. It's pretty much his only time in the world of film, but he gives an exceptional physical performance, greatly enhanced and aided by the adage "less is more". Unlike some of the more modern horror movies Alien avoided showing too much of it's antagonistic monster/killer, partially because it was quite literally a man in a rubber suit (and would have looked almost comedic) and partially because the human imagination of things unseen is far more potent than anything actually seen. Keeping the alien in the shadows and just providing partial glimpses or sudden visions of it - a method I appreciate far more than the ultra detailed horror which has moved into vogue right now. There's nothing more frightening than the unknown.

These days it's difficult to watch the movie without considering all of the baggage which the franchise has gathered. While the movie Aliens (which I'll certainly write about later) is a worthy, if different, successor - the later movies are a series of let downs and by the time the franchise rolls into the Predator one things are stinking to high heaven (On a side note the computer game series for Aliens vs. Predator is a far superior creation, the story for AvP2 in particular is amazing and it's a real shame it wasn't adapted when the AvP movies were announced.) Alien itself is a superb example of science-fiction and horror at it's finest, and not amount of obviously dated computers present in the movie can detract from the experience. It's certainly a contender for the best movie of 1979 and one I am able to watch and re watch time and time again.
Direct Link