Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it's judged suitable and doesn't obviously infringe copyright, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery. Don't forget to include your name in the filename so I don't get mixed up about who sent it to me.
The best pic in the stash each week will appear on Tuesday and get ten points; the runners up will appear on Friday (one per person who sends one in) and get five points.
You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Tuesday's Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.
1983 was a time of change in the US. Ronald Regan was president. The power of technology was on the ascendant. Manliness was back in vogue. And people were worried about law and order and being soft on crime. Indeed, one frequent claim made was that guilty criminals were escaping the justice system on technicalities.
Hardcastle & McCormick was one of the shows that latched onto all those concerns and prospered for three seasons on ABC as a result. The show was created by TV wunderkind Stephen J Cannell, who wrote 450 episodes of TV shows, produced or exec-produced over 1,500 episodes, and created or co-created no fewer than 40 television series including The Rockford Files, The Greatest American Hero, The A-Team, Wiseguy, 21 Jump Street, Silk Stalkings and The Commish.
Its set-up was relatively simple: Judge Milton C Hardcastle (Brian Keith) is about to retire. However, he's kept track of 200 criminals who escaped on technicalities and he plans to go after them in retirement and get them locked up. His final case is Mark McCormick (Daniel Hugh Kelly), a car thief who steals a prototype sports car, the Coyote X, which was designed by his best friend before he was murdered. Through a legal technicality, Hardcastle is able to take McCormick into his custody and McCormick accepts rather than go to jail. With McCormick living in the judge's guest house, together they go after those 200 crims, helped just a little – and with a compulsory number of award-winning stunt scenes – by the Coyote X.
Curiously, the show had three different title sequences and two different theme tunes. The more famous and the best theme tune was 'Drive', written by another TV wunderkind, Mike Post, who composed the themes for shows including Law & Order, NYPD Blue, The Rockford Files, LA Law, Quantum Leap, Magnum, P.I., Hill Street Blues, The A-Team, CHiPs, MacGyver and Murder One. That accompanied the first season's title sequence:
Then for the second season, the show switched to a dreadful country music theme.
Viewer outcry was enormous and it wasn't long before 'Drive' was reinstated for the rest of the second season as well as for the third season.
While no classic of writing, Hardcastle & McCormick's appeal was relatively clear: as well as the camaraderie between the two leads, this was largely an adrenaline-fuelled show, with some surprisingly well directed high-speed car scenes involving the Coyote X, in actuality a Manta Montage kit car based on the McLaren M6GT with a Porsche 914 engine.
All the same, after three years, Hardcastle & McCormick's appeal had diminished enough that it wasn't renewed for a fourth season. But for adrenaline junkies, it is at least all all available on DVD.
There won't be a question of the week for the next couple of weeks since I'll be on holiday. So in my usual opportunistic way, I'm going to ask my traditional, pre-holiday Question of the Week:
Are there any books you'd recommend for holiday reading, preferably available on the Kindle?
As always, leave a comment with your answer or a link to your answer on your own blog
Time for "What have you been watching this week?", my chance to tell you what I've been watching this week and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case we've missed them.
My recommendations for maximum viewing pleasure this week: Burn Notice,Royal Pains, Penn and Teller: Fool Us, Sirens, Suits, The Daily Show, and Wilfred.
The shows I'm watching, which you might like, but which I wouldn't necessarily recommend: Come Dine With Me,Top Gear, and True Blood.
Now to the irregulars and new things, as well as a few thoughts on some of those regulars. We're still watching BSG, although we got slowed down with the "worthy but choresome" season four, which was hard going. But that's left little time for other TV:
Web Therapy: Lisa Kudrow has been doing a little three-minute web-based series called 'Web Therapy' for some time. In it, she plays an unlicensed and very broken therapist who offers people therapy over the Internet, including exs, her husband and others. Now Showtime has bundled them all together into 30-minute episodes, with little interstitials between them to act as glue. It has to be said, it's not all that funny, although it has its moments of wry grinning to offer you. It's clearly something, however, that could be good once it has a bit more budget for script editors and the like. Just not yet.
Franklin & Bash: As promised, I tuned in again to see if it had improved. While it's not quite as misogynistic as before, it's still stupid and immature, but without any real pizzazz. Surprising guest star: James van der Beek, who's having something of a career revival of late – just not here.
Top Gear: Dull.
And in this week's list of movies:
Captain America: Not as fun as I hoped it was going to be, but not bad, with a surprising Indiana Jones vibe. Obviously not as good as Thor, it's pretty much the first part of The Avengers, with everything interesting postponed until that movie, including a decent finale. It's also a little underpowered, with not much action worth mentioning at all. All the same, it has some nice touches, the romance is quite touching in places and the action when it does turn up is good.
Thor: Yes, the fourth time we've seen this now. Still awesome.
But what have you been watching?
"What have you been watching this week?" is your chance to recommend to friends and fellow blog readers the TV and films that they might be missing or should avoid - and for me to do mini-reviews of everything I've watched this week. Since we live in the fabulous world of Internet catch-up services like the iPlayer and Hulu, why not tell your fellow readers what you've seen so they can see the good stuff they might have missed? And keep an eye on The Stage's TV Today Square Eyes feature as well for British TV highlights or you'll be missing out on the good stuff.
Hebbie's provided us with this frightening attack of Jazz Hands this week that will hopefully inspire captions. 10 points to her.
Hebbie: 205
Sister Chastity: 170
Erin C: 90
Rullsenberg: 55
Janice: 20
esgaril: 10
theriverlady, Toby: 5
It's a difficult call this week, with excellent entries from everyone including new arrival Janice (or is it the previous Janice coming back after all these years?), but I think I'm going to have to award the 10 points to Rullsenberg and SK. Five points to everyone else who contributed and they were all great.
Next week's caption competition will be on Monday, because I'm going on holiday for a fortnight next Tuesday and this way you'll have something to play with while I'm away. Hopefully that accelerated deadline will get your creative juices flowing, too.
Marie: 175
Rullsenberg: 150
SK: 110
Toby: 100
Electric Dragon: 95
Jane Henry: 50
Lisa G: 45
theriverlady: 35
Hebbie, Virpi: 20
Joe B: 15
whoficwriter, Jeri: 10
kallan, Janice: 5
Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it's judged suitable and doesn't obviously infringe copyright, it will appear in the Sitting Tennant gallery. Don't forget to include your name in the filename so I don't get mixed up about who sent it to me.
The best pic in the stash each week will appear on Tuesday and get ten points; the runners up will appear on Friday (one per person who sends one in) and get five points.
You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Tuesday's Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.
For anyone dying to see the whole of the 2011 Wonder Woman pilot, you can now go to the end of last week's Lost Gems review to watch it. You have been warned though.
Alternatively, you could watch this instead. It's intentionally tongue in cheek at least.
Doctor Who Future Torchwood depends on Rusty's schedule; Karen Gillan joins Not Another Happy Ending; Film Trailer for Like Crazy; British TV PBS planning a British channel; UKTV to launch three more HD channels on Sky, joins Sky Anytime+; Penn & Teller: Fool Us finishes on 3m viewers; Downton… Continue reading
The heat's obviously getting to him. Hebbie: 195; Sister Chastity: 170; Erin C: 90; Rullsenberg: 55; Janice: 20; esgaril: 10; theriverlady, Toby: 5; Don't forget Tuesday's caption competition! Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to… Continue reading
As you may recall, Sky can produce quite lovely PR gifts in an effort to get me to write about their programmes. However, this week, they've gone in exactly the opposite direction. To promote their new comedy, Trollied, which stars Jane Horrocks, they've sent me these: Utterly useless and a… Continue reading
Film Robert Patrick joins Gangster Squad; Ali Larter to star in feature version of The Rambler; Kevin Bacon to join RIPD?; Proper quality final scene + condensed post-credit scene from Captain America; Trailer for Tower Heist with Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy; British TV Little Crackers to return to Sky… Continue reading
About the blog
This is a UK media blog with daily news, views, exclusive reviews and good conversation. There's a bit of a bias towards the latest and greatest US TV, but we also cover British TV ranging from new Doctor Who to old Z Cars, and BBC4 to S4C.
Add in film, theatre, art, books, events and competitions and you've (hopefully) got officially the fourth best blog on the web for media lovers. Oh yes, and there's The Carusometer, the ultimate guide to quality TV.
About me
I'm Rob Buckley, a freelance journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of, although you might have heard me on Radio 5 Live's Saturday Edition. I've edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for trade magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider and the equally short-lived Death Ray and Filmstar magazines; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it "web site for urban hedonists" The Tribe. I'm freelance now and have contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network and TV Scoop.
.jpg "Hebbie's Sitting Tennant")
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