There seems to be an unusual amount of watchable TV on at the moment.
No, I am not talking about “Ugly Betty” (which I am addicted to), but genre offerings such as “FlashForward”, “Defying Gravity” and “True Blood”.
I have seen pretty scathing criticisms of all of these shows, but I am still watching and enjoying them all.
Now there is another one. Tonight, on BBC1, “Paradox”: “Mysterious images that show incidents 18 hours before they happen are transmitted from space. As a space scientist attempts to explain their source, detectives race against time to change the future.…”
Hmmm, doesn’t that sound a little familiar?
Quoting the lead actress, Tamzin Outhwaite: “Initially I thought it was a sci-fi project. Then I read the script and realised it wasn’t. It’s about police officers trying to work out whether there is a worm hole between two time zones.”
As Ansible says, ‘As Others See Us’.
Oh, that does want to go into Ansible.
Is this a series? Just what I need, another series (NCIS, NCIS-LA, FlashForward, and the Sarah Jane Adventures). Oh, but the Sarah Jane Adventues will be ending soon, so that will free up a viewing slot.
SJA has now ended. (But season 4 is in “early pre-production”, awaiting a (very likely) green light.)
OK, it seems I owe Tamzin Outhwaite a big apology.
She was right, that wasn’t sci-fi, by any stretch of the imagination.
Amusing, though, that the first episode of a series called Paradox did not actually contain one.
Remember I’m a week behind. The last one I downloaded (and haven’t yet watched) was #12, was that the last in the season?
Yep. Six weeks, 12 eps, thatsherlott! =:o
11&12 get their BBC1 airings this week (Thu & Fri), then on Saturday CBBC starts repeating the whole season.
(Useful reference page for such news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgb3/episodes/upcoming. they call it an episode guide, which it isn’t; it’s an “upcoming screenings” guide.)
So was it worth watching anyway?
I would say not, although others may think differently. I barely managed to sit through to the end.
It did not bode well for a science fiction/police story, that not even the police elements were convincing, before we even got to the science fiction. In the first couple of minutes (this is not a spoiler, as it was merely introducing the characters), we see two detectives in a car, apparently on surveillance. Over the radio we hear, quite clearly:
“All units from control, black man approaching.”
I’m sorry, but even the Bill gets that right – “IC3 male approaching”.
Suffice to say, it didn’t get any better.
I happen to think they did one thing really well, at the end, but that would be a spoiler, and it didn’t involve anybody’s acting.