Tales From The Crypt
Introduced by a rather wrinkly skeleton with a a delight in the macabre, the Crypt Keeper tells us short story after short story relating to nasty folk getting their comeuppance.
Running for 7 seasons (the last season filmed in the UK) and based on the comic of the same name, Tales from the Crypt was fun. It was also ground breaking for the license they took and were allowed to take regarding death scenes, sex, nudity, blood, gore and profanity...everything a horror show should revel in.
If you're still unsure, just look at this list of executive producers and then get watching;
Richard Donner (Superman, Superman II, Lethal Weapon)
Joel Silver (Commando, Lethal Weapon, Matrix)
Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Who framed Roger Rabbit?)
Walter Hill (The Warriors, Alien series)
Danny Elfman even did the music!
Miracles
Some actors fit into to certain roles. They're often stereotyped, sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes because they've found the only role they'll ever manage. Miracles gives us Skeet Ulrich playing another cult role. Prior to the ill fated Jericho, Ulrich played Paul Callan, an investigator for the Catholic Church, tasked with confirming or debunking possible miraculous events. Having borne witness to said event and being told to ignore it by his superiors, Callan is head hunted by a fella called Alva Keel (Angus Macfadyen), who runs his own investigatory agency. Following Callan's own miraculous event, that of his blood forming a holy message from God (GOD IS NOW HERE), he decides to band together with Keel and continue his search for evidence of divine intervention and help a few folk along the way.
It's good. Most episodes end on a thought provoking and often arm hair-raising sentiment. Shame the studio mismanaged the broadcast time slot.
You automatically have to lend credence to a tv show that uses W.G. Snuffy Walden (West Wing).
Defying Gravity
Produced in 2009, Defying Gravity stars Ron Livingstone (Band of Brothers, Office Space) and Laura Harris (Dead Like Me, Faculty) as members of an 8 strong team of scientist/astronauts in the year 2052, flung into space on a mission to uncover the origins of the universe, all the while transmitting footage of their mission back home.
It's a great sci-fi series. It harks back to classic sci-fi productions, faithful, inventive and as ever, cancelled after it's first season, just as it was getting good. If you watch it and desperately need the answers that invariably arrive when a network cancels a show, the creator has given an interview online.
DeadWood
Gritty, raw, brave and full of bad language, Deadwood ran for three seasons between 2004-06 and had that edgy factor that kept the audience wanting more.
Think of every cowboy film/tv show you ever saw, think of how diluted they were, think of the target audience (daytime viewers), then think of what life would truely have been like. Deadwood at no point shrinks from the gutteral approach that made it an iconic show. Starring Timothy Olyphant as the had hitting sheriff and Ian McShane as the gruff, brazen saloon/whorehouse proprietor, the back and forth between the two in this growing mining town, the pair battling for control and the use of almost shakespearian language, make this TV event something that all fans of well written drama should revel in.
Justified
Superb for two reasons, 1-it's based on Elmore Leonards novels Pronto and Riding the Rap and 2-it's still on! So many amazing TV shows are cancelled after either their first season or half way through the second, infuriating us all I'm sure.
Plot: U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant-Hitman, Live Free and Die Hard) is relocated from his posting in Miami, after a 'Justified' shooting of a mobster and sent back home to Kentucky. Raylan continues his hard but fair approach to law and order while dealing with his criminal father, ex-wife, high school crush and various drug dealing degenerates.
Brilliant and it's been renewed for a third series.
Babylon 5
Created by Michael j.Straczynski and running for 5 seasons and 6 spin-off films, this epic of TV is exactly that.
The show follows the adventures and turmoils of a spacestation and it's inhabitants and social/political structure. Simply put, it tackles every aspect of human culture, mixes it with alien life and is set in space. What more can you hope for? It helps that the creator is a very talented individual, responsible for the latest run in the Marvel-Thor comic series, as well as penning the Kenneth Branagh feature just released.
Watch this from beginning to end. Watch the films. Watch the short lived spin-off series, Crusade and watch in wonderment at the joys of Babylon 5.
Quantum Leap
Simply put, this is one of the more/most sci-fi significant TV shows to ever be created. As a child it filled me with every emotion.
Scott Bakula is Sam, a scientist from the near future who creates and tests a new invention...on himself. Turns out, said machine has the power to transport you anywhere within your own life-time and into anybody. So Sam leaps from person to person, correcting the errors in their lives and then leaping onto the next person, seemingly without end.
The beauty of this series lies within the connection between Sam and his friend Al (Dean Stockwell), who appears as a hologram that only Sam can see and hear (sometimes dogs see him too). Their relationship is profound and funny in equal measure.
Best episodes: When Sam meets the Devil and the finale. Both incredible.
5 Series and 96 episodes...all well worthwhile.
Fun Fact: As of 2010, there is a feature script in the offing!!!!
X-Files
What can you really say about a TV show that ran for 9 series, 9 years, a spin-off series or two (The lone Gunmen, Millenium) and a couple of movies?
Written by Chris carter and starring David Duchovny (Californication, sex god) and Gillian Anderson (goddess) as a pair of intrepid FBI agents, drawn into the troubling world of alien rectum exams, chain smoking and abductions. What's not to love about this? A generation were glued.
Twin Peaks
What can you say about this show? Complex, confusing, funny, thoughtful, jumpy, thrilling...quite a lot it would seem. It's a work of genius by the film director David Lynch.
There's been a murder in a sleepy little town (guess the name) and as such, an FBI agent (Kyle Maclachlan) is sent to investigate. Now, he's not ya traditional agent, he's a tad perculiar, but he's brilliant too. There's a brothel, an abusive husband, a distraught family, a biker boy, a random 'little person' who pops up every now and then and a freaky guy that hides behind the family sofa. It's all a bit squiffy really, but a thought provoking delight from beginning to every following episode.
Running for two seasons and making use of a tie in film (Fire Walk With Me), Twin Peaks is one of those break through television events, think Lost, meets The Prisoner and you're on the same track for a once in a decade marvel.
Wonderfalls
Like many cult series, there often seems to be an element of the odd/bizarre and none more so in this single seasoned show from 2004. Wonderfalls is the name of the Niagra Falls gift shop, where our lead character, Jaye Tyler experiences enforced epiphanies...always from inanimate animal toys, who deem to give her cryptic clues to helping other people. Not that she want's to do this, she's ya typical under-achiever and more than happy to while away the hours watching old advertising films, drinking in the local bar and sleeping in her trailer.
It's a show with charm. It was never likely to stay on long, it just wasn't broad enough in appeal, but it was fun and despite the lack of a second season.
Fun Fact: Jewel Staite of Firefly and Stargate Atlantis fame makes a few appearances as a cheating wife.
Jericho
This is a show you might expect to have survived...and it almost did.
Nuclear attacks rain throughout the US and we pick up the action right after, following the loner son, returning to his little hamlet home town and using his suspect survival/army/mercenary skills to help the town cope with the tragedy.
This is a definiate cult. The show lasted...1 and a bit seasons (the second cancelled after 7 episodes).
Despite the alert that you will never know the ending, this is well worth the attention.
Tremors
Carrying on from the established characters of the previous four films, this short lived (as with most cult series) sci-fi themed show follows the adventures of Burt Gummer (the armed and dangerous survivalist nut) and a small community that co-habit Perfection, a giant killer worm infested town in the American desert.
As with the immensely popular films, this is a treat which does more than you'd expect for a low budget series, but as do the b-movies it's based upon... maybe it's no surprise.
Beware el blanco!
To be reviewed...
American Gothic
Space: above and beyond
Jeremiah
Deadwood
Lost in Space
