Upstairs Downstairs….165 Eaton Place gets a facelift

Scheduled for Boxing Day (26 December) on BBC One, with parts two and three to follow the next two days, UK viewers don’t have long to wait before we return to 165 Eaton Place (U.S. premiere is set for April 10, 2011 on Masterpiece Classic). On the surface, the challenge of bringing back perhaps the […]

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Up next for Life on Mars creators…

Word out of the UK has the Life on Mars creators being commissioned to write a series about two angels sent to Earth to become lawyers. Hey, I can’t make this stuff up. The team of Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham will work with Kudos Film and Television (Spooks, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, […]

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BBC/PBS DVR alert: 165 Eaton Place is back

Good news no matter what side of the pond you find yourself on as we approach the holiday season. No, not talking about the upcoming Doctor Who “A Christmas Carol” special. While I am waiting for that Steven Moffat gem, I’m really looking forward to something much more classic. Television’s most famous address, 165 Eaton Place, opens […]

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Dateline New Orleans: 2010 BBC Showcase

Working extremely hard on your behalf, it’s Thursday and we find ourselves in New Orleans attending the third annual BBC Syndication Showcase meeting. New Orleans?  BBC? Fair questions. Well, this is THE meeting where public television programmers from around country sit in a room for several days screening BBC programming for possible acquisition and broadcast. As […]

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165 Eaton Place in the 21st Century

“This is not a remake but a completely new version, set in a different era with a whole new cast of characters.” That quote, in itself, from Piers Wenger, head of drama at  BBC Wales, makes me really wish it was 2011 already when the new Upstairs Downstairs comes to PBS’ Masterpiece series to celebrate their […]

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Last of the Summer Wine meets The Player

Now that reality has set in from last week’s announcement of the longest running sitcom in history, Last of the SummerWine, calling it quits, the Den of Geek offers up some of their best pitches to Last of the Summer Wine writer, Roy Clarke. In a scene reminiscent of Robert Altman’s The Player where the pitch […]

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Forget Lost & 24 – Think Ashes to Ashes

With all the talk centered around the final episode of Lost, Simon’s not on American Idol anymore, 24 is done after 9 seasons, you’d think television, as we know it, will cease to exist with the beginning of the 2010-2011 season. A couple of years ago, it was the end of The Sopranos and we […]

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US v. UK – a view from the 'other side of the pond'

Debra Craine with the TimesOnline opens the debate as to “Who Owns the Small Screen Now?” by asserting that, quite possibly, the Americans are winning the battle. One quick note, she’s talking solely about British vs. American drama here, not comedy. While I can agree with some of what she says when citing the likes […]

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Death at a Funeral – Netflix queue alert

This weekends release of the Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence film, Death at at Funeral, just firmly puts the ball on the tee and gives me yet another opportunity to rant once more about American remakes of British comedies. The new film, which also stars Danny Glover and Tracy Morgan has a chance based on cast […]

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Sherlock leaps to the 21st Century

While it’s sometimes difficult to get excited or even interested in adaptations of classic novels or literature, there’s one coming up that has me in an “I can’t wait” mentality. As we reported last month, the greatest detective of all-time, Sherlock Holmes, is entering the 21st Century, as written by Steven Moffat, the ingenious mind […]

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