Primeval is back!I

It’s not all that often you hear of tv shows being resurrected after seeming being so unceremoniously dumped by the commissioning channel. However it seems, just like the dinos in Jurrasic Park, Primeval has managed to become un-extinct thanks to a deal between ITV1, BBC America, UKTV channel Watch, Germany’s Pro7 channel, and Primeval’s creators Impossible Pictures for 2 more season of the show!

ITV1 will premiere Primeval season 4 in early 2011, with Watch repeating it soon afterwards, with BBC America and Pro7 handling the worldwide distribution. Primeval season 5 will then follow on, giving us 13 brand new episodes in total!

Laura Mackie, director of ITV drama commissioning, added: “We’re delighted to have agreed this new deal with Impossible to return Primeval to ITV1. The innovative nature of this partnership will allow the show to maintain its high production values.”

I’m quite pleased about this. I’d missed the 2nd season, but with no Doctor Who to clash with it this year, i watched all of the 3rd season and rather enjoyed it. What do you think? Happy it’s back, or should it have been left extinct? Leave your comments!

source

Meant to post this last week and forgot. But for those of you that haven’t already seen it – Dr. Horrible Intercepts the Emmys…

Robot Chicken Season 2

Over the weekend (in-between PS3 gaming sessions and a House marathon running on tv) I had a chance to preview a bunch of episodes from season 2 of Seth Green‘s manic stop motion sketch show  - Robot Chicken.

Due out on DVD in the UK on 28th September 2009, Robot Chicken’s 2nd season continues the insane, funny, and it some places just plain wrong (but in a good way), humour of Seth Green and his ever expanding cast of voices. Along with series regulars such as Seth MacFarlane & Alex Borstein (from Seth’s other gig – Family Guy) or Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy), you also get a quite unbelievable number of guest vocal talent. It never ceases to amaze me how they manage to get people to parody themselves. You see a sketch in the show featuring a Playmobil Hugh Heffner in a Playmobil Playboy Mansion, or David Hasselhoff in Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Beastmaster : The Musical, only to watch the end credits to find that it actually was Heff and the Hoff.

As usual sketches range from the genuis 5 second 1 liners, to full 5min routines, with jokes ranging from high, to very low brow, but ultimately always still funny. The only place the show struggles a bit has nothing to do with it’s quality, but is some of cultural references. A couple of sketches reference US shows or toys may not translate immediately over to a UK audience, they should however still make you laugh.

Robot Chicken Season 2 is weird, funny, and at times wildly inappropriate (I particularly enjoyed Jesus and the Argonauts and Lil’ Hitler sketches), but if you like off the wall humour, it’s well worth the purchase.

8/10 – Insane, inappropriate, and extremely funny.

ROBOT CHICKEN is back and this time it’s personal! Season 2 of the toy murderin’, attention-span shatterin’ TV series comes to DVD on the 28^th September 2009.

A special edition box-set containing seasons 1, 2 and the never-seen-before season 3 will also be available on 28^th September.

Created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, Robot Chicken Season 2 is a no-holds-barred assault on popular culture featuring celebrity abuse and doll-on-doll violence. Utilising stop-motion animation Robot Chicken Season 2 is 20 fifteen minute episodes of fastly-paced sketches. This series no celebrity is safe from the Robot Chicken treatment.

ROBOT CHICKEN SEASONS 1, 2 & 3 feature an impressive list of vocal talent from creator Seth Green and features a slew of regular guest stars such as Seth McFarlane (Family Guy), Scarlett Johansson, Ashton Kutcher, Zac Efron, Vince Vaughan, Snoop Dogg and Christian Slater. Highlights of Season 2 include Lindsay Lohan entering the world of Highlander and decapitating Hilary Duff, Bugs Bunny goes Hip Hop with Porky Pig, Elmer Fudd and Dr Dre make a comic nod toand‘8 Mile’, George Bush discovers he has Jedi powers, The Foo Fighters forge an unlikely alliance (with who?) and tribute is paid to Michael Jackson in a zombie Thriller show down….

Following the recent DVD release of ROBOT CHICKEN: STAR WARS EPISODE 2 which entered the TV charts in the number No. 1 spot.

ROBOT CHICKEN SEASONS 1,2 & 3 feature every episode of the Emmy Award-winning  show. This special edition brings all the hilarity of Robot Chicken in one hit. Featuring all the regular voices and more celebrity cameo’s than you can mention in one release! Highlights from season 3 include Sarah Michelle Geller pedaling a Japanese yeast infection cream, Albert Einstein and his wife have couple’s therapy and voice over artist has trouble while cutting a Michael Bay trailer as his voice is drowned out by constant explosions!

www.adultswim.co.uk/dvd

Nokia N900

I have a confession… I’m getting a bit bored with the iPhone. I know it’s a good phone, but I have a 1st Gen, and to be honest, i really can’t face A – forking out a lot of cash on a new phone, and B – being stuck on some, frankly hideous, tariffs on O2 (i’m currently out of contract, and therefore don’t have to have the standard O2 iphone rip off tariffs). I actually wouldn’t mind paying a bit for the phone, but with a cheap tariff, or a free phone with a pricer tariff, but with the iPhone, it seems to be pricey phone AND pricey tariff… Then i saw the Nokia N900…

The new N900 is Nokias debut Maemo device (Maemo is Nokia’s Linux based OS). Nokia say the concept behind the N900 is simply to enable the user to experience a proper desktop-like experience in a pocket-size device.

The N900 specs are pretty impressive with a powerful ARM Cortex-A8 processor, up to 1GB of application memory and OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics acceleration. Plus the new Maemo 5 software should also let you multi-task like you would on a normal desktop PC meaning you can easily jump between apps running simultaneously. The N900 also has:

• High-res WVGA touchscreen
• Physical slide-out QWERTY keyboard,
• 32GB of storage (expandable up to 48GB with a microSD card)
• 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics.
• A-GPS
• FM transmitter
• 9 hours of talk time
• Mozilla based browser
• Full Adobe Flash 9.4 support (take THAT iPhone!)
• HSPA and Wi-Fi connectivity

Nokia-N900

Really, it seems to do all the things the iPhone can – plus a number of things it can’t (really Apple – still no Flash support?! Seriously!?)

The Nokia N900 should be on sale 4th  quarter of 2009 and will cost around 500 Euros (excluding the usual subsidies). A quick google round, and i’ve already found someone offering it free with a new Vodafone contract on a £30 tariff (24 month). It does look like the iPhone is starting to get some serious competiton.

If anyone at Nokia would like to send us one, get in touch, we’d be more than happy to put it through a proper GeekTest.

Obi Wan - Probably won't be shopping at Tescos

Story from the Telegraph this morning (thanks to D for spotting it).

“The founder of the Star Wars-inspired Jedi faith has accused Tesco of religious discrimination after he was banned from wearing a hood in one of its stores.”

Staff apparently threw 23yr old Daniel Jones (a founder of the International Church of Jediism), out of the store in Bangor, North Wales after he refused to remove his hood claiming it was part of his religion. According to the handbook of the UK Jedi Church, “Jedis must wear a hood up in any public place of a large audience.” “I walked past a Muslim lady in a veil. Surely the same rules should apply to everyone.”

I have to think Daniel does kinda have a point. You may think his religion is a bit silly, but it’s fair to say there would be uproar if Tesco’s had asked the Muslim lady to remove her veil. Personally, i’m happy for anyone to follow any belief structure they like and wear whatever they like, so long as it’s not harming others.

Daniel had this parting message for Tesco – “I’ll advise worshippers to boycott Tesco if it happens again. They will feel the Force.”

Full story here.