Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

There’s been a terrific amount of hype about this new show, “Britannia High”.  They spent weeks advertising it at every available opportunity, but apparently it’s not doing anywhere near as well as they had hoped.  The thing that says it all, at least to me, is the amount of money and time they have spent on advertising and hype, yet the main discussion on-line seems to be regarding the new hairstyle sported by Mitch Hewer, one of the lead cast members…

The show is set in a Performing Arts School (called Britannia High, shockingly), so there’s lots of singing and dancing, so it’s a bit like Fame of the Noughties… Which can’t be a bad thing, Fame was incredibly popular back when it came out.

I think this is where the problem lies…

It appears that they want it to be totally different to Fame and High School Musical, but it seems to fall somewhere between the two.  The writing is more High School Musical, but the overall feel and concept is more Fame… But of course, Fame did it first, did it bigger, and ultimately did it better, which seems to be the crux of the problem.

The idea of the show is good, but the application is all wrong.  The show is supposed to be aimed at a more mature audience than High School Musical, but the script and writing is fairly shallow and two dimensional.  There have also been complaints about the appalling acting, but personally, given the script, the fact that the cast have managed to make their characters as lifelike as they have shows how much talent they must have and how much effort they must have put in, it certainly can’t have been easy for them.

Then there’s the choreography.

I remember settling down to watch Fame, and you always ended up watching the song and dance numbers thinking “I wish I could move like that.” as they tended to have aspects of all different sorts of dancing in them.  Britannia High, on the other hand has fairly average dance routines that are straight from any bog-standard music video, so you’re tending to sit there thinking “I can do those moves already”, which does tend to take away much of the magic.

I also don’t know if it’s the choreography or some of the actors just aren’t great movers, but some of them manage to look so stiff during the dance numbers, which again is quite a let down for what could have been a really well done show.

The final negative point is the size.  Everything is so small.

Even after all these years, I still remember some of the big dance numbers from Fame, where dozens of kids would fill the canteen, or they’d be out in the streets and the whole area would grind to a halt as they took over every part of the set.

Britannia High is clearly never going to be able to do those big numbers.  The classes only seem to contain about 15 kids, the canteen number they did this week (episode two) couldn’t have had more than about 20 people in it and the set was so small they looked like they were on top of each other.  It just serves to make it all very small scale and anti-climactic, which is such a shame given how much work will have been put into it.

Other than the likeability of most of the cast, and the amount of effort they clearly have put in, the only other redeeming feature of the show is the music.  Most, if not all, of the songs have been written by Garry Barlow of Take That, who is obviously extremely talented.  They are very catchy pop songs, and seem to be the only reason people are continuing to watch the programme.  So far only two of the cast have done much in the way of lead vocals, but they have done them well, one girl in particular has a lovely sound to her voice, although with the songs being so “pop”ie her voice does seem a little wasted on them in places, I’d like to see them give her a nice strong ballad to sink her teeth into.

I have to admit, I rarely buy soundtracks, but I have already pre-ordered this one for when it comes out in a couple of weeks.  I may even buy the DVD, simply for the tracks that aren’t included on the CD, as there are many that don’t appear to be listed.  However, I don’t see there being enough people doing that to manage to keep Britannia High alive to see a second season.

I’ve been slightly addicted to American Idol this year.

Normally I watch record it and watch it back at high speed, cutting out the judges mindless garbage (do they really think anyone cares what they think?) and usually scuttling though half the contestants whining too. All in all the show, plus results can normally be watched in this manor in about 15-30 minutes (depending on the theme that week).

This year it’s been taking me a lot longer. Finally they seem to have some lively contestants, just about all of them can sing pretty well, most of them seem to have some great personalities…

All in all, the show is finally worth watching… It sometimes even takes me a whole hour to watch the entire thing

It’s still a shame some of the good singers went out in earlier rounds, leaving some of the weaker singers to get into the final stage. Had some of the earlier evictee’s still been around it could have been a whole different top 16.

Since I was watching it last night (yes I know we’re a bit slow to get it over here in England) I thought I’d do a little fraggle review of the whole thing.

First off, it was 60’s night, and it just goes to show what a difference a good song can make. Everyone was on top form this week (well technically I guess that should be last week.)

First up…

Haley Scarnato Or “the final clone” as I like usually refer to her. There were half a dozen girls in the final however many, all with similar hair, similar faces, similar clothes… I always got them muddled up, so they became collectively known as “the clones”…

But I digress…

First no review would be complete without mentioning her outfit… It went perfectly with the song choice, and it’s amazing how they stick her in a pair of hot pants, and suddenly she looks about 3ft taller, and it’s all leg… Those things went on for miles.

The top was a little distracting, there were some rather intriguing things going on inside that, which did tend to distract from the song a little. Maybe it’s just me, but I kept thinking it was about to fly off at any second, and she’d not be able to continue…

Still, it didn’t, she did, and it was her best performance so far. Simon’s comment of “You naughty little minx” pretty much summed it up nicely.

Chris Richardson

There’s something very likeable about this guy. I saw somewhere online someone say that he looks so innocent and you want to do incredibly filthy things to him… I’m not sure I’d go that far, I haven’t quite reached that level of depravity…

Yet…

Maybe something to work on :asbestos:

But I do kind of understand their sentiment

Earlier on in the competition, I thought he’d probably be in for most of the competition, but I’m starting to have some doubts about that, he still sings well, but his voice doesn’t seem to be adapting to the different musical styles as well as some of the others. Plus he seems to be trying to be a bit too much like Justin Timberlake, now everyone’s told him how much he looks like him. Still maybe one to watch out for though, if he can expand his vocal abilities so the songs don’t all sound quite so sameish.

Stephanie Edwards

She has a nice voice, pretty face, but we don’t seem to have seen anything else. There’s some strong personalities in this year, and she doesn’t really seem to have managed to get her personality to show strongly enough, so she’s sort of faded behind many of the others.

Plus there’s not been anything particularly memorable about her performances so far, at least as far as I can see, although I think much of that could be the choice of songs she’s had up until now.

I only watched this performance last night, and I’m looking at it again now because I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was, which is always going to be a problem in this kind of competition.

If people don’t remember you, they’re not going to vote for you.

Blake Lewis
I wasn’t sure about Blake early on, yes he was talented, could sing and had the beat boxing thing, but I wasn’t sure how far he’d last.

Now he’s in the final stage, he really seems to be shining. I seem to remember hearing on one of the earlier shows that he’d studied music at some point, which may give him a technical advantage over some of the others for setting up the arrangements of the songs, adding beat boxing etc., to make the songs seem modern.

In turn that does make him run the risk that he might modernize a song that would have worked better staying true to the original version. But that remains to be seen.

This guy is certainly one to watch out for.

LaKisha Jones
This girl is one of the competition’s powerhouses, a great singer, who doesn’t appear to really know just how good she actually is.

I thought she sang the song brilliantly, when she first came out, if you closed your eyes, it could have been Shirley Bassey stood their singing.

I was a little confused by her outfit and hair though, she looked great, but it didn’t really go with the song, the hairstyle looked very 80’s when combined with the dress… And why the green dress? A slinky black sparkly number would have been more appropriate I’d have thought.

But maybe that’s just down to personal choice.

Phil Stacey
He seemed slightly more on track this week. He sounded great during the earlier rounds, but seemed to lose some of the magic once they hit the live shows. This song seemed much more his style, although I do take the judges point that you kind of expected a rougher, more gravely voice for the song, which he doesn’t really have…

But it still worked well. He stands a good chance of going a fair way if he can keep it going.

The shirt has to go though, the pattern on the front of it looked like he’d spilt food or water down it until you got a good look and realised it was the pattern in the material.

Jordin Sparks
Wow! What more can you say? She had to be the performance of the night with that song. She’s another, really likable contestant, you can’t help but sit there willing her along. The couple of times I’ve not liked her performance it’s been more to do with the song than her voice. She’s bound to make the final. Not sure about her dress though, I thought it made her look a bit frumpy… But again, that’s probably more personal tastes than anything really wrong with it.

Sanjaya Malakar
Oh dear, where to begin.

Ok, first the good, it has to be his best performance so far, finally we get to see that he actually does deserve to have made it to the live shows. The past few weeks he’s been so limp and lacklustre I couldn’t work out how he even got past Hollywood week.

I can’t make up my mind what it is that puts me off him, I think it’s a mix of things, the hair, the odd grin when he sings that makes me wonder if he’s on Prozac…

There’s something about him reminds me of Taylor Hicks from last year… They both kind of creep me out, and I really don’t get what it is everyone likes about them.

I’d say he’s likely to go any week, but then I thought that about Taylor Hicks last year too, and look how that went…

Gina Glocksen
I like this girl, she’s got a voice, and an edgy attitude about her, although I wish she’d ditch the tongue stud though so she’d stop lisping on some of the songs.

I thought it was a shame she got so slated by the judges, it sounded good to me. I’ve only heard the Michelle Branch version of that song, but it didn’t sound all that different to me.

With her rocky voice, she does seem to be struggling to pick the right songs to show off her abilities. Something with a rock feel to it, but enough range to show off her vocal abilities can’t be that easy to come by.

I hope she does well, but she’s going to need a bit more practice at adapting to the different styles if she wants to keep going I reckon.

Chris Sligh
A good voice, great personality and funny… A pretty good mix for this kind of show.

Another good song choice, showing off the unusual sound to his voice, the rocky edge to it… And he almost took Simon Cowell’s head off with the mic stand…

Can’t see a down side to that myself

May need to try hard at that next time though…

Melinda Doolittle
Like LaKisha, another one with an incredible voice who doesn’t seem to realise just how good she is. The slight difference, Melinda seems to get lost in the song when she performs, while LaKisha seems to need a more upbeat number to go into performance mode.

But I’m getting sidetracked again…

Hated the song, I remember it from Oliver, and I never liked it then either, but then it really didn’t matter, this girl could sing the phonebook to you and you’d be happy.

I’m not sure she even knows what a bum note is.

I’d say Melinda is probably the strongest singer in the competition, but then she not only has the voice, but being a former backing singer, she’s got to have the advantage over a lot of the others, as she’s got a fair bit of experience under her belt.

Overall

The best overall week so far, like I said, it just goes to show what a good song can do for your performance.

I reckon the girls have the edge this year, Melinda, LaKisha and Jordin have the powerful voices, and have been consistent throughout. Haley and Chris Richardson have the performance, but they may be overshadowed vocally by some of the other contestants, Gina and Chris Sligh both have a rocky sort of edge, which may count against them, after all just look at Chirs Daugherty last year… Blake and Phil are both good, but something makes me think they might be hit or miss, depending how things progress over the coming weeks.

I’ve been watching a fascinating programme on television the past couple of days called “The Verdict”.

They’ve set up a mock trial, a rape case, with the defendant, witnesses and accuser played by actors and actresses. All the court staff and experts are real though, and I’m assuming the evidence is real, just collected from other actual cases.

The jury is then made up of various celebrities; although I have a feeling that’s more to do with them being used to cameras and the media rather than a forum to build/rebuild their careers.

It’s making for some quite interesting watching. For one thing with having studied law at college, it’s interesting to see the Barristers in action, but then it’s also interesting seeing how the actions of the barristers and witnesses impacts on the jury’s perception of events and who is/isn’t telling the truth.

Jury deliberations have never been public, so it’s probably interesting for the legal professionals seeing how Jury’s work and think.

It’s also interesting; because when I was at college I actually had a similar idea. I made a case, built up all the evidence, statements, experts etc., and the idea was we’d then try the case in class.

Shame I left it too late, so by the time the case was ready it was exam time, so there wasn’t any time to follow it up and see how it worked. Nice to see the same idea having been put into practice.

Tonight they’re showing the jury members discussing how they’re coping with the trial, then tomorrow night is the deliberations followed by their verdict.

Based on the evidence so far, I’d say both defendants are as guilty as sin. So I’m eager to see what the jury comes up with, and hoping that they’ll tell us whether they actually were or weren’t guilty. Would be nice to see if the whole jury setup works or not.

Being sickly this week, I’ve been doing a fair bit of channel hopping, and found that Sky Three have been showing Tarzan for the past couple of weeks (The 2003 version with Travis Fimmel), and I felt it was worth a mention.

Naturally practically every episode was covered with writing advertising other shows due out on Sky One (why we care is beyond me, but that’s a whole other journal entry)

I remember hearing about them making this show (is it really three years already?) and wondering how they were going to pull it off with someone like Travis Fimmel in the lead role. For one thing he’s too young, and too short, and, well he’s a model not an actor…

So needless to say I sat down to watch this with little intentions of actually enjoying it and quite expecting to loath every minute of it.

But it wasn’t even close to what I was expecting.

For one thing, the age didn’t even make an impact, and I have no clue why I thought he was short, as it turns out he’s 6ft, and as a model, they don’t seem to come in any size under the 6ft mark.

Then I guess I fell into the standard trap of thinking that models are all empty headed, brainless automatons who’s soul purpose is to be a walking clothes horse making the rest of us normal people green with envy.

They have to have some skill with acting, as they strike the required pose for whatever they’re just about wearing in their latest photo shoot assignment.

Maybe it’s the fact that the pose tends to be cold, anti-social and condescending, and the fact that most of them seem to pull it off so well that tends to taint people’s perception of the modelling industry…

But I’m getting off the subject.

The fact was, the guy can act.

Not only that he actually played the part really well, and whilst there was a lot of action, there was also a lot of emotion, which had to be conveyed with very few words on his part (this Tarzan doesn’t talk very much).

Jane (played by Sarah Wayne Callies of Prison Break) was a much tougher and self sufficient Jane that I’ve seen before, and there was a connection between the two on screen, but you did get the feeling that they didn’t use her to best advantage…

She’s a cop who can take care of herself, yet as soon as Tarzan turns up, she seems more than happy for him to save her, rather than bothering to actually do it herself (which she is more than capable of doing).

Mitch Pileggi as Tarzans greedy and manipulative uncle worked really well, while Lucy Lawless played his sister (and Tarzans kindly aunt) didn’t seem to work quite so well. The part worked well, but as she was a fairly feisty woman herself, and Lucy Lawless has a pretty distinctive look and voice, I did find myself wondering why she didn’t just grab her brother and beat him over the head with her chakram!

But then, maybe I’ve just watched Xena on DVD a few too many times…

On the whole the show was well written, very well acted, and most importantly, believable. Yet they only made eight episodes.

I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the American networks show making set-up. They manage to churn out so much dross on a regular schedule, yet so many potentially great shows (like this one) don’t even make it to a full series length.

Still, at least they managed to tie up all the storylines in those 8 episodes, so unlike many series of this length, you’re not left high and dry in the middle of a story never finding out the ending.

Would still be nice if they’d pick it up again though, even with a model in the leading role :-p

It’s always quite a culture shock when they remake an old classic that you grew up with, and the difficulty is that, as many of the remakes seem to go wrong as go right.

I’m still in two minds about this one. I can’t decide how much is just that it’s going to take some getting used to, and how much they’ve damaged by changing.

For example, Starbuck and Boomer are now women. Boomer I can accept, although it’s going to take a bit of getting used to, since I whenever they referred to someone, I was still expecting to see the original cast member appearing, not the new one.

But I’m just putting Boomer being strange down to the fact that I’m still expecting to see Herb Jefferson Jr. So I’ll accept that, she worked well for the character they had written… But, Starbuck?

Well Starbuck is another matter entirely, for one thing, Starbuck is supposed to be a cigar-smoking womanizer, so the character is completely screwed up when it’s changed to a woman. The other big problem I had was that I didn’t find the actress convincing in the part. How much was the fact that it had been cast as a woman, and how much was the actress herself I really couldn’t say, all I know is it just didn’t work.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I find the whole thing odd. They’ve done some serious upgrading to the Cylons, who looked significantly more impressive and dangerous than the originals did… Or at least I think they did, since we only see 4 Cylons in the entire mini series, and even then all they do is stand either side of a doorway and act as guards.

No doubt to save their budget, the Cylons have conveniently been able to create a version of themselves that look and act human, so of course they are the “Cylons” that we get to see the most, which I found very disappointing.

I also find it odd that Battlestar Galactica is supposed to be over 50 years old and set for decommission at the start of the show, yet everything looks brand new, with no signs of wear, tear, battle damage or age. Even when part of the ship suffers heavy damage, the next time we see it, everything looks brand new again. (Not to mention that on the command deck all they have to do is pick up a couple of pieces of furniture and suddenly there’s no signs of damage…)

Two other noteworthy items in the lack of special effects, firstly, both the 12 colonies and the Cylons have decided to forego the use of the advanced energy/laser/plasma weapons that they used for the whole of the original series and spin-off series. Instead they have decided to opted to take a step back and go back to using old fashioned missiles and bullets instead.

I would also like to point out at this point that some bright spark decided to give the missiles trails of smoke… All well and good, but I doubt they would leave a trail of smoke when fired in space! After all, I’ve yet to see the Space Shuttle leave a trail of smoke when using it’s rockets in space!

The second lack of special effect is Muffit, Boxey’s robotic dog (Daggit) not only is it nowhere to be seen, but as there was no real daggit to replace, it suggests there won’t be a Muffit making an appearance any time soon, which I think is a big shame.

But then I also find it odd that they can turn Boomer and Starbuck into women, Col. Tigh is now a white drunk who looks older than Adama, there’s no signs of Sheba, Serena (Boxey’s mother who survived in the original show), Cassiopia or Lt. Athena… They can make all those major changes… Yet they can’t give Boxey a different haircut?:shrug:

I don’t get it.

It may just be me, and the series may be far better than the mini-series, but it just didn’t work for me, there were too many changes, too many missing people, and it just didn’t have the same feel as the original. I also think that the idea of human looking Cylons, whilst giving a few interesting lines of plot development, it detracts from the idea of the Cylons being mechanical, cold and robotic, if they can “fake it”. Not to mention when you realise just who the remaining Cylon spy on Galactica is…

It was entertaining, it was mostly well acted, and had it not been a remake, it may have worked… But when it’s compared to the original, I don’t see any contest, I think I’ll stick with the original!

And a quick quote from the original series, which I think sums the Cylons up completely…

Cylon: All Raiders are all destroyed.
Imperious Leader: All destroyed? How? We took them by surprise.
Cylon: Apparently it was not as big a surprise as we had hoped for.