Television Archives - Steven D Rowe

The Ark

The Ark is a US TV Sci-Fi Series aired on the SyFy network in 2023. It was released in Canada on 1st February 2023.

About

A hundred years into the future, a spacecraft known as Ark One is shuttling a complement of would-be colonists away from a devastated Earth to a new home, Proxima b. The ship suffers a catastrophic event that kills almost all of the technical crew and all of the ship’s senior officers. The survivors must work to reorganize themselves to maintain the boat and stay on course to reach their destination.
Via Wikipedia.

Cast

Some, but not all, of the cast members:

Christie Burke as Sharon Garnet
We recently saw her in the 2022 series Billy The Kid. She is a Canadian actress and model.

Reece Richie as Spencer Lane
We recognize other productions he has been in including a 2007 episode of The Bill, Endeavour and the TV series Les Miserables. He is a British actor from Lowestoft.

Richard Fleeshman as James Bruce
Numerous British productions such as 210 episodes of Coronation Street, and 1 episode of Call The Midwife. He is a British actor and singer. In 2008 he supported Elton John on his Summer stadium tour.

Shalini Peiris as Dr Sanjivni Kabir
She has appeared in many productions including most recently Good Karma Hospital which we really enjoyed.

Tiana Upcheva as Eva Markovic
A well known actress from Serbia with recent productions such as The Outpost and Igra subdine.
Instagram

Pavle Jerinic as Felix Strickland
Also from Serbia he has appeared in numerous production including, with Tiana, The Outpost and Igra subdine.

Review

The show was filmed At Pink Films International Studio in Serbia.

This show didn’t receive good reviews on sites like IMDB, with a rating of only 5.2 stars at the time of writing this. It seemed to be the case that those who watched more episodes enjoyed it more and were giving it a rating between 8-10 out of 10.

One of the complaints I heard about the series was the “unknown actors” they had on it. However, it was an international cast who had quite long resumes, so I believe, because it was on the US channel SyFy, that the audience might have been expecting a American-based blockbuster star. I am more than happy that it gave the opportunity to those actors to break in more to a different market.

There was good character development with numerous personal surprises for each of them. The worst thing about a drama are when a character is the same throughout the show.

The story was pretty solid with mysteries and challenges along the way, plus Dr Smith type character having to content with ie can’t leave him behind so have to put up with him. There was a good level of personal challenges, action and humour.

The CGI was ok, the ark itself didn’t look quite right, can’t lay my finger on it. Inside the ark the special effects were ok. The gear stick, as though it was pinched from a gaming console, I found quite amusing although I’m not sure if it was a purposely funny moment.

Summary

The show is worth watching but like everything one needs to give it a chance. The first season of Star Trek The Next Generation wasn’t well received but caught on to be iconic. I will give it a 8/10.

Trailer

Steven2023-07-11T22:11:59+00:0011 July 2023|Review, Television|

New Korean Melodrama Season

The new Korean daily soap, or melodrama, season is coming in March and April 2023.

I didn’t really get into the current shows that are running which include;

The Witch’s Game – The evil grandmother just got on my nerves and the other characters seemed out of place.
Vengeance of the Bride – The main evil character just couldn’t act and was out of place, although some of the other cast was good. The theme music at the end was quite annoying and thought that I could not listen to that again.
The Love in Your Eyes – I didn’t watch this show.

Woman in a Veil

The most interesting show, from the looks of it, appears to be “Woman in a Veil” (비밀의 여자) which starts on 13 March airing on KBS2 for 100 episodes. In some notes I see it is promoted as a sequel to Man in a Veil but I think it’s more of a remake with a different story lines and characters.

Summary: A drama about a woman who loses her sight due to her husband and his lover and falls into ‘Locked-In Syndrome’ (conscious general paralysis) getting involved with an heiress who has everything and comes out for truth and revenge.

The following actors, who were in Man in a Veil, will be appearing in it, it sounds like a class reunion:

Lee Chae Young (이채영) as Joo Ae Ra
Played Han Yoo Ra on Main in a Veil.
Very talented actress and I’m looking forward to seeing her performance.

Kim Ye Eyung (김예령) as Cha Young Ban
Played Joon Seok’s Mother in Man in a Veil

Kim Hee Jung (김희정) as Seo Jeong Hye
Played Joo Hwa Yeon (Seo Joon’s Mother) in Man in a Veil
This great actress appears to be in everything these days.

Lee Min Ji (이민지) as Nam Yoo Ri
Played Joon Seok’s Sister in Man in a Veil

Choi Jae Sung (최재성) as Jung Hyeon Tae
Played Han Dae Cheol (Yoo Jung’s Father)

Hong Seok Cheon (홍석천) as a guest role
He played a Radio Producer in episode 1 and 2 of Man in a Veil
He is an openly gay actor, restaurateur and politician for the Democratic Labour Party. He is the most prominent openly gay celebrity in South Korea.
Instagram

My Gold My Jade

This romance, family melodrama starts n 27 March with 120 episodes.

Summary: A work about the delightful and heartbreaking story of a family growing up while raising a child, centering on a single dad Geum Kang San and adopted child Ok Mi Rae who is the apple of his eye.

One of the actors in the show is Kang Eun Tak (: 강은탁) as Geum Jeong San. He played Tae Pung in Man in a Veil. He is playing a support role in this which surprises me since he’s normally signed up for the lead in these daily melodrama’s. However, it will be good to see him back on screen.

In the support cast there are quite a few familiar faces from other melodrama’s. I cannot find a trailer for it yet.

Fate of Heaven

I don’t have a summary for it but it kicks off on MBC on 17 April. Not familiar with the cast but some of them have appeared in other melodrama’s before.

UPDATE 13 March 2023

Woman in a Veil will now start airing on 14 March 2023.

Steven2023-03-13T21:28:51+00:0028 February 2023|South Korea, Television|

Time Tunnel 2022 Parody

Below is another video I created to practice my Adobe Premiere Pro skillset.

The short video is based on the 1960s TV Series Time Tunnel, in the show there are two employees of a secret project that become lost in time. More than often they never know when they are going to end up. So, I thought of a small video, a kind of “What If” the two of them ended up in 2022! Since this year is another momentous year regarding Russia’s invasion/war on the innocent people of Ukraine.

Steven2022-03-30T20:57:34+00:0030 March 2022|Television, Video|

SkyNews No More

SkyNews is a popular channel in the UK that used to broadcast an international version over its YouTube channel to the world, that is until recently.

About The Block

The channel was IP blocked to a number of countries including South Africa, Cyprus, here in Canada and many more. It isn’t blocked for countries like the USA, India and others.

SkyNews Unavailable

There are many Expats who watch SkyNews around the globe who are very upset about the block, according to what they are saying on Twitter. Despite reaching out on SkyNews on Twitter none had received a response, so I decided to have a go.

It was labour intensive to communicate with SkyTV to try and find out the reason for this. After a few tweets back and forth they finally gave me an email address to write to. I received a response fairly quickly but they didn’t really shed any light on the block and didn’t know which countries were affected and why. SkyNews in Australia was recently temporarily banned from YouTube for a while due to relaying fake news, so I am guessing SkyNew UK might have been hit by a similar reason.

I understand some have just started viewing SkyNews on YouTube via a VPN.

Alternatives

There are many live news broadcast channels on YouTube that can be viewed as an alternative. Note, some of these might not be available at your location, they are all available in Canada though.

France24 – I have to say this is one of my favourites
DW – from Germany
Al Jazeera – A Qatar government channel
ABC News Live – from the US
MSNBC Now Live – from the US
BBC World News – this would be available through your cable provider, not through YouTube
EuroNews – this might be available through your cable provider, a great channel
GB News – from the UK, I don’t watch this channel, too right-wing, but an odd interesting snippet now and again.

Summary

It’s always good to view the news from different perspectives especially when a war is ongoing so hopefully, the above channels are helpful. It is disappointing that SkyNews take down this service at this time.

Steven2022-03-19T17:19:04+00:0019 March 2022|Television|

Salvation TV Series Review

For the past 26 weeks, we’ve been watching the TV series Salvation on Netflix, actually, I quite enjoyed it.

Story line

A rich technology genius, Darius Tanz, joined forces with an MIT graduate, Liam Cole, to try and stop an asteroid that is due to hit the Earth in 60 days time. The intense story line is interspersed with relationships between the central characters.

About The Series

The series ran between 2017 to 2018 over 2 seasons and 26 episodes. The first season was made in Toronto and the second season in Vancouver. The series was commissioned by CBS but they cancelled it in November 2018.

Actors

The series had a mix of Canadian and British actors in the series with the odd American thrown in. The main cast over the two seasons were:

Santiago Cabrera – known for his role in The Musketeers as Aramis now in Star Trek Picard
Jennifer Finnigan – won Emmy’s for her performance in Bold and The Beautiful
Charlie Rowe – numerous rolls, born and raised in Islington
Jacqueline Byers – fairly new actress with a growing portfolio, guest-starred on Timeless
Ian Anthony Dale – known recently for his work on Hawaii Five-0.

Review

The second season was better than the first mainly because it was fast-moving and action-packed from each episode to the next. They had obviously put a lot of effort into the series with regard to sets, some special effects and a challenging storyline thrown in.

I wouldn’t have classed it as 100% science fiction as it had a general drama, espionage, strange cult and soap opera quality to it as well. There were technology and some special effects on the show but it was more in the background.

Some of the soap opera type content seemed a bit much, who is having an affair with who, whose baby is it, broken relationships that get back together then break up again.

I thought Santiago Cabrera was much better in this series than he is in Star Trek Picard, I guess he is the lead actor in Salvation as he should be at this stage in his career. The only other actor I knew was Ian Anthony Dale who played Adam Noshimuri in Hawaii Five-0 – he was also better in Salvation although both his characters had a certain borderline evil trait about them.

All in all they did a grand job with the series and I would definitely recommend it.

Steven2020-08-21T22:40:31+00:0021 August 2020|Television, USA|

Dallas Parody of Crossroads

I’ve always wanted to create a Dallas TV Show parody of the British TV Soap Opera Crossroads. Being in lockdown due to COVID19 and wanting to learn video editing software created some time for me to do this. This is the final product:

How It Was Made

The most challenging thing to me was creating a parody, keeping to the original feel of the show, and I, of course, felt a sense of responsibility not to upset the many fans out there.

Technical

I used two video software programs to make this video, Aimersoft and Adobe Premiere Pro.

In Aimersoft I cut out chunks of clips from episodes that I would use in the parody. I had to transfer them from 4:3 to 16:9 aspect ratio format so it would have a modern feel about them. Many of the episodes didn’t really pass the quality check so I had to abandon them.

In Adobe Premiere Pro I performed most of the editing. I hadn’t really used the software before, apart from very basic stuff, and I had never been on a training course, so it was fairly challenging. Parts of Premiere Pro was easy to learn, some weren’t as there are so many options all over the place.

Clips

Deciding what clips from the shows I should use were extremely challenging. There were over 4,800 episodes to choose from. I had to decide what were the most prominent moments in the soap opera’s history:

The Motel fire
Nutty Rosemary trying to kill David Hunter
The Christmas sing-a-long
Farewell to Meg

Then I wanted to include as many true actors that were loved by the fans. Crossroads was prominently linked to Noelle Gordon and Jane Rossington to me, they were the show, so they feature heavily in my parody.

Extra Bits

I didn’t just want to include the actual edited Dallas theme in itself, I thought about some extras. So I included the ATV logo to start off, modifying it from 4:3 to 16:9 worked out really well.

In many episodes of American soap operas, prior to the intro theme, there is a “what’s going to happen in this weeks show” teaser, at least there was back in the early days of Dallas, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest. So, I decided to include my own mash of moments from particular episodes, mainly to the events that led up to the Motel fire.

How Long Did It Take?

It took roughly 30 hours to make. Most of that time was taken up by finding and editing clips from the shows and learning Premiere Pro. Luckily, YouTube is a good resource for mini-training videos, I totally couldn’t have completed the end product as quickly as I did.

In Conclusion

I am totally not happy with the video. I think I’m a total perfectionist and could have done so much better in various spots. But, I did learn so much and this has given me the inspiration to produce other videos.

Steven2020-08-11T22:08:59+00:0011 August 2020|Television|

Lost in Space Season 2 Review

Netflix released season two of it’s version of Lost in Space and here is my review.

I won’t go into any details of the story line just in case there are people who haven’t seen it but I will dive into my good and bad points about this season.

The Good

More special effects.
More action sequences.
Characters developed a little more with clips into the past back on Earth.
More emotion in the characters.
Return of some beloved actors, who have been promoting the series a little.

The Bad

Too many other characters.
First they aren’t a cohesive family, then they are. Didn’t quite get that one.
The Maureen and Dr Smith characters are just too annoying
No, not more of those robots, please!
No time going into space exploring different planets and meeting different aliens/cultures.
All one long continuing story and no separate episodic scifi that I enjoyed in the 1960s.
Not a lot of humour with exception to the Don West character.
Get rid of the stupid chicken.

So, a third and final season has been approved. Will I watch it? I might do, I am curious with how they will end it and I would like to see the return of Bill Mumy in a bigger roll.

I am in the minority of Lost in Space fans who weren’t keen on the series and there are many who are extremely grateful Netflix made this series.

Steven2020-03-21T05:04:29+00:0021 March 2020|Television|

MSNBC vs CNN vs BBC vs SkyNews vs France24 vs CBC

We now live in a technical age where we all have access to many news channels from around the world. This should give us a better perspective of what is happening globally.

Much of these news sources are commercial and often their main aim is to sell advertising space in order to survive, and that might give them a certain political slant. My preference is for these channels to present the news, not opinion, so I can make my own decisions. Few channels actually meet that bill.

These reviews are based on my opinion alone.

Tabloids

Firstly, the US cable networks which I class as “tabloid” journalism, more sensational and gossipy in style.

MSNBC

Out of all the channels I have access to this is the worst:

Not much news, focuses on US politics, mainly Trump.
Liberal-leaning content, don’t really relay the news from both sides.
Sensationalises the “news”, mainly speculation and editorialisation
Presenters either shout or the decibels on the broadcast is set to very high
Very repetitive repeating the same “news” time and time again
“Breaking News” can last for days when I consider it to be an old story
As they focus on the worst-case scenario for the world it’s very grim to watch the channel in the morning but any other time
Many of the hosts or guests have a Trump book to sell. Love him or loathe him, they are making money from him.

CNN

I don’t watch this channel much as the remit is very similar to MSNBC:

Sensationalism, speculation, editorialisation
Like MSNBC coverage is politically one-sided.
When there is real “breaking news” in the US, non-political, they have better coverage than MSNBC. I would prefer to watch PBS for this but they don’t have a 24/7 format.
Too many dancing graphics on the screen.
CNN is available globally whereas MSNBC isn’t.

Broadsheets

The following channels I class as more “broadsheet” in style; more real news and analysis, therefore, better-respected organizations.

BBC

The station has come under a lot of criticism in the past few years due to politically slanted news when the expectation of taxpayers, who partially fund the channel, expect more analysis of how both sides of the political spectrum.

Good coverage of “breaking news” from a UK perspective. Didn’t really care for their election coverage. Their Brexit news isn’t too bad
Presenters are generally calm, don’t shout, and intelligent. This is with possible exception to Aaron Heslehurst who I find loud, confusing and obnoxious
Often I find they cover less news in a half an hour slot than some other broadsheet style TV news channels

CBC

Even though CBC is classified as a public broadcaster it’s not the same as the BBC. It is commercial and feels like other channels. However, I do like its news presentation on both radio and TV.

Good balance of news and analysis. The analysis comes in the form of its program called The National.
Doesn’t appear to sensationalise the news too much
Not too many flying graphics during the broadcast
CBC Radio 1 has no commercials and the analysis type programming is very good
The other news channels in Canada are a bit more American in style and CBC News feels like a cross between BBC and ITN news in the UK

SkyNews

A UK news channel that is owned by Comcast in the US and is currently the Royal Television Society’s News Channel of the Year, as I write this, the 12th time it has held this award.

Appear to compress more news into their broadcasts than the BBC
Available on YouTube so the world can tune in to watch it
Pretty good on UK related news but often BBC has the edge on this
Sometimes sways into tabloid format but generally good all-round news presentation
Been watching SkyNews more than I have BBC News recently.

France24

Broadcasting English language news internationally over YouTube.

Excellent for world news and analysis
Of course, best from France related news, but don’t have access to any other English language French news channels
Good coverage of Africa and the Middle East, better than the BBC
Calm presenters providing a different perspective on the news
Good selection of 20 and 30-minute analysis type programming
Their app isn’t that great but I do get a good balance of breaking news from around the world, and they often beat many other news service providers.

Other News Outlets

There are other news outlets available here in Canada from home and around the world but don’t really watch them enough to assess them in too much detail but will give a quick overview:

Good Morning Britain is available in Canada but the show is tabloid garbage.
Fox News is the same but even worse than MSNBC, from a right-wing perspective.
Local stations from the US for CBS, NBC and ABC are available but feel their news shows showing what is happening in Seattle is not at all relevant to me.
PBS from the US is available here, they have a 6 pm news show, Newshour, which is very good.
We will sometimes watch Global News early in the morning, due to lack of CBC at that time of day, however, there are so many adverts splashed all over the screen they make it impossible to watch for any length greater than 10 minutes.

Steven2020-05-12T14:44:57+00:0018 January 2020|Television|

Asian Shows Currently Watching

There are so many Asian shows we are watching at the moment, all of them fantastic, so I thought I would compile a list of my recommendations for everyone.

Yolk Man
– China

A student is dying of Cancer but an alien arrives on Earth, forming a symbiotic relationship with him, which saves his life. However, an evil alien soon follows to cause damage. Show is so well put together, special effects are brilliant, 12 x 25 minute episodes

Bromance
– Taiwan

Pi Ya Nuo is a female but has to disguise herself as a male until her 26th birthday due to a superstitious omen. Then she meets Du Zi Feng, he thinks he is entering a same sex relationship with her little knowing that he is really a she. Will he still love her when the truth is revealed? Very funny yet touching series.

The Thunder
– China

A more action-orientated police series from China that is pretty good, 48 x 45 minute episodes that aired Monday to Sunday in China. It has some notable stars inc Johnny Huang who is in 6 TV series in 2020, not sure how he has the time for them all. iQiyi produce some great series and I will watch out for anything that comes out of this studio.

Ossan’s Love
– Japan

This series is one of my favourite so far. Set in a real estate office everyone seems to be falling in love with Haruta, except they are all people of the same sex and he is “supposedely” straight. This is a well acted comedy and I can see why this was so popular in Japan. Tanaka Kei and Yoshida Kotaro are brilliant in this. A must see. Preview is the movie of the show, DVD to be released Spring 2020.

The Untamed
– China

We have just started watching this and it’s unexpectedly very good, some fans have described this as a masterpiece. Don’t watch the Netflix version, they often get the subtitles wrong or timing they appear is not working properly. This drama is by Tencent Video who have produced other dramas we have enjoyed too, worth discovering what else they have on offer.

Let’s Eat
– South Korea

We are currently on the 2nd Season of Let’s Eat, three seasons produced. Each season has a different story has the same main actor appearing in all them, the popular Yoon Doo Joon. Apart from the drama/comedy theme they also eat a lot, and I mean a lot. I’m not sure if they are going to make a third season, Yoon is currently doing his military service due to be released April 2020.

This is just a sample of what we are watching, we have many favourites that we have watched and a ton more that the plan to watch in the future.

Steven2020-05-12T14:45:41+00:005 January 2020|Television|

Lost in Space Review

Netflix LIS This year Netfilx released an updated version of the classic 1960s TV Series Lost in Space. There was a lot of apprehension among fans whether it would meet their standards especially as word got out that it wouldn’t be that familiar with the original.

From what I gather the writers and producers wanted this version to reflect how the original series would have been written in 2018 and taking out the pop-art/camp feel out of it. They thought some of the 1960s storylines just didn’t make sense, for example, why would Earth send just one family into space to colonize Alpha Centauri and not many of them. They also wanted a non-traditional family who have modern day issues, even though events are set into the future.

I have only seen 5 out of the 10 episodes so far but this is what I think of the series to date.

The Good Stuff

It was great to see Bill Mumy make a small appearance as Dr Smith.
The special effects and location filming were very well done. I am so pleased they chose British Columbia, where we live, to film the series.
The actors who played the children were very believable and played well.
The theme music from the 3rd series of the original was re-used in part.

The Not So Cool Stuff

The character that replaced Dr Smith, who was now a murderer rather than a petty criminal like the original, was not that believable and quite annoying.
The Maureen Robinson character was extremely annoying, just 3 episodes into the series and I was hoping they would kill her off.
Some of the science was a little bit bizarre but I guess the 1960s version of the show was as well.
The robot being an alien rather than originating from Earth was a little disappointing but I guess the producers thought the technology to build one in that era wouldn’t be possible.
Instead of Debbie being a monkey type character, or the Bloop as they would call it in the 1960s, it turned out to be a chicken. I did cringe a lot at that and wished they had just left it out.

Overall, I didn’t feel engaged with the series and they failed to get me emotionally attached to it. It felt like a completely different show which they didn’t really need to brand it as “Lost in Space”. Many companies are trying to re-launch established brands with an existing audience but this didn’t quite work out.

Other Reviews

I think I am more alone in my thinking that I wasn’t impressed with the series, from the fans the majority of them do like the new series. I would say there is about 15% of those that were not impressed, but I could be wrong.

What’s Next

The show has been renewed for a 2nd season, not sure when that will be shown on Netflix, it took quite a long time to develop and film season 1. Often the 1st season of a show isn’t that great so I will look forward to how they develop the show.

Steven2018-08-08T04:45:52+00:008 August 2018|Television|