Lord of the Flies is the first-ever television adaptation of William Golding's landmark 1954 novel, written by Jack Thorne and directed by Marc Munden. A co-production that aired first on the BBC before reaching Netflix, it brings fresh scale and psychological depth to a story that has haunted readers for generations.
After a plane crash strands a group of British schoolboys on a remote Pacific island in the early 1950s, the boys attempt to govern themselves. Ralph (Winston Sawyers) tries to hold the group together with the counsel of the clever, bullied Piggy (David McKenna), but the charismatic, power-hungry Jack (Lox Pratt) foments a rebellion that fractures their fragile society into fear, tribalism, and violence. The production cast a large ensemble of young newcomers, many making their professional debuts.
Released in 2026, the four-part series earned wide critical acclaim for its stunning direction and its unflinching portrait of how quickly civilization can unravel. Filmed on Malaysia's Langkawi archipelago, it stands as a definitive screen version of Golding's parable. It is streaming on Netflix.
Dubbed reality television American Dating Game Show, the Bachelor made it's debut in the U.S. back in 2002 on the ABC network. Even the host is a former game show host, Chris Harrison. If you like looking at extremely good looking women and men you might like this show. With one single and eligible bachelor choosing from an attractive pool of young ladies who want nothing better than to snare this handsome young man. The contestants, usually twenty five potential soul mates for the lucky bachelor, vie for his attention by going through a series of eliminations to narrow down the field of lovelies. While the show progresses the young ladies are found in their temporary residence "Villa De La Vina" which is nearly 7600 square feet of luxury housing in Agoura Hills, CA. As the show's seasons progress and ladies are eliminated for various reasons (some even decide to leave on their own), they finally get around to bringing the bachelor home to meet the folks and dates in exotic places. The semi-finalists may visit with the bachelor's family before he makes his selection and may even propose at shows end.
Returning to television as the star of ABC's "Mr. Sunshine," Matthew Perry faces two formidable challenges: First, he must out-grow, live-down, or crawl out of his intimate association with Chandler, his legendary "Friends" persona. Second, Perry and co-star Allison Janney must inspire their audience to forget "Mr. Sunshine" replaces Courtney Cox's hit "Cougar Town." Perry and Jenny benefit from writers' and producers' wonderfully quirky visions of their characters and unusual situation. Perry plays Ben, a character potentially as memorable as Chandler but with far greater depth and much richer melancholy mid-life undertones. Operations Manager of The Sunshine Center, a run-down San Diego arena, home of the circus and lingerie football, Ben learns on his fortieth birthday that his girlfriend is leaving him because he is so thoroughly self-involved he has no love left over for anyone else. Jenny plays Crystal, the arena's pill-popping owner who could become America's next favourite villain on the strength of her thinly veiled racism and despise of children, except that Jenny's consummate skill as an actress redeems her. One Los Angeles reviewer wisely concludes, "["Mr. Sunshine"] isn't perfect; and it won't change the landscape of comedic television right away, even though it's part of a game-changing three-hour comedy block for ABC. But it is taking all of the important steps in the right direction." If "Mr. Sunshine" seems a little wobbly at first, viewers should remember "Cougar Town's" first-episode identity crisis, allowing lots of latitude for Perry's and "Mr. Sunshine's" rapid evolution.
Regular viewers of ABC's Wednesday night comedy hit "Cougar Town" will feel their lips curl into wry smiles when they read pre-premiere summaries of the show: The producers and writers originally conceived "Cougar Town" as the life and times of a forty-something divorcee intrepidly devoted to seducing younger men in a small Florida town. The early promos stress the small town's obsession with its high school football team, ironically The Cougars. The football theme arrived still-born, and the entire show might have hit the airwaves DOA except that Courteney Cox and "Scrubs"-creator Bill Lawrence had vision and courage to work a few miracle revisions. The whole "Cougar Town" crew rapidly realized, like Jules surveying a bar-full of mini-skirted matrons, "I know I'm one of them. I just don't feel like one of them." They wisely helped Jules morph into her authentic self. The younger boyfriend disappeared from "Cougar Town" after just a few episodes, and stories coalesced around Cox's character Jules, her teen-aged son Travis, and Jules's extended family"”her neighbours on the cul-de-sac, her co-workers in her real estate office, and her profligate ex-husband. While "Cougar Town" struggled to resolve its identity crisis, Lawrence's innuendo-rich dialogue and Cox's increasingly sophisticated delivery sustained the show. By the end of "Cougar Town's" first season, ratings alone offered ample testimony to "Cougar Town's" radical improvement as it held audiences in the half-hour after "Modern Family"; but the Hollywood Foreign Press sealed the deal, nominating Cox for a 2010 Golden Globe as Best Actress in a Comedy.
Off the Map is a character based medical show set in South America. The newest medical drama show from producers of Grey's Anatomy is proving to be a hit series. The latest offering from ABC television, "Off the Map" TV show premiered January 12 of 2011 with some endearing characters going on the "adventure of a lifetime". The show is set in the tropics of South America where three intrepid doctors do their best to save people who are in serious need of medical help. While life is not exactly primitive down in this tropical area of the world, it most definitely is not up to date as far as medical supplies go. Dr. Ben Keeton (Martin Henderson) lost his child and his wife due to an accident and he's having problems coping with the single doctor lifestyle even though he has friends who encourage him. Dr. Otis Cole (Jason Winston George) is one of those docs that most say has a bite every bit as bad as his bite. While super strict at work he also has a somewhat zany side. A former addict he lives for candy as his fix of choice now days. Dr. Lily Brenner (Caroline Dhavernas) has been heartbroken when her fiancee was killed in an accident. Off the Map TV show is a soap opera-ish show and a fun divergence from the normal seriousness involved with medicine. Fans of Grey's Anatomy might like this one.
The Scribner authors who rose to 1930s and 1940s prominence under Max Perkins's skilled tutelage understood the best way to change the world is to represent it precisely--in minute detail and in all its grim, unforgiving, and frightening ugliness. MTV's "16 and Pregnant" brings the same principle to television, accurately and unblinkingly showing the lives of four expectant teen-agers, mercilessly exploiting every ugly stereotype of life on the perilous edge of poverty and powerlessness. The New York Times suggests, "The implicit message at the center of ["16 and Pregnant's] class prejudice tells us that if you're not setting out for Berkeley or Wesleyan, then raising a child when you ought to be working on the yearbook is as good a road to character development as any." The Times unfortunately mistakes power and poignancy for "prejudice." After viewing even one episode of "16 and Pregnant," any observant sophomore will make a headlong dash for Planned Parenthood, the glee club, and an SAT prep course.
On HBO's critically acclaimed "Entourage," Jeremy Piven plays Ari Gold so convincingly that real Hollywood agents feel their skin crawl, experiencing the odd sensation the show is dramatizing their biographies. The sultans of Sunset Boulevard insist "Entourage" gives the most frighteningly real representation of high-powered talent agents since Tom Cruise revealed all the nooks and crannies in Jerry McGuire's character. "Entourage" producer Doug Ellin recently explained, "We always try to write the show starting with 'What's real?' not 'What's funny?,' " but the two questions may be opposite sides of the same coin, because uninitiated audiences find it belly-laugh-out-loud hilarious. "When you're on the inside like we are, good water-cooler television is hard to find," said Jay Sures, a partner at the United Talent Agency. "Entourage" compels the real Hollywood "ten-percenters" to engage in spirited discussions of the show's characters and situations, treating the fictions as if they were real colleagues and clients, because the work-a-day professionals willingly have suspended disbelief and taken Ari Gold into the fold. For the average cable subscriber, then, "Entourage" is the entre to life as a Hollywood insider.
Since its debut night back on September 21, 2010, Tuesday night viewing hasn't been quite the same. Detroit 187 brings a gritty realism to television that shows the heroic and positive side of the city that cars built. The program is a crime drama and with its ensemble cast of great actors, explores various 187's (police code for homicides) that occur with frequent regularity in the writer's minds in the Motor City. We, the viewing audience, ride along and explore the people and reasons why murders happen and why they are part of the culture of every big city. Detective Louis Fitch, played by Michael Imperioli, is rather rough around the edges yet as a ten year veteran of the DPD was first a cop with the NYPD, bringing that tough mentality to the Motor City and almost fitting in. Sergeant Jesse Longford (James McDaniel) is a lifelong resident of Detroit whose father was also a police officer. He's tough yet understanding and about to retire. Aisha Hinds is yet another alumni of NYPD Blue and represents a tough as nails black woman who heads up the DPD homicide unit. The entire cast is superb and with good writing Detroit 187 should be around for a good long while.
Dr. Cal Lightman (Tim Roth) is head of the Lightman Group, a team of deception experts who study faces and body movements to determine who is lying and who isn't when a crime occurs. The show is inspired by a real life psychologist who's discoveries include reading faces, voices, and body "language" and forming conclusions from what is given away by the human psyche. This form of investigation is helpful in finding out the truth when criminal activity involves good liars. Dr. Cal Lightman is played by actor Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction) who is both star and executive producer. His way of finding out the truth is both blunt and to the point; he loves to get in a suspects face and be antagonistic. Side stories involving his personal side and relationship with his young daughter are interesting and often humorous, especially when he applies his work day knowledge toward family relationships. Lie To Me is a top rated show on the Fox Network each Monday evening.
Scheduled as a mid-season replacement for "The Defenders" on CBS, "Chaos" is scheduled to premier on April 1, 2011"”just in time for spring sweepstakes. The producers describe "Chaos" with the oxymoron "comedic drama," which can translate to brilliant satire and much wry laughter, or which can degenerate into serious genre-confusion and disaster. A veteran small-screen cast and an eight o'clock time-slot give hope to producers and CBS programming execs. In "Chaos," a group of CIA renegades combat serious threats to national security under the auspices of "Clandestine Administration and Oversight Services," a hint the writers coined the acronym before filling-in the words. The group includes a young, ingenuous-looking super-sleuth, a psychologist turned spy with a gift for tactics and motivation from severe paranoia. "CAOS" also includes a disgruntled former employee of the British Secret Service, and a seasoned CIA veteran with the capacity to morph into a human weapon. The collection sounds like a sure-fire formula for chaos, and the "Chaos" ensemble has potential to wring big laughs from total incompetence, but they remain vulnerable to looking like the farm team for TNT's "Leverage."
Because "No Ordinary Family" has far more in common with "Swiss Family Robinson" than NBC's Chuck or its flash-in-the-pan "Heroes," it comes as little surprise that this family drama with superpowers comes to life on Disney-property ABC. Culled, of course, from the world of graphic novels, "No Ordinary Family" introduces us to Dad, Mom, and two teenagers beset with the normal collection of post-modern developmental and relational complaints, the youngest boasting the added difficulty of a learning disability. After surviving a light-plane crash in the Amazon, the family returns home to discover their ordeal has invested them with super-powers which seem to compensate precisely for their previous inadequacies. Still in its infancy, "No Ordinary Family" faces an unusual challenge: Can it continue developing the lives and times of a typical Southern California family even as it sets the fearsome foursome in hot pursuit of villains culled from the most frightening pages of graphic novels? If it succeeds, "No Ordinary Family" will have added a twenty-first century dimension to Walt Disney's concept of "the plausible impossible."