What's on TV this week?

Every night this week we have Superstar on ITV which is the search for the lead of Jesus Christ Superstar, this is something we will not be tuning in for and it's unfortunate it takes up so much airtime.

Tonight on BBC1 at 9pm is the second episode of Wallander, an adaptation of a Swedish novel series starring Kenneth Branagh. 

If you missed The Newsroom this week it is being shown again tonight at 9pm on Sky Atlantic. You can read our review here.

Tomorrow night on BBC1 at 9pm we have the finale of Blackout starring Christopher Eccleston. We haven't been watching this but plan to go back and watch it and the reviews haven't been bad either.

Alan Partridge's Mid Morning Matters also continues on Sky Atlantic at 9pm. 

The Walking Dead continues on channel 5 at 10pm with only a few episodes to go of the current series.

Line of Duty is on Tuesday night on BBC2 at 9pm which we are thoroughly enjoying. This is immediately followed by the hilarious Twenty Twelve.

At 10pm we have the second episode of The Newsroom which we are super excited about.

There's not an awful lot of new drama showing on Wednesday but we do have The Sopranos and True Blood on Sky Atlantic from 9pm and Lewis is showing on ITV3 at 9pm.

Thursday we see the first day of the open on BBC2 all day (yawn!). We will be watching How I Met Your Mother on E4 at 8:30 which we are really enjoying at the moment and love the fact that the story is finally making progress. 

Friday night we have Match of the Day Live on BBC1 at 8pm showing the  warm up game between Great Britain and Brazil, which will be the first and only warm up game for Great Britain before the Olympics.

Did Linda La Plante really approve Prime Suspect USA?

As we were fans of the original Prime Suspect starring Helen Mirren, we thought we would give Prime Suspect USA a watch currently being shown on Universal. 

The first episode starts with Jane Timoney after a jog getting into a taxi and pulling a gun and her badge on the taxi driver to make him drive, we found this utterly ridiculous and unbelievable. The episode doesn’t get much better and Maria Bello who plays Timoney is annoying and unlikeable which is emphasised by the strange hat she fashions throughout the show.

"Hey everyone, look at my weird hat."

We didn’t want to write it off after the first episode as there is a lot of scene setting and character building in a pilot, so we gave it another go and I’m afraid to say it gets no better. 

The New York version has none of the grittiness or suspense you get with the original. Each episode is done and dusted by the end of the 45 minutes with no real “prime suspect” as the title suggests. The only similarity to the original show is the chauvinistic attitude of the men that work within the department which feels very forced.

Prime Suspect USA is yet another example of why our friends across the pond should not remake what is already a perfectly good show and I am frankly shocked that Linda La Plante approved it. As I’m sure you have guessed we will not be tuning in again.

The Newsroom review

Being massive fans of both The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, to say we were excited about Sorkin’s new series The Newsroom was an understatement. 

The Newsroom, a show based on the behind the scenes events of a fictitious US cable news channel starts with Jeff Daniel’s character, Will McAvoy, the unstable news anchor being asked why he thinks America is the greatest country in the world. After trying to avoid the question with bland answers he finally cracks and goes into a rant about how America isn’t the greatest country in the world. This controversial outburst causes his Executive Producer and the majority of his team to jump ship, along with much media attention.

McAvoy’s boss hires in Mackenzie as the shows new EP, a former girlfriend of McAvoy which instantly causes friction, division and an interesting dynamic which although at first felt very forced and highly unbelievable it seemed to bring an additional element of interest to the show, and the writing and script somehow seemed to make it work.

As you would expect Sorkin brings his political side to this show and from some quarters he has been criticised for doing so, but for us it just makes it a more enjoyable watch. 

As with The West Wing and Studio 60, The Newsroom is well written with a lot of dialogue, although the constant shouting in the first half of the show was over the top and a bit uncomfortable to watch. As with all pilot episodes there was a lot of scene setting and character introductions and the longer we watched the more we enjoyed it. 

The Newsroom didn’t have the quality of The West Wing but we spent the whole episode wanting to know what happens next and we can’t wait for the second episode. Although we have seen mixed reviews we are really looking forward to seeing how it develops and we hope we won’t be disappointed.

Homeland - Series 2 Teasers

Showtime, the US television network, has released some teaser videos for their worldwide smash, Homeland.

We at TV Style love this show and really hope that the second series lives up to the first and our expectations.

Take a look at the first teaser clip below and let us know your thoughts.

Desperate Housewives Finale Review (contains spoilers)

After 8 years Desperate Housewives has finally left our screens forever and the finale was everything we had hoped for. We had a birth, a death and a wedding and it definitely ended with a  "happily ever after" feel about it.

There were elements that were ridiculously far fetched but this was a show that jumped 10 years into the future a few seasons ago so after that we will pretty much forgive it for anything. The journey to the wedding when Julie's water breaks went a little bit too far however, we know Renee is heartless but is anyone really that self involved to dismiss that a friend's daughter is in labour to shop for a new wedding dress?

The rest of the episode however was heart warming and lovely, and the little montage with Karen dying, Julie giving birth and the Scavo's racing to the hospital was brilliantly cheesy and we thoroughly enjoyed it. 

We had a tear in our eye when Tom and Lynette got back together and what a great ending for Lynette getting her dream job as CEO for the US division of Katherine's successful food company. It's fantastic that she got the challenge you felt she always craved.

Carlos and Gabby were as comical as ever and we laughed out loud when Carlos employed the attractive lady gardener in response to Gabby's neglect. What a perfect finish that she ends up with her own personal shopper show and a mansion in California. 

Bree also had a happy ending after the ordeal of her grueling and revealing trial, she ends up marrying her lawyer Trip and starts a successful career in politics.

We were only sorry not to see how Susan's future panned out, it would have been nice to see a happy outlook given how tragic things have been for her. We were also shocked to see all the ghosts at the end and how many people had died on the lane, what a dangerous place to live!

All in all it was a superb ending to a brilliant show, and although it had run it's course we will be sad to see it go. We'll miss you.

TV news this week

We have the last ever episode of Desperate Housewives on E4 tonight at 10pm. We have been watching this from series 1 and although it's probably time it ended we will be gutted to see it go. See our review on this later in the week

The season finale of Madmen will be airing on Sky Atlantic on Tuesday at 9pm. This show has somehow passed us by but we'll be sure to go back and take a look at some point.

The recent series of Lewis is being released on DVD tomorrow and we will be counting the days until the seventh series next year.

Euro 2012 started on Friday and will be taking up a lot of evening airtime on BBC1 and ITV1. If you're not a footie fan then we have recommended some other shows to watch this week in our TV suggestions blog.

Big Brother 13 apparently started last week on Channel 5. This isn't something we will be wasting our time on but the Radio Times website has a daily blog of the events.
Just for reference, it's not that we never liked Big Brother, there were even special "Big Brother Entrance Night" parties with Cheese and Pineapple on sticks back in the day, but now feel that it's run its course and we'll be looking elsewhere for our entertainment.

Steven Spielberg's sci-fi second series of Falling Skies has a UK air date of the 3rd July on FX.

We are keeping our eye on Sky Atlantic at the moment, they have recently announced Brand X with Russel Brand along with other comedy shows by Steve Coogan and Kathy Burke. We are also really excited about the new crime drama FaclÓn, with Marton Csokas and the brilliant Emilia Fox. We think Sky Atlantic could give BBC1 and ITV a run for their money for quality television if these shows are as good as we hope they'll be.

What's on TV this week?

Euro 2012 has now started (in case you weren't already aware!) which is taking up a large amount of evening airtime on BBC1 and ITV1 so you don't tend to have much going up against the football, but we've found a few picks for you whether you're interested in the football or not...

Tonight we have the last ever episode of Desperate Housewives after 8 seasons, so be sure to tune in for this one. It's been a great series so far with a roller-coaster ride of highs and lows so keep a look out for our review on this later in the week.

Tomorrow we have the first England game of Euro 2012 against France. Coverage starts at 4pm on ITV1 with kick off at 5pm.
Also in England's group Ukraine take on Sweden at 7pm, kick off at 7:45 on BBC1.

The Walking Dead continues on channel 5 at 10pm as does Dexter on FX

Tuesday we have Greece v Czech Republic on ITV1 at 4:30, kick off 5pm.

In the same group we then have Poland v Russia on ITV1 at 7:20. kick off 7:45 but if you want a break from the football Silk continues with their penultimate episode at 9pm on BBC1.
At 9pm on Sky Atlantic we have the season finale of Mad Men, somehow this series has passed us by but we're sure we'll go back and take a look.

On Wednesday Denmark take on Portugal and after their surprise win against Holland this could be a good one on ITV1 4:30, kick off 5pm.

We then have old rivals Holland v Germany at 7pm on BBC1, kick off at 7:45. Both of these teams have been tipped for the tournament (including by one of our writers here) so expect to see a hard fought grudge match with an evil glint in the eye.

Speaking of horror shows, (nice link, don't you think?) we won't be tuning in for Bedlam this week (read our review to find out why) but if you enjoyed it's jumps and scares last week it will be aired on Sky Living at 10pm.

The US version of The Killing continues on Channel 4 at 10:30.

On Thursday we have Italy v Croatia playing on BBC1 at 4:45, kick off 5pm and over on ITV1 Spain play the Republic of Ireland at 7:15, kick off 7:45.
If you're fed up of football there is another chance to see Wonders of the Solar System on BBC4 at 8pm with the brilliant Professor Brian Cox. If you didn't catch it first time around it's well worth a look even if you're not a space raider as it's beautifully shot and shows the BBC at its finest.

How I Met Your Mother is on E4 at 8:30, will Robin return Ted's love? Straight after we have 2 Broken Girls.

Prisoners of War continues on Sky Arts 1 at 9:30, the Israeli drama that US hit series, Homeland was based on.

On Friday Ukraine play France at 4:30 on ITV1, kick off 5pm.
It's then England's second game of the Euros against Sweden on BBC1 at 7pm, kick off 7:45.

If you fancy a laugh (not at our national football team) then tune in for Jimmy Carr's 8 out of 10 cats on Channel 4 at 10pm.