Maar waarom is er besloten op deze manier de serie te kopiëren? Linda de Mol is de zus van één van de creatiefste geesten die de Nederlandse TV industrie kent. De man die ons en de rest van de wereld Big Brother bracht en recentelijk een nieuwe megahit scoorde met het originele concept van The Voice of Holland, dat inmiddels aan tig landen is verkocht. Waarom oh waarom komt Linda de Mol dan met een slap aftreksel, een schaamteloze kopie, van een Amerikaanse hit serie? Je zou verwachten dat ze de kneepjes van het vak wel kent, zeker met hits als Gooische Vrouwen op haar CV.

Helaas is Gek op Jack alleen grappig voor het groepje kijkers dat Everybody loves Raymond nooit gezien heeft. De humor is flauw vergeleken met het origneel, het acteerwerk is slecht en de cameravoering is al helemaal een geval apart. Waar het origineel groot is geworden met simpele vaste shots moet alles in de Nederlandse versie blijkbaar bewegen, draaien en het liefst allemaal met de hand, want statieven en dolly’s zijn zo 2010.

In het verleden zijn er natuurlijk wel vaker buitenlandse series naar Nederland gehaald, vertaald en uitgezonden. Sam Sam is bijvoorbeeld gebasseerd op Man About The House. Ook het succesvolle improvisatie programma De Lama’s is op zijn beurt gebaseerd op het Amerikaanse Who’s Line is it Anyway?. Waarom zijn die producties wel goed ontvangen en wordt Iedereen is gek op Jack op Twitter volledig met de grond gelijk gemaakt? Heel simpel. Sam Sam heet geen ‘Man van het Huis’. De Lama’s heet niet ‘Wiens tekst is het eigenlijk?’. Die programma’s hebben allemaal hun eigen draai gegeven aan de uitstraling en scripts van de serie.

De grootste fout is echter dat het leeuwendeel van de ‘acteurs’ in Nederland totaal niet kan acteren, laat staan comedy kan acteren. Linda de Mol is een geboren presentator, laat haar lekker in de camera kijken en de volgende kandidaat aankondigen. Ze is totaal niet op haar plaats in een TV serie, ook niet in Gooische vrouwen want haar acteer prestaties zijn daar al net zo waardeloos. Jeroen van Koningsbrugge is meer een man van typetjes en korte sketches. In series als Neon Letters kan ik enorm om hem lachen, maar in dit soort programma’s is het zo overduidelijk dat hij een script opleest dat het meteen niet meer grappig is.

Het is een gemiste kans, want ik kan enorm genieten van de humor in Everybody Loves Raymond. Maar een serie vertalen in het Nederlands is meer dan een script opvragen, door Google Translate heen halen en uitzenden. Als de serie meer dan dertien afleveringen krijgt hoop ik dat ze iets met al die kritiek doen, maar stiekem hoop ik dat de kijkcijfers tegen die tijd al ver onder de 100.000 liggen.

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De serie Stargate SG-1 is gebaseerd op de film Stargate uit 1994 waarin de vondst van een grote metaal/stenen ring centraal staat. De ring, de stargate, bied je de mogelijkheid om in een fractie van een seconden van planeet naar planeet te reizen zonder daarvoor in een groot duur ruimteschip te hoeven stappen. De film en de TV series vertelden uiteindelijk het verhaal achter de stargates.

Het vierde hoofdstuk, of een nieuw verhaal?

Met Stargate Universe lassen de makers van de series het vierde hoofdstuk van het verhaal in en ze zetten meteen hoog in. Door de serie bijna compleet los te koppelen van de verhaallijnen uit SG-1 en Atlantis hopen de makers dat ze een nieuwe publiek zullen trekken dat meteen kan mee kijken, ook al hebben ze nog nooit van Stargate gehoord.

Helaas heeft dit plan, hoe goed bedacht ook, weinig kans op slagen. Alleen in de eerste aflevering van Stargate Universe zitten al een dozijn termen waarbij van de kijker verwacht wordt ze te kennen. Termen als stargate en wormhole zijn nog vrij makkelijk op te pikken als nieuwe kijker maar zodra er wordt begonnen over de Ancients, chevrons en zero point modules ben je elke nieuwe kijker vrijwel meteen kwijt.

In Stargate SG-1 en Atlantis werd de werking en het verleden van de stargates tot in detail uitgelegd. Beide series zijn in totaal ruim 16 jaar op TV geweest. Je kan een nieuw publiek simpelweg niet midden in zo’n lang verhaal gooien en verwachten dat ze het op een zelfde niveau zullen volgen als de fans die het al vanaf het begin volgen. Naar mijn mening is dit de grootste inschattingsfout geweest, maar absoluut niet één die de nieuwe serie minder goed maakt.

Volwassen

Met de pilot* van SG-U werd meteen al één ding duidelijk; de serie moet en zal volwassener worden. Alles, van de camera shots tot de verhaallijn is volwassener geworden ten opzichte van hoe Stargate SG-1 twaalf jaar geleden begon. Zo kregen we al vrij snel in de serie een ‘bedscene’ voor onze kiezen (hoewel er niet echt spraken was van een bed, eerder een bezemkast), iets wat zeer verrassend is voor de oudere fans omdat zoiets gewoon niet voorkwam in de vorige series. Afgezien van één half naakt scene in de pilot van SG-1 (er waren alleen borsten zichtbaar) werd er verder nooit echt naar seks verwezen.

Ook de aanwezigheid van bloed en geweld is in vrij grote mate omhoog gegaan. Waar de oude series vrij weinig bloederige scenes hadden wordt er in SG-U niet voor geschuwd om redelijke hoeveelheden bloed te laten zien. Het sterven van personages is overigens ook op de schop genomen en sterfscènes zijn nu meer aanwezig dan ooit in tegenstelling tot de vorige series waarbij de dood van personages vaak suggestief waren of volledig buiten beeld werden gelaten.

Over het algemeen hebben de makers van SG-U een goede beslissing genomen om de serie met de tijd mee te laten gaan. Hoewel de serie nu wel iets meer lijkt op andere sciencefiction series en niet meer zijn eigen stijl heeft doet dat absoluut niet af aan de kwaliteit van het verhaal. Stargate Universe is een sterk vervolg op zijn voorgangers en zal in ieder geval de oude garde goed weten te amuseren.

Robin

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That idea belonged to David Crane and Marta Kauffman and that idea would grow out to become the insanely popular TV sitcom Friends. The humorous adventures of Joey, Chandler, Ross, Monica, Rachel and Phoebe did not take very long to be liked by the American audience. New episodes kept being made, new seasons kept being ordered and ten years later the six unknown actors have become true moviestars. David Schwimmer for example played the role of Captain Sobel in the TV miniseries Band of Brothers. Matthew Perry made appearances in, among others, Beverly Hills 90210 and played the main character in The Whole Nine Yards alongside Bruce Willis (who later featured on Friends after a bet between Matt and Bruce).

The series final episode aired on May 6th, 2004 and drew a mind blowing 52 million people to the TV screen in America alone. Of all the actors from Friends only Matt LeBlanc (Joey) stayed in his original role and started his own sitcom, following Joey’s life after splitting up with his friends from New York.

Of course there have been a few Friends wannabees in the years after the finale. However it has been proven quite difficult to live up to the standard Friends set in those ten years. New sitcoms have come and gone, all with their own magical ideas about what would make their new sitcom unique.

On September 19th, 2005 however, it became clear that the spiritual sequel to Friends didn’t have to be unique in it’s own way. The only thing that sequel needed was more of the same; the adventures of five friends in their late twenties living in modern New York City.

How I Met Your Mother

To me also known as Friends 2, How I Met Your Mother is one of the best and funniest TV shows I’ve ever seen. The story of the show is that of a father telling his children how he met their mother in the year 2030. Most of the show just takes place in 2005-2009 though with only tiny moments from 2030 here and there.

The writers of HIMYM are doing a fantastic job coming up with original characters, situations and jokes. However the character Barney Stinson (played by Neil Patrick Harris), has really boosted the shows popularity. Barney’s one liners and hilarious ways of scoring chicks have quickly captured the hearts of many viewers to the point where Neil already has a huge fan base after only four seasons. Various people are selling t-shirts with some of Barney’s most famous quotes on them.

I for one am a big big fan of How I Met Your Mother and hope that it will be at least as successful as Friends was back in its day. I hope very much that the show will continue for a good 10 seasons or even beyond that.

To the writers of the show: You’re doing a legendary job! Keep up the good work for years to come!

And of course, to keep with the spirit of the site, some backstage material and a blooper reel. Enjoy!

Behind the scenes footage (Couldn’t embed this, sorry!)

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When any of these shows started no-one really knew what to expect. A TV show about forensic scientists working on a different case every episode? How is that fun? Now it’s nine years later and we know the answer. Nine seasons and two spin off shows have made the CSI franchise a huge success. The same could be said about Prison Break and Lost, no-one knew what to expect but they were both recipes for success after the very first episode.

The new TV show Leverage is a show that does get you interested the first time you see the commercial for the pilot, which was the same for a lot of people with CSI, Prison Break and Lost. However I do not think Leverage will be as successful as any of the mentioned shows.

For one, Leverage hitchhikes on the success of the Ocean movies (Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen, of course). The concept of a bunch of funny bad guys planning and robbing an enemy who is equally bad and then pulling off the break in with some spectacular idea’s and plot twists. The concept is great and many movies have used it in the past but only the Ocean movies made the genre insanely popular because of the outstanding A-grade cast.

Second, the show does not take itself seriously. One of the things that makes the ‘smart thieves’ genre so good is the gadgets they use to execute the plan which often border on the impossible (think the Pinch in Ocean’s Eleven or lifting an entire house in Ocean’s Twelve). Leverage, however, takes that idea to a whole new and overdone level by introducing a know-it-all hacker into the group who can hack into absolutely anything, anywhere and work with every piece of digital hardware known in the history of man. This is fun for a little bit but when you see this guy in his office behind a simple laptop hacking into the engine computer of a Boeing 747 while it’s actually in the air, that’s overdoing it by miles.

This point is also enforced by another character who apparently is the brother of Super Man because  he can have 15 people pointing automatic machine guns at him and still kick all of their collective asses before any of them gets a shot off.

Third, repetitive. Funny bad guys breaking into other bad guys safe in extremely clever way is only fun for so long and you can only come up with so many story lines before it gets extremely old. There is a reason the movies in this genre are few and far between. You have to come up with a solid story to make it work.

In conclusion, I think that Leverage is a very cool TV show to download and watch in my own time. It’s not something I’d stay home for on a Thursday evening or even sit down for if I happen to be home at that time. I also don’t see Leverage make it past the second season, if it even gets past the first. Story lines tend to get repetitive quick and when that happens shows tend to get canceled (example: Las Vegas).

Robin

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Yes we did! Yesterday’s performance by RED! made the local paper! Here’s a quick translation of the article:

Popstars turn ROC upside down

The crowded cafeteria of the ROC in Hilversum was completely turned upside down during a one time performance by Steffie, Déon and Brandi, AKA the winners of Popstars! Especially Déon gave it all he had during the 45 minute performance, because he is an ex student of the health & sport department at the Hilversum branch of the ROC of Amsterdam. ‘He really felt right at home and didn’t think he’d enjoy it as much as he did,’ Sandra Kamminga, the groups agent, said. RED!, the name of the popgroup, performed a number of songs among which was their own hit ‘Step Into The Light’. After the performance RED! held a Meet & Greet. (Picture by: Teunis Versluis)

Check out the news paper clipping!

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During these lessons we also learn about rigging, how to hang lights into a stage rig and how to properly secure them so they don’t fall down on anyone’s head.

The fun thing is that with these lessons we’re actualy going to do some real stage work. Next week we will be the ones responsible for the preperation of the stage lights when the winners of yet another talent show come to our school to perform their ‘singing’.

RED is the popgroup that was formed after the finale of this year’s Dutch version of Popstars. A fun fact is that two of the three group members are students on this very school, which does make the entire thing kind of special, eventhough they still can’t sing.

Their performance is next Tuesday and I will be sure to make some pictures of the construction and of the performance itself with the lights in action. And once I have a way of getting the pictures of my phone I’ll be sure to post them on here.

Robin

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So to kick off the weekend I thought I’d share some backstage footage of my favorite TV show. In this 10 minute video the actors and producers talk about how season 2 was shot and the problems they encountered while doing so. An interesting thing that came out of this video is that 90% of the season 2 footage was shot in Dallas, Texas. And just to compare, season 2 takes place in at least 5 different states and 2 different countries.

Enjoy the video!

Robin

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But in live TV shows you see them all the time if you pay attention. How many times have you seen news broadcasts going wrong because someone forgot to que up the right clip? It’s up to the anchor to keep a straight face and improvise to avoid just sitting there like an idiot.

While it may seem funny to us, the watching audiance, it’s a lot less funny for the person responsible for the blooper, especially in news broadcasts. It’s not uncommon for the director to throw a fit over something as small as a wrong tape being played and some people have actually lost their jobs over what seem to be innocent bloopers on live shows.

Collection of funny news bloopers.

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The concept of the show caused a lot of news coverage and even political parties who tried to intervine and wanted to prohibit the show to air because of it’s ‘vulgar and inhumane concept’. However at the end of the show the show’s host (and network president), Patriek Lodiers, announced that the entire show was fake and was meant too bring more attention to the problem of having to little donors. The fallout worked in a way, as the government proposed an idea to make every person a donor by default unless they declare differently (as opposed to the current law, which states that no-one is a donor unless they declare they are).

The Emmy for ‘The Donor Show‘ is the second Emmy a Dutch broadcast recieves in a short time, the first one having been awarded to Peter R. de Vries for his show covering the Natalee Holoway case.

Robin

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The clip below shows nicely how small a piece of stage can really be. Recording TV shows with stages like this is just a matter of being creative with camera angles. A lot of the times the camera shot you see on TV is mere inches away from the edge of the set. If the camera would pan just a little more up, down, right or left, you’d start seeing past the set and into the studio.

The large watertank underneath this part of the set is a nice example of things you don’t think about. It’s a rain scene, how hard can that be? Just spray water over them and be done with it, right? But that water has to go somewhere, they can’t just let it drip on the floor and have the janitor clean it up after they are done shooting. The tank also allowes them to use the water again should they have to do the scene again.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Robin

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