This Week In TV: Jack Ryan, Westworld, Jessica Jones

Chris Pine as Jack Ryan in last year's Shadow Recruit
Image source: geekbinge.corg

Welcome to the first edition of a new weekly feature at Cultured Vultures. This is a bold new frontier for us, mainly because it means I have to remember to do it every week. In This Week in TV we’ll be bringing you the latest TV news, however exciting or depressing it is, along with interesting talk show videos for your insatiable consumption.

To cynically grab your attention, we’ll put our favourite viral video of the week right at the top here. So here’s Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel talking it out in a couple’s therapy session:

TV News

Serial

The true-crime podcast that turned everyone into obsessives back in 2014 is the latest pop culture thing to be turned into a live action TV show. Our hopes are slightly raised by the serious involvement of Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the pair behind the 21 Jump Street revival and The Lego Movie.

For those who don’t know, Serial became a pop culture sensation last year when it explored a real life murder case, looking at whether the man convicted was really guilty. Its first season was downloaded tens of millions of times.

We’re assuming the new TV show will be a scripted adaptation of how the podcast came together. It is possible though that it could take more of a documentary format.

 

Westworld

This one’s a weird one. Westworld is a new sci-fi show coming to HBO, the home of Game of Thrones and Girls. It’s been a strange week for the show, which doesn’t even air until next year.

The show requires a lot of extras, which is the responsibility of a firm called Central Casting. According to Deadline, a consent form from the company required extras to agree to ‘graphic sexual situations’. This is exactly as creepy as it sounds. Extras would reportedly have to take part in ‘genital-to-genital touching’ and more.

HBO obviously denied the consent form came from them, claiming it wasn’t requested by them and did not match on-set practices. Fair enough. For a second there it seemed like HBO was just dropping the pretence and just becoming a porn channel.

 

Jack Ryan

If you’re an eagle eyed TV nerd you’ll already know Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan character is currently under development to become a TV show. This week though it was announced that Amazon had picked up the rights to air the show on its streaming service. Don’t I keep telling you streaming is the future?

According to the Hollywood Reporter the show will “follow the character [of Jack Ryan] in his prime as a CIA operative”. Currently the show is in development, so this is very early stages at present.

Jack Ryan has been part of many Clancy novels, as well as five different films. Alec Baldwin Harrison Ford and Chris Pine have all portrayed the character.

 

CBS picks up Hunted

British network Channel 4 recently aired Hunted, a reality show where contestants were tasked with staying off the grid. The show, where ordinary volunteers must avoid capture by security experts using cutting edge tech, will now receive a US version courtesy of CBS.

 

New Jessica Jones Teaser

Marvel and Netflix have released another new trailer for their follow up to Daredevil. Jessica Jones hits the streaming service all at once on November 20. Check out the teaser below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WY-C5-xLNE

 

Girls

Lena Dunham has pretty heavily hinted that her zeigeist-setting HBO show Girls will probably not go beyond a sixth season. Its fifth season is set to air some time early in 2016, though a sixth season has yet to be officially confirmed. Dunham’s comments come from an interview on an American morning show.

 

Roseanne

The classic US sitcom Roseanne is getting a new adaptation. In Russia. Made by Sony Pictures, the new show will be titled Katya, and will presumably star whoever the Russian Roseanne Barr is.

 

David Schwimmer

Former Friends star David Schwimmer is set to star in a new sitcom for British broadcaster Channel 4. Morning Has Broken, created by English comedian Julia Davis, will see Schwimmer as a producer bought in to revitalise a floundering TV breakfast programme. Davis will star as the main presenter of the show.

 

Netflix

The streaming service will continue its march towards world domination by launching a version of itself in Spain. If you’re a Spanish vulture, you can expect to pay about the same as the rest of us: €7.99, or about $8.95 according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Late Night Videos

Here’s Seth Meyers and Anne Hathaway recreating the last scene of every romantic comedy ever:

This week is Trevor Noah’s first as host of The Daily Show. Check out how well he’s doing filling Jon Stewart’s shoes:

Stephen Colbert has only been host of The Late Show for a couple of weeks and he’s already tackling serious issues. Here’s Colbert having a positive discussion with Ellen Page about LGBT rights:

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