Tag Archives: Battle Creek

American Odyssey: The Beginning

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NBC American Odyssey

On Sunday April 5, 2015 NBC will premiere its new intelligence drama series American Odyssey in the 10 pm slot.  American Odyssey is the story of female American Sargent Odelle Ballard (Anna Friel) fighting jihadists in North Africa and her struggle to return home to her family in America. Two other Americans, attorney Peter Decker (Peter Facinelli), and Harrison Walters (Jake Robinson) gets tangled up with the jihadists as well.

Production

The full series, originally named Odyssey, was ordered originally at the NBC Upfronts in May along with Allegiance which has already been cancelled.  The show is a co-production between Universal Television, London based Red Arrow Entertainment and its US partners Fabrik Entertainment.  Red Arrow is part of the larger Red Arrow Entertainment group which is part of the German based ProSiebenSat.1 media group.  The series was created by Peter Horton, Adam Armus and Kay Foster who will serve as the shows executive producers.  Both Armus and Foster were previously executive producers on The Following and Heroes. The show was shot in Morocco and New York.

Cast

The main character is played by Anna Friel, a British actress best known for her role in the ABC television series Pushing Daisies.  The other two lead characters are played by Peter Facinelli and Jake Robinson.  Facinelli gained a large following after his role in the Twilight movies as the father vampire Carlisle.  Robinson has appeared in many episodes of the show The Carrie Diaries, the prequel to Sex in the City.  An interesting thing about the show is that it was shot in Morocco and some casting was done there as well.  Omar Ghazaoui who will play Aslam is a Moroccan teenager who was chosen during casting in Morocco.  This will be his first professional acting role.

Programming

American Odyssey will be up against Revenge on ABC and Battle Creek on CBS for the Sunday 10pm slot. Last week Revenge received a 1.1 rating/3 share with 4.42 million viewers total in 18-49 which is pretty standard for how it has been performing all season.  Dateline will be the lead-in for American Odyssey which has averaged around 5 million viewers in the past few weeks in 18-49 which is the highest that its been since January, according to TV By the Numbers.

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Battle Creek: Dispatches From the Field

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This past Sunday, March 15th, Battle Creek premiered its third episode on CBS, which means critics have had plenty of time to digest the not-so-buddy-cop dramedy as part of the Sunday night lineup at 10pm EST.

Survey Says? It’s pretty good! Metacritic, the web’s favorite criticism aggregator (after Twitter of course) gives the show a robust score of 73 with 25 positive reviews and 4 mixed.

The consensus: Critics applaud the acting performances of leading men Josh Duhamel and Dean Winters and appreciate the show’s departure from the well worn treads of CBS procedural predecessors CSI and NCIS. Strengths also include a light-hearted tone and “real” story lines, while the show’s weakness lies in occasionally being “too coy or sappy”.

User reviews on the Metacritic site echo these sentiments, with one user noting that the show has gotten better with every episode, a trend that could bode well for the show. Rotten Tomatoes also has rated the show as 95% fresh, tying Tina Fey’s Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt as the top score for new shows. It’s worth noting that the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, has had success with atypical shows that start a little slowly… Ok, Breaking Bad is only one show and totally different, but you get the point.

Welcome to “Battle Creek”

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On Sunday, March 1st CBS will launch Battle Creek the 10pm EST time slot as a mid-season replacement for CBS rating stalwart CSI. The show boasts an impressive stable of talent, starring Josh Duhamel (Transformers) as the flashy new FBI agent playing foil to the incumbent police detective played by Dean Winters (30 Rock) in Battle Creek, Michigan. The ensemble is rounded out by Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar) and Oscar nominee Janet McTeer.

After laying dormant for over a decade, Vince Gilligan’s “Battle Creek is finally getting its shot with CBS.

The creative pedigree of the show is even more star-studded than the cast, with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator, Vince Gilligan, and House creator, David Shore giving the hour-long black comedy at least a fighting chance to gain traction in a time slot with limited competition outside of ABC’s Revenge. Sony will produce.

 

Source: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-ca-tv-preview-battle-creek-20150104-story.html