Truth Seekers: Season 1

Gus Roberts is the star engineer at SMYLE, a new 6G broadband company operating on the south coast of England. In his spare time Roberts is also "the Truth Seeker," investigating paranormal activity on a low-key YouTube channel. When he gets a new engineer assistant, who goes by the improbable moniker of Elton John, and meets a strange woman hiding behind his house, his success rate in investigating the paranormal abruptly increases.

The combination of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost is a proven, winning one. Their 1999-2001 TV series Spaced (made in concert with Jessica Hynes) is one of the great British sitcoms, whilst their films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz arguably remain the two greatest British comedy films of the 21st Century (to date), with The World's End being a distant but still decent follow-up. However, all of these projects were also undertaken with the collaboration of director Edgar Wright. Pegg and Frost's work without Wright (particularly their 2011 movie, Paul) has been very patchy, whilst Wright's solo work (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver) has been far more accomplished.

A non-Wright collaboration between Pegg and Frost should therefore be regarded with suspicion, but Truth Seekers makes this more of a virtue. This new Amazon series makes a strength of the absence of Wright's trademark superlative editing and frenetic fast-cuts, instead opting for a slower, more deliberate and, well, more British pace. Truth Seekers is a restrained show which mixes low-key comedy with unexpected moments of real drama, pathos and horror to an ultimately winning effect.

It takes a little while to warm up. The first and easily weakest episode is stiff, not particularly funny and at times strained. The episode sets up a long list of clichés, including protagonist Frost being sad about his dead wife, living with his doddering father (Malcolm McDowell, initially phoning it in but quickly perking up and bringing his A-game) and joining forces with a new, clumsy partner (Samson Kayo) and his geeky sister (Susie Wokoma). They are given jobs by SMYLE's boss, Dave (a restrained Pegg) which somehow manage to combine fixing genuine broadband connectivity problems with paranormal activity, mostly revolving around ghosts, souls unable to move on to other planes or becoming trapped on the mortal plane. An early investigation sees the team joined by Astrid (Emma D'Arcy), a strange pixie-like girl with a mysterious past who appears to have spontaneously accumulated from every single female Joss Whedon character ever.

The piled-up clichés rapidly start dissolving though. Each character has a carefully thought-out backstory and it's the combination of these backstories that makes the plot more interesting. The show also finds convincing ways of explaining why, after twenty years of frustration, Gus is suddenly inundated with real paranormal cases. The characters evolve in surprising and original ways, and the stakes of the entire series ramp up, with the apparently disconnected mysteries-of-the-week gradually building into tiles of a much bigger mosaic. Excellent supporting actors also show up, with Trainspotting's Kelly McDonald appearing as a possible new ally and The Mighty Boosh's Julian Barratt as a recurring foe.

Events culminate in a large-scale showdown which mixes in some existential body horror and real tragedy to the mix, as well as the inevitable cliffhanger for a second season.

Truth Seekers' first season (****) succeeds by virtue of not being another Frost/Pegg gag-a-minute geekpocalypse (helped by Pegg not being in it that much), instead being thoughtful and at times genuinely eerie thanks to some taut direction from Jim Field Smith. When it's funny, it can be very funny, but it knows when to play things for laughs and when to look for other emotional responses. Apart from that weak first episode, this is an accomplished series with an interesting tone, and it'll be good if it comes back for more. The first season is available now worldwide on Amazon Prime Video.

Happy 20th anniversary to SPACED

Spaced, the greatest sitcom about science fiction and fantasy fans ("geeks," if you will), turns 20 years old today.

Created by Jessica Hynes, Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, Spaced is set in London and sees the twenty-something Tim Beasley (Pegg) and Daisy Steiner (Hynes) as flatmates who pretend they're a couple to secure an astonishingly reasonable London flat from their ex-rock groupie landlady Marsha (Julia Deakin). The other regular characters include Tim and Daisy's pretentious artist neighbour Brian (Mark Heap), Daisy's fashion-obsessed friend Twist (Katy Carmichael) and Tim's best friend Brian (Nick Frost), a disgraced member of the Territorial Army who was kicked out after commandeering a tank and trying to invade Paris before being distracted by EuroDisney and subsequently apprehended on Space Mountain. Recurring characters include Tim's sworn nemesis Dwayne Benzie (Peter Serafinowicz) and his comic shop owner boss, Bilbo (Bill Bailey), who at a key moment is forced to fire Tim for hurling over-the-top abuse at a young customer for trying to buy Jar-Jar Binks merchandise (Tim's subsequent boss then fires Tim when he discovers his dislike of Babylon 5).

The show's storylines revolved around the characters' interpersonal relationships, such as Brian and Twist's growing romance, and also around pop culture references. This included episodes inspired by everything from Resident Evil 2 to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to The Matrix to John Woo. However, the series maintained a strong comedic edge, mining the laughs from the characters and situations they found themselves in so even non-geeks could enjoy the show (the cast used Julia Deakin as their litmus for this, as the only geek reference she got was a Close Encounters of the Third Kind mashed potato gag). This also helped the show age gracefully, even though a number of shows and movies the series referenced have since fallen into obscurity.

Spaced only aired two seasons in 1999 and 2001, totalling fourteen episodes, but of course its impact was seismic. Hynes, Serafinowicz, Wright, Pegg and Frost reteamed for the movie Shaun of the Dead in 2004 (which by coincidence celebrates the 15th anniversary of its US release today) and the latter three then went on to make Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World's End (2013). Pegg also played Scotty in JJ Abrams' Star Trek movies and most recently appeared in Amazon's The Boys, whilst Frost recently had a regular role on Into the Badlands. Serafinowicz recently starred in Amazon's The Tick and Hynes had a starring role on Years and Years. Wright has also had a successful directing career with the critically-acclaimed movies Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver and the forthcoming Last Night in Soho. He has also worked as a writer on movies including The Adventures of Tintin and Ant-Man. The show also featured before-they-were-famous turns by British comics from David Walliams to Ricky Gervais.

Spaced remains the finest sitcom about pop culture, challenged only by Community (Dan Harmon had never seen Spaced, but after viewing it had to admit there must have been some kind of weird shared cultural osmosis). It never looked down or sneered at SFF fandom, instead promoting the idea of fans as creative and warm-hearted individuals. The show also still looks incredible, Wright's fast-cut editing and dynamic camera moves making it look like a film. Why more sitcoms (British or otherwise) have not taken their cue from this show remains a mystery.

So far, the creators are resisting the urge to create a new series (although acknowledging they have talked about it), instead preferring to leave these characters as we last saw them: happy, optimistic and ready for the future. If you haven't checked out Spaced, it's well worth catching up with now.

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg to adapt RIVERS OF LONDON for television

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg (Hot Fuzz, The World's End, Paul, Spaced) have re-teamed to produce a television adaptation of Ben Aaronovitch's urban fantasy series Rivers of London.

Stolen Pictures, the production company founded by Frost and Pegg to develop new projects, have optioned the rights to the series and are searching for a production partner. Currently the plan is to adapt the first novel, Rivers of London (retitled Midnight Riot in the US for no particular reason) across 8-10 episodes. Subsequent seasons may combine the narratives of several books.

For Aaronovitch, this is coming full circle as he began his writing career in the 1980s working in television, including writing episodes of Doctor Who. After some time out of the writing field, he returned with the Rivers of London series, exploring the adventures of Peter Grant, a young constable in the Metropolitan Police who is drafted into the service's undercover magic division under Thomas Nightingale.

To date the series comprises the novels Rivers of London (2011), Whispers Under Ground (2012), Broken Homes (2013), Foxglove Summer (2014), The Hanging Tree (2016) and Lies Sleeping (2018), as well as several novellas and graphic novels. 

The World's End

Twenty years ago, five school friends set out to do the 'Golden Mile', a pub crawl taking in a dozen pubs in their home town of Newton Haven. They didn't quite make it. Now Gary King is determined to complete the crawl and rounds up his former mates. But once back in their home town, they discover that things aren't quite what they seem...

The World's End is the concluding film in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, following on from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. These films have different characters but a recurring cast and are the creations of Simon Pegg (writer, lead actor) and Edgar Wright (writer, director), supported by Nick Frost (actor). Each film is based around a colour which represents the movie's genre and theme as well as being a flavour of Cornetto: red for Shaun (representing blood and the horror genre), blue for Fuzz (representing the police and the buddy cop/action genre) and now green for World's End. Finding out why the film uses the green colour is part of the fun.
 
The film is the first collaboration between Pegg and Wright in six years, with both having been busy in Hollywood in the meantime. Pegg has worked on the Mission Impossible and Star Trek franchises and written his own stand-alone SF flick, Paul (also co-starring Frost). Wright helmed the hyper-kinetic, gloriously entertaining Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World and has been developing an Ant-Man movie at Marvel. The break has done them both good, with the result being a film that trades less on past glories (aside from the fence gag and the Cornetto motif, there are no returning jokes or sly shout-outs) and stands more on its own two feet. What it does take from its forebears, however, is structure and tone.

Like Hot Fuzz, The World's End centres on a tonal shift which transforms it from one type of film into another. In Hot Fuzz, this moment came about three-quarters of the way through the film when it transformed from a Wicker Man-style rural horror film into a Michael Bay blockbuster, but the film pulled it off through excellent foreshadowing. The World's End's corresponding moment comes in the toilets of the fourth pub, about a quarter of the way into the film, and is less successful: we've known the characters for a lot shorter period of time and the shift is not adequately foreshadowed. The move from surprisingly effective character drama to balls-out action flick is not as well-handled as in Hot Fuzz and the credulity-straining premise of the film is further eroded by the decision our heroes make to complete the pub crawl in the face of all logic. It's a bit like that bit in Shaun of the Dead when Pegg and Frost decide to hole up against the zombie hordes in the pub which doesn't entirely make sense, but you kind of go along with it because it's one thing and the result is uproariously hilarious (most notably, the pool cue accompaniment to Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now'). The World's End instead has to justify its premise eight times (each time they leave a pub and the situation has escalated further) and the results are only moderately amusing.

In fact, The World's End is at its best when the crazy SF stuff is forgotten and we're focusing on the character interrelationships. The five friends are convincingly portrayed. Particularly successful is the way that Gary's unhealthy obsession with the past and how it has increasingly dominated his thoughts the more his adult life has descended into failure, poverty and addiction is both bleak and exceptionally well-played by Pegg; this is Pegg's finest performance since Hot Fuzz and maybe his finest performance ever. It's certainly Frost's, as for once he plays the straight man to Pegg's more erratic lead and does so with a surprising level of maturity. Sadly, this strong performance tails off towards the end of the film when Frost's character falls off the wagon and he reverts to a more familiar 'funny fat guy' routine. Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan and an excellent Paddy Considine all provide able support as the other members of the childhood gang. More wasted is Rosamund Pike as the nominal love interest, who gets very little to do.

The SF stuff is rather more unbelievable, with little effort to integrate it into the reality of the film (as with the zombies in Shaun of the Dead). In fact, the SF stuff rapidly becomes a bit of a chore and a distraction from the real story, which is what's going on with Gary. Even the characters seem to feel this way, with a five-minute fight scene with the 'bad guys' ending and the cast immediately returning to interrogating Gary about what's going on in his head. Oddly, this is an SF film where the SF stuff is an unwelcome deviation from the more mundane, character-based drama and relationships. This is The World's End's biggest failure, as both Shaun and Hot Fuzz used their outlandish events to reinforce the drama and characters, whilst in The World's End they merely distract.

That said, what The World's End does have is a really great ending. It doesn't wimp out and the ending integrates the two sides of the film together more successfully than anything up to that point. Indeed, of the three films in the trilogy The World's End is the only one that feels like it could have a really good sequel.

The World's End (***½) is the weakest film in the trilogy, although even in failure it still provides some great laughs and some interesting characters. It is a lot better than Paul, for certain, and seems to prove that Simon Pegg is at his best in collaboration with Edgar Wright. Hopefully it won't be so long before they next team up. The film is on general release now in the UK and next month in the USA.

WORLD'S END release date brought forwards

The movie The World's End has had its release date brought forwards by a full month. The film will now be released on 19 July in the UK this year (the US release date of 23 August remains - so far- unchanged).

The World's End is the third and concluding film in Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's thematic Three Flavours of Cornetto trilogy, following on from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (Paul, though also starring Pegg and Nick Frost, was created by a different team), as well as their TV show Spaced. As well as starring Pegg and Frost and being directed by Wright, some other actors from the earlier projects are reappearing: Paddy Considine (one of the Andys from Hot Fuzz), David Bradley (the incomprehensible farmer from Hot Fuzz) and Mark Heap (tortured artist Brian from Spaced) will also have roles in the new film. Apart from Pegg and Frost, the only actors to appear in all three films are Martin Freeman, though he will have a larger role than his two brief appearances in the prior movies, and Rafe Spall (who also appeared in Spaced).

The film's premise is that a bunch of friends go out on the town in London to recreate an epic pub crawl from their youth, only to get caught up in the disaster to end all disasters.

The World's End has done a straight swap with Kick-Ass 2, which is now being released on 23 August in the UK (and 16 August in the USA).

THE WORLD'S END starts filming

Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright have reunited to start filming the third movie in their Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy. The first two movies in this very loosely-connected trilogy were Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, both of which were international hits. Martin 'Bilbo Baggins' is the third actor to appear in all three movies, whilst Paddy Considine also returns after appearing in Hot Fuzz. Rosamund Pike and Eddie Marsan round off the list of announced actors. A new poster for the movie has also been released:

The movie will be released on 14 August 2013 in the UK and 25 October 2013 in the USA.

Trivia: World's End is an area of Chelsea, London named after a pub (the same pub that will feature in the film prominently). The first episode of the 1964 Doctor Who serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth was also named after this area.

Comic-Con posters: THE HOBBIT and THE WORLD'S END

A whole ton of interesting stuff is happening at the San Diego Comic-Con, as usual. A lot of upcoming movies have had exclusive teaser posters released for them, and these are two of the most interesting:

An Unexpected Journey is the first of two movies adapting J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit to the big screen. The same crew are handling the project as the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy a decade ago, including director Peter Jackson. The first movie will be released this December. Principal filming on the two movies ended a week ago, with the production switching to editing and special effects work.

The World's End won't start shooting until September and is planned for release later in 2013. This is the third in the thematic Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, following on from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, and reunites director Edgar Wright with actors Simon Pegg (who also co-writes) and Nick Frost (Paul, despite featuring Pegg and Frost, doesn't count because it was directed by someone else).

The World's End is set during an unspecified disaster that threatens the entire world. Rather that played out from a traditional large-scale, global perspective, the threat is instead glimpsed through a group of characters (including Pegg and Frost) as they recreate a pub-crawl around London from a decade earlier, culminating at the World's End pub in Camden. Expect laughs and ice cream.

The trilogy is so-called because each movie features the characters eating a Cornetto ice cream whose colour is related to the movie: blood red (strawberry) for zombie horror flick Shaun of the Dead; police blue (original flavour) for crime caper Hot Fuzz; and alien green (mint) for The World's End. The title is also a riff on Krzysztof Kieslowski's excellent Three Colours series.