[TV] Sinbad (2012) - from Impossible Pictures & BBC Worldwide

[kronovan]

I've been seeing ads for this on the Canadian Space TV channel. Up until then I'd heard nothing about it and I'm not ever sure if a US network has picked it up; although I know there's a number of sindication deals between Space and the SyFy network. Impossible Pictures are a UK company and they're the same company that produced Primeval. I've never actually watched an episode of Primeval so I can't comment, but I know its popular here in Canuckistan. They've created an initial 13 episodes for Sinbad, so its going to run at least a 1/2 season.

I'm a big fan of Sword & Sorcery and love Ray Harryhausen's earlier Sinbad movies, so this immediately grabbed my attention. What's interesting is that the lead actor -Elliot Knight- is a complete unknown with Sinbad being his debut role. Meanwhile much of the rest of the cast have actually been in some better TV series and movies - including Naveen Andrews from Lost, Orla Brady from Fringe, Sophie Okonedo from Hotel Rwanda and Timothy Spall whos appeared in a number of Harry Potter movies. I'm thinking this is either going to be better than decent or completely suck. I'm usually a person who watches series when they're rerun or netflixed, but being S&S I plan on catching at least the debut episode. It's airs next week.

[EngineNo9]

Sweet, I've been waiting for his comeback!   

[kronovan]

Sweet, I've been waiting for his comeback!   

Sorry dude, wrong Sinbad. You dug up the swauve & preachery one. 

[CeeKay]

I didn't realize Sinbad had a Norwegian on his crew:


Elliot Cowan as Norwegian sailor Gunnar

at least Sinbad looks fab-U-lous!



(from the Facebook page)

still, if it airs in the States I may try and watch it.  I remember thinking the latest Robin Hood BBC series looked horrible but quite enjoyed it.

[kronovan]

I didn't realize Sinbad had a Norwegian on his crew:

Meh, they're off by a century with their historical dates and wrong about the ethnicity of the Viking. The Rus vikings (actually Swedes) who went on to form medieval Russia raided the Abussid Caliphate (the northern coast on the south Caspian Sea) that the fictional Sinbad was a citizen of, but it happened roughly 100 years later than the period the Sindibad al-Bahri tales were set in. IIRC there wasn't a Norse (Norwegian) viking in the original tales, but its still not as far fetched historically as many would think.

[metallicorphan]

Surprising that its BBC who had a hand in this?,because the trailer has been all over SKY here,advertised with every damn set of commercials,it's showing on SKY 1 in the UK,not the BBC

I have a few Sinbad and other Ray Harryhausen DVDs,but i am not really sure about this,i may watch the premier


and as i type this with my TV blaring away behind me,the trailer comes on again

[kronovan]

Surprising that its BBC who had a hand in this?,because the trailer has been all over SKY here,advertised with every damn set of commercials,it's showing on SKY 1 in the UK,not the BBC

Yup, you're right MO - turns out BBC Worldwide is only the Distributor and Sky HD is the production partner. The way the syndication is handled here in Canuckistan, you'd think the Space channel and BBC were the creators and producers. 

[Purge]

I remember a Xena-like Sinbad show. Wasn't bad.

[Crawley]

I remember a Xena-like Sinbad show. Wasn't bad.

It wasn't just bad. It was Sinbad.

[Purge]

compared to TV shows at that time? It was passable. Also,

This:

Spoiler for Hiden:

[kronovan]

compared to TV shows at that time? It was passable. Also,

This:

Spoiler for Hiden:

You're thinking of The Adventures of Sinbad that aired in 1996  -  I'm fairly certain it was produced here in Vancouver. And yeah pretty much everyone hated it after the character in your spoiler left in the 2nd season. Umm....that's kind of why it died after 2 seasons.

[Crawley]

I've actually never seen either of the Sinbad shows. I just wanted to make the comment. 

[ydejin]

I'm a big fan of Sword & Sorcery and love Ray Harryhausen's earlier Sinbad movies, so this immediately grabbed my attention. What's interesting is that the lead actor -Elliot Knight- is a complete unknown with Sinbad being his debut role. Meanwhile much of the rest of the cast have actually been in some better TV series and movies - including Naveen Andrews from Lost, Orla Brady from Fringe, Sophie Okonedo from Hotel Rwanda and Timothy Spall whos appeared in a number of Harry Potter movies. I'm thinking this is either going to be better than decent or completely suck. I'm usually a person who watches series when they're rerun or netflixed, but being S&S I plan on catching at least the debut episode. It's airs next week.

I'm a big Harryhausen fan as well.  If it shows up in the US either on Netflix or iTunes I'll definitely take a look.

[Purge]

compared to TV shows at that time? It was passable. Also,

This:

Spoiler for Hiden:

You're thinking of The Adventures of Sinbad that aired in 1996  -  I'm fairly certain it was produced here in Vancouver. And yeah pretty much everyone hated it after the character in your spoiler left in the 2nd season. Umm....that's kind of why it died after 2 seasons.

I don't remember the new chick. Was that when the "Sinbad" actor hopped himself up on 'roids?

[Purge]

I've actually never seen either of the Sinbad shows. I just wanted to make the comment. 

I LoL'd.

[CeeKay]

Surprising that its BBC who had a hand in this?,because the trailer has been all over SKY here,advertised with every damn set of commercials,it's showing on SKY 1 in the UK,not the BBC

Yup, you're right MO - turns out BBC Worldwide is only the Distributor and Sky HD is the production partner. The way the syndication is handled here in Canuckistan, you'd think the Space channel and BBC were the creators and producers. 

so maybe it'll be on BBC America?

[CeeKay]

I've actually never seen either of the Sinbad shows. I just wanted to make the comment. 

how about the movies?

[kronovan]

I missed the 1st episode of this, but managed to catch the 2nd tonight. It was decent and I think if it can manage to get through its 1st season and be green lighted for a 2nd, it could turn out to be good. Hard to tell from 1 episode, but the first thing that stood out was the art direction and sets which were good throughout. The episode also featured a CGI'd Roc which was done quite well as far as TV series go. Something I noted is that it seems to draw more on Western style of sword & sorcery than the Eastern-Arabian style that was prominent in the Harryhausen movies. Not necessarily a bad thing IMO.

The heavier hitting actors I listed in my OP, unfortunately turned out to just be featured guests. Although Naveen Andrews (Lost's Sayid Jarrah) will be in half of the episodes and Orlay Brady (Fringe's Elizbeth Bishop) will be in 1/4. Tonights' featured guest was Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rawanda, Aeon Flux) and she was more than decent as the main antagonist - Raiza, Queen of the Water Thieves.

Considering he's a complete unkown, Elliot Knight surprised me in that his Sinbad was actually decent. I'd comment more on the rest of the cast, but unfortunately they had such little time its to hard say anything. The support that actually stood out the most was the crews Cook who's played by Phillipino actor Junix Inocian. He looks like he's going to be a heckuva lot of fun in episodes to come. I was most dissapointed in The Viking Gunnar who was just bland, but that probably had a lot to do with the script. And as far as script and plot goes, it was pretty much standard S&S / High Adventure fare.

The biggest weaknes with it is the action sequences which at times were dismally poor. Quite honestly the way they were pieced together made you think they were done by someone suffering from ADD; talk about rapid-cut, jump-about action. I'm going to blame it more on bad editing, but my bigger fear is that the cinematographer just didn't get enough good footage for them to work with. Could also have just been bad direction, but whatever the reason it needs to change because IMO its poor enough to be a series killer. Overall there was more plus to it than negative and I'm planning on catching next weeks episode.  

[metallicorphan]

I've watched the first 5 episodes and pretty much agree with most that Kron says,although Gunnar is coming into his own now

I am liking it,but not completely sold,even if i did watch all the 5 episodes i had last night

The Episode with Timothy Spall was quite interesting


Not actually read any reviews,so not sure how this is doing