NY-LON

We are halfway through watching this on BBC America, so we don't know how it ends.

So far all I can say is this program is a wonderful surprise.

It was scheduled for the middle of the night last week on BBC America, so TIVO did it's job and we are now going through it during a very chilly weekend. It has turned the chill into a warm glow.

The storyline is completely realistic, which is always my requirement for stories of star-crossed lovers. The characters are totally plausible. The acting is top notch.

I've been a fan of Rashida Jones since she was on Boston Public. The girl's got chops! We've also seen Stephen Moyer in other projects (Midsomer Murders, Waking the Dead) and think he is ready for the big screen. The supporting actors are all excellent, and I never cease to be amazed by how well actors from the UK do American accents. They are completely believable.

Now for the writing. Simon Burke has a real ear for both America and British idioms. As a novelist myself, I will tell you this is not easy. We use completely different expressions right down to our verb tenses, and Burke seems to have both down cold. I'm a writer myself, so I pay special attention to idioms. When they're wrong, it's like nails on a chalkboard. Well done, Simon. Edie, Christine and Luke sound like Americans.

And a note about the music in this series. The music flows throughout like a Greek chorus, embellishing the plot line beautifully. A great deal of thought must have gone into that. Real artists pay attention to those kinds of details. Well, well done!

Enjoy!

...though that's about as far as it goes for this series. The whole program just seemed to scream that the makers desperately wanted it to be the hippest creation EVER and oh-so-cool but the result was flat, anti- drama with little to recommend it. The acting was passable though certainly not electric by any means. Production valued were generally good but the script just tried too hard to be daring and shocking but it's core ended up coming across as simply tepid, lacking in substance and with a negative moral outlook some of the time. I didn't see the whole series, admittedly, but when something starts to simply bore the pants off you there is nothing much left to do but put this series of the shelf and file it under 'dull'.

This is as it's producers describe: cool with a capital "C". It helps that the entire cast are beautiful, especially Edie, and the two lead roles are played by very talented actors who clearly have a long and successful road ahead of them. I guess this is not aimed at a 30-something audience, but I am enjoying it nonetheless.

It's a really a joy to see the use of split-screen, largely pioneered by Kiefer Sutherland's '24', and I really enjoy watching events from a number of different characters' points of view.

The settings of the grungy second-hand NY record store, Michael's docklands loft apartment, Edie's tiny boho NY.flat and the impersonal environment of Michael's overcrowded open-plan City office are all very well thought-out. The character development is also very intelligently planned. I am only onto the third episode, the plot is a bit thin so far, but I have been drawn-in and I hope that it develops with greater depth and complexity over the rest of the series.

This fascinating piece of television drama reflects the reality of the fact that the world is getting smaller and affairs of the heart are increasingly spanning the globe and there's no stopping it. It also speaks volumes about the need for innovative and creative direction and camera work which can grab the attention of an increasingly critical audience.

So funny that this show has been over for nearly five years and 2 of us here stumbled across it (Hulu) just this week. I did like it enough that I wish it had pulled itself out of its aggravating, self-destructive Will they/won't they? trajectory and become something more, with more episodes to provide the quite diverting qualities that the show did have going for it. Loved the male lead; thought Rashida Jones was miscast (at least opposite Stephen Moyer). Loved Michael's supporting cast: sister, nephew, Indian friends, sister-in-law. Edie's friends not so much (may say something about my own social milieu) as they seemed much younger, phonier, grungier and a bit hopeless. Good soundtrack. Lastly, speaking of music, I could never believe that Rashida's Edie would be seriously into rock music, while I would easily believe that the Michael character would be, while he was evidently music clueless.

So--close, but a miss, as statistically most shows are more likely to be. Think the US version that's been done but never released, would probably be not as good, but more successful, like The Office.

I don't have an awful lot to say about this sorry romantic drama.

A hugely uninteresting story about a transatlantic romance between two very dull characters.

Edie is a hard-up yank who has been in a relationship with a complete loser. Michael Antonioni (yes, MICHAEL ANTONIONI) is a hard-working, hard-living obscenely well-paid Brit with a heart of gold under the tough exterior.

I don't want to be too hard on this fella cos he really is a nice chap (no really, he is) but for a guy in a dynamic, highly paid job where image counts for so much it was something of a mystery why he always wore the same suit that was at least one size too small for him....

To be honest, from what I saw (because I gave up after episode 4) Rashida Jones was OK as Edie but Stephen Moyer was uncharismatic and simply dreadful as MICHAEL ANTONIONI.

Some people may admire split-screen drama but ever since watching The Andromeda Strain and The Boston Strangler ages ago, I have always felt that the use of the split-screen is simply a flashy tool with the sole purpose of glossing over a director's inability to edit scenes into a coherent story.

Ny-Lon used the split screen a great deal and I found this incredibly annoying.

The romance between the two lead characters fails to convince purely because there is no chemistry at all between the actors leaving viewers totally disinterested in the supposed drama of their love life.

Worst of all was the embarrassing reference to Italian art-house cinema in the characters names of MICHAEL ANTONIONI and his nephew ANGELO.

I was almost expecting Michael's chums Frederick Fellini, Bernard Bertolucci, Luke Visconti and Peter Pasolini to be introduced at some point.

Thankfully this did not happen, at least not in the first four episodes...