TV & Streaming

TV Review: True Blood Season 7 Episodes 3 and 4 (USA, 2014)

There’s something to be said about a series that can bounce back from a start as bad as True Blood has had with it’s final season. While the glory days of Alan Ball’s genius has been over from quite some time, the series’ current showrunners have shown that there are still a few tricks to…

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TV Review: True Blood Season 7 Episodes 1 and 2 (USA, 2014)

So we have come to the end of what was once one of the most popular cable shows on TV. Over the years, the quantity of viewership has regressed right along with the quality of writing, with the show’s relevance relying too much on it’s often likable characters to carry some ridiculously lame plots. Over…

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TV Review: Fargo – Season 1 Episode 10 “Morton’s Fork” (USA, 2014)

This is it, we have finally reached the end of Noah Hawley’s black comedy-crime-drama Fargo, inspired by the Coen Brothers film of the same name. Without further ado, let us launch into a recap of the episode and a little discussion, beware there’s thin ice and spoilers ahead. We open with a long tracking sequence,…

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TV Review: Fargo – Season 1 Episode 9 “A Fox, A Rabbit and A Cabbage” (USA, 2014)

It’s the penultimate episode of Fargo and there are so many questions remaining unanswered that we could potentially fill up an entire additional season. Yet in Noah Hawley’s script we trust, and somehow he’s going to give us all the answers, if not in this instalment, then at least in the finale. Once again we’re…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones – Season 4, Episode 10 “The Children” (USA, 2014)

So it ends; Game of Thrones’ excellent fourth season has come to it’s 10-episode conclusion, closing the book on George RR Martin’s A Storm of Swords and signalling a huge expansion in Season 5. Two pivotal characters – and consistent fan favourites – are now on journeys to places we never expected them to go;…

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TV Review: Fargo – Episode 8 “The Heap” (USA, 2014)

“It’s life, you go to bed unsatisfied” in the words of police chief Bill Oswalt, and he’s expressing how we feel too, we’re unsatisfied, and this episode does leave you feeling a little bit that way. Not in a negative sense at all, more in a “we’re at episode 8 of 10 and we still…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones – Season 4, Episode 9 “The Watchers on the Wall” (USA, 2014)

Much like ‘Blackwater’ from Season 2 “The Watchers on the Wall” was big, cinematic, and focused on just one of the many poly-rhythmic arcs dancing around Westeros. While this season has remained consistently exciting throughout, some story lines have been relatively muffled and haven’t been as fleshed-out as they have been in earlier seasons; Jon…

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TV Review: Fargo – Season 1, Episode 7 “Who Shaves the Barber?” (USA, 2014)

This time around we’re given a reprieve from the hefty violence and an opportunity to see the intricate web revealed as well as some surprisingly touching and sensitive moments. For a series that has been so brutal, dark and twisted this is a much brighter albeit still emotionally heavy episode to take in. At the…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones – Season 4, Episode 8 “The Mountain and The Viper” (USA, 2014)

Well I sure feel like one of those beatles Tyrion was so eloquently advocating for in “The Mountain and The Viper”; even if you knew what was coming, the sheer brutality of it all was shockingly affecting and – even though it crushed me – was beautifully done. Many characters moved forward in leaps and…

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TV Review: Halt and Catch Fire – Season 1, Episode 1 (USA, 2014)

Premiering on AMC in the US today – from the people who brought us Breaking Bad – Halt and Catch Fire follows on from the Mike Judge fronted HBO comedy Silicon Valley in giving us a different look at the world of computers and technology development. I had the opportunity to see the show’s pilot…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones – Season 4, Episode 7 “Mockingbird” (USA, 2014)

I’m only half way through the first Game of Thrones book, taking my time because my schedule doesn’t exactly allow for intense bouts of reading anymore. Meanwhile, those who have read far ahead of me take pride in knowing what comes next; smugly dictating my journey throughout the show whenever they want by throwing a…

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TV Review: Fargo – Season 1, Episode 6 “Buridan’s Ass” (USA, 2014)

The tension levels increase exponentially as we now hit the back end of the series and the finale is now edging ever closer. The title of this episode is a paradoxical parable that is loosely thematic of what we see in the episode and relates to free will. Interestingly we see a lot of that…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2, Episode 66 (Taboo Week) – 29th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

It’s been an incredible and thought provoking Taboo Week on The Feed, and episode four certainly didn’t disappoint. In addition to the headlining stories, the team also touched on the leggings-as-pants phenomenon (no, it’s not okay), iPhones being hacked and remotely held of ransom, and Christopher Pyne wanting to posthumously tax the population. For those…

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TV Review: Unplanned America – Episode 6 – 26th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

In the final episode of Unplanned America, Parv and Gonzo hit up spring break, hang out with UFO chasers, take a look at rockabilly culture in Las Vegas, attend a tailgate, pimp their car and do shots over a cryogenically frozen corpse. This is what happens when Nick isn’t there to supervise them. The show…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2, Episode 64 (Taboo Week) – 27th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Episode 2 in ‘Taboo Week’ examines the struggles of gay surfers and the surfing subculture and also a revealing look into the workings of a BDSM master/slave relationship. But before that the main headline of the news was the very public arrest of former detective Roger Rogerson over the alleged murder of uni student Jamie…

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TV Review: Unplanned America – Episode 5 – 26th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Gonzo, Parv and Nick spend the majority of this episode in Detroit. The once motor industry powerhouse is now the most bankrupt city in the country and a physical metaphor of the failure of the American Dream. Everything from houses to the once grand Michigan Central station are now abandoned and being reclaimed by nature….

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 7 “Waterloo” (USA, 2014)

“They saw what I saw” And with that, the Draper torch has been passed. An incredible amount of hype and hesitation has been attached to the mid-season finale for Mad Men Season 7, and it’s safe to say that Waterloo delivered on every note it had to. From the rocket lift off at the episode’s…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2, Episode 63 (Taboo Week) – 26th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

And we’re off! With the crew at The Feed focussing on the unspeakable and the impolite throughout the last week of May for its ‘Taboo Week’, what better way to kick off than with a brief look at the tragedy that are the Isla Vista killings. Whenever a shooting takes place, we as commentators and…

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 6 “The Strategy” (USA, 2014)

What an episode! The Strategy stands up against some of the finest episodes of the entire series and will likely be looked back upon a defining moment of season 7. A whole lot happened in this one, by Mad Men standards of ‘a lot’, and much of focused on Don and Peggy. Always the most…

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TV Review: Fargo – Season 1, Episode 5 “The Six Ungraspables” (USA, 2014)

We’ve officially reached the half-way point of the series and with the plans of most of our characters now in full motion, it’s looking a lot clearer cut. But the clean-up crew of both the hit-men and the police are now hot on the trails and making in-roads to getting things wrapped up, or so…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2, Episode 61 – 22nd May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Thursday evenings are always a good night for The Feed crew – it’s always a fairly broad reaching episode that manages to touch on a lot of different topics, and last night’s was no different. Opening with the nightly wrap, we were subject to (/able to view, depending on how generous you’re feeling) Tony Abbott’s…

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TV Review: Unplanned America – Episode 3 – 19th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

In the next two episodes of Unplanned America the lads Gonzo, Parv and Nick tackle some interesting stereotypes and turn them all upside down and make us re-evaluate what we think we know about the rap music industry, gangs, the parody porn scene and nudists and nudity. Landing in south-side Chicago the boys meet up…

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TV Review: Unplanned America – Episode 4 – 19th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

In the next two episodes of Unplanned America the lads Gonzo, Parv and Nick tackle some interesting stereotypes and turn them all upside down and make us re-evaluate what we think we know about the rap music industry, gangs, the parody porn scene and nudists and nudity. In episode 4 “Inhibition and Exhibition” the boys…

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TV Review: Fargo – Season 1, Episode 4 “Eating the Blame” (USA, 2014)

We begin to sink ever deeper into the mystery surrounding our characters in Episode 4 ‘Eating The Blame’, and as predicted some of their motivations become clearer as they start coming head to head in a battle of wits. Whenever watching Fargo you are constantly reminded of the isolation and the fact that it’s cold,…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones – Season 4, Episode 6 “The Laws of Gods and Men” (USA, 2014)

“The Laws of Gods and Men” threw us a little courtroom drama to further foreshadow the downfall of the Lannister dynasty. Conflict between siblings, a terribly stern father, and wishes of death are circulating heavily between the four main players in House Lannister; all the while King Tommen sits on his iron throne, relatively innocent…

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TV Review: The Feed – Season 2, Episode 55 – 14th May 2014 (SBS2, Australia)

Got the post-budget blues? A daily dose of The Feed could be what you need! Even if we obviously wouldn’t be able to escape the miserable beast’s claws in a half hour news slot. The budget was given a cursory damning in the opening news collection, and as obvious as it was that a youth…

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TV Review: Unplanned America – Episode 1 “When Fantasy Meets Reality” (SBS2, Australia)

Unplanned America is not your conventional reality series. We meet three Aussie blokes, Tim ‘Gonzo’ Ryan, Pawel ‘Parv’ Jarecki and Nick Maher, who have decided to take a break from their lives and go on an epic road trip across America to discover the weird and wonderful side of the Land of the Free; the…

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TV Review: Unplanned America – Episode 2 “Family Matters” (SBS2, Australia)

In Episode 2 ‘Family Matters’ the boys travel to two vastly different events in different cities to discover that family doesn’t have to be about blood relatives and can come in the most unlikeliest of places and forms. The first is the Gathering of the Juggalos in Southern Illinois, a music festival dedicated to fans…

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TV Review: Mad Men – Season 7 Episode 5 “The Runaways” (USA, 2014)

Critics and fans of this current age of television are quick to wax lyrical over the current crop of shows we have to enjoy; “The Golden Age of TV” and “TV is the new cinema!” are two phrases that get bandied about often. Yet for all of the past decade or so of television’s ‘cinematic’…

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TV Review: Fargo – Season 1 Episode 3 “A Muddy Road” (USA, 2014)

With the episode titled ‘A Muddy Road’ this is bound to lead us down an even more twisted and precarious path as we delve deeper into the mysterious and crooked goings-on in Minnesota as one by one our characters become more inter-twined within this dark evil web. We start by taking a trip back to…

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