As it has done well over its past three seasons, Black Mirror has surprised me. However this year, the surprise hasn’t come in the form of a deadly plot twist halfway through the narrative’s third act, or a realisation that comes in the form of sad ending. No, this year it was the episode that I had,…
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The Australian outback has provided the Wolf Creek universe with a terrifying, swallow-them-whole landscape across both film and TV for the past 12 years now. When director, producer and writer Greg McLean first unleashed his horror concept (and debut feature film) to the world back in 2005, word-of-mouth was swift and excitable, championing Australian horror…
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I’m not quite sure what I just watched, and I find it hard to imagine a team of writers turning that script in and thinking that it would make for a satisfying, entertaining or even reasonable Mid-Season Finale. I love The Walking Dead, honestly, but “How It’s Gotta Be” was truly poor form for a…
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Eugene is a broken man. With his loyalty and decisions a major focus of “Time for After”, the penultimate episode before the Mid-Season Finale, we get to explore this character in a much more meaningful way than before. There’s some real depth here as he visibly struggles against his own conscious and deals with the…
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“The King, The Widow and Rick” is an episode title that suggests a clear and deep focus on all three leaders of the war against Negan and The Saviours. I mean, at least that’s the logical interpretation, right? Wrong. This sixth episode in The Walking Dead’s eight season took certain liberties to slow things down…
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“The Big Scary U” was The Walking Dead’s finest outing so far into Season 8, revisiting the premier’s cliffhanger and further exploring The Sanctuary as Negan was presumed dead by his lieutenants. Time is again splintered so the episode can jump between various happenings as All Out War is slowly pieced together, which means some…
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Building King Ezekiel’s regal facade has been given little screen time on The Walking Dead. The “king” with a knack for role-playing to build a sense of escapism and confidence for his “Kingdom” only took on a pivotal role deep into last season, and with the way the show is structured the writers have had…
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“Monsters” is very much a direct continuation from last week’s “The Damned”, and on the surface that is very wise choice for The Walking Dead, treating these as installments in a wider thread rather than thematically distinctive “episodes”. This week, we were dropped right back into the all-out assault against The Saviours, coming from Team…
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Complaints that The Walking Dead has tipped the scales away from action as of late are not unfounded. Previous seasons have been dragged down by a modest sprinkle of muscle that are few and far between, eschewing the more meaty and direct throws of conflict for cartoonish grandstanding and careful, often nauseating, build-up. Sure, build-up…
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The Walking Dead hasn’t lost sight of its impressive history nor it’s central cast, and “Mercy”, the landmark 100th episode of the juggernaut survival-horror drama, is a well-rounded declaration of that. The start to what will hopefully be a return to form following a haphazard seventh season, it’s an episode imbued with the kind of…
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Attention Planet Earth: The Wild Blue Yonder has arrived; The front line in the seemingly endless list of franchises that fate and television executives have seen fit to revive. Amazon Prime subscribers, you face … The Tick!
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In a move to rival the sheer scale and CGI glory of “Hardhome”, Game of Thrones have just presented what is probably its most epic battle yet, even outranking the “Battle of the Bastards” in some ways by pitting Jamie, Bronn and the Lannister forces against Dany, Drogon, and the Dothraki army. Like all of…
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In the 1980’s, Romanians would gather in record numbers in front of their TV sets to watch Comrade Detective. Fronted by Florin Piersic, Jr as hard-nosed police detective Gregor Anghel, the series promised to be an action-heavy event that would both entertain its citizens whilst promoting communist ideals. Sadly, after the collapse of the Berlin…
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The transfer of power to those most capable of running an ever-changing world tends to only happen when traditions fly out of the window. That’s always been one of the primary messages of Game of Thrones, and watching it unfold with power moves and converging character arcs is where the show’s major strengths lie. A…
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An episode sandwiched by a brutal storm, one literal and one figurative, “Stormborn” was a momentous series of events which has moved this narrative further then many would have expected. As I mentioned last week, the time for economical storytelling is upon us, and so every – well, most – sequences are going to count…
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That was one hell of a way to open up Game of Thrones’ seventh season premiere, wasn’t it? Rarely does the show dabble in cold openers, but an enormously satisfying ribbon-cutter was certainly the perfect way to usher in what is now the final 13 episodes (split into two seasons) of what has truly become…
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Steven Knight is the creator and writer of some amazing award winning shows, such as Peaky Blinders and even Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. His writing and directing for film has been praised, too, such as the acclaimed Locke with Tom Hardy and the recent Brad Pitt film Allied. And this praise looks set…
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The worldwide phenomenon and modern cult-classic Stranger Things has finally teased its return, and OH MY GOD are we excited. Netflix has just released a mysterious teaser video on Twitter, as well as a brand new poster with the release date. The creature pictured is another look at what we saw in the teaser for…
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Fear the Walking Dead’s double-episode finale took the necessary steps to reveal just how far Madison is willing to go protect her family, especially after Travis and everything else that they have gone through since the infection began. It’s a success in that respect, nicely paced while it worked towards one pivotal moment – and…
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“Red Dirt” continues Fear the Walking Dead’s vast improvement over its previous seasons as Broke Jaw Ranch is thrown into a panic in response to news that the show’s latest villain, Walker, is coming to claim the land by force. That’s some great material for the show to start exploring, leaving the walking dead out…
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Coming off one of their strongest episodes, the self-contained “100” with the focus solely on a returning Daniel (Rubén Blades), Fear the Walking Dead pull us back into life at the supposedly safe Broke Jaw Ranch where Madison is holed up with Nick and Alicia, trying to prove their value to the suspicious community. “Burning…
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In our first impressions piece of American Gods we examined why this show even in its first episode had the makings of being one of the hot new television series for 2017. Adapted from the Neil Gaiman book of the same name, helmed by showrunners Bryan Fuller and Michael Green and starring a ridiculously talented…
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It has been an extremely busy few weeks for The Iris, with the video game world stuck in the lunacy of E3, Supanova in Sydney and the Sydney Film Festival, we have finally calmed down a little and sunk back into some great couch time with some excellent TV and it gave me some time…
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“100” just may be the best episode Fear the Walking Dead has done to date. Daniel Salazar (Rubén Blades) was always one of the more interesting characters – that isn’t saying much though – in the show, up until the point where the writers made the terrible decision to randomly send him into “crazy” mode…
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Last week’s odd decision to kill off the show’s strongest and most interesting character in a very off-hand fashion was a bold move. Fear the Walking Dead’s writing team has to date proven to be inconsistent, impatient and unable to squeeze the horror-survival for all the juicy potential it has, but there have been moments…
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In the second-to-last episode of season four, Orange is the New Black presented the death of one of the show’s main characters in a supremely upsetting, but flawlessly executed scene that referenced America’s senseless police brutality against African Americans. It was in stark contrast to the previous season’s more uplifting closer where the inmates of…
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AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead struggled to make much of an impact during its six-episode first season and, though it gave us a strong finale, there were a few plodding narrative choices that felt like a waste of what was already a very limited stretch. One such misstep was the army quarantine and a sizable…
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Girlboss is a series that may leave viewers feeling conflicted. While it’s great to see an underdog making good and pursuing her passion it’s also hard to root for a lead character who is so inherently unlikeable. This Netflix series is ultimately like a fun ball of fairy floss, it’s pleasant enough at first bite;…
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Though it started on what seemed like uneven ground, the final season of HBOs Girls manages to not only pull the series strengths together and end on a high note but also manage to do so while remaining as imperfect and messy as it’s ever been. Even if Lena Dunham’s voice is not “your” voice,…
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The second part of The Get Down first season (the story of the rise of Hip-Hop and reign of Disco in the 70s’ created by Baz Luhrmann) is an over-dramatic affair, hampered by an occasional inconsistent narrative and schmaltzy performances and yet, the latter half of its five part run is some of the best TV…
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