Another week; another shitty monster. This week marks the third conclusion to Doctor Who’s consecutive two-parter trend, and just like the others, reiterates that it seems that the show may have lost its spark. Last week, we were left with a huge cliffhanger in “The Girl Who Died”; the Doctor left Ashildr (Maisie Williams) immortal, which, through cause and…
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Is it a fake-out or did The Walking Dead really just kill off one of the show’s most endearing characters in such a hum-drum and incredibly upsetting way? That’s the main question left in the wake of “Thank You”, another intense and wildly gory episode of AMC’s ratings juggernaut. The big moments in The Walking…
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Kevin Mitchell once sang about his “animal” and being insufferable whilst in heat but it’s hard to know whether the Jebediah front man considered this “lust”. The latter is one of the seven deadly sins. It’s also the subject of a new TV series which questions whether the seven deadly sins are bad vices or…
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It was a treat to re-live the glorious and sophisticated historical drama Vikings Season 3 in HD, while the thoughtful extras helped bring a better understanding to what creator and writer Michael Hirst was trying to achieve, leading to a greater appreciation of the show’s production and newest characters. Vikings, as many Australians will know,…
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What women want is something that has befuddled many men. But what guys don’t realise is that the answer to this question is quite simply a silly little reality program called Say Yes To The Dress Canada. The show is the equivalent of cotton candy in that it’s sugary and superficial but it’s also a…
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Once again, the writers of The Walking Dead strike a very fine balance between small, interesting character moments and big, thrilling action as “JSS” proves to be one of the most violent and tense episodes to date. On the surface you had one big – and very brutal – siege on Alexandria by The Wolves,…
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Upon first seeing that picture of Maisie Williams in the TARDIS, I was overwhelmed with excitement; ‘the clash of the fandoms’, I call it – Game of Thrones meets Doctor Who. Combined with my high expectations of her ridiculous acting ability and my dissatisfaction of the past few Who episodes, I had mixed expectations for the fifth…
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“Before The Flood”, the fourth episode of season 9, opened with something that I haven’t quite seen in Doctor Who before – the Doctor talking directly to the audience, breaking the fourth wall. The entire first sequence consisted of Peter Capaldi explaining the Bootstrap Paradox. It was fun, unpredictable, and really got you thinking; if a time traveler goes…
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A horde of 30,000 walkers all built up in a large quarry!? So this is the reason Alexandria has managed to get by without being overrun; a nice, clever explanation to illuminate the mysterious history of the gated community, weaved in skillfully without taking away from the balanced amounts of drama and action that “First…
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With six episodes to weave a coherent first season, the team behind Fear the Walking Dead certainly took their time, carefully (and sometimes clumsily) building a bunch of everyday characters, spanning three different families, into a distinctive and likeable group of potential zombie apocalypse survivors. Some of this was successful but most was not, with…
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My Giant Life is a reality show that means well but is far from good. The program is about four white, American women who are six foot, six inches or taller. The program attempts to get audiences interested by offering up their stories but a series of bad camera angles and scenes that highlight their…
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There are some formulas that, despite it’s fifty-something year reign, Doctor Who can’t seem to shake. The premise for “Under The Lake” is one that we’ve seen time and time again – The Doctor exploring the mystery of a derelict and isolated facility (see “The Impossible Planet” and “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead”). Yet, despite its repetitive…
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After last weeks huge season opener, “The Witch’s Familiar” had a lot to answer for – we needed to know what the Doctor decided to do regarding boy Davros, how Missy and Clara would come back from the dead (because they have to), and what would come of Skaro – the planet of the Daleks…
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We are now in the second half of the first season of Fear the Walking Dead and the showrunners have decided to flip the script, jumping us ahead nine days to the creation of a safe zone, just one of 12 quarantined areas below the San Gabriel mountains – according to the military anyway –…
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It seems that the Doctor Who Gods read my article on the things I really want to happen this season, gifting me with more Missy, a two-parter, a dark tone, and the mother of all nods to past seasons – bringing into question something that the Fourth Doctor said many moons ago – who created Davros?
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If you had seen what Madison has seen over the course of Fear the Walking Dead‘s first two episodes would you gather your two kids for a good ol’ game of Monopoly before following them out into the night to find a shotgun, while leaving a barking dog in your house, with the damn back…
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A week ago, we gave you our impressions of Netflix’s new crime drama Narcos and came away impressed and eager to see where the series would go. A week later we’ve had time to sit down and work our way through the first season of the show and while we still feel it’s a strong…
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Fear the Walking Dead continues to, very slowly, take shape with the second episode of the spin-off series, and it’s much of the same we got in the pilot only with a bit more punch behind it. There’s still that almost lethargic pace behind one splintered family’s perspective of a city unknowingly flung into chaos,…
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The third season of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal sees the crime-procedural-turned-art-film bloom into a full-on romance drama – and the results are nothing short of glorious to behold. The season’s opening arc concerns itself with the international manhunt for Hannibal kicked off by the end of Season 2. Later episodes tackle the long-awaited arrival of Francis…
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With the monstrous success of The Walking Dead it does seem like a good idea to rewind the story a little bit and check out the origin of the zombie/walker outbreak that, as we’ve seen, completely destroys society and threatens to drag humility with it. Robert Kirkman’s hit comic series and eventual AMC megashow became…
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The second season of True Detective was always going to be a hard-sell. The first season of Nic Pizzolatto‘s crime anthology series combined exceptional writing, acting, direction and cinematography to great success. As a result, the pulpy and philosophical series became an instant classic amongst critics and audiences. However, this left the inevitable follow-up burdened…
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Whether we’re talking about the impressive work that Neil Marshall has done on Game of Thrones or the Wachowski’s ambitious Sense8, it’s becoming clear that a lot the directors that cross the line from Hollywood to TV bring their reputation with them. And love him or hate him, M. Night Shyamalan is a director with…
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A fun blend of period piece and gothic horrorshow, the first season of Penny Dreadful wasn’t quite the slam-dunk Showtime might have hoped it would be – but it still managed to be solid debut for a show refreshingly different to much of the prestige and genre drama on offer these days. Season 2 is…
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Take the title character from Dexter, throw him into a world where instead of killing the bad guys, he’s destroying their lives through digital espionage, and you start to get the vibe of the new USA Network series Mr. Robot, which had a special episode one premiere at SXSW earlier this year, ahead of its official…
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Though far from outright awful, Orphan Black’s second season failed to escape the shadow cast by its debut. It frequently found itself bogged down and tangled up in its own mythology – losing a grip on the masterfully-paced escalation that made the show’s first season such a thrill. Season 3, however, hits a bit closer…
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When we were first introduced to the inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary in the 2013 debut season of Orange is the New Black, it was quite clear that we were supposed to be introduced to this new environment through the show’s protagonist, Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling). The upper-class NYC dweller’s transportation to a world completely different to…
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With a premise encompassing the lives of eight individuals who find themselves connected by a strange psychic bond, Sense8 often feels like a bunch of different shows blended together. Depending on the character, the show can feel like a techno-thriller, mobster drama, romantic melodrama or sprawling science fiction mystery. Even back when I wrote-up my…
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Once again, Game of Thrones reminds us that the series owes us – and our feelings – nothing (no “fan favourite”, no “hero” to root for – nothing), and the showrunners are still committed, despite all the book differences this season, to showing what an inventive, murderous author George RR Martin is by staying faithful…
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I often watch an episode of Game of Thrones more than once, and happily re-watch scenes over and over again. But there is one particular scene in “The Dance of Dragons” I won’t be watching again, not because it was boring or mishandled, but because it was emotionally draining and incredibly depressing, even if it…
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Game of Thrones upped the ante in “Hardhome”, bucking the trend of Episode 9 being the big action-packed set by giving us a ferocious, layered, and brilliantly executed big battle in the episode’s last half. That isn’t only why “Hardhome” is the best Season 5 episode yet though, every other story line during the first…
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