Reviews

TV Review: Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 9 “Battle of the Bastards” (USA, 2016)

There was a lot riding on this episode for HBO and Game of Thrones, which inevitably featured Jon Snow finally facing down with Ramsay Bolton as he – along with Sansa and his relatively modest army – sought to wrestle Winterfell from the series’ most despised villain. Traditionally, these kinds of episodes would be the…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 8 “No One” (USA, 2016)

“No One” is an episode of Thrones that can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. It isn’t quite clear whether this episode is the spark that sets off the cascading events of the season’s final two episodes or a climax in its own right. Though it offers some closure to the Braavos and Riverlands…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 7 “The Broken Man” (USA, 2016)

Watching through this season of Game of Thrones has been incredibly fun for book readers; long-standing theories have turned into massive, fist-pumping reveals, which showrunners David Benioff and D.B Weiss and each episodes respective Directors have handled magnificently. “The Broken Man” finally addressed one of those theories, and it was all revealed quickly during a…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 6 “Blood of my Blood” (USA, 2016)

Beyond any thematic or visual symmetries, the biggest common thread across Season 6 so far has been a sense of direction. Thrones has spent the last five seasons scattering our favorite characters across both Westeros and Essos but with The Night’s King and the White Walkers on the march, it’s about time for things to pull themselves…

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TV Review: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 3 (USA, 2016)

It’s hard to know what to make of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the landscape of superhero television. It lacks the allegorical nuance of Jessica Jones, the gritty hyperviolence of Daredevil and the comic-book stylings of The Flash and Arrow. The show has always been a bit of a hybrid with an appeal of its own – though one…

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TV Review: Gotham, Season 2 (USA, 2016)

The first season of Gotham had a lot of potential but it’s hard not to call it out for being the mess it is. Characters were too one-dimensional and its convoluted plotting left a lot to be desired. By the mid-season finale, I wasn’t really watching Gotham because I wanted to know what happened next as…

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TV Review: Legends of Tomorrow, Season 1 (USA, 2016)

Given its status time-travelling superpowered team adventure, it feels safe to say Legends of Tomorrow is probably the most ambitious effort yet in the CW’s ever-growing lineup of superhero TV shows. Set around the time-travelling Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill), who snatches various DC heroes and villains out of the present to go on a sprawling…

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TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead Episodes 5-7 (USA, 2016)

After a strong fourth episode, “Blood in the Streets”, Fear the Walking Dead made the smart move of getting us off the open water in order to make a big push for season 2, bringing us to Strand’s promised compound in Mexico to deal with the intricacies of death and, surprisingly, split the group into…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 5 “The Door” (USA, 2016)

Just because Benioff & Weiss are somewhat free from George RR Martin’s murderous ways in Game of Thrones’ source material, doesn’t mean the showrunners are any less capable of bringing us to tears. In what will be one of the most talked about scenes of the year when this season is over, a simple phrase…

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TV Review: Ripper Street Season 4 (UK, 2016)

British period crime drama series Ripper Street has had a bit of a rickety ride. The show was cancelled after 2 seasons only to be resurrected by Amazon Prime (with a little help from the BBC) for a third series. Which was then extended to a fourth and fifth, only for the fifth to then…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones Season 6 Episode 4 “Book of the Stranger” (USA, 2016)

It’s quite clear that Benioff and Weiss are unperturbed about Game of Thrones (mostly) surpassing its source material, and so far it has proved to be more of a blessing than a curse. Now with 4 episodes to show, Season Six has been a solid season of surprising, though rapid, developments that leap forward to…

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TV Review: Silicon Valley Season 3, Episode 3 (USA, 2016)

Behold, the running gag of the gold chain. This episode sees Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) finally on a salary, treating himself to a delicate gold chain that he drapes around his neck. Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) spots it first and so begins a pun-tastic thirty-minute journey. The Pied Piper boys spare no expense at tearing the poor…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 3 “Oathbreaker” (USA, 2016)

Like Season 4’s similarly-named “Oathkeeper”, “Oathbreaker” is very much one of those in-between episode of Game of Thrones. There’s a little bit happening on almost-every front here – but not all that much overall. We checked in with Sam to see how things are going en-route to Oldtown, we checked in with Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Cersei (Lena…

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TV Review: Silicon Valley Season 3, Episode 2 (USA, 2016)

Richie (Thomas Middleditch) returns to the doctor this week (the fantastically inappropriate, Andrew Daly) and comes out with a full bill of health. He’s still battling with being kicked out of Pied Piper, only to return as CTO. The boys enter the newly designed Pied Piper office, which again looks too good to be true….

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TV Review: Game of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 2 “Home” (USA, 2016)

If last week’s episode began to build up the idea that the showrunners of Game of Thrones might have what it takes to pull off an ending to Martin’s saga, this week’s episode continued this – delivering an impressive episode with plenty of big moments that are sure to clog up social media over the…

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TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 4 “Blood in the Streets” (USA, 2016)

Let’s just be clear here, this – alongside the Season One finale – is what Fear the Walking Dead needs more of. “Blood in the Streets” was a step in the right direction for the series, which has, for the overwhelming majority, come across as a struggling, stagnant drama that would rely excessively on the…

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TV Review: Broad City, Season 3 (USA, 2016)

Broad City has, like many good shows. survived the three-season landmark. Many shows seem to leak creative juices until that Season 3 where characters get stale, plotlines become gimmicks and guest stars come in with no real map of where to go in the show. Broad City has thankfully not been one of those shows….

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TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 3 “Ouroboros” (USA, 2016)

“Ouroboros” was a substantial step in the right direction for Fear the Walking Dead, picking up the slack that dragged the previous two episodes with another excursion to an island, the introduction of new characters tying in from the Flight 462 webisodes, and the show’s biggest humans-versus-horde piece to date (as opposed to humans-overwhelmed-by-horde in…

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TV Review: Silicon Valley Season 3, Episode 1 (USA, 2016)

The Pied Piper boys are back in a third season of Silicon Valley. Each season gets better and better, and this one is already proving to be its best yet. It is a wonderful blend of humour, honesty, and melancholy. Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch) finds himself in another pickle with his start-up – it all…

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TV Review: Game of Thrones, Season 6 Episode 1 “The Red Woman”

Despite its status as the biggest TV series in pop culture these days, it’s an unexpected-but-promising sign that “The Red Woman” kicks off Season 6 of Game of Thrones with a whimper and not a bang. The episode wasted no time in picking up the pieces left in the wake of Jon Snow’s death last season with Davos…

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TV Review: Better Call Saul Season 2, Episodes 8-10 Review (USA, 2016)

These final three episodes of Better Call Saul‘s second season feel like they leave the series at a fascinating crossroads. In spite of the bold proclamation that ended the first season, Jimmy McGill’s evolution into Saul Goodman isn’t anywhere near that clear-cut. This season has seen him start to become Saul – one choice at a time…

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TV Review: Girls Season 5 (USA, 2016)

Season 5 of Girls sees the show take more risks than ever before and, when all is said and done, it feels like the show comes out a little more mature – as do its characters. Season 5 picks up a few months after 4, with Hannah (Lena Dunham) having moved on from her relationship with Adam (Adam Driver)…

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TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 2 “We All Fall Down” (USA, 2016)

It’s hard to tell when Fear the Walking Dead will start living up to its potential. The tone is there, and the scenes with the infected are deliciously dark and effective, presenting with the kind of horror The Walking Dead took four years to perfect, but these are only small flickers in what is an…

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TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead Season 2 Episode 1 “Monster” (USA, 2016)

We jump into Season 2 of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead with what looks like a short, confusing time jump. Christopher is still leaning over his mother’s corpse but it seems like the whole city has been fire-bombed, creating this smokey red tone to kickstart the premiere in a surprisingly exciting way. Sure, it feels…

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TV Review: The People v O.J. Simpson – American Crime Story (USA, 2016)

When you think about the obstacles and expectations that The People vs O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story has to overcome, it sounds almost as unbelievable as the verdict of the infamous case itself. As a follow-up and spin-off to Ryan Murphy‘s American Horror Story, The People vs O. J. Simpson has to prove that can Murphy’s talents for…

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TV Review: Ripper Street Season 3 (UK, 2015)

At the end of Season 2 Ripper Street was cancelled by the BBC only to be resurrected by streaming service Amazon Prime who agreed to a third season after an online campaign by the show’s loyal and dismayed fans. In Season 3 of Ripper Street we return to Whitechapel and H Division and the grimy…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Finale “Last Day on Earth” (USA, 2016)

“Last Day on Earth” capped off a strong season for The Walking Dead in a fairly weak way. Negan’s eventual introduction has been telegraphed for a long time – in fact, there’s baseball bat imagery, which is emblematic of his character, dating all the way back to the first season. Comic Book readers have been…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 15 “East” (USA, 2016)

When Morgan returned to The Walking Dead it was a very welcome addition mostly due to Lennie James’ stunning performance in Season 3’s “Clear”. Throughout this season his presence on the show became more and more divisive as he was used as a vessel for a particular philosophy, the same of which was used to…

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TV Review: Better Call Saul Season 2, Episodes 5-7 Review (USA, 2016)

When we last tuned into Better Call Saul, the show had left us on a cliffhanger with the consequences of Jimmy’s (Bob Odenkirk) initiative at Davis & Main and Nacho’s (Michael Mando) bid to kill Tuco (Raymond Cruz) hanging over our heads. If anything, the last four episodes of Better Call Saul have really hammered…

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TV Review: The Night Manager (UK, 2016)

The Night Manager is a blend of elegance and a much more British 007 with Tom Hiddleston’s Jonathon Pine being a hospitable and intelligent but a little naïve agent. Accompanied with classical and modern music, the opening credits is an interesting masterpiece, mixing up symbols of military, terrorism and the rich, indicating the show isn’t…

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