Reviews

TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 14 “Twice as Far” (USA, 2016)

“Twice As Far” starts the three-episode race to the end of season 6 and we finally get to see Negan’s Saviours take a chuck out of Rick’s group in retaliation for their aggressive assault on their base two episodes ago. Last week’s excellent bottle episode with Maggie and Carol notched up even more kills to…

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TV Review: How To Get Away With Murder , Season 2 (USA, 2015)

How To Get Away With Murder‘s first season was an electrifying blend of legal and college melodrama with a fun leading performance by Viola Davis and tight writing.  The second season remains fun but suffers a little as the the show both doubles down a little too much on the melodrama and gets a little tied up by its own plot…

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TV Review: Marvel’s Daredevil, Season 2 (USA, 2016)

In 2015 Netflix teamed up with Marvel to bring us Marvel’s Daredevil, and it was a revelation. Not only was it a gritty realisation of one of the comic world’s dark anti-heroes but it showed that viewers weren’t just interested but eager to see this sort of grimy real-world depiction of the character. This was…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 13 “The Same Boat” (USA, 2016)

One of the strongest – and most violent – episodes in this season so far, “JSS”, drew most of it’s strength from Carol. “The Grove”, one of the show’s best episodes to date, drew most of it’s strength from “Carol”. Now, “The Same Boat” re-focuses back on in Melissa McBride’s complex character for another solid…

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TV Review: Agent Carter , Season 2 (USA, 2016)

The first season of Agent Carter was exactly what it set out to be. A lighthearted adventure that perfectly realized a marriage between the ‘golden age’ of post-war espionage and the struggle of women in the workplace. It was a occasionally a little narrow in its focus but stellar performances from leads Hayley Atwell and James…

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TV Review: The Expanse , Season 1 (USA, 2016)

TV audiences have been yearning for a worthy successor to the hard sci-fi throne of Battlestar Galactica from the moment it left their screens. While The Expanse doesn’t quite get there, its first season serves as an impressive introduction to a universe every bit as detailed and compelling as the posterchild for prestige sci-fi TV. Set…

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TV Review: Better Call Saul , Season 2, Episodes 2-4 (USA, 2016)

Better Call Saul is unique among the cable-drama landscape in that it doesn’t go for the big dramatic stakes. When it comes to Vince Gilligan‘s follow-up/prequel to Breaking Bad, the smaller and more personal the stakes, the better. If the first four episodes of the show’s second season are any indication, Gilligan, Peter Gould, Bob Odenkirk and…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 12 “Not Tomorrow Yet” (USA, 2016)

That ominous feeling is there all throughout “Not Tomorrow Yet” for a reason, as a cliffhanger ending ramps up the tension for next week and prepares for potential heartbreak as The Walking Dead continue a strong season 6. It’s been a big past couple of episodes on The Walking Dead, first with that giant, world-expanding…

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TV Review: The X Files Season 10 Episode 6 “My Struggle II” (USA, 2016)

After 5 episodes of The X Files we have now reached the Season 10 mini-series finale, “My Struggle II”, the book end to the first episode in the series titled “My Struggle”. It has been a tumultuous ride but we have been treated to some brilliant, some good and some average episodes in this short…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 11 “Knots Untie” (USA, 2016)

“Knots Untie” was a big, important episode for The Walking Dead, not because anyone of note died, or because any intense action scene occurred, but because the show’s universe has started to an large expansion with more implications than ever before. For five and a half seasons we’ve been following Rick and co. through safe-spot…

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TV Review: 11.22.63 Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2 (USA, 2016)

Stan have certainly beefed up their exclusive offerings this year, snagging not only the rights to stream content from Showtime but also currently going through Hulu original series 11.22.63, a period-drama that benefits heavily from having J.J Abrams serving as producer and Bridget Carpenter (of Friday Night Lights) as showrunner. The miniseries event throws James…

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TV Review: Love : The Complete First Season (USA, 2016)

Created and written by comedic auteur Judd Apatow, Love  approaches things from a different place to Netflix’s other efforts. As I said in my impressions piece, Love is best described as a slightly more-grounded You’re The Worst.  It’s not interested in the melodramatic highs of modern relationships – but the long awkward and often-mundane moments between them. It’s a show…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 10 “The Next World” (USA, 2016)

Break out your best portmanteau because The Walking Dead has a big romance going on! After a relentless start to Season six, following by an inconsistent middle, we’re now edging towards the finale with the 10th episode, “The Next World”, taking a breather with a calmer, more relaxed focus on the show’s drama. The tone…

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TV Review: The X Files Season 10 Episode 5, “Babylon” (USA, 2016)

Never one to back away from an occasionally controversial story, this week’s episode of The X Files dabbles in politics, terrorism, communicating with the near-dead, neuroscience, mysticism, love VS hate and magic mushrooms. It’s quite a bit to pack into an episode, and creator, writer and director Chris Carter has a crack at it. It’s…

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TV Review: The X-Files Season 10 Episode 4, “Home Again” (USA, 2016)

One of the strengths The X-Files has had has always been in bringing the occasionally innocuous things in our lives into a horror style setting. Writer and producer Glen Morgan has had his hand in a few of these particular episodes with The X-Files, such as ‘Blood’ the episode where a man kept receiving subliminal…

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TV Review: The Walking Dead Season 6 Episode 9 “No Way Out” (USA, 2016)

“No one gets to clock out today, and hell, this is a story people are going to tell”. What a way to kick off the latter half of season 6. The Walking Dead has always been strongest when the crew are scattering smaller character moments within a big action set piece, and “No Way Out”…

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TV Review: Broad City Season 3 Episode 1, “In Heat” (USA 201)

Abbi and Ilana are back in the newest season of sometimes surreal, always on point TV series Broad City. And it’s just been confirmed by Comedy Central they’re green lighted for Season 4 and 5 as well. (Yass Gaga!) If the sneak peak of the first episode is anything to go by fans are in…

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TV Review: DAFUQ? (Australia, 2016) coming to a laptop near you February 15th

Perhaps one of ABC’s cheekiest web series yet will be launched on iView next week. In a time of Abbotts and Turnbulls squabbling for that prized coffee mug that says World’s Best Prime Minister and in most circumstances failing, and a time of turmoil and unrest all over the globe a show like DAFUQ? can…

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TV Review: The X-Files Season 10 Episode 3, “Mulder & Scully Meet The Weremonster” (USA, 2016)

The X-Files was one of the first procedural shows that even though it was billed as sci-fi it actually transcended that genre by dabbling in so many others. At times it was a drama, or a suspense conspiracy driven thriller, at others it was horror, there were even occasional comedic episodes but it always retained…

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TV Review: Better Call Saul – Season 2 Episode 1 “Switch” (USA, 2016)

As we flow into the second season of Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul we continue to see parallels between the descent of constantly overwhelmed lawyer James McGill (Bob Odenkirk) into master manipulator Saul Goodman, and the transition from Walter White to Heisenberg. At it’s core, Better Call Saul is stripping away yet another good(ish)…

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TV Review: The X-Files Season 10, Episode 2 “Founders Mutation” (USA, 2016)

After the somewhat bumpy first episode “My Struggle” we land right back in the thick of it with Mulder and Scully now officially back on board with the FBI and investigating strange cases. One of the reasons why the show sustained itself for so long was its ability to jump between having “monster of the…

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TV Review: The X-Files Season 10 Episode 1 “My Struggle” (USA, 2016)

I’m not going to lie, undertaking the task of reviewing the new mini-series of The X-Files was a daunting ask. The show in its hey-day was a formative part of my teenage years, an obsession that has always lingered even long after the show finished. But I want to give it a go, I want…

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TV Review: Ash vs Evil Dead Season 1, Episode 10 “The Dark One” (USA, 2016)

When I look back on Season 1 of Ash vs Evil Dead, I realise how fantastic the writing has been; how each trivial little plot point has culminated here, in the season finale of this impressive new series. If you’ve followed my reviews over the course of these ten episodes, you may have labelled me bias…

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TV Review: Ash vs Evil Dead Season 1, Episode 9 “Bound In The Flesh” (USA, 2015)

This weeks episode of Ash vs Evil Dead may as well be seen as a half of a two-parter because it ties in with last weeks episode very closely. Touching on the same themes and utilising the same locations and characters, it serves very well as an accompanying piece. Bound In The Flesh commences mid Ash vs…

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TV Review: Ash vs Evil Dead Season 1, Episode 8 “Ashes to Ashes” (USA, 2015)

The time has finally come. El Jefe has arrived at the destination where it all began. The cabin. Which means, shit is well and truly about to go down. After absconding from the group last week, Ash finds his way back to the ill-fated cabin in a last ditch effort to end the evil plague…

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TV Review: Ash vs Evil Dead Season 1, Episode 7 “Fire in the Hole” (USA, 2015)

In the fallout from last weeks episode, Fire in the Hole sees Ash, Kelly, Pablo and new recruit Amanda stopping off to get some weapons, courtesy of Ash’s old militia pal Lem. But it seems Lem has gotten there first and he is all types of undead. Fire in the Hole plays like an episode…

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TV Review: Ash vs Evil Dead Season 1, Episode 6 “The Killer of Killers” (USA, 2015)

While The Killer of Killers may have served as a pit stop on the road to the seasons inevitable grizzly end, it may well have been the best episode since the pilot. Like many of the best episodes in the season, The Killer of Killers benefits from cramming its narrative and action into one isolated…

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TV Review: Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 12 “Hell Bent” (UK, 2015)

After last weeks goosebump-inducing episode “Heaven Sent”, this weeks episode “Hell Bent” had a lot to live up to. It had to deliver a compelling conclusion to the season, solve all this hybrid nonsense, and would finally reintroduce the eagerly awaited Gallifery whose disappearance has been teased for several seasons now. With so much to cover, it…

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TV Review: Ash vs Evil Dead Season 1, Episode 5 “The Host” (USA, 2015)

There’s a a line in this weeks episode of Ash VS Evil Dead that not only reflects how Ruby views all of these deranged events on her hunt to find Ash but in a much more understated way, how a viewer should approach this new off the wall series. “I used to think everything should…

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TV Review: Ash vs Evil Dead Season 1, Episode 4 “Brujo” (USA, 2015)

“Well that was different” I exclaimed as Woodstock-esque music accompanied the credits of this weeks episode of Ash vs Evil Dead. Four episodes in and the horror/comedy series has decided to wreak havoc on its tried and true formula and just dive head long into crazy town. I know, for a review of an episode of an…

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