There aren’t many shows that can successfully straddle the lines between comedy and drama. But This is Going to Hurt is not most programs. The British dramedy based on Adam Kay’s memoir will dazzle audiences with its sharp writing, humour and pathos. Ben Whishaw stars as a young doctor working for the National Health Service….
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Executive produced by George R.R. Martin and Robert Redford, Dark Winds is set in 1971 on a remote outpost of the Navajo Nation near Monument Valley, and follows Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn (Zahn McClarnon) of the Tribal Police as he is besieged by a series of seemingly unrelated crimes. The closer Leaphorn digs to the truth, the more he…
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Streaming on AMC+, 61st Street is a propulsive thriller coursing through the dark heart of the infamous Chicago criminal justice system as police and prosecutors investigate a deadly drug bust that threatens to unravel the police department’s code of silence. To coincide with the show streaming, Peter Gray spoke with star Tosin Cole, discussing the…
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Streaming on AMC+, That Dirty Black Bag is a raw, epic and romantic eight-part series about the dark side of the Far West. Starring Douglas Booth as bounty hunter Red Bill and Dominic Cooper as the savage Sheriff McCoy, the series follows their eight-day clash as blood, bullets and bodies fly in the wake of…
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When Kevin Can F**k Himself begins you’d be forgiven for worrying that Annie Murphy, so great as the vapid Alexis Rose in Schitt’s Creek, has drastically reduced herself to playing the stereotypical put-upon wife in the all-too familiar sitcom set-up of schlubby husband acts like a man-child and gets away with it because he’s endearing,…
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There’s a scene in the second episode of The Walking Dead: The World Beyond where our four teenage protagonists are hiding from “empties” (walkers, zombies) in a treehouse, chewing through the short time by playing Monopoly and passing a bowling ball around while bellowing “Big Moe” – the ball’s given name. It’s amongst the most…
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In Here, Iowa, Charlie Manx is on the hunt. He has a target – the lonely and unloved little Daniel – and his Rolls Royce Wraith is packed with presents, ready to take the needy child off to Christmasland. Sounds nice, right? Well, not if acclaimed horror writer Joe Hill has anything to do with…
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Next week those lucky enough to be heading over to SXSW during it’s first few days will have a much better insight into new AMC thriller The Terror thanks to the network’s fully immersive multi-sensory activation. It seems HBO aren’t the only ones using the enormous festival to promote a forthcoming show, with the home…
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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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Earlier this year we reported on rumours that Walker Stalker Con could be heading to Australia. Now it seems that rumours have turned into reality, following the announcement that the immensely popular event would indeed be making its way down under, bringing The Walking Dead stars both past and present down under for what has…
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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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“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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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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Curious choices defined The Walking Dead’s season 7 finale “The First Day of the Rest of Your Life”, and while it didn’t quite make up for what’s been an average season at best, it featured all the big beats characteristic of a landmark episode mixed in with those small character moments that teetered between nauseating…
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“Something They Need” wrapped up everything the way you would expect, setting some final pieces in place for the inevitable showdown in next week’s finale. The problem with this is that the absence of anything unexpected, outside of some nice bits of drama over at The Sanctuary, resulted in a clean episode that lacked any…
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As we near an obvious showdown between Negan and team Rick we continue season 7’s clumsy attempt to atone for a defining sluggish pace and what has been the series’ most inconsistent show of quality since the first half of season 2. Thankfully, like last week’s enjoyable “Bury Me Here”, the show continues in the…
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It’s no secret that The Walking Dead is beginning to lose momentum. Seven seasons in and it seems the monolithic survival-horror series keeps tripping over itself more often than not, with inconsistency now a defining trait. Unlike Game of Thrones which takes a vignette approach to it’s larger cast, TWD often features stretched bottle episodes…
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AMC sure do love splitting their most successful shows up, axing seasons in two with months between blocks. It’s a trend that they’ve been going at for a few years now and The Walking Dead’s seventh season is no exception, having just finished their traditional 8-episode block before taking a break. Australians will be happy…
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As the front-end of The Walking Dead’s average seventh season comes to an end we get another glimmer of hope on the horizon, but those small sparks are still overshadowed by a script that leans a bit too heavily on Jefferey Dean Morgan, overindulging in Negan’s affable sociopath shtick. The showrunners are so confident in…
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Ratings are sliding for The Walking Dead and a big chunk of viewers are sounding off on social media; while it’s far from a consensus, it’s safe to say many have been disappointed with the way this uneven season has been flowing (remember Ezekiel? You’d be forgiven for forgetting already). A stubborn insistence on overlong…
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