“Certain moments in Time are fixed. Tiny, precious moments. Everything else is in flux, anything can happen. But those certain moments…they have to stand.” So said The Tenth Doctor in ‘The Waters of Mars’ – not the last time you’ll hear that episode mentioned in this review, or others. Viewers will draw close parallels between … >
As I said last week, there always seems to be something on fire in Glue. A car, a caravan, a pile of wood in a copse… the countryside is indeed a highly flammable place. It’s why you never see cows smoking. Or sheep having ‘baa’-rbeques. Ha. Ha. Ha. But all those flames do more than … >
Watching the opener to Peaky Blinders’ second season is like swaggering back into your old home town. Just as the streets, the faces, and the noises of your old manor are all as vibrantly familiar and much more impressively dismal than you remembered, so there’s an identical sensation as you hear the ferric beat of … >
The second episode of Downton Abbey’s new season finds Mr. Carson and Lord Grantham at odds over the site of the WWI memorial: the cricket pitch at Downton (Mr. Carson’s choice, though he is an avid enthusiast of the sport) or the centre of the village (Lord Grantham’s recommendation). Mr. Carson does not defer to … >
Having established the primary elements last week, this week’s Our Girl episode does a great job of balancing the character development with some very probing questions about Army life for young soldier, Molly Dawes (Lacey Turner). Proceedings here are definitely more character-based with equal development given to the main three players. Ben Aldridge, as Captain … >
One thing that has eluded Doctor Who in recent years is consistency. Matt Smith’s final season was let down by clunkers like ‘The Rings of Akhaten’ and ‘Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS’, but the gilt edges of the previous season were certainly rubbed off by ‘The Curse of the Black Spot’ – and … >
Having recently narrated the audiobook of his namesake Steven Patrick’s Autobiography, it seems appropriate that David Morrissey’s latest television role takes him back to Manchester. This is not the cultured, steel-and-glass megalopolis that the city’s tourist board are keen to publicise, however, but the parts that haven’t changed since the days of the Smiths: the … >
With ‘The Caretaker’ we reach the halfway point of Doctor Who’s latest run. It’s a good time, then, to take a quick look back at the first half of Season 8. You’d probably agree it’s been pretty strong so far, though there’s bound to be an individual difference of opinion among where those strengths lie. … >
There’s a simple way to tell if you’re part of the viewer demographic that Glue has in its shot-glass sights. It’s this: when all those teens were having that shindig in the woods, if you didn’t think ‘Who lugged that sound system and stage into the middle of nowhere? And what’s powering it? A generator?’, … >
We give it four years, tops. Maybe even just two. That’s how long it’ll be before a major brace of films snap up Sheridan Smith and makes her this decade’s Kate Winslet or Helen Bonham Carter: in other words, the go-to Brit actress to give your project a bit of class. Smith is remarkable in … >