Have you noticed how animals are always bad omens in The Returned? Last season there was the butterfly which appeared as Mr Costa killed himself; then Mme Payet being feasted on my her cats like she was an ‘All You Can Nom’ Whiskas buffet; then bits of a stag wedged in a bin in a … >
With only two episodes left, River moves all of its plot lines along speedily this week, overlapping the personal and professional relationships of everyone concerned, building anticipation for next week’s finale. Stellan Skarsgard continues to be excellent, and – despite the emotional beats of the script – the scenes where he is at his best … >
Mark Gatiss, inside Doctor Who fan circles, has tended to become known as a master of historical pastiche… A Renaissance man who has achieved greatness in other spheres – in the company of other extraordinary gentlemen, in his work on Sherlock, and in his marvellous Lucifer Box books – but has, in his writing for … >
One of the neat things about the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and its award-winning stage adaptation is its ability to subvert expectations, a trick neatly pulled off in BBC One’s latest Imagine… documentary, My Curious Documentary. Although it does what it says on the tin, charting the production’s rise from the … >
BBC Two’s latest drama, the gritty and thrilling London Spy, hits all the right notes with its opening episode. Ben Whishaw (Spectre) is Danny, an impulsive, bored drifter; he’s described in the episode as a romantic, and although he has something of a troubled past, the evidence of this inherent romanticism is right there in … >
I know it’s the final Lewis episode we’re going to get, so maybe I should be a little more charitable towards the rather uninspiring detective work in Part 2 of ‘What Lies Tangled’. With nothing in the way of evidence having emerged from the investigation so far, Lewis decides to return to the scene of … >
The Walking Dead has been a lot of things this season. In turns, it’s been a spectacle-driven drama, a siege thriller, a gory horror flick and then a quiet, thoughtful two-hander. This week? It’s just a typical episode. ‘Now’ is Scott Gimple’s iteration of The Walking Dead in default mode: a relatively slow character piece … >
The season finale opens with sunny skies over Downton but storm clouds brewing for both Edith and Mary. Lady Edith is struggling with the decision to tell Bertie Pelham the truth about Marigold. The question is called sooner than she’d like when Pelham arrives at the Abbey after his cousin dies suddenly, leaving Pelham a … >
The plot thickens this week as we start to get some answers about Robert’s past. Alongside Jekyll’s story, however, we have an increasing amount of subplots. For instance, we also follow his younger brother Ravi as he continues to evade capture in Ceylon. It’s hard to say at the moment how important his adventure will … >
Having set the bar high with Daredevil earlier this year, Marvel appear to have struck gold again with their second Netflix series, Jessica Jones, which gets off to an impressively assured start. Initially in ‘AKA Ladies Night’, there’s signs that Jessica Jones might not be the heavyweight that was expected. The opening act is perfectly … >