Venice! Venizia! The city that has a terrible pizza named after it has seen a lot of crazy things in its history; from sexy alien fish vampires trying to flood the world, to an ageing British secret agent piloting a high-speed hover-gondola through its waterways and plazas, causing local wildlife to do double-takes. But its … >
Last week’s opening episode of Humans was watched by over 4 million viewers (all of them properly human, I’m sure), making it Channel 4’s highest-rated drama in over a decade. Couple that with Gemma Chan’s hint that there’s scope for a second season, and you may as well get used to Synths being around you … >
It’s mid-season finale time and Thunderbirds Are Go pulls out all the stops to deliver a solid, exhilarating and entertaining thrill ride to cap off the first half of the new season. Alan and Brains journey to the Supreme Hadron Collider, but soon find themselves caught in the eye of the storm when a gravity … >
This second part to the BBC’s Iain Banks adaptation has a lot to resolve, given all the plot elements set up in the first episode. With so much to tie up, it’s no wonder that this concluding episode of Stonemouth doesn’t quite deliver on a satisfying resolution. Director Charles Martin does an amazing job of … >
Sheridan Smith’s new three-part drama Black Work finally starts this Sunday after heavy trailing from ITV for what seems like an age. Smith plays the tough and feisty Jo Gillespie, a Leeds constable whose husband (also a police officer) is killed whilst he’s undercover. With information regarding the killing being thin on the ground, Jo … >
With the characters and their respective storylines established in the opening two episodes, the story of Hazelwood Manor and its staff focuses attention mainly on one character this week. We learn more about Sean’s past and why he was so keen to avoid the publicity over the group’s lottery win. Richard Rankin is given a … >
Smallfilms are a peculiarly British animation studio: industrious, creative and successful but always too tiny and quaint to ever be called a powerhouse. Initially a two-man operation working out of an old barn – with Peter Firmin making models or providing traditional artwork alongside Oliver Postgate animating these elements and (in a voice that was … >
‘Can a magician kill a man by magic?’ The question was asked on Jonathan on The Peninsula, back in Episode 3. His reply, ‘A magician might. But a gentleman never could.’ So we assumed him a gentleman. But in the knock-your-socks-off impressive tumult of the Battle of Waterloo that opens Episode 5, we see that … >
The season finale finds us in May 1940 – in a world vastly different than the one when Home Fires started. The British expeditionary force has been driven back and France is expected to fall. The prospect of Nazi boots marching through Great Paxford is real. Steph teaches Frances how to shoot a rifle, and … >
We haven’t seen Thunderbird 4 since the show’s opening two-parter, so this week’s Thunderbirds Are Go redresses that balance somewhat, with an underwater rescue mission that puts the little yellow submarine front and centre. The hapless Ned Tedford from ‘Slingshot’ is back, this time trapped in an out-of-control underwater extraction platform that threatens to not … >