For the penultimate Companion Chronicles story, we return to an old favourite. Continuing from where 2010’s ‘Find and Replace’ left off, Jo Jones (née Grant) is off on an adventure with the irrepressible Iris Wildthyme. For those not acquainted with Ms Wildthyme, the trans-temporal adventuress, suffice to say that she is a sometime ally, sometime … >
Amidst the sounds of swords clashing and giants growling, between the swells and blares of the insistent ominous soundtrack, there were some moments of particular quietness in this week’s Game of Thrones. In one, two Wildling giants methodically attached ropes to the four inches of cold-rolled steel protecting the passage through the Wall and began … >
The second story in the current Fifth Doctor and Nyssa trilogy finds the pair arriving on a spaceship that serves as a floating tomb. As the resting place of the Arrit God-King, from a society the Doctor suggests had the potential to rival the Time Lords, it is a place full of complex trials and … >
‘The best way is to do it with scissors’. That’s what Alfred Hitchcock said, once upon a movie murder. Mind you, Hitch never had to kill a zombie. But for our 21st century warm bodies, decades of Pop-Horror has heuristically ingrained in us a variety of ways to do away with the undead. If the … >
Since 24 rose phoenix-like from the ashes, it’s been on something of a roll. The streamlined episode order means that the plot has moved along at a snappy pace, and many of the pitfalls and traps that usually derail a season that has twenty four episodes to fill have been excised. Unfortunately Hour Six sees … >
Musicals based on movies are quite the norm now, with huge successes such as The Producers and Legally Blonde, but how does this Michael Caine/Steve Martin screen romp from 1988 hold up on a London stage in the 2010s? Like those two aforementioned adaptations, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: The Musical also expands and illuminates its source … >
Proof of concept. Those three words answer one of Orphan Black’s lingering questions. Why do the clones exist? Because, of course, somebody wanted to prove that they could. Sarah’s conversation with Ethan Duncan at the end of ‘To Hound Nature in Her Wanderings’ is a particularly revelatory one. Shot in dark and mysterious low lighting, … >
About fifteen seconds into Episode 8 of Game of Thrones’ fourth season, a random ale-swilling extra tries to guess what tune the prostitute next to him is burping and utters the words “The Rains of Castamere”. Something that, in hindsight, should have told us everything we needed to know about this episode: it would involve … >
Fresh, funny and packed with thrills, The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman’s new time-twisting sci-fi epic is a rare thing: an action blockbuster that doesn’t feel like bored rehashing of films that have gone before. Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) is a smarmy government official and the appealingly handsome face of Earth’s resistance effort against … >
Time for one of two incongruous Hitchhiker’s Guide references! Because, there might not be any coasts or fjords on In the Flesh, but Dominic Mitchell could teach Slartibartfast a few things about world-building. He’s a master at it. You see, good world-building isn’t blocks of facts Minecrafted into place. It’s discovery through experience; entirely character … >