If the theme of last week’s Ripper Street was love, then this week it was faith.
In another brilliantly sharp and tragic episode, the second series of BBC One’s period crime drama continued to entertain on the one hand, whilst quietly investigating what it means to be human on the other – this time through the lens of religious faith.
Cannibal teddy bears, strangled giant slugs, electrocution, kinky metal bikinis, talking lobsters; it’s fair to say Return of the Jedi certainly has something for everyone!
In this new ‘making of’ book J. W. Rinzler once again goes into microscopic detail about almost every aspect of the making of the 1983 Star Wars classic.
With all the Christmas tat lining the shelves already, the office Secret Santa set to yield increasingly underwhelming results and that wretched John Lewis ad forever on our screens to pound us all into saccharine submission, it seems the season is well and truly upon us. Fittingly, this means it’s time for the belated DVD release of last year’s festive slasher pic, Silent Night.
A slight dip in laughs tonight is counteracted by a slightly darker tone (relatively speaking), with sinister undercurrents afoot in Elf’s behaviour and in the mysterious goings-on in Ennythingos. While there’s still a lot of imagination on display, there’s perhaps more reliance on bawdy humour here than previously.
After a two-week wait, making way for Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary, Atlantis returned with its strongest episode to date.
No sooner had Medusa (Jemima Rooper) begun to respond warmly to Hercules’ romantic overtures, with the big man promising to mend his gambling and womanising ways, one of his creditors came calling. Taking Medusa hostage, Kryos demanded a descent into the underworld to retrieve a mysterious box.
Legacy is one of the centre-pieces of the BBC’s Cold War season, and, after An Adventure In Space And Time, marks the second one-off film in a row that BBC Two have absolutely nailed. Legacy is a wonderful piece of work.
When Misfits ends two weeks from now, we’ll all likely have to go sit in a quiet room with a joke book, a rubber chicken, and a Morecambe & Wise VHS, in order to recalibrate our sense of humour. Because over the past five years Misfits has been dragging our idea of what’s funny steadily off course – like a magnet fucking a compass – to the point where taste and decency have fallen off the map.
Is anyone else watching The Tunnel? Or is that slight echo as we’re watching just something wrong with our TV? Never mind, you’re here now and that’s all that matters. And just in time to see the plot move incrementally forward!
These days Gareth Roberts is an established Doctor Who screenwriter, with five episode credits to his name, as well as having penned a host of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Although he was one of the first to tackle the resurrected show in prose he had form, having contributed to the Virgin books ranges in the 1990s. Last year he novelised the lost Douglas Adams tale ‘Shada’ for BBC Books and is soon to follow up with ‘City of Death’.
After last week’s disappointing effort, Series 2 of Ripper Street is firmly back on track with a brilliant episode inspired by the very relevant topic of gay rights. With tears, twists and a script frothing with delectable period dialogue, ‘Threads of Silk and Gold’ reminded us that at the heart of this rollicking police procedural is a series invested in the bigger picture.