Category Archives: TV

The Capture: Series Three. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Holiday Grainger, Lia Williams, Ron Perlman, Ben Miles, Killian Scott, Nigel Lindsey, Paapa Essiedu, Indira Varma, Hugh Quarshie, Andrew Buchan, Isabella Brownson, Linus Rache, Jonathan Aris, Daisy Waterstones, Tessa Wong, Andy Nyman, Amanda Drew, Joe Dempsie, Adrian Rawlins, Natalie Dew.

The future envisioned by George Orwell has been exceeded in its desire to subjugate the masses, what is in its place in the third decade of the 21st Century is something even more hideous, a price paid with the vanity of ego and the fear installed at every drop every headline, and with all the power of surveillance and technology at its disposal…this is the future adapted to control a population afraid of its own possibility to fight back.

The Capture: Series Three. Television Review. full post

(471 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Holly Hunter, Sandro Rosta, Robert Picardo, Paul Giamatti, Tatiana Maslany, Karim Diane, Kerrice Brooks, George Hawkins, Bella Shepard, Gina Yashere, Zoë Steiner, Raoul Bhaneja, Tig Nataro, Oded Fehr, Stephen Colbert, Brit Marling.

In its 60th year, one that is filled with huge past highs, and some fairly despondent lows, moments that preached beyond the capacity of the viewer to admire, let alone respect, the many worlds of Star Trek finds itself following from the lamentable final series of Discovery with a way to restart the whole idea of Starfleet being formed once again whilst building a structure to imagine just how the premise of the programme, its history and its future can combat fatigue.

Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Television Series Review. full post

(531 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

After The Flood. Series Two. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Sophie Rundle, Lorraine Ashbourne, Matt Stokoe, Nicholas Gleaves, Philip Glenister, Tripti Tripuraneni, Heider Ali, Maui Connock, Faye McKeever, Jacqueline Boatswain, Leo Flanagan, Jill Halfpenny, George Bukhari, Ian Puleston-Davies, Alun Armstrong, Steph de Whalley.

We think of what happens after the flood as more of a clean-up, no matter how large the operation, rather than discovering a truth, that we can just scrape the residue from the top layer of the surface and find peace, calm, a forgetfulness of harm and all will be well, that we will by definition come to appreciate the inevitable sense of reorder once more.

After The Flood. Series Two. Television Review. full post

(444 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Dark Winds. Series Three. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Zahn McClarnon, Kiowa Gordon, Jessica Matten, Deanna Allison, Jenna Elfman, Ryan Begay, DezBaa’, Betty Anna Martinez, Jeri Ryan, Anderson Kee, Wade Adakai, Tonantzin Carmelo, Alex Maraz, Terry Serpico, Derek Hinkey, Bodhi Okuma Linton, Bruce Greenwood, Raoul Max Trujillo, Christopher Heyerdahl, Carly Roland, Tsosie, Phil Birke, Casimere Jollette, Melissa Chambers, Robert Knepper, George R.R. Martin, Robert Redford.

Dark Winds. Series Three. Television Drama Review. full post

(448 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Red Eye: Crimson Icarus. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Jing Lusi, Lesley Sharp, Jemma Moore, Martin Compston, Nicholas Rowe, Jonathan Aris, Trevor White, Tom Forbes, Richard Armitage, Robert Gilbert, Hannah Steele, Tom Ashley, Steph Lacey.

It is with surprise that the second series of Red Eye seems to have learned the lessons presented by its initial series and produced a far more intriguing situation to be investigated by D.S Lee and one that releases the damaging limitations that shrouded Jinh Lusi in the lead role and which reinforces a truth that the world at large is not only caught in the crossfire of ideology, but that at its very core it suffers from the best laid plans of those we might consider to be serving our own best interests.

Red Eye: Crimson Icarus. Television Series Review. full post

(404 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Amadeus. Television Drama Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Paul Bettany, Will Sharpe, Gabreille Creevy, Olivia-Mai Barrett, Orsolya Heletya, Emma Lowndes, Jonathan Aris, Rory Kinnear, Kristián Cser, Anastasia Martin, Lucy Cohu, Viola Preetejohn, Rupert Vansittart, Colin Hoult, Paul Bazely, Jack Farthing, Enyi Okoronkwo, Hugh Sachs.

In its attempt to appeal to all, television has found a way to sanitise even the most glorious of human beings that have created such works of art that their very presence gives us hope, that we explain away the madness in the mind and in the soul, and for the most part it has found a way to dissect and criticise, find a way to not exemplify the brilliance, but desecrate the self, find fault at every possible moment.

Amadeus. Television Drama Series Review. full post

(547 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

A Ghost Story For Christmas: The Room In The Tower. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Joanna Lumley, Tobias Menzies, Nancy Carroll, Ben Mansfield, Polly Walker.

A tale told well is always worth the time spent watching it unfold, and yet its opposite is one that seems to spare itself from being truly explored feels to the viewer almost as if they are being punished for caring about previous encounters with the writer or the subject matter.

A Ghost Story For Christmas: The Room In The Tower. Television Drama Review. full post

(469 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

The Revenge Club. Television Drama Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Aimee-Ffion Edwards, Martin Compston, Meera Syal, Douglas Henshall, Sharon Rooney, Chaneil Kular, Amit Shah, Aoife Kennan, Rob Malone, Wil Coban, Eion Duffy, Holly Harmon, Christina Bennington, Doireann McNally, Owen Teale, Catherine Walker, Niamh Walsh, Payal Mistry, Taru Devani.

Revenge is a dish best served with consequences understood, that by taking down those that wrong you can lead to a cost to your own soul, it can be the moment where the challenge of boundary will make you the perfect villain in the eyes of all; if though you can face that eventuality then why contemplate the act of reprisal on your own, the nature of vengeance as a solo effort, surely it is a better experience as part of like-minded group, The Revenge Club.

The Revenge Club. Television Drama Series Review. full post

(463 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

The Death Of Bunny Munro. Television Drama Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Matt Smith, Sarah Greene, Rafael Mathé, Johann Myers, Robert Glenister, Patrick Carswell, Alice Feetham, Ed Eales White, Lindsay Duncan, Francis Tomelty, Lydia Hunt, Bobby Rainsbury, Andrea Valls, Laura Doddington, Nick Cave, David Threlfall.

The Death Of Bunny Munro is arguably to be seen as a surreal exercise of indulgence that should not work, and yet it is a captivating sense of movement that details the length that some people will go to provide glorious colour to their own car crash of a life.

The Death Of Bunny Munro. Television Drama Series Review. full post

(502 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

It: Welcome To Derry. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Stephen Rider, Chris Chalk, Bill Skarsgård, Matilda Lawler, Amanda Christine, Clara Stack, Blake Cameron James, Arian S. Cartaya, James Remar, Thomas Mitchell, Madeline Stowe, Peter Outerbridge, Kimberly Guerrero, Joshia Odjick, Maya McNair, Hannah Storey, Maya Misaljevic, Alixandra Fuchs, Shane Marriott, Dorian Grey, Larry Day, Morningstar Angeline, Miles Ekhardt, Mikkal Karim Fidler, Craig Porritt, Sophia Lillis.

It: Welcome To Derry. Television Series Review. full post

(663 words, estimated 2:39 mins reading time)