Category Archives: TV

The Vampire Lestat. Television Drama Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Sam Reid, Jacob Anderson, Jennifer Ehle, Eric Bogosian, Ryan Kattner, Seamus Patterson, Sarah Swire, Assad Zaman, Joseph Potter, Delainey Hayles, Gopal Divan, Sheila Atim, Christopher Heyerdahl, Damien Atkins, Vince Kesavamoorthy, Justin Kirk, Amaka Umeh, Shepherd Munroe, Jeanine Serralles, Noah Reid, Andrew Musselman, Guy Maddin.

Arguably Anne Rice’s The Vampire Lestat is one of the finest examples of the modern gothic horror to exist from the 20th century, and to attempt to capture it in a form that does it justice could be beset with issues that might not be apparently noticeable until one finds themselves completely absorbed into the world of 1980s excess and the glut of superfluity that resonated and was heavily underscored by the literature of the time.

The Vampire Lestat. Television Drama Series Review. full post

(432 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Bookish: Memento Mori. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Mark Gatiss, Polly Walker, Elliot Levy, Connor Finch, Blake Harrison, Jason Watkins, Sarah Crowe, Saffron Coomber, Rosie Cavaliero, Amanda Lawrence, Sorcha Groundsell, Sid Sagar, Nadia Albina, Gerard Horan, Buket Kömür, Youssef Kerkour, Rupert Graves, Nory Goderis, Jan Van Ryckeghem, Rob Oldfield, Simon Callow.

The dead always leave behind something in the dust for others to spoil, to use in their name, and create deeds by the living that leeches off the bereaved as they grieve and grasp any sign of hope that those they have lost might still be found.

Bookish: Memento Mori. Television Review. full post

(455 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

The Crow Girl, Series Two. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Eve Myles, Katherine Kelly, Clara Ruggaard, Victoria Hamilton, Elliot Edusah, Raphael Sowole, Karen Ascoe, Lu Corfield, Michael Lumsden, Lee Boardman, Peter De Jersey.

The second series of The Crow Girl, adapted from Erik Axl Sund’s riveting novel, is one that pushes the watcher into the realms of disassociation, of the complexity of multiple personality, and whilst the first series was unabashed in its portrayal, the second is one where the sheer cognitive struggle of holding such memories and demons in the mind is powerfully, robustly, presented as DCI Jeanette Kilburn closes down on the killer but also finds her own mind is questioned as her actions in the face of lust and abandonment cause her to neglect the obvious truth.

The Crow Girl, Series Two. Television Review. full post

(421 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

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)