Category Archives: TV

Strike: Lethal White. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Burke, Holliday Grainger, Kerr Logan, Robert Glenister, Sophie Winkleman, Christine Cole, Robert Pugh, Sophie Colquhoun, Nicholas Agnew, Suzanne Burden, Paul Butterworth, Judi Kenley, Joe Johnsey, Andrew Hawley, Ralph Davis, Suzanne Toase, Natalie Gumede, Joseph Quinn, Alfie Tardi, James Mellish, William Gurney, Nick Blood, Safron Coomber, Jamie Ankrah, Joel Gillman, Robyn Holdaway, Kathleen Cranham, Danny Ashok, Jaqueline Boatswain, Julie Morgan Price, Silas Carson, Jack Greenlees, Ruth Lass, Natalie Walter, Adam Long, Nicholas Burns, Mandana Jones, Ann Akin, Shenagh Govan.

Strike: Lethal White. Television Review. full post

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

Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Natalie Dormer, Daniel Zovatto, Nathan Lane, Kerry Bishe, Adriana Barraza, Jessica Garza, Michael Gladis, Jonathan Nieves, Rory Kinnear, Dominic Sherwood, Julian Hilliard, Santino Barnard, Sebastian Chacon, Adam Rodriguez, Hudson West, Amy Madigan, Thomas Kretschmann, Kyle McArthur, Piper Perabo, Adam Rocha, Lin Shaye, Brent Spiner, Stephanie Arcila, Scott Beehner, Christine Estabrook, Lorenza Izzo, Rod McLachlan, David Figlioli, Brad Garrett, Ethan Peck, Richard Kind.

Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels. Television Review. full post

(534 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

Perry Mason: (2020). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Matthew Rhys, Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk, Shea Whigham, Tatiana Maslany, John Lithgow, Gayle Rankin, Nate Corddry, Veronica Falcon, Jefferson Mays, Andrew Howard, Eric Lange, Robert Patrick, Stephen Root, Lili Taylor, Matt Frewer, Diarra Kilpatrick, David Wilson Barnes, Taylor Nichols, Aaron Stanford, Molly Ephraim, Gretchen Mol, Jenny O’Hara, Justin Kirk.

For television viewers especially, a character is already drawn before they have had chance to them. All of the great protagonists have a history that unless we allow ourselves to dig deeper than what one medium lays out in stone, we never fully understand their actual motives and drives later on, the one moment that made them who they are when we introduced to them in all their pomp and glory.

Perry Mason: (2020). Television Review. full post

(609 words, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)

Batwoman. Series One. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Ruby Rose, Camrus Johnson, Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, Nicole Kang, Dougray Scott, Rachel Maddow, Sam Littlefield, Elizabeth Anweis, John Emmet Tracy, Christina Wolfe, Allison Riley, Gabriel Mann, Brendon Zub, Greyston Holt, Ava Sleeth, Sean Kuling, Brianne Howey, Sebastian Roche, Gracyn Shinyei, Alex Zahara, Nathan Witte, Rachel Matthews, Nicholas Holmes.

For a series that had the mantra of diversity supposedly at its very heart, the much publicised Batwoman seemed almost obliged to focus on the continual, rather than opening itself up to a greater variety of choice than it often alluded itself to.

Batwoman. Series One. Television Review. full post

(563 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

The Deceived. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Catherine Walker, Emily Reid, Emmett J. Scanlan, Paul Mescal, Eleanor Methven, Ian McElhinney, Shelley Conn, Dempsey Bovell, Louisa Harland, Lloyd Everitt, Cathy-Brennan Bradley, Saffron Coomber, Ciara Berkley, Ava Gallagher, Sophia Adli, Niall Cusack, Vanessa Ifediora, Louise Mathews, Shashi Rami, Catherine Rees, Declan Rodgers, Ethan Yandall, Frank Cannon.

Never trust a writer, they have spent all their life working out how to use their voice to add suspicion and mislead others; such is the finesse in which they have created their characters ability to betray, it is possible to believe everything they say and feel elated when the truth is revealed.

The Deceived. Television Review. full post

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

The Edge. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

“The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity…”, however, it might not be as simple as time suggests, nor as easy as the pundit and fan wishes that it were, for an eternity in the minds of the devoted who worship the swing of the red ball and the poise of the bat on guard, is but a partial second in the mind of the one occupying the crease, a split second in which their weapon parries the hurled round missile away past deep extra cover for six, or in which the mind wanders, and the wicket is taken, taking a fine nick at The Edge.

The Edge. Television Review. full post

(752 words, estimated 3:00 mins reading time)

The Plot Against America. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Winona Ryder, Zoe Kazan, Morgan Spector, Anthony Boyle, Michael Kostroff, David Krumoltz, Azhy Robertson, Caleb Mills, Jacob Laval, John Turturro, Ben Cole, Kristen Sieh, Steven Maier, Billy Carter, Caroline Kaplan, Eleanor Reissa, Philip Hoffman, Graydon Yosowitz, Ed Moran, Douglas Schneider, Bob Leszcak, Lee Tergesan, David Pittu, Russell Posner, David Greenspan, Keilly McQuail, Andrew Polk, Zach McNally, Kimberly Faye Greenberg, Orest Ludwig, Jason Liebman.

The Plot Against America. Television Review. full post

(630 words, estimated 2:31 mins reading time)

Harley Quinn. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Kaley Cuoco, Lake Bell, Alan Tudyk, Ron Funches, Tony Hale, Matt Oberg, Jason Alexander, Diedrich Bader, Christopher Meloni, J.B. Smoove, Jim Rash, James Adomian, Andrew Daly, Vanessa Marshall, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Phil LaMarr, Rahul Kohli, Briana Cuoco, Giancarlo Esposito, James Wolk, Tom Hollander, Sean Giambrone, Wanda Sykes, Rhea Perlman, Jacob Tremblay, Frankie Muniz.

From maligned introduced sidekick in which to give Batman’s greatest nemesis, The Joker, a feminine, if rather weak, foil, to arguably one of the greatest and adored characters within the D.C. comic universe, and all through the tenacity of the way the act of evolvement can be perceived and to be shown to grow.

Harley Quinn. Television Review. full post

(534 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

The Salisbury Poisonings. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Anne-Marie Duff, Rafe Spall, MyAnna Buring, Mark Addy, Annabel Scholey, Nigel Lindsay, Stella Gonet, Kiera Thompson, Duncan Pow, Darren Boyd, Stephanie Gil, William Houston, Emma Stansfield, Jonathon Slinger, Andrew Brooke, Johnny Harris, Wayne Swann, Faye McKeever, Melanie Gutteridge, Jill Winternitz, Michael Schaeffer, Ron Cook, Paul Popplewell, Clare Burt, Naomi Yang, Amber Aga.

In television drama days gone by serials such as The Salisbury Poisonings would have been given the same treatment as that which saw the nuclear torn British mainland of Threads, or the plague-pandemic ravaged world of Survivors make headlines for their vision of a society torn apart by humanity’s absolute belief in its destiny, and the shock of hubris when it all comes crumbling down.

The Salisbury Poisonings. Television Review. full post

(506 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Staged. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: David Tennant, Michael Sheen, Georgia Moffett, Lucy Eaton, Anna Lundberg, Simon Evans, Nina Sosanya, Judi Dench, Samuel L. Jackson, Adrian Lester.

To be inspired in difficult and trying times is to accept that the human condition requires stimulating, craves arousal of spirit, and whilst art has undoubtedly suffered without mercy during 2020, there is something of the eternal machine of hope that grinds on, that beats in the heart of every artist of every persuasion, that the show, in whatever format, must go on.

Staged. Television Review. full post

(436 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)