Category Archives: TV

Red Dwarf: The Promised Land. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Chris Barrie, Craig Charles, Danny John Jules, Robert Llewellyn, Norman Lovett, Ray Fearon, Tom Bennett, Mandeep Dhillon, Lucy Pearman, Al Roberts.

What started out as cult viewing, a chance taken on something entirely new, has become, in its own way, one of the most quoted, highly anticipated and arguably funniest comedies to have made it to television. The perfect blend is hard to attain, even harder to keep together but like Only Fools and Horses and Blackadder before it, has come to define the way an audience can keep a programme going beyond what seems its one and only joke and become part of the national psyche, identifying with the four valiant jokers in the pack and making Red Dwarf what it is today, a national treasure to which there is no comparison.

Red Dwarf: The Promised Land. Television Review. full post

(457 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

The Twilight Zone: A Traveler. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Steven Yeun, Marika Sila, Patrick Gallagher, Eric Keenleyside, Andrew Kavadas, Gail Maurice, Greg Kinnear, Jordan Peele, Jill Teed, Babak A. Motamed, Adam Stafford, Tanja Dixon-Warren, June B. Wilde, Trevor Lerner.

For anyone who has spent time on the road, back packing round Europe in their gap year, or the more adventurous type who see the Americas and the lands of the East a more defining pull, there will always come a time when you walk into a new town or village, when you get off the bus and stare at your surroundings, there will always one person who views you with suspicion, something in their gut tells them that you are not who you say your are.

The Twilight Zone: A Traveler. Television Review. full post

(417 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

The Twilight Zone: Replay. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Samaa Lathan, Damson Idris, Steve Harris, Glenn Fleshler, Jordan Peele, Candus Churchill, Zari Django, Keon Boateng, Henry Mah, Samantha Spatari, Jocelyn Panton, Blake Stadel.

We only see Time as a strict progression of cause and effect, unless we use our imagination and see how all possible futures can play out, but without the benefit of a time machine, or the understanding of how one action causes a splinter, a fracture that must always be, there is little that we can do but hope for a Replay, another chance to put our world right.

The Twilight Zone: Replay. Television Review. full post

(474 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

The Outsider. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Cynthia Erivo, Jason Bateman, Bill Camp, Jeremy Pelley, Mare Winningham, Paddy Considine, Yul Vasquez, Julianne Nicholson, Marc Menchaca, Derek Cecil, Hettienne Park, Michael Esper, Steve Witting, Max Beesley, Martin Bats Bradford, Carlos Navarro, Franco Castan, Wes Watson.

In terms of his extraordinary output, Stephen King’s The Outsider has to rank, especially in the 21st Century, at the upper end of novels that connect with the human psyche and the unbalancing of fear to which he has immersed and soaked his name through with prolific ease.

The Outsider. Television Review. full post

(682 words, estimated 2:44 mins reading time)

Inside No. 9: The Stakeout. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Rebecca Callard, Malik Ibheis.

Even in the more cerebrally minded television programmes and across the writer’s who offer the viewer a healthy dose of the macabre and genius inspired, you sometimes know what is coming at you from the beginning, it is how they turn the screw during the transmission that makes the show stand out as something more than just a half hour trip down a certain lane, it becomes the embodiment of performance, of the ordinary bent out of shape.

Inside No. 9: The Stakeout. Television Review. full post

(416 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

The Twilight Zone: The Comedian. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Kumail Nanjiani, Amara Karen, Diarra Kilpatrick, Ryan Robbins, Tracy Morgan, Jordan Peele, Marc Joseph, Toby Hargrave, Danny Dworkis, Jacob Machin, Briana Rayner, Darcey Michael, Sean Hewlett, Brendon Zub.

Individuality gets a hard press in the modern era, by staying true to your own core values and vision you are seemingly obligated to undergo derision, of being accused of forgoing inclusion in the search for unique distinctiveness, of owing your own voice instead of being part of design by committee. Whilst inclusion is a good thing, whilst hearing the opinions of others is way to gauge your audience, to fall in line with another to the point where they subsume your tongue, that is the path to just being another blank face on a multiplying wall.

The Twilight Zone: The Comedian. Television Review. full post

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

Inside No. 9: Thinking Out Loud. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Phil Davis, Maxine Peak, Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Ioanna Kimbook, Sara Kestelman, Sandra Gayer.

Disassociation is an area of science that does not get the fair representation in the media, on television, on film, that it arguably should receive. Thankfully the days where such a disorder was treated with derision is locked in the past, confined to the annals of the worst stereotypes conceived and the sensationalist attention grabbing tropes that do more harm than good.

Inside No. 9: Thinking Out Loud. Television Review. full post

(497 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

McDonald And Dodds: Invisible. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Jason Watkins, Tala Gouveia, Pearl Chanda, Jack Riddiford, James Murray, Sebastian Knapp, Robert Lindsay, Natalie Mendoza, Rosalie Craig, Susannah Fielding, Jack Ashton, Roger Evans, Navin Chowdhry, Ellie Kendrick, Cassie Bradley.

Painting by numbers is not to be confused with great art but if it helps gain artistic perspective then it is an application of learning that can be seen as being undervalued, and if it helps appreciate a finer point of view, then who can decry it in its future potential for the student willing to study and gain pleasure from.

McDonald And Dodds: Invisible. Television Review. full post

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

The Twilight Zone, Nightmare At 30,000 Feet. (2019). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Adam Scott, Chris Diamantopoulos, Dan Carlin, Katie Findlay, Nicholas Lea, China Shavers, J. Cameron Barnett, Jordan Peele, Nabil Ayoub, Hana Kinani, Greg Zach, Vladimir Ruzich, Alexander Mandra, Demelza Randall, Emanuel Mokhtari, Arkie Kandola, Tarun Keram, Tim Howe, Brea St. James.

There is no way you can improve upon the classic or even stand shoulders with the influential. This maxim has proved been time and time again, and yet as with everything in life, occasionally the persistence of change means a piece of art can be, if not improved upon, at least given a facelift and become more in keeping with the times and far removed from its initial idea.

The Twilight Zone, Nightmare At 30,000 Feet. (2019). Television Review. full post

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

Inside No.9: Misdirection. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Jill Halfpenny, Fionn Whitehead, Tom Goodman-Hill.

A sleight of hand always captivates the audience, their faces caught somewhere between incredulity and amazement, the wonder of how the penny drops as they conclude how the trick was conducted right in front of them, whilst all the time believing they could not be caught out, that they were alert to every possibility that could occur.

Inside No.9: Misdirection. Television Review. full post

(380 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)