Category Archives: TV

Endeavour, Apollo. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, Sean Rigby, Anton Lesser, Simon Harrison, Caroline O’ Neil, Sara Vickers, Richard Riddell, James Bradshaw, Abigail Thaw, Matthew Cottle, Michael Parkhouse, Benjamin Wainwright, Oliver Chris, Sargon Yelda, Sasha Willoughby, Sophie Winkleman, Alison Newman, Mary Stockley, Katie Faye, Robert Hands, Terenia Edwards, Alice Orr-Ewing, Blake Ritson.

To be defiant is a virtue, standing up to the lazy attitudes and closed mindedness of others is to show integrity, and yet there will always be those who seek to undermine such morality as insolent, insubordinate, they do not seek out the person who suggests with reason that something can be done a different way, preferring the hand over fist approach and the quick solution, drawn in fire and never logic.

Endeavour, Apollo. Television Review. full post

(550 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

Endeavour: Pylon. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Shaun Evans, Roger Allam, James Bradshaw, Anton Lesser, Simon Harrison, Caroline O’Neill, Sara Vickers, Sean Rigby, Abigail Thaw, Colin Tierney, Abby Barnes, Khali Best, Daniel Boys, Katherine Bubbear, Lindsay Campbell, Tom Canton, Ed Colman, Adam De Ville, Mike Grady, Simon Harrison, Simon Hepworth, Ava Masters, Roger May, Aston McAuley, Alison Newman, Cera Rose Pickering, Richard Riddell, Hugh Sachs, Fiona Skinner, Elizabeth Wells, Kit Young.

 

Endeavour: Pylon. Television Review. full post

(634 words, estimated 2:32 mins reading time)

Les Misérables. Television Review. (2019).

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Dominic West, Adeel Akhtar, David Oyelowo, Lily Collins, Olivia Coleman, David Bradley, Ellie Bamber, Erin Kellyman, Emma Fielding, Enzo Cilenti, Donald Sumpter, Andre Pasquasy, Turlough Convery, Archie Madekwe, Josh O’Connor, Joseph Quinn,  Natalie Simpson, Angela Wynter, Reece Yates, Derek Jacobi, Jerome Flynn, Darren Kent, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Josef Altin, Anna Calder-Marshall, Alan David, Ron Cook, Archie Madekwe, Lorcan Cranitch, Hayley Carmichael.

Les Misérables. Television Review. (2019). full post

(601 words, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)

Black Lake (Series Two). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Hedda Stiernstedt, Filip Berg, Daniel Larsson, David Nzinga, Bahar Pars, Alida Morberg, Andre Ericksen, Ester Udden, Anja Landgre.

When the makers of a serial decide in their infinite wisdom to take a story back before the events in which made their original premise a success, they leave themselves open to the kind of questions that would not befall them had they carried forth from the moment in which the initial resolution had been created.

Black Lake (Series Two). Television Review. full post

(317 words, estimated 1:16 mins reading time)

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: James Purefoy, Jessica Raine, Nicky Henson, Anton Lesser, Heather Craney, Stuart McLoughlin, Clive Howard, Danny Sapani, Jaimi Barbakoff, Wilf Scolding.

It is often a frustration that comes in waves, that no matter how incredible the film Blade Runner is, how mesmerising the feel of the story is, it somehow, like all adaptations of Philip K. Dick’s glorious output, is left feeling altered, bereft of the soul of the man to whom so much is owed.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? Radio Drama Review. full post

(599 words, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)

Luther (Series Five). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Idris Elba, Ruth Wilson, Patrick Malahide, Dermot Crowley, Wunmi Mosaku, Lex Daniel, Enzo Cilenti, Hermione Norris, Anthony Howell, Michael Smiley, Paul McGann, Lewis Young, Sonita Henry, Luke Westlake, Lex Daniel, Michael Obiora, Delroy Atkinson, Gary Hailes, Katherine Orchard, Jami Reid-Quarrell, Roberta Taylor.

The cruelty of life is such that those who should stay dead, sometimes never do, the mayhem of their life interferes with any possible peace that may come your way, their presence, long after you thought you had buried them, somehow returns to cause chaos, to bring you pain, a pain arguably always born out of misplaced loyalty, memory and love.

Luther (Series Five). Television Review. full post

(440 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Gotham (Series Four). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, David Mazouz, Morena Baccarin, Sean Pertwee, Robin Lord Taylor, Erin Richards, Carmen Bicondova, Cory Michael Smith, Jessica Lucas, Chris Chalk, Drew Powell, Crystal Reed, Alexander Siddig, Anthony Carrigan, Maggie Geha, Peyton List, Charlie Tahan, David W. Thompson, Kelcy Griffin, Nathan Darrow, Michael Cerveris, Camila Perez, Michelle Veintimilla, Cameron Monaghan, Benedict Samuel, J.W. Cortes, John Doman, B.D. Wong.

Gotham (Series Four). Television Review. full post

(637 words, estimated 2:33 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Resolution. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole, Charlotte Ritchie, Nikesh Patel, Daniel Adegboyega, Darryl Clark, Connor Calland, James Lewis, Sophie Duval, Callum McDonald, Harry Vallance, Laura Evelyn, Michael Ballard.

It is never the end, not as far as the Doctor and the Daleks are concerned. A writer’s symbol of the evils of Fascism, a nightmare to which we should always guard against returning, and yet seem to find unbelievably steeling its resolve with sharpening and destructive purpose.

Doctor Who: Resolution. Television Review. full post

(668 words, estimated 2:40 mins reading time)

The ABC Murders. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: John Malkovich, Andrew Buchan, Rupert Grint, Eamon Farren, Fraya Mavor, Michael Shaeffer, Shirley Henderson, Kevin McNally, Bronwyn James, Christopher Villiers, Anya Chalotra, Tara Fitzgerald, Suzanne Packer, Eve Austin, Jack Farthing, Tamzin Griffin, Lizzy McInnerny, Ian Pirie, Cyril Nri, Gregor Fisher, Neil Hurst, Henry Goodman.

No one actor has the monopoly on a character, not one viewer has the definitive right to install as an absolute god their chosen performer in the role in which others can bring a different dimension to the flaws and assets possessed of those brought to life before an audience; it is perhaps not even the right of the imaginative soul who brought them into existence to dictate who should don the greasepaint of any one individual who is there to glean insight into the human condition.

The ABC Murders. Television Review. full post

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

The Dead Room. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Simon Callow, Anjli Mohindra, Susan Penhaligon, Joshua Oakes-Rogers.

It was turn of the 20th Century author M.R. James who asserted that the spectres within a ghost story should always have malevolent intent if the story is to work, if it is to prick the conscious of the reader and give them the type of scare in which boundaries are crossed between the world we see and the domain of the dead.

The Dead Room. Television Review. full post

(488 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)