Category Archives: TV

Doctor Who: The Return Of Doctor Mysterio. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Matt Lucas, Justin Chatwin, Tomiwa Edun, Logan Hoffman, Aleksander Jovanovic, Lee Kemp, Charity Wakefield, Daniel Lorente, Sandra Teles, Tanroh Ishida.

The problem with having a year off is that it takes time for the mojo to get going again, the momentum of life is such that if you sit still long enough either you fade into obscurity or you show creaking signs of the love you have no longer being a fluid and marvellous thing. Momentum and timing is everything to a lot of people, especially in the world of fandoms; take time away and the spark can drift, even for the biggest and most dedicated of fans and when you finally do appear again, the result can be down at heel, not at your sparkling best.

Doctor Who: The Return Of Doctor Mysterio. Television Review. full post

(512 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Midsomer Murders: The Village That Rose From The Dead. Television Review.

 

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Fiona Dolman, Nick Hendrix, Anthony Calf, Hugh Dennis, Raj Awasti, Caroline Blakiston, David Burke, Christopher Colquhoun, Michael Haydon, Pippa Haywood, Matt Houghton, Seeta Indrani, William Melling, Sally Philips, Catherine Steadman, Edwin Thomas, Manjinder Virk, Jo Wheatley, Angus Wright.

The past is so much harder to leave behind when the ghosts won’t stay dead.

Midsomer Murders: The Village That Rose From The Dead. Television Review. full post

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

Rillington Place, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tim Roth, Samantha Morton, Nico Mirallegro, Jodie Comer, John-Paul Hurley, Christopher Hatherall, Tim Bentinck, Sonya Cassidy, Bryan Parry, Eiry Thomas, Chris Reilly, Pearl Appleby, Erin Armstrong, Kevin Mathurin, Sarah Quintrell.

There are some names that fall through history’s tentacles like poisoned water, the seeds of their crimes going undetected at the time and yet their title living on for all eternity, gruesome and disturbing, shocking and vile, there is no other way to describe the horror that was committed by John Reginald Christie at Rillington Place.

Rillington Place, Television Review. full post

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

Class, Series One. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Katherine Kelly, Greg Austin, Sophie Hopkins, Fady Elsayed, Vivian Oparah, Jordan Renzo, Pooky Quesnal, Aaron Neil, Paul Marc Davies, Shannon Murray, Ben Peel, Anna Shaffer, Con O’Neil, Nigel Betts, Peter Capaldi.

In a television programme that has spanned over 50 years, to not expect the occasional spin off would be folly, both commercially and in the interests of expanding that institution’s universe. Doctor Who, certainly since it re-emerged on the nation’s screens back in 2005, has been ripe for spin offs and the magic was kept alive by the sentiment surrounding the much loved Elizabeth Sladen as one of the most adored companions of the classic series and it was only right that she finally had her own series in the Sarah Jane Adventures.

Class, Series One. Television Review. full post

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

Jack Taylor, In Purgatory. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Iain Glen, Siobhan O’ Kelly, Jack Monaghan, Christopher Fulford, Laura Aikman, Sean Mahon, David Herlihy, Sarah Jane Seymour, Peter Campion, Erin Gilgen, Roy Fleck Byrne, Conor Quinlan, Eva Jane Gaffney, Cian Kelly, James O’ Sullivan, Patrick O’ Brien, Cathal Pendred, Jack Walsh, Leah McNamara.

Jack Taylor, In Purgatory. Television Review. full post

(484 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Jack Taylor: Nemesis. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Iain Glenn, Siobhan O’ Kelly, Christopher Fulford, Jack Monaghan, Ian Beattie, Rory Fleck Byrne, Patrick O’ Brien, Cathal Pendred, Deborah Wiseman.

The evil in anyone’s heart can grow, can manifest to the point where they become unrecognisable to themselves as well as to others. The fate of many becoming a secondary thought to the battle that rages between the one who has lost their mind and the person they want to seek retribution against, the Nemesis will claim many lives.

Jack Taylor: Nemesis. Television Review. full post

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

Jack Taylor, Blood Cross. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Iain Glen, Siobhán O’Kelly, Jack Monaghan, Elva Trill, Alan McKee, Ross McKinney, Shane Robinson, Lalor Roddy, Killian Scott, Sinead Watters.

To take and consider revenge is the point where lives become meaningless, that you may as well take the whole Human Race with you in a blaze of remorseless fury for the want of practising the harder emotion of forgiveness. To want revenge is natural, it is perhaps inherent in us all but to actually physically take a life for a sleight, for an accident which robbed you of someone you loved; the question being could you truly want to keep perpetuating the agony and pain just to satisfy blood lust.

Jack Taylor, Blood Cross. Television Review. full post

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

Paranoid, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Robert Glenister, Indira Varma, Dino Fetscher, Neil Stuke, Christiane Paul, Lesley Sharp, Dominik Tiefenthaler, Michael Maloney, Anjli Mohindra, Kevin Doyle, Jonathan Ojinnaka, William Flanagan, John Duttine, William Ash, Daniel Drewes, Polly Walker, Richard Wheeldon, Jason Done, Danny Hutson.

When taking on a big television production, one with a tale that should be enormous and potentially gripping beyond anything else on television in a single year, it often helps the series realise its own levels of genius by not overpowering it with too many subplots and characters to whom the story would not miss one single iota. Some of the greatest mini-series ever have relied solely on the narrow focus, on the detail and not the illusion and it is unfortunately a piece of television advice forgotten largely in the creation of Paranoid.

Paranoid, Television Review. full post

(391 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

Hancock’s Half Hour, The Lost Sitcoms. The New Neighbour, Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Kevin McNally, Katy Wix, Kevin Eldon, Robin Sebastian, John Culshaw, Robert Jack.

The beauty, pathos and reflection of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s writing can be seen fully in two of Britain’s greatest ever sitcoms, Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son, both written with consideration and absolute wit, performed by comedic geniuses and with the knowledge that even after 60 years in the case of Hancock’s Half Hour, the words and situations are timeless, that no matter how much we move on in society, we still are products of the post Second World War generation.

Hancock’s Half Hour, The Lost Sitcoms. The New Neighbour, Television Review. full post

(425 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Joe Bonamassa Live At The Greek Theatre. DVD Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Such is the work ethic of Joe Bonamassa that it barely seems five minutes since he was up on stage in another country, standing undaunted and musically fearsome, proud but very humble, alert and giving, from venue to venue the arc of the story remains one of Blues heaven but the chapters change; the music stays fresh and always convincing, this is the magic of Joe Bonamassa and the fan can only thank the times that we live in that his performances are captured around the world and in such eye popping clarity.

Joe Bonamassa Live At The Greek Theatre. DVD Review. full post

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