Category Archives: TV

Doctor Who: In The Forest Of The Night, Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Samuel Anderson, Abigail Eames, Jayden Harris-Wallace, Ashley Foster, Harley Bird, Michelle Gomez, Siwan Morris, Harry Dickman, Jenny Hill, Eloise Barnes, James Weber Brown, Michelle Asante, Curtis Flowers, Kate Tydman, Nana Amoo-Gottfried, William Wright-Neblett.

In a series that has welcomed new writers to the home of Doctor Who, none perhaps come more equipped to weave a tale of intrigue, fun and the very essence of danger whilst highlighting humanity’s need to depend on the natural world more so than Liverpool’s Frank Cottrell-Boyce and his debut story, In The Forest Of The Night.                       .

Doctor Who: In The Forest Of The Night, Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(575 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Flatline. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Jovian Wade, John Cummins, Christopher Fairbanks, Samuel Anderson, Rajendra Bajaj, Matt Bardock, Jessica Hayles, James Quinn.

Doctor Who is never better than when it brings the alarm and disquiet of a new enemy to the viewers’ minds. Like the Weeping Angels before them, the creatures who inhabit a world of 2D imagery is enough to make people stop and wonder what exactly the scientific world will be able to achieve post the ability to replicate 3D form. Growing human body parts is one thing, to steal that person’s identity by the means of subsuming them into an alien pattern of life is another.

Doctor Who: Flatline. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

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

Doctor Who: Mummy On The Orient Express. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Samuel Anderson, Frank Skinner, David Bamber, John Sessions, Daisy Beaumont, Janet Henfrey, Christopher Villiers, Foxes, Jamie Hill.

Death stalks the Orient Express, an unseen killer picking of the passengers one by one and with the bodies starting to stack up, it can only be time for the stiff upper lip and slightly lunatic outlook of a madman in a blue box and the mysterious beautiful companion to address the situation and tie up the loose ends.

Doctor Who: Mummy On The Orient Express. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(558 words, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)

The Driver, Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

Cast:  David Morrissey, Ian Hart, Colm Meaney, Claudie Blakley, Darren Morfitt, Sacha Parkinson, Lee Ross, Harish Patel, Lewis Rainer, Andrew Tiernan, Chris Coghill, Shaun Dingwall, Andrew Knott, Nathan McMullen, Ciara Baxendale, Leanne Best, Dominic Coleman, Rick Bacon, Emma Bispham, Karl Collins, Alan Rothwell.

 

The British gangster drama, whether on television or in the cinema has never really captured the days of Brighton Rock with Richard Attenborough and William Hartnell or the fantastic The Long Good Friday with the much missed Bob Hoskins    and the excellent Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Since those days of cinematic greats the genre seems to have become too safe, it has waved a white flag in surrender to its American counterpart.

The Driver, Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(603 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

New Tricks: English Defence. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tamzin Outhwaite, Dennis Waterman, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Anthony Calf, Julie Graham, Ian Hogg, Nicholas Woodeson, Mariah Gale, Finlay Robertson, Leanne Best, Anthony Barclay, Fox Jackson-Keen, Gertrude Thoma.

Chess, it’s nearly as bad as croquet for being a particularly vicious sport when the tempers flare and the too serious take their mind to murder. However all is not as black and white as it seems as several chequered paths start to treat the UCOS team like pawns in their own game in the latest episode of New Tricks, English Defence.

New Tricks: English Defence. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

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

Doctor Who, Kill The Moon. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Hermione Norris, Samuel Anderson, Ellis George, Tony Osoba, Phil Nice, Christopher Dane.

Space for so long has been a conversation of banality to many, the interest in what lurks, glides and happens beyond our own atmospheric layer is not as awed as it was during the great Space Race or during the early use of the Space Shuttle programme. The Sun and The Moon seemingly as remote now as it was to ancestors who prayed to them as deities.

Doctor Who, Kill The Moon. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

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

New Tricks: In Vino Veritas. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Tamzin Outhwaite, Dennis Waterman, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Niamh Cusack, Phil Davis, Jack Ellis, Tom Georgeson, Pinar Ogun, Jan Knightley, Adam Astill, Alan Bayer.

A bottle of wine or champagne, for those who pay scant regards to such things, somehow can drive a person to more obsessive behaviour, can cause a person to murder and be underhand more so perhaps that religion, politics and for the promise of love from a calculating, cold beauty could ever manage to be.

New Tricks: In Vino Veritas. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

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

Doctor Who: The Caretaker. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Samuel Anderson, Elis George, Edward Harrison, Nigel Betts, Andy Giles, Nanya Campbell, Joshua Warner-Campbell, Oliver Barry-Brook, Ramone Morgan, Winston Ellis, Gracy Goldman, Diana Katis, Jimmy Vee, Chris Addison.

Coal Hill School in the centre of the East End of London seems to be the centre of the known universe when it comes to the stories concerning The Doctor and his fascination/exasperation for his favourite species and their planet. So much so that not only could the Doctor could be seen as the custodian of Humanity’s existence but when the time comes, he cannot keep away from the school in which some of his most memorable companions and perhaps pivotal moments have taken root. The Caretaker he has been and seems to relish in being.

Doctor Who: The Caretaker. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

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

New Tricks: Roman’s Ruined. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tamzin Outhwaite, Dennis Waterman, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Denis Lawson, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Liz White, Louis Emerick, Storme Toolis, Carol Starks, Hermione Gulliford, Gary Oliver, Alix Wilston Regan, Elliot Levey.

What did the Romans ever do for us? It might have been possible to hear John Cleese remonstrate with the three life-hardened detectives in New Tricks’ latest episode Romans Ruined but far from the nice simple case that perhaps Gerry Standing was expecting, what they find at the end of the investigation is a crime that, at least in the team’s hearts, is not the ending they would have liked to pursue.

New Tricks: Roman’s Ruined. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(515 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Time Heist. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Keeley Hawes, Jonathan Bailey, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Trevor Sellers, Ross Mullan, Mark Ebulue, Junior Laniyan, Samuel Anderson.

Think of the most precious commodity or product you can lay your hands on, how good it will feel in your hands and the power you could wield with it, the people you might be able to bend to your will for even just a glance of it. Such things are what drives the world and yet many miss the point, it is not about having the latest gadget in which to download a picture of a cat onto the internet, nor is it Time, which is a more noble outlook, but Love and acceptance and that is really what is at the heart of the latest Doctor Who story, Time Heist.

Doctor Who: Time Heist. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(656 words, estimated 2:37 mins reading time)