Category Archives: TV

Our World War, Television Review. B.B.C.

Cast: Theo Barkham-Biggs, Callum Callaghan, Justin Michael Deuster, Brian Ferguson, Jefferson Hall, Daniel Kendrick, Stephen Leask, Dominic Thorburn, Frankie Wilson, Sion Young.

 

The trouble with being taught history at school is along the way it loses so many young minds to the way of the bored or disinterested. For many it is the sheer weight of facts to remember, perhaps the subject matter doesn’t grab the mind or imagination, for some they just cannot see the relevance to the our society today. That may be argued as understandable when looking at the lives of The Tudors or the Georgian society unless of course you are the type of person who is absorbed by all history, social, economic and personal. When it comes to the events that took the world on a course of destruction a 100 years ago, the relevance is palpable, you can almost hear the beating, thumping heart of your great-grandparents and their breathe clinging to the air around you as history is still so close and so real to many.

Our World War, Television Review. B.B.C. full post

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

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Five. Television Review. Channel 4.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Geraldine James, Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Adel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alexandra Roach, Nathan Stewart-Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Ruth Gemmel, Emilia Jones, Micah Blfour, Steven Robertson.

When the final curtain is raised or the apocalypse comes, just look for the person who has handed you their hat inside a fast food takeaway and shiver to the very core as they stops serving you, they smile and walk off with nothing more than the destruction of the Human Race in their head. Such is how Utopia will be achieved, not with the burst of an atomic weapon but within the mind of an employee who has just had enough of people asking if they do chocolate milkshakes in the value meal.

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Five. Television Review. Channel 4. full post

(500 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Four. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Geraldine James, Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Adel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alexandra Roach, Nathan Stewart-Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Michael Maloney, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Ruth Gemmel, Sacha Dhawan, Martin McDougal, Emilia Jones, Sofe Dirisu, Richard Laing.

Could you kill? Could you really think about pulling a trigger and blowing somebody’s head apart from their soul? The world is on the edge of extinction and somebody has a plan in which to save Humanity as a species, many billions will fade out of existence eventually but they will have at least lived, unlike the possible tens of thousands who are to become carriers of disease in which, to some is actually a better prospect than what could come.

Utopia: Series Two, Episode Four. Television Review. full post

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

Utopia, Season Two. Episode Three Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Geraldine James, Neil Maskell, Fiona O’Shaughnessy, Adeel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alistair Petrie, Alexandra Roach, Nathen Stewart- Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Kevin Eldon, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Michael Maloney, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Will Attenborough, Allan Corduner, Juliet Cowan, Keith Farnham, Candida Gubbins, Alex Lowe, Bruce Mackinnon, Gerard Monaco, Damien Thomas.

Utopia is never meant to be reached, if it was then Sir Thomas More completely missed the point as he wrote in praise to England before finding himself on the wrong side of a King’s wrath. Dystopia on the other hand is the easiest level of human attainment and for those on the run in Channel 4’s riveting series, Utopia, dystopia might actually be more preferable.

Utopia, Season Two. Episode Three Review. full post

(413 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Utopia. Series Two, Episode Two. Television Review. Channel 4.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 81/2/10

Cast: Geraldine James, Fiona O’ Shaughnessy, Neil Maskell, Adeel Akhtar, Paul Higgins, Alistair Petrie, Alexandra Roach, Nathen Stewart-Jarratt, Oliver Woollford, Kevin Eldon, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Michael Maloney, Ian McDiarmid, Paul Ready, Alan Cordiner, Pixie Davies, Leemore Morrett Jnr, Diane Morgan.

It is the 21st Century equivalent of throwing yourself out of the window of a tall office block after wiping millions off the value of shares in the United States, the way of suicide compared to the office boredom and placing the stapler over the tongue ready to make sure you feel something, anything, to let the pain remind you are still alive…as Ian asks his colleague, is it possible to actually die of boredom?

Utopia. Series Two, Episode Two. Television Review. Channel 4. full post

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

Utopia: Season Two, Pressing Matters. Television Review. Channel 4.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Burke, Rose Leslie, Anca-Ioana Androne, Tim McInnerny, Trystan Gravelle, Clive Wood, Pamela Ashton, William Belchambers, Ed Birch, Vicenzo Ferrara, Aine Garvey, Lorna Gayle, Yare Michael Jegbefume, Solomon Mousley, Harley Rooney, Mason Rooney, James Stratton, Kevin Trainor, Velile Tshabalala.

In your life time, depending on how old you are, the population of the Earth has almost tripled. Seven billion people fighting for a scraps of land, for food, water, over religion, over the right to survive and the right to have a family, Seven billion souls, who thanks to the advancement in healthcare, the quick eradication of infectious diseases and peace keeping forces, seemingly take up more resources than the world can actually supply. Such is the dystopian plot that makes up one of Channel 4’s finest programmes in over a decade, Utopia.

Utopia: Season Two, Pressing Matters. Television Review. Channel 4. full post

(569 words, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)

Fargo: Morton’s Fork. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Allison Tolman, Colin Hanks, Martin Freeman, Bob Odenkirk, Keith Carradine, Joey King, Susan Park, Gary Valentine, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Chantel Perron, Andrew Neil McKenzie, Amanda Guenther.

There is always one television series that stands out each year and Fargo could well be it for 2014. If they never make another series then the writer, the Coen brothers and the actors who have been associated with this terrific endeavour will have more than amply done their jobs.

Fargo: Morton’s Fork. Television Review. full post

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

Fargo: A Fox, A Rabbit And A Cabbage. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Allison Tolman, Colin Hanks, Martin Freeman, Bob Odenkirk, Keith Carradine, Joey King, Susan Park, Stephen Root, Helena Mattsson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Lorne Cardinal, Jennifer Copping, Jade Davis.

When the Devil makes the most of the innocuous then you know it’s time to be really terrified.

Fargo: A Fox, A Rabbit And A Cabbage. Television Review. full post

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

Fargo: The Heap. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Billy Bob Thornton, Allison Tolman, Colin Hanks, Martin Freeman, Bob Odenlirk, Keith Carradine, Joey King, Kate Walsh, Russell Harvard, Tom Musgrave, Stephen Root, Helena Mattsson, Julie Ann Emery, Rachel Blanchard, Susan Park, Gary Valentine, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Marty Antonini, Liam Green, Atticus Dean Mitchell, Leslie Maynes, James D. Hopkin, Christopher Rosamond, Dan Redican, Richard Sherry, Jade Davis, Carrie Coak, Jennifer Copping, Dayle Krall, Barkhad Abdirahman.  

Fargo: The Heap. Television Review. full post

(492 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Jack Taylor, Shot Down. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Iain Glen, Hazel Doupe, Michael Collins, Nora-Jane Noone, David O’Meara, Killian Scott, Garrett Keogh, Barbara Bergin, Martin Ward, Karl Shiels, Emmet Kirwin, Eamonn Hunt, Stephen Cromwell, Mark Butler, Ruth Magill, Rúaidhrí Conroy.  

 

Running away is easy, especially when the alternative is facing up to those that have taken a bullet for you and watch them sink further into a coma. Such is the life of ex-Garda turned Private Detective Jack Taylor, but even he could not have foreseen the life he would find in perhaps the final ever case of the fine Irish thriller, Shot Down.

Jack Taylor, Shot Down. Television Review. full post

(524 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)