Any doubt as to whether 2013’s excellent In The Flesh had the scope for a return visit to Roarton has been quashed. The series two opener meaningfully expands the world of the un-zombie drama without losing any of the original’s charm or allegorical power. If anything, this new series promises to top the first. With twice as many episodes in the second run, creator Dominic Mitchell has been able to seed mysteries and lay the groundwork for plots to gradually unfold rather than rattle out this time around....

Into the Badlands Season 3 Episode 3 One of the reasons why Into the Badlands is a stronger show this season is that it has a surprisingly rich lore for a series that doesn’t even have twenty episodes yet. On top of that, it has an ever-shifting web of allegiances that is hypnotizing to behold because all characters are pretty much self-serving no matter what favors they do for others. But hey, this is post-post-apocalyAmericaercia....

Legends of Tomorrow Episode 5 Could you believe that in a show about The Atom, Captain Cold, and Firestorm travelling through time to kill Vandal Savage, the weakest point is the plot and the strongest are the quiet character moments?Legends of Tomorrow is a good show. More than anything else on TV right now (and my DVR is full of superhero shows), this is the one where I’m home to watch it every week....

Legends of Tomorrow Episode 2 “Pilot – Part 2” So, perhaps you read my spoiler-free review of the first two episodes of Legends of Tomorrow. The problem with that was, well, in order to keep it spoiler free, I couldn’t talk much about the second episode. See, this is the half of the story when all the set-up and talking is finished and actual fun gets had. The thing is Legends is such a bonkers concept that it’s going to live or die by that cast and these characters....

Legends of Tomorrow Season 2 Episode 8 Oh my god, is there a TV Injustice Society?!? It makes sense that there would be. Or at least pushes up glasses, straightens pocket protector an Injustice Gang. Or perhaps, as the show is going to call them, a Legion of Doom. Legends of Tomorrow is a show that functions as the equivalent of the DC TV Universe’s Justice League, with heroes from Arrow (Sara, Ray) and The Flash (Mick, Jax, Stein)....

Lost in Space Season 1 Episode 5 Lost in Space took an interesting approach when it decided to include many other surviving colonists along with the Robinsons, and the results so far are mixed. On the one hand, working on rescue scenarios such as building a light tower to signal for help is more believable with more people, but on the other hand large numbers dilute viewer attention, even with potential romantic entanglements like whatever’s developing between Penny and Vijay....

There’s often been an element of comedy to Hurley’s episodes. After all, the ‘unlikely millionaire’ setup is an inherently funny one as it is, and the opening of this episode adhered to that template. Increasingly, though, as Hurley gets a more prominent role in the Lost canon, he’s been getting weightier and weightier episodes, and it doesn’t get any weightier than this, his own version of my perpetually-referenced benchmark, The Constant, as he reunites with Libby, his once-and-future love interest....

Like “Model” before it, “So Did the Fat Lady” follows one core plot with both mostly focused around Louie having a woman come onto him. But “Model” was deeply into mocking Louie and showcasing his awkwardness. Further, odd shot composition and Yvonne Strahovski’s generally weird character meant the episode occupied a very surreal space. Out of the first four episodes released to critics, this is (unsurprisingly) the one readily cited as blowing everyone away....

Lucifer Season 3 Episode 21 “Shouldn’t you be having tea with Hitler?” Tonight’s episode of Lucifer deftly blends the murder investigation of a prima ballerina with the competition for Chloe’s affection, a competition that’s gone completely off the rails due to Lucifer’s inability to overcome his own fear of rejection. “Anything Pierce Can Do I Can Do Better” forces the Devil to acknowledge that he’s made a terrible mistake by eliminating free will from his own equation, and now must sit back and watch a renewed Marcus Pierce seemingly get the girl....

6.4 To Have and to Hold Dawn’s character being fleshed out is a welcome and necessary addition to the show, and particularly prized was her summation of SCDP. Like Megan’s season five, “What is wrong with you people? You’re all so cynical. You don’t smile, you smirk”, Don’s latest secretary’s verdict was similarly biting, “Everybody’s scared there. Women crying in the ladies room, men crying in the elevator… It sounds like New Year’s Eve when they empty the garbage, there’s so many bottles”....

6.5 The Flood Bobby Draper’s misaligned wallpaper. No, not the name of a prog rock band (yet, anyway) but the cause of one kid’s angst, and the catalyst for an examination of Don Draper not as a gigolo, ad genius, or cypher for post-WWII ennui; but as a father. Okay, and maybe that last one a little bit too. Who among us couldn’t compile a list of overblown potential readings for Bobby’s irksome pattern mismatch?...

Last week’s thoroughly decent episode of Marchlands ended with an utterly unconvincing jump moment, but still moved the show cautiously forward. It lost the desire to over explain, and instead, focused on an intriguing, interlinked ghost story. Let’s do them in order, then. Having the toughest time this week were Ruth and Paul, facing the fact that Paul’s the reason they’re having trouble conceiving. Set against an era where much remained repressed, this was handled nicely, and both Jodie Whittaker and Jamie Thomas King put in fine performances here....

Marvel’s Runaways Season 1, Episode 9 “Doomsday” might not have included the eponymous disaster it teased, but it distracted us with enough answers, developments, and showdowns that it hardly mattered. It also brought about the event this has all been leading to: a confrontation between parents and children. Runaways will never be the same after this climactic episode. The truth about Molly’s parents. As I’ve discussed before in these reviews, while everyone in Pride must bear a certain degree of responsibility for the terrible things they have done, some of these parents have done more terrible things than others....

So as the family head off for Christmas in Prague Kevin!!! finds himself headed for New York City. Rather than alert the authorities he checks himself in to an expensive hotel and then heads to the nearest toy store. Boys will be boys. Kevin!!! is in a toy shop when he notices Vinny (Joe Pesci), a guy who tried to burgle his house in the first film, hanging out with Ray Liotta and Robert Deniro....

5.11 The Drawing of the Dark Definitely not! The Drawing of the Dark gives us one of the best stories in an already fantastic final series, allowing Alexander Vlahos to deliver a sterling performance and setting us up for a dark finale. Whilst investigating an attack on a weapon shipment that resulted in the death of the knights and delivery men, Mordred pursues an escaping Saxon only to discover that it is his beloved Kara....

In episode two we got glimpses into Archie Daley’s background. His divorce is going through at a costly rate, he was bullied a little at school by the local hard man (now a loan shark) and he gave up one of the loves of his life to school friend Maurice, played by Rik Mayall. So far, so dull, and I was rapidly beginning to lose interest. But then the show’s middle section started and as the drama gave way to comedy, the show finally began to find its feet....

Morgan, played with pleasing intensity by Anya-Taylor Joy, resides behind bullet-proof perspex in a concrete bunker deep underground. Created for hazy purposes by a futuristic corporation, Morgan’s only five years old, but her rapid rate of growth means she looks much older. Over those five years, the scientists charged with looking after and monitoring Morgan have formed an emotional attachment to the super-powered youth; among them you’ll find Dr Simon Ziegler (Toby Jones), her surrogate father figure, and Amy (Rose Leslie), who becomes a kind of big sister....

At the end of our young narrator’s lane is the Hempstock farm. Living there are three women, or more properly, two women and a girl. The Hempstock women have had men there sometimes. They come and they go. This mysterious trinity with an ocean behind their house has power and understanding unknowable. They also make a mean shepherd’s pie. To say The Ocean at the End of the Lane is about childhood is like saying grass is about being green....

Now, having being granted a BBFC 18 certificate for the first time, Buttgereit joked that it was no longer a “cool” film. In fact, this newfound acceptability made it outright “uncool”! On one hand, I suppose there’s an element of truth to the jibe. Viewers coming to Nekromantik for the first time in 2014 won’t be able to get a full rite of passage “experience” like the ones described in the new Morbid Fascination featurette by genre luminaries who tell of passing along badly edited bootlegs, smuggling tapes across the German border or risking arrest for selling copies… Even my own discovery of Nekromantik was through postal tape-trading back in the day....