The stories aren’t new, but it’s fun to hear who’s telling them. You can buy or rent Back In Time here.

1.1 Money The working title for Badults was ‘The Secret Dude Society’. Though it may seem like an innocuous assortment of words, it also hints at the flaws running through the first episode. It’s a collusion of funny sounding words strung together with no rhyme or reason. A series of punchlines without build ups. And that’s the underlying problem with Badults so far. From the off there’s a jumble of cheap puns thrown around liberally and too often a gag will overstay its welcome or be clunkily explained away....

1.9 Underwater Her realisation that she has no control over her surroundings or destiny continued this week, and she became increasingly desperate to escape White Pine Bay and its horrors. Much of the central plot was given over to her attempt to find a safer place to set up home and her hilarious failure to do so. Performing an internet search to find the ‘safest cities in America’ is probably only a slightly more effective a method of choosing than, say, throwing a dart at a map but it did signal the episode’s intentions....

Bates Motel Season 5 Episode 1 “And we’re doing it. We’re actually doing it. A mentally ill boy and a dead woman…” This season is why Bates Motel was made. Bates Motel’s fifth and final season is the show’s Revenge of the Sith moment where all of the prequel material finally comes together. The rotten fruit from this poisoned tree is finally ready to be tasted. This is what you’ve been waiting for....

3.2 (Dead) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun But this episode introduces us to Liam McClean, Connor and Brynn’s father. Apparently it’s been a year and a half and Brynn hasn’t come home to daddy yet, so this is the first time he’s hearing of the fact that his son is dead and nailed to the wall of a vampire hidey hole. When he’s not swearing to make it rain (blood, not bills), he’s being super creepy at Nora, talking about how his wolf can judge her wolf’s character while they’re both turned in the tiny little storage unit that’s barely big enough for one wolf, despite her protestations that they’ll probably kill each other....

3.5 Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Mouth Most of the story is focused on Aidan, who has found his perfect food source: Kenny, a boy who lives in a bubble because any exposure to the outside world would kill him. Consequently, Kenny never had the disease and all Aidan has to do in order to feed from him is “take his blood for testing.” As long as he doesn’t take too much, he’s got himself a virtually limitless food supply....

The real world wouldn’t make good cinema, though. Even well-armed merchants usually lost their nerve when confronted with a band of screaming pirates. A surprising number of ships never fired a shot, just pulled over and begged for mercy. Of course, there are historical inaccuracies. The size of both ships is off the scale (the Walrus set is 200 feet long, nearly twice as long as the historic Scarborough, the ship that everyone’s so afraid of)....

Previously known mainly for cult comedies like Larry Sanders, movie premieres and live boxing, in 1999 the Home Box Office cable channel quietly launched a new drama series based around the life of New Jersey mobster Tony Soprano. The anodyne cop and courtroom dramas of network TV were shown up as the ambition-free fluff that they were, and HBO quickly responded to this new demand for ‘quality’ TV by following up The Sopranos with other modern classics like The Wire, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Rome and Carnivale....

5.5 King of Norway The formal flashback scenes move us forward this week, to 1897 and Nucky in young adulthood, played with frightening uncanniness by Marc Pickering, whose resemblance extends beyond the obviously dental. His tone, his mannerisms, every subtle turn of the head, are exquisitely Buscemi, a wonderful piece of mimicry that suspends disbelief. His twin projects, to secure Mabel’s hand and win the favour of the Commodore are intimately connected and provide us with the means of understanding the dilemma that would accompany him into middle age....

The second to last episode of Californication’s seventh season run is called “Daughter” because Hank’s (second-born) child returns with the news of her impending engagement and the daughter is improperly introduced to her long lost brother. In terms of where this storyline fits into the season, it loses some of its weight because of how late it’s presented. Really, Becca comes home to give a last-ditch effort to refute the train of logic Hank’s been riding for the last seven years – logic best summed up in the words of Rick Rath: “The second you try to get serious about something it loses all its magic” The man-child had a new stabilizing force this season and, for the first time, it happened to be a boss he respected....

Though there are parallels between Rick and the actor who gets in over his head while trying to play out his action hero fantasy in the latest episode of Castle, they are never exploited or examined. Instead, Rick is, to put it mildly, as annoyingly eager as a child when he gets to meet the heroes of his youth in his role as a novelist pretending to play out his gumshoe fantasies — the problem is, one of those heroes is very dead....

7.19 Habeas Corpse This week, however, it is the case that shines brightest, and not just because what surrounds it is so disappointing. That case revolves around the death of an ambulance-chasing lawyer (in this case, almost literally, in that he at least finds his clients at the final destination for said ambulances—the emergency room). The episode plays with the bottom-feeding reputation of such legal workers, from the blatant accusation that many of Richie “The Bulldog” Falco’s clients are faking their injuries (which, thankfully, the writers debunk) to the over-the-top gimmicky commercials that both he and his main competitor, Archie “The Savannah Hammer” Bronstein use to attract still more customers....

8.1 XY & 8.2 XX We’re only two episodes into Castle—a single two-part storyline (last week’s XY and this week’s concluding XX), and already, there’s more than a little room for concern. It’s not exactly a secret that Castle’s strength is its cast. Arguably, Nathan Fillion may not be the most versatile actor on television, but he does have a knack for fostering chemistry. The thing that most of his work has in common is the sense of real connection between the actors—that they are enjoying their work but taking it seriously, regardless of the quality of the script they were given....

Among the new comedy talent being showcased in the latest run is Liam Hourican, an Irish writer and performer who’s the brains behind a new sketch show, iCandy. iCandy is neatly structured around the menu system of an Apple Mac operating system, and thus there’s some cycling through various options – which Hourican has a lot of fun with (particularly those that prove not to be available!) – before settling on the next sketch....

Ask and you shall freakin’ receive. Two solid Ricky and Crisco episodes back to back, and both of them seriously good. Considering the twist at the end of this episode, I understand why it had to come so late in the season, but if the schedule had been frontloaded with more stuff like this, I’d never have complained. Ricky and Crisco make the most of this opportunity, and since being in children’s entertainment is already in their wheelhouse, they have a fine time....

I’m all for TV show sponsorship, as Chuck’s very existence is probably due to its relationship with Subway. But the tenuous insertion of this particular minty confection into the plot of this Chuck made me wonder quite where this strategy might ultimately take us. It was like none of the magic transferred, as, for starters this story was almost entirely BuyMore-free. With the exception of Morgan, all those characters didn’t get to appear at all, annoyingly....

When I first read the title of this Chuck I wondered if it would involve the late Jackie Gleason, perchance, but it’s actually about Sarah and Chuck pretending to be newlyweds. Given the obvious chemistry there, that’s not exactly a difficult act, is it? But more importantly, this story takes us into the uncharted territory where they become an ‘official’ couple (exclusive, even) and then try to deal with how that might impact on their career choices....

I was lucky enough to get a few minutes with Mr. Gregg with a few other journalists in a packed press room for Agents of SHIELD season 2 and Agent Carter. After a spirited, “Start talking, they’re going to pull me so fast!” We jumped right in to try and get the goods on Agents of SHIELD season two. I don’t know if we actually succeeded, but it was a fun chat nevertheless....

What with it being the time of year when even the most sensible shows ditch their storylines in favour of some festive schmaltz, it seems even the guys at Community couldn’t resist a Christmas special, but with a twist. It just wouldn’t be Community if the episode didn’t reference the classic yuletide specials of the Seventies, with just a dash of Tim Burton. Ladies and gentlemen, Community presents Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas....