The Making Of An American Legend charts the way that truth can become legend, and legend can become film. Of course, John Ford loved these sorts of distinctions; ‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend’ – is the famous line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Ford took pleasure in even mythologising himself at times as the Man Who Shot Film of The Battle of Midway. Glenn Frankel’s book reprints the legend here; for an interesting counterpoint to this version of Ford’s career during World War II try Five Came Back by Mark Harris....

Dart Number One: (60 points) Sequelitis in extremis-Roger Corman has never met a sequel he didn’t like. This is a man who took a pretty good kickboxing movie, Bloodfist, and made nine sequels. Nine sequels, most of them starring Don The Dragon Wilson. He’s even picked up the rights to movies not from his canon and made sequels for the, like he did with the extra-forgettable soft core film Emmanuelle 6....

The show opens on Dexter right where we left him last week, spent from high-emotion sex on his kill table with Hannah. The voiceover tells us about the chemistry that the two share and confirms to us that Dexter’s intense pursuit of Hannah was only a way of channeling his powerful attraction to her. While Dexter is thinking, Hannah picks up the nearby knife that almost took her life and holds it to Dexter’s throat....

Have you every watched Mythbusters? It’s a fun show, and the part I really love is where they have some object that should break or explode under certain circumstances, and they pile on the pressure until it ultimately happens. I’m going to talk in detail about what happens in Road Kill now, so those people with a spoiler aversion, I’d go take your web experience somewhere else now. Much of this story revolves around Dexter’s plan to kill Arthur, and how he carefully constructs a reason for being out of town and even establishes alibis along the way....

It is, therefore, with great pride I’d like to present an award to Dexter, Episode 9, for making me shout that and various other obscenities at the TV countless times. That’s because the rollercoaster that’s taken eight episodes to reach its highest point now suddenly plunges from on high with a full ensemble of the terminally terrified onboard. Gosh, this show is cooking with gas, and this week it’s not just the turkey that’s left for too long in the oven....

8.10 Goodbye Miami By the end of this story I gave up entirely the notion that the writers had something clever to offer us by way of the Dexter goodbye, or even wave a fond adieu! Before I come to the horribly mechanical ending and its consequences though, I’d like to first comment on the identity of Oliver/Daniel that so fired my interest last week. Whatever I noticed, this episode entirely ignored, and drove the Oliver equals Daniel bus as if there was no issue with him being ten years too young....

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency Season 2 Episode 7 This week’s episode of Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency gave us much cause for hope and even more reason to despair. Although the reunion between Todd and Amanda wasn’t as joyous as we might have hoped for, Dirk moved towards a resolution despite (or perhaps because of) Todd’s absence, and even as Suzie Boreton and the Kellum army killed some beloved new characters, the self-appointed queen’s rise to power was amazing to behold....

The Day Of The Doctor “This Has All The Makings Of Your Lucky Day” From the off, it was clear that this had labour of love stamped throughout it, with the old titles (adorable touch) contrasting neatly with the more modern subsequent sight of Matt Smith hanging off a TARDIS – courtesy of the always-welcome UNIT – whilst being flown over London. Then, by the time the new-style end credits and reworked theme tune were over, it turned out we were going to get more Doctors than we were originally promised....

First things first: spoiler free here means spoiler free. It means you won’t find clues hidden in here, or much in the way of plot given away. Our levels of caution and spoiler-protection have been cranked way up, even higher than usual, for this final episode. And this is the only paragraph of what you’re going to read that was penned before we saw the episode. That said, it was always clear that The Doctor Falls had a few things to juggle: the spaceship itself, the Cybermen, CyberBill, Missy, The Master and the impending threat of the Doctor’s regeneration....

For the plenty of people who gave talkback after last week’s review, I thank you, even if you didn’t agree with my assessment that Dollhouse had jumped the creative shark by revealing Echo’s protector as the real bad guy. What we’re asked to accept is that Boyd realised that Caroline was ‘special’ before she ever became Echo, and that’s why she ended up a Doll and not dead. But how special she was, or rather, her significance, is only apparent once Topher creates his remote programming technology....

An alternate title that would be just as appropriate for this week’s Dragon Ball Super episode would be, “The Assassination of Super Saiyan Blue Goku by the Coward Sorbet.” This long-standing grudge match culminates in an absolutely bonkers ending that is surely going to drive some viewers crazy, but hey, that’s part of the game when you’re a Dragon Ball fan. It’s worth pointing out that there’s once more some regrettable animation in this episode, but there’s at least some strong fight choreography to fall back on....

Dragon Ball Super Episode 9 “Why does it always have to be Kakarot?” At some point or another, Dragon Ball became a property that is largely reduced to the ludicrously powerful transformations that its characters go through. As soon as Goku hit the plateau of Super Saiyan back in his fight against Frieza, the series has quickly been trying to figure out crazier transformations — with even crazier hair — to help battle evil....

Not that Elle provides obvious material for a black comedy. In its opening scene, well-to-do Parisian businesswoman Michele (Isabelle Huppert) is violently assaulted in her own house by a man wearing a ski mask. Evidently in shock, Michele picks herself up and carries on as though nothing’s happened; she clears up some broken crockery, calls a locksmith to secure the windows and doors, and orders takeaway sushi. As Michele begins to receive taunting messages from her attacker, Verhoeven’s movie threatens to fall into 90s-thriller territory – a belated return, perhaps, to the same ground as Basic Instinct....

Emerald City Season 1, Episode 4 “Science and Magic” is Emerald City‘sstrongest episode yet, giving us three plot lines to care about as Glinda and West battle over Tip’s future, Jack is given new life as a mechanical teen, and Dorothy meets a little girl with great and terrible power. Even the Wizard’s storyline serves to broaden and enrichen the world of Oz. For the first time since this show began, Oz feels like a real place populated by people other than the main characters, which only serves to give those main characters more believablility, too....

It’s just crazy enough to work! And in a season filled with disappointingly flat storytelling, I’ll take a little crazy if it entertains. Also in the category of why wasn’t this mentioned before: the Volm cache of super-tech. I know the explanation mentioned Skitter patrols and mechs in the way, but is anyone else feeling like the Volm are holding out on the humans out of narrative convenience? Can’t make it TOO easy after all!...

3.1 Eye Of The Beholder & 3.2 The New Frontier Fear The Walking Dead is a show that will soon be undergoing a change in leadership. Unlike the parent show, Dave Erickson (who wrote the first episode of the season) has been at the helm for the first three seasons, with this one being his final as the runner of the show. Unlike The Walking Dead, Fear has been relatively sedate on the back end, and that might be a negative thing for it....

Indeed, this is by-the-fans-for-the-fans filmmaking of the highest regard. ‘Lovingly made’ doesn’t quite capture how much care and craftsmanship has been channelled into producing these two hours spent treasuring the televisual treats of old. These scenes, which feature (presumably newly-made) super-marionette puppets and joyful returns to former favourites by the original voice cast, frame the story magically. The central conceit of their scenes is that Parker has somehow stumbled upon La Rivière’s real-world Filmed In Supermarionation book (which features his own conception and development) and is now having – as Lady Penelope puts it – “an existential crisis....

For those who don’t know, Flight Of The Conchords follows Jemaine and Brett, two friends from New Zealand living in a one-bedroom apartment in New York, trying to make it as a successful band. The first episode of season 2, A Good Opportunity now finds Murray as a successful manager of The Crazy Doggs. So successful, in fact, that he has little time for Brett and Jemaine. The episode opens with a familiar set up, a band meeting, but an unfamiliar setting, Murray’s swanky, and slightly ostentatious, new office....

5.7 Five-Twenty-Ten But back to this episode, which has a very obvious theme of unwanted change. The changes in question are a parallel alternatation in both Peter and Walter, both caused by them having things in their heads they’d rather not have there. Well, I say that, but with Peter it is hard to know what he’s actually thinking as he transforms into an Observer. Is he the first Observer, creating a looped time paradox?...

5.9 Black Blotter Most of it takes place inside the rich, and in this case, LSD-fuelled imagination of Walter, tripping through his regrets and fears. While being, like Walter, a child of the sixties, I passed on the hallucinogenic drugs, so in some respects I’m not the best person to judge how real this all seems to him, but to the casual observer, it seems a curious mix of the familiar and fantastic....