2.3 The Good Traitor On the surface, there is a lot going on in The Good Traitor. Writers Adrian Hodges (showrunner) and Lucy Catherine (her first foray in The Musketeers) and director Marc Jobst (again a newcomer to The Musketeers but with extensive credits such as Silk, Waking The Dead and Casualty) have packed the episode to the gills with several overlapping storylines that, due to the sheer amount going on, just shouldn’t have worked....

Last week’s Africa excursion provided an intensity that we haven’t yet seen in Sorkin’s newsroom but it still wasn’t enough to hold steady in the ratings. The Newsroom and True Blood each lost roughly 200,000 viewers from the previous week. That isn’t to say that it’s time to hit the panic button. The episodes happened to coincide with the opening of “Shark Week.” On the Frontlines: Will is often haphazardly burdened with the weight of doing the right thing....

Hammer’s second shot at a commercial horror film to get them off the blocks in the 21st century is The Resident, a home invasion thriller starring two-time Oscar winner, Hilary Swank, ‘cult’ fan favourite, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and studio stalwart, Christopher Lee. Unfortunately, there’s usually a catch to these things, and in this case, Juliet becomes the object of her landlord’s sociopathic affections. She initially underestimates him, but ultimately rejects him as a possible rebound for fear of hurting his feelings....

The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith kicks off, as usual, with a mystery but this time Luke, Clyde and Rani are investigating Sarah Jane herself. She’s been secretive about her activities and the gang are so suspicious that they employ K9 and Mr Smith (who turn out to be quite the comedy double act) to discover she’s seeing a bloke! Hilarity ensues as our favourite threesome take a peak into the adults’ date and witness, wait for it, a kiss!...

PLEASE NOTE: This review contains slight spoilers (if you have been remaining completely free of them) – this episode will be broadcast on BBC One, Friday 30th October. Yesterday, in my review for part one, I foolishly suggested that a “A more heartwarming and life-affirming small screen half hour (or so) you are not likely to find this year”. Well, I probably should have realised that competition would come in the guise of part two, and by crikey it did....

I’ll miss Nancy, Crickley Hall’s bright-eyed schoolmistress. Like her Dickensian namesake, she risked her life to help a poor orphan, only to meet a tragic end. Our Nancy fell not at the hands of brute Bill Sykes, but young Maurice Stafford (Bill Milner), a sad, uncanny golem shaped by the Cribbens siblings and revealed to be having an abusive, pseudo-incestuous relationship with cruel Magda. “This house is pretty sick” said Gabe this week....

Before we get into The Tunnel this week, and there was a lot of it, I thought it was worth making mention of its spooky opening titles sequence. The titles are a circling shot of the titular thoroughfare, bathed in a low yellow light, but what makes them so unnerving is the soft, lilting music that plays alongside. The song has an almost child-like, lullaby quality to it. It’s really quite unnerving and lends the show a fairytale-like feeling……....

It will be interesting to see where this development takes Caroline. Usually it’s Elena left grappling with the realities of being undead, but the loss of her mother trumps Elena’s dating woes. I know, even to think it is blasphemy, but there are some things holier than Delena and one of those things is someone’s mom dying. That said, if this news about the Sheriff’s health is simply a ploy to get Caroline to lighten up on Stefan than I am not in support of this....

3.7 Ghost World Suffice to say, Damon gets some divine payback at the start of the episode, courtesy of the older Lockwood brother, and wakes up with a poker through his chest. It’s comforting to hear that he’s figured it out pretty quickly, and it’s understandable that he wants the ghost problem sorted out sooner rather than later. There’s actually so many dead friends and relatives hanging around that almost the whole cast get involved in operation Casper, except notably, Matt and Tyler....

4.18 American Gothic As well as Elijah, American Gothic also saw the return of Ms Katherine Pierce, whom Elena and Rebekah catch up to in Pennsylvania. They’re after the cure but know they can’t get to it without some sneaking around and backstabbing beforehand, so the entire episode becomes a tactical game played between the three girls, with Stefan and Damon lagging behind as usual. After they controlled Elena’s actions for over three seasons, it’s really rather satisfying to see them chasing after her now that she has her own wants and desires outside of the Salvatore family....

7.13 This Woman’s Work To be fair, the show has been flailing a little since the Mikaelsons left, and was then dealt another blow when Katherine was written out for good. This year, the writers clearly noted this charisma gap and introduced the Heretics, obvious stand-ins for Klaus, Rebekah, Elijah and Kol (and Finn, I guess), and now we have Rayna. A bad-ass warrior with a grudge against our heroes and a tragic backstory?...

4.4 Indifference Having one group stuck on the road, thanks to the zombie horde from last episode, is a good idea, but breaking a second group off and sending them out onto the road is an even better decision. It gets us away from the monotony of the prison and its sick and dying survivors, and it adds a little tension to a face-off that’s been brewing (off-screen) since last week’s episode....

Adaptations of Agatha Christie novels have often made great seasonal viewing for me, with large star-studded casts in exotic locations teamed with my inability to remember who did it (even after repeated viewings) making for a comfortably glitzy and entertaining way to spend a couple of hours. This new BBC version of The Witness For The Prosecution is nothing like those adaptations. But then, it isn’t based on a Christie novel....

Proving that you can’t keep a heroic robot down, Cullen once again reprises his most iconic character in Transformers: Titans Return, Hasbro and Machinima’s latest installment in their Prime Wars trilogy. How did you first get involved with The Transformers? I responded to a call from my agent saying they were auditioning characters for a new animated series called The Transformers. He didn’t know very much about it, as I can recall....

Welcome to Bon Temps… Currently a third of the way through its second season in the US, and enchanting nearly four million Americans, True Blood is that rarest of shows – smart, funny, extremely well-written and startlingly original. Based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris and made by HBO, True Blood goes to places Twilight can only dream of. Truly a drama for grown-ups, if Strange Love was your first taste, prepare to become a junkie....

After the second murder in less than a week, our fourth visit to Bon Temps opens with the residents standing around a dead woman’s house, quoting Tennessee Williams and drinking beer in the sun. Just another glorious afternoon in the True Blood universe. Once at the station for questioning, his mistake becomes apparent – a suspect with a raging and clearly painful hard-on talking about the murders of two women doesn’t exactly scream innocence....

Lying vamps, flying spies and covert kidnappings? Just another ordinary week in True Blood… In last week’s exciting installment, the Luke-inator, never the sharpest tool in the box, except this time, breathes his last, thanks to a home-made bomb, but takes just a handful of vampires with him. He just can’t do anything well. Those that are gone, Stan among them, will not be missed, but everyone important is just fine....

So, after all the worry of leaving Bill at the mercy of a pack of werewolves last week, it seems all the stress was for nothing. Clearly, either werewolves just aren’t all that, or Mississippi weres are just a bit wet. Bill is taken to Russell’s palace, for it is such, French Royalty would have had a hard time matching the opulence, where, although captive, he is treated to a beautifully put together formal banquet....

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), a 14-year-old girl, is sent to town to collect the dead body of her father, Frank Ross. Frank was a good man who was double-crossed by a hired hand by the name of Tom Chaney. Chaney, deep in the drink, lost his money at cards and robbed and killed Frank Ross in the middle of town. A town, Mattie notes, where nobody knows the Ross family and where nobody will be too concerned with tracking down Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin)....

Enter Mackenzie Davis’s Tully, a free-spirited, twentysomething ‘night nanny’ who comes after dark to take care of the newborn and give Marlo chance to sleep. Tully is part-Mary Poppins, part-Yoda. She bakes cupcakes, cleans the house from top to bottom and delivers philosophical pearls of wisdom that belie her years. She doesn’t judge Marlo for feeling overwhelmed by her children, or for bingeing mindless reality TV (Gigolos, if you’re wondering)....