The sixth season of The Vampire Diaries is the partial re-boot the series needs. Damon and Bonnie are dead and gone (blast you “the other side” and your wicked, wicked ways), no vampires are allowed in Mystic Falls, and Elena is — can we call this what it is? — stoned most of the time. It’s like a massive boulder was dropped on the show, and instead of (Grey’s Anatomy-style) completely killing all the ants it fell on, it only killed a few and left those alive maimed, reeling, and struggling to put their lives (of a sort) back together....

3.8 Made To Suffer The dichotomy between Rick and the Governor has been one the show has played with all season. But within each man, there’s another pair of warring urges. With Rick, it’s the desire to keep his group safe versus his growing madness. With the Governor, it’s his urge to keep his group safe versus, well, his growing madness. With the Governor, we’ve seen multiple aspects of his personality, from the willing-to-do-anything side that threatens Maggie and holds zombie Thunderdomes, to the side that obviously cares for his people, who loves his daughter (and maybe Andrea), and who wants to cure the zombie apocalypse....

6.14 Twice As Far Denise, like all the Alexandrians, has been trying to adapt to a world in which they haven’t been forced to participate until Rick and the gang arrived and shattered their illusion of safety via misadventure. The Wolves came, Walkers came, and everyone in Alexandria banded together, coming to the aid of Rick and the rest of them as they slaughtered thousands of zombies in the streets of their cute little walled town....

The Walking Dead Season 7 Episode 13 It feels like The Walking Dead pulled off a miracle this week, serving up a second genuinely excellent hour of television after last week’s fantastic “Say Yes.” It almost feels like the show could really dig itself out of the hole it made in 7A. If the last two weeks have proved anything, it’s that The Walking Dead is much better off without Negan or the comics baggage he brings with him....

Then, a friend and co-worker is brutally murdered, mauled as if by an animal and missing his skin. It’s a pretty horrible murder, so Evan takes it upon himself to reach out to the community for help. He makes a passionate, ignored speech, and kicks off a neighbourhood watch program. The response is less than thrilling, with Bob (Vince Vaughn) wanting a break from raising a teenage girl and Franklin (Jonah Hill) wanting to be a real police officer without passing all those physical, psychological, and intelligence tests....

2.5 Who’s Your Daddy? In time-honoured tradition too, the penultimate hour ended on a cliff-hanger that left a central character in mortal danger. On the same day that her adoptive dad swore he would lay down his life for her, Mary’s boyfriend tried to sacrifice her life for his. Will Puss pushing Mary into the path of a gun finally shake her free of his nauseating spell? One can only hope....

It’s amazing that even though Torchwood monopolises the lives of the staff so much that while they constantly bleat on about how they have no time for a personal life or their fiancés, Gwen still has plenty of mates at her hen do. But in Wales, you see, everyone is matey. You don’t need to see them to be friends. There are fun-loving friends on tap in Cardiff. It’s the Welsh way!...

4.9 Let’s Get Out Of Here It might not seem like much of a fight, with two wiccans against a handful of vamps, but with Diet Eric even more helpless than before, and under orders to Kill Bill, The Big Showdown part two is likely to be more than a little interesting. Fingers crossed that the boys can fight it out undisturbed for a little while, at least – it’s the fight we’ve been waiting to see, and it would be a crime to deprive us of it....

Turn Season 4 Episode 3 This season’s third episode of Turn: Washington’s Spies was one of the best in the entire series—an action-filled thriller with added twists for several main characters promising hard times ahead. The first two episodes this season left me worried that the final run of the series would succumb to its biggest flaws. But this installment, written by Scott Gunnison Miller and directed by Keith Boak, gives reason to hope for a fitting finale....

I watched parts 3 and 4 of Twin Peaks’ return on Showtime’s streaming service, which presents them as two separate episodes. It does the same for the first two parts, but I believe those were meant to be viewed as one episode. Parts 3 and 4, however, feel more standalone so I’m reviewing them as such. Part 3 begins with an extended sequence of mind fuckery in line with the parts preceding it but, after a long stretch of abstraction, things begin to move a little more quickly as more concrete plot elements fall into place....

Van Helsing Season 1 Episode 12 As we approach the end of the first season, Van Helsing continues to entice viewers with its finely crafted narratives and deftly directed story arcs. Tonight simply extends that trend. Much of this dialogue driven penultimate episode revolves around Vanessa working out her personal demons as she begins the long awaited trek to find her daughter, but the sudden complications emanating from Mohamad’s turnabout force her to reevaluate how, when and if she’ll ever reunite with her daughter....

Veep Season 5 Episode 4 “Mother” is one of the most brutal episodes of Veep. President Selina Meyer is not a likeable character and Julia Louis-Dreyfus has no interest in making her likable. There are so many emotional parallels to House of Cards, where a sociopathic killer runs the country. Hell, there are parallels to Game of Thrones, where there are armies of psychopaths attempting to rule the seven kingdoms and the White Walkers look tame comparably....

Vikings Season 4 episode 1 Season premieres often prove difficult to evaluate because the expectations typically grow to unrealistic heights as fans contemplate questions left open from the previous season. Why does Rollo offer to remain in Francia with the small band of Vikings, and will he accept the king’s offer of marriage to his daughter Gisela? Has Ragnar really abandoned his devotion to the gods in favor of Athelstan’s Christianity, or is it merely part of a long con?...

It’s not hard to see why the film would have been booed. Fire Walk With Me is a hard-to-decipher story about a father who brutally rapes and murders his daughter. There are also scenes that seem to add nothing to the story, like Laura Palmer shouting, “I’m the muffin!” or an opening 30 minutes featuring two federal agents that seemingly have no connection to the Laura plot. But what if it was actually never booed at Cannes?...

Avengers: Infinity War is a movie about the good guys losing… like, a lot. Even Thanos, who actually does get what he wants, has some low points (notably, when he has to kill his own daughter—what a bummer!). 13. Black Widow We don’t get to check in that much with Natasha, but she spends most of the movie hanging with her besties, finds out her former beau is not dead, and gets to visit Wakanda....

When The 100 returns this week with Season 5, it will, for the most part, take place following the six-year time jump we saw in the Season 4 finale. It’s a big leap for a show whose first four seasons took place over the course of only ten months, but it’s one that—having seen the first four episodes of the season—I can say The 100 definitely pulls off. “I think Octavia has changed the most, I think that’s just impossible to argue otherwise,” said Rothenberg....

Now, Friedkin’s back with Killer Joe, a confrontational, uncompromising collision of thriller, drama and black comedy which has earned critical praise and a certain amount of alarm for its prolonged, frequently unsettling violence. Nevertheless, it boasts some fine performances from a sterling cast, which includes Thomas Haden Church, Juno Temple and Gina Gershon as a group of people who find themselves in the presence of Matthew McConaughey’s decidedly amoral Joe....

In this first episode, we’re given an account of the Sun, and how this mighty ball of energy affects life on our planet. And because this is a BBC-funded science documentary, the Sun’s workings are illustrated via grand panoramic shots from helicopters, soaring music and trips in submarines. The story begins with a total eclipse on the river Ganges in India, and it’s here we learn another fascinating pub fact: that, by a bizarre celestial coincidence, our Sun is both 400 times larger and 400 times further away from the Moon, which explains why, between four and seven times per year, a solar or lunar eclipse darkens our skies....

We begin with a whistlestop tour of the planets and their movements through the night sky. Mercury, we learn, buzzes around the sun like a mad thing, orbiting the star every 88 days. Conversely, Venus trundles about like it’s on valium, and consequently a day there is the length of an Earth year. So, with the parts of our solar system turning as perfectly as cogs in a clock, how did all this order arise from the chaotic beginnings of the Big Bang?...

Picking up World War Hulk 1 (of 5), the book went staight to the top of my must-read list and kept me quiet for the entire train journey home. I have been following Greg Pak’s Hulk series for the past year and must admit it is the best the big green machine’s title has been in a long, long time. It’s actually on a par (well, so far, anyway) with Peter David’s classic run on the book....