Outcast Episode 3 When Reverend Anderson states that “Some souls are capable of creating evil without the devil’s help,” the fundamental conflict of Outcast’s third episode “All Alone Now” moves to the forefront and underscores the fact that what we think we know, may in fact be wrong. And while the narrative continues to follow Kyle’s quest for answers, it gets dangerously close to juggling too many story lines simultaneously. Still, there’s plenty to like about this episode....

While this week’s installment wasn’t, strictly speaking, a bottle episode, it certainly had all the emotional punch of the best of that kind of TV writing. That’s right, I’m basically sitting here fanning myself, so deep has my devotion to this show become. Somebody pass me the smelling salts and a foppish British soldier to attend me, I feel a spate of hysteria coming upon me. The meat of the episode took place inside the English Garrison....

8.2 Business Secrets of the Pharaohs It was uncanny to see Mark sat in front of Tool Academy delivering Jez’s lines, a brief glimpse into a parallel dimension where David Mitchell played the caution-to-the-wind half of Peep Show’s dysfunctional double act, and Robert Webb the smug told-you-so rationalist. It can’t have been half as uncanny as Mark must have felt, though. Even his inner monologue was moved to remark on the unlikelihood of Super Hans proffering sensible legal advice on his new book deal....

Essentially a selective memory time capsule, this action-packed comedy and pseudo-epic is blinged out in 80s euphoria for the arcade games of the past, as well as a kind of catch-all of Generation X touchstones. For a story ostensibly about an alien invasion, even the antagonistic threats and demands come in the guise of faded VHS recordings from Madonna’s early MTV interviews. It’s just such a shame then that far more insurmountable than Donkey Kong’s cornucopia of barrels is the nagging insistence of a relic from a different era: 1990s Adam Sandler comedies....

Power Rangers Ninja Steel Episode 22 I think a lot about Power Rangers budget. Yeah yeah, I’ll get to the Christmas episode in a minute but go with me here. Ninja Steel (and Dino Charge before it) have used far less Sentai footage than Power Rangers normally does. Back in the Disney era especially they’d sometimes be burning two or three episodes worth of Sentai footage in one episode of Power Rangers....

4.17 Bite Your Tongue It was so good to see Spencer in crime-solving mode again after her setback with Toby’s side-mystery last week, and it makes perfect sense that it was her who finally uncovered the biggest secret of all (for now at least). There’s a reason she hasn’t told the rest of the girls yet, however, and that’s because she probably doesn’t believe it herself. Not one of them has suspected Ezra since Noel Khan got him fired back in season one but, now that we’ve seen him warn off Jake in such a classic evil villain way, that means absolutely nothing....

5.3 Surfing The Aftershocks This episode, Surfing The Aftershocks, was pretty much a mixture of the old and new PLL, with the good stuff mostly counteracting the bad. Alison’s arc remains the most interesting thing about the season, lending a human drama to the lunacy going on everywhere else, and the effect her return is having on each Liar has a lot of potential that hasn’t yet been squandered away....

This review contains spoilers. With Terry O’Duncie in custody for the murders of Julie Ann Collins and Eddie Phillips, DI Bradfield switches his attention to the incriminating tape recordings made by local radio enthusiast Ashley Brennan. He listens to them at Tennison’s prompting, and instantly recognises the voice of one of the speakers as Cliff Bentley. As soon as it dawns on Bradfield that something shady is going on with the Bentley clan, his interest in the Collins case wanes, to the alarm of Sergeant Harris, who angrily warns him not to get sidetracked by his desire for revenge....

High praise, indeed, for a television show, and to add to the kudos, it’s good to see a classic rampaging monster out in the open, not shaded by night time tricks or shadows. This is showing off in all its CG dino glory, in a great homage to Harryhausen’s The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, and if I had worked on any aspect of this week’s show, I would think, “Yep, we nailed it at last....

It was unfortunate, then, that the final episode of Psychoville ended on such an inconclusive note. Reintroducing an apparently dead character, the evil Nurse Kenchington, and a further mystery in the shape of a locket in its final moments, even a large explosion couldn’t disguise what was a disappointingly weak ending to what was otherwise a pitch-perfect seven weeks of comedy and horror. Whatever you made of series one’s conclusion, it at least left the series with enough loose ends to entice the BBC to commission a second series, and it’s great to see Psychoville back....

Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) are repo men for The Union, the near-future’s biggest supplier of artificial organs. Literally, there’s a fake remake of any joint, limb, or tissue you could possibly want. Of course, with those products comes a severe premium. When you can’t pay up, The Union forecloses on you, sending repo men like the two mentioned to zap you with a stun gun and spoon out your expensive, flashy rental....

Riverdale Season 2 Episode 22 Is my hatred of Hiram Lodge impacting my thoughts on Riverdale as a whole? It’s a question that I’ve been grappling with for weeks and for good reason. As the season’s primary antagonist, his ill-defined plans for the Southside and low-rent gangster schtick have been a thorn in viewers sides since Mark Consuelos debuted the character back in October. (With the actor’s sometimes stilted line delivery not doing anyone any favors either)....

It seems a fair bet that the new stage Wonka, Douglas Hodge, has seen both these films. And, much like the new stage musical take on Dahl’s book, he takes what he needs from both in finding his own take on the character. As such, his Wonka is slightly lighter than Wilder’s, less childlike in a way than Depp’s, and distinct enough for this production. There’s a sense of the proverbial having its chocolate bar and eating it by spanning the feel of one era with overt references to another, but it’d be remiss to say it damages things....

The vast majority of the reviews that are up so far are from websites and blogs, but that’s not to temper in the slightest what people are saying. Because the news that is coming appears to be very good, indeed: Scott Pilgrim may yet prove to be the post-Inception highlight of the summer (although there’s still The Expendables, of course, but you’ll have to wait until next week for our review of that…) First Showing “I can really only speak for myself and what I thought of Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim adaptation and I truly did love it, as I expected I would....

This review contains spoilers. There’s a lot of talk about endings and separation in this week’s Skins, and that’s because the series, this generation, and the whole show (in its current form) are all coming to an end. This is the probably the last hurrah for Franky, Mini, Alo and co. and how else do you expect them to mark the occasion than with one final blowout? Overall, this week’s finale is the show’s most hopeful, opting for a sweet and optimistic tone to contrast with last year’s gloomy conclusion....

This review contains spoilers. 6.9 Mini and Franky Last week, I mistakenly talked about the Liv-centric episode as the penultimate in the current series, but it’s actually Mini and Franky who take centre stage moments before the finale. In many ways, this episode actually feels like a last instalment, with the extreme lows, impossible situations, and delirious hope that often feature in Skins‘ enders. Mini and Franky have been a joint strong point to the current generation, so I’m glad the writers decided to give both a second outing before they walk off into the sunset next week (or not)....

7.11 Suits Of Woe About halfway through Suits Of Woe, I was reminded of Ozymandias, Breaking Bad’s third-to-last episode. That is not to say that this instalment of Sons Of Anarchy was remotely in the same ballpark as that superlative hour of television, but the two episodes shared a lot in common, in the best way possible. Without spoiling anything for the Breaking Bad uninitiated, Ozymandias marked the moment that Walter White’s dark empire began to fall apart, and in many ways tonight was that moment for both Gemma and Jax....

On the small screen, the underlying message is what separates the extraordinary from the mundane, a South Park from a Big Bang Theory. South Park’s third installment of its 17th season, “World War Zimmerman,” takes the racially charged emotion behind the Trayvon Martin case and the post-case political debate about the Stand-Your-Ground law and completely turns it on its head. At this point, we have to trust Matt and Trey....

With a superb (and finely played out) introduction and set-up for this week’s show. that initial ‘play’ takes a nod or two from a selection of steamy spy novels mixed with Bourne and Bond (and dare I say, it Dan Brown) as a Pakistani intelligence officer is brutally murdered by an assassin using an ancient Indian melee weapon (which looks like Wolverine’s claws). With the officer bleeding to death, he, in turn, manages to shoot his own assassin and the two men slowly die, one falling into the traffic in central London while the assassin crawls to a cellar half alive, but with only half his objective done....

Right, I will be the first to admit it. I said that last week new recruit Dimitri was a potential ‘Star Trek redshirt’ agent, set up to appear once and to then become the victim of a Tasha Yar-type tragedy. But no, it seems that it was not only the intention of last week’s episode to introduce us to Beth, but to also sneak new agent Dimitri in the ‘back door’....