The Orville Season 1 Episode 8 The Orville has always felt like a continuation of Star Trek: the Next Generation, but never has an episode felt so much like an installment of that original inspiration. “Into the Fold” could just as easily have followed a similar journey undertaken by Data accompanying Dr. Beverly Crusher and her son Wesley on vacation, although obviously the dynamic there was quite different. The Orville has proven it can take on serious social issues, but this week, it displays an expertise at relating a personal drama as well with only shades of its trademark humor....

This latest chapter of the WWII series slows things down to walking pace, and expands upon the themes and motivations hinted at previously, while all the time building the tension for the fight to come. As always, I shall attempt to remain relatively spoiler free, as I appreciate many people will not have seen it yet, and instead give my impressions on the episode. Part Three opens with the bruised and battered soldiers arriving in Melbourne to a heroes’ welcome, and judging from the opening lines of dialogue, “What is this?...

Coupland believes that, if he can only scare up the negative energy lurking inside his teenage guinea pig, he can expel all her cumulative trauma for good. And while his experiments – which variously include solitary confinement, loud blasts of glam rock, and shouting at her as she sits mesmerised at a mahogany dining table – are undeniably cruel, they’re a means to a justifiable end: “If we cure one, Professor Coupland grandly says, “We’ll cure them all....

Now I should come clean, here. I haven’t watched any new Grange Hill for years. It died for me when Chrissie Mainwaring broke up a big fight between Grange Hill and St Joseph’s by wheeling a baby into the middle of it. I felt robbed back then: they’d been building up to that fight. Hell, they owed us that fight. They wouldn’t have tried any of that shit back in the old days, that’s for sure....

3.1 Spring That’s an undeniable part of this series’ attraction. Hearing the music, seeing the clothes and watching them watch the telly we used to when we were kids and we were happy. (What cold, adult heart wasn’t instantly warmed by the sound of the words ‘mint’ and ‘custard’? Or jolted into gleeful reminiscence at the sight of Contra on the NES and Take The High Road on ITV?) Nostalgia though, is just the flashing neon arrow showing people the way in to This Is England....

True Blood‘s third season reached episode five with this week’s Trouble, in which Russell is revealed as the catalyst for everything that has ever happened, Tara finds herself trapped in a Victorian horror novel, and Sookie is finally reunited with Bill, albeit briefly, and with rather a large audience. Yup, the flashing blue electricity that Maryann was so impressed with is back, and the King couldn’t be happier. Clearly Sookie is the secret weapon in Russell’s arsenal but, whatever his long term plan is, surely the revelation that His Majesty is responsible for the death of Eric’s family means our favourite sheriff is now fully in the game....

1.6 Haunted Houses Six episodes down. Two to go. Given True Detective’s curious time signature I referred to last week, I think it’s permissible, even at this late stage, to skip back to the beginning and remind ourselves of one of Rust Cohle’s earliest comments on the murder case that started this bad ball rolling: ‘This kind of thing doesn’t happen in a vacuum’. Consequently, this episode was concerned with the things that happen outside the walls, outside order....

True Detective Season 1 Episode 8 First of all, I want to backtrack to why I started watching this in the first place. I thought True Detective was going to be fun. Matthew McConaughy and Woody Harrelson, veteran actors, veteran stoners, kicking back and having fun chasing demons in the woods and swamps. I thought it was going to be a blast. Maltese Falcon on the bayou. Mio mayo. I get a steady kick out of both of these actors, I figured, cool....

Veep Season 6 Episode 5 You know something is going wrong on Veep when Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) buddies up with Mike McClintock (Matt Walsh) on a throw rug in front of a fire. Veep season 6, episode 5, “Chicklet,” is about repression, and the former president probably still can’t unsee that picture of the inside of Mike’s gob choking down a sandwich from a few weeks ago. This episode, while it may not be the best of the season, may be the series’ Citizen Kane, a slow motion breakdown complete with a room thrashing and trashing....

But what a body of work she leaves behind. I had the pleasure of seeing her perform live once, at a gig in Blackpool where she had more than a few words to say about the brown wallpaper. It was such a joyful evening.I have a particular fondness for her songs. Writing comedy songs is such an incredible skill, and performing them with such gusto no easier. I dunno. Seeing Wood, smiling, clearly having a ball, belting out these numbers, makes the world seem right for a few minutes....

Vikings Season 4 Episode 17 “You need to be a teacher to your people.” In light of the fact that its cast has grown so vast, it’s especially remarkable that Hirst’s steady hand is able to sustain our interest even as we now face the harsh reality that more of our favorites, in whom we’ve become emotionally invested, might not make it through the series’ run. Tonight’s episode “The Great Army” both comforts and unnerves viewers as we take stock of a landscape littered with dead bodies and now must make our choices of who to support moving forward....

Yet, somehow, things ended up relatively rosy as a whole. Indeed, the holiday season brought plenty of good cheer to studio accountants, and the movie gods smiled brightly enough to see 2017 close out to a projected $11.12 billion at the domestic box office, the third highest ever industry posting in the U.S. While this is still steeply down from 2016’s $11.4 billion, things could have been much worse, and almost were if not for a Christmas miracle: good movies that audiences were seeing in droves....

That’s not to say these shows can’t be good. Good drama is good drama that can and usually is enjoyed across demographics, but it is a rare teen TV drama that is actually about kids and not about adults-masquerading-as-kids. Britain’s Skins did it and, more recently, Norwegian teen drama sensation Skam did it. SKAM Austin, the American adaptation of Skam, premiering this week on Facebook Watch, is poised to do the same....

12 Monkeys Season 2, Episode 5 With the new metaphysical turn the consciousness of time has introduced to 12 Monkeys, it seems appropriate to revisit those who have the most ritualistic view of their own mission: the Army of the 12 Monkeys. A return to 2016 brings back Olivia and the Pallid Man as well as some back story for the young Jennifer Goines. Together with the surprising turn of events in 2044, this week’s episode has forged new bonds and repaired old wounds between characters in the most unexpected ways....

4: Gavin Volure From my lips and fingertips to Tina Fey’s pen and crew, because I got exactly what I hankered for. That’s not to say that this week’s guest star, one Mr Steve Martin in the title role, wasn’t given time to shine with some mighty fine lines. The show opens with Liz and Jack as dinner guests of reclusive Gavin Volure, a rich agoraphobiac who’s taken with Liz....

This might at least partly explain why we’ve seen something of a horror and thriller renaissance over the past few years, from the best of Blumhouse’s offerings – not least the Oscar-winning Get Out – to Steven Soderbergh’s fleet-footed mystery Unsane, famously shot on iPhones and packed with grainy paranoia. Directed and co-written by John Krasinski, A Quiet Place isn’t exactly a no-budget thriller, but with its outlay amounting to just $18million, it was likely shot for roughly the price of Avengers: Infinity War’s catering trucks....

At best, Admission is a biting and refreshingly honest (we can assume) look into the US college admission system for Ivy League schools such as Princeton. Via this intriguing story thread, we get to explore issues of class, elitism and, yes, nepotism, as we watch Portia (Fey) attempting to manipulate Jeremiah (Nat Wolff) into a school that chooses pupils based on a complicated combination of academic achievement, familial privilege and perceived potential....

Now, the Blizzard was never what you would call an A-list villain, not by a long shot. But, and I argued this last year, if you’re going to use the Blizzard use him, or else you have a generic villain with cliché powers wearing flannel. And I think we had enough of that in Smallville. While Marvel fans should be thrilled with the coming of the television super villain, this was nowhere near the main event....

The first few minutes of “The Magical Place” are a good indication of what fans probably expect from Agents of SHIELD in the first place. There’s a daring daylight break-in to take down shadowy criminal Vanchat (Alden Turner) as he’s trying to sell Chitauri tech to some shady folks. See? That wasn’t hard, was it? Note to the showrunners: the more time these characters spend in SHIELD jumpsuits, using flashy spy-gadgets, and beating on bad guys, the more this will feel, at least superficially, like the source material....

Big matches include Cody Rhodes challenging Nick Aldis for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, as well as Pentagon Jr. vs. Kenny Omega and Rey Mysterio, Bandido and Fenix vs. The Young Bucks & Kota Ibushi. (1) Matt Cross def. MJF McMahon: Fun match to open the show. Some might be upset that MJF took the loss here, but he still had plenty of opportunities to show off his personality and Cross gets a huge win, in front of a huge crowd, which is well deserved for the traveled veteran....