6.21 Law And Boarder When this is done well, what we often get is a combination of a fish-out-of-water story as the main characters try to understand how this community works and an exploration of that culture as the main characters learn what they need to about it in order to be able to complete whatever their task is in that world. And by the time the store ends, we – as a result of our tendency to identify with the main characters in a story and the thoughtful depiction of that culture -have also learned about these people and feel as though we now “get” that group on some level....

On August 8, 1969, Manson ordered Tex Watson to lead Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Leslie Van Houten, and Linda Kasabian into a house that had once been owned by record producer Terry Melcher, who’d recently passed on bringing the songwriter into his studio. Manson’s family killed actress Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski, Abigail Folger, and the 18-year-old Steven Parent, who showed up at the house by accident. Tate was eight months pregnant at the time of the murder....

The film is centered around Craig, played by Pat Healy, who’s facing eviction from his home as he struggles to meet the rent. Life is further complicated by the fact that he and his wife – Audrey – have a young child. How can it get worse? Well, by turning up to work and finding out you’re losing your job. For, we learn, it’s Violet’s birthday, and Colin is determined to give her a day to remember....

Talking to Entertainment Weekly, supervising director, Dave Filoni (you can read our interview with him here), said, “We’ve wanted to have Chewbacca on the show from the beginning. But the technical side just wasn’t there, until we devoted extra resources into researching how to animate fur when George [Lucas] said Chewbacca had to appear this season.” Mayhew commented, “When I played Chewie, I was just being myself. He has a peculiar walk, because his walk is my walk....

Chris Claremont’s X-Men is a simple talking heads compilation, put together simply and without any attempt at visual complexity. Nor does it need to do so. Among the most interesting aspects is the way it edits a discussion between Claremont, Louise Simonson (editor and writer on various X-Men related strips), and Ann Nocenti (editor of X-Men and related strips) with the reflections of then Marvel editor Jim Shooter. Hindsight has given them time to reflect, though Shooter’s methods still seem to have left his contributors with a grudging respect at best....

We begin this episode’s review with a necessary sojourn to Our Valued Customers. OVC is a brilliant site that parodies comic book consumers in their own words, as overheard by store employee. Hopefully Comic Book Men is helping to take a shot at the attitude that comics are dorky, whatever that means. A lady from Staten Island prompts the first valuation. Her husband, a sanitation worker, found a bunch of comics of varying lineages on the kerb....

It’s student election time at Greendale this week, thanks to a Joe Biden-themed MacGuffin that sees the college squeeze an entire election, campaigns, primaries, debates and vote counting, into just seven hours. With all lessons apparently suspended and the cafeteria taken over as election central, its democracy Community style, with just a little touch of Jon Stewart. Standing against the likes of Leonard, Magnitude (he of the highly irritating and five years out of date ‘pop pop’) and Starburns, surely Jeff is a sho–in for the win, right?...

Sometimes, however, our relationship with numbers becomes toxic. Hulu’s NYPD corruption documentary Crime + Punishment is in a sense the story of that relationship going haywire and the statistics crushing us under their fascistic numerical boots. The numbers involved were simply too large to enact any meaningful change. The New York Police Department is the largest in the nation, with other 36,000 officers spread over 77 precincts. All those precincts have ever known are the numbers....

Well, it’s finally over. And as finales go, I think that topped last year’s slightly underwhelming punch-up, even if Nobu and his ninjas were never quite as compelling an antagonist as Fisk. But the fun stuff here was all about Matt and Elektra finally taking on The Hand and succeeding despite some genuinely hopeless odds. Weirdly, the promise of The Hand’s resurrection abilities meant that both Daredevil and Elektra felt vulnerable in this fight....

Deadman was first introduced by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino in Strange Adventures #205 (1967). Deadman was the story of Boston Brand, a murdered circus aerialist who was killed during a performance. Brand was resurrected and granted the power to possess any living body. As Deadman, Brand uses his ghostly powers to try and solve his own murder. Starting with Strange Adventures #206 (1967), Adams and writer Jack Miller began an 11 issue run that defined the character visually and narratively for decades to come....

FIRST APPEARANCE Shatterstar, or Gaveedra Seven, was created by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld in New Mutants #99, but he was really just a cameoing unconscious body next to a really stupid sword. He first got real play in the following issue, New Mutants #100, the final issue of the series before it became X-Force. He had travelled back 100 years to convince the X-Men to help him defeat Mojo and Spiral on his world....

1.6 Brothers In Arms Where Defiance seems to get bogged down is occasionally rough dialogue exchanges that are full of cop show or western clichés. Each time one of these happens it ruins the alternate-world context, and reminds us that the show is written to a deadline and shot on a budget. The action in Brothers in Arms centres on Pol Madis, a Castithan war criminal that comes to defiance pursued by an old war buddy of Nolan, Eddie Braddock....

Having checked the IMDB, I now know that episodes 1 to 3 were directed by someone different than episode 4, which might account for it, or it might be the fact that writer Drew Z. Greenberg is actually a real writer who wrote an episode of Firefly, but – this worked. I actually enjoyed this episode, which makes me a bit confused and, apparently, slightly gushy. So I’ll get on with the review now....

It’s a perfect storm of excellent scripts, sharp and observed direction and inspired casting. The story over the past twelve episodes has been a runaway train, but what really made this Dexter season tick have been the man-sized acting chops of Michael C. Hall and the amazing Jimmy Smits. I must congratulate Smits in particular. He has been incredible as the complex and convoluted Miguel Prado. His evolution from over-friendly and passionate brother to psychotic conspirator was so impressive to watch....

This story is called ‘Easy as Pie’, and the exact desert on offer here is Key Lime Pie – as requested previously by the dying Camilla. The theme tying the various story parts together is the things you do for friends, sometimes that they appreciate and other times that they resent. Will Dexter break his rules for a friend? Yet it’s not the only rule breaking he’s been invited to do, because poor old Camilla, dying painfully of lung cancer, asks Dexter for help in ending her life....

The season four opener signalled a sea of change in the world of Dexter. Fatherhood was taking its toll on him, and his alternate existence. However, it also went back to the core of this story, and the key question: how long can Dexter keep doing this and not get caught? Remains To Be Seen starts with Dexter being extracted from his wrecked car, and as consciousness returns so does the realisation that if they find the other disassembled passenger of the vehicle, Benny Gomez, then the game will be up....

5.8 Take It! Take It! was a complete and total experience from beginning to end. After I’d watched it, I tried to fuse in my mind those parts I most liked, but eventually concluded that it was great, throughout and ought to be considered in the whole. However, I need to talk about it more specifically, so I’ll break it down. Dexter works best when it’s not overly complicated, and in this series they’ve kept the subplots under control....

“Our influences are definitely worn on our sleeve,” he confesses. “We didn’t necessarily want to nostalgically recreate one of those shows. I just think that, by nature of my fellow writers and I being so heavily influenced by Outer Limits and Twilight Zone and even Night Gallery reruns when we were kids, we just couldn’t shake it.” Dimension 404 episodes cover everything from clones to alien invasions to time travel, all centered around life with modern technology....

Disenchantment Episode 9 So this is just how cartoons are these days, huh? They goof around for a bunch of episodes and then, whammo!, it’s time for tragedy! The episode is also shocking in how it goes to more emotional extremes than one might expect. Elfo dies (I’m sure not permanently, but it’s still surprising) and Bean, getting her own little Sophie’s Choice, manages to bring her mother back at the cost of reviving Elfo....