A variety of methods – corporate tie-ins with bands and awkward attempts at assimilating into this new age of online audio activity – have been tried to keep the major labels on top, but the most exciting and interesting of the industry’s endeavours concerns CD albums. Even though bands have offered download-only releases (Radiohead for one with In Rainbows) and even swore they’d never release an album again (Ash), record companies aren’t quite ready to see the physical disc format die just yet....

The basics are in the title, of course. The ensemble board the Orient Express. There’s a murder. Poirot has to solve the case. As much as the film tries things around that core, the mystery stays at the heart of things. Although I did get the sense that Branagh expected half the film to already know whodunnit, and the clues laid for those that don’t are fairly straightforward to follow....

Based on the book by the impressively monikered Lyndon Mallett, Taffin stars Pierce Brosnan as the titular hero, a small town Irish debt collector who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty whilst mixing with clients and local nefarious types who owe them money. He’s helped along the way by his brother Mo (Patrick Bergin), a friend who crops up every now and again, usually with a gun, and girlfriend Charlotte (Alison Doody)....

Lathan is Violet Johnston, a successful Atlanta ad executive, a rich socialite and (thanks to her monster of a mother), an obsessive control freak who measures the orderliness of her life by the straightness of her perfect hair. When her dullard of a doctor boy friend (Britain’s Ricky Whittle, taking two steps back after American Gods) gives her a Chihuahua instead of an engagement ring, she breaks things off, gets drunk, and shaves her head....

Hours later I emerged. What had I just seen? The series had managed to lure me in, disturb me, compel me and comfort me all at once. It was unlike anything I’d seen before. The OA is less a series to watch than it is an experience to undergo and I would encourage anyone to take the leap. I will be considering what makes The OA such a bizarre and beautiful hit and, to make it as spoiler-free as possible, I will only be discussing characters and situations as they are presented in the series’ opening episode....

Orphan Black Season 4 Episode 4 Last season, things were much busier on Orphan Black. We didn’t have a whole heck of a lot time to breath with the introduction of around four to five Castor clones, a whole paramilitary operation, and Sara’s constant quest to keep her family safe. Let’s not forget about the the introduction of some of Mrs. S’s allies, a bevy of drug dealers trying to compete with Alison, and a love triangle involving Cosima, either....

Outlander Season 3, Episode 7 You have to give Outlander credit. It is not interested in playing the “will they or won’t they?” game, something relatively unheard of in TV romance. A lesser show might fall into a cliched tension based on whether or not Claire and Jamie will work things out. Not Outlander. Only an episode after Claire’s return to the 18th century, they’ve recommitted to one another. By the time the print shop sign lay burning on an Edinburgh street, I mourned not the loss of Jamie’s mostly above-board business, but rather the fact that we never really had a chance to care about it past The Big Reunion Scene....

Meanwhile, when John Lasseter began overseeing Walt Disney Animation Studios, one of his first and most popular acts was to kill off the direct-to-DVD sequels that were pillaging the Disney classic back catalogue in the name of a few easy quid. Furthermore, if Pixar really wanted to do Planes, and expand the Cars world (understandable, given the billions in toy revenue it generates), then why not do it properly? Why not pump some strong investment into it?...

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, prevent Garrick from barking with a juicy bone. Aunt Agatha is dead, and now nothing can ever come to any good. Not least because Agatha’s final act was to plant a terrible seed in George’s twisted mind. “That were no eight-month baby”, she snarled before bursting an aneurysm and clocking out in her rocking chair. The insinuation that Ross Poldark may have “got there before” him appeared to give George an aneurysm of his own....

Power Rangers Ninja Steel Episode 19 Before I get into this weeks review allow me to tell all of you a story that happened a few weeks ago. I was visiting my family and was seeing my cousin for the first time in awhile. I filled him in on how I had somehow become an official Power Rangers expert (no, seriously) and he asked how the show was these days. After all, he liked it as a kid and has kids now....

4.14 Who’s In The Box? So it’s been two full hours in Pretty Little Liars-time (and five more if you count Ravenswood) since we learned that Ezra might not be the kindly teacher (sleeping with his student) we all thought he was, and so far the show thankfully hasn’t succumbed to pressure and backtracked a la ‘Toby is A’. I didn’t think they could do the same thing all over again for fear of losing dedicated fans, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been worried ever since he slammed that wardrobe door shut....

While Harris Trout (Anthony Michael Hall) is still acting interim chief, Shawn and Gus have been out of work for two months. Jonesing for a case, Shawn seizes an opportunity to get into the SBPD headquarters when an ex-con takes Woody hostage in the morgue. Kurt Fuller has a knack for stealing his scenes as Woody and tonight he gives it his all. Character actor Peter Stormare (Fargo, Armageddon) guest stars as an ex-con Cyrus Polk who has been set up for murder determined to clear his name....

11.6 Can Of Worms Die-hard Dwarfers will know that the issue of Cat’s virginity has been on the table ever since Red Dwarf VII, when the episode Identity Within was commissioned and then shelved for budgetary reasons. Doug Naylor has been talking about revisiting the idea of Cat’s proverbial cherry for some time, and now, nearly twenty years after the first ditched attempt, the moment has arrived. Is it time for everyone’s favourite felix sapien to finally get his end away?...

12.6 Skipper “Gordon Bennett. Nobody’s dead, Arnold. Nobody is dead.” The future of Red Dwarf remains open, but unconfirmed. Short of UK TV announcing a Day Of The Doctor style special to go out in the next twelve months, it looks like Skipper is as the closest thing we’ll get to a 30th anniversary special from Doug Naylor and the gang. If that’s the case, it fills those boots rather spectacularly, while simultaneously playing as fast and loose with continuity as it always has....

3.16 The Offspring Naturally, everyone flips out. Partly because Lal is the first android to be successfully fashioned after Data, and partly because they object to Data essentially knocking together new sentient life out of spare parts found in the ship’s garage. When Picard says he’d rather have been informed in advance, Data points out that no-one else has to inform the captain when they wish to procreate, displaying a level of wilful ignorance typical of androids....

But is the show — based on Stephen King’s best-seller and its subsequent film adaptation — as bad as its reputation suggests? Of course not. In reality, Carrie: The Musical is a wildly entertaining effort whose mixture of rock devotionals and shoulda been hit ballads merely had the misfortune of being ahead of its time. Recent years have seen several remountings of the show that, paired with critical re-evaluations and word of mouth being spread like a telekinetic fire in the Bates High auditorium, have finally given the show the respect that it so deserves....

2.19 Prisoners “Mom, where’s Dad?” “He went looking for you, why do you ask?” At least that’s my interpretation of that final moment, but really, who else could it be? What other character would know of the young Ms. Cooper’s childhood library habits, observed the secret darkness that lies within her, emotionally blackmailed her into distancing herself from her “sinner” friends, or any of the other clues that this season has laid down suggesting that Betty’s link with Riverdale’s resident masked killer was a personal one....

This review contains spoilers. It is ‘dreams’ plural rather than singular too. Not all Robot Wars contestants share the same goal. Some, like twenty-five grand armour-plated Rapid, obviously enter because they fancy their chances in the grand final. Others, like Nuts 2 and Jellyfish, seem more interested in proving a point about robot diversity. Not all bots need to be sleek, precision-engineered, and pay-rolled by a multinational tech company say these folk, it’s possible for one to look roughly as technical as a picnic table and still deserve a place in the arena....

From ITV comes yet another Monday night drama to add to their roster of impressive output in recent times. Safe House, from writer Michael Crompton (who recently penned ITV’s excellent Code of A Killer), sees Christopher Eccleston play ex-policeman Robert who has left the force behind him with his wife Katy, played by Marsha Thomason, for a quiet life in the beauty and tranquility, not to mention solitude, of the Lake District....