The whole episode, in fact, is about how far off the moral path Oliver has strayed since he’s been back in civilisation, and the show is moving much further along that I had expected at this stage. With Diggle now in the know, Oliver’s expectations of a fellow soldier in arms joining the cause have been dashed and replaced with a sceptical ally not entirely convinced of his partner’s mental stability....

For those who have followed the show from the beginning you will know that Alex was shot in 2008 by Arthur Layton, a mentally unstable ex-convict who may or may not have something to do with the death of her parents in 1981 via a car bomb. While Alex lies in a coma in 2008, in 1981 it’s only days until her parents are killed and it is up to her to try, by any means necessary, to stop this exploision and save her parents....

In the near future, an environmental catastrophe has left Earth a virtually uninhabitable shell where only a tiny percentage of humanity remains. A new type of robot, dubbed the Pilgrim, was created in the hope that it could stem the advancing deserts by building high city walls and erecting zeppelin-like artificial clouds – but to no avail. There are distinct shades of Isaac Asimov’s seminal novel I, Robot in Automata, with its future full of servile machines governed by pre-programmed laws....

I missed out on the whole first series for being so judgemental. It’s quite possibly the only programme that doesn’t reduce the countryside to being an amusing daydream for city folk. Instead, it is the must delicately observed comedies on TV at the moment, making Peep Show look like an exercise in gross stereotyping. At its heart is Sal and Tip, two middle-aged friends who are trying to deal with a woman’s guild of women they are desperately trying not to become....

Ballmastrz: 9009 Episode 10 “It’s the burning spirit of teamwork in our hearts!” It’s not always easy to be a part of a team. Finding a purpose amongst a larger group of people can be wildly validating, but it can also reduce one’s sense of self and create a homogenized group mentality. Therefore it’s important to find a team that’s actually right for you and makes you feel empowered rather than ignored....

2.4 Check Out It’s smart because it takes a thin central premise (America’s Most Notorious Serial Killer: The High School Years) and does something tender, almost loving with it. It’s evident in the fleshing out of the main characters and, more cleverly still, in the little thematic tricks that it plays. Of those tricks, the use of twisted pairs is perhaps the most insistent. It’s most obviously present in the duality of Norman and his mother (of which, more later) but this week’s episode extended it further and presented us with a kaleidoscope of little binaries that added texture to a set of storylines that strayed into territory that was among the show’s darkest....

2.1 Kidnapped Exposition is not the strength of Beauty and the Beast. It’s just not. English classes teach ‘show, don’t tell’ for a reason. We mostly are told what Muirfield/FBI/Cat’s sperm-donor (fathers raise you) are doing so it’s not so impactful. On the other hand, the things we see in action are the masterful moments that linger after they end. Example: the sweet trigger-y rooftop picnic. It sounds pretty basic, yet to watch it devolve from intimate encounter into absolute failure right before our eyes complete with a leap off a roof, elevated the concept from trite to intriguing....

3.7 One is Silver and the Other Pagan Returning for the first time in far too long, we have Bridget. Now that Sally’s free to see her friends from her old life, she goes to find the girl who almost shared her original fate. It turns out that, because of her connection to Sally during the whole Danny fiasco, Bridget has sought out a Wicca group that focuses on communicating with the dead....

This might be a concern for those fans who weren’t completely won over by last year’s semi-reboot. Things definitely aren’t going to get smaller, for example, as new villains and a grand new mythology are set up in this premiere that will likely dominate the entire series (and possibly future episodes, too). There’s no looking back, only forward, and those seeking a back-to-basics fifth year need not apply. This is essentially a brand new show after last year’s in-between series, and the new trio are allowed space to build their own chemistry and dynamic without the memory of old housemates hanging over them....

Better Things Season 2 The first season of Better Things, based heavily on co-creator and star Pamela Adlon’s real life, followed Sam Fox, a middle-aged actress mom juggling auditions, dating, and the parenting of her three daughters: Max (Mikey Madison), Frankie (Hannah Alligood), and Duke (Olivia Edward). Co-created with Louis C.K., it has a similar slice-of-life feel to his series, Louie. However, it’s far more hopeful and far more controlled with its storytelling....

Perhaps we don’t actually need a new angle. Perhaps we just need to accept that the old angles work very well, and that’s why superhero tales endure. Certainly that’s what Stefan Mohamed’s novel Bitter Sixteen does; it accepts that we live in that world of stories, and posits that everything that happens if a person was to develop super powers would be heavily influenced by all the films and books and comics that have gone before....

“It’s a composer’s dream for a show because it is like scoring a standalone film each week,” Gatt says of Blood Drive. “That being said, the idea with the score was to have a sonic signature and recurring themes that would glue each episode together regardless of what genre we were leaning into.” Gatt comes from a commercial scoring background, but as a result he had many different musical angles to play from when he was being looked at for the Blood Drive gig....

I remember when I was first watching The Sopranos, I thought it was a comedy. Whenever I told this to someone they thought I was joking or just wrong. Years later I read an interview with David Chase and he also thought it was a comedy. I didn’t tell anyone, because that would spoil the joke. Even if I was the only one laughing, I will not spoil a joke....

4.13 Face Off Has there ever been a show in the history of television where the creators have been as in love with their characters as they are on Breaking Bad? Which is not to say that they’re a particularly loveable bunch – quite the opposite, in fact, with Face Off cementing Walter White as maybe the most unpleasant protagonist in television history. But there is something about the way this show is written, in the way that every episode, character arc, and season arc is layered with so much care and attention to detail, that it feels as if it is being written by people who are themselves huge fans of the show, people who enjoy being surprised by the characters as much as we do, rather than a bunch of sweating hacks in a windowless room in Hollywood, desperately trying to figure out how they’re going to eke out another 13 episodes from this premise (or, worse still, how they’re going to dig themselves out of a narrative hole of their own making)....

Manson joins the Californication cast at exactly the right time. Coming out of a near death experience has Hank and Runckle re-assessing what is important in life. For Hank, he comes home to find Becca on a party binge, trashing Runckle’s house and experimenting with older, grisly men. There is no bigger train wreck on Californication than Atticus, so Hank brings Becca to the Fetch residence to witness the ugly side of rock and roll....

It feels like it’s been a long time coming, but finally, Castle returned to our screens this week. And the episode started off strong with Richard Castle (the mighty Nathan Fillion) running through a warehouse of some kind, glass shattering everywhere, gun in hand. When we left off last season, Castle had left for the Hamptons with his ex-wife/publisher, leaving Beckett right before she confesses her feelings (it was very stressful for fans)....

6.12 Deep Cover Two years ago, Nathan Fillion expressed his concern on Good Morning America that bringing Castle and Beckett together was a mistake: “You know what my personal view is, if they get together… I am old enough to remember Moonlighting. The ‘Moonlighting curse.’ I aim for a long, long Castle run.” Ah, yes. The Moonlighting curse. The assumption that despite the fact that most television viewers marry, pinning our hopes on happily ever after, the last thing we actually want to see is what happens after that wedding day....

6.8 Murder Is Forever Now the dialogue is not any better than usual. There’s a weird dichotomy when it comes to dialogue on the show. In the beginning, it was uniformly bad. By that, I mean it was cliché and worn thin. It was like the writers had created a random TV procedural dialogue generator and took most of their inspiration from that. As the years have gone by, this has not entirely disappeared, but it now largely only affects one kind of dialogue on the show: any time the established characters are talking to those involved in the case (witnesses, suspects, other law enforcement personnel), they tend to use this tired type of conversation....

8.16 Heartbreaker Heartbreaker is one of my favorite kinds of Castle episodes—if you ignore the first two minutes. As I have made it abundantly clear in my reviews, the strength of this show is its actors. Time and again, they save episodes that would otherwise be damned by uneven writing and misjudged instincts on the part of the new showrunners. Their individual skills and the chemistry they exude as a group is what keeps us holding on even when it seems like the show is spiralling downward....