There seems to be a kind of mini trend on British TV at the moment, with almost every popular genre show made in the UK changing up its entire cast, if not every year then every couple. Bedlam, the little-loved haunted asylum series made for Sky Living last year, may just have beaten all of their competition in speed if not style, as the original cast has been ousted after just six episodes....
As a temporary solution, George’s list – which also included eating a better diet and polishing his shoes – was, on paper, genius. Turns out that the beast cannot be so easily contained, however, and by the episode’s end he’d almost beaten the living daylights out of a young boy on a bus – mobile ringtones are very annoying, after all – and actually repeatedly punched oh-so-annoying head teacher (played by Vincent Franklin, most recently seen in The Thick Of It) in a particularly menacing manner....
1.4 Hero What’s more, Jimmy knows that it’s true. You can see it in his eyes, and in what it spurs him on to do. His blustering and attempts to take umbrage at the very idea of someone offering him a bribe are half-hearted at best, but when Betsy drops that particular bomb – and let’s not beat around the bush, she’s hardly a model of moral behaviour herself – it stops Jimmy in his tracks....
Black Sails Season 3 Episode 3 The pirates are dealing with the real bad ‘uns. Not with robbers, but with merchants, those folk who will backstab and thieve, but under guise of law. Fortunately for Rackham and company these people also spill secrets. In the middle of insulting Max, the leader of these despicable rogues spills the beans about the approach of Rogers and company. Hold it? Flint is a strategist?...
3.4 Blue Bell Boy Boardwalk Empire has larger ambitions than simply telling the story of Capone’s rise to power. Nevertheless, in this episode, Blue Bell Boy, Capone takes a leading role in a storyline that focuses on his family responsibilities. We’ve seen how touchy he is about his deaf son, all the more so when it appears the boy is being bullied at school. In a case of the apple falling very far from the tree, young Albert is weedy and reluctant to fight....
3.12 Margate Sands The more savvy characters learned to balance both. Chalky and Capone have established a personal dislike, but they can keep a lid on their differences when the job requires, and even find some common ground in the letting off of steam. Their ability to navigate the public and the private (Chalky’s use of his son in law, Capone’s new-found skill at holding his temper when faced with personal insults –for a while) is the key to their success....
Reckoning If the first season was about setting up the ‘legend’ of Arthur and the conflict between him and Morgan, then the series made the mistake of bogging down the proceedings with too many superfluous storylines – a prime example being Morgan and Sybil. However, the finale essentially cut the fat away from the storyline, killing off three of the show’s more useless characters in quick succession. Leontes, Igraine and Sybil – they have all gone the way of King Lot....
We’re now two episodes into the likely long process of getting to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Richard Castle’s wedding day disappearance in last season’s finale, and yet despite that, there was no skimping this week as the show split its focus nicely. Before we touch on the deeper revelations and the surprising closing moments, though, lets paddle our way back to normal a bit by discussing Beckett’s actual case-of-the-week....
Last week’s debut episode of Kevin Smith and AMC’s Comic Book Men brought a few laughs but was missing something. Sunday’s installment, Life After Clerks, thankfully brought more of the comic book of the show’s title, but there was also more of Kevin Smith’s posse. That’s not a bad thing. This week, Silent Bob’s mouthy partner Jay – a.k.a. actor Jason Mewes – pays an unexpected visit to the Secret Stash....
Greendale Community College could never be described as a place for particularly sane people, but this week the crazies took over the asylum – in one instance, literally, in Competitive Ecology. This, of course, allows the Greendale gang to beautifully spoof 40s noir movies, complete with inner monologue and just a hint of creepiness – it is Chang after all. And not only did we get a great spoofing, but we also got a rather large dose of the amazing Ken Jeong, keeping Chang just on the right side of horrific, and constantly hilarious....
So, let’s start with your animation background. Is your background mostly in claymation and stop-motion? What are the qualities, or the benefits, of working in those animation styles? For a producer, or in general? I think, for me the benefits are that you have a lot more freedom. It’s very much like a live-action shoot, so you’re kinda working in the real world – well, we think it’s the real world when we’re doing it!...
That’s what I say a lot of the time when a WWE Studios movie is announced. Like, just today, they announced a movie starring Seth Rollins, Wesley Snipes, and Anne Heche about an evil AI and I’m like, yeah! That sounds great! But it only “sounds” great. It probably won’t come close to hitting its potential. I wasn’t too into watching Countdown until seeing the trailer because despite being only a minute long, it made the movie seem completely bonkers....
Counterpart, which premiered last night (January 21) on Starz, takes place in a world where, 30 years before it starts, something happened to suddenly divide our universe into two parallel realities — where both society and history have gone in somewhat different directions and everyone has a double who may or may not lead a wildly different life. A state of uneasy détente exists between the two realities, and government agencies on both sides work hard to keep the vast majority of their populations from knowing that the other world exists....
1.2 The Serpent Somewhere in the pile of ideas that is Da Vinci’s Demons, there may very well be a good television show, but two episodes in it hasn’t emerged from the sketchbook into the realm of reality. Like the real Leonardo’s helicopter, the ideas are present but not fully realised. Indeed, there may be too many ideas for the show’s own good. There’s a lot going on in Da Vinci’s Demons....
2.2 The Blood Of Brothers For example, the character of Nico wasn’t a major player in the first series, but since his kidnapping by Riario, I can only assume he’s about to become more important to the show’s general plot. After all, he does get to hang out with the villain, and that’s always a step up from being the third sidekick of the hero. Here’s another fun tidbit about Nico: he’s one of history’s most noteworthy political theorists....
For those who do not remember, one of the most evocative images in the DC film that Snyder had the largest amount of creative control over, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, is that of a dead, adult Robin’s armor smeared in graffiti that could only be from the Joker. Bathed in garish “HAHAHAHAs,” the unsubtle implication is that the Joker killed one of Bruce Wayne’s sidekicks and surrogate sons, a Robin, and desecrated the remains....
1.2 Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go The writers went some way to make the Castithans villains from the outset, and much of what went on in this story rammed that home for those who weren’t paying attention last time. Part of their culture is honour-based, and by running from battle one of them must be tortured to death in public. Seems entirely reasonable, no? Well, we’re given the line that the town accepts cultural differences, which gives the Castithans the right to do whatever they’ve decided is right, in the sort of illogical way that only science fiction stories can try to present....
What he does, then, is kill people. But only the deserving – Dexter’s day job is to analyse blood spatter at crime scenes, his foster father was a cop, and his sister is currently trying to be one, so he’s in a position to know a lot about the criminal justice system, and he doesn’t like it when bad people get away with doing bad things. Like the priest who’s been systematically picking off his choir boys – nasty....
7.12 Surprise, Motherfucker But before I get on to the ‘dramatic’ major character exit, which has become a trademark Dexter season finale feature, what else did we discover here? To be pointed, that not much makes sense in the world of Dexter these days. We’ve got LaGuerta acting so mad that when holes start to appear in her paper-thin case, she looks even more disturbed than she probably is. We’ve got some excellent new scenes with Doakes that try to explain better his dislike for Dexter, on the basis that it was six years ago, and we’ve almost all forgotten they didn’t get on....
