It’s a pertinent moment, a glimpse of a stone-cold classic motion picture in what I feel is a stone-cold classic motion picture. I’d rate both movies as being perfect masterpieces, but the convergence of the two feels very appropriate for other reasons. With his spaghetti westerns Sergio Leone, a foreign outside eye, deconstructed American mythology and, with Once Upon A Time In The West especially, grappled with the authenticity of a nation’s identity and how it was built....

Right off the bat, Mike and Bryan are charming me with their reference to one of my favorite Avatar episodes in this week’s title, but does it deliver? Well… Toph Beifong! TOPH. FUCKING. BEIFONG!!! What? What are you doing to me, show? What the holy hell? I was going to save all the Toph talk for the end of this review, but who are we kidding. It’s what everyone in the fandom is talking, nay, squeeing about, so we might as well just cut to the chase....

Kel Symons and Mathew Reynolds are righting that wrong with The Mercenary Sea (from Image Comics), going all in to craft a charming and visually compelling pulp adventure book about piracy on the high seas in the south pacific in 1938, swapping archeologist Indiana Jones for bootlegger Jack Harper. Speaking of that crew, it features the typical collection of disgraced and desperate types with nowhere better to go. I wish I could tell you more but I don’t want to spoil the spare backstory morsels that Symons and Reynolds leave out and the debut issue doesn’t spend a great deal of time going around the room to find out everyone’s turn ons and turn offs....

This part of the walkthrough looks at the fourteenth episode from The Mick’s second season. Previous installments can be found here. The Mick is a series that is always eager to tackle a broad new topic and filter it through its twisted, dysfunctional perspective. “The Church” broaches the area of religion and the existence of God, with each of the Pembertons having their own muddy take on the matter. The focus of the episode is on how Alba learns to accept church into her life as a means of bettering herself, but Mickey soon begins to chip away at her resolve....

3.10 We Are The Garrison It was fantastic to see the Musketeers being placed unequivocally front and centre. All four actors embraced their final moments in these characters and each shone. Writer and showrunner Simon Allen has done a good job to ensure that no one is short-changed in the final act, although for me the stand out moment was a small one (they so often are, aren’t they) with the Musketeers bantering with Athos about his impending fatherhood....

3.8 Prisoners Of War Prisoners Of War is an episode of two stories, one continuing the Musketeers’ chase for Grimauld and the threat against Paris from Louis’ death, and the other, the return of Milady and the more intimate danger she poses to our heroes. I have previously moaned about this series not getting on with the main arc and chasing irrelevant subplots down increasingly annoying rabbit holes. However, for once I’m surprised – Prisoners Of War works far better than it should considering the duality of the episode....

Until The Newsroom hits its stride, I’m keeping an eye on all Aaron Sorkin-related developments with this new section of the column. For now, everything in Sorkin’s universe is peachy with last week’s premiere episode checking in as the show’s second highest rated episode ever with 2.2 million viewers. You’d think The Newsroom would get a welcome spill over audience from True Blood, cable’s top program of the week, but the vampires that slay the Nielsen ratings were no help for McAvoy’s boys who took in a paltry 0....

All psychological thrillers should take place in glass-walled offices; characters being able to see but not hear what’s going on does half the work for you. The open-plan Glasgow architecture firm at the centre of The Replacement is the perfect incubator for rising star Ellen’s (Morven Christie) deepening paranoia. The transparent boxes also give her nowhere to hide. Every grievance she expresses and swipe she takes at maternity cover Paula (Vicky McClure) is out on display....

Well, actually, that’s not quite true. Returning for a third time to the teatime Who spin-off is darling-of-a-certain-generation, Floella “The Guv’noress” Benjamin. She’s back as Professor Rivers of the Pharos Institute and has invited Sarah Jane and the gang (sans Luke) to a ‘haunted’ mansion (Hogwarts Tim Burton style, according to Clyde) in need of some ghost-busting. Problem is, ole SJ don’t believe in spooks… However, it does make you wonder why the Beeb have decided to broadcast the story this week....

Indeed, The Shape of Water is a sumptuous ode by del Toro to the monsters he loves and the creatures he fears, perhaps even more so in recent times. Set in a chilly and rain-soaked 1962, the filmmaker returns to the generation that was still growing up with Universal Monsters being replayed on their television screens, and an America that is often worshipped by the current political establishment as the good old days....

The Simpsons: Season 27 Episode 18. Marge and Lisa have had their differences before, on average about four episodes per season, but this goes to the core of the very personality of each character. Marge wants her daughter to be happy, just like everyone else, and to stay out of trouble and the best way to do that is to put a smile on and clap along with the beat....

You can’t help but side with Peter Mannion MP in this week’s policy jamming and playground episode of The Thick Of It. His sarcastic heckling and open-mouthed disbelief are the only sane response to the utter wankery of Stewart Pearson’s knowledge-truffling, ball-throwing “Mind Campf”, as anyone who’s spent even a single excruciating moment at a corporate away-day will know. Despite there being a touch of fish-in-barrel-shooting from the Thought Camp scenes (events like it are more or less self-satirising), this week’s episode was another triumph....

1.1 Pilot As it turns out, there’s something different about this troubled young white male. The voice in his head is Cara (Peyton List), and she’s a member of an organization known as the Tomorrow People. Alongside mentor/future love triangle partner John (Luke Mitchell), Cara is trying to rescue Stephen by… well, kidnapping him in the dead of night, luring him to an abandoned subway station turned high-tech Ninja Turtles lair complete with faux-JARVIS talking artificial intelligence computer system, and teaching him some sub-Matrix martial arts skills....

1.8 Thanatos Jedikiah is now in the heart of the Tomorrow People’s resistance headquarters, and it’s only a matter of time before they have to do something with him. Let him go? Kill him? There are multiple options, all of them bad, because Jed is the only person who might be able to explain what Thanatos means, and why Stephen saw his father say it to him during a near-death experience not too long ago....

This review contains spoilers if you haven’t yet seen the episode. Meanwhile, Uncle Mason goes on a secret trip into the woods. Tyler, having grown suspicious about his behavior, decides to secretly follow him. Tyler’s trip leads him to a secret underground tomb full of holding cells, chains and clawed walls. It’s not tricky to work out what’s been there. Caroline and Matt, meanwhile, are having trouble finding common ground, since she can’t be in direct sunlight....

3.12 The Ties That Bind It’s been clear since The Vampire Diaries came back from its winter break that the showrunners are stepping the mythology up a gear for the season’s second half. While this year hasn’t quite reached last season’s level of plotting and amount of characters to keep track of, the show is always more fun when we’re struggling to keep up, and this week offered some much needed originals action away from Mystic Falls....

The Governor takes care of Maggie’s interrogation after Glenn’s proves useless. The Governor removes Maggie’s handcuffs. He then instructs Maggie to take her shirt off, then her bra. He takes his belt off and walks over to her. He acts like he is going to rape her if she doesn’t tell him where the group is. Luckily, he is just bluffing. He then brings Maggie into Glenn’s room and threatens to kill one of them....

4.7 Dead Weight Given the past actions of Philip Blake, The Governor, Brian, whatever you want to call him, we know what he’ll do to keep his family safe, and that’s pretty much anything. He’ll lie, cheat, kill, steal, torture, threaten with rape… if you have something he needs, or something his group needs, or if you’re standing in the way of the goals of his group? Forget about it; you’re a dead man....

I wish that the show had gone all the way with Eugene’s secret. Abraham and the others reach Washington only for Eugene to reveal the truth. Of course, that probably wouldn’t have worked due to the budget and source material. But it would’ve been nice for The Walking Dead to have kept its cards close to the chest for just a little while longer. I was having fun guessing when Eugene would drop the bomb....

True Detective Season 2 Episode 8 True Detective ended its second season exactly as it should and it’s somehow unsatisfying. The finale reminded me of one of my favorite movies, The Treasure of Sierra Madre. In that film, three down-on-their-luck prospectors tap a vein of gold running off a mountain. They mine enough gold to last two of them the rest of their lives. We know that Frank C. Dobbs would probably blow it all and be down on his luck again, but he doesn’t make it to the end of the film....