This review contains spoilers. “When you’ve cut someone’s bum off and eaten it, you kind of go, well, better try something different!” Steve Pemberton told us at the Inside No. 9 series three launch. In Empty Orchestra, a (whisper it) love story with a (keep whispering) happy ending, something different is exactly what he and Reece Shearsmith have done. Compared to the thoroughgoing nastiness of The Riddle Of The Sphinx, this one’s as refreshing as a sea breeze....

This episode, we get to watch everyone go crazy. Not that they had very far to go. Jack decides to vent his spleen on a (really cute) Priest. And then he vents his, uh, fists, on Amy’s boss. Gary decides to leave a (really depressing) final voicemail for his wife. And Jazz guy cannot seem to handle reincarnation, so he is leaning heavily on alcohol to make the transition. Which might not be so bad if it hadn’t been the booze which killed him during Prohibition....

iZombie Season 4, Episode 7 When Major stood by and supported Chase Graves when Mama Leone was executed, perhaps you could have blamed it on the shock of the moment—he didn’t really believe Chase was going to go through with it—but, as iZombie Season 4 races onward, Major continues to make decisions that prop up the increasingly totalitarian reign of Fillmore-Graves. Censorship is not a good look, Major. Neither is violently harrassing reporters or covering it all up....

On the edge of a wheat field, a young man waits, gun in hand. A white sheet is spread out a metre or so in front of him. The young man checks his watch, and looks back at the white sheet. Checks his watch again, and looks back at the sheet. For a science fiction film about time travel, Looper’s opening is wilfully, self-consciously quiet. It’s written and shot with the same swagger of confidence that its maker, Rian Johnson, brought to the high school detective thriller Brick, and the long-con drama of The Brothers Bloom....

Fittingly, then, that her episode is entitled “The Other Woman” – a title that highlights Juliet’s function in the group dynamic. The tension on screen every time Jack, the island’s most unlikely pimp, pays Juliet more attention than he pays Kate is brilliantly palpable, and makes Sawyer’s harsh words to Kate about her tendancy to bed-hop ring particularly true. But what of the Others? One turns up in this episode to warn Juliet that Daniel and Charlotte are heading to the power station where they intend to gas the entire island....

It’s here at the top I should confess that I have never seen the original MacGyver series, which enjoyed a respectful run from 1985 – 1992. However, like most people, I’m familiar with its cultural touchstones and still found a way to feel indignant about the reboot’s shabby handling of the beloved hero. Going into the reboot, we all know that MacGyver is a non-violent secret agent who uses his genius and near superhuman resourcefulness to get him out of sticky situations....

Five years later, Lucas’s twin brother Jeffrey (also Coster-Waldau) has spent his entire savings looking for his lost brother and those missing children. It took a lot of time, but after a coincidental urination trip uncovers a clue in the form of said cabin, the missing girls Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) are found alive. Turns out, they had a little help surviving on their own in the form of Mama (Javier Botet), and she’s not exactly pleased to see her little girls go off to the big city to live with Jeffrey and his punk rock girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain)....

Man On A Ledge at least begins with a sense of rhythm and attention to detail. A well-to-do businessman (Sam Worthington) marches confidently into the reception of a posh New York hotel, books out room 2105 – which boasts a particularly fetching view of the island – orders lobster for his final meal, and steps out of the window onto the ledge. It’s only here that director Asger Leth hints that there’s something not quite right about this apparently wealthy chap: his fingernails are dirty, his knuckles scabbed....

But according to this new interpretation by Cherie Priest, she might have had good reason to. Maplecroft by Cherie Priest puts an extra sinister and supernatural twist on the true story. It most closely follows Lizzie, her older sister Emma, and the local Doctor Seabury two years after the famous murders. The writing carries the elevated, educated prose of well-to-do New Englanders of that time. The writing is lyrical and describes even the most gruesome scenes in neat, poetic terms....

We’ve no idea if Donkey Kong is programmed to be such an insufferable simian or if we’re just unlucky, but the point remains the same: MK8 shares the same impressive skill as its predecessors in convincing you that make-believe characters have the capacity for hate, spite, malice, pride… the list goes on (especially when it comes to that nasty brute – and on another note, who’s he trying to impress with that tie anyway?...

Recent Marvel comics’ in-Universe history has seen a relative resurgence in British presence. Cynically this may be seen as Marvel’s latest attempt at developing a more international market for its comics. But this is not necessarily a bad thing given that the Marvel Universe has traditionally paid more attention to the USA, outer space and fictional countries. Although, as you’d expect given that he has a great big Union Jack on his chest and the potential power to go toe-to-toe with the biggest Marvel heavy hitters, Brian Braddock has been the main way of symbolising the UKs representation in Marvel comics....

As if to underline his stupidity, the first thing that Arthur does this week is kill a unicorn, because, as we all know, they’re excellent between two slices of malted loaf. They’re told this by the magical Frank Finlay, going by the name of Anhora this Panto season. He doesn’t say much, but his appearance entirely knocks John Hurt’s Dragon off the budget, who doesn’t even get to show off his flying-while-connected-to–a-chain footage....

Then again, it’s arguable that director Darren Aronofsky’s been making off-beat horror movies off and on since his career started with the whine of a drill in 1998. His debut, Pi, was the most oppressive film ever made about maths. Requiem For A Dream‘s addiction drama had more than its share of nightmare moments. Ballet saga Black Swan came laced with the exploitation edge of 70s Italian cinema. With Mother!...

3.5 Runtime Error A crowd of protestors is gathered around Evil Corp’s Midtown headquarters, protesting….well, everything. Protesting Evil Corp’s role in the financial crash, protesting the U.N. Security Council’s upcoming vote to annex the Congo to China (which passes), protesting because it just feels good to yell when unemployment is at 26% and the world is going to shit all around you. Protestors have been gathered outside of the Evil Corp building pretty much every day since 5/9....

2.1 Broken The game-changing end to season one left Once Upon a Time with a lot of ground to cover at the start of its new season. That made for an episode jam-packed with plot development, but a little sparse on the inventiveness and close character examinations that were the highlight of the season one. This was perhaps unavoidable under the circumstances, and now that a direction has been set for the season, the show has freed up some breathing-room for itself to expand into the new stage it has set....

Outlander Season 2, Episode 12 Outlandertook a surprisingly low-key approach in its season’s penultimate episode, keeping the focus off of Jamie and Claire and putting it, instead, on two sets of brothers: the MacKenzies and the Randalls. The result was a quietly powerful hour that saw Dougal MacKenzie and Jack Randall say goodbye to their kinder brothers forever. Luckily, we and Claire are distracted from this fact and our knowledge of the future by the arrival of Mary Hawkins and Alex Randall into town....

As with all origin stories, the first film had a lot to do within the constraints of a family film that had rather a lot to prove to an audience of cynical parents and bored young ‘uns. This film, by contrast, can simply get through by playing in the world it’s built for itself, but yet there’s so much more to enjoy here. This fake, storybook London is such a rich universe with endless supply of new adventures for the Browns....

Page Eight is a story about the integrity of the British intelligence services and that of the intelligence they receive. Broadcast as we await publication of the report on the Chilcot Inquiry, and coming hard on the heels of Hackgate, Hare could hardly have chosen a more pertinent subject than the provenance of the information gathered in our information age. It is, David Hare insists, a complete fiction. Bill Nighy plays Johnny Worricker, a suave spook in a dark blue suit who discovers an incriminating line on page eight of an MI5 document....

I don’t think I’m going out on much of a limb to suggest that, at the very least, those of us who have battled to the end of the show expected at least some kind of explanation and/or resolution. That, or a box of very expensive chocolates delivered to our doors. But, the realists that we are, we’d have taken just the courtesy of an ending. But apparently not. According to one of the commenters on the last review (nate1970, thank you very much), Paradox has a two-series story arc, which is why we didn’t get a proper resolution here....