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And what if all of that went away, so that you couldn’t hear any of it anymore? How much would your life change? Quite a bit. That is the general premise of Unheard: The Story Of Anna Winslow, my new found footage audio thriller, available now across the world through Audible. In it a young foreign student, Melissa, at a university in northern England, begins an investigation into the disappearance of a fellow student (the titular Anna Winslow)....

A Simple Favour, though, ultimately has its foot in both camps. On the one hand, it’s a twisty, Hitchcock-hat-tipping thriller (right down to Theodore Shapiro’s terrific score), and on the other a very funny comedy. It sometimes treads an unusual and not always successful line between the two. But then conversely, it works in its own way as both. But her life turns when she encounters Blake Lively’s Emily, who, let’s charitably say, is less interested in getting on with people....

And this week, Ghost Rider went from an intriguing thread of the Agents of SHIELD tapestry to downright badass. It all happens when Coulson, May, Daisy, Mack and Reyes go to the prison Reyes’ uncle is currently incarcerated in. The agents know that to find the Darkhold, they will need Uncle Eli Morrow to help them find and read the ancient evil tome. You see, that mysterious ghost woman went after her comatose husband this week, the same husband that Eli Morrow assaulted years ago....

American Dad Season 12 Episode 19 “Before you ask, James Garfield is in no way related to Garfield the cat. I know, I was as surprised as you are.” Stan is seen facing an uphill battle as he ropes Hailey into President’s Day festivities, a tradition for the two of them that has become a growing burden for her. The focus on Stan and Hailey’s issues also means we don’t get to spend an episode measuring Jeff’s success as a dog walker, which is unfortunate....

The series has been on air for over a decade and crossed over networks as TBS greedily snatched it when the opportunity came. Now in the middle of its 12th season, American Dad just hit the milestone of its 200th episode, and it did not disappoint. There are few people more qualified to weigh in on all things Dad than executive producer and co-showrunner Matt Weitzman, who has been with the show since its inception....

American Dad Season 14 Episode 12 Watching the defusing of a bomb and the everyday antics of the anti-terrorism unit on a peaceful island community is weirdly satisfying in the bizarre set piece that sets off “Bazooka Steve” (has a starfish ever been used as a sheriff’s badge before, because that’s just straight up smart). Steve suddenly pops up in this introduction that’s then effectively punctuated by Roger asking “What the fuck are we doing here?...

American Dad Season 14 Episode 17 “This is my origin story. Like Batman! Whose parents were bats.” Francine has always been one of American Dad’s most interesting characters, even if the show does tend to underplay her significance. Francine’s history has a certain mystification to it that’s not present for any of the rest of its cast (save Roger and maybe Klaus). Accordingly, episodes that decide to deal with Francine’s childhood and past tend to reveal fascinating dimensions to her character....

American Dad Season 14 Episode 19 When you’ve been doing a show for fourteen seasons, it’s understandable to see its cast of characters finding themselves in a number of romantic situations with each another. Experimentation (or desperation, in some cases) is the key to keeping something feeling fresh and surviving. Accordingly, through its many years, American Dad has explored certain romantic gambles like Roger and Francine, Roger and Hayley, Hayley and Snot, Hayley and Bullock, Hayley and Reginald, and even Stan and Steve during some bizarre virtual reality shenanigans....

The beginning of the episode marks a return to the present day storyline where police detectives are entering the building where all the murder and mayhem was last happening. It doesn’t take the detectives long to find something shocking, as they immediately shine their flashlights upon the bodies of all the characters we’ve met thus far, excluding Teresa, the last remaining half of the lovers. The episode doesn’t return to the present-day again until the end, when the detectives receive a telephone call on Leo’s phone....

American Horror Story: Season 5, Episode 11 After a two week hiatus, Hotel picks up right where it left off — with Liz Taylor and Iris bursting in on the Countess with guns blazing. Unfortunately the two vigilantes are robbed of their vengeance when Donovan wraps himself around the Countess becoming a(n) (in)human shield. Of course, since both ladies are packing two firearms apiece there should have been enough bullets flying around to kill them both regardless but you know, artistic license and all that....

Halloween Part 1 The two men, Chad (Zachary Quinto) and his husband Patrick (Teddy Sears), are there to make the house look charming and fun… just like they tried to do in 2010 before their murder/suicide (or possible double murder) happened. Of course, the two gay ghosts aren’t just there to make things nicer at Murder House, they’re also there to stir up a little discord. Patrick tries to seduce Ben, while Chad and Vivien have a nice little discussion of their respective family problems, and how the best way to sniff out a cheater is to check his cell phone records....

Aregento’s Dracula 3D is a familiar (if slightly skewed version) of the original Bram Stoker novel. If you’re keeping score, it probably takes no more liberties with that original story than many other film adaptations, it’s simply the way that it takes those liberties that can be a little disorienting. There are so many inversions of the traditional Dracula story in here that they very nearly invalidate themselves. Keeping Dracula in his home country while Jonathan, Mina, and Van Helsing come to him may be trying to say something about Western imperialism, but if it is, I can’t make heads or tails of it....

2.6 The Grey Sisters Jason is infuriated and hunting down Medea for her attempt to kill Ariadne. As he chases her through the forest, he’s unable to catch her and threatens instead to kill her. After chasing down but failing to capture Medea, Jason makes it clear that he will kill her but, with the Queen’s life in danger, he, Hercules and Pythagoras return to Atlantis, passing Ariadne into the care of The Oracle....

Well, that’s all true (apart from the first point – but more on that later). But try to watch the show on its own terms. You can normally tell a good programme because it will stick to an exact formula every week, but never quite manage to wear it out, and Hotel is no different. A selection of the rich and/or famous – footballers, reality TV stars, the mafia – check into the hotel....

Following the, frankly, now pointless pub interview episode, she was this time left holding the baby. Literally. I understand that this was intended to show how much she has missed out on in life as she was taken from this earth so young and that here was an opportunity to feel human, to act human, again but, in truth, it made for several utterly forgettable scenes. Some clever ideas aside (ghost babies need the room to be cold and not warm, scary ghost stories make them happy rather than fairy stories and nursery rhymes) lingering scenes of Annie shushing the little fella (very cute he was, by the way) and attempting to look after him were ultimately rather slight emotionally, leading to the conclusion that Annie’s distress by the episode’s end felt a bit disingenuous....

1.11 Magical Thinking Magical Thinking is the penultimate episode of Billions season one and it deserves credit for not acting like it. The end of a season is when the action is supposed to be ramping up, not beginning to wrap up, but after last week’s explosive (and somewhat confusing) conclusion to the saga of Donnie Caan, Billions wisely takes a step back and slows things down. But it does so in a winking, fairly transparent way....

Jeremy’s stab wound is almost completely healed, but he’s still getting worse and has an increasingly worrisome fever. With this in mind, the search for answers becomes that much more urgent as it has become obvious that what is keeping Jeremy from getting better is some type of poison. Since Zach is doing everything he can to not talk, Elena goes out to find Groupie Girl and try to get some answers from her, since she’s the one who stabbed Jeremy....

In the future according to Charlie Brooker and co-writer Konnie Huq, motion-sensitive technology will make prisoners of us all. We’ll earn money by pedalling endlessly on exercise bikes – possibly a green energy source, but perhaps a means of keeping a directionless proletariat physically occupied – and then spend our evenings in a cell of gigantic HD monitors, where we’re numbed by a diet of soft porn, bad comedy and reality TV....

Still, the series was initially presented as a prequel to the popular Robert Louis Stevenson novel, Treasure Island. And as a kind of preface, there is always the possibility of returning to this world of grim and gritty pirates down the road. I posed that question to Shotz himself during a roundtable interview, and he revealed the producers and Starz have discussed this very thing. “Making Treasure Island, I think, is an interesting idea that we have definitely talked about,” Shotz said....

2.5 Gimcrack & Bunkum Over recent episodes I have noted how Boardwalk Empire has matured into a serious drama, unfolding at a stately pace while keeping several plotlines spinning nicely. It’s a fact that has been lost on the editors of the show’s trailers, who have made a sterling effort to cram every frame of violence and high drama into their adverts. Anyone drawn into watching the show after seeing a trailer could be forgiven for thinking that it is little more than an opera of violence with a bigger body count than the Second World War....