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This is a problem faced by Cold Weather, the new film from writer-director, Aaron Katz, which collides lo-fi aesthetics with the narrative trappings of the detective thriller. When scrutinised on such a modular level, the film seems to be worryingly close to Brick, the 2005 neo-noir that transported hardboiled Raymond Chandler-isms to a suburban American high school. However, thankfully, Cold Weather has qualities wholly its own. With its gentle pacing and subtle, deadpan humour, Cold Weather slowly builds up our relationship with its characters and their odd chemistry....

Admittedly, my own reaction to Fincher’s involvement with the US Dragon Tattoo was almost as cynical. Fincher’s well-known as a maker of stylish films, yet the Swedish movie was itself stylishly shot and often extremely pretty to look at; surely, bringing Fincher in was an attempt to fix something that wasn’t broken in the first place? Seven proved that Fincher was a great director of thrillers. Fight Club showed that he could make an unusual and mordent satire within the Hollywood system....

As Liber8 escapes scrutiny, though, someone needs to pay, and there’s a bit of a disconnect with the murders from last week – the gas attack and Betty’s death – and the thefts in this episode. The older crimes are being pinned on Greypoint Security tough guy, Neelon, while the high tech thefts this week go largely unsolved. The parkour burglar gives up Neelon, so does that mean Sonmanto, who owns Greypoint, hired the thief as well?...

The plot follows New York economics professor Rachel Chu (Fresh Off the Boat actress Constance Wu), who travels to Singapore with his boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding) to meet his mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) and attend his best friend’s wedding. However, Rachel learns that not only is he super-rich, but he is one of Singapore’s most eligible bachelors – quickly making her enemy no.1 to local socialites, as well as the closed-minded Eleanor....

Doctor Who fans had the Target series, which brought classic tales back to life and sold by the bucket load. Blake’s 7 fans didn’t fare quite so well. The opening four episodes of the first series were novelized at the time by author Trevor Hoyle, and were published by Sphere Books. To say Darrow enjoys himself would be a serious understatement. He gives it his all and you can almost see him with that famous ‘Avon grin’ as he reads out the lines....

I’m gonna level with you. As a superhero fan, I like when things get operatic. I like when they get high-concept. I like when they’re earnest and heightened and melodramatic. And this episode of Daredevil absolutely nailed all of that. Personally, I find Matt’s arguments about the sanctity of life compelling, especially since he went through his own journey on the subject in Season One when he thought about whether or not to kill the Kingpin....

Consisting of David Chalmin (B for Bang), Massimo Pupillo (Mike Patton/Thurston Moore) and Chris Corsano (Bjork), Dimension X has taken these original radio plays and given them new life by pitching and looping an almost freeform jazz soundtrack, never distracting from the narrative but adding fresh drama and horror. This album is a treat for any sci-fi fan and a wonderful homage to the golden age of radio. Where did the original idea for the album come?...

It’s rare to come across a book that attempts to address film on all three of those levels at the same time, but In Glorious Technicolor! gives it a good shot. It’s described in the introduction as, “an impressionistic map of the way film has entered our lives, criss-crossing with our experience and permeating our values.” The thrill of seeing something that moves you, that gives you a heightened perception of life for the hours after seeing it, strays into the realms of magic....

As far as the rest of it, I feel like there are too many plot holes for me to really get on board with the story. Why does Septimus do what he does? Why get involved? What was he hoping to accomplish? And why bother telling us about the plot Septimus and Sir are cooking up, only to never actually deal with it? Surely there was a simpler way of introducing the time travel aspect....

In a word: wow. For six seasons the story has flirted with the whole idea of Dexter being revealed to others, and by that I mean people who are alive, not just pre-imminent death. We then return to the critical point at the end of season six where Debra walks in on the demise of Travis Marshal, as if the series never actually paused for nine months. Their conversation is a difficult one, where Dexter lies very poorly, and Debra is pretty much willing to accept whatever he says, initially....

Michael Scott (author of the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series, lets his love of myth and folklore seep through in this tale which pitches Jamie McCrimmon and the Second Doctor against evil from the dawn of time. It also features a lot of continuity references (cunning aliases, Atlantis, alliances with untrustworthy alien races, The Highlanders, and Vengeance on Varos all crop up), and an ending that will divide opinion; I thought it worked quite well, the explanation combining seemingly disparate plots points, but possibly for those of you of the ‘No, stop that....

The Doctor is back! And this time he’s brought with him a cornucopia of superhero riffs and references as a special Christmas treat for all of us here at Den of Geek. As is traditional, here are our viewing notes for the episode, as we try to explain the callbacks, the allusions, and the things that definitely weren’t intentional but are fun to think about anyway. And as ever, if you’ve spotted something we’ve missed – very likely, as it’s Christmas evening and we’ve been on the sherry – feel free to share it in the comments section!...

Fans who currently eschew audio Who for the live-action version might be interested to know that two of the audio stories were promoted to live-action treatment by Big Finish supporter Russell T Davies: Jubilee (season one’s Dalek) and Spare Parts (season two’s Cyberman two-parter Rise Of The Cybermen and Age Of Steel. There is a shift in what people are doing [regarding obtaining audio]. We’ve actually looked online and we think somewhere in the region of about 75% of the people who listen to Big Finish are doing so illegally, which is substantial....

Firstly, the plot. The story here was of a miracle fat loss pill, that ultimately spawned the Adipose, small, cute-ish creatures made of fat with one eye firmly on the merchandising market. They were quite good little critters in a tidy, if unspectacular story that had some parallel with last year’s Gridlock in that it took a modern day tabloid football and projected it. Still, there was some other healthy stuff going on in the episode, and surprisingly, Catherine Tate topped the bill....

It’s a standalone episode in the right place in the series, though, with the Doctor facing up to the fact that his demise is creeping up on him, even if we’re basically getting more of what we already know. In the pre-credits sequence, we find him on something of a farewell tour, as he arrives at Craig’s front door. Inevitably, when the Doctor turns up, trouble isn’t too far away (flickering lights are always a good sign), and if you’ve seen the trailers for Closing Time, you’ll already have a fair idea just what form this trouble takes....

I’ll cover these aspects first, because, unlike the makers of Dollhouse, I find flipping back and forth irritating when I’m trying to relay proceedings on Geek. There is a November and Ballard sub-plot, but it doesn’t really go anywhere substantial either. Its only real contribution is for Ballard to get her fingerprints, which he then uses to convince his female friend in the FBI that he’s not criminally insane, and that the Dollhouse might be real....

In the end stages of any faltering relationship, when it’s all but dead and buried and the mental dividing-up of belongings has begun, a destabilising flash of what first brought you together can blow in from nowhere. Are we making a mistake, you think, chucking all this in? We used to be good together, didn’t we. Didn’t we? This week’s Downton Abbey was just that sunny moment, a visitor from days past whose reappearance reminded us why we were so keen to wrap Downton’s cosy duvet around ourselves in the first place....

Dragon Ball Super Episode 5 Now that’s the Dragon Ball Super that we’ve been waiting for! This week’s episode is almost entirely dominated with some good old fashioned brawling and a nice little primer on Goku’s various abilities and transformations if you’ve been living under an anime rock for the past two decades, or you know, never googled the words “Goku” and “fanart” before. There’s a lot of long-haired pictures of Earth’s favorite Saiyan out there....

Dragon Ball Super Episode 52 “Gohan’s a far cry from the warrior that you knew as a boy…” The last episode of Dragon Ball Super took a look at Future Trunks’ touching bond with Future Mai and this installment carries on with this enlightening character study. This new entry pivots from Mai and looks at Future Trunks’ connection with Gohan, as the shell-shocked character continues to function as a fantastic foil for these long-running warriors....

In honor of the premiere of the series on Sunday, we got the opportunity to strap ourselves into the dream chair with the show’s creator, Daniel Stessen, and Jon Gries, who portrays the doctor responsible for all of this mad science. We touch base on their personal experiences with dreams, the show’s influences, and the joys of “British everything.” Daniel Stessen: I mean, we do not know why they happen....