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I originally intended to include Trainspotting in this article, but I decided to ask my followers on Twitter (comprising largely of DoG writers) to nominate their favourite scores, and this was Mr Horton’s. So given that I wanted to include only one film per filmmaker, out went Trainspotting, and in came A Life Less Ordinary. Ash’s titular track is without doubt the one that springs to mind when discussing the film, and quite rightly so, as it’s rather ace....

TAKE US FROM THE TOP: BEST SCENE(S) OF THE NIGHT: Once again, Deacon is the heart and soul of this show and his new found relationship or FWB or whatever we want to call it had some fun, playful moments. I also enjoyed all the close ups on Hayden Panettiere’s face when Avery was giving his “I wish I never met you” speech usually given by disgruntled teenagers. Jeff called someone who picked up before the phone rang and laid out his plan to sign Rayna’s daughters to his label with only the father’s consent....

TAKE US FROM THE TOP: Rayna gets the opportunity to be on the cover of Rolling Stone with a feature story, so she has to forgo family time for her career. This show does a great job of showing the sacrifices of this lifestyle; particularly with Rayna and Will’s storylines. Will comes home to see that Layla has finally gotten her act together by writing her version of Adele’s breakup album fueled from her hate-fire towards Will....

The executives at Netflix may or may not (probably not) have discussed Borges’ story in a recent board meeting, because there have been reports that the company plans to experiment with choose-your-own-adventure TV shows. The idea is that viewers will be able to make choices during the runtime of a show, directing characters down one forking path and not another. Should the hero run or stay? Should they trust their enemy?...

I love Once Upon a Time, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s a perfect show. No show that quietly has you concerned that someone has slipped you LSD can be without flaw. Creators Kitsis and Horowitz are great at having big, sprawling, breath-stopping ideas. Their passion for the characters in this world is the heart and soul of the show. Unfortunately, passion doesn’t always lead to sense or quality....

Outcast Episode 5 As Kyle Barnes travels farther down a road fraught with horrors hiding around every bend, Outcast continues to examine the demon whisperer’s self-imposed emotional exile. However, “The Road Before Us” reminds viewers that Kyle and Reverend Anderson aren’t the only ones haunted by the evil that lies concealed in Rome, WV. That said, the season’s fifth episode takes us on an understated journey that relentlessly builds momentum until we find ourselves in the middle of the chaos that Kyle calls home....

1.6 From The Shadows It Watches Every hero faces obstacles along the path to greatness, and though they approach their trials from different angles, both Kyle Barnes and Reverend Anderson make important progress after last week’s setbacks. From The Shadows It Watches continues to deftly explore the journeys both men take as they begin to put their lives back together in this week’s setup episode of Outcast. Patrick Fugit and Philip Glenister may not ever be rewarded for it with Emmy nominations, but that doesn’t mean their character portrayals don’t deserve recognition as both continue to convince viewers just how heavily their characters’ personal battles weigh them down....

Paranormal Activity 2 was broadly the same, but added rattling pots and pans (extremely high-quality pots and pans, I recall), a sentient robot pool cleaner and an injured dog. And one year on, we come to Paranormal Activity 3, which has all the elements we need for a decent, scary evening at the pictures: there are creepy kids with an imaginary friend, weird shapes lurking at the periphery of the screen, and lots of things that go bump in the night, all shot from a grainy first-person perspective....

2.6 Sokosha The idea of selling one’s soul is as old as literature. In 1587, a German chapbook called Historia von D. Johann Fausten by an author named Johann Spies caused a sensation. It was reprinted dozens of times, it inspired one of the first English language plays in the form of The Tragical History Of The Life And Death Of Doctor Faustus, and it was even one of the first movies filmed by Edison Studios, 1900’s Faust And Marguerite....

4.16 Close Encounters If we didn’t have enough clues pointing towards the fact that Ezra is bad news on Pretty Little Liars, then that old ‘knives in the punching bag’ definitely confirmed it. Assuming, as the show obviously wants us to, that Ezra was indeed the person who put them there to get Jake to back off, then colour me impressed. This episode, with the straight-to-business opener and appearance from Alison, was a step up from the slow and ponderous hours we’re usually thrown at this point in the season, and I really wonder what all of this fantastic build up is going to result in come season finale time....

4.3 Cat’s Cradle First up is Ella, who hasn’t been seen since around half-way through season three. It’s just a fly-in visit, however, as her boyfriend asks her to go with him to Austria for “less than a year.” She obviously didn’t get the memo that Aria and Mike (remember him?!?) won’t at all be okay with Byron taking care of them as her daughter says, but I guess Holly Marie Combs’ exit is more to do with behind-the-scenes stuff than actual story planning....

5.9 March Of Crimes It was another slow week for A on Pretty Little Liars, with the girls, their friends and their enemies doing a bang up job of pulling at the thread of their fragile lives all by themselves. March Of Crimes saw the fallout from the Zach incident as Ella’s engagement party arrives, as well as the apparent end to Hanna and Caleb’s co-dependent downward spiral (a product, as ever, of a classic Spencer rant) and the outing of Sydney as a potential hoodie in cahoots with Jenna....

With Johnson’s schemes for the trapped anomaly slowly unfolding, Danny is given the job of breaking into her ‘anti-ARC’ to try and see what nefarious plans she has up her sleeve. And in true Mission Impossible style, she uses a fake guard’s uniform and ‘hiding under a truck’ to get to the base, and then to make his way through the building’s man-sized air ducts to conveniently crawl through and find out all the bad guys’ cunning plans....

Despite the visceral, sensational and exploitable qualities of the subject, there are surprisingly few movies about cannibalism. I’m sure the film industry, not to mention the voracious appetites of the horror audience, could take a whole lot more. This is a college movie with well-known hazing tropes. Its blend of sexual awakening story with transgressional urges is well-worn to the point of inappropriate comfort. Even the sibling tensions played out bring to mind other, much loved films – Ginger Snaps most of all, and there’s no point beating around the bush or pretending the surprising amount of crossover between Ginger Snaps and Raw isn’t there, even while the films do diverge hugely too....

Agent Bellamy tells Sherriff Fred in the first scene of ]“Will” that a new strain of the flu has affected six Arcadians, all “Returned”—who seem to be the only ones affected by it. Maggie examines Jacob and Margaret, finding them in clean health. Somehow, after learning what we did about Margaret last week, it feels as if she’s behind the sickness, if not literally, at least symbolically. Carl hears about Arthur Holmes disappearing from Maggie’s clinic and hopes that this flu is a way to rid himself of his dreadful brother Mikey....

4.12 The Wounded Although O’Brien tries to assist Picard in understanding Maxwell, he’s offended by Macet’s suggestion that Maxwell is out for revenge and rejects the Cardassians’ attempts to forge a friendship with him. Because clearly O’Brien already has enough friends. The Enterprise manages to track down Maxwell’s ship, the Phoenix, but can only watch helplessly on the scanner as he destroys a Cardassian warship and a smaller transport ship, causing 650 deaths....

3.4 Your Father. My Friend. The excellent character work from that episode carries over into Your Father, My Friend, as Rose’s sighting of Alice/Matilda running away from her captors prompts Drake to seek out his inspector and return him to Whitechapel. Matilda leads them on a merry chase through the streets of Whitechapel until Reid notices a pattern to her behaviour that echoes the Ripper killings. Meanwhile, Susan’s dealings with Capshaw grow darker as her complicity with the train disaster threatens to come to light....

2.13 The Tell Tale Heart While all this is going on, self-proclaimed weird weirdo Jughead just calls to tell Betty he loves her. She is extremely dismissive, what with assisting in a felony and all, and Jug sits silent and surly for a second, probably before launching into some internal narrative about loyalty and honor and the Serpents and blah blah blah that I’m incredibly relieved we didn’t have to hear....

Vegas babyyyyyyy! This episode sends the Scorpion team to Sin City and takes a refreshing turn in an homage to Leaving Las Vegas. Walter returns to his lost love of liquor and goes off the wagon in a big, big way. After finding solace with a prostitute, he’s torn between her and Paige, and which woman he really belongs with. Meanwhile the rest of the cast finds themselves in a remake of Last Vegas, with Gallo leading the pack....