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Awix (3310 KP) rated The Avengers - Season 4 in TV

Aug 17, 2020

The Avengers - Season 4

1965 | Comedy, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Thriller

7.5

(2 Ratings)

TV Season Rating

Difficult not to use words like iconic to describe this; the two seasons with Diana Rigg (this is the first of them) is what defines this series in the public recollection. Gentleman spy John Steed and his leather-clad friend Emma Peel investigate a wide range of threats to British society as we know it, ranging from the relatively mundane (attempts to assassinate visiting dignitaries) to the positively outlandish (man-eating Martian plants with mind-control powers).

Occasionally a bit tonally uneven, but still mostly a joy to watch even after all these years: the two leads are clearly enjoying themselves hugely and so are the characters (most of the time). The best episodes have a sort of intelligent silliness about them which is almost irresistible: they sustain a mixture of spy spoof, black comedy, and science fiction which many have tried to copy but few have achieved. This is the Avengers in its imperial phase.

Kudos

Awix (3310 KP) rated The Vast of Night (2019) in Movies

Jun 6, 2020

The Vast of Night (2019)

2019 | Mystery, Sci-Fi

7.0

(2 Ratings)

Movie Rating

High-concept, low-budget SF movie. It's the night of the year's first basketball game somewhere in Texas, and most people are watching. But small-town DJ Everett and switchboard operator Fay aren't, and they start to get strange reports of mysterious radio signals and peculiar lights. The same phrase recurs again and again: there's something in the sky...

Framed as a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits pastiche, and while the subject matter is certainly similar, much of the style is not: long takes, either static or mobile, rattling dialogue, a sort of self-consciousness about form which is only to be expected in a directorial debut. Interesting subtext about the aliens' agenda and the people prepared to speak up about their experiences (generally speaking, it's people from the lowest strata of society). Genuinely tense and even a bit eerie in places: Rod Serling would never have written something so oblique, but I think he would have appreciated its quality regardless.