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A Snowball in Hell
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If society has the B-list celebrities it deserves, it now has a killer to match. Except that Simon...
Bricking It
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When siblings Dan and Hayley Daley inherit their late grandmother’s derelict Victorian farmhouse,...
David McK (3721 KP) rated She-Hulk: Attorney at Law in TV
Oct 16, 2022
I'm sorry to say this, but - to me, at least - it feels like Marvel has been on something of a decline ever since 'Avengers: Endgame', with none of the Disney+ TV series (all of which have been unique in their format, at least), really 'sticking the landing'.
I could probably best describe this by the 6 words I heard my mum (who doesn't really watch any of the Marvel stuff) say when she saw a bit of an episode of this:
"What on earth is this rubbish?"
While, personally, that was maybe a bit strong for me - I wouldn't go quite as far as calling it rubbish - it does more-or-less reflect my feelings on the show: for a (supposed) sit-com, there's very little funny in it, with what comedy there is being painful to watch rather than amusing.
Does bring Charlie Cox's Daredevil back into the fold, though (eventually), and really REALLY leans heavily into trolling its own fans ...
I could probably best describe this by the 6 words I heard my mum (who doesn't really watch any of the Marvel stuff) say when she saw a bit of an episode of this:
"What on earth is this rubbish?"
While, personally, that was maybe a bit strong for me - I wouldn't go quite as far as calling it rubbish - it does more-or-less reflect my feelings on the show: for a (supposed) sit-com, there's very little funny in it, with what comedy there is being painful to watch rather than amusing.
Does bring Charlie Cox's Daredevil back into the fold, though (eventually), and really REALLY leans heavily into trolling its own fans ...
David McK (3721 KP) rated Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) in Movies
Mar 11, 2023
Maybe I'm just starting to get a bit burned out on the relentless release pace of the MCU, but - for me- I feel like it's been on a bit of a downward trend since the end of the Infinity Stones Saga (with Avengers: Endgame)
I also miss the somewhat-heightened reality of the earlier Marvel movies: like the original Iron Man, say, or even The Winter Soldier.
The reason I say that?
Because this takes place, almost exclusively, in the quantum realm first mentioned in the original Ant-Man, really only being book-ended by the 'real' world.
This is also - or so I've read - the first in what is termed as Marvel Phase 5, introducing (for any who didn't make it to the end of the Loki TV show!) the next big bad, in the form of Jonathan Major's Kang the Conqueror (who steals pretty much every scene he is in here)
I also miss the somewhat-heightened reality of the earlier Marvel movies: like the original Iron Man, say, or even The Winter Soldier.
The reason I say that?
Because this takes place, almost exclusively, in the quantum realm first mentioned in the original Ant-Man, really only being book-ended by the 'real' world.
This is also - or so I've read - the first in what is termed as Marvel Phase 5, introducing (for any who didn't make it to the end of the Loki TV show!) the next big bad, in the form of Jonathan Major's Kang the Conqueror (who steals pretty much every scene he is in here)
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2494 KP) rated The Big Boat to Bye-Bye in Books
Feb 20, 2026 (Updated Feb 20, 2026)
Blackmail and Murder in the World of Puppets
Pete Ingalls has a new client - the producers of a puppet TV show for kids. Someone has gotten a hold of the very adult gag reel and is blackmailing them. As Pete investigates, he finds a dead body. Can he solve both crimes?
This is a different series since Pete is not who he thinks he is. All that is set up in the first book, and we don’t get the background here. It does play into the philosophizing we get in the book, but that should have been cut back. The main plot is good with some great twists. The ending is a bit convoluted, but it does work. The book has a lot of humor, which made me laugh at times and made me cringe at others. Overall, I’m glad I finally pulled this off my shelves and read it.
This is a different series since Pete is not who he thinks he is. All that is set up in the first book, and we don’t get the background here. It does play into the philosophizing we get in the book, but that should have been cut back. The main plot is good with some great twists. The ending is a bit convoluted, but it does work. The book has a lot of humor, which made me laugh at times and made me cringe at others. Overall, I’m glad I finally pulled this off my shelves and read it.
Kirk Bage (1775 KP) rated Moonlighting in TV
Aug 6, 2020
Contains spoilers, click to show
Another dip into the retro TV archive as part of that odd period in lockdown when all I could do for my watching fix was find old shows with full episodes on You Tube. My favourite show when I was a teenager happened to be one of those, with most of seasons 1 and 5 out there, and a small selection from the middle years.
If you were to make a time capsule to show aliens what the mid to late 80s looked like, look no further than this madcap rom-com drama that ran for 66 episodes between 1985 and 1989. The shoulder pads, the hairdos, the slip on shoes, the large chunks of cheesiness, it’s all there. Some of the coloured silks Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) wears have to be seen to be believed.
It was the first show to get free reign creatively from a network, with ABC trusting Glenn Gordon Carol, fresh from success with Remington Steele, to create something cool and hip. At the peak of its success it was costing $1.6m per episode, with Bruce Willis’ pay check becoming a big chunk of that, as his ego inflated and his star rose.
They auditioned close to 600 actors for the role of glib, fast talking sleuth David Addison, before taking a risk on an out of work nobody the producers had heard singing karaoke in an LA bar. The phenomenal buzz around Bruce Willis in 1985 is hard to imagine now, but he was literally the biggest star on TV, and once Die Hard came along in 1988, he gave the movie star thing a good go too.
Famous for its post-modern take on episode content, with overlapping dialogue, direct address to camera, in jokes and endless references to current events and the show itself, it was a knowingly self-conscious misfit. Nothing had ever been like this. Nothing, even close. It was funny, cool, had mass appeal and could seemingly do no wrong, breaking ratings records all over the place.
But all was not paradise on set. Shepherd and Willis were never pals, and at the worst actively despised one another, often refusing to film scenes if they thought the other one was too much the focus – which in Shepherd’s case was often a weird anachronistic soft focus, that attempted to make her look like a vintage movie star. They argued, fell out, made up and threw tantrums just like the characters they played. And scripts for the unusual hour long format were often so late, they filmed filler scenes whilst they were being finished on set!
This allowed for an unparalleled voice in American TV land. They got away with some very terse comments and innuendo bordering on smut, that slipped under the network radar, simply because the show was being edited minutes before it was shown. By season four it was really falling apart, as episodes got more surreal and used the breaking of the fourth wall more often, in a desperate attempt just to keep going.
Ostensibly, it was a detective show. But it was never about the cases. The sleuthing was only a background to the will they won’t they romance of Maddie and David, facilitated by the ever present Allyce Beasley as Agnes DiPesto, the rhyming receptionist, that was the only other cast member to appear in all 66 shows apart from the two stars. Early on the mystery plots and crimes to be solved were taken semi seriously; with a peak in season three where it actually approached proper drama. But by the end it was all about Willis goofing around, at the expense of any recognisable story.
Let’s face it, looking back on it now it has aged a whole bunch in a lot of bad ways. You aren’t really going to indulge in it for anything other than nostalgia reasons. But I was a huge, huge fan, and so for me it was a real trip to see it again. I never missed it as a kid, and would sulk if anything threatened to stop me watching it as it aired. I had every episode taped on VHS and could quote entire episodes, I had watched them so much.
It all ended too soon for me, but not soon enough for them. Shepherd got pregnant, Willis took the break to go and make some mid budget action film, and the rest is history. To this day, footage of them reminiscing about it is a fascinating but awkward watch, as they clearing still can’t agree on anything and thinly veil their contempt for each other. Willis’ ego does not come out of it well, but David Addison will always remain the one character that formed my personality via TV in those days, for better or worse.
If you were to make a time capsule to show aliens what the mid to late 80s looked like, look no further than this madcap rom-com drama that ran for 66 episodes between 1985 and 1989. The shoulder pads, the hairdos, the slip on shoes, the large chunks of cheesiness, it’s all there. Some of the coloured silks Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) wears have to be seen to be believed.
It was the first show to get free reign creatively from a network, with ABC trusting Glenn Gordon Carol, fresh from success with Remington Steele, to create something cool and hip. At the peak of its success it was costing $1.6m per episode, with Bruce Willis’ pay check becoming a big chunk of that, as his ego inflated and his star rose.
They auditioned close to 600 actors for the role of glib, fast talking sleuth David Addison, before taking a risk on an out of work nobody the producers had heard singing karaoke in an LA bar. The phenomenal buzz around Bruce Willis in 1985 is hard to imagine now, but he was literally the biggest star on TV, and once Die Hard came along in 1988, he gave the movie star thing a good go too.
Famous for its post-modern take on episode content, with overlapping dialogue, direct address to camera, in jokes and endless references to current events and the show itself, it was a knowingly self-conscious misfit. Nothing had ever been like this. Nothing, even close. It was funny, cool, had mass appeal and could seemingly do no wrong, breaking ratings records all over the place.
But all was not paradise on set. Shepherd and Willis were never pals, and at the worst actively despised one another, often refusing to film scenes if they thought the other one was too much the focus – which in Shepherd’s case was often a weird anachronistic soft focus, that attempted to make her look like a vintage movie star. They argued, fell out, made up and threw tantrums just like the characters they played. And scripts for the unusual hour long format were often so late, they filmed filler scenes whilst they were being finished on set!
This allowed for an unparalleled voice in American TV land. They got away with some very terse comments and innuendo bordering on smut, that slipped under the network radar, simply because the show was being edited minutes before it was shown. By season four it was really falling apart, as episodes got more surreal and used the breaking of the fourth wall more often, in a desperate attempt just to keep going.
Ostensibly, it was a detective show. But it was never about the cases. The sleuthing was only a background to the will they won’t they romance of Maddie and David, facilitated by the ever present Allyce Beasley as Agnes DiPesto, the rhyming receptionist, that was the only other cast member to appear in all 66 shows apart from the two stars. Early on the mystery plots and crimes to be solved were taken semi seriously; with a peak in season three where it actually approached proper drama. But by the end it was all about Willis goofing around, at the expense of any recognisable story.
Let’s face it, looking back on it now it has aged a whole bunch in a lot of bad ways. You aren’t really going to indulge in it for anything other than nostalgia reasons. But I was a huge, huge fan, and so for me it was a real trip to see it again. I never missed it as a kid, and would sulk if anything threatened to stop me watching it as it aired. I had every episode taped on VHS and could quote entire episodes, I had watched them so much.
It all ended too soon for me, but not soon enough for them. Shepherd got pregnant, Willis took the break to go and make some mid budget action film, and the rest is history. To this day, footage of them reminiscing about it is a fascinating but awkward watch, as they clearing still can’t agree on anything and thinly veil their contempt for each other. Willis’ ego does not come out of it well, but David Addison will always remain the one character that formed my personality via TV in those days, for better or worse.
Ross (3284 KP) rated Good Omens in TV
Jul 4, 2019
Broadly fine
I am a long-time fan of Terry Pratchett, and a more recent fan of Neil Gaiman, and yet it was only the release of the TV series that prompted me to finally read their joint effort. I thought the book was pretty good, lots of nice silly little jokes spread about, and a good plot keeping up momentum throughout.
I felt the TV series let the book down a little bit. While the overall story and the dialogue, in the main, is true to the book, I felt a lot of it fell flat. A lot of the humour (which comes in the form of charming asides, generally in the narrative of the book) missed the mark and just did not land properly. I did like the expanded section on Azirafale and Crowley's efforts through time, though I think they laboured it too long on the angel's unwillingness and didn't quite show how much they had worked together.
Tennant played Bill Nighy playing a demon, Sheen played David Mitchell playing an angel and they were broadly fine but didn't really sit perfectly for my liking. The rest of the cast were pretty strong (with the exception of Jack Whitehall who I utterly detest and don't think he can act for toffee).
The special effects were on the poor side, but that is only compared to the major big-budget TV shows like GoT and The Walking Dead. The physical effects were excellent.
In all, I am glad they restricted the series to a small number of episodes and did not try and drag it out too long. The ending was not given the build-up it deserved, there really wasn't enough peril before the two single acts that stopped the end of the war (Pulsifer and Adam).
I was very happy to see the relationship between Azirafale and Crowley develop beyond friendship
I felt the TV series let the book down a little bit. While the overall story and the dialogue, in the main, is true to the book, I felt a lot of it fell flat. A lot of the humour (which comes in the form of charming asides, generally in the narrative of the book) missed the mark and just did not land properly. I did like the expanded section on Azirafale and Crowley's efforts through time, though I think they laboured it too long on the angel's unwillingness and didn't quite show how much they had worked together.
Tennant played Bill Nighy playing a demon, Sheen played David Mitchell playing an angel and they were broadly fine but didn't really sit perfectly for my liking. The rest of the cast were pretty strong (with the exception of Jack Whitehall who I utterly detest and don't think he can act for toffee).
The special effects were on the poor side, but that is only compared to the major big-budget TV shows like GoT and The Walking Dead. The physical effects were excellent.
In all, I am glad they restricted the series to a small number of episodes and did not try and drag it out too long. The ending was not given the build-up it deserved, there really wasn't enough peril before the two single acts that stopped the end of the war (Pulsifer and Adam).
I was very happy to see the relationship between Azirafale and Crowley develop beyond friendship
Difficult Men: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad
9.0
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In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a wave of TV shows, first on premium cable channels like HBO and...
Lee (2222 KP) rated The Purge: Season 1 in TV
Nov 14, 2018 (Updated Nov 15, 2018)
Slow start but overall very enjoyable
I've only seen two out of the four movies in the Purge series, so I haven't quite yet reached the levels of Purge fatigue that others may be experiencing. I recently saw The First Purge and while it was enjoyable enough, overall it was pretty average and instantly forgettable. So, if I'm honest I wasn't immediately sold on seeing it in a TV show format. I don't know what made me decide to give it a watch though. I guess I always imagined that the TV version of The Purge would work really well as a kind of real time show. A bit like 24, with each episode following an hour or so of Purge night. And if they could do that then that's something that I would find very interesting. Funnily enough, that idea isn't too far away from what we actually ended up getting. And we even get our own Jack Bauer wannabee in the form of a US marine on the hunt for his younger sister!
Things kick off very shortly before commencement of Purge night. We're introduced to a number of different characters, all seemingly unrelated to each other, and we then follow their experiences throughout the night. Each story-line is very different to the next, and some are way more interesting and intense than others. What hinders the flow of each episode though is the large number of flashbacks that we get. We're taken back in time to find out why a particular character is in a certain place and what their motivation is for whatever they're doing. While this kind of thing is certainly necessary in order to provide some kind of decent character building, and works well for the majority of TV shows, I felt it had a negative impact on this one. It completely takes you out of Purge night, out of the building momentum of danger. It felt bloated, too much of a slow burn. The whole thing certainly takes a while to find its feet, and you'd be forgiven for bailing on it after just a few episodes.
I'm glad I stuck with it though. The number of flashbacks started reducing considerably and some of the less interesting stories suddenly became very interesting. Better still, during the last couple of episodes a lot of those story-lines started converging, building to a very enjoyable last few episodes. With season 2 confirmed, I'm definitely up for more of this.
Things kick off very shortly before commencement of Purge night. We're introduced to a number of different characters, all seemingly unrelated to each other, and we then follow their experiences throughout the night. Each story-line is very different to the next, and some are way more interesting and intense than others. What hinders the flow of each episode though is the large number of flashbacks that we get. We're taken back in time to find out why a particular character is in a certain place and what their motivation is for whatever they're doing. While this kind of thing is certainly necessary in order to provide some kind of decent character building, and works well for the majority of TV shows, I felt it had a negative impact on this one. It completely takes you out of Purge night, out of the building momentum of danger. It felt bloated, too much of a slow burn. The whole thing certainly takes a while to find its feet, and you'd be forgiven for bailing on it after just a few episodes.
I'm glad I stuck with it though. The number of flashbacks started reducing considerably and some of the less interesting stories suddenly became very interesting. Better still, during the last couple of episodes a lot of those story-lines started converging, building to a very enjoyable last few episodes. With season 2 confirmed, I'm definitely up for more of this.
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