(courtesy IMDb) Growing up is a challenge at the best of times. But it’s made infinitely more complicated when you don’t exactly fit the very narrow mold of acceptability that society has laid down and you discover in the midst of all the chaos of getting older, that you’re not Continue Reading
TV
“We’re in a war… you want to fight, or you want to win?” Andor drops trailer for its much-awaited second season
(courtesy IMP Awards) While Season 1 followed Cassian’s reluctant journey from cynical nobody to revolutionary volunteer, the long-awaited conclusion in Andor Season 2 will see the characters and their relationships intensify as the horizon of war draws near and Cassian becomes a key player in the Rebel Alliance. Everyone will Continue Reading
The new face of investigation: Thoughts on High Potential (S1, E1-4)
(courtesy IMP Awards) TV should be, in a perfect world, one of those leisure pursuit that doesn’t demand a lot of you. It is, after all, something that you do to escape the pressures of everyday living; but in recent years, with the rise of a wealth of brilliantly produced Continue Reading
Can the end of things also be its beginning? Thoughts on Earth Abides (season 1)
(courtesy IMP Awards) It’s become a well-worn pattern in apocalyptic storytelling to portray the end of the world as a one-way, cataclysmic slide into oblivion for good old Homo Sapiens. Whether it’s alien invasion or zombies or a pandemic, humanity is knocked down and comprehensively so, and if it does Continue Reading
Can you move on eventually? Shrinking S2 wrap-up review
By the time many of us reach the confusingly contradictory, dark and difficult, joyful and not messy wilds of unpredictable adulthood, we have been well and truly disabused of the notion that life is always going to be a smooth and easy ride. With that warm and cosy slice of Continue Reading
Goodbye Star Trek – Lower Decks: Review of S5, E4-10) + thoughts on the series
(courtesy IMP Awards) Saying goodbye to any series you love is always a desperately sad affair. Sure, you could argue, if you’re head was made of Romulan stone, that the end of any series is hardly the end of the world, and yes, in the grand scheme of things, that’s Continue Reading
Stream, stream my televisual dream: Top 25 TV / streaming shows of 2024
(via Shutterstock) In many ways this was a very good year for my consumption of TV/streaming shows. I got to watch a lot more than 2023 but while lists were ticked off and shows enjoyed, it also began to feel, not for the first time, like watching TV is now Continue Reading
Merry pop culture Christmas to all … and to all a good streaming-reading-listening night! (Bonus The Penguins of Madagascar Christmas Special)
(courtesy Pinterest (c) Peanuts) Merry pop culture Christmas everyone! Another year has somehow zoomed right through, around and past us, offering up far too many books and movies and TV/streaming show and songs and graphic novels to consume in one lifetime, but reminding us as we gobbled what we could Continue Reading
On 11th day of Christmas … I watched new The Simpsons festive special “Oh C’mon All Ye Faithful”
(courtesy IMDb (c) Disney+) The Simpsons are known for their irreverence and willingness to skewer all the weird and strange and bombastically expressed pomposities of life. But for all the propensity of the 36-season-long, Matt Groening-created show to parody and satirise and push the critical envelope, it has demonstrated over Continue Reading
How do you make a dream? Find out with four-part limited series from Pixar, Dream Productions
(courtesy IMP Awards) Dream Productions is another triumph for Pixar, an animation powerhouse that knows full well the power of marrying whimsy with emotional impact, of being silly and serious in one flawlessly execute package. Position as an interquel, and yes, apparently it is a word, the four-part miniseries, developed Continue Reading