Category Archives: TV Reviews

TV Review – Win the Wilderness

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TL;DR – This is a fascinating twist on the competition show format because it has real stakes that ground everything.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Win the Wilderness. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

I’ve watched a lot of competition shows in my time, everything from trapping people on an island and watching them pick each other off, to sitting and loving people building Lego constructions. However, it has been a long time since I have watched something new, well today we have just that with the joint Netflix/BBC show Win the Wilderness.  

So to set the scene, in the deep in the Alaskan wilderness is a house on Ose Mountain, it is far from the nearest town and can only be accessed by plane. Living on Ose Mountain are Duane and Rena who built the house with their bare hands. However, Duane and Rena are getting too old to be able to have the energy to maintain the property and it is time to give their legacy to someone else. So, six couples from the United Kingdom Matt and Rachel, Mark and Emily, Chris and Tina, Theo and Bee, Laura and Jerome, and Pete and Jane have flown into central Alaska with one thing on their minds, to prove that they can continue that legacy.

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TV Review – Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Ransom

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TL;DR – A fun family story but they may have picked the wrong story to focus on

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Ransom. Image Credit: NBC.

Review –

This season in Brooklyn Nine-Nine we have enjoyed episodes focused on several common themes that happen inside police shows and films. We have of course the traditional heist episode with Valloweaster, the deducing who-done-it with Dillman, even a shooter on the run with Manhunter. This week we get another addition to that list because we got ourselves a kidnapping.

So to set the scene, when Jake (Andy Samberg) arrives at the 99, he is rushed into Holt’s (Andre Braugher) office to find the one Kevin Cozner (Marc Evan Jackson). This is not just a social call, because while Kevin was out walking Cheddar (Stewart) someone kidnapped the dog. Jake is a little sceptical that someone took the fluffy boy right up until the moment the kidnapper sends a ransom note. Meanwhile, Amy (Melissa Fumero) is on the hunt for a Snoog, the perfect pram for her coming bundle of joy, she just has to win the competition, what could go wrong? Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.      

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TV Review – Bloom: Season Two

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TL;DR – A solid follow up season that makes up for a lack of subtlety with its themes with some solid acting and emotional drive.   

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Bloom: Season Two. Image Credit: Stan.

Review –

It was just over a year ago when Stan dropped this interesting little show about a fruit that can make you young again, the only catch is that it grows in the places people died in a great flood. This gave it both an interesting and also very morbid these even before people started going after each other over the plants. I was interested to see where the show could go from there and well now we can see with the second season coming out over the Easter weekend.

So to set the scene, in the weeks after the end of Season One, things in the town of Mullan in rural Australia have been in a state of flux. For some of the residents of the town, life has gone back to normal, but for the others, the lingering effect of the plant is still there even though all the plants are now gone. In the city, the last of the young people from the first season Young Gwen (Phoebe Tonkin) is dancing the night away with her now much older husband Ray (Bryan Brown) causing much mirth from the rest of the people in the nightclub. He decides to let her go enjoy her youth, but she will have none of that. Back in town, a mother Anne Carter (Jacqueline McKenzie) has arrived under mysterious circumstances with her daughter Eva (Ingrid Torelli) and family friend Luke (Ed Oxenbould). Also, the new local priest Father John (Toby Schmitz) is trying to get people back to the church when he finds out that Mullan might have a secret of its own when local creepy guy Shane (Tom Budge) lets slip about what happened. Now we will be looking at the series as a whole and as such there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.    

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TV Review – Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Valloweaster

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TL;DR – A fun family story but they may have picked the wrong story to focus on

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Valloweaster. Image Credit: NBC.

Review –

One of the things that can help cement a long-running TV show is those recurring themes and events that you can keep going back to, like How I Met Your Mother’s slap or Deep Space Nine’s O’Brien-must-suffer time. However, as times goes on it can be hard to balance the return of an episode with the necessary escalation you need to pull it off. Well, today we have a similar time because it is a holiday so let’s begin the heist.

So to set the scene, we open in as two patrol officers are coming up the elevator, with everything being fine bar when they open the doors and the room is full of fighting rabbits in impeccable suits and glasses. Before you go have time to wonder what is going on we hear “Is this still going on” and cut back 6 months to Halloween because it is heist time and this time to stop betrayals, everyone is getting cuffed to their partners. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so you better believe that there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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TV Review – Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Admiral Peralta

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TL;DR – A fun family story but they may have picked the wrong story to focus on

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Admiral Peralta. Image Credit: NBC.

Review –

When you have a long-running show, changing up the dynamic can keep it fresh or be its downfall. This usually takes the form of the key relationship in the show, but not only did Brooklyn Nine-Nine let Amy (Melissa Fumero) and Jake’s (Andy Samberg) relationship develop naturally they have let it go through all the phases of life.

So to set the scene, at the weekly briefing Amy and Jake have an important announcement to make, they’re having a baby, which everyone already knew about. But with the thoughts of the coming bundle of joy come to the foreground, Jake starts thinking of the past and what his father Rodger (Bradley Whitford) refers to as the ‘Peralta Curse’ that is the terrible relationships that fathers have with their sons. Well there is only one way to fix that and that is to reunite a father with his son and that goes about as well as you expect. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so you better believe that there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Movie Review – Altered Carbon: Resleeved

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TL;DR – It’s fine, nothing amazing but not a complete mess.    

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Altered Carbon: Resleeved. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

I’ve been quite enjoying the jaunts into the world of Altered Carbon as of late. A world of switching bodies and switching cast members. A world of excesses and a world of death that is only real death half the time. I’ve watched both seasons, so when I heard there was an animated movie, well I had to give it a watch and well … it’s fine.

So after the events of the Second Season (I think, but I’m not entirely sure), we open on the planet Latimer. Here a young girl Holly (Brittany Cox/ Ayaka Asai) is running from her life through the upper streets as air cars and large holograms walk around her. She is being chased by two thugs, who are trying to catch her. Running into a club she is almost at a needle casting facility when a ninja slaughters the two thugs and turns on her. Things are bad but then Takeshi (Ray Chase/ Tatsuhisa Suzuki) arrives to save the day. Teaming up with local CTAC operator Gina (Elizabeth Maxwell/ Rina Satô) they get Holly to the safety of the Yakuza or as it turns out maybe into significantly more danger than she was before.

Now, this is an interesting film, in that we are usually a bit cagier about spoilers with films, but then it is also hard to talk about this film without getting into spoilers for both past seasons and a big reveal in this film. So with that in mind, there will be some big [SPOILERS] around character points going forward but not for the ending.

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TV Review – Star Trek: Picard – Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2 and Season 1

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TL;DR – Not every part of the final episode landed, but the promise is so much more

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Star Trek: Picard – Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 2. Image Credit: CBS Studios.

Review – It is time to come to the end and the first season of Star Trek Picard has drawn to a close, it was a show full of warmth and promise but also a hint of sadness. Like someone taking one last look at the old neighbourhood before moving one. With this in mind, I approached the final episode with a little hesitation and now I have seen it that felling was not entirely unmerited. Well then, let’s dive in and have a look at the final episode before having a look at the entire season.

So to set the scene, at the end of Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 we were in a very perilous place with everything about to unravel. Picard (Patrick Stewart) had been taken hostage by the synths that had finally discovered the meaning behind the Zhat Vash prophecy and were using the death of one of their own as a pretence to steam straight ahead to the destruction of all organic life. On the Borg Cube, Seven (Jeri Ryan) and Elnor (Evan Evagora) chat not realising that they have an uninvited guest in the form of Narek (Harry Treadaway). But there might be one ray of hope because Agnes (Alison Pill) might not be who she says she is. Now we will be looking at the episode and the season as a whole, so there may be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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TV Review – Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Dillman

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TL;DR – A fun episode from start to finish that played off each of the cast’s strengths.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Dillman. Image Credit: NBC.

Review –

As the seventh season from Brooklyn Nine-Nine draws to a close in a couple of episodes, it has been really good to see them swing for the fences each episode. This week we get an episode that is quite small in scope but it pays off years of character developments.

So to set the scene, Jake (Andy Samberg) is in Holt’s (Andre Braugher) office because now he is captain again he is on a selection committee for a new city-wide task force called STOASRCEIUEO, which no shocker, Holt helped name. Everything was going fine, okay, Jake did his application in the form of a rap, so everything was not going fine. But things got worse when the precinct exploded. It seems that someone tried to prank Jake with a glitter bomb and it backfired. But who in the precinct could have done it? Well, there is one detective that Holt trusts to solve the case, Dillman (J.K. Simmons). Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so you better believe that there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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TV Review – Star Trek: Picard – Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1

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TL;DR – It is the beginning of the end, and I don’t think I am ready

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Star Trek: Picard – Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1. Image Credit: CBS Studios.

Review –

Oh wow, I can’t believe that we are already at the penultimate of Star Trek Picard. It is a show that feels like it was always with us, and also one that has gone in a blink of an eye. Well, today we get all out horses into line because the apocalypse is upon us and someone better stop it.  

So to set the scene, at the end of last week’s Broken Pieces, the crew of La Sirena was about to do something monumentally stupid and that was to jump into the Borg’s transwarp network to get to Coppelius before the Romulans can blow it out of the sky. Well, this week we open with them doing just that, only they didn’t know that Narek (Harry Treadaway) was following them, oh and Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) has her own Borg cube now. Now we will be looking at the episode as a whole so you better believe that there will be [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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TV Review – Altered Carbon – Season 2

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TL;DR – It continues the story gallantly, but the second outing is more restrained and does not fix the problems of the first season.  

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Altered Carbon – Season 2. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

A couple of years ago, there was this odd TV series on Netflix that I described as “if Westworld and Blade Runner had a baby with Ghost in the Shell as the midwife.” It was odd, it was out there, and even though it had some limitations it kept powering through. Well, I have finally caught up with the second season and I have to say it is more of the say, which is both good and bad.

So to set the scene, we open in a dive bar on some desolate system out in the deep black. On the stage is a singer (Jihae) singing a haunting song when a synth that had just needle cast in-system. Trepp (Simone Missick) is a bounty hunter, and a good one at that, and she is looking for one Takeshi “Tak” Kovacs. But in what sleeve is he in? Possibly only the malfunctioning AI Poe (Chris Conner) behind the bar knows? Well, Trepp buts a bullet in his back and brings him to her employer Horace Axley (Michael Shanks). All Tak has to do is protect Axley and he gets to keep this new body (Anthony Mackie). But more importantly, he knows where he can find Quellcrist “Quell” Falconer (Renée Elise Goldsberry), the person he has been searching for all these years. It’s a good bargain, right up until the moment he needle casts in and finds Axley dead on the ground, and all of Harlan’s World is out for his blood. Now we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there may be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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