Tag Archives: BBC

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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Doctor Who: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

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TL;DR – While we get more of those character moments that have been the highlights of the season so far, it just does not quite come together in the end.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Doctor Who: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos. Image Credit: BBC

As we reach the end of the 11th season of the new Doctor Who we have had the highs of Rosa (see review) and Demons of the Punjab (see review) but also the feeling that at times the show just was not quite coming together. It is with this duality that we hit the end of the shorter season than normal and you have to wonder will they stick the landing, and I’m not sure that they did. 

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TV Review – Doctor Who: The Witchfinders

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TL;DR – Well this is an odd one indeed, and while it is looking at an important issue, it just feels like it never really all clicked together.   

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Doctor Who - the Witchfinders. Image Credit BBC

Review –

Throughout history, there have been numerous times when the people living in villagers have needed a scapegoat for their current woes, and often times that scapegoat has been any women of note in the town. Now, of course, the most well know, though not well understood, occurrence of these witch trails was in Salem, Massachusetts in the US, they also happened across the world (and still happen today), and in tonight’s Doctor Who, we look at England’s past. However,while this setting should feel right up The Doctor’s (Jodie Whittaker) ally,something just does not quite work.

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TV Review – Doctor Who: Kerblam!

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TL;DR – Kerblam! Is a return to a more classic Doctor Who episode filled with conspiracy, murder, missing people and a call for help, oh and also a fez, can’t forget a good fez.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

Kerblam! Image Credit: BBC

 

Review –

There has been a lot of discussion regarding this season of Doctor Who and while I have really been enjoying it, there are others where Chris Chibnall’s writing style is just not jelling with them, which is perfectly fair. What will be interesting to see is how people engage with the show in the back half of the season because now all the shows have different writers. We saw that last week with the Demons of the Punjab (see review) where the show talked a deeply problematic time from Brittan’s past with grace, and this week we have a different take as we delve into what I would consider being a more classic Doctor Who episode where conspiracy runs rampant.

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TV Review – Doctor Who: Demons of the Punjab

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TL;DR – In the battle between love and hate, on which side would you be on? This is the question today’s episode asks before emotionally punching you in the gut.

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

 

Doctor Who: Demons Of The Punjab. Image Credit: BBC

 

Review –

When I heard Doctor Who was going to set an episode in colonial India, you can bet I was deeply concerned. A British TV Show doing an episode on the British occupation of another country, it is a recipe for disaster if handled wrongly, and the title Demons of the Punjab didn’t exactly fill me with confidence either. However, then we got to see Rosa (see review) earlier this season all about Rosa Parks and her struggles, they showed a real understanding of exploring deeply complex historical events, so I had a hope that they would be able to here as well, and I honestly think they pulled it off.

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TV Review – Doctor Who: The Tsuranga Conundrum

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TL;DR –  A deeply emotional episode that using the entire ensemble to their best, a truly wonderful episode of Doctor Who

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

Doctor Who: The Tsuranga Conundrum. Image Credit: BBC

 

Review –

This season we have had the highs of Rosa (see review) but also a lot of awkwardness in the construction of episodes, like the show is exploring how to make it all work. Well, this week we see it all come together when you have the emotional weight as well as the tight construction and flow of the episode, that also allows each member of the ensemble a moment to shine.

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TV Review – Bodyguard: Season One

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TL;DR – This show is a masterpiece of building tension and always keeping you wonder, just who is telling the truth.

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

 

Bodyguard. Image Credit: World Productions

 

Review –

Across the internet, I had heard these whispers about the show dropping in the UK called Bodyguard. It was the kind of whispers that instantly makes you wonder, just what kind of show this is going to be, and then it dropped over here on Netflix. So, I thought, hey let’s give this a look, and then those first twenty minutes of the first episode happened and wow, never have I experienced such a tense twenty minutes of television before. From that moment onwards, I knew I had to see all of this as quickly as I could and I am so glad I did, even if it meant some essays might be returned a bit late, so a belated sorry to my students.

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TV Review – Doctor Who: Arachnids In The UK

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TL;DR –  If you have a deep-seated fear of spiders, well this might be one of those hide behind the coach kind of episodes for you.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

Doctor Who: Arachnids In The UK. Image Credit: BBC

 

Review –

Today we continue looking at Doctor Who’s 11th season, a season with a lot of promise but also some recurring issues. This has created a bit of a problem that you see all the good they are trying to do, but also how they are being held back for some odd reasons. Well, today we come crashing back to Earth for a creepy episode just in time for Halloween that is going back to a Doctor Who staples, monsters, running, and the failure of capitalism, oh my.

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TV Review – Doctor Who: Rosa

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TL;DR – While on the technical side of things this was not the best episode of Doctor Who, the story is leaps and bounds above the norm, and it shows the power this show can have if they apply themselves.

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

 

Rosa. Doctor Who. Image Credit: BBC

 

Review –

When you can travel through all of time and space, you can visit wondrous alien worlds, go back and visit key moments in history like the construction of the pyramids, or even explore what looks an awful lot like a quarry on the outskirts of Cardiff a couple of times. However, would you go back in time a visit the less fun parts of our history, those parts that we politely pretend do not exist, even though the ripple of those events still dominate our world today. Well in a world that needs to visit this part of its past Doctor Who has decided to do so for them as we delve into the world of the 1950s segregated America.

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TV Review – Doctor Who: The Woman Who Fell to Earth

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TL;DR – We barrel into the 11th season with an opening episode that will hit you in the feels, make you go ew, and have you sitting in wonder, so basically everything that makes Doctor Who work.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Doctor Who: The Woman Who Fell to Earth. Image Credit: BBC

 

Review –

Doctor Who is a show that is one that I have an interesting relationship with. There are times that it rockets to the top of my must-see list, and times where I feel like I am watching more out of obligation than anything else. However, unlike any other franchise, other than maybe James Bond, Doctor Who is always reinventing itself both metaphorical and literally, and today we see the next step in that evolution with The Woman Who Fell to Earth. With that in mind today we are going to have a look at the debut episode of the shows 11th season (well 37th if you want to get technical) and answer the question: can they reinvent The Doctor again.

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