Tag Archives: Supernatural Television

Doctor Who: 73 Yards – TV Review

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TL;DR – A tense, brooding episode, and that is just the Welsh coastline.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this series.

Warning – Contains scenes that may cause distress.

Ruby and the Doctor hop out of the TARDIS on the Welsh Coastline.

Doctor Who Review –

One of the strengths of Doctor Who is that you never know what tone you are going to get. Will this be a fun romp with Space Babies or a deep dive into historical racism with Rosa. It can be an entertaining comedy, a profound emotional time or a deep dive into horror. Today’s episode falls firmly into the latter category with a dash of the supernatural.

So, to set the scene, they land on the Welsh coast, which is full of green beauty. The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) is in the middle of reminiscing with Ruby (Millie Gibson) about his love for the place when he steps on a woven construction in the grass (my boy needs to start looking where he steps). It seems like some sort of memorial, something that kids make, but when the Doctor disappears, the TARDIS locks itself, and a figure in black signs some kind of warning. Well, things started getting weird, and why do they stay 73 yards away? Now, from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Musings on The Leftovers (or did Nora Lie?)

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TL;DR – In which I wax lyrical or ramble about the series The Leftovers and its exploration of faith and truth.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Disclosure – I paid for the Binge service that viewed this series.

Two men on a roof after an apocalypse that didn't happen.

The Leftovers Review –

Today, we will do something a little different than usual in that we will be less of a review and more of a retrospective on a series. Well, it’s not quite a retrospective, but more some musings that have been rumbling around in my head for months and that I better put down on paper somewhere so I can let them go rather than pondering on them all the time. With that in mind, we delve into the world of guilt, trauma, religion, faith, and crisis.

So to set the scene, three years before the start of the series on October 14th, 2011, two per cent of the world’s population vanished instantly. One hundred forty million people were gone in a moment of time, with no rhyme or reason as to why they were chosen. A child was screaming one second, gone the next. A family was eating breakfast one moment and gone the next. The person you were holding hands with during a science experiment, the person you were making love with, all gone. How do you move on after an event like this? Can you? Can society? Can the town of Mapleton and the Garvey family? Now from here, we will be looking at the whole series as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Lockwood & Co. Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – This was a fascinating series with an exciting premise yet to show its full hand, but I want to see where it goes.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series.

A UV Protection light for night.

Lockwood & Co. Review –

There are some shows that you check out just because there is an idea that is so interesting that you need to check it out. What happens if ghosts are real and they just start attacking people? How would that change a modern society where death is all around? It is a question that I very much wanted to find out.

So to set the scene, it has been 50 years since the problem changed the world. One day people just started to drop dead in mysterious ways at night. Soon the world discovers that ghosts or visitors have come back, and if they touch you, well, you’re dead. It was a chaotic time as the world tried to find out how to fight back until they discovered the power of Iron, Salt, and Silver and that some children and teenagers could see the visitors fight them. In 2020, one of those teenagers is Lucy Carlyle (Ruby Stokes), but after being hung out to dry by her former boss, she makes the trip to London to join one of the giant ghost agencies. But without her parent’s permission, no one will take her, well that is until she stumbles into the office of Lockwood & Co., run by Anthony Lockwood (Cameron Chapman) and supported by George Karim (Ali Hadji-Heshmati). They are the only agency that is run by the teens who are doing the dying, so they know what the stakes are. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead for the show.   

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Wednesday: Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – Wonderful characters crammed into a generic “insert narrative here.”

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this series.

Nevermore Academy sign

Wednesday Review –

When you take a beloved property from the past and create a modern adaptation, you need to translate a text into a future it was not ready for. This transition can help you find a new voice for an old work or what can drown an old work as you lose what made it work in the first place. Today we look at a show that hits both of these extremes in its wild ride to make it to our screen.

So to set the scene, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is an odd duck in the straight-laced Nancy Reagan High School. However, she is and always will be intensely protective of her family, and no one gets to torture her brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) but her. Well, one application of piranhas during water polo practice later, and she is expelled from another school. Wondering what to do, her parents, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán), decide to enrol her in their old school Nevermore Academy. Aghast at being forced to live in her parent’s shadow and her roommate Enid’s (Emma Myers) colourful room, Wednesday decides to run away. But that is when one of the students tries to murder her, and she is saved by a creature that might be disembowelling local hikers, and maybe there is a place for her here after all. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.    

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WandaVision: The Series Finale – TV Review

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TL;DR – A beautiful conclusion to a fascinating series.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ subscription that viewed this episode.

WandaVision: The Series Finale. Image Credit: Disney+.

WandaVision Review –

When we started WandaVision all the way back with Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience, I’m not sure we knew where we were going to end up. However, after many twists and turns, we are here in the finale. With that in mind, let’s dive into the final episode of Marvel’s first real attempt at long-form storytelling in the MCU.

So to set the scene, in last week’s Previously On, we got a trip down memory lane as Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) tried to work out how Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) was able to build the world from scratch. We found out that Wanda is actually the fabled Scarlet Witch because she can create matter out of nothing as she did with Vision (Paul Bettany). Of course, she makes this reveal while threatening to kill Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jett Klyne), which bluntness the reveal’s overall reverence. Meanwhile, Vision is flying back after having his history told to him by Darcy (Kat Dennings), Fake Pietro (Evan Peters) captured Monica (Teyonah Parris) snooping around the house, Agent Woo (Randall Park) is the only good guy left outside The Hex, which is essential because SWORD has activated the cataract program which reinitialised Dead Vision’s body creating White Vision (Paul Bettany). Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some MAJOR [SPOILERS] ahead.

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WandaVision: On a Very Special Episode… – TV Review

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TL;DR – This week, everything changes again as we take a right turn into “did that just happen!”

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ subscription that viewed this series.

WandaVision: Episode 5. Image Credit: Disney+.

WandaVision Review –

There are days when you sit down to watch a TV show where you kind of know what you will get before you click play. Well, WandaVision is not one of those shows. We have already seen in change on a dime, and this week we get another example as the show starts to dark fast.

So to set the scene, in last week’s  We Interrupt This Program, we left The Hex and found out what had been happening in the world around. We see the road that Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) took to being a player in the weird TV show that Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) is creating in Westview. This week we dive into the 1980s, but things are not the same as Vision (Paul Bettany) has started to see something is not right with this world. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some MAJOR [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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WandaVision: Now in Color – TV Review

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TL;DR – This is where we start to see what is under the hood in this show, and it might be menacing indeed.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ subscription that viewed this series.

WandaVision: Now in Color. Image Credit: Disney+.

WandaVision Review –

Well, we spent Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience & Don’t Touch That Dial living in the 1950s in all its black and white glory. However, last week made it clear that we would leap forward into this new-fangled thing known as colour.

So to set the scene, at the end of last week’s episode, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) witnessed a man out of place in their neighbourhood. However, Wanda did not want that to happen, so she rewound the tape back to before they went outside. When she got back, Wanda discovered that she was pregnant and also the world was in colour. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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WandaVision: Don’t Touch That Dial – TV Review

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TL;DR – This is where we start to see what is under the hood in this show, and it might be menacing.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ subscription that viewed this series.

WandaVision: Episode 2. Image Credit: Disney+.

WandaVision Review –

We continue our dive into this odd show as we start to see the façade slip in places as things that should not be seen are seen. All of this starts asking some uncomfortable questions for our cast.  

So to set the scene, Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) have started to become permanent fixtures in their little town of Westview. Wanda and Angus (Kathryn Hahn) come along to the local planning committee meeting to help with the talent show led by Dotty (Emma Caulfield Ford) the queen of the town. Meanwhile, Vision, is off to the local neighbourhood watch, after a tree branch scared them in the night.  Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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WandaVision: Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience – TV Review

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TL;DR – This was fun, nostalgic, and also super odd all at once

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ subscription that viewed this series.

WandaVision: Episode 1. Image Credit: Disney+.

WandaVision Review –

Thanks to Covid it has been over a year since we have had anything set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Spider-man: Far From Home for those playing at home). This makes it kind of odd that the first entry back into this world is on Disney+, but then this is a strange show, so it might fit.

So to set the scene, we open sitcom entrance where we see Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) arriving at a new town. A newly married couple is settling into a small town where they are pretending that she is not a witch and he is not an android, but an average couple. Everything is going well until their neighbour Angus (Kathryn Hahn) comes over and helps Wanda plan her ‘anniversary’. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [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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