The Airport Chaplain: Season 1 – TV Review

TL;DR – An interesting show with compelling characters that gets stuck in backstory rather than making the most of its central thesis.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I watched this on SBS On Demand.

Warning – Contains scenes which may cause distress.

Airport Chaplain written on the back on a vest.

The Airport Chaplain Review Introduction

When I watched God Complex, I was instantly hooked by one of the more interesting premises on television this year. How would the titular Airport Chaplain work in a system full of tension, staff and management, the frustrations of passengers, or the different requirements of different faiths? Now that I have watched the whole season, I am both impressed and a bit frustrated with how it all played out.

So, to set the scene, it is a chaotic day at Victoria Airport: planes are being delayed, a flight from Shanghai has been circling for half an hour with a dead body on board, and there is a security incident happening. It is one of those days when you need a fixer to help smooth these things over, which is a good thing: Airport Chaplain Tobias Wallace (Hugo Weaving) is on the case. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Musings on The Leftovers (or did Nora Lie?)

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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