A brilliant, darker-edged, hard-hitting Fleabag-esque dark comedy featuring an astounding performance by Billie Piper - bloody hell, how good is the Baftas right now? Gloriously inventive, completely unafraid to go where it wants to go and might just well end up being one of the best shows of last year.
A genuine revelation - Mae Martin is an absolute star. Entirely personal, brilliant comedy that is far too easy to get through in one sitting. Savour this, you'll miss it once it's done.
Hard-edged, sometimes self-serious modern-day Peaky Blinders. Gets a bit too far fetched at times (there's no way half of this would be possible in modern-day London) and some of the characters are very thinly drawn, but Gareth Evans delivers some of the best possible action on television that not even the likes of Daredevil match. Could have used shorter episodes, especially in its first, though - I don't think it earns its length, or its ending.
Jared Harris continues his hot streak of appearing in very good things and being very good in them. The on-location shooting on the Isle of Wight is the true star, but Cush Jumbo gives you a character to root for and the Knives Out of it all is suitably compelling. Not bad for Britbox's first original show.
Haunting, breathtakingly unique puzzle box from Stephen King and Pablo Larrain that has all the hallmarks of both at their best. Great performances from across the board - and whilst King stories tend to fizzle out with a whimper rather than a bang, the signs are strong for this on that it won't suffer the same fate. Dane DeHaan is appropriately sinister, and the high-budget production makes it look better than most movies.
A brilliant continuation of one of 2018's best movies, wickedly smart, clever and tonally just right - a hangout TV show if there ever was one. Might just be even better than the film.
A genuine delight, soars like a firecracker on all cylinders - matches the same chaotic energy that films like We Are the Best! (no doubt an inspiration) had - grippingly authentic and a genuine breath of fresh air on the British comedy scene.
Jimmy McGovern is unmatched in writing brilliance - shining a spotlight on prisons a world away from what the Daily Mail would have you believe they're like - he paints a damning portrayal of institutionalised corruption with astounding performances from the always brilliant Sean Bean and Stephen Graham - few actors have a better track record of appearing in good stuff than Graham.
Season 14 started off on a pretty weak note with this enjoyable but imperfect caper set in San Martino. It really needed a better alien.
A promising storyline let down by a weak second half, saved by a strong final classic series outing for Elisabeth Sladen who makes those final moments instantly memorable.
Quite a comedown after the brilliant Stolen Earth and the weakest of the post Unicorn and the Wasp era episodes, but there are some great ideas in this and it aims big and succeeds in resolving the massive cliffhanger the only way RTD knows how: deus ex machina. The departure for Donna never fails to be emotional even when Rose's send-off is a bit too melodramatic, but as a way to close off one of the best eras of the show, Journeys End does so in style. The Russos blatantly nabbed the whole Infinity War "50% of the population" thing from this.
Murray Gold is at his peak here - Song of Freedom is top-tier. Love the Sarah Jane/Davros reunion too, it's well overdue.
The Stolen Earth is the Doctor Who event: the first part of a culmination of everything Russell T. Davies has brought to the show. Big, loud, bombastic & ends with multiple cliffhangers on a sprawling, galaxy-wide scale where the heroes lose. Infinity War, only better.
Turn Left is a trial run for the brilliant Years and Years - Who at its darkest and most dystopian? Terrifying. This is another 10/10 in a row here, Russell T. Davies firing on all creative cylinders, Catherine Tate (her best performance) & Bernard Cribbins are phenomenal here. "The Stars are going out" is more chilling than it has any right to be. A depressing reminder that it can always get worse.
That's another stellar episode of Doctor Who - maybe Russell T. Davies' best script for the show? It's a perfect bottle episode (dare I say the best bottle episode of television apart from Breaking Bad's Fly?) A great slice of Twilight Zone-esque brilliance at its finest. Lesley Sharp is terrific. This run from The Unicorn and the Wasp to Journey's End is pretty much perfection.
Rivals Blink in terms of scare factor, this two parter's terrifying. "Hey, who turned out the lights?" The River Song mystery being introduced so early comes as a surprise, but Alex Kingston has an instant chemistry with David Tennant from the word go - it's completely believable. Hits all the right beats, makes you care about even the side characters who you've met for seconds - I always seem to underrate these two when making lists, but they're just so good! Possibly one of Tennant's better performances as The Doctor in this pair of episodes, too.
Same school of thought as the previous celebrity historical episodes, but with a surprise Felicity Jones appearance! of course she's the thief, tons of fun with its Cluedo-esque mystery "what are you doing with that lead piping?" and obviously, the CGI with the wasp hasn't aged brilliantly, but it's really fun overall and Agatha Christie and The Doctor teaming up to solve crimes never fails. Also the bit about The Doctor/companions bouncing off ideas about books that the famous authors haven't written to them yet from The Shakespeare Code never gets tiring.
I'm not too keen on this one.
It's better than The Lazarus Experiment, Stephen Greenhorn's last Who episode, but not by much - and suffers from just not being as good as the rest of Series 4, which - because it's so good, makes the weaker episodes stand out all the more - put this in Series 3 and it's a solid middle of the road episode. It'd probably be one of the better ones of 2 or 7. Jenny needed a bit more development as the show never gives her any room to breath and it struggles to quite get the Doctor/Donna/Martha/Jenny/both factions balance right in this episode, even if I like the dynamic between Donna & Martha (which is refreshingly not combative in the way that Rose/Sarah Jane was) and the reveal about the war only lasting 7 days, 7 days being "generations" to the clones was a pretty effective moment - the emotional beats in this episode did a good job at landing, thanks in no small part due to Tennant's brilliance which makes up for the revelation about The Doctor's daughter being a clone being something of a copout - I remember the days of the speculation back in the runup to this episode as it aired! Not sure all of it stuck the landing.
On the plus side, this is the last (and only) not-as-good episode of Series 4! There's nothing but great episodes from here on out.
Really fun mood setter featuring an early performance from Andrew Garfield doing an American accent. Infinitely better than Evolution of the Daleks that holds up so much better on a rewatch, the Murray Gold score is firing on all cylinders. It's one of those stories that captures its time setting perfectly.
A mostly really solid episode that follows the present day-past-future formula of the first three episodes of any given season that RTD stuck to quite frequently during his era. The dystopia set-up of an endless motorway of caravans is established with ease, the return of the Macra is handled really well, and I love the establishment of the "You Are Not Alone" mystery with the return of the Face of Boe. Maintains its suspense throughout and Tennant is able to sell even the cheesiest of scenes with the emotional beats handled really well. Novice Hame is handled much better here than in New Earth, and it acts as a great sequel.
"I've Invented a Sport!"
Love the dynamic between The Doctor, Martha and Shakespeare in this episode. Shakespeare being treated as one of the rockstars of his age feels appropriate, and The Doctor quoting Shakespeare back at Shakespeare will never not grow old. A few sketchy moments with the writing aside that have not aged well, The Shakespeare Code is still a fun romp in a mostly consistent season.
Star Trek hasn't been this good in a while, fresh, exciting and optimistic more than living up to its bold, inclusive mission statement. As addictive as ever and instantly bingeable, Doug Jones & Sonequa Martin Green are the MVPs of this season with excellent performances from Mary Wiseman, David Ajala & Anthony Rapp. This feels more like an ensemble than ever with great attention given to the entirety of Discovery, it's far more than just the show of the select few.
Would have been happy with how it ended if that had been a final season, but I'm really excited to see where they take Season 4 next.
Completely fearless, brave, unique and breathtakingly weird. By far the most original show to come out of 2020, Lovecraft Country is a trip that has to be experienced fully to be believed: I loved it! Its anthology-esque structure is refreshing with largely different storylines each episode with a core group of characters. It throws everything at the wall and most of it sticks, the genre-shifting is handled really well and you will almost certainly be surprised. For a great double-act, pair it with the equally insane Lovecraft horror fare Color out of Space.
This remake gets everything right: the tone, the soundtrack, the performances are all spot on across the board: Zoe Kravitz is terrific in the lead role. This show deserved the world: it should have never just had that solitary season.
Talk about a show that has unfairly swept under the radar of many: a spiritual sequel to Crystal Moselle's terrific Skate Kitchen utilising the same cast for a series of 30 minute episodes. It's over too quickly but captures the same indie tone effortlessly and is a joy to watch unfold, the performances are mostly natural and the group has brilliant chemistry across the board. One of my favourites of the year.
A mostly consistent season; even if that works both ways - aside from maybe the finale itself there are no bad storylines here; but there aren't really any episodes that I'd call top-tier TNG apart from maybe Tapestry either, so it's a step-down from Season 5 in that regard (Darmok, The First Duty, Cause & Effect & I, Borg - all episodes that I'd put in my Top 10 TNG episode ranking).
The double header of Rascals & A Fistful of Datas are both TNG at its most fun and entertaining; whilst Chain of Command is a two-parter that is elevated mainly thanks to Patrick Stewart's impeccable performance more than anything else. There's a few good episodes in here like Relics (Scotty!) Timescape, The Chase, Face of the Enemy & Birthright in addition to this but the main novelty here in Birthright is seeing it be the crossover episode with Deep Space Nine: Julian Bashir showing up was a welcome surprise.
I'd put this below Seasons 5 and 4, but above Seasons 1-3.
A mixed bag of a first season. It's not Game of Thrones, Black Sails or even Vikings yet; it doesn't have the budget but it started out on the BBC so that's to be expected. I'm looking forward to seeing what the move to Netflix will do it budget-wise. It's very impressive for a BBC series in terms of the scale and drama it achieves; and a lot of that is down to Bernard Cornwell's novels which - from what I remember, are very good, although it's been a while since I've read them.
The first episode didn't really grab me at all and was easily the weakest of the whole season. It was exposition heavy and Uthred isn't exactly a likeable protagonist early on. He grows on you as the series progresses; as do all the characters, but at the same time having him as a lead character for the first few episodes was as testing, especially when he stuck by Alfred after everything that Alfred put him through for minimal returns. The Danes were the more lively characters of the bunch and Ragnar and Brida needed more screentime - in general, The Last Kingdom has a major problem with its female characters that never really got addressed to the point where Iseult's plot and everything that happens to her is laughably bad. Mildrith deserved a lot better; and her storyline made me feel sorry for her character and the luck of the draw that she got. Brida threatens to be an actual character at times but the show pushes her to the side after a few episodes to the point where she and Ragnar almost feel like extras by the end of Season 1.
The action scenes are brutal and intense and I like that this show packs a lot of story in its episodes - it's rare that there isn't an hour long episode that doesn't make the most of its runtime and there's enough plot in episode five alone to fill an entire season which is a refreshing change when Netflix just lets its episodes run and run. Episode 5 is easily the highlight of the entire first season. Odda the Younger was a really detestable antagonist; and Ubba was a more than credible threat for the Viking side; so the series did a good job at building up its characters and making you invested in Uthred's struggles even if I never warmed up to him that much over the course of the show.
Verdict: Better than Season 4! If not by much. Definitely not good enough to justify the constant self-referential jokes about Season 4 being bad when there's still a lot of episodes that aren't much better than Season 4 (I hate it when shows make jokes about their past seasons without being good seasons themselves so this automatically causes it to lose points). Season 5a was a lot stronger than Season 5b - and I felt like this show lost a LOT when Donald Glover left, and it's going to lose a lot next season with no more Jonathan Banks and John Oliver too. Feels like it's a show that gets worse the more self-indulgent it becomes and it's very much a case of Dan Harmon being caught up in his own hype.
I talked about Pierce and Troy's farewell episodes a few days ago - and they're the high-point of the series I think for me. It handles Troy's farewell brilliantly and manages to get Pierce perfectly even in an episode without Chevy Chase ever actually being there at all, Walton Goggins showing up was hilarious and Troy's send off in a mostly Britta-centric episode worked well and made the best use of a LeVar Burton cameo. Also, this is probably due to the fact that I'm watching this much later after the app-rating parody trend seems to have passed - but App Development and Condiments just felt there to me; other shows have tackled a similiar subject so much better. And there's yet another trap that the show falls into of tackling high-concept episodes - they're fine in their isolation but there's just too many of them and they just feel like once again, the show's doing them just because they can and hasn't really learned anything. They keep repeating concepts without trying something new, and even the season's best episode - Basic Intergluteal Numismatics, which I liked - isn't as good as the Law & Order parody that came before it.
I'm fine with the odd one or two concept episode but they're still really overbearing - the Dungeons & Dragons episode felt a bit too repetitive and just a weaker retread of what had come before; and the G.I. Joe episode just felt like a weaker version of the Christmas animated episode and it felt really hollow as a result (especially given the lazy copout of the It was all a dream ending, which feels like a direct retread of the Season 4 finale). And even given the choice as much as I loved Geothermal Escapism, I'd take the paintball episodes over it. Community used to be a show that was able to balance emotional stuff with the concept episodes and although it does it with Troy's departure, that's probably the only time it manages this season as even Jeff and Britta's on/off marriage proposal/breakup just feels flat and forced like they needed to get two characters together and - yes, they called out on the trope but they didn't do anything with it. Also: Abed realising that he's on a show... didn't work for me, as much as I love Abed's character.
The characters don't feel anywhere near close to what they were in the past especially by the end - in part due to how plot-driven the finale is, there's a few quiet moments but mostly they just feel there to react to the news that there's buried treasure and that's all we get. Most of the time they're all pretty much interchangable now to the point they all feel like shadows of their former selves. Also: Chang just becoming part of the group still feels odd especially given everything that happened in Season 3 - did they really forget about him essentially TRYING TO KILL THEM?, but I did like some of the material that Chang had this season. Even Season 4 had a better ending than Season 5 - at least they actually tried to give Jeff a character arc.
If anything - Season 5 feels like The Rise of Skywalker (although that's not to compare Season 4 to The Last Jedi because I loved TLJ and didn't click with Season 4). It feels very much like a course-correction, over-reactionary, safe and ambitionless when Community previously was daring, risk-taking and always trying out new things. And what's arguably made it worse is that this time it feels self-indulgent and self-righteous (see back to the constant gags about Season 4 being a 'blip'). When I started Season 3 I was worried it would go full Sherlock and jump the shark completely - and it looks like it has done. Now it's just - aside from the odd exception - stale and lifeless. Still: one more season to go! (If I ever do rewatches, unless Season 6 salvages it I'm sticking with Seasons 1-2).
Favourite episodes from the season:
Cooperative Polygraphy
Geothermal Escapism
Basic Intergluteal Numismatics
A really fun episode with a nice twist on the time traveller being from the past rather than the future. Matt Frewer hams it up a bit too much but the final reveal was, as ever, classic Trek.
I'm really starting to like Sela as an antagonist.
Leonard Nimoy is fantastic as Spock as always; and his scenes with Picard particularly knowing what had happened between Picard and Sarek really hit well. Patrick Stewart carries them brilliantly. Furthermore; the scenes between Data and Spock were powerful the more we learnt about Spock wanting to leave humanity behind whilst Data was trying to embrace it.
Between this and Discovery, Spock really does have a habit of going AWOL, doesn't he?
Surprisingly low-key for such a major crossover as this with Spock involved; he's barely in the first part at all. Seeing Picard & Spock pose as Vulkans was a fun diversion in Romulus but the best scenes of the episode were easily the moments between Sarek and Picard, they're amazing every time and both Patrick Stewart & Mark Lenard have great chemistry. Lenard is terrific - I'll miss seeing him on the show.