LeftHandedGuitarist

Having finished the TV series Twin Peaks and come away from it quite blown away, I was eager to see the film that followed it. I was pre-warned that it had a different tone to the show, that it was darker and generally not well received at the time it was released. However, the final few episodes of Twin Peaks had taken a more sinister, otherworldly turn and I really liked it, so was happy to see where this would take me.

I was not prepared. Fire Walk With Me is one of the most brutal, terrifying and emotionally draining films I've ever seen. And I utterly loved it. Gone is the quirky soap-opera vibe the TV show gave us (although remnants of it pop up), and instead we get a full-on psychological horror showing us the last days of Laura Palmer's life.

It acts mostly as a prequel to the show - and should definitely not be watched if you haven't seen the whole TV series, because it will spoil a lot, as well as just being confusing - but also very cleverly places scenes that occur AFTER the end of the series, so it's also a sequel in some ways.

Not many of the characters from the TV series actually reprise their roles in this film (although many did, but their scenes were later cut out) and instead we get all the focus on Laura, her family and close friends. Agent Cooper does show up in a small role and his scenes are scattered throughout the film. We also get a very young Kiefer Sutherland, Chris Isaak and a wonderfully bizarre appearance by David Bowie (which does have an explanation if you really paid attention to the show's mythology and are open to working things out).

Sheryl Lee in the role of Laura Palmer is absolutely phenomenal. She wonderfully portrays a young girl whose life is absolutely falling apart, being subjected to unimaginable horrors. All the more impressive when you consider she was only ever originally hired to play a dead body in the pilot episode of the show. Watching her demise, which you know is coming from the start, is heartbreaking. Alongside her we also get a great turn from Ray Wise as her father and Frank Silva returning as BOB.

It's hard to talk about the film or even the characters without spoiling things. It contains some scenes which have become utterly burned into my mind; notably the harrowing sequence of Laura's final moments which is both horrific but also has an accompanying beautiful resolution. And I have to mention the amazing Pink Room sequence which is an absolute sonic assault on the senses with the throbbing, dirty music and realistic use of barely audible dialogue (fortunately subtitled, but in some ways it can play better without them).

It's a lot more adult than the TV show ever was and feels like Twin Peaks utterly let loose to tell the story on its own terms, rather than the restraints of 1990s network television. The crazy Red Room/Black Lodge sequences appear here as they did in the show, and they are essential for understanding what is going on. If you just dismiss them as weird and unintelligible art nonsense then you're missing the point.

This never deserved the criticism it got when released. I can only think its because Twin Peaks fans got something completely different from what they were expecting. It's honestly the best part of the entire Twin Peaks saga and has got me very excited from the (hopefully) forthcoming return of the show. It's not particularly gory but you still need to have a strong stomach and be in the right frame of mind to watch it, because it completely gets under your skin.

This is the follow up season of True Detective we deserved but never got.

A furious evisceration of the hypocrisy of organised religion, while also seeing the value of faith - be it in those you love, yourself or your own moral compass. This horrific true story walks the line between infuriating and fascinating, remaining a stunning watch from start to finish.

I'm not sure I've ever seen Andrew Garfield be as compelling or so fully inhabiting a character as he does here. He plays a Mormon detective and it means he needs to navigate completely different worlds. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between him and his partner Bill.

The true crime dealt with in this story is not for the faint hearted, and the portrayal of the corrupted people behind it is strong. I won't highlight any names here for fear of spoilers, but some of the cast members put in truly disturbing performances.

The structure of the series is a little odd, being told with multiple flashbacks and timeline jumps. I think that mostly this is put together really well, but the 1800s stuff was probably unnecessary. I would have appreciated more time spent with Brenda's (Daisy Edgar-Jones) story instead.

One thing I really liked here was the slightly longer episode lengths. They ended up benefitting the story and really allowed me to get immersed. I wish I'd watched this sooner and would recommend it in an instant. Just take a few deep breaths because the behaviour of these people, especially their treatment of women, is a lot to take.

The episodes continue to be very small scale and very low stakes, but I found quite a bit to like here. The character focus was welcome and there was a sense that the episode wasn't in any hurry. In particular the scene with the bridge crew recording a message for school children back home was excellent. It gave several of the characters a moment to show who they are and did it playfully. Enterprise was at its best when it embraced its concept of showing us how a human crew first adapted to exploring outer space, and simple things like this are a wonderful reminder of it. It's also something that would have been out of place in another Trek show, so felt uniquely suited to this.

Other parts of the episode largely worked too. The awkward relationship humans have with the Vulcans is quite fun and being developed nicely. The T'Pol stuff here was fairly intriguing, and certainly sets up the beginnings of a friendship with Trip. Less interesting was all the stuff on the ice comet, mostly because it all felt so plodding and basic. Those bland rocky "alien planet" sets were looking so dated by this point (and yet, they are SO Star Trek). At least the captain reminding them they are being observed was funny. Archer's prideful arrogance really is feeling excessively immature even this early on in the show, though.

For all that this episode does well, it still does end up feeling like a bunch of unconnected stories being mashed together. The fact that it comes out of that fairly well is a testament to half decent writing, I'd say.

I do love a good pecan pie.

My plan was to review episodes of Enterprise as I rewatched them, but I'm finding I have almost nothing to say so far. The episodes end and I give a shrug and within an hour or two I've kind of forgotten them. 'Unexpected' at least has some more meaty material to think about.

At this point in the show we are still very much in a "getting to know you" mode with the characters, and the characters are currently very much defined by single traits that are being pushed to the fore. Archer is headstrong and wants to try things his way no matter the good advice he gets. Hoshi is unsure of herself but is becoming confident in her language skills. T'Pol has more common sense than the entire crew put together and will regularly remind them of that. Phlox is optimistically open-minded. Trip is Southern.

This episode manages to both allow the crew to use their traits but also throws them in unknown waters. There's a delightful sense of them just having to muddle through to deal with this situation. And it's a very silly situation, falling back on tired tropes of not being able to deal with hormones and making light of that. By and large I didn't think it was handled as poorly as it could have been, as nobody outright makes fun of Trip, but it's hardly shining a light on Trek's virtues.

The best humour comes from T'Pol, showing off the sarcastic side of Vulcan culture rather expertly, admonishing rather than mocking. And the Klingon captain's wonderful line, "I can see my house from here!".

The episode really takes a while to get going though, with the first part not quite clicking for me. All the slow semi-drugged stuff on the alien ship was unpleasant to sit through. But seeing a holodeck in action was great, along with Trip's amazed reaction to it. Once the Klingons enter the story it's more interesting and I quite like these early meetings between them and humans. Archer has no idea how to talk to them, whereas T'Pol is able to appeal to their nature.

So, I'm giving Enterprise another go! Does it deserve the bad reputation its seemed to gotten over the years? I tuned in for the initial broadcast of this pilot episode and had more or less checked out by the time the appalling theme song began, figuring that maybe I was done with Star Trek. It was several years after the show had finished that I decided to give it a proper chance and watched the whole thing through. That was quite a long while ago now and my memories of it are that I slogged through the first two seasons before finding a lot to enjoy with the final two.

The show starts out just okay. Enterprise retains a lot of the '90s sensibilities that its predecessors had and fits very much in the same style. The exception to this is that the producers finally moved into the 21st century and shot it in HD widescreen. Much appreciated. Other than that it looks like '90s Trek, sounds like '90s Trek and is performed just like '90s Trek. It's not surprising that a sense of fatigue kicked in amongst fans.

Scott Bakula is rather welcome though, even though Captain Archer comes across fairly one-note. He's easily annoyed and quite aggressive in how he gets things done. He unfortunately leans more towards arrogant than confident and shouts a lot of his lines. Voyager had a huge problem (for me) with one-note characters, and I'm not sure that Enterprise ever makes this work either. But it helps that we have some fun actors in the main roles. Trip is sarcastic and fun, similarly quick to anger, while T'Pol shows signs of being a far more adaptable Vulcan that some others. This seems to be an attempt to recreate the original series trifecta of Kirk/Spock/McCoy. But the rest of the crew have very little to distinguish them at this point, and as I recall at least one of them will have virtually nothing to do for the entire show's run.

In fact, the Vulcan aspect of this show is the most interesting thing at this point. Humanity seems to have a difficult relationship with them, making their severe disapproval of Earth's actions quite entertaining and rich.

The episode itself isn't very memorable, but does its job. There's the introduction of Klingons and Suliban (the Suliban suck), some hints about a temporal cold war, a ridiculous "decontamination" scene and lots of shooting/punching in between. It feels safe even with the more rough-&-ready explorers approach. At this point its honestly hard to care about anyone, but let's let things grow.

Initially coming across as a little odd, this grows into a highly tense and deeply emotional story. The tragic life of Anne Frank is well known, but this elects to tell things from the perspective of the woman who agreed to keep her and her family hidden from the Nazis.

I'm often drawn to the more detailed, personal stories of World War II and this delivers. Life in Amsterdam under Nazi occupation is depicted as more complex than the image we may have in our heads. People are confused, angry and absolutely terrified and they deal with it in different ways. Some choose to resist. Some choose to stay out of it as much as they can. Some choose to become collaborators, either out of fear or out of opportunity.

An initial hurdle with this miniseries is that the dialogue and characters all feel very modern. It was taking me out of things, but after a couple of episodes it started to feel like quite a natural choice. It enabled me to relate to the characters easily, and eventually I wasn't even noticing. The character's accents are also confusing, with a mixture of English and German voices and not much I could tell to differentiate what they represented. The Frank family alone are a big mix of accents, and I would have appreciated some clarification.

The performances here are fantastic, with Bel Powley, Joe Cole and Liev Schreiber being the standouts. The rest of the cast don't get as much screen time and less opportunities to make their mark, but everyone fits in very well. While this chooses to stay largely family friendly, that doesn't mean it isn't powerful, and while the horrors of WW2 aren't explicitly shown they are certainly felt and this doesn't attempt to gloss over the darkness.

And in the end anything that shows a new generation what utter evil bastard scum the Nazis were is good, especially when the message is delivered as well as this.

I could make the same complaints about series 2 as I did with the previous, but I can't deny that the show moves forward with much more confidence here. David Tennant injects some wonderful energy into the lead role and has a stronger chemistry with Billie Piper. Ecclestone did a fantastic job, but Tennant is more charismatic, more playful and more interesting.

I'm coming to accept the inherent cheapness of the show and the super kid-friendly writing, just enjoying the stories for what they are. It's very noticeable that for a show about being able to travel anywhere in space/time, they keep ending up in the contemporary UK. I would say that this sort of thing could never win any awards, but somehow the episode 'The Girl in the Fireplace' came away with a Hugo. Shows what I know. The bad guys still look terrible but they are done with a bit more style here. The special effects are low quality even for 2006, that's just unavoidable given the show's budget and scale.

It's the characters. They work, they're fun. Their relationships become irresistible. There are some real high points in this series and they all come down to powerful character moments for me. My favourite thing here was the two part 'The Impossible Planet'/'The Satan Pit' in which everything clicked. The episodes benefited from atmospheric location shooting and effective lighting which made them look better than anything else the show has done so far, as well as liberally borrowing from things like Event Horizon and Aliens, but it was the material between the Doctor and Rose which made this into something magical. 'School Reunion' was also a wonderfully fun exploration into the Doctor's history.

However, when the show got bad it was almost unbearable. Episodes like 'Love and Monsters' and 'Fear Her' were tacky and dull and so poorly made, seemingly full of afterthoughts in every department. The first includes an embarrassing Scooby-Doo chase scene and a woeful Peter Kay. I also couldn't get into 'Rise of the Cybermen'/'The Age of Steel' despite its impact on the story going forward, largely due to the bad acting and overblown danger from a very silly enemy.

Fortunately the good outweighs the bad here and the series culminates in some truly emotional scenes.

Doctor Who has always been a tough sell for me. I grew up watching the Sylvester McCoy years and have a fond memory of watching the 1996 TV movie premiere on the BBC (Paul McGann was GREAT). But as I grew up I desired more sophisticated sci-fi (that had a better budget behind it). By the time this new era of the show began, I was enjoying things like Stargate and Battlestar Galactica which had visuals and ambitions which put Doctor Who to shame.

Yet something always kept telling me I should enjoy this show. I had tried to watch it in the past and couldn't make it more than a couple of episodes in. This time I think something has clicked and the show has got its hooks in me.

But lets be honest, the quality in this first series is not there. The show looks awful, extremely cheap with terrible lighting that adds a weird glow to things. The sets still look iffy and the alien/monster designs are laughably bad (the Slitheen stood out here as especially weak). The cinematography and editing is awkward. The writing is full of exposition and good actors are somehow reduced to giving pantomime-like performances as they spout the silly dialogue (shouting it more often than not).

The saving grace is the emphasis on character relationships. Eccleston is superb in the lead role, but the real star turns out to be Billie Piper who manages to act circles around everyone else. The dynamic that grows between Rose and The Doctor is endearing and eventually gripping. The show absolutely shines when it focuses on the moments where they just stop and talk.

And at the end of the day this is a family/children's show and accepting that has enabled me to somehow find the enjoyment. I can get through trash like 'Aliens of London' and 'The End of the World' if I also have episodes as good as 'Dalek' and 'The Parting of the Ways'. I'm quite excited to see what's ahead now.

An already silly show gets pushed into extreme cheese territory here, and it's honestly all quite welcome. Cobra Kai uses nostalgia as a weapon to hook us in and it works brilliantly. I can forgive the ridiculous dialogue, the never-ending plot contrivances and some of the really weak acting because the characters and the story being told are so much damn fun.

The show has managed to give us rounded, interesting heroes and villains on all sides. It pulls off the magic formula of making you root for almost everyone involved. The two characters I wanted to hate most - Kreese and Hawk - now both have enough back story and individual motivations to make me feel for them. That's impressive.

I also particularly love the continued use of flashbacks and footage from the original films, they integrate them so well.

There is a question of whether the show can continue with this level of silliness before it begins to feel too much. How many times can we see two characters begin to make amends when some perfectly timed disaster conveniently interrupts them? It's clear that the show isn't interested in being too grounded or presenting any realism (Miguel sure did relearn to walk - and fight! - easily after being paralysed), and part of me feels that the show is going to need to reign it in and commit to some new directions. There's no denying it's very repetitive.

The good stuff here comes from Johnny and Daniel. When it switches over to the kids, it's noticeably how they aren't quite sparking in the same way. In this season particularly it's Tory, Samantha and Robby who feel like they haven't had much to do and anything involving them lacks much energy.

Does it matter? Nah. I'm all in. Hopefully season 4 will let us see Daniel and Johnny team up properly, and not fall out within an episode or two. And if we somehow get Thomas Ian Griffith back as Terry Silver then that would be a treat!

A subtle improvement over the first season which has raised this show in my estimation. I mostly liked the first season but could honestly take it or leave it, yet here I was eager to see the next episode each time one finished. The comedy is more or less on the same level as before, but what really is starting to work here is the storytelling. The season has started to push things in new directions and bring in some central narratives, and it's really helped bring the characters to life more (excuse the pun).

Guillermo and Colin Robertson have begun to steal the show, and that's no mean feat when you have Matt Berry as a main cast member. Most of the time I can't honestly single out a favourite character as they all shine when given the spotlight. But I think special mention needs to be given to the Jackie Daytona episode which was just delightfully funny from start to finish (helped also by a great guest star). I'm interested to see if the events of the season end are going to affect the story going forward or if there will be a convenient reset of some sort.

If I'm still not completely in love with the show, it's probably because vampire stories are a very hard sell for me and that there's a slightly repetitive nature to things episode to episode. I appreciate that this at least tries to take a unique approach.