series

17 May

Inside No. 9 Series 6 Episode 2 Review: Simon Says

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Warning: contains spoilers for Inside No. 9 series 6 episode 2. The online petition to ‘Remake Game of Thrones Season 8 with competent writers’ currently has over 1.8 million signatures. Despite the series having ended two years ago and HBO politely declining the opportunity to bin its $100m first attempt and have another go, people continue to add their names. Call it love or call it entitlement, some fans can’t move on.  That’s the context for ‘Simon Says’, a dark story about the writer of a fictional fantasy TV epic with a famously unpopular ending. When fans Simon and Gavin (Reece Shearsmith…

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17 May

Game of Thrones Director: Series Was Seen as ‘A Great Experiment’

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Last month marked the 10th anniversary of the Game of Thrones series premiere: a show that changed the face of television as profoundly as The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Sex and the City, or any other series that advanced the notion of what kind of entertainment television could deliver. While any series of its scope and stature is the offspring of literally hundreds of creators–from showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to the indelible cast–one person who left his own mark on Game of Thrones is director Neil Marshall, who helmed two of the show’s most unforgettable, epic episodes:…

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13 May

Inside No. 9 Series 5 Episode Guide, Cast & Reviews

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Series five took Inside No. 9 to new and unusual places: the changing room at a premier league football match, a Louisiana prison, a cemetery at night, Wood Green… In fan-treat episode ‘Death Be Not Proud’, it even revisited an old haunt. Co-creators Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith welcomed new guest stars including David Morrissey, Ralf Little, Jenna Coleman, Phil Davis and Maxine Peake. The series earned Bafta nominations for Best Scripted Comedy and Best Male Performance in a Comedy Programme, to go with Steve Pemberton’s 2019 Bafta win for the previous series. It offered laughter, tears, blood, a gristly…

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12 May

Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings Series is Focusing its Massive Budget on Huge World-Building

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When reports first surfaced back in early-2018 that Amazon’s untitled The Lord of the Rings television series bore a budget upwards of $1 billion, the entertainment industry and its fans did a collective double-take. Remember, this was two whole years before pandemic-era logistics—and heavy-hitting newcomers like Disney+ and HBO Max—elevated the status of streaming platforms from luxury to essential, and seemed like muscle-flexing by the retail giant to instill fear into the Netflixes and Hulus of the world. While the show’s price tag remains surreal to this day, Amazon Studios’ boss is reaffirming the wisdom of the decision. Amazon Studios…

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10 May

Inside No. 9 Series 6 Episode 1 Review: Wuthering Heist

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This Inside No. 9 review contains spoilers.  There’s old school comedy of the ‘Frank Spencer roller-skating under a lorry’ kind, and then there’s old school comedy of the ‘clowns, dukes, ruffs and rhyming couplets’ variety. The Inside No. 9 series six opener draws on the latter, improbably combining 16th century commedia dell’arte with a modern-day jewel heist. It’s proof, if any were needed, that there really is no formula to this show. Peculiarity is its only genre.    Commedia dell’arte sounds complicated because it’s Italian, but so does bruschetta, and that’s just tomato on toast. The term describes a form of historical theatre using a group…

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02 May

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 7: H, The Fourth Man, the End of AC-12 & All Our Questions & Theories

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Warning: contains spoilers for the Line of Duty series 6 finale. Perhaps thanks to the extra half hour of screen time, or perhaps because there was a genuine sense of threads being tied up as AC-12 went into storage for potentially the last time, there are fewer questions left to answer than usual after Line of Duty series six. The finale gave us lots of certainty, and just a few things still to mull over. After you’ve read our weekly episode review, catch up on the post-finale theories and questions below. So, Buckells was H all along? He was bent all along, ever since…

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02 May

Line of Duty: Will There Be a Series 7?

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Warning: contains spoilers for the Line of Duty series six finale. “The genuine answer is we don’t know,” Line of Duty actor Martin Compston told the Shrine of Duty podcast last week about whether or not the BBC One crime drama will return. “But that’s nothing different for us. Jed always takes his time.” As reported by Radio Times, Compston explained, “After a series, [creator Jed Mercurio] always takes a couple of months… I think he likes to take the emotion out of it and sit down and look at all that.”  To judge by series six’s mammoth audience numbers, a seventh series would seem like a…

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02 May

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 7 Review: H Unmasked At Last

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This Line of Duty review contains finale spoilers. Ian Buckells, as I live and breathe. There we were, thinking you a workshy wally with one foot on the golf course and the other skidding on a banana skin, when all along… you were, well, that, but also tapping out OCG orders on your secret laptop in your secret millionaire’s pad and secret Gran Canaria timeshare. DSU Buckells. The Fourth Man. Line of Duty’s Keyser So-So. The Buckells revelation played out for viewers just like it did for AC-12: What? Him? The sight of his curly mop in the interrogation room cut our kite strings and brought us…

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30 Apr

Green Lantern: What Guy Gardner Means for the HBO Series

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When HBO Max announced its Green Lantern live-action television series, speculation ran rampant on how the DC galactic superhero mantle would be handled after Ryan Reynolds starred in the notorious 2011 film flop. However, that speculation has just narrowed, with the casting of headliner Finn Wittrock. The catch? Rather than playing famous hero Hal Jordan, Wittrock will instead star as machismo-addled antihero Guy Gardner, who will eventually be joined by other ring-wielders from the comic lore. It’s an intriguing development that will undoubtedly define the tone of the series. Who is Guy Gardner? While that might sound like an easy…

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28 Apr

PS5 vs Xbox Series X Sales: Who Is Winning the 2021 Console War So Far?

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Since the popular idea of a “console war” isn’t going anywhere despite all the evidence that suggests our perception of that concept has drastically changed in recent years, it’s only natural that many gamers can’t help but wonder who is winning the sales race between the PS5 and Xbox Series X. Fortunately, Sony and Microsoft made it a little easier to answer that question by recently releasing sales figures and earning reports that give us a better idea of how each company’s next-gen plans are going so far. The good news is that both companies are doing very well at…

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25 Apr

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 6 Review: No Comment!

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This Line of Duty review contains spoilers. Adiós Marcus. So much for Jimmy Nesbitt’s starring role. Those of us looking forward to a Hastings v Thurwell Northern Irish grudge match next week will have to go without. Unless the finale features an interview between AC-12 and a fly-buzzing body bag, that’s Nesbitt’s character done with. The Jed giveth, and the Jed taketh away.  Who giveth the order to kill Señor and Señora Thurwell? (Some time ago by the looks of those decomposing corpses. Certainly longer ago than the few days between their discovery and ‘Unknown User’ ordering Jo to get…

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25 Apr

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 6: Thurwell, Carmichael, Osborne & All Our Questions & Theories

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Warning: contains Line of Duty spoilers. Notebooks at the ready. There’s just one episode remaining in this special extra-long Line of Duty series, and after that whopper of an interview scene, we already have the answers to several of our previous questions. Below are a few still to be pondered, including: how long has Marcus Thurwell been dead? (Ages) Is Patricia ‘Don’t call me the Guvnor’ Carmichael working for the OCG? (Nah) Is CC Osborne The Fourth Man? (Has to be, doesn’t he?) And what are they going to find under the concrete floor in that workshop? After you’ve read our weekly…

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23 Apr

Cyberpunk 2077: Revisiting the Game on an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series Laptop

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For a place that constantly reminds you how grim the future could be, Night City sure is beautiful with the right hardware. When the weather is good and you’re strolling through the Heywood District, seeing the sun glint off windows and watching the world go by, it’s almost possible to forget this is a nightmare vision of where humankind could end up. Until you notice that all the pedestrians are cybernetically augmented and it all comes flooding back. When night time rolls in, the graphics take on a more seedy vibe. Without natural light, the world becomes drenched in the…

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22 Apr

Could The Walking Dead Series Finale Bring Back Rick Grimes?

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Few moments in the history of The Walking Dead will be as big as the return of Rick Grimes. Ever since he was transported away to parts unknown by the Civic Republic in season 9, fans have counted down the days until Rick’s upcoming Walking Dead movie, the first in a planned trilogy of films starring everyone’s favorite post-apocalyptic sheriff. For some fans, Rick’s return is the main reason to keep up with The Walking Dead universe of shows, which have slowly been teasing out details regarding where he might’ve disappeared to. While this long-awaited movie still hasn’t started filming…

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20 Apr

Rutherford Falls Review: Peacock Series Learns From Pawnee’s Mistakes

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This review contains no spoilers and is based on the first four episodes of Rutherford Falls. Rutherford Falls, the new Peacock comedy from Ed Helms, Sierra Teller Ornelas, and co-creator Michael Schur, owes a lot to Schur’s previous series, Parks and Recreation. Not only does Rutherford Falls have its mind on civics, community, and bureaucracy, it also aims to have a lived-in quality, with a focus on world-building. In the four episodes screened for critics, Rutherford Falls makes a concerted effort to give every member of the Northeast community a name and a voice, much like the citizens of Pawnee.…

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19 Apr

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 5: Thurwell, Homozygosity, Lawrence Christopher Questions & Theories

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Warning: contains spoilers for Line of Duty series 6 episode 5 The pause button really came into its own in this week’s Line of Duty instalment, which was even more packed than usual with references to the past. It saw the return of Patrick Fairbank, and the new arrival of a potential ‘H’ candidate played by Jimmy Nesbitt, plus a cliffhanger that threatened the end of DI Kate Fleming (see below for more on that). On top of all that, it turned out that Jo Davidson being related to Tommy Hunter wasn’t the worst of her DNA revelations; her family…

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19 Apr

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 5 Review: Is Thurwell H?

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This Line of Duty review contains spoilers. Marcus Thurwell, you old bastard. You get, what, four mentions by name in series three? We’ve never even seen your face before today (ahoy there, Mr James Nesbitt), and now you’re our chief suspect in the search for the Fourth Man. Oh, what fools you’ve made us look. Fans have spent the last five years sizing up every inspector, sniffer dog and lampshade in Central Police as a potential H, and now we learn that he likely retired in 2005 and has been masterminding the lot while sipping a chilled Estrella Damm on the Costa…

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16 Apr

Game of Thrones at 10: The Series That Changed TV Forever

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During the Game of Thrones series finale, there’s an exchange between Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister that is as much about the series’ legacy as it is the characters’ inner turmoil. Only a handful of scenes earlier, these same two men conspired to murder the woman they called their queen, Daenerys Targaryen. Now living with the consequences of that heavy deed—with Jon again banished to the white hell Beyond the Wall and Tyrion conscripted to a lifetime of public service—a tormented Jon asks his friend was it right what they did? “Ask me again in 10 years,” Tyrion says tersely.…

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12 Apr

Shameless Series Finale Review: Father Frank, Full of Grace

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This Shameless review contains spoilers. Shameless Season 11 Episode 12 “We’re still here. We’re surviving, right?”  Most people would likely not argue that Shameless’s best years are behind it. Showtime, its cable network, even briefly had a reputation for bleeding series dry long after they should have ended. However, even the most egregious examples of this like Weeds, Californication, and Dexter still pale in comparison to Shameless‘s episode count and none of them ever lost their series’ lead. It’s fair to say that Shameless is not as good as when it started or even how it was a few seasons…

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11 Apr

Line of Duty Series 6 Episode 4: Davidson, DNA, Buckells’ Codes & All Our Questions & Theories

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Warning: contains spoilers for Line of Duty series 6 episode 4. After all the excitement of episode four (read our spoiler-filled review here), fans could be forgiven for taking a recovery day before putting their minds to work and trying to figure out series six’s many mysteries. But did Steve and Chloe take a rest after that shoot-out? No, so in their honour, neither will we. After all, as Kate told Ted in that piss-stinking underpass make-up scene, we’ve got a case to solve. Jargon of the week: Nominal Anybody convicted, cautioned, reprimanded, warned or arrested of a recordable offence…

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