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Tuesday, 30 September 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- Almost Got 'Im

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 "Smaller words, please. Your losing Croc." As an idea for an episode it feels trite, lazy, low effort. A bunch of Batman's fo...
2 comments:
Monday, 29 September 2025

Dexter: Waiting to Exhale

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 "Just dropping somebody off..." This is another good episode, although primarily it consists of wrapping up last episode's ma...
Sunday, 28 September 2025

Clash of the Ninjas (1986)

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 "The rebels have been sent to the organ grinder, you see? Ha ha!" Yesterday was a bit deflating at disappointing, so a hilarious ...
Friday, 26 September 2025

P.R.O.B.E: The Devil of Winterborne

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 "I'm Gavin Purcell, not Dennis Wheatley!" The first episode was good, if cheap. The second instalment is, I think, even bette...
Thursday, 25 September 2025

Twin Peaks: On the Wings of Love

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 "Will you please ask the lady with the log to speak up?" We may begin the episode with Jones (aided by some kind of lip-applied h...
Wednesday, 24 September 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- Terror in the Sky

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 "Who wants to live with a monster?" These episodes are twenty minutes long, not a long time. So, by now quite a way into the firs...
Monday, 22 September 2025

Squid Game: 222

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 "Do you still have faith in people...?" This episode so so clever, so full of mind games, drama, agony, from start to finish. It...
2 comments:
Saturday, 20 September 2025

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

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It's strange to think that when this film was released, in 1920, it was the first cinematic version to the best of my knowledge, or at l...

Antigone (1986 TV Film)

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 "When the state becomes one man, it ceases to be a state." And so we come to the third and final iteration of Don Taylor's tr...
Tuesday, 16 September 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- Day of the Samurai

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 "Sayonara, Batman!" I wasn't expecting a sequel to Night of the Ninja , to put it mildly. But this follow-up, set in Japan, ...
2 comments:
Monday, 15 September 2025

Twin Peaks: Wounds and Scars

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 "I guess the world's just caught up to us..." Inevitably, Harry is deeply affected by Josie's death in a way we've ne...
Sunday, 14 September 2025

Dexter: It's Alive!

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 "Don't forget, tell the universe what you need..." So Angel, after recovering from his stabbing, is into all this cosmic orde...
Friday, 12 September 2025

P.R.O.B.E: The Zero Imperative

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 "This is a hospital, Miss Shaw. Not Scooby-Doo." It says a lot about me was that tonight's viewing was a choice between a 198...
Thursday, 11 September 2025

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

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  I found this novel to be... fine. Admittedly the ending is very well done indeed, but I'm nit inclined to use any superlatives. It was...
Wednesday, 10 September 2025

Squid Game: It's Not Your Fault

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 "Everyone here is a player..." Before I get on to the episode, I have a bone to pick with Netflix as a hard of hearing person who...
Tuesday, 9 September 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- Moon of the Wolf

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 "Thinking of acquiring a new pet, Master Bruce?" This episode- a straightforward tale with a one-off villain, doesn't seem to...
Monday, 8 September 2025

Dexter: Born Free

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"You know, hypothermia can easily sneak up on you." "So can hypochondria..." Despite a couple of plot holes that, I conf...
Friday, 5 September 2025

Black Flag- Damaged (1981)

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This is a very odd debut album for Black Flag. Oh, of course, it's an excellent collection of songs, despite the occasional tiresome exh...

Update

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 Don't worry, things will get back to normal! The delay is that I had a bit of blood spurt from my artery a couple of weeks ago and I...
Tuesday, 26 August 2025

Update

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Life is happening (nothing to worry about!) so any blog posts will be thin on the ground this week. Back to normal from the weekend though.
Monday, 25 August 2025

Dexter: Truth Be Told

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 "That ain't no little thing..." Wow. That was quite the penultimate episode, setting everything up for an explosive finale. T...
Wednesday, 20 August 2025

The Beatles- Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

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This is a really difficult album to review in 2025. With this more than any other Beatles album, historical context (especially when it c...
Monday, 18 August 2025

Dexter: Seeing Red

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 "It's your wet dream in there..." Yet another great episode this week as we get closer to the finale, as the story of Rita...
Sunday, 17 August 2025

Metallica- ... And Justice for All (1988)

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This album is strangely overlooked, having been released between Master of Puppets and the Black Album , both of which get much more attent...
Saturday, 16 August 2025

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

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  I read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell many moons ago, before this blog was ever conceived of. I won't say too much, as I'm quite ...
Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Green Day- Dookie (1994)

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  It's a little odd, with thirty years of distance, to look back at what was a rather formative album of my teenage years. Yes, I know i...

Update

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 No TV or film blog posts for a few days... broke a glass while washing up and blood spurted out of an artery in my thumb. It took ages of p...
Monday, 11 August 2025

Squid Game: The Starry Night

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 "Hang on in there just a bit longer...." Wow. What an episode. We begin with No-eul showing a ruthlessness that many of the playe...
1 comment:
Sunday, 10 August 2025

The City & the City by China Mieville

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Cliché though it is to say, this novel blew my mind. It is, in the best possible Borgesian way, an absolute mindfuck.  At first it seems to ...
Saturday, 9 August 2025

Naked Lunch (1991)

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 "It's a Kafka high. You feel like a bug." When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I got into the habit of reading nov...
Thursday, 7 August 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- Tyger, Tyger

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 "Your father was a test tube..." Meh. I mean, the story sort of works. A rich mad scientist has an island off Gotham where he goe...
Wednesday, 6 August 2025

Twin Peaks: The Condemned Woman

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 "You'll have to excuse me. the chef tried to stab Jerry." I love the way the above quote isn't even followed up on, and i...
Tuesday, 5 August 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- Joker's Wild

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 "It's an homage to me! I'm kind of sorry I have to blow it up..." This episode is really rather good. For a start, the pl...
Monday, 4 August 2025

Dexter: Father Knows Best

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 "Oh, good. Dancing..." So much fascinating stuff in this episode, and it's all layered. To start with, Dexter suddenly and ra...
Sunday, 27 July 2025

Dexter: Shrink Wrap

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 "Can we go inside? I'm kind of wet... DON'T!" Wow. That was QUITE the bombshell at the end of a truly extraordinary episo...

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

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 "It's my funeral. You're just along for the ride..." Well, I'll never think of chess in quite the same way again. The...
Saturday, 26 July 2025

Oedipus at Colonus (1986 TV Film)

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 "Only the gods escape the penalties of age and death. Time undermines everything. Nothing can stop the inevitable process of decay....
Wednesday, 23 July 2025

Twin Peaks: Slaves and Masters

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 "The only things I know in Hungarian are paprika and goulash..." This episode is especially well directed... by none other than D...
Tuesday, 22 July 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?

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 "How much is a good night's sleep worth?" It was the 1960s Batman TV series that really popularised the Riddler as a villain...
Monday, 21 July 2025

Squid Game: Keys and Knives

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 "Let the new game begin..." And so we enter the final six episodes, a little later than intended... but here we go. I'm glad ...
Saturday, 19 July 2025

The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes' Greatest Case (1932)

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 "In such embarrassing matters as fainting women, I must defer to you!" Let's just come out and say it: this is a truly terrib...
Wednesday, 16 July 2025

Andor: Jedha, Kyber, Erso

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 "Do you ever sleep well?" "No..." So that's it. Andor is over, and we move immediately to Rogue One . Much of the...
Tuesday, 15 July 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- Heart of Steel, Part II

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 "I'm getting too old for this kind of thing." Part two continues the story in the vein we'd expect, and it's a very t...
Monday, 14 July 2025

Dexter: Circle of Friends

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 "I have a dark side too". The quote above comes from a fascinating scene between Dexter and Rita. A major plot thread is Rita...
Sunday, 13 July 2025

Oppenheimer (2023)

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 "You are an American Prometheus." This is, of course, a superb film. I was expecting it to be exactly that, given its reputation,...
2 comments:
Thursday, 10 July 2025

Andor: Who Else Knows?

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 "No. I want the names I don't know." It's feeling more and more like Rogue One. Lots of Krennic. Cassian is with K-2SO, w...
Wednesday, 9 July 2025

Twin Peaks: Double Play

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 "I will return. Until that time, I will be in the shadows until you need me." Relatively speaking, I suppose, Twin Peaks is unde...
Tuesday, 8 July 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- Heart of Steel, Part I

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 "Sounds as if the human race could be quite expendable." This episode is really very impressive indeed. Not only is a strong star...
Monday, 7 July 2025

Andor: Make It Stop

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 "Am I your daughter now?" Not for the first time... wow. Ever since that speech last season, it's been foreshadowed that Lut...
Sunday, 6 July 2025

Dexter: Return to Sender

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 "I realise now my days are numbered..." Wow. This is a fascinating episode. The premise is simple- the Ice Cream Truck Killer ens...

Oedipus the King (1986 TV Film)

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 "Judge no man's life until he's dead!" This is the first of three TV films made for the BBC, in 1986, of Sophocles' ...
Saturday, 5 July 2025

Metropolis (1927)

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 "The mediator between brain and hands must be the heart..." I've been resisting watching the fully restored print of this fil...
Thursday, 3 July 2025

Twin Peaks: Checkmate

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 "Is this for the soul? My soul?" Soooo much happens this episode. But, then again, this is Twin Peaks - when does it not? So the...
Wednesday, 2 July 2025

Andor: Welcome to the Rebellion

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 "The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil." Mon Mothma's speech is, of course, magnificent, pointing the finger at ...
Tuesday, 1 July 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- The Strange Secret of Bruce Wayne

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 "Leave your message at the sound of the shriek..." So we meet Dr. Hugo Strange, another member of Batman's traditional rogues...
Sunday, 29 June 2025

Dexter: Love American Style

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 "She doesn't know yet, but I don't have the next level..." The way the theme of this episode is handled is very well done...
Wednesday, 25 June 2025

Batman: The Animated Series- Cat Scratch Fever

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 "You're hot." "Now you notice!" Another Catwoman episode, and it's interesting to see where they're going w...
Tuesday, 24 June 2025

Twin Peaks: The Black Widow

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 "I'm sorry, am I being obscure?" I've no idea where any of this is going, or indeed what's going on, and I'm tota...
Monday, 23 June 2025

Andor: Who Are You?

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 "Rebellions are built on hope." Wow. There was only one way this episode was going to go- the Empire manufacturing a riot on Ghor...