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Beyond Paradise. Christmas Special 2024. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Kris Marshall, Sally Breton, Zahra Ahmadi, Barbara Flynn, Dylan Llewellyn, Felicity Montague, Mark Heap, Tamla Kari, Seann Walsh, Rosalind Adler, Amalia Vitale, Austin Taylor, Chizzy Akudolu, Simon Nagra, Jade Harrison, Melina Sinadinou, Sami Amber.

The maxim of perfection is placed upon such an unachievable high alter when it comes to certain traditions and celebrations. We place too much emphasis on the desire to see life, especially on the festive period, as one of the picture perfect, unspoiled, and flawless; and if something should go awry then the arms are raised in exasperation and the hysterical use of ‘Christmas is cancelled’ or ‘It’s ruined’ as though every cog that makes up the holiday dare not suffer a malfunction that does even impact the operation of anything else within the sphere of control or enjoyment.

Beyond Paradise. Christmas Special 2024. Television Review. full post

(487 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Dark Winds. Series Two. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Zahn McClarnon, Kiowa Gordon, Jessica Matten, Jeri Ryan, Deanna Allison, Elva Guerra, Natalie Benally, DezBaa’, A Martinez, Ryan Begay, Nicholas Logan, Jaqueline Byers, John Diehl, Anderson Kee, Wade Adakai, Betty Ann Tsosie, Ernest Tsosie III, Gary Yazzie, Ramona DuBarry, Joseph Runningfox,

Dark Winds’ second season is one that sees the Native American belief and tradition blend even further with the notion of reluctance of adoption of what has been called Western civilisation.

Dark Winds. Series Two. Television Review. full post

(427 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Outnumbered: Christmas Special 2024. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Hugh Dennis, Claire Skinner, Tyger Drew-Honey, Ramona Marquez, Daniel Roche, Hattie Morahan, Kerena Jagpal, Aurora Skarli, Mark Silcox, Louis Tyrell, Adam Morris.

Like the family members who drop in unannounced over the festive period, armed with a smile and a carrier bag in which to take home leftover food from the table, television has formed a habit of producing the occasional passing by of a character or a family that the audience once took to their hearts and giving them the briefest glimpse of what they are up to, showing the fan what they look like now in the hope that it may spark some interest in the art of revival.

Outnumbered: Christmas Special 2024. Television Review. full post

(486 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Joy To The World. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ncuto Gatwa, Nicola Coughlan, Joel Fry, Steph de Whalley, Jonathan Aris, Julia Watson, Peter Benedict, Niamh Marie Smith, Phil Baxter, Samuel Sherpa-Moore, Ruchi Rai, Joshua Leese, Ell Potter, Liam Prince-Donnelly, Fiona Marr, Millie Gibson.

Rarely does one character outshine The Doctor, or even the companion, on screen or across the various outlets of the tales of Doctor Who, especially in the Christmas offering to which is often intended to add a little pleasure to a day wrapped up in a modern dystopia of its own making.

Doctor Who: Joy To The World. Television Review. full post

(461 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The War Games. (2024). Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Patrick Troughton, Fraser Hines, Wendy Padbury, David Saville, Jane Sherwin, Noel Coleman, Richard Steele, Terence Bayler, Hubert Rees, David Valla, Esmond Webb, Brian Forster, Pat Gorman, Peter Stanton, David Garfield, Gregg Palmer, Philip Madoc, Edward Brayshaw, Bill Hutchinson, Bernard Horsfall, James Vree, Vernon Dobtcheff.

With a huge pool of stories in which to choose from, it is perhaps fitting that the second serial to find itself being scrutinised and digitally coloured after the offering for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary of The Daleks, should be the lengthy ten-part story of The War Games.

Doctor Who: The War Games. (2024). Television Review. full post

(534 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Ben Whitehead, Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Reece Shearsmith, Diane Morgan, Adjoa Andoh, Muzz Khan, Lenny Henry, Victoria Elliott, John Sparkes, Jon Glover, Bethan Mary-James, Maya Sondhi, Tom Doggart, Richard Beek, Merlin Crossingham, David Holt, Lizzie Waterworth, Adrian Rhodes, Roman Kemp.

Wallace And Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl. Television Review. full post

(471 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Philip Palmer: Precious Blood. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Owen Teale, Oliver Ryan, Richard Corgan, Elen Rhys, Pooky Quesnel, Amy Morgan, Sian Rees-Williams.

It is an inalienable fact of life that there are people in this world to whom they believe the sun revolves around them, but who are so toxic, certainly narcissistic, enough to ensure that their actions not only elevate themselves in the eyes of their neighbours and fellow townsfolk, but are assured enough in their desires to make sure that their offspring are denigrated, caused undue suffering, and in the end could pay for their parent’s deceptions with their own lives.

Philip Palmer: Precious Blood. Audio Drama Review. full post

(401 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

A Woman Of Stone. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Eanna Hardwicke, Celia Imrie, Monica Dolan, Mawaan Rizwan, Pheobe Horn.

Drawing inspiration from E. Nesbit’s Man-Size In Marble, Mark Gatiss’ now traditional drawing back of the veil that separates the darkness of the night to that of the enlightenment and spirituality of the Christmas gathering, has once more offered a distinct look for the viewer of what lays hidden in the shadows of our mind, the shortness of breath that hangs icily in the air as we sense the apparition and the shade as they enter our realm and bring together the possibility of a death by nefarious means to our world.

A Woman Of Stone. Television Drama Review. full post

(450 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

D.E. McCluskey: Reboot – A Cosmic Horror. Book Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

How we view the Horror genre is perhaps an insight into our own imagination; like many offerings of art from the individual or group that may disturb the peace of one, it can offer in another the release of vision, and in the case of that which brought to the attention the minds of Stephen King, Lovecraft, Poe, and Anne Rice to the public arena, and by doing so reveals a truth of humanity when pushed to the extreme. Imagination, it should be argued is the ability to reckon with the impossible and see it as a reality, that horror is a fact we should not hide from, no matter the subject, no matter the intent.

D.E. McCluskey: Reboot – A Cosmic Horror. Book Review. full post

(496 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

The Witch. (2024). Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

Cast: Russell Shaw, Ryan Spong, Sarah Alexandra Marks, Fabrizio Santino, Mims Burton, Nick Tuck, Nell Bailey, Ritchi Edwards, Hazel Fell, Jane Hamlet, Danny Howard, Arpen Kapadia, Livvy Nicolae, Anto Sharp, Ella Starbuck.

Like many stock-in trade characters or tropes, the notion of the witch has become one that has become over-used and to little or no effect of portraying something new, revealing little even of the origins or the disciplines of the women who practise such machinations of the spirit world.

The Witch. (2024). Film Review. full post

(443 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)