Category Archives: TV

The Regime. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kate Winslet, Matthias Schoenaerts, Danny Webb, Andrea Riseborough, Guillaume Gallienne, Henry Goodman, David Bamber, Rory Keenan, Louie Mynett, Martha Plimpton, Stanley Townsend, Alasdair Hankinson, Michael Colgan, Patrick Fusco, Pippa Haywood, Hugh Grant.

Regimes never fall, they just undergo a personality change.

In truth all revolutions ultimately fail because the void they leave is too immense for anything other than the status quo to fill it; it is why you arguably only ever have extremes of government in so called democratic countries, never a middle of the road leadership, a third party truly doing anything other than playing to the conscious of the crowd.

The Regime. Television Drama Review. full post

(459 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Shardlake. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Arthur Hughes, Anthony Boyle, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, Sean Bean, Matthew Steer, Joe Barber, Miles Barrow, Babou Ceesay, Paul Kaye, Mike Noble, David Pearse, Irfan Shamji, Brian Vernal, Michael Rivers, Tadhg Murphy, Peter Firth, Alex Bhatt, Ken Nwosu, Louis Goodwin, Kimberley Nixon.

Shardlake. Television Drama Review. full post

(563 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

The Twelve. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Sam Neill, Brooke Satchwell, Kate Mulvany, Damien Strouthos, Marta Dusseldorp, Catherine Van-Davies, Nicholas Cassim, Pallavi Sharda, Brendan Cowell, Gennie Nevinson, Ngali Shaw, James Lugton, Hazam Shammas, Bishanyia Vincent, Mandela Mathia, Daniel Mitchell, Toby Blome, Lee Robinson, Warren Lee, Amy Kersey, Jenni Baird, Hamish Michael, Matt Nable, Louisa Mignone, Silvia Colloca, Ben Mingay, Alastair Bradman, Victoria Bradman, Gilbert Bradman, Sheridan Harbridge, Jade Potts, Fayssal Bazzi, Frances O’Connor, Myles Pollard, Anthony Hayes, Tasma Walton.

The Twelve. Television Drama Review. full post

(531 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

Renegade Nell. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Louisa Harland, Frank Dillane, Alice Kremelberg, Enyi Okoronkwo, Bo Bragason, Florence Keen, Nick Mohamed, Adrian Lester, Jake Dunn, Joely Richardson, Jodhi May, Pip Torrens, Ashna Rabheru, Daniel Rigby, Joe Dixon, Ryan Gage, Mark Heap, Rosalyn Wright, Bronwyn James, John Arthur, Craig Parkinson, Art Malik, Ramon Tikaram, Ruth Madeley, Lenny Rush, Oliver Lansley.

The allure of the highway man has been such that since the tales of Dick Turpin were eulogised by the English Historical novelist William Harrison Ainsworth in the 1834 gothic novel Rookwood, the public has been entranced by the dark side of 18th Century Britain’s justice system and the inverse of the heroic story attributed to those who otherwise would have garnered the nation’s affections.

Renegade Nell. Television Series Review. full post

(413 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

Professor T. Series Three. Television Series Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Ben Miller, Emma Naomi, Francis de la Tour, Barney White, Douglas Reith, Sarah Woodward, Andy Gathergood, Juliet Aubrey, Ben Onwukwe, Rupert Turnbull, Juliet Stevenson, Sunetra Sarker, Lee Ross, Jeany Spark, Richard Lintern, Roger Barclay.

Reason is the greatest weapon in any detective’s arsenal, the ability to see through the conflicting lies and deceit with just the use of the mind is enough to elevate any investigator in the eyes of the public. Surveillance, the reliance on electronic snooping on a suspect in any criminal case is all well and good to dot the I’s and cross the T’s in the courts of law, but it is the intuition, the logic and wit of those who devote themselves to the dogged truth that prove a lawbreaker can be caught with sound judgement at all times.

Professor T. Series Three. Television Series Review. full post

(517 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Shogun. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Cosmo Jarvis, Hiroyuki Sanada, Anna Sawai, Nestor Carbonell, Tadanobu Asano, Takehiro Hira, Tommy Bastow, Fumi Nikaido, Tokuma Nishioka, Hiroto Kanai, Yasunari Takeshima, Moeka Hoshi, Yuki Kura, Ako, Ned Dennehy, Hiromoto Ida, Toshi Toa, Takeshi Kurkawa.

James Clavell’s seminal novel Shogun is arguably one of the reasons that the West became more than enamoured with Japan’s almost secret history, that the role played by the country in World War Two could be, if not forgiven, then explained in a deeper context of a period of time in which its present was heavily dictated to, and inspired by its honour, as well as what could be seen as its brutality.

Shogun. Television Drama Review. full post

(389 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Beyond Paradise. Series Two. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kris Marshall, Zahra Ahmadi, Sally Bretton, Dylan Llewellyn, Felicity Montagu, Barbara Flynn, Melina Sinadinou, Jade Harrison, Peter Davison, Jeff Rawle, Joe Barnes, Paul Bradley, Danny Webb, Kevin Bishop, Nicholas Woodeson.

Whether Kris Marshall’s popularity as DI Humphrey Goodman in Death In Paradise was enough to see him take the lead in a spin off could be up for debate if it was completely obvious that the actor not only belongs on television, but his reading of the character of the loveable but often disorganised detective blends seamlessly into the south west way of life, the sense of calm meeting a warm chaos is roundly to be applauded, and with a great cast adding a measured approach to story-telling, it is with little wonder that the second series of Beyond Paradise is as equal to anything its parent show delivered.

Beyond Paradise. Series Two. Television Drama Review. full post

(405 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Death And Other Details. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Violett Beane, Mandy Patinkin, Lauren Patten, Angela Zhou, Hugo Diego Garcia, Pardis Saremi, Linda Edmond, Jack Cutmore-Scott, Karoline, Jayne Atkinson, Rahul Kohli, Jere Burns, Lisa Lu, David Marshall Grant, Annie Q. Riegel, Sincere Wilbert, Tamberla Perry, Michael Gladis, Leslie Kwan, Christian Svensson, James Pizzinato, Sophia Reid-Gantzert, Byron Noble, Edem Nyamadi, Paul Yu, King Lau, Mauricio Romero, Sofia Rosinsky, Adrianna Olson, Nathan Parrott, Kharytia Bilash, Jeff Gonek, Ana de Lara, Doralynn Mui, Georgia Waters, Andril Zhebrovskyi, Alyson Bath, Takuma Behjatnejad.

Death And Other Details. Television Drama Review. full post

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

Midsomer Murders: The Blacktrees Prophecy. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Nick Hendrix, Fiona Dolman, Annette Badland, Aran Bell. Sonita Hery, Cora Kirk, Robert Cavanah, Pal Aron, Nina Wadia, Tej Obano, Holly Aird, Kate Robbins, Cayvan Coates, Carly-Sophia Davies, Chelsea Mather.

Ignore the warnings of impending doom at your peril, scoff at the ones who prep for the eventual fall of humanity, for they have at least given thought to a future where survival is an immediacy, where every eventuality is considered and given credence; and while we must live for today, tomorrow must have at least some hope in a world willing to tear itself apart.

Midsomer Murders: The Blacktrees Prophecy. Television Drama Review. full post

(409 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

The Cuckoo. Television Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jill Halfpenny, Lee Ingleby, Claire Goose, Freya Hannan-Mills, Marjorie Yates, Barry John Kinsella, Colleen Keogh, Maeve Fitzgerald.

We allow people into our lives on the unspoken rule that they will not harm us, that once they cross the threshold of our home they are subject to a premise of decency and courtesy; and if we require them to leave because a tension has become unbearable then they do so with a timely departure lest their welcome turn irrevocably broken.

The Cuckoo. Television Drama Review. full post

(363 words, estimated 1:27 mins reading time)