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Reviews
Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1974 (2009)
Very boring, shot out of focus and terrible sound mixing....
.... with an inexplicable ending. By the time we reach that ending, we have forgotten what it was that actually brought the rather annoying and arrogant protagonist "opp nort" in the first place. There's some good acting making the most of the turgid mess they are given but really, should have been better.
All in all, needs more Gene Hunt.
Doctor Who: Demons of the Punjab (2018)
Very possibly the worst Dr Who ever.
Well, no. "Timelash" will forever hold that title, but DOTP is its own special category of awful and, more particularly its own special category of mean spirited, wrong-headed and wretched. At it's tenuous best, its an attempt to update the oldest Dr Who trope - the historical adventure, at its worst and dunderheaded apologia for terrorism, this sorry waste of television should be seen as a dreadful outlier in the Who canon but, sadly, it is instead obviously the final stop on the race to the bottom that the most recent season has been.
All of the cast turn in particularly tired performances, spearheaded by a cloth-eared and tone deaf turn by Whittaker (who really is a much, much better actor than Dr Who would have you think and it mystifies me how she has got this role so wrong) and, as mentioned, a gormless script that magnifies a wrong and excuses a broader evil. Who at it's worst and its most worthless.
Law & Order: Tango (2008)
Street Life
Law and Order went through a late life renaissance in seasons 18-20, largely due to a sharpening up of the direction of the episodes. Gone was the increasingly bland and glossy lifestyle of the rich and famous episodes and we went back to the grimier, grainier style of the Ben Stone era. There's some really nice location work here, some very naturalistic acting and an absence of gloss and vanities about the whole deal. These aren't crimes of hubris, these are tales of pathetic, tawdry crimes shown much as we imagine they would have happened.
Law & Order: Home Sweet (2006)
No Laughing Matter
While others have covered the ins and outs of the plots here well, I'd just like to add that in 7 odd seasons thu sfar, this as the wittiest script they had ever used in Law and Order. McCoy, Rubirosa, Madchen Amick's vituperative lawyer and even Branch all get to trade dry, wry and shrewish barbs hither, tither and yon and all then contrive to pull a swifty on the doer to get a confession at the end. It's a makeweight story that punches above it's weight because of the clever, clever script.
House M.D.: Bombshells (2011)
Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful
Not just the worst episode of House, but possibly the worst episode of any at-one-time-great television show. Incomprehensible plotting and editing and a performance by Amber Tamblyn makes one lonesome for the unlamented Olivia Wilde. And to think, we have another season of this balderdash still to come.
House M.D.: Carrot or Stick (2011)
Warrants a mercy killing
It's almost irrelevant talking abut plots etc no with House as they are all recycled or re-purposed from other shows by now - this one no more or less than any other. what is obvious is that, due to the violation of to of the golden rules of weekly drama (i.e never break the sexual tension and introducing a child = death), the show is no circling the drain in an increasingly tight vortex and needed to be put out of its misery. Ne character Masters is pointless and obvious a quick geek girl grab for the fanwank demographic, Laurie is shambling around doing his best House impersonation but even he can't remember what his motivation is and Taub is possibly the least interesting character ever on any TV show. And yet there's another season and a half to come? I have a sick curiosity to see how they pulled it off, but I suspect they don't and they just stagger on regardless.
House M.D.: Unwritten (2010)
A respite from the freefall
House was in free fall by the time this episode aired. Thankfully, that very fine actress Amy Irving briefly stabilizes with a bravura performance. Meanwhile, a recently castrated House and more self centred than usual Cuddy continue their ridiculous scorpion dance. I assumed full on normal crappiness will be resumed next week.
House M.D.: 5 to 9 (2010)
The definition of insanity is to replay what failed and hope for a different outcome
The "Wilson" episode was dubious at best, this one sinks to the bottom at the beginning and doesn't rise again. Cuddy simply isn't an interesting or sympathetic character - she is weak, one dimensional, a disinterested mother and is the worst character in the show to play to the modern superwoman trope. The worst House ever? Very possibly...
House M.D.: House's Head (2008)
I guess I just don't see it
I found this episode to be overly makwish, obvious and melodramatic. It's cluttered up with "clever" directing and suffers worst of all of the season 4 episodes from our inability to care if any of House's new cohort lives dies or even bothers to turn up for work the next day. It's just trite and plays too hard for the lowest common denominator, away from what we know about the show and the tropes we build up around it.
Spooks: The Extremist (2007)
The long, slow decline continues
The rot first evidenced in Season Five is now well and truly set in as a once fine show spirals into near silliness. Overlong story arcs, Pantomime villains and muslims being presented as caricatures instead of the more nuanced characters they usually were feature all season long and Jones, Penry-Jones and Norris' tired, self-righteous and worst of all boring characters are long overdue for some kind of heroic demise. New blood, new focus was desperately needed at this point.
Spooks: Celebrity (2004)
The "Timelash" of Spooks
An episode so unbelievably awful you can't help but think it was a parody. This episode saw the show, which had been tottering somewhat over the last few episodes, jumped the shark so high the shark could have been on the moon. So began the slow and sad decline into irrelevance.