Category: TV

Watch A New Trailer For Stranger Things: Season 5

When Stranger Things first came out (back in 2016!) I was an immediate fan. It was such a wonderful amalgamation of all the things I loved growing up in the 1980s: Stephen King (or more importantly, movies based on Stephen King books), John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, and a million other things. But it wasn’t just nostalgia-baiting either, the Duffer Brothers had created a wonderful story, one that was clearly influenced by all those things, but was also its own, new thing.

I’ve enjoyed the subsequent seasons, especially the addition of several new cast members, but I also have to admit that none of them have quite had the magic of the first one. If I’m being honest, I am ready for it to be over. This is especially true since it has taken them so long to make each season. Those kids aren’t kids anymore. Millie Bobby Brown is married, for Pete’s sake!

When I learned that Season 5, the final season, consisted of several movie-length episodes, I was a little irritated. I don’t need that much more Stranger Things. I hate it when TV shows act like movies.

But apparently, there are only going to be three episodes, so I can dig that. This teaser trailer is basically just an announcement of that fact. It mostly consists of clips from previous episodes and announces the dates of these three episodes/movies. There are a few new bits and I have to admit that it did get me excited.

The Last of Us: Season One

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Just in time for Season Two hitting the small screen Season One of this terrific television series dropped a couple of weeks ago in a swell looking 4K UHD steelbook.

If you don’t know, The Last of Us is based on a popular video game series about a zombie like apocalypse and how two people – a middle-aged man and a teenage girl – survive it. I’ve never played the game but I love the series. You can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.

Evil: The Complete Series DVD Review

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Evil is one of those shows I wouldn’t think I would like but it turns out I really love. It is basically a procedural that started out on broadcast TV. I normally avoid that sort of thing. But it was created and show-runned by Robert and Michelle King who have made a habit of taking established broadcast TV tropes and turning them into something original.

The concept – three people, a priest, a lapsed-Catholic psychologist, and an atheist scientist investigate paranormal shenanigans for the Catholic Church – is pretty standard broadcast TV stuff. But they made it really fun. This is especially true after the first season when it was dropped by CBS and became a streaming-only show. Then it gets really good and weird.

You can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.

Doctor Who: The Chase

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One of the things I’ve been meaning to do with this blog, but I never seem to remember to actually do is to write about movies, TV shows, books, and music that I enjoy, but in smaller ways. Instead of doing full-on reviews, just write a couple of paragraphs about something I found interesting.

For a couple of years, I wrote a little thing for Cinema Sentries called Five Cool Things. Every week I’d write about five things (well, technically six as there was always an “and…”) I enjoyed that week in the way that I’m talking about. I’d just do a couple of three paragraphs about whatever it was I enjoyed and not worry about digging in too deep.

With that in mind, I’m gonna try to do more of that type of thing. First up is the Doctor Who story “The Chase.”

The wife and I have been chronologically working our way through Classic Doctor Who. The Chase was the Eighth and penultimate story of the second season. It stars William Hartnell as The Doctor, and William Russell, Jaqueline Hill, and Maureen O’Brien as his companions, Ian, Barbara, and Vicki.

I am a fan of Hartnell’s version of The Doctor and I do like a great man of his stories, while also admitting that I often find them dull. Classic Doctor Who episodes were 25 minutes in length. A single story might last anywhere from two episodes to eight. The long ones often feel like the writers had to pad things out in order to fulfill the set number of episodes for their stories. Hence my boredom.

“The Chase” gets around this by basically creating a bunch of mini-stories inside the main one. The Daleks have built a ship that can travel through space and time much like the Tardis, and it has a way of following the Tardis anywhere it goes. This leads to a series of adventures as the Tardis crew tries to flee the Daleks, zipping from place to place and all over history.

In one episode they land on the top of the Empire State Building and then on a ship at sea (the Mary Celeste, a famous ship that was discovered completely without a crew, no one ever found out what happened to them). In another episode, they land inside a haunted house where they meet Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula (and Frankenstein’s monster body slams a Dalek!) Then they land on a planet full of giant, monstrous fungi. The Daleks build a robot Doctor and nearly kill Vicky with it.

It is all quite silly. But then again I tend to prefer my classic Doctor Who stories to be silly. When they get too serious they tend to feel ponderous and I tend to get bored.

I quite liked this one.

Call My Agent

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My wife has been telling me to watch this French series for ages. It follows a group of talent agents as they navigate their professional lives (which involves a lot of crazy work with A-List French celebrities) and their personal ones (which involves a lot of craziness).

I finally sat down with it when I got a copy of the complete series and it is a delight. You can read my full review here.

Above Suspicion

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In my book, Prime Suspect is one of the greatest police procedurals ever televised. It is a brilliant, nuanced series that made Helen Mirren a star. Above Suspicion was created, and largely written by Lynda La Plante, who did the same for Prime Suspect. It covers similar ground, following an ambitious woman police officer solving crimes and battling sexism. It is more modern and, as you can read in my review, not as good. But it stars Kelly Reilly and Ciaran Hinds and that alone makes it worth watching.

Intruders (2014)

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I read all of these old reviews of mine before I post them to the site. I mostly enjoy reading my thoughts on things I watched many years ago. Reading this review, of a sci-fi/horror series from Britain released in 2014 I suddenly realized Millie Bobby Brown was in it. She is now known as “11” on Stranger Things.

Back then she was just a kid, and now a well-known one. It is funny to think I saw her in this series and wrote her name in my review, but had no idea how big of a star she would become.

Not that it really matters, I just find it interesting. Like I didn’t know who she was then, and until just now I didn’t realize she was in that show (of which I have the vaguest of memories watching.)

Anyway, you can read my review of the series here.

Dr. Katz Live Album

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I’m a huge fan of Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist – or I should say I was a huge fan. Nothing happened to cause me to not be a fan, I just haven’t seen it in years so I have no idea how it holds up, or if I’d still find it funny.

I definitely found it funny in 2014, when they released this audio-only, live version of the show. The series was always basically comedians doing their bits in an animated format. Here is it comedians doing bits in audio format, pretending to be an animated show.

I dug it back then, as you can see from my review.

The Honorable Woman (2014)

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I love a tightly written, heavily plotted series that digs deep into murky waters. The Honorable Woman is just that with a story about Palestinian/Israeli relationships that is just as complicated as the real thing.

Maggie Gyllenhaal stars and she’s just as good as ever. I don’t remember the details but my review is making me want to give it another watch.

Line of Duty: Series Two

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I randomly started watching Line of Duty again the other day. It remains an incredibly solid bit of crime television. It isn’t quite up to Prestige TV (whatever that means) standards, but it is a really good procedural.

I don’t remember watching Series Two back in the day, but I guess I did as I wrote a review. Not sure where in its many seasons I actually did stop watching. Keeley Hawes is in Series Two so I definitely got to get through my rewatch of Series One so I can catch her in action again. I loved her in Ashes to Ashes.

My review can be read here.