The underlying Game Of Thrones anxieties released by Beyond The Wall

SPOILER WARNING - The following article discusses key plot points in several Game Of Thrones episodes, including the latest: Season Seven: Episode Six - Beyond The Wall.

The first time the Game Of Thrones doubts were released was at the end of Season Five.

Jon Snow was dead. Originally a fairly minor character - behind at least Robb in the hero stakes - Snow had grown into the series' much-needed hero with 'stickability' and a skill at not getting stabbed. Then he was unceremoniously offed by tricky betrayers, in a death which called to mind countless other unexpected deaths in the series and therefore carried a level of plausibility.

The problem was that, as it appeared more likely that Jon could be gone for god, this one hurt and shouldn't have happened. As the season ended and we faced a winter-long wait to find out the true outcome, there was a creeping anxiety. Had the showrunners got this one wrong? Had they made the mistake in thinking that everyone in the show was disposable, instead of merely most of the cast save Jon, Daenerys and, at that point, Tyrion.

They hadn't, of course, but the Games Of Thrones anixety had been born. The showmakers could come perilously close to getting things wrong. For all of the key character deaths we had come to expect, at what point was one going to arrive that tipped the balance of the show over from 'bloodthirsty' to 'bloody stupid'? The idea that things could go wrong in this most thrilling and successfully complex of shows was suddenly very real.

Beyond The Wall, this week's episode and the penultimate of Season Seven, brought that anxiety back in a new form. Whilst previously the showrunners have excelled in managing a vast number of plots and subplots, characters and motivations, suddenly things were all wrong.

There was a very real sense of an ending, and not one that anyone was going to be satisfied with.

By the time the camera zoomed in on a dragon's eye about to turn blue, with inevitability as glum as an ice king, we had witnessed Gendry running a marathon distance in three or four shots, where previously forty-odd minutes of episode had been needed. Meanwhile, for our heroes stuck on an ice island, time passed. No-one really seems to know how much exactly. The tension, hardly there to begin with, evaporated like steam off a previously wet and cold, now flaming, sword.

The root cause of the situation is that Thrones has a stated aim to finish next year and a lot of threads to cover in the meantime. The showrunners seem to have inherited an anxiety of their own, rushing over events which previously would have merited episode-long examination to squeeze in what currently seems to be the periphery, presumably in order to give everything a neat conclusion.

It's just a few episodes ago, last season, that The Battle Of The Bastards gave over most of an episode-long runtime to a single skirmish. Here, the key finale gets barely twenty minutes, as time is given over to Sansa and Arya, apparently being torn asunder by the plotting of Little Finger, not to mention the quest of the band of seven, whose time together spanned just one episode.

Meanwhile, back on the ice, the desire to wrap things up neatly results in the aforementioned dragon shot which every man and his dire wolf saw coming.

The anxiety then is around what's to come. Thrones continues to be one of the most thrilling shows on television and Beyond The Wall was no exception. But being thrilling doesn't mean you excuse yourself from logic, structure and sound storytelling. Fans can forgive a lot of things, but many will struggle to forgive the show (which started out so complex) ending with a whimper of predictability, haste and slap-dash brashness.

There's a rumbling current in the series at the moment about two characters who are related, but who haven't quite worked that out yet. The longer the hints rumble on, the closer we get to having Basil Exposition (possibly in the form of Samwell Tarley and his newly acquired scrolls) pop up and reveal everything in roughly the most unsatisfying manner possible, just so the show can move to its next self-imposed phase of closure.

And that's just one of the plot threads Thrones has to wrap up. It's not hard to imagine one or two being closed in a similar way to sending Gendry off on a several hundred mile run.

And don't get me started on the second saving of Uncle Benjen.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

House Of Cards' big moments are now the same moments that are killing the show

Towards the end of House Of Cards Season 5, a key character from several seasons previous is killed off, on-screen, by another major character. It is undoubtedly the season's biggest moment.

It is not, however, the season's best moment and it finishes off a second half of this year's offering that pales in comparison to the first.

Having replaced showrunner Beau Willimon with writers Frank Pugliese and Melissa James Gibson, the season starts off strongly by finding new ways to excel at political drama in the context of a real-life America run by a fish-finger with hair.

Instead of a focus on the evils of Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey), the show increasingly folds itself into constitutional minutiae. As Underwood continues to battle Conway (Joel Kinnaman), the type of millennial who thinks he's a millennial but isn't, Pugliese and Gibson successfully establish interest and investment in the smallest and most obscure of legislative pen spasms. It's thrilling, and tense, and with all of the skeletons in the cupboard continuing to wave occasionally, the first six episodes breeze by.

They are helped by the Conway character. Kinnaman still looks miscast, soporifically 'brah', as he Snapchats his way to obscurity. But that too is something Pugliese and Gibson turn to their advantage. Investigating masculinity through Frank and Claire is now dead, but in Conway the writers find life, questioning the American fascination with armed services heroism, and a lot more besides. Conway's wholesome exterior, shown as a sham from early on, crumbles in such a fratboy all-star way that he may as well be wearing polo and chinos. Perhaps it's obvious. It still works, and for a good while it works in a committed and sophisticated manner.

And then things change.

Already missing characters the show had dedicated multiple seasons to (Meechum, Danton - wow, Mahershala Ali is a big miss - Sharp, Dunbar - wow, Elizabeth Marvel is a big miss), Conway is suddenly marginalised. Hell, with apologies for a mild spoiler: he downright disappears from the halfway point. And House Of Cards goes back into distraction mode.

Because the big events in House Of Cards aren't what make the show matter. They drive narrative, but they are not, in themselves, strong story. What happens over the last two episodes of House Of Cards will thrill on initial face value. But it has no substance and those who have been with the series since the start are starting to learn that. The key character death is perhaps a little surprising in its presentation but many will reflect, with rolled eyes, that it was inevitable.

How long the show will take to play that death out is anyone's guess. Five seasons in, the show is still fixated on two deaths from the first season and a further from third, to the point where they now are the Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) character. His blandness passed for obsequiousness for a while. Now it is obvious that he is just the vehicle for those events. A walking skeleton in a closet. On current course Claire and Frank are headed in the same direction. The show will not be able to sustain that.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

Taboo: Series One - TV Review

'There are only so many gravelly line deliveries and guttural rumblings you can tolerate before you just want to offer Delaney a lozenge and tell him to speak up a bit'.

Your overall enjoyment of Taboo is likely to come down to a combination of two things: how far you're happy to engross yourself in the series' grim and grimy version of Regency era London without worrying too much about what's actually going on; and how far you're able to tolerate yet another growly and incoherent performance by Tom Hardy.

For me, unfortunately, the answer to both of these questions was: not very far at all. As James Keziah Delany, Hardy is arguably less growly and incoherent as he was in both Lawless and The Revenant, but his performance here is still distinctly positioned towards that end of the spectrum and it's starting to get a bit tiresome. There are only so many gravelly line deliveries and guttural rumblings you can tolerate before you just want to offer Delaney a lozenge and tell him to speak up a bit.

Whilst Hardy's performance may not be for everyone, at least it's consistent. The version of 19th Century London he inhabits is far less so, veering from unsettling horror to broad parody, sometimes within the same episode. Mark Gatiss' prosthetics-heavy caricature of the Prince Regent typifies the flaws of the latter, feeling like a rejected character from The League Of Gentlemen who's wandered into the series uninvited. The script too lacks consistency, clearly aiming for gritty period drama but too often sounding like it was written by a thirteen-year-old boy who's just discovered a whole set of swearwords he can't wait to use. This is Pulp Dickens, taking in everything that's good and bad about such an idea, but with the elements that don't work ultimately outweighing those that do.

The plot is all over the place, taking eight episodes to tell a story that could easily have been covered in four and still have had room for a couple of the relatively more successful deviations. Instead we have a garbled mish-mash of politics, murder, gunpowder and witchcraft which, by the final episode, have largely all been eschewed for brainless action sequences anyway. The secondary storylines offer little consolation: a subplot involving James' half-sister Zilpha Geary (Oona Chaplin) and her increasingly unpleasant husband Thorne (Jefferson Hall) is initially one of the most intriguing threads Taboo has to offer, only to transform into one of the most frustrating once it reaches its limp and unsatisfying conclusion.

By Ben Broadribb. Ben is a contributing editor at Film Intel. He is normally seen in the wild wearing t-shirts containing obscure film references. When he's not writing about films here, Ben is usually writing about films - mostly Shakespeare adaptations - for his MA by Research. He's also on Google+ and Twitter.

Sherlock: Season Four - TV Review

'Sherlock Holmes is nothing without a mystery and The Lying Detective's (S4E2) is barely hidden, let alone compelling enough to hold your attention.'

During the course of Sherlock: Season Four's TV run Mark Gatiss, one of the creators, responded to a critic by way of a five-stanza poem. This course of action is entirely justifiable. The critic in question had looked at Sherlock and decided that its main problem was the action, that Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) was a bit too handy with a fists and too ready with a gun. I sympathise with Gatiss' ire. If you look at this season and decide that a bit of fighting is the main problem then you deserve entire books of verse to be thrown at you.

I want to like Sherlock again, I really do, but it is beginning to resemble a show that will never again achieve the promise of its undoubtedly talented team. Season Three suggested some new substance, after the disappointing second outing, but here the show continues to move away from traditional Sherlockian values and towards something which more resembles, not Bond, but a contemporary, wordy Drama. The mysteries are getting thinner and less interesting, the time spent warbling in Sherlock's 'mind palace' have increased (and now decreased again), the time spent unnecessarily developing supporting characters we don't care about has exploded exponentially.

And so, in episode one, The Six Thatchers, we get yet another story which pivots around Mary (Amanda Abbington), a character the show has singly failed to make us care about. In the terrible The Abominable Bride Gatiss and co-creator/writer Steven Moffat, tried to use Mary to make a feminist call-to-arms, instead ending up with a condescending, laughable mess. Lessons have not been learned. The development of Mary into an elite super soldier is about as convincing as the pointless section in this episode with a blood hound. What's more, the conclusion suggests that Gatiss and Moffat have realised they're on to a loser, but could find no other way out than to devote another episode to a character who should have, at most, stayed in the supporting wings.

The online reaction suggests that at least most viewers were cheered by episode two, The Lying Detective. Featuring an accented, buck-toothed, Toby Jones as a megalomaniac entrepreneur, there should be a lot here to like. But again, watching Sherlock perform oratory gymnastics appears to be the episode's primary focus. Culverton Smith (Jones) seems mainly concerned with dropping double-meanings into public speeches aimed at Sherlock, which the great detective then spends time pondering at length. You can argue that the episode is a sign of a thought-through character-led series, with everyone needing space to get over the events of episode one and not being given it by Smith and his agenda. But Sherlock Holmes is nothing without a mystery and The Lying Detective's is barely hidden, let alone compelling enough to hold your attention.

The saving grace of the series is the final episode, The Final Problem, which starts with ten minutes of the best TV Horror you've ever seen and continues at a cracking pace for at least the opening half hour. Gatiss and Moffat do get a bit bogged down in the middle, keeping the central trio locked in an escape room-esque escapade for far too long, but given the problems elsewhere this is at least fairly minor. Sian Brooke is a terrific villain and the season ends, as unlikely as it may have seemed, on a note of promise.

That said, if Season Five is to happen, the writers would be well advised to return to a structure of 'client sits in chair, delivers case, case is solved over ninety minutes'. The first episode rankles so much partially because of the dismissive air it has towards this structure (Sherlock solves cases like this in seconds of text-on-screen overlay), a rather arrogant betrayal of the source material. If what they presented was better then so be it, but sundry other shows have managed to both solve mysteries and develop characters and Conan Doyle managed it frequently. Sherlock seems to want to do either one or the other and that one-note formula is, you feel, not long for this earth.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

The Witness For The Prosecution - TV Review

'The finale is so ridiculously rushed, and achieved via a vast swathe of coincidence, that you don't have time to reflect on what is supposed to be a heart-rending close.'

We were treated during last year's holiday season TV to And Then There Were None, a sterling Agatha Christie adaptation that kept you guessing and proved a treat to relax with over three nights on the BBC. At the time I suggested that it might make for a welcome annual event; the same cast and crew tackling a different Christie story every year.

Whilst that might have been impractical it was at least pleasing to see another Christie story on the schedule this year. The Witness For The Prosecution, based on a play by the author, tells the tale of Leonard Vole (Billy Howle), seduced by Emily French (Kim Cattrall) and then accused of her murder. Defended by a snuffling, shambling Mayhew (Toby Jones), Voles' wife Romaine (Andrea Riseborough) appears key to whether it was he who dunnit.

With a strong cast then and the pedigree of last year, it is strange to find that this is such a weak offering. Cut from And Then There Were None's three episodes to a meagre two, the story barely has time to function, let alone earn some of its more significant moments. Mayhew's sympathy with Leonard, for example, is meant to be linked to the death of his own son, but there's never time to establish that thread. The finale is so ridiculously rushed, and achieved via a vast swathe of coincidence, that you don't have time to reflect on what is supposed to be a heart-rending close.

Meanwhile, director Julian Jarrold, who has plenty of experience with this sort of thing, seems lost. The dry ice machine goes into overdrive on the London backstreet sets and Jones is directed to turn in a performance that hardly plays to his everyman strengths. If you're not bored of his coughing by the end of the first episode then don't worry: there's more on the way.

The show does, tentatively, consider stepping in to gender politics on occasion. Emily's carefree approach to relationships is touched on and the dynamic between Leonard and Romaine is key to the mystery but like the rest of The Witness For The Prosecution there seems to be little time for this sort of thematic sightseeing. What that means is that the show feels less like an investigation or a mystery; more like a factual, punctual, telling of an actual case. The approach spoils the reveal of the finale, as well as making for a generally unsatisfying two hours.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

Humans: Series Two - TV Review

'Continually does what the best sci-fi should do: offer a sense of escapism whilst also asking intelligent questions about the world you'll return to after watching'.

The first series of Humans offered a conclusion which simultaneously tied up enough of its many story arcs satisfyingly whilst also providing plenty of scope for creators Sam Vincent and Jonathan Brackley to continue matters. Success with both critics and audiences meant that a second series was announced before the final episode of the first had aired, giving Vincent and Brackley the chance to show us what happened next for their characters and, more enticingly, go deeper into the parallel present in which Humans is set.

By the closing scenes of series two, there's a definite sense that the show's creators have gambled on Humans being renewed a lot more than they did in series one, the end of the final episode clearly intended to lead into a continuation of the story. As such, should the gamble not pay off, then the frustration of a tale in some ways half told will be much harder to ignore than if Humans had remained a self-contained eight episode drama in 2015. That the most watched episode of this series received almost 1.5 million fewer viewers than the least watched episode of the last means that a third run of episodes is anything but a sure thing.

Which is a shame, because as well as providing plenty of scope for the series to continue, Humans' second run also offers a continuation of many of the strengths seen in the first. The returning cast resume their strong performances, with Gemma Chan and Will Tudor taking their portrayal of synths Mia and Odi respectively to impressive, emotional new heights in particular. Whilst it's necessary that a few of the last series' key players don't return, new additions such as Dr. Athena Morrow (Carrie-Ann Moss) and sinister synth Hester (Sonya Cassidy) more than make up for it.

The main flaw here is that Vincent and Brackley do little to remedy the relative shortcomings of the first series, in that once again there is a bit too much going on for them to fully explore everything in just eight installments. One or two elements introduced early on are forced to take a back seat for a few episodes before being concluded somewhat perfunctorily, whilst a punt is taken to leave others on a cliffhanger in the hope of the series' renewal.

Issues such as these are continually dwarfed by what the series gets right, however. There's a well-crafted sense of evolution from the ideas central to series one, with the world of Humans and the characters within it explored in new, thought-provoking and believable ways. The journey of Hester throughout the overarching narrative is an excellent example, as is the realignment of the relationship between Joe (Tom Goodman-Hill) and Laura (Katherine Parkinson) by the final episode. Most importantly, this continually does what the best sci-fi should do: offer a sense of escapism whilst also asking intelligent questions about the world you'll return to after watching. There's a reason the series is called 'Humans' and not 'Synths', a detail never forgotten throughout.

Humans: Series Two is currently available on All4 in the UK, and will debut on Monday 13th February 2017 on AMC in the US.

By Ben Broadribb. Ben is a contributing editor at Film Intel. He is normally seen in the wild wearing t-shirts containing obscure film references. When he's not writing about films here, Ben is usually writing about films - mostly Shakespeare adaptations - for his MA by Research. He's also on Google+ and Twitter.

The Young Pope: Season One - Blu-ray Review

'Whilst there are parallels between this series and the political machinations of both House Of Cards and The West Wing before it, Sorrentino owes just as much to both The Sopranos and the gangland cinema of Scorsese'.

The title sequence seen that opens most of the ten episodes in The Young Pope's first season sees Lenny Belardo (Jude Law), the titular pontiff known as Pius XIII, stride past religious artwork from across the centuries before turning to the camera to give a Frank Underwood-style wink to the audience. It's an isolated fourth wall break which initially suggests that the aim of Paolo Sorrentino's inaugural television series is to create a Vatican City version of Netflix's House Of Cards.

Had the writer and director set out to do just that then The Young Pope would almost certainly have turned out to be a perfectly enjoyable watch. Whilst there are parallels between this series and the political machinations of both House Of Cards and The West Wing before it, Sorrentino owes just as much to both The Sopranos and the gangland cinema of Scorsese.

That said, whilst the director is clearly happy to present the Catholic Church as being just as populated by unscrupulous and self-serving individuals as any large organisation, legitimate or otherwise, the series never becomes an attack on religion per se. On the contrary, Sorrentino offers a refreshing balance, highlighting the positive nature of worship upon people around the world in several episodes. Just as in life, faith is not the enemy here, but the people using it to further their own influence and agendas.

What sets The Young Pope apart from being just another story of Machiavellian power struggles are the regularly more surreal elements included by Sorrentino. From the first episode's opening dream sequence onwards, the director delights in keeping the audience guessing as to just how much of what we're seeing is actually happening and how much is in Lenny's mind. The Lynchian elements throughout keep matters compelling, even if they undoubtedly result in occasions throughout the series where you're not entirely sure of what is going on.

The unorthodox narrative approach adopted by Sorrentino throughout has a similar effect, as the director regularly leaves some of his many plot threads untouched for episodes at a time. Whilst a few struggle to get the development they need over the ten installments as a result, almost all add something to the series overall - only one minor subplot feels surplus to requirements thanks in part to a cheap clandestine epilogue rather than a proper resolution.

Helping to power through the relatively more bewildering and occasionally weaker elements is the consistently captivating performance from Law. The series' very best moments are those which showcase the actor's commanding presence as Lenny: his first address to the cardinals, his withering takedown of the Italian Prime Minister, and his many mordant exchanges with his Secretary Of State Cardinal Voiello (Silvio Orlando) amongst others. That Sorrentino's cast is littered with superb actors from across both Europe and the US, including Hollywood veterans Diane Keaton and James Cromwell, makes it all the more impressive that Law in the title role continually stands head and shoulders above them all.

The Young Pope: Season One was released on UK Blu-ray, DVD and digital download on Monday 26th December 2016.

By Ben Broadribb. Ben is a contributing editor at Film Intel. He is normally seen in the wild wearing t-shirts containing obscure film references. When he's not writing about films here, Ben is usually writing about films - mostly Shakespeare adaptations - for his MA by Research. He's also on Google+ and Twitter.

The Fall: Seasons One, Two and Three - Online Review

SPOILER ALERT! The below article includes spoilers of all three seasons of The Fall, including the very final episode of Season Three.

'two of the reasons to watch the series, A-listers Anderson and Dornan, slowly reveal themselves to be generally no reason to watch at all. Dornan begins as slate-cold killer but graduates to numbing cod-philosophical bore'

Aggressively bad in a way only a British TV series can be when it gets it wrong, The Fall: Season Three, which concluded recently on BBC One, is amongst the most plodding, ambivalently plotted, tirelessly dull televisual events in recent memory. In a sucker punch presumably designed to cause the most offence to a loyal watching audience, the season's best episode is its penultimate, followed closely by the final episode: the season's worst.

If, like me, you've sat semi-interested through all three seasons of The Fall, that final episode cannot help but raise questions. These questions will mainly be: 'what happened?', 'what was the point?', 'did I leave the kettle on?' and 'hey?'. The decisions made are amongst the most baffling, most ire-inspiring covered on TV, decisions that have been tried and tested in terrible serial killer tosh before and found consistently wanting.

Though it is largely bad, it is unfair to say the The Fall has been a failure since its 2013 debut. The opening season is a moody piece of miserabilism, directed with appropriate dourness by Jakob Verbruggen who, it is worth noting, has gone on to London Spy, House Of Cards and Black Mirror. It ends with 'Belfast Strangler' Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) uncaptured by police pursuant Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) and it is all the better for it. Spector's serial killer 'hook', that he is a married father of two, succeeding at living an outwardly normal life, is played well and embellished to the right degree by Stella's personal life and the appearance of Katie (Aisling Franciosi) to shake things up. It's not revolutionary, but it is quietly played, slowly escalating Drama, with a realistically British heart.

Problems do begin to arise in Season Two, which drops the grim realism in favour of ever more outlandish plotting. During the course of the series, wanted killer Spector manages to sit in undetected on a conversation between Stella and superior Jim (John Lynch) in Stella's hotel room and pose as a doctor so that he can enter the room of one his surviving victims. It's probably a fair fictionalisation of a serial killer slowly escalating, dropping his careful planning in favour of outlandishness as his underlying need to be caught is slowly realised. Still, it feels pulpy against the previous season and it's no surprise when Spector finds himself in a cell.

Meanwhile, two of the other reasons to watch the series, A-listers Anderson and Dornan, slowly reveal themselves to be generally no reason to watch at all. Dornan begins as slate-cold killer but graduates to numbing cod-philosophical bore. As Stella correctly points out - albeit in series three - he just has an infantile need to be heard, yet has nothing worth hearing. Stella meanwhile, in Anderson's hands, operates at a pitch somewhere between a squeak and a whisper. It's a shtick that increasingly grates, graduating from performance choice to near-parodic manifestation. The first proper head-to-head between the two of them, towards the end of Season Two, which does conclude well, is not the meeting of heavyweights offered in other series of this sort.

And then Season Three hits, making terrible decision after terrible decision. After calling on that most major of writer's crutches (Spector has amnesia and has forgotten his crimes... or has he), writer/creator and, since Season Two, director, Allan Cubitt treats us to a crawl through Spector's recovery, whilst Stella investigates his past crimes in the hope of hitting on something which falls outside of his memory loss.

In fairness, the solution - to go after a potential previous crime - is clever, but that's about where the series' cleverness ends. Take the fact that we spend a fair amount of time with defence attorneys Wallace (Ruth Bradley) and Healy (Aidan McArdle), including an apparently important conversation late in the final episode about their moral position. Quite why we watch that, given that Spector offs himself at the close, is anyone's guess, something you can level at the method of Spector exit itself. It clearly denies everyone - from the audience to Stella - a level of closure, which perhaps suggests that, perversely, the demise of one of the two major characters is intended to set up a Season Four.

If that does come to pass, and if it retains many of Season Three's tropes and features, then it will not be a welcome return. The six episodes of the third season see Stella's whispering reach an insufferable peak, whilst more and more cliches are piled in. Anonymously European psychiatrist? Check. Increasing amount of Mummy/Daddy issues made explicit? Check. Cop with an alcohol problem ('have you been drinking?')? Check.

British television, television in general, is supposedly in a golden age. The Fall, Season Three in particular, is the type of show that makes you wonder if the gold is reaching exactly the right sort of productions.

The Fall: Season One

The Fall: Season Two

The Fall: Season Three

The Fall was streaming on Amazon Instant Video and BBC iPlayer.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

Luke Cage: Season One - Online Review

'gradually showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker aligns Cage with the 99% rather than the one, with movements like Black Lives Matter and with issues such as police brutality and the preserved pedestal of the elite'

Luke Cage continues Marvel and Netflix's patient march towards their forthcoming Defenders TV event, which will unite current properties Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Cage with next year's newcomer Iron Fist and (possibly) Jon Bernthal's Punisher. You can locate this small screen Avengers as the culmination of 'Marvel and Netflix: Phase One'. As AdWeek point out, and unlike the Marvel cinematic universe, there are few certainties in TV land and Marvel and Netflix's future plans are unconfirmed, excluding the properties which already have their foot in the door.

Whilst Daredevil Season Three is a go and Jessica Jones Season Two has been ordered, you wonder if Luke Cage might be a candidate for the chop, after Defenders, in favour of a new presence or a tightening of the ship.

The first season though is just about good enough to justify more of your binge-watching time. Set circling around hip nightclub joint Harlem's Paradise, the show makes full use of its locale, embracing its indie-inflected coolness. Hold-the-action, dim-the-house-lights 'live' performances by Jidenna (Long Live The Chief) and Raphael Saadiq (Good Man) are stunning and Mahershala Ali's suits emphasise the slickness.

But this isn't the world that showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker wants us to sympathise with. Cage (Mike Colter) enters the action working two jobs - cash-in-hand pot washer at Harlem's Paradise and sweep at Pop's Barbers - and gradually Coker aligns Cage with the 99% rather than the one, with movements like Black Lives Matter and with issues such as police brutality and the preserved pedestal of the elite. There's a lot of success in many of those things and that a Marvel property would feel comfortable at least starting those conversations (if not quite finishing them) is borderline remarkable.

If the subtext is great though, the series is let down by character and plotting weakness and by a nagging feeling that the show is searching for answers that it should have had before it begun. Villain Cottonmouth (Ali) is hinted early on as merely the trailer for big bad Diamondback (Erik LaRay Harvey), but the latter's reveal is botched leading to Diamondback feeling a little too comic book to have substance in this world. Theo Rossi is effective as Shades, but Alfre Woodard is weak, constantly giving across the feeling that she's not entirely certain what all this superhero stuff is about, nor why she is at the centre of it. All are primary antagonist for a time, plus another character and prison guard Albert Rackham (Chance Kelly), in the obligatory flashback episode. The series would have been better sticking just with Ali and having done with it; the layers in this case create confusion, not depth.

Meanwhile, Luke's allegiances and personal interests also begin to feel as though they are treading on familiar ground, something emphasised when Claire (Rosario Dawson) shows up again. It's clear now that she will play a major part in the formation of the Defenders, and Dawson is a fantastic A-list presence to put in your series, but it would have been substantially better had the Marvel TV-verse decided what to do with her much earlier in Phase One's genesis. Claire and Luke's 'will they/won't they' relationship echoes the same scenario in Daredevil Season One and the fact that Misty (Simone Missick) is marginalised because of it is a shame. The early steamy, sexy introduction of her and Luke marked Misty out as a character of massive invention for Marvel, something which slowly dissipates as the series progresses.

Those elements; a lack of primary antagonist and a melange of unsatisfying personal connections, mean that Luke Cage ends feeling more anonymous than it should have done. Yes, you feel as though you can follow Luke and Claire's story, but you felt that at the end of Daredevil Season Two and Jessica Jones Season One. For all of the good work it does capturing the Harlem zeitgeist and cosying up to the coolness whilst questioning it, Luke Cage doesn't really take you anywhere, doesn't present a memorable story. You can have some very clever things up your sleeve, but if you don't have story, then you're potentially doomed for the chop.

Luke Cage: Season One was streaming on Netflix.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

The Man In The High Castle: Season One - Online Review

The Man In The High Castle is typical of a lot of Amazon's output. There's an idea here, but the execution is off. Budget, but not quite enough of it. Stars, supplemented by some so-so support. It's a frustrating mix that continues to hold Amazon back behind Netflix's own behemoth. Yes, you'll probably make it to the end of Season One, but you won't do it all in one sitting.

At its best moments, Frank Spotnitz' show follows separately Obergruppenführer John Smith (Rufus Sewell), Juliana Crain (Alexa Davalos) and Nobusuke Tagomi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Set in an alternative future where Germany has won World War Two and divided the United States into The Greater Nazi Reich in the East a neutral central zone and the Japanese-led Japanese Pacific States in the West, the three characters broadly represents this new world's groups. Smith is a died-in-the-wool Nazi convert, an agent of the Reich whose belief is unquestioning. Stuck in the new world, Juliana is initially a passive observer, slowly graduating to rebel agent. Tagomi meanwhile, aware of his nation's weak position, moves behind the scenes to avoid further war, whilst attempting to follow some sort of honourable code.

In their own way and not consistently throughout the series, each of those three central performers and characters can be compelling. Davalos has the most obvious arc, graduating from passive acceptance of her country's fate to knowledge that something can be done about it, but in her hands Juliana is never a cliche. Her journey has honesty and she, as a character, has agency. She is not just a simple vehicle for the audience to identify with and she doesn't cave in to the whims of the male characters, even when offered the chance. The always watchable Sewell only finds real conflict come the final episodes of this season, but his casting alone is almost enough to convince you that Smith has hidden depths, even when little really happens to him. Tagawa is the standout. Subtly and with great acting heft he levers and plys the behind the scenes machinations, slowly allowing more emotion as we find out more about his personal motivations.

The problems with the show though are quick to emerge whenever any character other than those three are given the focus, most often the case when Spotnitz allows time to be spent with Joe Blake (Luke Kleintank) or Sergeant Yoshida (Lee Shorten). Neither performance is great, particularly in Kleintank's case, but the bigger problem is that the characters just don't have much of interest to do. We spend the entire season watching Blake struggle with whether he is American or Nazi, whilst Yoshida has the fairly uninspiring job of winding up Tagomi and finding out just enough during his investigations to advance the plot. Similar problems of both performance and subject afflict other parts of the ensemble, notably Rupert Evans' Frank Frink, though to a much lesser degree which slowly ebbs as Frink finds a genuinely interesting and tragically motivated purpose, not tied to Juliana.

In the final reckoning the show comes up wanting in the pay off for the much-teased idea behind what the filmreels wanted by the titular bloke in the grand domicile actually contain. The reveal purposefully makes no sense in order to sell you on potential answers in Season Two. A particularly dangerous game, especially considering we appear to be flirting with Lost territory.

The Man In The High Castle is streaming on Amazon Instant Video.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Season Two - Online Review

'Kimmy, instead of driving a central plot, anchors that which is happening to all of the supplementary characters. Titus isn't just a source of throwaway comedy anymore. Prepare to care whether he and Mikey make it.'

In Season Two, Tina Fey and Robert Carlock's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt locks in both the things it wants to talk about and the plot threads it wants to follow whilst it is making you laugh.

Titus (Tituss Burgess), a highlight of season one, has a new boyfriend in the shape of Mikey (Mike Carlsen). Can flamboyant Titus and manly Mikey survive their pairing? Lilian (Carol Kane) is on the warpath against the gentrification of New York. Can the old city survive amongst the new? Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski) returns from her Lakota Sioux family, intent on promoting their interests and values. Can the writers make the show's 'playing with race' elements any more palatable this time, rather than the failure they were in the first series?

Whilst those questions are being answered, Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) noticeably becomes a protagonist in the wind. In early episodes she's concerned with Jacqueline's return, before moving back to the Dong (Ki Hong Lee) plot thread and finally to late-series revelations involving her mother, driven on by new character: alcoholic therapist Andrea (Fay). It's a notable change from the first series. Kimmy, instead of driving a central plot, anchors that which is happening to all of the supplementary characters. Titus isn't just a source of throwaway comedy anymore. Prepare to care whether he and Mikey make it.

Whilst that change is welcome - and the series retains its rapid fire scripting; unmatched anywhere else - this is still a show with problems and in this season a new one arises: there's a notable lack of sharp snark. Wherein the first series Jacqueline and her daughter Xanthippe (Dylan Gelula) provided it, here one is consciously trying to change her image and the other has departed. It leaves the show feeling soft-tongued. Kimmy's saccharine sweetness needs balance and Fey and Carlock lose some of the sources of that balance in the first season without ever finding suitable alternatives. Suggested sources include Andrea, Lilian and Titus but all have warm hearts underneath and Fey even allows Andrea a pretty direct feminist lecture.

Meanwhile, Fey and Carlock are still grappling with the last of the opening questions. The first season's defining characteristic was its tone deaf 'jocular' treatment of Vietnamese character Dong. Perhaps wisely, that element is marginalised here and the jokes around him are mainly derived from the innocence of Kimmy. However, there's a new racial element for Fey and Carlock to play with in the shape of Jacqueline's parentage and, again, the writers manage to make what could have been light pillorying of societal attitudes turn into ham-fisted awkwardness. Jacqueline becomes the worst character in a hurry and her twee finale suggests there's more in store. It is possible to have this sort of Comedy conversation around race but in two seasons Kimmy Schmidt's writers have show that they have no idea how to pitch it, time it or sell it.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was playing on Netflix.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

Bloodline: Season Two - Online Review

SPOILER WARNING: The below article contains reference to events during Bloodline Season One and Season Two, which you may wish to avoid if you have not yet seen either or both seasons of the show.

'in the first season John was, as the voiceover told us, part of a good family who had 'done a bad thing'. But as season two progresses, John becomes more villain than hero'

Bloodline season two follows a very similar methodology to Bloodline season one. For the first half of the season, the show is all about slow build up. Character allegiances and anxieties are carefully tweaked and played with, as we work our way towards the final two episodes.

The diversion from season one with that approach is that Bloodline is now a series with momentum, which it cannot afford to just put on pause. By the final episodes yes, significant things have happened, but the time it takes to get us there often feels unnecesarily extended, overly pedestrian; a little too happy with stasis.

The things that happen however, to dwell on Bloodline's final two episodes, do show that showrunners Glenn Kessler, Todd A. Kessler and Daniel Zelman can pull satisfaction out of their hat, as shown in season one. During this second run, shortened from thirteen to ten episodes, the writers successfully show the pressure piling on Meg (Linda Cardellini) and Kevin (Norbert Leo Butz) as we advance through, culminating in what appears to be Meg revealing the family secret to Sally (Sissy Spacek) and Kevin killing Marco (Enrique Murciano). Meg has been pulled from her attempted New York escape back to the Keys and put in charge of yet more secrets through running John's (Kyle Chandler) chase of the sheriff's position. Kevin has had to fight addiction, face up to becoming a father and lose the boatyard to the shadowy Roy Gilbert (Beau Bridges). Their conclusions might be sudden and dramatic, but they are well written and setup and, given everything we see in the season, completely believable.

The writing around John also continues to work, calling to mind that most classic of cinematic corruption and 'fall' stories; that of Michael Corleone. In the first season John was, as the voiceover told us, part of a good family who had 'done a bad thing'. But as season two progresses, John becomes more villain than hero, more driver of bad events rather than someone who bad events happen to. His finale too is entirely believable. Diana (Jacinda Barrett, who continues to be one of the best performers here) has all but turned her back, Meg and Kevin are no longer confidants; John is going to drive. Where your sympathies lie is open to interpretation, but for me I was starting to buy the other siblings arguments. It was difficult to look at John at this point as anything other than someone who had helped in Kevin's downfall and could now conceivably benefit from it, depending on how far Meg goes with her reveals.

The problem with all of the above is that it should have happened much sooner. The final two episodes do take the characters on to new precipices, but those episodes leave behind a season that struggled to generate momentum up to that point and relied far too much on getting us interested in new plot threads that didn't always work. Andrea Riseborough as Danny's (Ben Mendelsohn) ex-girlfriend is good and nearly unrecognisable, but she's stuck in a sub plot to do with Eric (Jamie McShane), Danny's son Nolan (Owen Teague) and hoodlum Ozzy (John Leguizamo). Hardly any of it seems to matter. Nolan and Evangeline (Riseborough) have an arc that, like the rest of the series, eventually works, but it lacks real impact on John, Kevin and Meg and Ozzy as the antagonist of the piece, beyond the secrets the Rayburns hold is weak. Marco takes on that role much more during the final five episodes, supported by Aguirre (David Zayas), but even that plays second fiddle to watching the Rayburn's internal struggles. If anything, the series fails to get the balance right between moving those struggles forwards and introducing us to these supplementary elements. I could watch more of Evangeline and Nolan, especially now they seem part of the family, but  not at the expense of the main plot and not when Aguirre and Ozzy add nothing at all.

Which leaves us in a position come the final episodes where the core characters have been pushed to their limits, satisfyingly hit them, but moved on hardly at all. The balance is off. If Bloodline wants to survive much longer as a series it has to find a way to make its opening and mid-seasons as compelling as its finales.

Bloodline was streaming on Netflix.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

Game Of Thrones: Season Six - TV Review

SPOILER WARNING: The below article contains spoilers for Game Of Thrones: Season Six, which you may wish to avoid if you have not seen this season of the show.

'Season six is the moment the showrunners decided to let loose the satisfying plot payoffs, the heroic moments, the genuinely tear-jerking pathos.'

Game Of Thrones can be a frustrating beast. Though it has the mythos nailed down, and the characters, it is not always a show that can bring its various moving parts to operate in a satisfying harmony. Unlike the show's metronomic titles, this has often been a series that does not go completely as clockwork, as often as it should.

But season six is different. Season six is the moment the showrunners decided to let loose the satisfying plot payoffs, the heroic moments, the genuinely tear-jerking pathos. Characters stuck in the same arcs finally regained agency and did something. Characters with potential realised it. Characters we wanted to cheer for gave us reason to do so.

It didn't quite start off like that however, with the reveal about whether Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) would live or stay dead stretched out over the first two episodes. During those episodes it is difficult to think of anything not taking place in Castle Black as anything other than filler. Terry Pratchett used to say that his best characters (Vimes, Death, The Orangutan (ook)) feature sparsely because otherwise they would take over his world. If there's a criticism to be levelled at Game Of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss it is that they have occasionally allowed their ensemble fantasy drama to become The Jon Snow Show, without ever really giving us due plotting reason as to why.

In season six you begin to get that reason and the way in which you get it - through flashbacks glimpsed by Bran's (Isaac Hempstead Wright) visions - is as important as what is revealed. Bran, another of the Game's characters often stuck on the periphery, suddenly becomes oh so important. The reveals he comes across matter to him, to us and to the wider world of Westeros, where before they have happened in cloistered microcosm.

The pattern of Bran is repeated elsewhere. Sansa's (Sophie Turner) battle with Ramsey (Iwan Rheon) and uneasy alliance (if you can call it that) with Baelish (Aidan Gillen) surrounds the season's key moment. Arya's (Maisie Williams) inertia in the house of the many faced God finally ends and bear's fruit. Cersei's (Lena Headey) scheming comes to matter more than just impacting Kings Landing politics; there's direct cause and effect of her continued willingness to do the unthinkable. Even the most isolated characters - Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) and those inhabiting The Iron Islands - get things to do that matter beyond their immediate sphere of influence.

Of the chips that are cashed in by the end of the season it is difficult to think of one that does not work. The reveal about Hodor (Kristian Nairn) is the most satisfying and emotional. So called 'mystery boxes' (read: good plotting) are easy to setup but difficult to payoff. This does both with shiver-inducing aplomb. The following episode heralds the return of an oft-mentioned character, in satisfying comic book hero-esque style. The demise of several villains during the wiping out of many cast members in the final episode gives equal levels of satisfaction.

But this is, now, finally and justifiably so, the Jon Snow Show. The season revolves initially around whether he is alive and eventually around whether he can succeed. In a rare note of Thrones optimism (though the creators do get playful in season six; Tormund (Kristofer Hivju) is a constant highlight) we are left with the feeling that the Starks have the North again and can go much further than that. S6E9, Battle Of The Bastards, directed superbly by Miguel Sapochnik, gives us Stark tragedy and success in a single episode and doesn't only settle for that. The scenes where Jon looks as though he will asphyxiate feature incredible, and incredibly subtle camerawork, even if the conclusion of the episode is a little similar to several Thrones 'rescues' we have seen before.

The problems season six has though are minor, particularly given how much it is willing to conclude and how much it manages to setup. By the finale, Arya and Daenerys are in (or very close to) Westeros. Cersei (Lena Headey) appears to have wiped out most of her immediate enemies, but is there a very attractive division with Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) hinted at? It feels as though the conclusion of the Thrones labyrinth is approaching. In previous seasons I've been more than ready for it. At the end of season six, I could have watched TV of this quality for a lot longer.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.

A Midsummer Night's Dream (2016) - TV Review

'There's a strong whiff of Davies' Doctor Who tenure here: with its handily placed touchscreens and SFX-enhanced fairies, Kerr's Athens could easily be mistaken for somewhere David Tennant's timelord once landed his TARDIS'.

From the very first moments of his version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, director David Kerr wears his Shakespearean cinematic influences brazenly on his sleeve. The opening sequence introducing Theseus (John Hannah) as the dictatorial ruler of Athens and Hippolyta (Eleanor Matsuura) as his bride-to-be in chains draws from Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, Taymor's Titus and, perhaps most heavily of all, Loncraine's Richard III.

It's an impressive back catalogue to draw upon, even if Kerr delivers these references with an undeniably heavy hand. Those familiar with Shakespeare's original play will know that the relationship between Theseus and Hippolyta is one that has always been open to interpretation, but it has perhaps never been given such an unsettling and unambiguously negative spin on screen as Kerr offers here.

On both executive production and script adaptation duties is Russell T. Davies, whose influence can also be clearly felt in the aesthetic adopted throughout the film. There's a strong whiff of Davies' Doctor Who tenure here: with its handily placed touchscreens and SFX-enhanced fairies, Kerr's Athens could easily be mistaken for somewhere David Tennant's timelord once landed his TARDIS. It lacks subtlety, but for the most part it works well enough without detracting from Shakespeare's story, and the younger members of the audience will no doubt love it.

Less successful, however, is Davies' increasing tendency to tinker with the events of the original play. I'm all for tinkering with Shakespeare's texts - in fact I would call myself an active proponent of doing so - but when said tinkering adds little to the story it becomes an unnecessary distraction. At one point, for example, Davies adds an extra twist to the already somewhat complex relationships between Demetrius (Paapa Essiedu), Lysander (Matthew Tennyson), Hermia (Prisca Bakare) and Helena (Kate Kennedy) in which Demetrius briefly falls in love with Lysander. Whilst arguably intended to add a modern dimension to Shakespeare's traditional reprentation of love, this change also feels entirely superfluous, undercutting any positive impact it might have had on the adaptation overall.

Less successful still are Davies' considerable changes to the final act, giving the fantastical comedy a gratuitously tragic and sinister edge which detracts from the farcical performance of the mechanicals. It's a shame that both writer and director ultimately conclude their version of A Midsummer Night's Dream in a confusing and messy manner when the simple entertainment of Shakespeare's play was entirely at their disposal. It's largely thanks to the wealth of reliable names within Kerr's cast that Davies' screenplay doesn't prove to be his adaptation's undoing.

By Ben Broadribb. Ben is a regular contributor to Film Intel, having previously written at Some Like It Hot Fuzz. He is normally seen in the wild wearing t-shirts containing obscure film references. He is a geek, often unashamedly so. He's also on Google+ and Twitter.

Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D: Season Three - TV Review

'With three seasons under its belt, one of the positives to take from this offering is that S.H.I.E.L.D is starting to gain the confidence to consider ideas outside of its immediate sphere of influence.'

Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D continues to be something of a TV enigma, a throwback to Saturday night Sci-Fi serials of the Nineties with at least equal part exposition to attractive 'monster of the week' innocence. It shouldn't work and it often doesn't, but there's also often a satisfying episode or two which does what good TV should do and wraps you up in a large blanket of a world which doesn't really exist.

On the plus side for the third outing of Marvel's flagship TV show, the lessons from Season Two have been carried over and S.H.I.E.L.D Season Three again features a beginning-to-end plot thread (the search for Hydra's 'god'), which informs every episode on at least some level. It's no mean feat to manage a central thread through twenty-two episodes and weave in a satisfying sub-plot, with the agents attempting to tackle inhuman-murdering inhuman Lash, and the show deserves more credit than it often gets for doing so. The finale probably chooses the right character allegiances (although there's an odd-looking trail for Season Four) and hints at directions which are new enough to justify your continued involvement with Marvel's offering.

On the other hand, there's a prime example too here of the damage the Marvel universe can do to itself. Constantly looking for new opportunities, there are big decisions at the half-way point for agents Lance Hunter (Nick Blood) and Bobbi Morse (Adrianne Palicki). Having initially offered an uncertain presence, those two have become a highlight for the show, with Hunter in particular a fantastic, humour-filled alternative to the too straight faced Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), whose development and continuing presence here is still a weak point. As the Marvel Universe calls (but not, it seems, with any substance) the agents get an emotional apex in Parting Shot (S3E13), on a par with anything the series offers. The high-point though is with sacrifice and the momentum of the show dips for some time.

With three seasons under its belt, one of the positives to take from this offering is that S.H.I.E.L.D is starting to gain the confidence to consider ideas outside of its immediate sphere of influence. The position of outsiders has always been fertile ground for comic books which feature those from other planets and on more than one occasion, S.H.I.E.L.D enters a political fray by discussing its inhuman collection of characters as 'illegal aliens'. Similarly, though less successfully, the relationship between Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Daisy (Chloe Bennet) continues to be one of the better examinations of quasi father/daughter roles mainstream TV has managed, in the main because Bennet's character is never helplessly at the whim of Gregg's. Those two elements rarely get anything beyond a surface view, but at least there's scope for their discussion.

Though it tells its assigned arc well, the tale of the Hydra god is never quite as satisfying as Season Two's long thread and ultimately this season is missing one or two memorable characters and the same number of memorable episodes to stand out. Lash, for example, morphs into a perfect antihero, but he's never given long enough to shine. In a show that runs for this long every season there must have been room, so whilst S.H.I.E.L.D entertains again, it's not with the level of polish attained during the last run.

By Sam Turner. Sam is editor of Film Intel, and can usually be found behind a keyboard with a cup of tea. He likes entertaining films and dislikes the other kind. He's on Google+, Twitter and several places even he doesn't yet know about.