Month: August 2021

“The Chair”–Academic Patriarchy

Written by Diana Paul on August 29, 2021. Posted in Television reviews. 4 Comments on “The Chair”–Academic Patriarchy

The Chair, a Netflix series created by Amanda Peet and Annie Wyman, is executive produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the showrunners for Game of Thrones. This comedy drama startles with unexpected energy. After all, any theme involving university professors promises to be a snooze fest. The opening scene features Professor Ji-Yoon Kim (Sandra Oh) as the newly appointed first female Chair of the English department and the first person of color. On her first day, her office chair collapses, foreshadowing the circumstances soon to overtake her. The English department...

”The One”–A Perfect Match DNA-Style

Written by Diana Paul on August 22, 2021. Posted in Television reviews. 1 Comment on ”The One”–A Perfect Match DNA-Style

Can true love be analyzed and dissected by science? That is the premise of the Netflix mini-series, The One. Entrepreneur Rebecca Webb (Hannah Ware), uses her own husband Ethan (Wilf Scolding) as living proof that genetic matchmaking can produce “the one” against all odds. Her own match is purportedly the perfect soulmate identified through algorithms and DNA analysis. Her message: “You’re not going to end up alone.” As CEO of the start-up MatchDNA, Rebecca becomes unimaginably wealthy manipulating...

“The White Lotus”–White Gaze

Written by Diana Paul on August 17, 2021. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 1 Comment on “The White Lotus”–White Gaze

In this HBOMax six-episode mini-series (which ended August 15), we watch two uber-wealthy families on vacation in Hawaii (at the upscale Four Seasons) make themselves miserable in a perfectly-seeming tropical paradise. Their privileged existence is the luxury not to be concerned with others. In White Lotus’s opening scene, at the airport, Shane Patton (Jake Lacy), an insufferable, narcissistic scion of a wealthy and powerful family, explains with great disdain to fellow passengers that his wife, Rachel, has died…on their honeymoon. A cardboard coffin marked “human...

“Silent Witness”-or Dead on Arrival

Written by Diana Paul on August 11, 2021. Posted in movie reviews, Television reviews. 2 Comments on “Silent Witness”-or Dead on Arrival

Silent Witness, one of the longest running BBC television series (broadcast in more than 235 countries), focuses on a team of brilliant forensic pathologists who investigate a crime every two episodes. First broadcast in 1996, there now have been twenty-three seasons, making Silent Witness the entertainment industry’s longest running crime drama. The title character is a corpse lying on a slab prepared for a post-mortem analysis–a “silent witness” providing evidence of a crime, suicide, or death by natural causes. ...

“Unforgotten” (Season 4)–And Unforgettable

Written by Diana Paul on August 3, 2021. Posted in Television reviews. 3 Comments on “Unforgotten” (Season 4)–And Unforgettable

Season 4 of Unforgotten has been breaking records with over 7.5 million viewers tuning in every week for the latest developments in the cold case drama (PBS Masterpiece Theater premier July 11, 2021). It is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the most powerful and cleverly written season of the critically acclaimed cold case crime drama. As in the past three seasons, all suspects are interconnected though not revealed in the beginning. Red herrings abound and it is very difficult to sort out motive, means, and opportunity in this...