Television reviews – Page 28

“Parade’s End”–An Historian’s Downton Abbey?”

Written by diana on March 5, 2013. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. 3 Comments on “Parade’s End”–An Historian’s Downton Abbey?”

The five-part BBC/HBO miniseries “Parade’s End” premiered on HBO last week (February 26) and is also available on video-on-demand. The playwright Tom Stoppard has adapted Ford Madox Ford’s monumental 900 page, four-novel series “Parade’s End” for television: the intellectual’s Edwardian-era alternative to “Downton Abbey.” Both series take place in the same time period, beginning with the decade before the First World War. But the view of the British class system, the end of the Empire, and the attitude towards the war could not be more...

“House of Cards” — A Bulimic Buffet for Couch Potatoes?

Written by diana on February 11, 2013. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. 6 Comments on “House of Cards” — A Bulimic Buffet for Couch Potatoes?

Why wait a week to watch another episode when an entire buffet is available? A lot has been written recently about “binge-watching” the practice of sitting on the couch or in bed to gorge on an entire season or a majority of episodes of a television series in one batch. The bulimic viewer was not possible before Tivo, DVRs and Netflix video streaming (aka Instant Queue). Netflix has given us 13 episodes of “House of Cards”, a reinterpretation of the 1990 BBC miniseries which starred Sir Ian Richardson as a conniving Parliamentarian who rose to the level of prime minister before...

Following “The Following”

Written by diana on February 5, 2013. Posted in Television reviews. 2 Comments on Following “The Following”

A Fox television drama series starring Kevin Bacon and James Purefoy (the British actor who brilliantly played Marc Antony in the “Rome” series), “The Following” premiered two weeks ago (January 21). It is already gaining a fervent, mostly young audience. A furloughed FBI agent, Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon), responsible for the imprisonment of the brutal serial killer Joe Carroll (James Purefoy), is brought back into action when Carroll masterminds a series of copycat murders perpetrated by a cult following (think Charles Manson meets Silence of the Lambs). But Carroll...

“Garrow’s Law”–The Gallows of a Hanging Court

Written by diana on December 11, 2012. Posted in Television reviews. 1 Comment on “Garrow’s Law”–The Gallows of a Hanging Court

I recently discovered a lesser known BBC series, Garrow’s Law (2009-2012), and highly recommend this superb British period drama based upon the life of 18th-century lawyer William Garrow. As the barrister who demanded that the accused was “innocent until proven guilty,” Garrow became the Perry Mason for the poor and unjustly accused. But the extraordinary story of William Garrow might never have been dramatized had it not been for the online publication of the Old Bailey Proceedings (1674-1913) in 2008. (The Old Bailey is a reference to the Central Criminal Court of England...

“Hit and Miss”–Or, “Boys Don’t Cry” meets “Dexter”

Written by diana on August 20, 2012. Posted in Television reviews, Unhealed Wound. 2 Comments on “Hit and Miss”–Or, “Boys Don’t Cry” meets “Dexter”

This new mini-series created exclusively for DirecTV’s Audience Network stars Chloë Sevigny as a transgender hired assassin living in Yorkshire, England and fated to parent four children who have just lost their mother to cancer. One of the children, Ryan, is her son whom she fathered before pursuing her journey to becoming Mia. Now she finds herself the legal guardian to four children. When the children she inherits begin to affect her, she is shaken by her own amorality. In each opening scene, the camera moves over Mia’s pre-op transsexual body: nude with both breasts and a...

“The Newsroom”–A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Cable TV News

Written by diana on July 30, 2012. Posted in Television reviews. 12 Comments on “The Newsroom”–A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Cable TV News

In the opening episode, veteran news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) is asked by a fresh-faced journalism student what makes America the greatest country on earth. Cajoled into giving a substantive response by the moderator, Will McAvoy throws caution aside and proceeds in a blistering monologue filled with statistics to explain why America isn’t. The collateral damage becomes significant. His boss (Sam Waterston) considers the episode a meltdown. The meltdown forces him to reassess his former self–a time when news reporting was about defending the ideals of a culture and truth...