House of Eliott
This BBC television series broadcast between 1991 and 1994 is a sleeper, dramatizing feminism immediately after the First World War. A consistent theme throughout “The House of Eliott” is the struggle of women in the 1920s to live fulfilling and independent lives. Created by Jean Marsh and Eileen Atkins, who had previously...
Orange is the New Black (OITNB) –Keeps on Going Strong
Feminism, sexual perversion, peccadilloes, assault, and experimentation run strong in Season Three (2015). [See my reviews, “Orange is the New Black—Life Behind Bars”, August 7, 2013 and “The Backstory Behind Orange is the New Black”, August 15, 2013.] Nothing like this has been portrayed on television, without a suggestive body...
“Wayward Pines”—Stray at Your Own Risk
Wayward Pines
Based on the Wayward Pines trilogy by Blake Crouch and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, (creator of The Sixth Sense,–“I see dead people”), “Wayward Pines” is an intense thriller and dystopia, which premiered on Fox-TV in mid-May. This series is “The Prisoner” meets “The Walking Dead” with a bit of “Twin Peaks” and...
“Empire” –It’s All About Cookie
Cookie and Lucious
“Empire”, part family saga, part “Glee”, and part soap opera, is an entertaining new television series on Fox with something for everyone!
Created by Lee Daniels (of “Precious” and “The Butler” fame), “Empire” gives both Terrence Howard as Lucious Lyons and Taraji P. Henson as Cookie, his ex-wife, the platform to...
“Salamander”—Hiding Under a Rock
“Salamander” the movie
This Belgian drama twelve-part TV miniseries, released through Netflix and BBC in 2014, is a crime thriller in the same league as the edge-of-the-seat series Wallander, Bridge, and The Killing.
A small private bank in Brussels, is robbed of 66 safe deposit boxes belonging to some of the most prominent...
“Black Mirror”—Dark Reflections of the Mind
Black Mirror
I’ve just discovered the extraordinary showstopper, “Black Mirror”, a British sci-fi television series that is part “Twilight Zone” but darker and more bizarre. In six episodes in Season One we are let into a dystopian future narratively thrilling yet outrageous, because of its plausibility.
The season finale, “White Christmas”, is...
