Cruel Summer is officially an anthology show, which means every season features a new mystery with a new cast of characters. In many ways, this makes it very similar to a limited show, which is arguably the greatest thing a mystery show can be. For audiences, it means there’s a definite episode where the killer gets revealed and all the important questions get answered. For writers, it means they can plan out the show with a definite ending in mind, […]

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Like Gaiman’s other big page-to-screen success story, The Sandman, the first run of Good Omens was by and large a workmanlike adaptation of an original which had been rather special. This second lot is, all too clearly, something intended as a script from the start (beyond the vague ideas of a sequel that Gaiman and the sorely missed Terry Pratchett threw around a long time ago) – and this is to its advantage. This time, the production isn’t lumbered throughout […]

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Typically the latest Star Wars spin-off would, by default, be this August’s biggest name going. It’s the world’s most beloved non-Vulcan sci-fi franchise, with the deranged runaway clout of Disney backing it up. The only thing that could possibly dethrone it is an adaptation of honest-to-God anime royalty – and a proper adaptation too, one with the original creator’s input and stamp of approval, not something farmed out to people who initially think they’re doing the life story of a […]

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Just as plenty of wags have pointed out that the county of Midsomer seemed to attract cold-blooded murderers like flies to honey, a small Tasmanian town literally called Deadloch is practically inviting a corpse to surface in dramatic fashion. Or, if not that, then some kind of work of horror, but the zombie apocalypse has hit its wilderness years – so murder mystery it is. Obviously a chalk-and-cheddar, Tango-and-Cash pair of mismatched detectives isn’t some incredible new invention, but Deadloch’s […]

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In true form of the long hot summer, July’s shows touch on people behaving very badly indeed – be this kidnapping, running cults, or even a cheeky bit of cannibalism. But curiously, for the most part, the people engaged in this misbehaviour aren’t the big hammy villains but rather our heroes, the people we’re meant to sympathise with. This isn’t some wacky new development, granted, but it strikes on a recurring theme of mine – that we’re frequently better able […]

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As if television itself is trying to quietly jet off for its summer holidays, June’s roster of shows encompass a real smorgasbord of far-flung, exotic destinations – such as Sheffield. Perhaps you, too, will find somewhere that looks like the holiday of a lifetime, although I must add the caveat up front, for one of them, they’re only pretending they’re on Mars. Here are the biggest new TV shows of June 2023.   New TV In June 2023 1. Deadloch […]

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Andy Samberg is Rip Digman in Digman!. As one-word encapsulation of ‘we’re doing a jokey version of Indiana Jones’, full credit to them, they’ve got that down cold. The issue is, they seem to think that’s all they needed to get down on paper, and the rest would take care of itself. Digman! makes the odd choice to include an overriding story, despite the episodic format, its blithe cartoony disdain for things as concrete as an overriding story, and the […]

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Writer Taylor Jenkins Reid is having a good year. Her book Daisy Jones & the Six is adapted into an Amazon TV series, and a movie adapted from her novel One True Loves will also be released this year. Reid is a fantastic, versatile writer, experimenting all the time with different time periods and writing styles. Daisy Jones & the Six is presented entirely as a documentary transcript, so when I heard Amazon was turning it into a series, it […]

The post Daisy Jones & The Six: Season 1 REVIEW – More Style Than Spark from Natasha Alvar appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

What is there left to say about films and shows about environmentalism? Every criticism you could possibly say about the genre has already been said — they’re preachy, pretentious, smug, far from subtle, and often think good intentions can make up for weak storytelling and sketchy character development. The Rig is not exempt from any of these criticisms, but thankfully tries considerably harder than many other titles that tackle the same theme. Taking place on an oil rig, the six-episode […]

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A less forgiving reviewer would probably be more critical of The Peripheral. After all, the show is far from perfect, sometimes being messy and hard to follow. However, The Peripheral is just so much fun, it’s hard not to get invested in everything going on. It’s like a video game — sure, the story is contrived at times, but how can you resist such exciting action, impressive special effects, and grand ideas of what the future might look like? The […]

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Halloween’s in the rear-view mirror, but for all the relentless advance of the forces of Kris Kringle, the oversaturation of anything Christmassy at least hasn’t infected broadcast media yet, and the Christmas special or Santa movie is still just about self-contained in December. Instead, this month has lively bits of history, tragic bits of history, and one very unexpected appearance from Sylvester ‘Adrian!’ Stallone. Here are the biggest new TV shows of November 2022.   What’s New On TV In […]

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When Amazon boasted in 2017 that it had acquired the rights to a prequel based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, the internet was quickly awash with so much chatter, often decidedly toxic, that it took a war for the never-ending bickering between disgruntled purists and excited optimists to finally fade into the background. HBO’s announcement of a Targaryen-centric Game of Thrones prequel titled House Of The Dragon, meanwhile, was met with far more optimism. Finally, a chance to rectify […]

The post House of the Dragon vs. The Rings of Power – One Prequel To Rule Them All from Harry Alexander appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

Is there a show in recent memory with more riding on it than The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power? Everything about the Prime Video series – from its billion-dollar budget to its ethnically diverse cast – has come under intense fan scrutiny since Amazon paid an eye-watering amount for the rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy trilogy back in 2017. All this attention boiled down to one question: will this new adaptation do the books justice? With Season […]

The post The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: Season 1 REVIEW – The Hype Doesn’t Yet Ring True from Leon Miller appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

Despite my natural aversion to desperately twee phrases like ‘spooky season’ and ‘spooktober’, this October is, unsurprisingly, replete with content that’s on the spookier side. Most of the all-time classics of horror (eg the actual film Halloween) came out at about this time of year. Granted, the original Friday The 13th was inexplicably a May release, but it did at least come out on a Friday. Here are the biggest new TV shows of October 2022.   What’s New On […]

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Apart from the grand-scale, big-budget adaptation you’re probably already well aware of, September sees television bringing us, among others a fictionalisation of a real person’s life and the story of a reboot of a fictional TV show. If it feels like it’s been a long time since it was just a matter of ‘here’s a story, you don’t need to already know anything’, don’t worry! There’s some of those in there too. Here are the biggest new TV shows of […]

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