TV Review: The Fades Episode One

The Fades are coming...the Fades are coming...the Fades are here.

Horrific drama is something that has to be done just right, like an intricate dish at a five star restaurant or a abstract painting. The right elements and ingredients have to be mixed and balanced perfectly for it succeed on all levels, for we need to be able to feel not only the terror of the otherworldly creations haunting our story but also our protagonists plight as he moves into the realms of the unknown.

TV Review: Eternal Law Episode One

Tales of fiction or parables that pit good VS evil are a dime a dozen they are some of the easiest to produce due to the moral quandary we could possibly find ourselves in on a daily basis. They tie themselves into the basic fabric of our existence as well as our faith and religious beliefs.

Which is where the modern medium of television (Which some might argue is the faith of some people) has taken the idea to new heights.

Really high heights.

TV Review: Outcasts

Well I feel rather empty.

I just wasted eight hours of my life to get left on a cliffhanger that most likely I will never be able to see resolved or have revealed as the BBC science fiction show Outcasts was canceled not very long after it's eighth and final installment was shown in the horrid Sunday slot it was relegated to after a poor start ratings wise on BBC One.
I now know the feeling of being left at the altar.

But was it justified? Was this show, which seemed to brim with promise as an original science fiction series not involving little blue boxes or dinosaurs (Not that I dislike little blue boxes or the mad men that ride within them just so you know.), a failure or a victim of it's own themes of struggle and new  experiences?

TV Review: Dirk Gently Series Pilot

There is always a danger when adapting a television show or film from another authors work, especially from the more detailed and in depth pages of a book. There is a real peril in trying to capture the essence and feel of the source material and success is not always a given.

For every well done adaption there are countless utter failures and there is even more risk when you are trying to recreate something from a popular writer who has a great number of critical followers.

Dirk Gently's debut did not fall into any of these pitfalls, with Howard Overman doing a simply remarkable job of conveying an atmosphere worthy of Douglas Adams and making a grand impression that somewhere, someplace, Douglas is smiling in amusement, that is if they get BBC Four in the afterlife.

TV Review: Dirk Gently Episode Two

Computers are surely one of man's most important discoveries.

Through computers people are able to communicate with people from all around the world, start businesses, do taxes and most important, play solitaire. But often in speculative fiction thought have been given as to what the next step might be for these machines that are now integrating themselves into every waking moment of our lives.

One of the biggest achievements would be a computer that has intelligence and is able to learn and adapt to it's surroundings. That way rather than a computer becoming a cold machine that interrupts data it would become an instrument capable of so much more.

It is this aspect of technology that the latest adventure of Dirk Gently (Stephen Mangan and Richard Macduff (Darren Boyd) focuses on, as Dirk returns to his Cambridge roots to help the one person who he felt believed in him, Professor Jericho (Bill Patterson) who hires Dirk on as a security expert.

TV Review: Dirk Gently Episode One

A detective who can pull answers out of thin air from seemingly random observations...a partner who assists the great detective and asks the relevant questions that keep the viewer informed of the plot...

What did you say?

No, Sherlock has not come back earlier than expected, this is the return of Dirk Gently!
This is the creation of Douglas Adams, not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And it is written by the best genre writer this side of Steven Moffat, namely one Howard Overman, who created the Misfits and is responsible for some of the best Merlin episodes as well.

But although comparing Dirk Gently to Sherlock is apples and oranges in so many ways, it really cannot be avoided as although Dirk is the anti-Holmes, a world premise is the same, just imagine Sherlock in dire need of funds and with a bit funnier hair.

Book Review: A Clockwork Orange

Enduring the effects of time is something that everything in the world must endure. As an object or even an idea gets older, it's relevance lessens as it falls ever backward into the deep tunnel that is time.

But at times, an artistic endeavor or idea can be so on target and tuned in to what we are as a society that it can seem timeless in both its effect and it's message.

Anthony Burgess' 1962 novella A Clockwork Orange is an example of such a piece. It's tone and situations having real impact and seemingly foreknowledge on the culture arising around us in modern times. The Book's subject matter of youths bent on a downward destructive path filled with sex and violence seems, although a bit extreme, a perfect comparison for what we see every day in the news, a youth culture quickly spinning into ignorance and stubborn hatred towards others.