Month: December 2015

It’s “What have you been watching?”, my chance to tell you what movies and TV I’ve been watching recently that I haven’t already reviewed and your chance to recommend things to everyone else (and me) in case I’ve missed them.

The usual “TMINE recommends” page features links to reviews of all the shows I’ve ever recommended, and there’s also the Reviews A-Z, for when you want to check more or less anything I’ve reviewed ever. And if you want to know when any of these shows are on in your area, there’s Locate TV – they’ll even email you a weekly schedule.

It’s the last round-up before TMINE takes its Christmas break, but as I was away for a couple of days at the start of the week and I’m about to head off to YA Christmas party, I’ve not yet caught up on The Bridge. Otherwise, though, I’m up to date with all the regulars, so after the jump, we can talk about the latest episodes of The Expanse, Legends, Limitless and Supergirl.

Elsewhere, I’ve reviewed the first episode of Syfy’s The Magicians but I’ve also been watching a new Syfy mini-series, although I’m only up to episode two (of three), so not too many spoilers if you’ve seen the rest, please. Although it’s based on a book I’ve already read, so they might not be spoilers, if you see what I mean.

Childhood’s End (US: Syfy)
This adaptation of the classic Arthur C Clarke novel sees aliens come to Earth promising to turn the world into a utopia, by helping humanity to end poverty, inequality, global warming, etc, etc. To make things easier, since they don’t think humans will like their true appearance, they pick on an American farmer (Mike Vogel) to be their official spokesperson, turning his life upside down. But various people, including one of the few remaining scientists Osy Ikhile and newspaper proprietor Colm Meaney, who dubs the aliens ‘the overlords’, think the arrivals have an ulterior motive. And maybe they do…

Although the narrative is compressed from the original decades-long story to something a bit shorter to allow the same cast and characters to appear throughout, the show is nevertheless pretty faithful to the original, mulling over what would happen to humanity if we ever did get a utopia, particularly from an extraterrestrial rather than religious source, and whether we’d even like it. The story also plays with the fear of the unknown and the different, religion, and the perils of science, which it constantly subverts, with the aliens seemingly benevolent at each twist of the story. Well aware that numerous similarly-themed, more conventional movies and TV shows have appeared since the original was written (such as V, Signs and Independence Day), the adaptation uses them to its advantage, even referencing them at points (“What do you think their weakness will be? In Signs, it was water…”). 

Filmed in Australia and written by Matthew Graham (Life on Mars, Doctor Who), it’s replete with Aussie and British actors including Ikhile, Julian McMahon (Charmed, Fantastic Four, Nip/Tuck), Daisy Betts (The Player, The Last Resort, Persons Unknown), Don Hany (Serangoon Road), Charles Dance (everything), and various members of The Doctor Blake Mysteries cast. Knowing how everything winds up does ruin it a little for me, female roles do feel a bit 1950s and I’m finding the second episode a bit poorly paced at the moment, but it’s a jolly decent and even surprisingly funny effort by Syfy (which is now committed to its new ‘fewer, bigger, better‘ mantra) that harks back to the network’s halcyon days of projects such as The Lost Room. Matthew Graham for next Doctor Who showrunner?

Continue reading “What have you been watching? Including Childhood’s End, Legends, Limitless, The Expanse and Supergirl”