TV

Here you will find a centralised hub for all TV reviews & essays on Cultural Conversation from 2017 onwards…

REVIEWS

• • After Life (Season 1)
  • Cobra Kai (Season 3)
  • Cuckoo (Season 5 – 2019)
  • Dracula (BBC Mini-Series – 2020)
  • Extras (Series Review)
  • Fleabag (Series Review)
  • Good Omens (Limited Series – 2019)
  • His Dark Materials (Season 1 – 2019)
  • Lovecraft Country – ‘Sundown’
    • (Season 1)
  • Luke Cage (Season 2 – 2018)
  • Russian Doll (Season 1 – 2019)
  • The Cleaner (Season 1)
  • Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (Season 1 – 2018)
  • Treadstone (Season 1 – 2019)
  • WandaVision ‘Episodes 1 & 2’ – a surreal, charming homage to comic Americana
  • Years and Years (Limited Series – 2019)

Black Mirror

• • Season 4 – Review 
  • Bandersnatch

Breaking Bad

• • El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

Doctor Who

• • Christmas Special 2017: Twice Upon a Time – Review 
  • Season 12 is Regenerating… Back Into Itself
  • ‘Revolution of the Daleks’ – Review

Game of Thrones

• • Season 1 Overview
    • 1×01 – Winter is Coming
    • 1×02 – The Kingsroad
    • 1×03 – Lord Snow
    • 1×04 – Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
    • 1×05 – The Wolf and the Lion
    • 1×06 – A Golden Crown
    • 1×07 – You Win or You Die
    • 1×08 – The Pointy End
    • 1×09 – Baelor
    • 1×10 – Fire and Blood

Men Behaving Badly

• • Seasons 1 + 2 
  • Seasons 3 + 4 
  • Seasons 5, 6 + Last Orders

Miscellaneous pieces

• • A Slayer Reborn: Buffy and the Reboot Question 
  • Arrested Development: Can we separate Art from the Artist?
  • BritBox: Local Telly for Local People
  • Don’t Mention the Comedy: Fawlty Towers and Reactionary Cultural Politics
  • Escaping Reality: The Feel Good TV Effect
  • From Wars to Who: our favourite franchises are evolving – why can’t their fans evolve with them?
  • Marvel Malaise: Jessica Jones S2 and the Pacing Problem
  • Roseanne: Social Responsibility on Television
  • Roy-al Dysfunction: Succession and the Self-Destructive Dynasty
  • Six Seasons and (No) Movie (Yet): Reflections on Community
  • Starz in Your Eyes: Counterpart and the Dawn of the Streaming Wars
  • Stranger Things, Lost and the sudden left turn
  • THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF is exactly what we need right now
  • The Handmaid’s Tale: Has 1990’s TV Paranoia Returned?
  • The League of Gentlemen’s Brexit Britain: why the old guard TV shows are returning now
  • The Sense of no Ending: The Walking Dead and sticking the landing
  • We Are Like the Dreamers: Experiencing TWIN PEAKS

Star Trek

• • Star Trek: Discovery
    • • Into the forest we go: Star Trek, Discovery and the first frontier
      • Season 1 – Reflections on the Journey 
    • Season 2 – 2019 
      • Podcast Extra: Trek FM’s Standard Orbit #268 – TOS Season 2.5 
    • Season 3 – 2020
      • First Impressions & Third Time Lucky? STAR TREK: DISCOVERY – ‘That Hope Is You’
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks
    • • Second Contact and First Impressions
      • Season 1 – Review
      • Season 2 – Review
  • Star Trek: Picard
    • • A 24th Century Worth Fighting For – Season 1 Analysis
  • Star Trek: Prodigy
    • • First Impressions – ‘Lost and Found’

The Crown

• • Season 1
  • Season 2 
  • Season 3
  • Season 4

The X-Files

• • Season 11 Overview
    • 11×01 – My Struggle III
    • 11×02 – This
    • 11×03 – Plus One
    • 11×04 – The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat
    • 11×05 – Ghouli
    • 11×06 – Kitten
    • 11×07 – Rm9sbg93zxjz aka Followers
    • 11×08 – Familiar
    • 11×09 – Nothing Lasts Forever
    • 11×10 – My Struggle IV

ESSAYS

Alan Partridge

• • The Many Lives of Alan Partridge: Exploring Britain’s most enduring comic creation

Game of Thrones

• • The Sense of an Ending: Game of Thrones, Lost and Delayed Anticipation
  • Attachment Theory: Game of Thrones, Characters and Expectations
  • Death Wish: When did Death become the journey?

Star Trek

• • Fandom, Star Trek: Discovery, and it’s Dark Reflection 
  • Making it So: the Return of Jean-Luc Picard & Star Trek’s Nostalgic Future
  • Nostalgia & Star Trek: Picard, Discovery and the Future 
  • Plugging gaps: How backstory is *becoming* story
  • Star Trek is Boldly Going… but to where? 
  • Star Trek is at a cinematic crossroads – which path should it take? 
  • Star Trek: Voyager
    • • 25th Anniversary Personal Retrospective

The X-Files

• • The X-Files: Mythology within Mythology
  • The X-Files’ Chris Carter, Misogyny, and Agenda Fandom
  • The X-Files and Alternate Universes
  • Project Crossroads: Where does The X-Files go from here?
  • Let’s give X-Files: Albuquerque the benefit of the Truth

Westworld

• • When did Humans become the Black Hats of Modern Fiction? Westworld, The Walking Dead & Encroaching Dystopia 
  • Westworld: The Ongoing Struggle with Non-Linear Storytelling
  • Westworld Season 2 reminds me of Lost… and that’s OK

Last updated: March 27, 2022