TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER NINE: THREE GIRLS
I tend to watch and write about American drama and while I know it inside out, I honestly don’t know if America produces drama like Three Girls, or whether I just never see it because it’s, quite rightly, un-exportable.
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER TEN: FEAR THE WALKING DEAD
I’ve talked about it so often that I hardly need to mention how Fear the Walking Dead went from one of the worst shows on TV into my Top Ten shows of 2017.
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER ELEVEN: STAR TREK DISCOVERY
Star Trek: Discovery is an odd show; its may delays and staff reshuffles have had a detrimental effect and we’ve ended up with a product that is hugely uneven… but I have faith it will find its feet in the latter half of the first season.
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER TWELVE: BLACK MIRROR
One doesn’t really need to talk too much about why Black Mirror is one of the best shows of 2017. The thing is, great as the episodes were, they didn’t leave me challenged and unsettled as presvious seasons.
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER THIRTEEN: AGENTS OF SHIELD
Yes, folks – you read that right – Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – that low budget, watered down, but always fun Joss Whedon side-project for his family – makes it into my Top Twenty list as it became one of TV’s most well-told and compelling shows.
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER FOURTEEN: LIAR
With Chris Chibnall jumping ship to showrun Doctor Who and ending his Dorset coast-set detective series Broadchurch earlier this summer, ITV were looking for a natural successor. Enter Harry and Jack Williams, whose psychological thriller, Liar takes up the reins with aplomb.
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER FIFTEEN: OZARK
Jason Bateman as a money laundering anti-hero in a Breaking Bad meets Fargo slow-burn thriller shouldn’t have hit written all over it, but after one intense hour of Netflix’s Ozark, I was hooked!
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER SIXTEEN: THE DEFIANT ONES
The Defiant Ones; HBO’s story of the rise of Doctor Dre and Jimmy Iovine conquering the music world should be the blueprint for how all documentaries are made.
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER SEVENTEEN: 8/10 CATS DOES COUNTDOWN
So far, all of my choices from numbers twenty through seventeen have been English shows and number sixteen is no exception. For the amount of joy that 8/10 Cats does Countdown brings me, it probably deserves to be higher, but I feel I should concentrate on drama…
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER EIGHTEEN: BROADCHURCH
The last season of Broadchurch – the excellent, Dorset-set detective show starring David Tennant and Olivia Colman was also Chris Chibnall’s last.
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017 NUMBER NINETEEN: STRIKE
Straight in at number 19 is Robert Galbraith's (aka J.K. Rowling) detective series Strike - a rather jolly good three-hour, BBC adaptation of J.K. Rowling (under the nom de plume Robert Galbraith) as Cormoran Strike – imagine Charlie Brooker was a divorced, alcoholic...
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TOP TWENTY SHOWS OF 2017NUMBER TWENTY: THE X FACTOR
2017 was a great year for television and Mr Robot, Twin Peaks: The Return, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Deuce, Stranger Things, Game of Thrones and The Crown are just a few shows which didn’t even make my Top Twenty.
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MR ROBOT SEASON FOUR USA NETWORK RENEWS SAM ESMAIL’S HACKER SHOW
“The most invigorating season of the grim hacker show yet”, “a thrilling return to form” and “Back to its noir-inspired roots” are just three of the quotes I’ve just read about season three but I think it’s been a terrible season and I’ve not much hope for Mr Robot season four.
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IN A PARALLEL DIMENSION COUNTERPART DOES NOT EXIST
In another world, similar to ours, the new Starz series Counterpart does not exist and the only reason for its existence in our our world is only due to some serious sci-fi sychronicity shit – the type worthy of a TV show about a parallel dimension!
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COUNTERPART PILOT COMBINES THE NOSTALGIA OF A SPY THRILLER WITH SCI-FI
One day Howard Silk awoke to find himself transformed into… Howard Silk for Starz’s intriguing new drama, Counterpart.
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JESSICA JONES’ GIRL POWER: SEASON TWO WILL BE DIRECTED ENTIRELY BY WOMEN
Krysten Ritter is back as super strong sleuth Jessica Jones in Marvel TV’s best show and she’s getting back to unfinished business… possibly with Kilgrave.
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BLACK MIRROR S04 RELEASE DATE:PLUS SEVEN, YES SEVEN NEW TRAILERS
British sci-fi maestro, Charlie Brooker is back with his ruthless and relentless dark techno thriller, Black Mirror, and we finally have a release date
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RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW: ALAN BALL’S HERE AND NOW COMING IN FEBRUARY
Ginger World Cup winner and creator of the brilliant Six Feet Under and the awful True Blood, Alan Ball returns to HBO with a new show in February called Here and Now.
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ALTERED CARBON TRAILERMAKES DEATH A MERE INCONVENIENCE
Based on Richard K. Morgan’s books, Altered Carbon sees Takeshi Kovacs, a half-Japanese ex-soldier is hired to solve the murder of a wealthy man who has recently transferred to a new body
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HOW THE WALKING DEAD IS ABOUT TO RUIN ONE OF TV’S BEST SHOWS. TWICE
As The Walking Dead continues to flounder, AMC yesterday announced which character would be making the jump to Fear The Walking Dead… and with it, sign the spin-off show’s death warrant.
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OMG! RUNAWAYS IS AMAZEBALLS: IS THIS BUFFY FOR THE MILLENNIAL GENERATION?
If you’re bored of superheroes, you’re bored of stories but perhaps Marvel’s latest offering, Runaways will snap you out of your ego trying to make you sound all cool and alternative, you little emo punks.
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SERIAL KILLER SERIAL RETURNS: MINDHUNTER IS BACK FOR NETFLIX AND CHILLS
Netflix has announced that one of my favourite shows of the year, and the second best serial killer show probably ever made, Mindhunter has been given a second season.
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DAMNATION S01E04: A GOD-DAMNED NEAR PERFECT EPISODE OF TV
Tony Tost’s depression-era series about strikebreaking in Iowa had me at hello but now, just four episodes into its freshman season, Damnation has delivered a near perfect hour-long.
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AGENTS OF SHIELD SEASON 5: YOUR FIRST ADVENT CALENDAR TREAT IS A 17 MIN PEEK
Can’t wait for the premiere of the fifth season of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.?
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THESE ARE DANGEROUS TIMES AND WE NEED DANGEROUS SHOWS
It’s been two months since HBO officially hired Lost and The Leftovers writer (and father of my children) Damon Lindelof to adapt Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s legendary graphic novel Watchmen.
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USA NETWORK’S DAMNATION:IS THIS THE NEW DEADWOOD?
USA Network’s new show, Damnation takes the oldest story in the book – the man against The Man – and updates it to depression-era Iowa.
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13TH DOCTOR’S NEW LOOK: DID THE TARDIS STOP OFF AT PLANET PRIMARK?
Jodie Whittaker’s outfit has been revealed by the BBC and it looks as though the TARDIS’ first stop for the new Doctor was Primark!
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LOST DR WHO EPISODE FOUND: TOM BAKER, ROMANA & K-9 ARE BACK IN “SHADA”
Britain, 1979. As corpses piled in British cemetaries during the Winter of Discontent, the BBC went on strike and a whole Doctor Who story – Shada, penned by Douglas Adams – was lost forever.
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AGENTS OF SHIELD SEASON 5: IN SPACE, NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SKREEM
I’ve written many times that with its intelligent, Trump-bashing Antifa storyline and illusory, alt-right holographic dimension, Agents of HYDRA excelled in its fourth season. But the biggest WTF moment came when the last episode’s post-credits tease took us in a brave new direction…
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JEFF BEZOS GETS HIS PRECIOUS: LORD OF THE RINGS TV SHOWS COME TO PASS
Jeff Bezos’ finally got his hands on his ‘precioussss’ on Monday as Amazon has acquired the television rights to J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy series The Lord of the Rings.
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NEW STAR WARS TRILOGY & TV: IN ANOTHER PART OF THE GALAXY, FAR, FAR AWAY
Disney today announced that Rian Johnson, the man behind the soon-to-be-released eighth film in the frnachise, Star Wars: The Last Jedi is to write and direct his own, brand new trilogy set in another part of the galaxy, far, far away.
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WESTWORLD SEASON TWO RIDES INTO TOWN MUCH EARLIER THAN EXPECTED
Evan Rachel Wood, the actress who coldly portrayed android Dolores in Westworld has confirmed in a Tweet that season two will debut early next year…
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LORD OF THE RINGS TV REBOOT? AMAZON & WB IN TALKS TO REVISIT MIDDLE EARTH
After seeing the success of Game of Thrones, Amazon Prime want in on the sword and sorcery scene and are trying to conjure up a Lord of the Rings TV show.
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NEXT STOP THE TWILIGHT ZONE! CBS & JORDAN PEELE REBOOT CLASSIC SCI-FI SERIES
“You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, the Twilight Zon
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THE STRANGER THINGS 2 FINALÉ: HOW IT SHOULDA GONE DOWN IN HAWKINS
Just like its predecessor, Stranger Things 2 was a joyous romp. The sophomore season of the Duffer Brothers’ Spielbergian horror delivered more of the same, but bigger and bolder, as sequels should; this time hordes of demadogs acting as Aliens to the prequel’s singular Alien.
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WTF JUST HAPPENED IN TWD?CAN I HAVE THOSE 41 MINUTES BACK PLEASE?
In the week that I wrote that Mr Robot has finally died a death, The Walking Dead has proven it’s kicked the bucket. Unlike an immortal Highlander, the series had been fadig away not burning out for an arguable amount of time, but S08E02 was the proof in the undead pudding.
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MR ROBOT’S DEMISE DISCOVERED: FROM QUADRANT FRAMING TO THE UPSIDE DOWN
Discussing the demise of Mr Robot’s third season with a friend, we clutched at straws to try and find reasons. “Esmail’s lost the story arc,” he suggested. I agreed – Sam Esmail originally planned the show as a movie.
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STRANGER THINGS BINGEWATCH: COVER ME, I’M GOING IN TO THE UPSIDE DOWN
Stranger Things season 2 hit Netflix today and I could not be more excited to see what Gordie, Vern, Teddy and Chris have been up to… sorry, I mean Dustin, Mike, Lucas and Eleven (and Will, I guess) since we last saw them.
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MR ROBOT IS OFFICIALLY DEAD: FROM TV’S BEST SHOW TO UNWATCHABLE MESS
Forgive me, I’ve been away a while what with work and stuff and, in the words of Barliman Butterbur, landlord of the Prancing Pony in Bree, I let one thing drive out another.
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY RENEWED: CBS SHOW BOLDLY GOES TO SEASON 2
CBS ain’t hanging around – after just six episodes, they’ve announced they’ve recommissioned Star Trek: Discovery for a sophomore series. Their subscription streaming service, CBS All Access must be raking it in.
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BEYOND STRANGER THINGS: WHEN IS AN AFTER-SHOW NOT AN AFTER-SHOW?
When is an after-show not an after-show? When Netflix gets things all Upside Down, that's when. Ever since this strange, sometime pointless, sometimes exhilerating phenomenon known as was kicked off in 2011 by Chris Hardwick’s Talking Dead, The After-Show has become...
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BBC & AMAZON ADAPT KING LEAR: HOPKINS, THOMPSON, ECCLESTON & MORIARTY
“Many a true word has been spoken in jest” but this is no joke (we could go up in smoke) The BBC is teaming up with Amazon to bring King Lear to the small screen in 2018.
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY CHOOSE YOUR PAIN “IS SO FUCKING COOL”
Star Trek: Discovery is far from perfect – its bizarre pacing means and verbosity mean each hour is almost utterly devoid of excitement, characters make some bizarre decsions and Jeff Russo’s theme tune and the opening titles feel nothing like the universe should
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FINAL STRANGER THINGS TRAILER13 MORE DAYS TILL HALLOWE’EN (KINDA)
Okay, okay, I can’t add up but 27th October might as well be Hallowe’en as that’s the date Stranger Things Season 2 lands on Netflix.
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J.J. ABRAMS’ CASTLE ROCK: NEW YORK COMIC CON DEBUTS FIRST TRAILER
The world’s second biggest geel-out fest, New York Comic Con has debuted J.J. Abrams’ newest TV project – a series based on the workd of horror maestro Stephen King and named after his fictional town – Castle Rock.
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THIS WEEK’S JACK RYAN IS… AMAZON SERIES SEES FIFTH ACTOR PLAY CIA ANALYST
Jack Ryan seems to have had more reincarnations than Doctor Who, James Bond and The Buddha put together, but who’s the lucky actor who’ll be playing him in Amazon Prime’s 2018 series?
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THE EXORCIST’S HOLY TRINITY: IN THE NAME OF CHRIST, I COMPEL THREE
The Exorcist S02E02 fixes the main problem with last week’s otherwise great season opener, but gets bogged down in its own ecto-placanta.
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C4 ORDER V FOR VENDETTA: REMEMBER, REMEMBER THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER
It may only be the fifth of October, but my old haunting ground, Channel Four Television have ordered a series based on Alan Moore’s other best work, V for Vendetta, which he wrote with David Lloyd.
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