Recent TV Features

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  • Encounter at Midpoint: just what the h(olod)eck is going on in Picard?

    TV Feature | Luke Whiston | 6th March 2020

    I'm finding Picard a very difficult show to place - part mawkish reverence, part campy nostalgia, quite a lot of waiting for that classic TNG vibe to kick in. Will it ever settle on a tone? I'm not the hugest Trekkie but back in the day The Next Generation was perfectly timed for getting in from school, doing your homework, then sticking on Sky One to have an adventure with Jean-Luc and the crew of the Enterprise D, hopefully learning something about the nature of humanity (or at the very least a holodeck episode where they're all wearing period costumes). So there's a lot of fondness there. And sure all my friends were out smoking and necking, but who are they going to call on to arbitrate grave matters of existentialism? Probably not me as I've fallen out of contact with many of them in the 20 years since. I wonder if they've ever looked me up and seen I write about Star Trek on the internet now? Oh God, I've wasted my life!

  • Interview: Joss Whedon talks Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Commentary! - The Musical

    TV Feature | Matt Looker | 20th January 2020

    Congratulations to everyone who read that thing I wrote last year about the brilliant, amazing burst of fruit flavour that is Commentary! The Musical - a musical commentary recorded for Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Well done to all of you who went on to not only watch the main feature, but also sought out the commentary, listened to all the songs and dialogue whilst reading the lyrics online, just as I suggested. Seeing it through makes each of you a huge fucking nerd (you’ll no doubt get that reference now). Achievement unlocked. Here’s me interviewing Joss Whedon about the whole thing.

  • The Apprentice: season 15, episode 11 recap: "The Lion, The Twit and The Small Globe"

    TV Feature | Becky Suter | 13th December 2019

    They say it’s the hope that kills you, so in that respect we’ll be ok and it will probably be the austerity that gets to us first. I mean, does anything even matter anymore? Anyway, interviews.

  • The Apprentice: season 15, episode 10 recap: "Absolute Non Scents"

    TV Feature | Becky Suter | 6th December 2019

    There’s only one week left until we get to the highlight of the year and Claude rips into everyone, but we have one more pointless task until then.

  • The Apprentice: season 15, episode 9 recap: "Urban Lucozade"

    TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 5th December 2019

    We're into the home straight and all of a sudden here's a task with an aspect that's quite interesting. It is of course juxtaposed by the task's other constituent parts, which are absurd and deliberately beyond the skillset of anyone involved, but you can't have everything.

  • The Apprentice: season 15, episode 8 recap: "Going Off The Rails"

    TV Feature | Becky Suter | 23rd November 2019

    Nothing quite strikes fear into the heart like the words, “Team-building Away Day.” I’ve been on a fair few, including my previously-mentioned visit to Thorpe Park, one where we had an It’s A Knock-Out style day in the park and two people ended up in hospital, and one with a Heroes and Villains theme where one of the sales managers blacked up as Samuel L. Jackson to deliver a presentation on streamlining processes. And none of those were as bad as being imprisoned for four hours on a train with Lottie, no matter how much booze is laid on.

  • The Apprentice: season 15, episode 7 recap: "Finn Tonne o' Tools"

    TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 20th November 2019

    When doing the just-about-iconic point, Lord Sugar's hand doesn't do what the Twitter emoji does, I've noticed. The latter extends the index finger in the same way but turns the back of its hand to face you, while the back of his hand faces skywards. Even the basics of The Apprentice's flimsy premise go uninterrogated, and yet still my demands for a DCMS select committee hearing go ignored.

  • The Apprentice: season 15, episode 6 recap: "The Vomit Comet"

    TV Feature | Becky Suter | 7th November 2019

    Nothing good ever happens at theme parks. The last time I went to Thorpe Park was on a corporate away day, when instead of going on any rides, we were forced into groups and do a painful team-building exercise around the park. In a rather unsettling act of fate, it was the same day that there was the horrific accident at Alton Towers on the Smiler ride. During the debriefing session, the head of HR stood on the stage and made a pretty off-colour joke, as we were trying to present how the treasure hunt aligned with the company’s business principles, which was trying not to acknowledge the fact that two of the (married) managers were clearly trying to get off with each other. This has nothing to do with this week’s recap, much in the same way that The Apprentice has very little to do with business.

  • The Apprentice: season 15, episode 5 recap: "Ryan, Lion, Zion"

    TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 3rd November 2019

    This week I had a breakthrough: I realised that the one person I thought was called Riyonn-Mark is in fact two people, one called Riyonn and one called Ryan-Mark. Stay tuned to find out whether there's another one called Mark.

  • The Apprentice: season 15, episode 4 recap: "Vicious Cycle"

    TV Feature | Becky Suter | 28th October 2019

    I don't own a bike, mainly because I'm not a massive wanker, but also because I believe that the rules of the road apply to everyone, unlike overweight marketing managers who think they're Bradley Wiggins and look like un-pricked sausages in the latest Team Sky kit, who scream at me when I dare to use a pedestrian crossing in the correct manner and slow down buses because they can't stay in one lane. But yeah, great, let's get more bikes on the road.