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THE X-FILES, 11.3 – ‘Plus One’
Chris Carter delivers his first decent X-Files script in years, by doing something that doesn’t involve the tangled mythology and was instead a simple paranormal mystery. Stories like “Plus One” were very common in the 1990s, but in 2018 it feels retro seeing Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigate the “evil twin” cliche.…
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COCO (2017)
Aspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family’s ancestral ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his great-great-grandfather, a legendary singer…
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BLACK MIRROR, 4.5 – ‘Metalhead’
Episode 5 is a bit of a departure for the current series of Black Mirror and feels more like a standalone short movie. Within minutes of the opening, we’ve settled into the beautiful black-and-white world and forgotten about all that superfluous colour. The choice of monochrome harks back to post-war British sci-fi cinema and the…
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, 1.11 – ‘The Wolf Inside’
The signposted twist with Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif), that he’s actually Klingon “torchbearer” Voq, surgically altered to infiltrate the Federation, didn’t land its blow because fans guessed it early. That’s a shame, but there was still pleasure in watching someone like Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) learn the truth, as she’s been totally unaware Ash has been…
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BLACK MIRROR, 4.4 – ‘Hang the DJ’
Black Mirror isn’t known for positive, hopeful, or romantic stories, but last year’s “San Junipero” proved its cautionary tales about technology needn’t always be so bleak. “Hang the DJ” is the most amorous episode yet, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t got something serious to say, and its twist ending is bittersweet. The tale is…
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THE COMMUTER (2018)
A businessman is caught up in a criminal conspiracy during his daily commute home.
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THE X-FILES, 11.2 – ‘This’
I didn’t hate last week’s premiere (although it was another convoluted mess of ideas about a government conspiracy nobody cares about), but it’s a relief to see The X-Files back doing what it always did best: a standalone adventure with Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) right at the centre, working together against all…
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AMERICAN ASSASSIN (2017)
After the death of his girlfriend at the hands of terrorists, a young man is drawn into the world of counterterrorism, mentored by a former US Navy S.E.A.L…
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STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, 1.10 – ‘Despite Yourself’
There’s a compelling argument against doing a “Mirror Universe” episode of Star Trek: Discovery this early, as it’s less fun seeing bizarro versions of characters we don’t know very well. Thankfully, “Despite Yourself” seemed to agree, because the crew of the USS Discovery didn’t encounter any of their counterparts throughout the entire episode, beyond a…
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BLACK MIRROR, 4.3 – ‘Crocodile’
I spend every episode of Black Mirror hunting for signs of a technology the story will revolve around, but “Crocodile” kept its tech hidden for a long time. The story began with a straightforward horror scenario, as young clubbers Rob (Andrew Gower) and Mia (Andrea Riseborough) travelled back home after a night partying, only to…
