Reviews

It is a shame that some of the action and impetus from the first episode is missing. Apart from a gun scene at the end, this episode is really a bunch of talking heads.

Robin has flown his dad over the English Channel where he meets Madame Lafois. She tells Kirby of a KGB who might be high up in the British government.

While Fane who is with Dr Vincent tells his stepdaughter Laura. That Kirby is talking plain rubbish. Laura who wants to be neutral, does not know who to believe.

Maybe an American called Arnold could assist Kirby. He wants to buy life insurance. In essence he claims to be CIA and wants to meet in a secluded area.

Poor Kirby everyone is against him and he thought, all this was a bit of simple business on the side. All so he could buy his son that pilot's course.

Despite the lack of action, there is tension. The plot is still too hazy.

Produced by Toho Studios. The Japanese Gojira is back. At a budget of just $15 million, which will not even cover the cost of the riders for a big budget Hollywood movie.

Godzilla Minus One won the Best Visual Effects Oscar. Quality special effects are not something that is associated with the Japanese Godzilla films, when in the past if was a man inside a rubber suit.

Wearing its influences ranging from Jaws to King Kong and Jurassic Park. So rather Spielberg heavy.

Set in post war Japan this is a redemption story about a Kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima who refused to go on a suicide mission, citing technical issues.

A mutated Godzilla monster returns affected by US nuclear testing, destroying Japanese cities and the government unable to do much about it.

Shikishima plans to use an old Japanese warplane to kill Godzilla in a suicide attack, by flying into its mouth and setting off explosive charges.

By making it a personal story. The movie has gone for emotion at the expense of monster mayhem.

The special effects are good regarding the budget but I'm not sure it was Oscar worthy. I get the feeling the Oscar voters regarded this as compensation in lieu of other categories.

Jed Clampett thinks that if Elly May ain't married by the time she is 18 years old. She would be regarded as an old crow.

Has he not realised just how Sonny Drysdale is? He is wooing Elly May with his lyre. He regards Elly May as the bucolic beauty who needs a cultural metamorphosis.

Sonny will be Professor Higgins while Elly May will be his Pygmalion. He plans to take Elly May from Tobacco Road to Park Avenue.

While Granny thinks that her own love charms will ignite their relationship. Miss Hathaway such love charms are poppycock.

Well Louis Nye is a breath of fresh air as Sonny. Just contrast that with the scene where Jethro wonders where the noise is coming from when someone rings the housebell. Those jokes have become lame by this point.

Colonel Charles Reynolds gets an important phone call. The concert party has been sent on an important top secret mission to the Maharaja of Bharatpah.

One of his sons plans to kill him and the troops are there to protect him. Lofty has been asked to throw himself in front of the assassin.

When they arrive at his palace. It seems delipidated and empty. Later when they meet the Maharaja. He challenges Sergeant-Major 'Shut Up' Williams to a game of snooker. Only for Williams to find out there is a lot of cheating going on by the Maharaja's servant.

A funny episode. Williams holding up the Colonel's towel as he takes a phone call. Lofty hitting the gong and destroying it. Rangi Ram blocking Williams snooker shot as the servant held a knife on his back.

The opening title sequence shows the role of Major Timothy Fry (Patrick Allen) a soldier turned mercenary. The opening titles also usefully gives an update on what has happened to the previous suspects.

A few are under observation, some have been jailed for a long time.

A new name has come up through their investigation of Oscroft. Terry Lardner has been identified as a possible suspect on the bullion robbery. He is certainly wanted for a job on the Gloucester car auction case a year earlier, where one man was left severely injured.

Only Sergeant Lardner has contacted Fry his commanding officer who is hiding out in Spain. Lardner wants his wife and kid to join him abroad.

Fry is loyal to his men. Only Victor Anderson is not happy with both men. He circulates their names to some grasses, so Cradock picks up the chatter.

Only to Cradock's surprise, Fry is known to his mistress Val. It seems he has also been close to Jo Anderson. No wonder Victor would like to see the back of him.

A nice turn by Allen. It was good to see one character who has some loyalties to his men. Fry is also prepared to fight dirty as he warns Victor Anderson.

As Cradock finds out, Fry is also cunning and caused a rift in his relationship with Val.

Red King, White Knight is a glossy UK/USA television movie made in 1989. Its premise quickly became dated with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990.

Set at the time of Mikhail Gorbachev as the reforming premier of the Soviet Union. Stoner (Tom Skerritt) is an alcoholic ex-CIA agent who cannot get over the suicide of his wife.

Now he is forced out of retirement as the Americans have come across some information that Gorbachev might be assassinated by Russian hardliners led by Tulayev (Tom Bell.)

Stoner has to get in touch with the man who has more details of the plot and smuggle him out of the Iron curtain. Only Tulayev gets to the defector first.

He also gets in touch with his former lover Anna (Helen Mirren) who he abandoned to her fate of a possible long prison sentence. Also on the horizon is old foe Szaz (Max von Sydow) sent to stop Stoner.

In Washington the politicians are not sure how much to help Gorbachev. They also fear the consequences of the liberalisation of the Soviet Union. The impact of the environment with more countries enjoying rampant consumerism.

This is a stodgy story, pretty standard television fare. Good acting, thinly sketched characters and a dull script.

It perks up with the action sequences later on. Part inspired by The Day of the Jackal.

It was a nice touch when the American advisors looked at the long term consequences of the ending of communism. That was prescient.

Mirren and Bell would later reunite in Prime Suspect.

Hereditary is a slow barn dark tale with nods to Rosemary's Baby.

Life is not going great for Annie Graham (Toni Collette) an artist who makes miniature models.

Her mother has died, Annie was never close to her. Annie's daughter Charlie is behaving odd and later has an allergic reaction when out to a party with her older brother Peter.

It leads to a tragic accident where Annie resents her son for Charlie's death. She acts increasingly withdrawn. Her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) tries to keep the family together.

After meeting Joan (Ann Dowd) who herself has been bereaved, Annie finds someone she can relate to. Afterwards with the behest of Joan. Anne holds a seance in order to get through to Charlie.

Only a lot of weirdness starts to happen. Peter acts strangely like he is possessed by some demonic force.

Hereditary has an interesting horror story. It takes a while to get going as it initially comes across as moody more than scary.

It ramps up at the end as some the pieces fall together. It also gets too hysterical and confusing. At least for the horror genre, this is a thoughtful film.

The last show of the series and it is another one with an anti colonial viewpoint. Very much anticipating a revolution.

Josiah Parkerhouse is a writer, poet a scientist and spreading news about the corruption of governor, Sir Joplin James.

James who regards himself as the finest swordsman around is none too pleased. If the stories about corruption and especially his links with Blackbeard gain credence. Then it is the end for him with the King.

So James orders for Parkerhouse to be arrested and his printing press to be destroyed. Only Captain Dan Tempest is around when the troops come calling.

Tempest rescues Parkerhouse and hides him in the Sultana. Later James and his troops arrive to search the ship.

While Tempest helps spread the truth about Joplin James.

It's a bit of a romp with the rest of the crew acting drunk and singing ditties. A good way to finish the series.

The final episode of Yancy Derringer. It is all about taking the inaugural ride on the train that would link the east to the western part of the United States.

Yancy had been hoping to get tickets for the ride. Instead he wins two tickets to Promontory in Utah in a poker game. Both Yancy and Pahoo will get to attend the celebrations where the transcontinental railroad would be linked.

Only it is a trap. Yancy has tickets for the baggage cart to accompany a coffin. Inside are explosives that will blow up the train. A nefarious plan by stagecoach and freight line companies. Afraid that a ruly nationwide rail network will destroy them.

Yancy will get the blame, the explosives were brought in his name. Only he knows the explosives are there and just needs help to bring the conspirators out in the open.

The story ends in a celebratory note. Train travel for everyone to any point in the USA.

Bernard Hill died on the day the second series of The Responder was due to be transmitted. His landmark role was Yosser Hughes in Boys from the Blackstuff. One of the most powerful and iconic performances ever put to film. It elevated him from a journeyman actor.

I was not a big fan of the first series of The Responder, very much an average but glum show of a cop in over himself with the pressure of work. The series was partly based on writer Tony Schumacher's life in the police force.

The first episode of series two is more of the same. Chris Carson (Martin Freeman) has split from his wife. He has money worries, he loathes the night shift and has joined a self help group.

It is not long before Carson is dragged down by a colleague Deb Barnes. All he was meant to do was pull over a black Range Rover as Deb saw the driver do a drug deal. It turns out something more murky.

I thought the whole episode was murky and dingy. Too many side characters with their own plots which I'm sure will eventually criss cross. It felt like the beginning of a Tarantino movie but maybe Carson should had been the main focus.

Harold has got some old 78s from a doctor's wife which at the time were becoming rarer. He has purchased a job lot of old records and looks forward to listening some classical music in the evening.

Albert dislikes classical music and is more into populist stuff like ragtime. So he seems pleased that not all the records are classical but some stuff from the 1930s.

When Harold listens to the music, Albert goes out of his way to make as much noise as possible. It leads them to have a row and Albert throws the keys in the yard.

The keys contained everything including the safe. Now both have to find it but the yard is full of junk.

The story had a great opening as Harold contemplates whether to suffocate his old man. Thinking no one will find out.

The rest of the story was more childish, although I acknowledge that was the point of the plot. It was a weaker story and it shows when Albert threatens to throw the keys down the drain. He would have had to throw down all the keys.

Goldeneye was a glossy ITV television movie about the secret life of writer Ian Fleming who had worked in British intelligence during World War 2. He is best known as the writer of the James Bond books.

It was shown at a similar time as the Bond movie Licence to Kill was released in the cinemas in 1989. Ironically the next Bond movie which was Pierce Brosnan's debut was called GoldenEye.

This movie also has a small part for an Austrian/German actor who came to live in Britain in the late 1980s to improve his English. Christoph Waltz would go on to become a double Oscar winner and go on to play the role of Blofeld in a Bond movie.

Although this film is based on the biography of Fleming by writer John Pearson. It is has been ineptly dramatised. A thinly sketched look at Fleming as the movie is more interested in (probably) fictionalised aspects of his life that inspired James Bond.

Charles Dance has a debonair air about him as Ian Fleming. Probably too handsome to be Fleming. Although Fleming was a rampant upper class womaniser despite his bad teeth which the film acknowledged (the womanising, bad teeth and his poor health as he died relatively young.) He was also keen on S&M.

Fleming was also very right wing and a raging snob that the film is quiet about. He was not really that nice a person if you were from the lower classes. No wonder he got on famously with pompous snob Noel Coward. Fleming's wife got revenge of his womanising by sleeping with Hugh Gaitskell, then leader of the Labour Party. Which I find to be very amusing and would had been great if the film dealt with it.

Goldeneye starts with Fleming talking to a journalist about his life in the secret service. A framing device I thought and then that portion disappeared. It was just interested in moments that inspired James Bond, like a woman in a bikini emerging from the sea in Jamaica.

Martin Johnstone (Peter O'Brien) was a New Zealand drug dealer based in Singapore. He was known as Mr Asia because an investigative journalist in New Zealand, who had tracked his criminality. Was not allowed to use Johnstone's real name in the newspapers.

In 1979, Johnstone was lured to Britain by his underling Terry Clark, another New Zealander. He was in effect Johnstone's deputy in the criminal empire.

Clark feared that Johnstone would be arrested in New Zealand and might give Clark up as part of the deal. So Clark planned to silence his boss and take over his operations.

Martin Johnstone went missing and later his mutilated body was found in Eccleston Delph in Lancashire.

This dramatisation made for Granada's Crime Story series takes a heavily fictionalised approach. It is not even a very good one.

It was made as some kind of bizarre love story. Julie Hue an air hostess fell for the charismatic Martin Johnstone who traded in goods and traffics in drugs on the side from the far east.

Only he fell foul of his boss Terry Clark, as a drug deal in the far east went wrong. Now Clark wants him dead and orders Johnstone to be killed.

Of course these things always have dramatic licence. This was fairly dull and pedestrian.

Steve Mitchell's assignment is to take on gun runner in the South China Seas. The Commissioner had a glint in his eye when he handed the assignment over. He mentioned something about the notorious Captain Jaeger.

When Steve Mitchell arrives in the navy boat. He is told that Captain Jaeger is the main run runner in the area with a fearsome reputation.

He also does not exist. A figment of the imagination of the US Navy. If things go wrong, instead of blaming it on gremlins. They blamed the made up Captain Jaeger.

Only now, Steve will assume the identity of Captain Jaeger. To smoke out the real gun runners.

It also brings trouble, one woman holds Captain Jaeger responsible for the death of her husband and vowed revenge.

There is a nice story idea. It is noticeable just what a big contrast there is to storytelling in the early 1950s and later on in the decade. It just did not flow well and the script comes across as a very stripped down low budget noirish movie.

Released on May the Fourth. Star Wars: Tales of the Empire fills some gaps in the Star Wars saga but with a darker hint.

The first short animated episode is set in the time of the Galactic Empire. The early years of Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto.) How her attitudes were shapes when the Nightsisters on Dathomir were attacked by General Grievous.

This spurs Morgan Elsbeth to help the Empire when she gets older. She is driven by hatred and revenge.

The episode cranks up early in with the attack scenes by General Grievous. The animation makes good use of the way he wields the lightsabers.

After that, the darkness of the story comes through in the way it is lit. By then it is also obvious this will be a minor contribution to the saga.

Jessica Fletcher witnesses a murder then spends her time trying to exonerate the man she saw kill the victim.

Much to the astonishment of Sheriff Amos Tupper who thought this was an open and shut case.

Jessica has been invited to the refurbished Stone Lake Inn. Edgar Allen Poe had stayed here once. Real estate agent Harry Pierce (John Astin) thinks this is a good place to do some research and write.

As Jessica goes down by the lake. She sees brattish millionaire Howard Crane (Laurence Luckinbill) what looks to be pushing his wife Carolyn into the water.

Crane might be an irritant. He claims his innocence and also states that his wife was a champion swimmer. Maybe Carolyn faked her own death to get away from her overbearing husband.

That leaves other suspects at the inn. Apart from one womanising employee of the inn. All the others seem to have good alibis or have no motive to kill Carolyn.

A decent mystery with plenty of people looking shifty. So the eventual reveal might come as a surprise. There was a nice subtle clue that Jessica Fletcher picked up.

Batman is encased in plaster of Paris. Has he met his doom or have a hat trick of narrow escapes? The caped crusader better hold his breath.

Finally Batman and Robin figure out why the Mad Hatter was looking for 12 people and 12 hats. It needed the help of the batcomputer. That is the number of jurors.

Those people who found the Mad Hatter guilty are going to come face to face with the headcase they sent down.

The Mad Hatter still has his contraptions. He will lift Batman's cowl and then send him to be hatfitted. Maybe an acid bath, no joke.

The writers struggled with the hat jokes. The puns and jokes were weak. So it was up to Batman and Robin th throw themselves into the fight scenes.

Ever since his breakthrough film, The Sixth Sense. M Night Shyamalan has divided critical and popular opinion.

Everyone wants to second guess his twists. He also writes some banal dialogue and some of that is in display in Old.

The concept is a family have found a bargain holiday in a paradise hotel resort in a tropical island. Guy (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Prisca (Vicky Krieps) are there to deal with some issues in their marriage and her health. With them are their two children, 11 year old daughter Maddox and 6 year old son Trent.

The manager of the resort invites them to to an excursion at a special secluded island beach for a select few guests. They agree to go with others. Only something is not right.

They find a dead body, a possible suspect. Then they begin to age rapidly. It is noticeable on the kids first as they age. Some of the guests have medical conditions.

Prisca has a benign tumour. Another guest has nose bleeds, one other has sudden fits. There is a doctor who is also a guest on the resort. He is prone to violent outbursts and might also be a racist.

They need to work together to leave the island but the currents are too strong. There is a steep cliff to climb and they think someone is at the top watching them.

The film has an intriguing story but is severely flawed. I could not understand how the kids aged and so did their maturity and intellect. A 6 year old would still be six even if he has a body of a 40 year old.

No one seemed to be too suspicious of the motives of the resort manager, bringing them here, given that many had health issues. Maybe there was a reason why Prisca found a bargain.

Shyamalan wants to give the events a plausible explanation. It might have worked better if he stopped the movie five minutes earlier.

Instead he or the film studio wanted to give the movie a more just ending. That stretched credibility even more and this movie has plenty of plot holes.

I've seen enough episodes of LA Law to know that when you have a high profile client. The partners have a meeting to allocate the work.

When the local Mayor is embroiled in a sex scandal as he has a mistress. Margaret thinks the case is hers as she knows the Mayor and his family. Thy are her clients. Only the senior partner Alistair Song yanks it away from her, later offering her a junior seat.

Yet Song has never talked to the Mayor about the case, has little knowledge of the case. He may not have even have talked to the other senior partners as well about the allocation of the work.

Todd meanwhile starts at the firm. He is given the small filing room as his office and the footstool as his chair. Todd is also assigned a dull insurance case to follow.

Obviously Todd is upset that he is not joining his mother on the Mayor's case. So he does some snooping on the side and finds the mistress dead.

I found some of the comedy forced and the writing is not great. Todd being a klutz most of the time. No one listens to him, especially his mother. The plot seems to be resolved ever so conveniently as Todd always seems to be at the right place.

Also what is the deal with the small filing room as his office. The canteen is more spacious, Todd could had worked from there. Has this law firm never heard of dignity at the workplace!

Steven Hill famously did not work on the sabbath. Here it seems he did not work on the other days of the week. Apart from the opening scenes, Hill is absent from the episode. So are many of the other regulars.

Dan's mission is to locate a wire from a recording hidden by an IMF agent before he was killed. The agent had a short time to hide the wire recording.

Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter go to the foreign country to retrieve it. Inspector Gulik has been been searching for it without success for some time. Other foreign agents are also looking.

Everyone is also on the lookout for new enemy agents turning up late in the day to find it.

Rollin has a clue where it could be hidden. The wire recording was tied to a fence near some bushes. Only a small child has come across what he thinks is some wire for his fishing line.

Maybe this episode was double banked. It is an economy episode with little action. It only gets going as the team needs to retrieve the recording from the little boy somehow.

I did like the use of balloons tied with wire as a decoy.

Harry Simpson (Lee Montague) is back from Spain but not by choice. He had left Britain under suspicion of murdering his business partner.

Harry was always a charmer and generous as well. He is given a hero's welcome at his local pub. They all think Harry is wonderful as he lavishes them with drinks, anecdotes and tips.

The police don't think much of Harry. They could never get any evidence though. Harry always paid off any witnesses or frightened them off.

Detective Sergeant Andy Crawford is determined to nail Harry. Even Dixon has his doubts as to how much of a villain Harry really is.

Harry puts on the charm offensive at the Chief Superintendent at the local golf club. All to keep Andy on the leash.

Obviously Harry is more than inspired by the Krays and gangsters of their ilk. The local neighbourhood see Harry as one of their own. They could not believe he would ever commit murder.

I did think the coffee table bit was rather weak that contained something important. Harry should had just plonked it in front of them. It was also fortuitous for Andy that the dead body conveniently turned up.

Shown in 1974, this could had easily been an episode of The Bill which came out on ITV a decade later. I actually recall a story from The Bill where the police chief gets sort of leant on by some oily villains at his golf club. They wanted to get approval for a casino aimed at toffs and rich boys.

Edward Woodward presents two stories with three possible victims. Maybe there was the perfect murder as no one was caught. Maybe there was no actual victim of a murder. Just lots of suspicion.

The first instalment is called Our Dearest Dear. In 1949 Molly Moselle, a 33 year old showgirl who worked at the Sunderland Empire suddenly vanished. No one has ever cleared up the mystery.

Molly for a long time had been involved with a married comedian called Bunny Doyle. They were in love but he would not marry her, mainly because of the divorce laws of the time.

When the relationship eventually broke down. Molly took up with the older and wealthier Walter Hattersley.

Once again they never married mainly as Walter's children were against it. Eventually the relationship broke down and later Molly disappeared.

In 1960 a headless corpse was found in the River Wear, it could had been Molly. No one is sure.

There is a lot of conjecture and there were contributions from Molly's and Bunny Doyle's family who talk to an interviewer.

The second story was about larger than life Maundy Gregory. A theatre producer and political fixer. He was embroiled in the cash for honours scandal that eventually brought down David Lloyd George.

Gregory was implicated for the sudden disappearance of politician Victor Grayson. Someone who threatened to reveal Gregory's role in the cash for honours affair and the money he made as the middleman.

In 1932 his long time friend, Edith Rosse died in suspicious circumstances leaving him £18,000. It was possible poison, Gregory knew a thing or two about poisons.

Rosse was buried near the river and her body came into contact with water. That took away all remnants of this particular poison.

The first story was more interesting because of the contribution of the family members. However there was no denying the big personality of the notorious Maundy Gregory.

Stephen Jewell who was convicted of the murder of Anthony Maffia in 1968. Maffia was shot dead in a Jaguar car.

Maffia was a known fence with gangster connections. He was nicknamed the Magpie.

Jewell went to the police fearing for his life over a boat deal he planned with Maffia. After they viewed the boat, they were confronted by two scary men.

As Jewell was with the victim when he had been shot dead. He was very much in the frame as the main suspect.

Jewell was found guilty and served 11 years. He died while the program was being made.

One of the detectives that interviewed Jewell was later found guilty of being corrupt.

This story about Stephen Jewell was rather sketchy and light on details. More suitable for an entertainment show rather than something that is aimed at a possible miscarriage of justice.

Hats off to the Mad Hatter. The mesmerising Jervis Tetch (David Wayne) has been released from prison and wants Batman for revenge.

It was the caped crusader's testimony that put the helmet pincher behind bars. For now the Mad Hatter is settling for the jurors and their headgear as he takes them away.

His mind is set on taking away the Batman's cowl. Thereby exposing him to the world and the Mad Hatter has another trophy for his collection.

Batman is right on the Hatter's tail as he searches for clues. The Mad Hatter makes sure that the Batman is plastered.

This was the first introduction to the series of this Alice in Wonderland inspired baddie. He seems to share some villainy with the Penguin in a colourful way. Also those eyes under his hat that emit the mesmerising ray.

In his introduction host Dick Powell talks about the role of the low paid Indian agent. A role not many people wanted.

Locke Gardner (Michael Rennie), a US Marshal did not want to be an Indian agent. He is stuck in the role and now finds himself having to fulfil the role with the best of his abilities.

Tod Mulvey (Richard Jaeckel) shot an Indian boy from the reservation in the back. He claims the boy was trying to steal his cattle. The boy later dies and he was the son of Gray Wolf.

Only the townsfolk are up in arms with Tod getting arrested by the Marshall. The local sheriff does not want to jail Tod. His father rounds up the locals to help his son escape. Locke Gardner is determined to hunt Tod down.

This is certainly a hackneyed story and a weak ending. Although interesting that no local sees there is anything wrong to shoot dead an Indian kid in the back. Never mind get arrested for it.