Danny Franks

I've been torn on this show, because I absolutely love the game and the performances of Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson as Joel and Ellie. I wasn't sure I'd be able to enjoy other actors playing those roles, and I'm still not. But I'm giving it a go. First impressions - I love that they used the game intro music for the show. It's so evocative to me, and matches the feel of the game, and now of the show. I liked them expanding the backstory, showing us more of Joel and Sarah's relationship, introducing us to the neighbours and the peaceful world. The tension before the outbreak is built well, with little glimpses of things that are wrong, snippets of the news, increasing panic as the emergency services and military start to ramp up. Nico Parker made me really care about Sarah, and dread what was coming even more. It's a gut-punch. That shot of the old lady showing symptoms in the background? Chilling. "Drugs. I sell hardcore drugs." That was always the line that suckered me into investing in Joel and Sarah's relationship. They had such a sweet dynamic. The scene with the dog, Mercy, just made me sad to think about how all those pets must have reacted to their owners turning on them. And the old lady killing her son (I guess) and daughter-in-law was really horrible. But I think I preferred the way the game handled that. It worked better from a suspense point of view. I've always liked that Joel isn't a saintly person, even before the outbreak. Perhaps he's not even a good person. He cares about his own, and he'll protect his own, but he's prepared to leave people stranded on the side of the road, he's prepared to force his truck through crowds to get his daughter away. I think the visuals and aesthetics of the show are spot on - the shabbiness and grime of the world, the decay of everything manmade and the renewed wildness of nature. It feels like the game. The idea that society itself was a kind of zombie - dead but still shambling along, acting like it was still alive - came across well in the Boston scenes. I like Anna Torv as Tess, but I can't see Pedro Pascal as Joel yet. and I can't see Bella Ramsey as Ellie either. Hopefully they'll prove me wrong, but they just don't feel like the characters I love. It's really cool that Merle Dandridge got to be screen Marlene as well as game Marlene.

To be honest, I think part of the reason that Tony Robinson always challenged John was because John was such a grump about everything, and it took almost nothing to get him making passive aggressive remarks and taking their comments as a personal attack on him and on the science of geophysics. But it's part of the concept of the show - three days to do a dig and try to find some old Roman villa or Neolithic settlement and they need to make it dramatic. They never found much more than a series of small walls, some ditches and post holes, and the odd bit of pottery or human remains, but they had to keep people excited about what they might find. The most interesting part of the show was always with Stuart, the landscape archaeologist, who could look at what seemed to be just a wooded hillock or slope, and immediately point out bits that weren't natural, and were the remains of earthworks of some kind.

Stranger Things season four - Vecna, Steve and Robin with molotov cocktails, Nancy with a shotgun. Nancy Wheeler is one of the most baddass characters on television when she's being decisive and commanding. Why the writers of the show keep threatening her with indecisive love triangles, I'll never know.

I'm late to the party with this one (which is sadly necessary with a lot of Netflix content, in case they randomly decide to cancel it). Watched the first two episodes and I'm really enjoying it. Jenna Ortega is amazing, and Wednesday Addams isn't an easy role to play. She has to express a lot of depth and emotion while being almost completely monotone, with a fixed expression. It's doubly hard because Christina Ricci's version of the character has been in the popular consciousness for thirty years. And I was definitely one of the countless pre-teen boys who developed a crush on Wednesday, and Christina Ricci, after watching The Addams Family Values. But Ortega has created her own version that is immediately recognisable but distinct. Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia is inspired casting, but I don't like Luiz Guzman as Gomez. I know he looks a lot like the original comic strip Gomez, but the screen version is defined by Raul Julia's suave, debonair charm and Guzman just doesn't give me that. I like Enid a lot, as the anti-Wednesday. The idea of a colourful, fluffy, bouncy werewolf girl (who can't actually turn into a wolf) is funny. I feel like if she could change, she'd definitely become a Golden Retriever. The teen boys/love interests/possible bad guys are a bit blah at the moment. Either of them could be evil, neither of them are really that interesting. It's really cool that they got Christina Ricci to appear in this, and not as a cameo but as a significant character. It must be a little strange for both her and Jenna Ortega, to have one Wednesday playing opposite another, but probably exciting too. This just goes to show that something doesn't need to be headline, ground-breaking, "important" television to be thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile.

Man, season ten of this show is truly dire. So, so bad. Joey speaking French, sitting in paint multiple times, asking an eight year old for career advice and thinking the Chick and Duck went to live on a special farm. They completely infantilised him, to the point that he was just a cartoon character. Ross and Rachel's never-ending, circling-the-drain nonsense. "It's never off the table"? Sure, except for all those years where they had no interest in each other at all. The terrible way they wrote Charlie out, by completely torpedoing the relationship they'd built up to with Ross. The absolutely stupid, unrealistic notion that Rachel would be fired just because she interviewed for another job, all to set up the Paris fakeout. Ross being such a colossal whiner from the moment he learns about Rachel's job offer. I've talked many times about how cheaply they disposed of Rachel/Joey after devoting a decent amount of time to building a story with sincere emotional connection. They go from Joey and Ross having a real heart-to-heart to literal slapstick stupidity. Phoebe and her lobster bullshit. I hate her in season ten. And then there's a whole episode where she's trying to force the idea that she's living in a musical. The only parts of the season I like are TOW Ross is Fine (though, as I said, that episode is effectively erased from continuity almost immediately), TOW Ross Gets a Tan and anything Mike does.

I finally got around to watching season 4 of Stranger Things. There were a whole bunch of times in the finale where I got choked up, but when Dustin was talking to Eddie's uncle? Oh man, full on tears. I often wonder about Gaten Matarazzo's abilities as an actor because Dustin usually only gets goofy, fun stuff to do, but he absolutely brought it in that scene, as did the actor playing Eddie's uncle.

It was definitely annoying that Carter took the full brunt of the blame, there. He tried to tell Ruby, and Ruby point blank refused to hear the truth. He just kept saying "you don't know my Helen" until Carter gave up and let Ruby live in denial. If Ruby had ever said, "tell me the truth, I can take it," and Carter had dissembled, then I'd have more sympathy for him. What Carter did do wrong was try to palm Helen off to a long term home, when he knew she'd decompensate. His reasoning was that "at least it won't be here," which seems like a rather unethical line of thought for a doctor. But he was being pressured by Vucelich and Benton into getting rid of her, because neither of them ever had any ethical quandaries about dumping difficult patients. Still, Carter blaming himself was a moment of growth for him, which is what really mattered for his journey.

Courtney had some truly terrible line deliveries in the show, particularly when she was supposed to be upset over something. I'd say she was the weakest actor on the show, especially when the writers decided that shrill and loud were defining qualities for her. I still think Ross should have ended up with Charlie... or at least married her and been divorced for a fourth time by the end of the show.

Oh yeah, I skip that one too. And I absolutely, unreservedly hate the whole "he's her lobster!" thing.

This was fun, mainly thanks to Lottie. She's so funny, and so acerbic that they really should think about having her as the next host of the show, alongside Noel. This was a likeable group of bakers, and Manon was the only one who seemed like she was that bothered about winning. Everyone else was just having a laugh, but still produced decent results. I find these more enjoyable than the celeb specials, because we're just watching a group of competent, knowledgeable people do what they do well, and even Paul seems to be enjoying it.

I get Ross's attraction to Rachel, even if he did often seem to think she was an idiot. Ross could be as shallow as anyone, after all. Definitely a car crash, though. Because they seemed to have such contempt for one another at times. In that example I mentioned, and plenty of others, it's not just suppressed attraction but seems to be active dislike of certain characteristics they each have. This goes back to Ross being shallow when it comes to Rachel. He had a crush on her when she was his sister's hot friend, but she was not a nice person then. They make it clear that Rachel was a spoiled, vain princess as a teenager, and that's the girl Ross was crushing on. He never really knew who she was at all. As an adult, that crush comes back and is no deeper than it was before. Later on, he comes to appreciate her more as she becomes a better person. I can absolutely buy that (his resentment of her building a successful career is a whole other subject), but the person she eventually becomes is not someone who is compatible with the person Ross becomes. The writers were cowards, to jam them back together in the final episode just because a section of the show's fans wanted it. I always skip the final episode when I rewatch, because that climax just does not work for me at all. Ross and Rachel feels so dated and ill-fitting by season 7, let alone season 10.

The annoying thing is, later seasons of the show made it clear how poor a pairing Ross and Rachel were. I'm just watching TOW Joey Dates Rachel, and there's the scene where Ross talks about his monthly newsletter, "The Gellar Yeller" and Rachel's reaction is... whatever the absolute opposite of being attracted to someone is. Ross just developed in a way that took him away from Rachel, after they split - he became absurd and goofy, the comedic foil of the show. He was not a romantic lead. That played to Schwimmer's strengths too, as he was by far the best physical comedian in the cast. Both characters were at their best apart, and at their worst together.

I don't know, Rachel was always beside herself when it came to the soap opera stuff - visiting Joey on-set, meeting Susan Sarandon, going to the Soapies and meeting the actress who Joey collected the award for. She was a geek for that sort of stuff.

Another mouthpiece of the establishment. The old, white, privileged, casually racist establishment. He and Piers Morgan might be bitter enemies, but they're far more alike than either would like to admit. The main difference is, Clarkson is actually a talented presenter and really good at approaching subjects with a populist, witty take. It's a shame that the buffoonish character he plays so often on TV masks his far meaner true self. Whenever anyone swoons over the British monarchy, they need to remember that this is why they still exist - a press industry that is devoted to protecting them and making monsters of anyone who steps out of line - Diana, Fergie, Harry, Meghan. They were all attacked and smeared in the press viciously for not toeing the line, for doing things 'unbecoming' of royalty and, finally, for trying to get the fuck away from that family (though it's not so much the actual family doing the dirty work, it's all their hangers on and secretaries and lickspittles).

There are some storylines that are just annoying, because the writers fail to write certain characters like real humans, where them acting like real humans would mean the storyline wouldn't work. TOW The Girl Who Hits Joey has the storyline where Ross makes enemies of everyone in his building because he won't throw in $100 for the retiring handyman. There isn't a rational person in the world who would expect him to pay that much when he'd just moved into the building, so that's one major fail. The guy who gets snippy with him is a dickhead. But the second major fail is that the writers try to present it as Ross being unreasonable and socially awkward when he's anything but. He's absolutely in the right to say he won't contribute for a man he has never met.

A show that few people remember, and one that has a very search unfriendly title - Go On. It was a single season comedy starring Matthew Perry. The premise was that his wife had died, and he ended up joining a loss support group. It was sweet and a bit silly but very heartfelt, and had some really fun performances from a number of people: Laura Benanti, Brett Gelman, Tyler James Williams, John Cho, Julie White and Allison Miller. I really wish it had gotten a second season, at least, to explore more of the grieving process and the sad, sometimes dark, humour around it.

This is one of the worst tropes in all of fantasy, for me. I never saw the fascination so many people have with dragons. There's not a whole lot you can do with them that's interesting (that hasn't been done to death) - are they dumb, savage monsters or are they conniving, calculating villains? - yet they appear in endless numbers of fantasy novels and now TV shows. The only take on dragons I actually find fun to read about and consider is Terry Pratchett's - 'real' dragons no longer exist and what's left are swamp dragons, which are dog-sized, generally friendly but fatally unstable creatures due to the fact that their digestive systems produce explosive gas and chemicals. They have a tendency to explode if startled.

One of my least favourite early season episodes - TOW the Bullies. Seriously, there's not a storyline in this episode that doesn't make me roll my eyes. There are the eponymous bullies, two jackasses so broadly and crudely drawn that they'd be more at home on a Nickelodeon show. Then there's Phoebe and that dumb, way-too-long diversion with the Jack Russell that they're terrified of, and Monica gets the laziest, least-thought-out stock market runner, then that stupid bit at the end, where the cafe staff have to dance to YMCA. This episode is an absolute dog, and the only reason to ever rewatch it is because it introduces Giovanni Ribisi's Frank. But then the following episode, TOW Two Parties, is one of the best episodes of the show, full stop.

I'm rarely bothered by accents when the characters would be speaking in a foreign language anyway. If we're going for complete realism, their dialogue should all be in Russian so, as soon as we all agree to accept the artistic licence of them speaking English, I don't care about the accents. Now, if someone is playing a Russian character who is speaking English, I want to hear a Russian accent. Because their speech would be accented when they speak in a second language. For example - Sean Connery in Hunt for the Red October. When he's speaking Russian, I'm fine with him using his own accent, but when he speaks English to Jack Ryan, I wish he'd put on a Russian accent. Of course, Connery never did accents at all.

It shows how much TV has changed since the 70s, because if the show was being made at any time since the mid-90s, they would absolutely have elevated Nurse Cutler to a main role and had her as Hawkeye's 'will they, won't they' love interest for multiple seasons. And if not her, then another character would have been added. The fact that they decided to have no sympathetic romantic pairing at all on the show would be anathema to TV writers and producers today. I haven't watched the movie in a long time, but I'm sure that Hawkeye and Trapper were more on an equal footing, along with a third surgeon, called Duke. I guess in the TV adaptation they cut three characters into two. But Trapper and Hawkeye were too similar - wisecracking, womanising, drinking - and Alan Alda just did all that better than Wayne Rogers. BJ was a needed change of pace, because he could carry more dramatic stuff, and he was a complement to Hawkeye rather than competition.

I definitely expect more from a patisserie week showstopper than a biscuit tower. Especially when they looked as rough and basic as these did. None of them looked finished, which is fine if they're supposed to be stark and minimalist, but Prue used words like "exquisite" to describe what they should look like. If that's the standard you want, give them the time to create it. The biggest problem with Bake Off these days is the amount of time bakers are given. It's absolutely engineered to give them less time than they need, for dramatic purposes. That sucks. I want to see people produce their absolute best, not 'oh, that'll do. I'm out of time anyway.' There was no delicacy or finesse in any of the challenges to begin with, let alone the results. It was all chunky pastry and biscuits and desserts. The "vertical tarts" could be fine patisserie, I guess, but they seem dumb and the impact of them really wasn't that impressive. I'm glad Janusz went, because it was deserved (I still think the feedback he got for his showstopper a couple of weeks ago should have seen him saying goodbye). However, I'd have been equally satisfied with Sandro leaving, as his showstopper looked very dull and unfinished, and he apparently doesn't know what a semicircle is. I'm glad Abdul got star baker, because he and Syabira are the only bakers who seem to be improving markedly. Sandro and Janusz have just been doing well with what they know and kind of scrambling with everything else (Janusz seems to only have two ways of decorating - rainbow colours or drip icing. Sometimes both together). I'm pulling for Abdul to win now, because I think he's the one who has stepped up the most and he just gets on with things without any drama. Even his mishaps are met with a smile and redoubling efforts.

All the blame for everything that was wrong with the prequels falls on the shoulders of one person, and it's not either of the kids who played Anakin. George Lucas completely cocked those movies up, from start to finish. I think one of the only good decisions he made was hiring Ewan McGregor to play Obi Wan.

I've got £20 on the Ravens winning the Super Bowl, that will net me £380 if it comes off. I was feeling like a mug a couple of weeks ago, but they're starting to come together now. Roquan Smith is looking like a key trade already - an immediate leader and communicator on the defense and something of a force amplifier who lets a lot of other guys do what they're best at. Shame about the offense, where we're relying on a bunch of rookies and JAGs. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Lamar decided he wanted to leave, when he looks at the WRs teams like Miami and Buffalo have, compared to what the Ravens have given him.

That's putting it lightly. I'm fairly sure we got into double figures of: Mainly Alfred, but sometimes also Brida and Ragnar: "You've betrayed me by doing the thing you just did!" Uhtred: "I won't apologise because I did what I consider to be morally right, also I'm way too proud and stubborn!" The show would have been two seasons max, if they'd just run that trope two or three times. World on Fire was quite good. Another show where the put-upon women are the most vibrant, interesting characters by far, but are destined to orbit around the same, bland and forgettable posh boy hero. Arthur Darvill, Brian J. Smith and Max Riemelt are in it though, which is good.

Well, this week wasn't very good. Pastry Week is usually enjoyable, but not when everyone keeps cocking up and half of them seem to be unable to make pastry. One, in fact, doesn't even know what sort of pastry he's making for his showstopper. It was so bad that Paul and Prue flat out said in the post-showstopper discussion that they were disappointed with the weekend. Though I will say that there's an element of the time restrictions forcing drama, yet again. Did they have enough time to get the pastry cooked in the signature? Seems like they all had raw bits. I like Sandro, and so do a lot of other people, but I think he's the one who should have gone, based on the feedback received in the episode. At least Maxy produced a showstopper that had elements which tasted good. Neither made good signatures either. Janusz can't make custard? Like... at all? They really should have been more critical of his vol-au-vents having nothing more than strawberries and whipped cream as a filling. None of these vol-au-vents looked a patch on the amazing ones Flora made a few years ago, which looked like they could go straight into a high-end patisserie. Syabira is looking more and more like the final winner, because she's showing growth while the others seem to be reaching their limits. Although Abdul has sneakily done some really good stuff, but his personality clearly doesn't pop like the others.