The Acolyte (2024) Review
The superficial novelty of its setting and a few fancy fight scenes can’t save The Acolyte from its lacklustre dialogue and slew of half-hearted performances which only continue to drag down an already unimpressive script, and as the series meanders on it becomes clear that it is little more than a vehicle for its showrunner to push her narcissistic revisonism and self-therapising indulgences onto the Star Wars universe.
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Star Wars: Tales of the Empire (2024) Review
This Dark Side spin on 2022’s Clone Wars-style anthology series might push the envelope on its patented artstyle even further, but it doesn’t manage to offer up anything more substantial than its predecessor with another miniscule batch of episodes that unnecessarily fill out gaps in the stories of characters I don’t care all that much about; ultimately nailing home that there just isn’t any future for this series in its current form.
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Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 (2024) Review
The final season of The Bad Batch rights many wrongs of the Clone Wars continuation’s prior entries; offering further insights into its main cast of characters and finally doing away with the unnecessary adventure-of-the-week format that held back the show’s wider plot development. However, Season 3 remains far from perfect thanks to an overarching story that starts to crack under the weight of its own repetitiveness, and for the end of the show in its entirety, I was surprised to find that the conclusion lacks any emotional weight or narrative oomph whatsoever – leaving the series hanging on a wholly…
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The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024) Review
In a disappointing turn of events, the most anticipated of the Walking Dead sequel shows has proven to be the worst of the bunch; offering a story that, beyond providing a smattering of cool moments here and there, somehow manages to be devoid of both meaningful plot development and enough room to deliver its existing story in a carefully paced fashion. Instead, The Ones Who Lives prescribes its audience with the same tired filler that The Walking Dead has relied on for years between spells of emotionally shallow character writing, before the final insult to injury comes in the form…
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Reacher Season 2 (2023-2024) Review
While it once again delivers a solid mystery as a backdrop for further exploring its titular character, the second season of Reacher ultimately feels like a step down from its predecessor thanks to a misused supporting cast, lacklustre payoffs and a dwindling sense of identity. It’s not a bad season of television by any stretch of the imagination, but with a noticeable decline in the general quality of the writing and cinematography too, it seems that the previous instalment may have been little more than a case of lightning in a bottle.
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Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials (2023) Review
The three-part event celebrating Doctor Who’s 60th Anniversary proves that the series is well and truly dead, and even with the return of cast and crew from the show’s glory days, it seems the once beloved tentpole of British television is beyond salvation. Comprised of uninspiring, one-shot stories with no overarching narrative; the three episodes hardly constitute a worthy commemoration, and when combined with an extremely disappointing standard of writing from the once-great Russell T. Davies, and the eyewatering level to which the specials are stuffed with ideological lecturing, it’s clear that Doctor Who has squandered its last best chance…
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The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon Season 1 (2023) Review
Through its delivery of an excellently constructed setting from both a written and visual standpoint, and a consistently adequate story across its six-episode season, Daryl Dixon proves to be a touch above other spinoffs in the Walking Dead universe, but by failing to provide sufficient depth to its characters – chief amongst them the titular protagonist who was already in dire need of some complexity – it fails to capitalise on that which it does do well, and ultimately consigns itself to the throes of mediocrity.
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Ahsoka Season 1 (2023) Review
Dressed as it is in cameos and callbacks, Ahsoka’s ceaseless and superficial attempts to tug on your heartstrings fail to mask its contrived, overinflated plotline, uninteresting characters, and shockingly incompetent writing all around. Add in the emotionless, wooden performances of its stars, bland action scenes, and some of the poorest editing I’ve seen, and the show’s lack of redeeming qualities becomes painfully apparent.
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Sex Education Season 4 (2023) Review
Sex Education’s fourth and final season goes off the deep end; doubling down on the mistakes of Season 3, and compounding that with utterly bizarre narrative choices and a complete lack of focus in the script. With an emotionally hollow ending, and any sense of the show’s original tone left in tatters, Season 4 feels like an entirely unnecessary affair that does more harm than good.
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The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 1 (2023) Review
A nightmarish New York and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s return to the fan favourite role of Negan makes Dead City’s first season an alluring prospect for fans of The Walking Dead, but the sequel series ultimately fails to justify its own existence as it delivers a largely unengaging storyline accompanied by equally underutilised debut characters. While the script does remain serviceable for the majority of its six-part run, its failure to give its lead characters suitably interesting material to work with in lieu of retreading old ground only leaves the show feeling all the more forgettable.
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A.J. Slater 