Sand Land – Angel Hero Arc (Episodes 7 – 13) Review

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The second, anime-exclusive arc (though again this is my first time experiencing the series anyway…) sees an expansion from Sand Land to Forest Land and introduces an “evil angel” to go along with series lead Beelzebub’s “nice demon” schtick and it works well. They also go from evil ruler of Sand Land to nice ruler of Forest Land, though he has been overthrown by the military, leading to a good old fashioned underground resistance story. Overall it was a fun watch, though I’m happy to see there won’t be any more after this, the setting and the characters already feel pretty thinly stretched… Let’s take a look!

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Doctor Who: The Devil’s Chord Review

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After what was something of a major misstep of a first episode I’m happy to say I really enjoyed “The Devil’s Chord”. I mean, if you don’t like big over-the-top scenery-chewing villains like I do you may dislike this episode as well, but I had a smile of my face for most of it… MOST of it, can’t say the musical number at the end was good, not because it was out of place (it actually made sense) but because it had crap lyrics and wasn’t catchy at all, two things you kind of need for a musical piece! Well, anyway, let’s take a look!

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Doctor Who: Space Babies Review

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Well… that was a thing. A pretty crap thing, honestly. Thank goodness they opened with a double bill because at least I really enjoyed the second episode, but I’ll get to that later. As for “Space Babies” it was a classic case of “had some good ideas but the bad ones drowned them out”, plus it has a lot of Series 1 Russell T. Davies lowbrow toilet humour, which isn’t my kind of thing either. Oh well, let’s take a look quickly, then we can move on to the good one!

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Star Wars: Tales of the Empire Review

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“Tales of the Empire” is both a second season to “Tales of the Jedi” and sort of its own thing, plus ironically focuses on two characters who weren’t ever really members of the Empire, not for long anyway, but there you go. Better than “Tales of these two characters we wanted to talk about” I guess! It focuses on recent live action character Morgan Elsbeth’s backstory and old Clone Wars animated character Bariss Offee’s future after her arrest during the classic cartoon show. The first is something I wasn’t that interested in, the second was at least a dangling plot thread that was fun to get tied up… so let’s take a look!

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Shogun Review

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I know historical period pieces aren’t usually in my reviewing wheelhouse (though there have been a few series / films I’ve really loved in the genre) but I feel Shogun is close enough to several other things I cover that it’s not too big a departure. Mostly I wanted to talk about it because it was so damn good that even though every other critic is also gushing about it I still wanted to contribute to the praise this mini-series has gained. The series (and by that I mean the book it’s based on) is set in a slightly modified version of the late Sengoku period of Japan and puts a bigger emphasis on accidental visiting Brit John Blackthorne (or William Adams in real life) and makes a few other changes beyond just renaming everyone, but it does also tell a pretty good account of the actual time period (though nobody tore through waves of soldiers and threw them into the air with magic weapons! Are you telling me that BOTH Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara lied to me?!) Anyway, let’s take a look!

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Doctor Who: The Black Hole Review

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*This review was originally written before I changed the review format but has been kept in its original form (don’t worry, this is the last one in the old format!)

When planning this run of stories out I decided to throw in Black Hole for no other reason than I’ve mentioned it several times during the course of this blog so I fancied giving it another listen. It features The Second Doctor, Victoria, Jamie and The Monk, and is a fun story all round, but does the heavy-handed forced continuity hurt or add to the experience? Let’s find out!

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch – Season 3 Review

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The Bad Batch’s third and final season felt rushed to start with, getting through a few storylines I thought the whole season would be about, then settled into a nice groove leading to a great 50-minute finale. So once again I really enjoyed the show, as I tend to do with these Star Wars CG cartoons despite not being a fan of the animation style normally. Whether that’s due to how good the shows are or how much I like the Star Wars universe I can’t tell you, but either way: let’s take a look!

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Die Hard Trilogy (PS1) Review

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After completing the reviews for the original Die Hard trilogy of films, I thought there wouldn’t be a better time than now to also review the game “Die Hard Trilogy”! It was the big game I wanted for Christmas 1996 and boy I wasn’t disappointed; the game is split into three game types, one for each film, and I LOVED the Die Hard 3rd Person shooter, liked the Die Hard 2 light gun game (especially as I actually had a PS1 light gun at the time) and was… indifferent to the driving game for “with a Vengeance”. Having these three games on one disc was crazy at the time and a great Christmas was had, but what it’s like to play now? The answer may surprise you! … Or probably not.

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Die Hard with a Vengeance Review

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Finally following up from covering the first two Die Hard films a few Christmases a go with the third! I honestly go back and forth as to which film I like more out of the original and “with a Vengeance”, as this film has such great dialogue and interaction between Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson alongside some great action set pieces that it’s always a joy to watch. Most importantly while Die Hard 2 was just a rehash of the original film this script is completely different and its “Simon Says” game of cat and mouse has gone on to inspire copy-cats all over the place. So let’s take a look at the last great Die Hard film…

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Doctor Who: The Jigsaw War Review

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*This review was originally written before I changed the review format but has been kept in its original form (mostly because I couldn’t be bothered to rearrange it…)

It’s funny that I’ve gone this far without reviewing a Second Doctor Companion Chronicle, then when I finally pick one it’s the one story where its actually more of an audio drama than a traditional CC two-person reading. It’s cleverly written and well acted though, as I remembered, which is why I threw it in here… So let’s take a look!

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