The Television Issue

Editor’s Note Salutations!

If you’re wondering why a Film Review is doing an issue on television, well… you’d be right to wonder. To date, in the thirteen years that TFR has been published, this is the first issue to not centre on “film”. But what is “film”? What separates cinema from the serial? In 2019, Martin Scorsese ignited a debate that has only grown when he claimed that Marvel films weren’t “cinema”, and when doing so, mentioned that at one time, he seriously considered whether AMC’s Mad Men might be cinema. Of course, he would later contend that no, Mad Men wasn’t cinema, but was instead “long form television”. But that even the great maestro of the filmic world would wage into the blurred lines between the small and silver screens shows how increasingly difficult it is to separate the two. In fact, Letterboxd, the beloved film database app used by cinephiles globally to track films and publish reviews has come under fire for the sheer amount of miniseries they log on what is supposed to be a strictly “cinematic” app. Squid Game, Chernobyl, Euphoria, Twin Peaks, Band of Brothers, Wandavision. The list is endless. What makes these shows different to, say, Eastenders? The Big Bang Theory? Succession? What’s the difference between bingeing a show and the dreaded and revered weekly wait? What about miniseries and 7-season long series versus a 90 minute flick and a 7 hour long experimental Taiwanese film? It’s the same medium, usually it's the same actors and crew, they’re both made and assembled roughly similarly.

And so, in uncertain times, we at TFR decided to look into the belly of the beast. Is there a discernible difference between cinema and television? What does television have the capacity for that film perhaps does not? What are the most pressing trends in television today, and where might this take us? Above all, what are the best and brightest that 21st century television has to offer us? Film is such a young artform, television even younger. It’s been my joy as editor to oversee the assembling of this issue, from the fantastic pitches from our contributors, to their phenomenal contributions to this conversation, and as always, the insane work that Luke, Katie and Seamus have put into brushing this bad boy into ship shape. If you ask me (which you didn’t but anyways), I don’t think we have much to worry about when it comes to the state of “cinema” in the 21st century. I think the industry is making incredible art, whether in 3 hours or 30. So to quote the great David Bowie, I say to you (and Martin Scorcsese): Turn and face the strange, changes.

Is mise le meas, Mia

Contributors Editor • Mia Sherry Deputy Editors • Luke Bradley • Seamus Conlon • Katie McKenna Designer • Seamus Conlon Contributors • Jessica Allen • Sadbh Boylan • Cían Donohoe • John Dugan • Cat Early • Kane Geary O’ Keeffe • Caroline Kelly • Liam Kelly • Lucy McCabe • Florian Radtke • Eve Smith • David Wilson

Table of Contents 3 - Streaming Gems 5- Iconic Shot: Vapes Soulfully 6 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The case for season 6 7- Netflix has Mommy Issures 9 - Comfort Shows 10 - The Battle of the Binge 11 - I Hate Suzie 12 - The Mafia Only Kills in Summer 13 - Best Needle Drops 15 - Hannibal - Cleaning Meat From the Bone 17 - Mr Robot - What Makes a Masterpiece?

19 - Modern Masterpiece - Twin Peaks 21- War and Peace 23 -To The Leftovers with grief 25 - Adult Animation 26 - Aaron Sorkin - Iconic Showrun-

This publication is funded partly by The DU Trinity Publica tions Committee.This publication claims no special rights or privileges. All serious complaints may be directed towards chair@trinitypublications.ie or Chair, Trinity Publications, House 6, Trinity College, Dublin 2. Appeals may be directed to the Press Council.

ner 27 - C’mon C’mon Review 28 - Annette Review 29 - Best Episodes - From the TFR editors

Tim Robinson’s surreal magnum opus has more than a few tricks up its sleeve. I Think You Should Leave reaches such immense heights of absurd vulgarity that the brief and intense moments of pathos punctuating its sketches feel like a punch to the throat. Like the desolate Fisher King of The Waste Land, its endlessly quotable dialogue has left me with “fragments I have shored against my ruins”. Snippets of I Think You Should Leave run through my wandering mind and drive me to delusion – Carmine Laguzio, sloppy steaks at Truffani’s and Tim decrying in a boardroom “I almost killed myself when Julie got me chode jeans for my birthday”. His face is one of contradictions, with eyes that are both sunken and protruding and a mouth that is at once thin-lipped and gaping. Its rhythms are Eliotic. Its neologisms are Joycean. Its perpetually despairing everyman is drawn straight from the pages of Beckett. Robinson is the Don Quixote of the internet age, and we, the audience, are a motley troupe of Sancho Panzas, destined to lumber in his wake.

In the words of my favourite YouTube comment on ITYSL’s small screen personae: “I feel physically sick every time Tim plays a normal person”.

- Jessica Allen

‘It’s not a show, it’s not a character: it’s a vibe’ – Jason Sudeikis.

Looking back at the series that have streamed over the past 18 months, nothing has quite had the sheer impact of Ted Lasso. This fish-out-of-water comedy follows a part-time American football coach with an old-fashioned sensibility who finds himself thrown into the deep end - ultimately tasked with Saving an English Premier League club knee-deep in crisis from relegation.

Jason Sudeikis, an actor-comedian best known for funny but forgettable roles is perfectly cast as the lead character. His performance has certainly propelled the character to iconic status. Whenever Lasso appears on screen, I can’t help myself but smile. While his uber positivity and legendary moustache outdoes even that of Ned Flanders, I must praise Sudeikis for his profound ability to tap into the more vulnerable side of the character. In essence, Lasso is a sensitive man who is covering all his pain and trauma through his relentless optimism. With its sharp script and finely balanced tones, Ted Lasso is fully aware of the outlandish premise, even embracing its weirder side. How this all works so well is pure alchemy - a testament to Sudeikis, his fellow writers and supporting cast.

I truly believe Ted Lasso should be watched by as many people as possible, regardless of the person’s initial interest in soccer. Being an Apple TV exclusive, it is a shame how inaccessible this series will be to many. However, its deserved awards recognition and overwhelmingly positive word-of-mouth certainly helps increase its broader visibility. Hopefully this momentum can sustain into the coming seasons. Full of

Warmth and sincerity, Ted Lasso is a breath of fresh air from the cynicism and nastiness that has crept into the sport and wider society. If only we could all channel our inner Lasso…

- Liam Kelly

Having spent a lot of time last year scouring Netflix for new shows to get lost in, the one gem I always return to is Rick Gervais’s AfterLife (2019).

Although it’s just six episodes, it has everything you’d want.

AfterLife tells the story of Toni, who lost his wife to cancer and now wants to kill himself, believing not caring about anything anymore in everyday life is his superpower. So far, so bleak. You might ask yourself, why would I want to watch something seemingly so depressing?

Simply put, you don’t want to miss out on a brilliant cast/characters. Rarely are characters so well written that they feel cut straight out of real life. Seemingly they have been created with members of the cast in mind to give them life and it turned out wonderfully. Gervais has previously done it like this in his charming pseudo documentary Derek.

The soundtrack is an impeccable selection of songs enhancing every scene with that extra touching layer.

Although dealing with a sad subject matter the show is incredibly funny while never failing to deliver the serious moments in a genuine and touching manner. In writing— absolutely nailing the tone alone— the show is a masterpiece.

Not caring about anything might be Toni’s superpower, but the show proves there is more than enough to care about in AfterLife.

If you find yourself always digging for new gems on streaming sites this certainly is one to uncover.

Should you find yourself craving more rest assured there is AfterLife 2 while a third and final season is currently being produced.

- Florian Radtke

Please Stream Responsibly

Iconic Shot: Vapes Soulfully Okay, so maybe I cheated ever so slightly considering that the above shot is not exactly “legitimate” rather than a lovingly edited screencap courtesy of twitter user @reactjpg. But the essence it represents still holds weight-- in fact, Kate Winslet’s masterful wielding of the vape was one of the biggest talking points upon Mare of Easttown’s premiere. And listen, to be fair, if you were in Mare (Winslet)’s position, you’d probably vape too.

Mare of Easttown was released globally during the height of the lockdown, and, interestingly, was rigid in its sticking to the one episode weekly release schedule. In a time when we’re almost oversaturated with crime fiction, the weekly release was a gamble; would people care enough to stick around? Well, they did. In the role that would later win her an Emmy, Kate Winslet was transformative of the taciturn, matriarchal Mare (of Easttown, if you hadn’t guessed). Mare follows in the footsteps of great female detectives before her -- Olivia Colemans’ Ellie Miller in Broadchurch, or Gillian Anderson’s Stella Gibson in The Fall-- but what truly sets her apart is Ingelsby’s dedication to her sheer messy humanness. Mare can at times be gorgeously sweet as with her young grandson or shockingly cold, like the beginning of her somewhat tense relationship with new detective Colin Zabel (Evan Peters).

Mare of Easttown is a lot of things, and a fantastic crime drama is just one of them, but honestly what truly sets it apart from the million and one other shows in its genre is the sheer talent of its cast. Winslet is certainly a scene stealer, but that’s not to mention the incredible work of her matriarchal mother Helen (the indomitable Jean Smart), her close friend Lori (Julianne Nicholson) or the shifty Deacon Mark (James McArdle). This is to name but a few of the absolutely stacked cast, and it would be near impossible to rank them against each other. The time and attention that head writer Brad Ingelsby puts into each character is unparalleled-- the ability to simultaneously draw the audience towards them and then remind them of the brutal murder any one of them could be responsible for is masterful. Coupled with the actor’s immense talent, creates a veritable disappearing act: Kate Winslet, Jean Smart, Evan Peters, all big Hollywood names become unrecognizable in their turn as a hardened detective, a taciturn widower and the new kid on the block with a secret to hide.

In promotional material leading up to the Mare’s release, Winslet was insistent that it wasn’t a thriller. She was right-- though Mare begins as a routine red-taped police procedural with the question of “Who killed Erin McMenamin?” became a beautiful and difficult dissemination of grief and small town living. The term “disappearing act” is a good one to apply when describing Mare. As something of an aficionado of the crime drama, it’s true what they say-- it becomes easy to spot the plot beats from miles away. Though the weekly release of Mare led to a lot of water cooler moments, and there’s nothing more fun than therozing who the killer is, towards the end it became far less about that and far more about Mare’s personal growth and a heartbreaking deconstruction of familial grief.

So yes, Mare is a show in which Kate Winslet vapes soulfully, but it’s so much more than that-- between the hoagies and Coors lite and all the details of rural Philadelphia living, it’s a moving portrait of a woman-- and a town-- entrenched in loss. Maybe the running slogan should have been Mare of Easttown: You’ll Vape Too.

-Mia Sherry

The Case for Buffy Season 6 - Katie Mckenna

*Spoilers Ahead* On the 22nd of May 2001, the season 5 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003) aired. The episode, which was originally supposed to be the series finale, tied up the show pretty well, leaving an appropriate number of loose ends while still closing the show with emotion and catharsis. Then less than 6 months later, season 6 aired. Buffy had been bought by UPN, a new television network, and given two more seasons. What followed were the two most polarising seasons of the show. The show’s trademark humour was off, and characters began acting to serve the plot. However, one of the show’s best episodes, ‘Once More with Feeling’ (Season 6, episode 7), the first successful musical episode was aired, and the show made some of its most creative choices during this period. Regardless, it was hard to watch. Like Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) herself, the show was a walking corpse, without the spark we loved at the beginning. I never even finished the show in the end, it just didn’t seem worth it. A show that has meant so much to me only a couple of months prior now felt like a chore.

I had always felt angry at the show: they had the perfect ending and threw it all away.

Everything I loved about the show was wrong, especially Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara (Amber Benson). At a time when I was figuring out my sexuality, seeing a happy, normal, gay couple helped me feel like I wasn’t abnormal or wrong. Their tragic end seemed unnecessary and pointlessly cruel. It felt like the original gritty remake. The joy had been sucked out of the show for no reason. For ages, it was my number one choice for tv shows that went on too long.

About 7 years later, when I was 19 I rewatched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I started season 6 with a deep sense of dread and was shocked with what I watched. Although it definitely has its flaws, season 6 of Buffy really resonated with me. Instead of witty oneliners and love triangles, this season was a Sally Rooney-esque exploration of early 20s angst. I started to disagree with season 6 critics, the show wasn’t the problem. Buffy had just grown up before I had. The aimlessness and anxiety that dictated Buffy’s life which has infuriated me so much at 12, were now feelings I knew too well. I was ok with Willow and Tara’s ending too, when you’re young relationships that feel intense and important end suddenly, and that sucks, but that’s your 20s for you. Each episode had me more engrossed, it was like if Sally Rooney wrote a camp horror. There were jokes and fun fight scenes, but there was also a relationship with communication issues, addiction, and the mind-fog that slowly takes you over.

‘Flanderization’ is used to describe the process in which a long running tv show’s character becomes more and more exaggerated in order to keep the show original. Buffy does the opposite of this. Instead of more of the same, they went in a completely different direction. It’s easy to see why it failed, people wanted a rompy teen dramedy and got a slow exploration of anxiety about becoming an adult. With the new booming genre of ‘angsty women thinking about things’ books, it seems like season 6 was just starting a trend before people were ready for it. Season 6 gives me a strange comfort, though I’ve related to other tv shows more. There’s something amazing about going back to a show that meant so much to you when you were younger and finding a new connection just as deep.

Eve Smith In the 1930s the novelist E.M. Forster wrote about his mother Lily having been “intermittently tiresome for the last 30 years, cramped and warped my genius, hindered my career, blocked and buggered up my house, and boycotted my beloved”.

Charming. But he went on to admit that she provided a “rich subsoil where I have been able to rest and grow.” TV executives and screenwriters were obviously paying attention. Mothers on screen, although providing physically and mentally for their households, are frequently held up as fundamentally unlikeable. Why is that?

Their characters feel constructed from fragments of what the (mainly male) creators remember a mother to be. Freud would have something to say about that. Think Claire (Julie Bowen) from Modern Family. Ok, the show was never commended for pushing the boat out of the stereotype dock, but she in particular was notably blank.

Being skinny, blonde and highly strung just about summed up her personality. Where surrounding characters had varied hooks, like hobbies or jobs, her feuds with the school PTA were the butt of all her jokes in the series. This is not to have a dig at stayat-home mothers, rather the hollow portrayal that this show makes of them. First, that their only interest is their kids, and second, that they fail at doing well with even that.

Her character was propelled by being a nagging woman, too uptight to connect with Teen shows also seem to draw on the narrow framework of the developing brain when depicting mothers.

During teenagehood, physiologists have shown, the connection between the frontal cortex and the rest of the brain is slower, meaning their mind relies on the reactive part of the brain, and they can’t make balanced judgments. On My Block in general produced well-rounded and fresh characters, but the presentation of Ruby’s mum (Paula Garcès) lapsed into the pre-packaged.

She wafted on the periphery of the other characters’ stories, rushing through with bags of shopping that needed help unpacking or snapping at Ruby to come to church. The portrayal feeds into a teenage Manichean view of a binary good and bad. She is there to irritate Ruby and has few features of her own that humanise her.

This depiction is driven by the stereotype of the no-nonsense Latina mother. Shows like Superstore work hard to unpick this, with Amy (America Ferreira), as an enterprising and funny single mom. Refreshingly, she isn’t overly sexualised and she is also given room to make mistakes and be bungling. Usually, this is the sole reserve of fictional men. Phil (Ty Burrell) in Modern Family is a lovable idiot because he can ultimately laugh about things and has a child-like connection with his kids. His mistakes are endearing, whereas Claire’s are jarring. The same thing happens with Ruby’s dad (Eric Neil Gutierrez). He is presented as under his wife’s thumb, finding himself sleeping in Ruby’s room when the family goes through money problems and looking comical in his underwear. The recent discourse over calling a man a ‘golden retriever’ encapsulates this perfectly. Being called this implies they’re good-willed and goofy, and gives them an instant innocence that a ‘mom’ character isn’t always allowed.

Regardless of your personality, if you’re always having to assume the role of telling people what to do, you will be perceived as annoying. This often falls to mothers, making them more likely to be thought of as dour and unlikeable, meaning fathers get to be the fun ones. A study done by professor of psychology at NYU, Madeline Heilman, found that because of prescriptive bias, a man helping out in the workplace is recognised and appreciated, but if he doesn’t, it isn’t a big deal. But because that quality is expected in women, it’s taken for granted when they do it and thought of as actively rude if they don’t. Gendered expectations affect how fictional mothers are received too. Never Have I Ever follows a similar pattern to the Netflix Original Edge of Seventeen. Devi’s mum (​​Poorna Jagannathan) is cold and nit-picking and Devi (Maitrayi Ramakrishnan) constantly reminisces on memories of her recently dead father. We only ever see her perspective, which is intentionally rose-tinted (in later seasons the mother-daughter communication does improve) but in the meantime the father figure is idealised and the perception that a mother is a failing one if she doesn’t make her children feel heard is perpetuated.

Traditional family structure theory has men doing the instrumental roles, like providing financially, while the woman is expected to fulfil the expressive roles of emotional support and raising children. The residue of this attitude hangs over society, so that even when mothers are working, they are still held to antiquated standards of being a mother. Sex Education has one of the most balanced depictions of characters seen in teen TV, with no character vilified without empathy, but still, the conflict with the mothers was most often based on the child feeling misunderstood, where their disputes with their fathers were over them being completely emotionally or physically absent. The worst thing a mother can do is to be unsympathetic. The worst thing a dad can do is disappear completely. In the hierarchy of human needs, women are expected to achieve a whole lot more to be held up as good parents.

Author Lionel Shriver propelled this notion into controversy by implying in her 2003 novel We Need to Talk About Kevin that mothers are directly responsible for how their children develop. There was nuance there, with the mother character bordering on being abusive, but her son also had clear psychopathic tendencies, placing the mother in an unfair position. The Crown does a similar job of victimising Prince Charles in relation to his mother. In seasons 3 and 4, the Queen is cold and brusque with him, making clear that she doesn’t care what he wants for his marriage, and the screenwriters frame her affection for her younger son Andrew as outright favouritism. There is doubtless some truth to this, but the series' sentimentality makes it seem like Charles was ultimately only troublesome to the royal family because his mum didn't love him enough.

Perhaps the Queen (fictional or real) isn’t anyone’s idea of a perfect mother, but then again, who is? E.M. Forster at least eventually acknowledged that his own imperfect mother, who brought him up alone, was a strong individual and a force to be reckoned with. It’s time for TV makers to do the same.

- Eve Smith

As someone who finds it extremely difficult to finish new shows if I don’t enjoy them, I feel particularly qualified to speak on which shows I’ve found that are worth watching and rewatching. When I do find a show I enjoy, I’ll rewatch it until I’ve drained every possible ounce of enjoyment from it. Some may call this being “close minded”, but I prefer to think of it as knowing what I like. Everyone should have shows like this-- where they are able to go to again and again, whether it’s because you need some background noise while mindlessly watching Tik Tok, you’ve had a bad day, or purely for the rewatch value. For these shows, people will most often turn to sitcoms. So, for each of these situations, this article will hopefully act as a guide to find your next comfort show for years to come.

For starters, let’s begin with the basic shows you’d like to watch purely as background noise.

Shows you could start on any episode and be able to understand what’s happening. No investment in plot, no desire for critical thinking, head empty-no thought kinds of shows. First up is the age old classic you probably know (even if you don’t), Friends (1994-2004). It ran for 10 seasons, mostly family friendly, but definitely geared towards young adults making their way in the world. A close second is Bob's Burgers (2011-present) currently at 12 seasons, an animated adult show, but acceptable for the whole family for the most part, as it follows the Belcher family and their exploits running their restaurant. There might be some iffy moments watching either of these with younger kids, but anyone 10+ will most likely enjoy some aspect of one of these shows. Modern Family (2009-2020) which had an eleven season run, is another show which fits into this category. Focusing on a newly diversified family with all their conflicts and baggage, ultimately this show is a heartwarming watch. The humor of Modern Family I personally don’t care for as much as Friends or Bob’s Burgers, but wouldn’t turn off if nothing else was on.

Now if you’re on the lookout for something a bit smarter, or at least something that will reward its audience for paying attention, Community (2009-2015) is the show for you. With a messy 6 seasons, Community is one camera sitcom that could easily fit into the previous category of mindless entertainment. It follows a diverse study group formed in a local community college, and their exploits navigating their friendships and college courses. Committed or long-time viewers will know what I mean when I say there is plenty of continuity and background detail within this show that gives sharp eyed watchers plenty to find. This is all on top of a cast of (mostly) loveable characters and clever writing.

Another show that falls into this category, one which really thrives on the running gags it sets up, is Arrested Development (2003-2019). Another very messy production history, it ran for 5 seasons, two of which filmed nearly ten years after the show's original run. This show follows the Bluth family after the imprisonment of their corrupt patriarch, and how the family’s privileged upbringing clashes with their current bankruptcy. Either of these two shows is a great choice for a person who enjoys finding hidden details and Easter eggs while watching.

Finally are the types of shows best to watch while having a bad day. These are here for their purely positive outlooks on life, and for viewers looking to have their faith in humanity restored. First up is the Mockumentary, The Office (2005-2013)-inspired show following a team of public servants on their utterly under-rewarding job in the Parks and Recreation (2009-2015) department of their local government. With a 7 season run, this show never fails to put a smile on my face with its heart warming messages and almost whimsical attitude. The characters are truly what stand out for this show.

Where other shows might stand out for clever writing or unique plots, Parks and Rec stands out for its memorable, heartwarming, and well developed characters. While the plot is semi relevant and the best viewing experience is watched in order, it can be watched out of order and is still very enjoyable, unlike this next show, which is very plot dependent. The Good Place (2016-2020) is a single camera sitcom which spans a well constructed and satisfying 4 seasons. This show is not only good for watching as a series, but especially for anyone experiencing an existential crisis. The show’s main themes focus around ethics, mortality and morality, and presents very hopeful stances on each of them.

Set in the afterlife, it follows a strong central cast, with plenty of plot heavy sections as well as comedic interludes.

Now, for those looking to watch any of these shows, all of them can be found on Netflix (with the exception of Bob’s Burgers which can be found on Disney Plus). Watching any of these shows will definitely be a very rewarding experience for any first time viewers, and perhaps to those who have only watched them once, or not seen them in their entirety, it will inspire a rewatch or two.

- John Dugan

Recent years have seen society arrive at the very precipice of a new world order, caught between warring traditions and newfound habits as an uncertain future looms. Naturally, I’m referring to the divisive approaches to television consumption that fight for dominance on our screens: the stream-enabled binge-watch, and the traditional weekly release. While many of us can remember the days of trawling over television guides and tussling for control of the remote during primetime viewing hours, it’s no secret that binge-viewing has assumed quiet supremacy in the public domain, implicitly shouldering the weekly release into extinction. Though perhaps we shouldn’t launch into requiem just yet; with streaming giants Disney+ and Apple TV dipping their toe into familiar weekly episode drops, are we seeing a resurgence of the reliable scheduled release? With both approaches still maintaining an active presence, it begs the question: what is the best way to watch?

In defence of the bingers, there’s a lot to like. The binge-watching experience is easy, immersive, and immediately gratifying. Full-season drops puts the agency in the hands of the viewer, and offers one the flexibility to tune in at their own leisure. There are worse ways to spend an evening than storming through a series that’s got you hooked, and there’s certainly something to be said for the smug satisfaction of knowing that the resolution to that jaw-dropping cliff-hanger is just around the corner.

Early bingers get the added bonus of avoiding any potential experienceruining spoilers, plus exclusive bragging rights to having already seen the hit new show that is clogging up your Twitter feed.

On the contrary, the idea of weekly releases on paper is a difficult sell: Why have everything now, when you could wait for it? Regardless, there’s a quaint charm to the idea of one episode a week that elevates each installment into an ‘event’ sweetened by delayed gratification. A weekly release schedule also affords each episode- for better or for worse enough space to stand alone in its own right, further helping to segregate the medium of television from cinema at a time when the differences have become harder to spot. Furthermore, social media provides a larger platform than ever for collective ‘event viewing’ that can help a series gain traction over time, with weekly releases such as Wandavision and Mare of Easttown benefitting from considerable online hype week-to-week to secure them a place in the public consciousness for a prolonged period.

With both approaches presenting a strong case, the verdict boils down to personal preference and often, the genre of show. Although the lazy comedy you watch while cooking might not have you on the edge of your seat for the next episode, delving into a good mystery series week-to-week can, with enough patience, enhance the viewing experience. As far as I am concerned, there is a future for both approaches, and a blissful harmony may yet be on the horizon. While binge-watching is almost certainly here to stay, there is room still for the traditional staggered releasealthough, if we are to leave television guides and remote-control-wrestling as relics of the past, I certainly won’t complain.

- Sadbh Boylan

The first thing you realise when watching I Hate Suzie is how randomly cruel the show is. At the beginning of the first episode, we watch Suzie’s life completely implode over the course of a couple minutes. I can’t remember where I was or how I was feeling when I started watching most of my favourite shows, that isn’t the case with I Hate Suzie. After I was suddenly broken up with, my dad put on the pilot thinking it was a sitcom. And while it definitely didn’t cheer me up, it was the perfect thing to watch in that moment.

Based on lead actress Billie Piper’s real life, I Hate Suzie (Lucy Prebble and Billie Piper, 2020), follows former child-star and current c-list celebrity, Suzie Pickles (Billie Piper), whose personal life implodes after explicit pictures of her are leaked. Told through the stages of grief, I Hate Suzie was the show that made me laugh and cry the most in 2020. Most of this was due to Billie Piper’s outstanding performance. Through her script and performance, Piper created the perfect female antihero. A darker, funnier Fleabag, Suzie is the perfect balance of charm, narcissism, self-destruction, and guilt. However, unlike other women in the genre, Suzie is allowed to be truly bad. She is never redeemed, and her actions aren’t justified by a tragic backstory, instead Suzie can do bad things and be sad when bad things happen to her.

Even though our issues were completely different, it felt like me and Suzie understood each other. I knew when a notification feels like sucker punch, the dread of finding a new rock bottom and thinking about all the ways you could’ve stopped it happening. Watching it gave me the catharsis people get from burning photos of exes and smashing plates.

I Hate Suzie

Every week I’d go back to Suzie and together we’d process what had happened.

After a week of being upset and saying the wrong things, watching Suzie do the exact same was like a warm blanket. Suzie was never told that she knew how to love better than anyone else, because she doesn’t, most of us don’t, that doesn’t make us deserve cruelty.

In the peak of my break-up self-loathing, when everyone either pities you or thinks you’re a monster, having a show sit down in front of me and tell me that I was right about being awful but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be upset about them. When it felt like everyone was lying to make me feel either better or worse about myself, I Hate Suzie was the honesty that I craved all week.

You could be thinking that; “I can be awful and miserable because she is too!”, is a terrible message. And it is terrible, it’s negative and self-indulgent. But I hate films and tv shows with a message. It feels like being talked down through a screen. I want to be understood not told what do to. I probably was miserable and awful and self-indulgent after my breakdown; I don’t doubt my ability to be dramatic. But after spending all day dealing with people trying to cure how I felt, the painkiller I Hate Suzie provided was a massive relief. I hope tv has more characters like Suzie Pickles in the future, because I don’t watch tv to find role models, I watch it to know I’m not alone in how I feel.

Katie Mckenna

The TV series The Mafia Only Kills in Summer/La Mafia Uccide Solo d’Estate (Pif, 2016) starts with a bang: the local priest takes aim at a squawking hawk, as it circles with one eye over Palermo in the full midday sun. He misses – the bird gets a narrow escape. It’s a fitting metaphor for the Giammarresi family central to this Italian crime dramedy, when the youngest son Salvatore starts to question the effects of the mafia in a city where – we are told repeatedly – La mafia non esiste. Curiosity kills in 1970s Sicily.

All of this misses the fact that as an opening scene, it’s a lot of fun. Mid-lockdown, it will have my own mother squawking like a bird in our living room while my grown-up sister points a finger-gun at each of us in turn – Bang! – and I run around the room like a spinning top to the farcical sounds of its typically Sicilian theme music. The soundtrack, courtesy of Santi Pulvirenti, who also worked on the homonymous film from 2013, plays up the satirical, darkly comical edge of the series. Created and narrated by Palermo-native Pierfrancesco ‘Pif’ Diliberto, the show not only tries to recreate what life was like for ordinary people of the period, but also chooses to ridicule the mobsters who we have come to recognize in their idealized Scorsese variety. As a strategy, it’s in line with more somber recent adaptations of mafia history, like 2018’s Il Cacciatore/ The Hunter (Silvia Ebreul) which aimed to make the prosecutors ‘cool’ again as the rightful protagonists of the mafia genre.

Pif’s mafiosi are not criminal masterminds. Unsophisticated and brutal, yes, but also the stupid and openly laughable foils to young Salvuccio’s curious mind. Our sympathies lie entirely with the Giammarresi family from the get-go, whether it’s the hedonist-realist Uncle Massimo who tries to cheat the system as best he can, or the wonderfully intense mother Pia, a teacher who has been waiting patiently for years for a teaching post only to be consistently skipped by applicants with the virtue of a ‘raccomandazione’ (code for: a word from someone important). Then there are the many romances of his oblivious sister Angela, who follows a boyfriend into the world of student Marxism – ‘Karl Marx is dead?!’ – and finally the well-meaning father Lorenzo, who tries hard to play by the rules in an absurdly corrupt world. The result? A near constant state of moral anxiety.

The series is rich, in humour and in heart. But aside from the family portrait, it has the parallel task of educating us as to the mafia killings that took place in the 70s and 80s with the help of real footage. The show’s unerringly respectful treatment of such tragedies as the killings of anti-mafia magistrates Gaetano Costa and Rocco Chinnici, police chief Boris Giuliano, as well as ordinary Sicilians caught in the crossfire alongside the fictional Giammarresi, is perhaps its greatest achievement. All of this finds balance within a delightfully hammy Italian comedic style which could have come straight out of 1970s television. Mainly thanks to this balancing act, however, Pif’s irreverent series feels entirely new.

All of this begs the question: are we allowed to enjoy La Mafia when it appears on our screens? If director and outspoken anti-mafia journalist Pif is to be believed, we can even have fun with it – as long as we know exactly who and what we’re laughing at, we can even start taking television like this seriously.

Lucy McCabe

‘Red Right Hand’, Peaky Blinders Nothing says Birmingham accents, Cillian Murphy’s baby blue eyes and an insane amount of violence like Nick Cave’s sultry tune. ‘Red Right Hand’ might be an unusual choice for a show set at the dawn of the 1920’s-- Murphy himself certainly thought so-but since it’s first airing ‘Red Right Hand’ has become an integral part of Peaky Blinders iconography. No song could better introduce our beloved anti-hero Tommy Shelby as it does; “... Comes a tall handsome man / In a dusty black coat with/ A red right hand.”

‘A Beautiful Mine’, Mad Men (RJD2) Mad Men marks a turning point in 21st century television-- it even prompted Scorsese, cinema’s eternal gatekeeper (said with all the love in the world)-- to consider whether or not it was cinema. (The answer was: “No, it’s not cinema. It’s Mad Men.” If that’s not a testament to its groundbreaking form, I don’t know what is.) Six years after its finale air date, and Mad Men still has a grip on the cultural zeitgeist-- no thanks in part to its masterful opening credits scene, which features RJD2’s ‘A Beautiful Mine’. Though the lyrics aren’t included, the tense push-and-pull of the melody takes right into the world of these mad, mad men.

‘Chasing Cars’, Grey’s Anatomy What good television issue would leave Grey’s unmentioned? Grey’s Anatomy is a titan of modern television, if not in quality than in sheer quantity-- boasting nearly 400 episodes and eighteen seasons plus three spin-off shows, Grey’s created the showrunning legend that is Shonda Rhimes. It also is something of a cultural jukebox-- watching from season 1 (2005) to now features all the hits of the time plus some great indie gems. But what Grey’s gave us most was the monopoly Snow Patrol’s ‘Chasing Cars’ has on sad scenes.

Any good Greys fan knows the second those guitar strings are plucked, somebody’s going to die, get broken up with, or both.

‘Simply the Best’, Schitt’s Creek Schitt’s Creek has given us so much-- Catherine O’Hara’s wonderful and wacky pseudoEuropean accent, the talents of Dan Levy and Annie Murphy, but most of all it gave us the singing talents of one Noah Reid, who plays David (Levy)’s love interest Patrick. Their relationship is delightfully sweet and refreshing, and this is summed up best when Patrick surprises David with a serenade of Tina Turner’s ‘Simply the best’. His cover is acoustic and understated, and yet still an insanely powerful ballad. Would that we were all so lucky!

‘Homeward Bound’, The Leftovers It’s decently hard to have any kind of category about television greats and not include The Leftovers in some way or another. The way it challenged television norms and still gave us a timeless mirror into the human condition is unparalleled. Despite the fact that every episode is a work of art, one of the most universally lauded scenes comes in the finale of the second season-- Kevin (Justin Theroux) stuck in purgatory, must sing ‘Homeward Bound’ as part of a spiritual karaoke to allow him to return back to his family.

Yes, really. Everything about the scene is perfect-- from the sheer terror on Kevin’s face to the way that he can’t really sing but tries so hard--- there’s a reason the show has become emblematic of the potential for great television. The Leftovers is a big show about a lot of things, but in that moment when Kevin is on that stage, there’s only one thing that matters: he really, really wants to go home.The willingness of the show to treat that with the same respect as lets say, our meaning on earth or what happens when we die, is what sets it apart.

‘The Final Countdown’, Arrested Development Nothing says magic and pomp and circumstance quite like Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’, as demonstrated by magician extraordinaire Gob (or G.O.B) in Arrested Development. Do you like magic tricks? Well you’ve come to the wrong place. Do you like live performances that are 40% running around, 30% interpretative dance, 20% holding a knife between your teeth and 10% “magic”? Then you’ve come to the right place! Arguably one of the best running jokes in Arrested Development is Gob’s sheer lack of illusionary talent but nonetheless the banging soundtrack and sharp moves make up for the increasingly bizarre failures of his magical escapades.

‘Stars’ (Live at Montreux), Bojack Horseman Bojack Horseman is well known for being not only a hilarious animated comedy but also a deeply poignant look at addiction, fame and bad people who do bad things but desperately want to be better. The first two seasons, while still possessing that same emotional depth that would make it such a beloved triumph in its later years, largely veer towards the more comedic tones, but the overall shift from “comedy” to “comedydrama” can be pinpointed to the finale of season 3. There’s a lot that leads up to this scene; a hilarious awards race, the break-up of Bojack and Princess Caroline’s working relationship and of course, the loss of a life. Completely broken down by his past actions (and his own compliance in his misery), Bojack drives his yellow ferrari down a desert road as Nina simone’s ‘stars’ plays. The pacing of the scene is pure gold, the montage that plays as he speeds up, the way he slowly lets go of the car, and the beautiful melancholy of Simone’s tenor serenading him through his breakdown makes watching hard but looking away even harder. It’s a beautiful end to a beautiful but dark season, and it’s the perfect set up for what will happen next in Bojacks’ saga.

‘Paradise Circus’, Luther Luther follows the eponymous moody and brilliant London detective played by Idris Elba. It breaks the mold of dry British crime procedurals by offering a more thrilling, edgy, and cerebral experience. At the same time, it refrains from deploying much of the over the top spectacle seen in its popular contemporary, Sherlock. It’s rhythm is more subdued, cynical, and melancholic; broken up by tangential moments of action. The first 5 minutes of the series offers a window into the world of John Luther. We witness a tense moment of decision, violence, and moral ambiguity.

The title sequence bleeds in. We hear the rhythmic snare drum and dreamlike vocals of Massive Attack’s ‘Paradise Circus’ whose lyrics reflect the troubling experience of the show’s antiheroic protagonist. “Love is like a sin, my love, for the ones who feel it the most.” As we see later in the series, Luther’s sense of duty conflicts directly with his underlying capacity to empathize with others. He feels insecure engaging in relationships and often overreacts as a result of his insecurity. His sense of duty and experiences of loss color his emotional connections with a shade of guilt. Closeness, therefore, evokes a sense of sinful anxiety because of its inherent opportunity cost and risk of further anguish.

Forever appearing on TV’s ‘gone too soon’ lists, NBC’s Hannibal ran for 3 seasons from 2013 through 2015. Across the show’s 39 episodes, showrunner Bryan Fuller brought everyone’s favourite fictional cannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, to the small screen as a character with charisma to spare and more intimate relationships with the various characters introduced in Thomas Harris’s first Hannibal Lecter novel, 1981’s Red Dragon. Bryan Fuller brought his version of the character (performed by the fantastic Mads Mikkelsen) through misadventures which would adapt 3 of Harris’s 4 Hannibal novels across its 3 season stay; these being Red Dragon in its entirety, along with elements of 1999’s Hannibal (hereafter referred to as H to avoid confusion), and 2006’s Hannibal Rising. Hannibal’s most overlooked merit was the show’s ability to take the many issues which plague both H and Hannibal Rising (both critically-panned novels) and adapt them into viscerally engaging television through artful omission and reconstruction of certain elements. These changes help to make Hannibal into a rare example of a television adaptation which vastly improves on its source material.

The greatest example of this superior adaptation comes with 1999’s H. Written after the success of the filmic adaptation of 1988’s Silence of the Lambs (the only Lecter novel not adapted by the show due to the licensing of certain characters) , H brought the titular doctor back after 11 years to appease a new wave of hungry fans, and yet managed to upset nearly all of them through a woeful turn in the relationship between the good doctor and Silence protagonist Clarice Starling. The novel’s final chapters see Clarice and Hannibal develop a shocking romantic and sexual relationship, one which undermines all of Clarice’s character development in moments as Harris has Hannibal manipulate Clarice through medication into falling for him. This problematic erasure of Clarice’s agency mixes with the novel’s horrific presentation of the lesbian character Margot Verger as a butch bodybuilder whose homosexuality is frustratingly traced in text to childhood sexual abuse, to create a hugely dissatisfying narrative. H is also riddled with a problem of hopping between protagonists, namely Starling and an Italian agent named Rinaldo Pazzi, thus creating a lack of room for interesting development in either character. Luckily, Fuller and crew had 14 years to dwell on these issues, and successfully remedied them in Hannibal’s second and third seasons.

Without a single mention of Clarice Starling, Hannibal instead focuses on the layered relationship between Lecter and Red Dragon Protagonist, FBI agent Will Graham. Graham is renowned for being able to get inside the minds of killers in order to solve cases, which makes him a perfect plaything for Lecter throughout the show. Their relationship carries the show through a constant stream of betrayals, upheavals, and psychological seductions. H’s central plot centers around a surviving victim of Lecter named Mason Verger who seeks revenge on Hannibal for deforming and paralysing him. Hannibal uses this conflict between Verger and Hannibal to further develop Graham and Lecter’s relationship as Graham becomes more and more complicit in Hannibal’s killings while the doctor evades Verger, testing Graham’s loyalties.

Hannibal’s seduction of Will is gradual, taking place over two and a half seasons, leading to Graham’s alignment with Hannibal feeling much more earned and developed than the final act shocks of the novel which the show adapts in this arc. The fact that the show sticks with a single developed protagonist/ antagonist relationship instead of hopping between Graham/Starling/Pazzi/Lecter as the novels do results in Hannibal’s on-screen seduction of Will feeling much more emotionally resonant than any such relationship in the novels.

The show carefully combs through Harris’s novel, gaining a despicable villain in the pedophilic Mason Verger, and cleaning up the novel’s problematic treatment of its female and queer characters by reinventing Mason’s sister Margot as a believable queer woman with the agency and drive to take revenge on her brother without problematic origins ascribed to her sexuality, and by also replacing Clarice and Lecter’s last minute mysoginistic tangling into a more nuanced entanglement between the psychological cores of Lecter and Graham. While these changes already place Hannibal miles above Harris’s novel in terms of quality, it is Harris’s awful decision to demystify the character of Hannibal in this novel and in Rising through a derivative origin story which the show takes particular glee in upstaging.

BEDELIA: Why can't you go home, Hannibal?

What happened to you there?

HANNIBAL: Nothing happened to me. I happened.

This exchange between Hannibal and his psychiatrist Bedelia in season three’s third episode ‘Secondo’ perfectly captures the futility in attempting to explain away Hannibal Lecter’s nature.

The dialogue mirrors a similar remark from Hannibal in Silence of the Lambs in which he tells Clarice that “Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling. I happened. You can't reduce me to a set of influences…”. Despite Harris’s statement that Hannibal’s evil cannot simply be explained, he still makes the error of reducing Hannibal to a set of influences across both H and Hannibal Rising.

Rising in particular serves as a lackluster origin story for the character, attempting to connect the character’s cannibalistic nature to an incident in which a young Hannibal was force fed his sister in a broth served to him by a group of WW2 deserters. In reducing Hannibal’s nature to a trauma response, Hannibal Lecter becomes no more complex than any other antagonist across Harris’s novels, with Red Dragon’s Francis Dolarhyde, Silence’s Jame Gumb, and the Verger siblings from H all stemming from similar traumas. However, the show’s grasp on the character and his enigmatic appeal shines through in its own interpretation of Rising’s events The show’s third season finds Will Graham travelling to Lecter’s home country of Lithuania to discover the events surrounding his sister’s death. He meets a Lecter family attendant named Chiyo watching over an emaciated man imprisoned below the Lecter estate. Lecter has told Chiyo that this emaciated man killed and ate Lecter’s sister Mischa. This prisoner has been left in the Chiyo’s hands after she wouldn’t let Hannibal kill him to avenge his sister’s death. However, it comes to light that this is very likely a ploy on Lecter’s part, an experiment to see if Chiyo will herself kill the prisoner eventually. It’s also heavily implied that the man below the castle is in fact innocent, with Hannibal instead having eaten his own sister. This reversal of events is summed up by a questioning Bedelia in conversation with Lecter.

BEDELIA: How did your sister taste?

We are left without an answer to this question, nor any clarity surrounding the hows and whys of this gruesome cannibalisation. Hannibal instead tackles Rising’s premise in a way which leaves more questions than answers, therefore keeping the central character’s mystique intact in ways which stand opposed to Harris’s butchering of the character’s inexplicable nature.

NBC’s Hannibal exists as a stellar approach to adaptation which more series and films could do well to assimilate. Through a clear understanding of the series’s central character, Bryan Fuller crafted essential television which searched even Harris’s more negatively received novels for elements to revise and improve on for the screen audience. In respecting Harris’s source material while also working to improve upon more problematic elements of Harris’s later works, Hannibal presents a razor sharp interpretation of its source material, creating an essential take on the Lecter mythos which transcends all which came before.

Kane Geary O’ Keeffe

What makes a masterpiece? Is it something that is really, really good? Is it when the artist who made it considers it to be their best work?

Mr. Robot stars Rami Malek of Bohemian Rhapsody (Dexter Fletcher, 2018) and Night at the Museum (Shawn Levy, 2006) fame (and, of course, video game Until Dawn), as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer by day who works for a firm hired by the biggest conglomerate in history, E Corp. (E Corp is basically the shows version of an Apple/Google/Amazon/Bank of Ireland hybrid). However, by night, Elliot is a vigilante hacker.

Mr. Robot is a show about a lot of things. On the surface it seems to be a show about hacking and espionage, but it is also a critique of western culture and capitalism. It deals with addiction, loneliness, and mental health especially. Even if that sounds as though it is too edgy, and that it would not appeal to you, I would still say that you should give it a go, because I was in the same boat as you at the start and I love this show. The story and the characters’ journeys are what makes the show stick with you. Not to mention the incredible camera work and clever ways the show subverts your expectations (no, not in the Rian Johnson way) of what a TV show should look like.

The direction, camera work and visuals in this show are well beyond the TV standards and easily rank among the best of full-on feature films. The performances given by the actors in this show are phenomenal, especially from our lead, Rami Malek, and they only get better as the show progresses, culminating in the final season, where Malek gives the best performance I have ever seen on a TV show. I think this is his best role, as I cannot possibly see another actor coming close to what Malek achieves.

This show was planned out form the start to only be a couple of seasons long, with an ending in sight that was actually thought out, unlike some other shows (*ahem* Game Of Thrones, *ahem*). No spoilers here though, I wouldn’t want any of you to accidentally read something you shouldn’t!

There are incredible twists and turns in the tale and though perhaps some elements were inspired by other pieces media, none have ever used them quite like Mr. Robot.

One aspect that I haven’t touched on which is incredibly impressive about the show is how true to reality the hacking is.

Elliot and other characters use authentic techniques, software, and tactics that real hackers use to perform hacks. So, if you are curious about how hacking works, like me, this show is an excellent gateway into that world.

What defines a masterpiece? Well, I believe that a true masterpiece is a piece of art or entertainment that has the power to change people’s lives. It alters the way you view everything, and makes you think differently. In other words, it changes your perception of the world you find yourself in. That is what makes Mr. Robot a masterpiece, and I am living proof of it. I can say, without a word of a lie, that I am a changed person after this show. If not for Mr. Robot, I may not be studying Computer Science here at Trinity and aspiring to have a career in IT. I have always had an interest in Computer Science and tech, ever since my father introduced me to it when I was young. What sealed the deal was Mr. Robot. It did this by enveloping me into this world of cybersecurity and hacking, and never letting me go. It made a new home for me inside this idea for a world where all of this could take place, and it made me become decidedly fascinated with the real life version of what takes place in the show.

David Wilson

Modern Masterpiece In a pompous and hortatory manner, some have the insolence to proclaim that David Lynch, of all filmmakers, is rather a “hack,” and his films “erratic” and “confusing.” While I have my own reservations regarding Lynch, it’s nothing but frankly absurd to posit that one of the most singular and idiosyncratic filmmakers to have ever endured the artistic handicap of working in Hollywood, “falls short,” especially in our aesthetically flat era of cinema where the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Steven Spielberg — ostensible men, but with the same sense of aesthetic refinement as little, bombastic boys — are regarded by many to be some of the greatest filmmakers of all time, if not the greatest.

Lynch proves himself as one of few artists and filmmakers in all of recent cinema history that has managed to accomplish the impossible — in creating films and television that are both original, artistically, and genuinely entertaining. Lynch, without question, demonstrates this with his opus, Twin Peaks: The Return (David Lynch, 2017), a swansong to his singular and eclectic career. The series, set 25 years later than the original Twin Peaks (David Lynch, 1989), is it’s greatest, illustrating the totality of Lynch’s mastery of his craft, which seamlessly translates to the small screen.

The series’ lead character FBI Special Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) spends the majority of the film in a spasmodic state, exhibiting strange behaviours — surely fitting when in consideration of the undeniable and steady cultural degeneration of the United

States and it’s cultural landscape since the original series was released. In the show, Agent Cooper, having been condemned to the realm of the ‘Black Lodge’ at the end of the original series and spends the following decades there, while an individuated Jungian ‘shadow’ of Agent Cooper, in league with an equally sinister spirit known as Bob (Frank Silva), assumes his identity: inflicting malefic misery on to his friends and colleagues, including his belovéd, Diane (Laura Dern).

Despite accusations levelled at Twin Peaks and Lynch’s oeuvre generally for being “beyond comprehension,” I think that it’s apparent from watching Twin Peaks: The Return that Lynch has found that the world, and especially the United States, has only regressed, becoming darker and more depraved than ever, since the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the original series, ergo the crucial need for the later installment. Forsaking the, at times, ‘lightness’ of the original series, the final installment has more in common, tonally, with Lynch’s directorial debut Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977), but not all together humourless. But in a sense, for better or worse, Twin Peaks: The Return is seemingly a monument to an undercurrent sense of bleakness; a particular hopelessness; and a longing to return to a cultural landscape that has since been lost to time.

Aside from Agent Cooper being imprisoned in the ‘Black Lodge’ realm for several decades, and then finally returning to reality in in an incapacitated, spasmodic form, various other iconic Twin Peaks characters reveal that they are

unwitting victims of an exceedingly morbid yet largely inexplicable zeitgeist: where returning, recognisable characters have seemingly and multilaterally regressed to shells of there former selves, and newer characters are equally afflicted by a kind of innate propensity for tragedy.

Alongside various other divertingly dejecting examples, Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean), in the new series, is so ill that he doesn’t reprise his role; heartthrob James Hurley (James Marshall) has degenerated to become a, frankly, pathetic creep; Sarah Palmer (Grace Zabriskie) is now hinged and reclusive, reckoning with new-found, seemingly Satanic powers; the long-dead Major Garland Briggs (Don S. Davis) makes a peculiar reemergence as an unclad corpse, and Mike Nelson (Gary Hershberger), instead of a ‘cool’ teenage ruffian, is now a banal, professional managerial class bully. The new characters on the show are no less forsaken and equally dysfunctional, and seemingly, the world of the series outside of the titular town of Twin Peaks is even more perverse. Indeed, unlike the original series, Twin Peaks is just one of a number of settings in what is, ultimately, a more well-rounded epic and aspirational soap opera that is just too audacious, artistically, to be equated to traditional television, extending beyond the scope of soap opera.

While Twin Peaks: The Return is incontrivabily a visceral and emotionallycharged expression of Lynch’s thoughts and intuitions regarding the modern world, the series, which is verily more like one, singular art film, also serves as a tribute to his entire filmography, a ‘David Lynch’s Greatest Hits’ in a sense that the series doesn’t relent in making reference to virtually all of Lynch’s body

of work, and covers recurrent themes of Lynch’s earlier works, including his pre-Hollywood, avant-garde experiments, for example, with its scenes of grotesque vomiting, recalling Lynch’s short film, Six Men Getting Sick (David Lynch, 1966).

In an aesthetic sense, Twin Peaks: The Return borrows from, and repurposes, the Lynchian pantheon of glittering images of former projects: from the infinite, phantasmagorical highways and intrusive headlights recalling Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997), or the lurid melodrama, soap opera quality and uncanny aesthetics of Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990).

Twin Peaks, and particularly with it’s final installment, is, seemingly, Lynch’s answer to Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1980), two equally inordinate, Miltonian epics of television, which, arguably, serves as their respective magnum opera that on some level, in spite of their singular artistic visions, by some miracle, reckons with the entire scope of the filmmaker’s entire, sprawling careers which ultimately finds that he has mastered his craft.

Or rather, the series is the contemporary, cinematic equivalent to Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych painting, The Garden of Earthly Delights or Samuel Richardsons’ one thousand, five hundred and thirty fourpage literary masterpiece Clarissa: Or, The History of a Young Lady. Indeed, while Twin Peaks, like Clarissa before it, was intended for mass consumption, it’s unequivocally the refined work of a master, delving into the immeasurable depth of the soul and sublimating his conclusions for the entire world to absorb.

“Actually, I just finished reading War and Peace” is how my parents found out I had learned nothing in business school. I like to take War and Peace (1869) off the shelf, feel the weight of the book, and think of it as a little trophy. I find myself coming back to it and not just for shameless self-aggrandizing in a student film magazine. Leo Tolstoy’s novel is a lot to digest, a challenge to adapt, and way too much to summarize in a pithy description. However, this hasn’t stopped people from trying. Andrew Davies’ 2016 BBC adaptation of War and Peace follows the heartbreaks, joys, and intrigues of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic wars. While thematic score and color bring richness and depth to the characters, Davies’ writing ultimately abstracts the nuance of Tolstoy’s original messages through his brevity.

Tolstoy’s writing is eclectic to say the least. His ‘novel’ is more like a series of vignettes framed by discussions on history, military tactics, and free will. War and Peace (1869) also focuses on Mikhail Kutuzov, a famously patient Russian general who is widely credited with the defeat of Napoleon during the 1812-13 campaign. Sadly, neither Tolstoy's discourses nor an explanation of Kutuzov’s work made the cut in Davies’ adaptation. However, these would have been very difficult to accommodate. While his essays and thoughts on strategy are interesting to some audiences (yours truly), these sections of the book are frankly too boring to show on TV. The vast majority of BBC viewers aren't interested in discourses on history or workman-like one eyed generals. They want sex, violence, and epilates.

George Steel’s cinematography is a standout hit. The screenplay may be lacking depth for fans of Napoleonic history. However, Steel delivers gripping visuals reminiscent of the era’s neo-romantic paintings. During historic moments in the series, large scale movements and natural features dwarf individual human figures. Curiously, this message alludes to some of Tolstoy’s more esoteric historical commentary - the great men of history are inconsequential in comparison to larger trends and forces. Steel also excels in conveying Tolstoy’s understanding of intimate and familial relationships in aristocratic society. The camera’s focus on light touch expresses emotions while staying true to the reserved temperament of the era. Special praise should also be given to the costume designer, Edward K Gibbon, whose wardrobe work does heavy lifting in terms of rounding out and expressing the character’s diverse personalities.

War and Peace (2016) is scored by Martin Philips with help from the Latvian Radio Choir. The soundtrack is 43 minutes long and a pleasure to listen to. The deep resonant tones of this wall of sound are a masterpiece on their own. During the 6-part series, Director Tom Harper deploys these moving musical elements to great effect in order to reflect the historical realities of the early 1800’s. During this time Russia was even larger than it was today. The empire was a diverse continental power stretching from the glistening capital of St Petersburg to the impressive domes of Holy Moscow and the frozen Bering Sea at Kamchatka. Philips interweaves the vastness, diversity, and history of the Tsar’s domain into the series’ opening theme - “St Petersburg”. Napoleon is remembered as a national hero in France. However, his legacy as a tyrant and megalomaniac persists in Russia to this day. The scale of Napoleonic warfare was truly massive. For the first time in history, millions of men moved from west to east to fight across a battlefield of thousands of miles. The Napoleonic wars resulted in innumerable deaths and large-scale destruction unseen until modern times. Russian and French armies clashed on a massive scale rendering old tactics useless. We hear the heartbeat of this colossal enterprise in “Napoleon”. The steady warlike drum announces a deep dreamlike choral melody. There is a kind of deadly momentum to this piece which alludes to themes in Tolstoy’s writing suggesting that Philips did his reading.

In addition to its martial overtones, War and Peace (1869 & 2016) follows the romantic lives of Russian aristocrats. While special attention is typically paid to Andrei (James Norton) and Pierre (Paul Dano), it is interesting to follow the story from the perspective of Natasha Rostova(Lily James). Natasha, a lovesick teenager, undergoes an emotionally taxing ordeal and affair which results in her disgrace as well as her family’s embarrassment. What Davies and director Tom Harper refrain from doing however is oversexualizing or glamourizing Natasha’s love life. In the same vein, they also capture the depth of her remorse and sorrow. Ultimately War and Peace is a romance told from the perspective of a non-judgemental narrator. In her day, Natasha would be considered a disgraced woman. However, we can all relate to her impulsiveness when we understand her story, perspective, and pains through an impartial lens. What Tolstoy suggests and what the BBC team translated well is that if we truly understood other people, we might love them even more for their faults.

“Pierre was right when he said that one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order to be happy, and I now believe in it. Let the dead bury the dead, but while I’m alive, I must live and be happy.” (Book 6, chapter 15) This is perhaps the most important takeaway for everyday life in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, a brief two sentences written in a very accessible script. It speaks to the author's overall philosophy on art, something he discusses further in his aptly titled book What is Art (1897). Tolstoy wanted art to be accessible for everyone. He knew that if novels were not entertaining, no one would read them.

But he also considered them a kind of therapy. Art should teach us something about one another.

It should make the audience more aware of the imperfect human condition that we all share.

Essentially, the BBC miniseries accomplishes this very well. Tom Harper’s excellent direction interweaves history and romance into a highly pleasurable viewing experience. At the same time, Davies drops Tolstoy’s esoteric discourses in favour of a more intimate humanizing message. War and Peace (2016) reminds its audience that history is a cloudy reflection of the present. In fact, other people, with their many faults and issues, are not so unlike us. We should try our best to be happy and to live authentically with others in peace.

- Seamus Conlon

By: Caroline Kelly Television functions as a kind of subconscious for what people care about. It is fascinating to locate its fluctuations and changes, to observe how it both is influenced by our shifting social codes and actively influences them. In this sense, it’s a little door in the back of a work. At the front, lies the work itself—the plot elements, directorial choices, and so on. But always, in the back, there’s a door to everything else; all of the cultural implications and philosophical meanings are found through here. Open the door a crack, and you might catch a glimpse of those things. Throw it open wide, and you reveal just as much about yourself as you do the work itself.

The Leftovers forced me to open that door and leave it that way permanently. It was incredibly comfortable letting me struggle with its implications, rather than providing tidy summations. Even when it answered its biggest questions, it did so in a way that suggested the answers might be wrong, because what matters isn’t the answer, but whether I believe the person who’s offering it to me.

The series takes place in a world where, on 14 October in a year contemporary to our own, 2% of the world’s population vanished without a trace or reason. The series opens on this event, remembered as ‘The Sudden Departure’, but its objective isn't to find where these people went. Whatever the answer is will pale in comparison to the fact that when millions of people just up and disappeared randomly, the world was reminded that existence is basically random, meaningless and uncontrollable.

The lack of definitive answers about the event throws humanity into a world-wide existential crisis where neither science nor religion can offer any relief. Such relief becomes scarcer and scarcer as the seasons progress, tracking the lives of Kevin Garvey (Justin Theorux) and Nora Durst (Carrie Coon) as they rummage through the rubble and aftermath of the Sudden Departure, searching for any sign of life.

In The Leftovers, signs are taken up by stories and function in vastly different ways. And no story ever prevails. Nor does the show itself give us any firm foundation to stand on, no privileged perspective of truth. The last of the three seasons combines these competing stories. The bookend episodes of Season 3 are entitled “The Book of Kevin” and “The Book of Nora.” In between, there’s “It’s a Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt World”. It’s all stories— science, religion, history, the self. Each character envisions and revises themselves constantly, which reveals The Leftovers for what it is: a study of the different stories intertwining each other at every possible angle. That foundation will never firm up. The show is all these stories at once, all competing and colliding and intertwining, offering neither comfort nor closure.

Here, stories are not fiction: they’re creative, forging the sense of the world.

Stories are ways of knowing the world. The world lost 2% of its people; and those 2% lost 98%. The Sudden Departure happened 14 October here; and on 15 October in Australia. Same events, different perspectives, different worlds, different ways of relating to each other, all happening at once. The genius of The Leftovers comes from the way it’s structured as a sequence of successive series finales. Characters find a way toward closure, then fall away from the story as those who continue to struggle with their powerlessness attempt to find meaning The show is uniquely optimistic because it stared into uncertainty, into darkness, and insisted that we would figure out how to make our own light if we found ourselves stranded. The final two images of the series are two characters holding hands and then doves returning to their roost—which if you know your Noah’s Ark is a sign that the end of the world is beginning to end.

The series doesn’t focus on bringing its plot to a conclusion; instead, it concentrates on guiding its characters toward relief, if not happiness.

They might remain empty, but they are allowed a moment of kindness or gratitude, a moment that pushes them to extend the same to others. If life is meaningless, if nothing has a purpose, then all we have is what we can give to each other. I can’t think of many messages more optimistic than that.

We are living in a time that feels, to almost all of us, like more of an ending than a beginning. We have made it to the future, and it’s trying to kill us. But it’s always the future, and life is always trying to kill us. The world is always ending, but it’s also always beginning.

Struggling against the meaningless nature of life is important, but so is remembering that meaning is what we make of it and that we can create meaning for each other. The Leftovers worked so well because it focused not on the flood, but on the Ark, on the people left aboard, watching the skies for a sign of something new. There’s all this water, all around us—but look at us, we have a boat!

"I need to go take a shower so I can't tell if I'm crying or not" is not a quote you would expect to hear from a classical cartoon, but if Raphael Bob Waksberg's Bojack Horseman (20142020) establishes anything in its first season, it's that it's not a classical cartoon. But it's not the first to subvert these pre-conventions, entering the pop cultural sphere a full year after Adult Swim's Rick & Morty (20132021) and four years after FX's Archer (2009). This call for more complex animated shows may seem jarring after years of the popular belief that animated shows could only ever be comedic or decades of the belief that animated shows could only ever be made for children, but upon the release of shows such as Bojack and Rick & Morty, audiences have begun to pay attention to the impact that thoughtful and nuanced adult animation can have.

Bojack Horseman centres its titular character as he navigates the pitfalls of existing as a 1990s sitcom star in a 21st century Hollywood, and manages to both ignore and embrace a key feature of its narrative that may have initially had audiences questioning the show's integrity - the protagonist is a horse. In fact, much of the main cast are cartoon animals and, despite this initial oddity, the show manages to balance this absurdism with a profound familiarity and empathy in how it portrays its fluffy characters and humanises their individual stories. There becomes a distinct tonal dissonance between the brightly coloured animation in front of us and the darker themes of the show’s narrative.

Rick & Morty employs a similar technique, mixing mature themes with jovial, lighthearted visuals to create a confusing concoction of comedy and tragedy. In many ways, it seems as though the surrealism of what we are seeing - this clash between reality and fantasy - may activate a much deeper urge in our human psyche, a desire to see our innermost feelings and emotions projected onto art, a medium that has been used throughout human civilisation to convey feelings we cannot give voice to.

Both Bojack and Rick & Morty frequently make use of alternate animation styles, warping and transforming their own characters into alternate versions of themselves, turning the metaphorical into the literal, using art to create notions that rise above our suspension of disbelief and bleed into our own lives. Perhaps it is only through these abstractions that we can truly relate to protagonists, our fluffy or space-travelling cast of characters removing any barriers of realism that may have kept us from fully empathising with more realistic characters like Walter White or Don Draper.

It is in the wake of animated adult shows like this that we begin to question the effects that art can have on us, the boundaries between realism and surrealism, and if a horse can truly have such complex feelings. Despite the weirdness, the tonal confusion, the blurred lines between hilarity and devastation, animated shows like Bojack and Rick & Morty may be the way forward for those of us who want to say "I need to go take a shower so I can't tell if I'm crying or not."

Few writers have as many distinct hallmarks as Aaron Sorkin. If a scene involves lots of walking down corridors, passing of important pages, exchanging of twice as many words as people can typically say in a handful of seconds, intercutting between different characters in different periods of time all discussing the same thing – it’s a Sorkin job. It’s not a style that’s absent everywhere else, or even one that he pioneered, but it’s certainly one that he perfected. He’s known more so for his recent slew of fantastic films – The Social Network (2010), Steve Jobs (2015) and Molly’s Game (2017) to name my favourites. It’s increasingly important to me to remind people that, in between the equally golden eras of 1990s (A Few Good Men, The American President) and 2010s Sorkin-cinema, he had a love affair with the small screen. During which, he created two of the greatest television series of all time: The West Wing (1999-2006) and The Newsroom (2012-2014).

It’s impossible to deny the impact that The West Wing has had on all forms of entertainment since its debut in 1999. It sincerely isn’t an understatement to say that a massive portion of dramatic depictions of Washington politics, both on the big and small screen, have been following in Sorkin’s quickly paced footsteps. Airing in the same year as The Sopranos (truly a year to be treasured), The West Wing’s legacy is iron-cast as one of the last truly great cable-TV shows. As television began its seismic shift towards more cinematic formats, and the glorious reign of the mini-series dawned, The West Wing exhibited the dated format’s undeniable capacity for greatness.

Over seven sensational seasons, The West Wing balanced a star-studded and star-making cast with the superbly compelling writing of Sorkin. Criticisms over its over-idealism (and its shocking timidness in the wake of the Trump presidency) aside, Sorkin achieved the impossible: he made US politics not only accessible, but thrilling, to the average viewer - me.

Drawing a career-best performance from Martin Sheen as the iconic incumbent President Josiah ‘Jed’ Bartlet, every single episode of the show handles a wide variety of timely issues and highlights the ways in which the political game benefits and – more often than not – fails society.

Bradley Whitford, Allison Janney, Dulé Hill and the rest of the extensive and rotating ensemble cast simply ooze sincerity, humility and relatability, despite existing in an echo chamber so far removed from our daily lives. Succeeding at this while not only adhering to but excelling at the archaic and restrictive ‘5-act structure’ of the cable-TV one-hour slot is another feat entirely. It’s a masterclass in television-making that can’t and won’t ever be replicated. While it’s regrettable that Sorkin left the show acrimoniously after four seasons (the drop in quality is small, but notable), Sorkin’s trailblazing efforts set the stage for a template of quality entertainment that only poor writers could botch entirely.

Not content being a master of just the primetime cable drama, Sorkin returned to TV in 2012 with HBO’s The Newsroom. Tallying at a mere twenty-five episodes across three short seasons, you could certainly call The Newsroom the little brother to the 155-episode The West Wing – but it packs a punch. Sorkin expands on his penchant for interweaving recognisable international politics and worldissues with fictional characters, in a manner that became a source of criticism for the show. Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer,

Dev Patel and more make up the news team of the fictional Atlantis Cable News network. Across the show’s run, ACN covers real world events such as the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the 2012 US presidential election.

ItIt isisSorkin’s commitment Sorkin’s to this format that makes The Newsroom exceptional. Rather than dance around the issues and events that we’re familiar with and lose the interest of the audience amidst outwardly fictional parallel plotlines, Sorkin throws everything into the ‘real world news’ angle while upholding respect for those involved in the actual stories. Critics will lament the the overtly liberal leanings of Sorkin – and, as a result, this show – but they fail to appreciate the depth to which The Newsroom explores the media machine.

By addressing real world issues, even through the lens of fictional characters, Sorkin crafts a fascinating and multi-dimensional analysis of all walks of journalism – and the political connotations therein.

None of this to mention the fact that, as he does time and time again, Sorkin draws exceptionally memorable performances from his cast. It is always an achievement when a showrunner can make you care about even half of their show’s characters. Yet Sorkin again proves his capability at shoving ten main characters in your face, organically exploring their backstory and ambitions, and expertly pitting them with and against each other. The iconic opening scene – ‘America is not the greatest country in the world’ – serves as the epitome of Sorkin as a TV writer and Daniels as an actor. If I had one criticism of this show, it’s that it ends before its time – twenty-five episodes is mercilessly brief for a show this incredible. Yet that only serves to strengthen The Newsroom’s status as a time capsule of the early 2010s, and all of the tumultuousness and uncertainty that now serves as a forebearer for today’s social and political climate.

Sorkin’s double bill of The West Wing and The Newsroom is an anomaly in its perfection: two wildly different shows that share the same core strengths.

Sorkin knows how to write engaging characters as much as he knows how to address modern issues, but he never forgets the one fundamental goal of television: entertainment. This article fails to even address Sorkin’s comedy pitstops Sports Night (19982000) and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007), neither of which I’ve seen but I fiercely look forward to loving one day. But if you’re looking for an epic odyssey into the machinations of the White House at the turn of the century, or a wildly compelling deep dive into the workings of modern-day news broadcasting, look no further than these two TV heavyweights.

All seven seasons of The West Wing are available to watch on All 4.

All three seasons of The Newsroom are available to watch on Now TV and Sky/ Sky Go.

C’mon C’mon Review

By Eve Smith Mike Mills’ C’mon, C’mon (2021), wants you to think about your inner child. One of the film’s most climactic scenes has stilted but loving middle-aged Johnny (Joaquin Phoenix) and his nephew Jesse (Woody Norman) screaming at each other in the woods that ‘this is fucked up’.

Sometimes, the non-rational part of your brain just needs a chance to be heard.

Johnny hasn’t spoken to his sister Viv (Gaby Hoffman) since their mother’s death a year earlier. To deal with the grief, he has been burying himself in work, but he steps up to look after Viv’s son when her husband becomes ill. As it turns out, taking care of a child turns out to be harder than he once thought.

His job as a radio producer takes him to cities across America to interview children about the big questions of life. They are mostly real kids talking about their real lives. This lends the film one of its strongest tools: the authentic voices of young people. It uses them to set a tone of loneliness, frustration and hope.

Mills' highlights that the line parents tread between dealing with kids that are acting up and kids that are simply misunderstood is a fine one. Through the phenomenal acting of the young Woody Norman, the film sustains a vivid raw feeling of dealing with loving a little person with all your heart, but just wishing you could glue them to a chair sometimes. One of the few darkly comedic moments has Viv entertaining Jesse’s unusual night time stories about being an orphan who is meeting a parent for the first time whose children have all died. Johnny is on a crash course of what being a mother entails; dealing with Jesse disappearing in crowds and getting hyper after too much ice cream before bed. The film stresses that there is a cheapness to Johnny’s invasion of privacy. Ultimately, he can always turn around and leave. This raises questions about what responsibility journalists like him, and by extension the filmmakers, hold when they take the voices and experiences of others for their own enrichment and profit.

The children’s authenticity occasionally butts heads with the more contrived elements of the film. When Johnny sits down to read a lofty essay on motherhood or the responsibility of wielding a camera, its title flashes up pointedly across the screen. These ideas make for an interesting addition, but the concept can stray into self-consciousness.

With its black and white colouring and polished storyline, Mills is clearly aiming to join the canon of cinephile classics. He’s achieved a deeply evocative film that does best when it shrugs off its seriousness and embraces the voices of real children who provide a rich foundation for the film. C’mon, C’mon is ultimately a story of carrying on when things get tough and finding an emotionally intelligent way to express what comes up as a result. Maybe the real answer is making the time to listen.

A B

Annette Review

By Luke Bradley From minute one, thanks to an electrically-meta opening musical number (‘So May We Start?’)

Annette (Leos Carax, 2021) has you hooked. Whether or not you’re along for the ride becomes clear quickly, but it's nonetheless a testament to the film. Every sequence, every song is charged with a wildly unique blend of emotion, passion, and zaniness. It’s rare to be able to say that a film is unlike any you’ve ever seen before; it’s even rarer for that to be a positive note.

The brainchild of the Mael Brothers - members of the legendary pop group, Sparks – Annette is the love story of Ann (Marion Cotillard) and Henry (Adam Driver). Both are on their own personal journeys and career trajectories as they welcome their child, the eponymous Annette.

As with every musical, virtually every word uttered throughout the film is sung, and – considering the two-plus hour runtime – you’d think that you would feel the length. That’s perhaps this film’s greatest achievement: not once during this film did I feel its runtime. The film doesn’t give you a chance, and I mean that in the best possible way. Every aspect of this film is wacky, hilarious, and shocking all at the same time, and I was along for every minute of the ride.

Driver and Cotillard are both exceptionally good, rising to the challenge of brilliantly daft screenplay with mesmerising results. Their relationship serves as the heart and soul of the film, and every mad twist and turn they take is conveyed thrillingly. The film’s editing is equally as erratic, yet once again I was completely in love with it. Director Carax demonstrates an aweinspiring harmony with Sparks’ writing. Annette exemplifies the definition of a ‘winning formula’, and one that definitely just shouldn’t work. If you’re familiar with Sparks (I wasn’t until I watched Edgar Wright’s fantastic The Sparks Brothers documentary, also in cinemas now), then you’ll know their style of music: energetic, snappy, and unapologetically eccentric. One wouldn’t think they’d be an appropriate pair to write the music for a satire filled with operatic love songs, but it just works.

This is undoubtedly a polarising film - fiercely mixed reactions emerged from its premiere at Cannes in July (where Carax won Best Director). Not everyone reading this review will like the film – in fact, I’d wager some of you will hate it. It really is love or hate. It asks huge leaps from the viewer, and spends no time holding your hand as it tears through its bonkers narrative at breakneck pace. But I wouldn’t have the film any other way.

You haven’t seen a film like it, and you probably never will again – that’s an intimidating notion. If you don’t take to its style and story right out the gate, then you’re in for a rough time.

But if you go in ready for a wild ride – and this film is so, so wild – then you’ll have a blast. If, like me, you’re playing the original soundtrack on repeat afterwards, then the film has undoubtedly done its job.

Best Episodes

Our editors take their pick on what are some of the best episodes of television today…

Mia’s Picks It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: ‘McPoyle vs. Ponderosa: The Trial of The Century’ Bird law, Guillermo Del Toro, perfectly normal sized human hands and enough unibrows to rival Frida Khalo, ‘McPoyle vs Ponderosa’ is It’s Always Sunny at its absolute best.

Chernobyl: ‘Vichnaya Pamyat’ Roughly translating to ‘memory eternal’, the finale of the limited series is a masterful tribute to the lives lost in the Chernobyl disaster and all those who tried to prevent such a tragedy ever happening again. With powerhouse performances from Jared Harris, Emily Watson and Stellan Skarsgård, ‘Vichnaya Pamyat’ is a lesson in showstopping finales.

Seamus’s Picks Vikings: ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ Vikings follows the life and exploits of Ragnar Lothbrook, a semi-legendary 8th century Scandinavian ruler. ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ is Vikings at its best - a House of Cards-esque finale to season two complete with the gritty action and etherial quality which will keep you coming back to this excellent series.

The Office(US): ‘Dwight’s Speech’ There are many supporters and detractors of The Office(US). As a shameless office acolyte, I can point to this episode as an example of both superb writing and execution in this much discussed American program. It accomplishes something close to sitcom perfection within the 22 minutes of its economically trimmed run time.

Luke’s Picks The West Wing: ‘Two Cathedrals’ The perfect blending of high-stakes politics and heart-wrenching character drama. Featuring perhaps Martin Sheen’s greatest piece of acting, it’s a textbook example in leaving the viewer entirely fulfilled by a cliffhanger season finale.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: ‘The Box’ A bottle episode that gives Breaking Bad’s ‘The Fly’ a run for its money, this is Brooklyn Nine-Nine boiled down to its absolute best: Jake and Holt’s dynamic, both as detectives and as ‘father/son’ figures to each other. Featuring a stellar Sterling K. Brown performance, this episode is as funny as it is thrilling - and it’s the show’s finest hour.

Katie’s Picks Mad Men: ‘The Suitcase’ ‘The Suitcase’ is all the best parts of Mad Men distilled into 40 minutes. Featuring one of the show’s best lines. Led by phenomenal performances by Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss, ‘The Suitcase’ is a perfect balance of humour and emotion. Mad Men is about flawed people trying to make connections, and in this episode we watch it in real time.

Patrick Melrose: ‘Bad News’ Patrick Melrose starts with a bang in this electric pilot. Set over the course of roughly 24 hours in New York, ‘Bad News’ establishes all the characters and themes of the show perfectly while also being laugh out loud funny.

Thank you for reading TFR’s first ever TV Issue.

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