Whovian Sean's World of TV

 Whovian TV: 31/07/2021 Another seven days has once again left us, and so it's time to take a look once again at the week ahead. So grab your virtual TV Guide and switch on your television set, as we look at the TV due to air in the coming days... Saturday 31st July: 18:00 - Take-Off With Bradley and Holly (BBC1) 19:30 - Rollin' In It (ITV) 20:30 - Michael McIntyre's The Wheel (BBC) 21:30 - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (ITV+1) 22:30 - The Void (ITV Hub) Sunday 1st August: 21:00  - Professor T (ITV) Monday 2nd August: 19:30 - Coronation Street 20:00 - Whose Line Is It Anyway? USA (UKTV Play) 20:30 - Coronation Street 21:00 - Batwoman, Season 2 Episode Fifteen ' Armed and Dangerous '  (All4) 22:02 - Gino's Win Your Wish List: The Big Win (My5) Tuesday 3rd August:  20:00 - Bates Motel, Season 5 Episode Seven ' Inseparable ' (BBC iPlayer) 21:00 - Cooking With The Stars (ITV) 22:00 - Countdown (All4) Wednesday 4th August: 19:30 - Coronation Street (ITV) 20...

 REVIEW: The Grand Tour, Series 4 Episode Three 'Lochdown' In the midst of a global pandemic, it's inevitable that a globe-trotting series like The Grand Tour is going to be affected. Clarkson, Hammond and May have been traversing all across the world in all manners of cars since their Top Gear days, but something of that manner is just not feasible right now, in these current times. Shows like this must adapt if they are going to survive. Fortunately adapt is exactly what this show does, as the trio stay local with an adventure in American cars around Scotland. The traditional lad's banter of the three presenters remains, meaning it feels very much like business as usual, as they joke about how Clarkson's car looks like it's talking, and leave each other behind whenever their colleague's car breaks down. Nothing feels like it has changed, despite a less exotic setting than normal. The cars certainly seemed to struggle driving around some of the tighter and...

 REVIEW: Bates Motel, Season Five Episode Six 'Marion' With a prequel series like Bates Motel, it's inevitable that eventually it will catch up to the events of the previous film.  The previous episode saw Marion Crane (Rihanna) finally set off for the iconic motel, hinting at an episode which would cover events from the original for a new audience. This is exactly what we get with the sixth episode, entitled 'Marion', which as the title suggests features the iconic Psycho character prominently throughout. What's interesting about this interpretation is that we get to see more from Norman (Freddie Highmore) and 'Mother''s (Vera Farmiga) perspective, whereas the original film's first twenty minutes are largely told from Marion's point of view. That means we get to dive deeper here into the internal thought processes of the iconic psychopath, and get a greater insight into the way that Norman views Marion and her world. We learn more about the ...

 REVIEW: Batwoman, Season 2 Episode Fourteen 'And Justice For All' With the crazy number of projects involving the walking dead over the years, there's something audiences clearly find appealing about zombie stories. These kind of narratives are found everywhere across film and television, from family sci-fi dramas such as Doctor Who to horror films such as Army Of The Dead . Even the MCU is getting in on the act, with an episode of the upcoming animated series What If . It's perhaps no surprise then that Batwoman decided to devote an entire episode to a zombie apocalypse. It's not the most bizarre event to befall Gotham, after all. This is the city that only an episode ago saw a crazed former quiz show host try to kill his own daughter for being able to solve his riddles, for instance. These zombie scenes are fantastically shot and directed here though; they really convey the brutal cannibalism of it, and how this behaviour removes all traces of humanity. I kind of...

 REVIEW: Bates Motel, Season 5 Episode Five 'Dreams Die First' One of the most iconic aspects of the original Psycho is the dual personality of Norman (Freddie Highmore) and 'Mother' (Vera Farmiga). Norman's twisted psychology often sees him adopt the identity of his dead Mum in order to commit his grisly murders. It's one of the elements the original Pyscho  is best remembered for, and so it's interesting when an episode of this show decides to explore what Norman is like when you *remove* this aspect. The answer, it seems, is that Norman without 'Mother' is totally lost. As he runs around the motel calling for her to appear, and rings bars asking if they have seen a 'friend' called 'Norma', it's clear that he's clueless without visions of his mother appearing to him. 'Mother' is as much a part of Norman as his true identity is, so remove one aspect and you are effectively left with the missing piece of a puzzle. It...

 REVIEW; Doctor Who, Season 23 Serial Four 'The Ultimate Foe' The classic series of Doctor Who didn't really deal with series finales. Bar maybe The Key To Time, the last serial of a classic series season would instead tend to be a standalone adventure, wrapping up its own individual plot rather than an entire over-arching narrative. It's a style that proved to work well time and time again for the classic series, and so it's no surprise that they largely maintained this approach. 'The Ultimate Foe' is a different beast. It follows the line of thinking we have seen more with the new series, acting as a conclusion to the Trial Of A Time Lord arc rather than just another Doctor Who adventure. It's an approach that works significantly well for it, as it plays more with the format of the courtroom proceedings, finally giving us witnesses from the Doctor's previous stories this season. We get o see Glitz (Tony Selby) again, and we're reunited with Mel...

 Whovian TV: 24/07/2021 It's really hard to believe, but we've once again said goodbye to another week at Whovian TV. Time is truly going fast, as we go into the next seven days with an ever-changing television schedule. So without further ado, let's take a look at what we have to look forward to in the world of television during the coming days... Saturday 24th July: 18:00 - Take-Off With Bradley and Holly (BBC1) 19:00 - Rollin' In It (ITV) 20:30 - Michael McIntyre's The Wheel (BBC) 21:35 - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (ITV Hub) Sunday 25th July: 20:00 - Doctor Who, Season 23 Serial Four 'The Ultimate Foe' (Britbox) 21:00  - Professor T (ITV) 22:00 - The Void (ITV Hub) Monday 26th July: 19:30 - Coronation Street 20:00 - Whose Line Is It Anyway? USA (UKTV Play) 20:30 - Coronation Street 21:00 - Batwoman, Season 2 Episode Fourteen 'And Justice For All'  (All4) 22:02 - Gino's Win Your Wish List: The Big Win (My5) Tuesday 27th July:  20:15 - Bates ...

 REVIEW: Marvel's Assembled, Season 1 Episode Three 'The Making Of Loki' To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Loki became a pretty massive hit this Summer. He's a character who has developed quite a following, with many displaying a deep interest in the character. Loki was always going to be a major success story for Marvel Studios, and a fairly obvious choice to base a television series around.  It's this simple fact that makes it such an inspired creative decision to have Tom Hiddleston as the narrator for the 'Making Of'. Without Tom Hiddleston's charismatic portrayal of the God Of Mischief, there's a very real possibility that the show wouldn't have been as successful. He adds a lot to the character and is a significant reason behind Loki's popularity; using him as the narrator imbues this documentary with an identity, giving it a personal touch that would be otherwise missing had they opted not to have Tom Hiddleston contribute in this ...

REVIEW: Clarkson's Farm, Series 1 Episode Six 'Melting'  With the continued pandemic which has maintained an iron grip over the world, it's easy to forget just how warm it was in March 2020, when we were in the first lockdown. It was the hottest UK spring on record, with temperatures more akin to the kind of weather you get in the Summer. Every one of us will have commented on the heatwave at some point during that time, but many of us tend to forget how challenging this must have proven for farmers. We are shown in full force just how hard this was for farmers here, however, as Clarkson faces the stark reality of his crops not getting enough water. It's a shame too, because his idea to grow pumpkins for Halloween seems like quite a sensible one. Halloween is becoming increasingly more popular in this country all the time. It's as though he's been dealt extraordinary bad luck with his farming venture, with many obstacles he has managed to face, but it makes...

 REVIEW: Bates Motel, Series 5 Episode Four 'Hidden' The previous episode ended with two surprising narrative twists. First there was Caleb's death, as Chick (Ryan Hurst) accidentally ran him over on the way to the motel. And then there was Sheriff Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell), accidentally shot in the stomach by a scared child. Both left things rather uncertain in the world of Bates Motel, with a dead body to be deposed of and a man whose story hadn't finished in a potentially fatal situation. The first of these sees Chick agree to get rid of the body, and he does so in style. He gives Caleb a funeral pyre, which is definitely more than he deserved. These scenes are beautifully shot, with a vibrancy to proceedings which allows the cinematography to come to life. Bates Motel cover-ups have never looked this good. Less successful is the resolution to Alex Romero's predicament. Somehow he's able to run through a forest and find a telephone box to call for he...

 REVIEW: Innocent, Series 2 Episode Three If there's any common theme present throughout Innocent's second series, it's that people aren't exactly who they seem. Matthew's supposed Dad John (Andrew Tiernan) isn't actually his Dad, the seemingly quiet Anna Stamp (Ellie Rawnsley) actually a stirrer, and - as per the main point of the series - Sally (Katherine Kelly) didn't actually kill Matthew. In the world of Innocent, there are twists to the expected, and nothing should be treated as gospel. The truth is always waiting to come out. Which seems to be the big driving force between Sally and Sam's (Jamie Bamber) romance. Sam is currently engaged to new partner Karen (Priyanga Burford), but he clearly still possesses feelings for Sally. It's no surprise that they rekindle those feelings by the end of the episode, but it works as a triumphant moment. We want to see these two reunite. We're rooting for them because they are made for each other. Sam...

 REVIEW: Bates Motel, Season Five Episode Three 'Bad Blood' Norman (Freddie Highmore) is in a weird stage of his life.  By this point he is essentially fulfilling the identity of two separate individuals in full; himself, and his mother Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga). In previous seasons, we had seen him act as 'Mother' before, but it's by this point that he has fully embraced it, to the point of even sticking on a wig to greater mimic his Mum's appearance. He's a hybrid of two separate personalities, a proper psycho. It's fitting then that his current target should be Caleb (Kenny Johnson), Norma's brother who raped her as a child. Caleb obviously had such a strong and dark connection to Norman's late Mum, so seeing him chained up in the basement after reaching the motel in the previous episode makes this complete transition of Norman's into 'Mother' feel even more complete. It means he's dealing with her problems rather than simply ...