The Bourne Legacy (2012; Tony Gilroy)

I'd read the reviews so expectations were low but - wow, what a loser of a film.

I've loved your earlier work, Mr Gilroy but this one - pssht, let's pretend another Tony Gilroy cobbled this together.

The Sweeney (2012; Nick Love / Love & John Hodge)

Ahh what a load of 1970s throwback bollocks.  A great cast with Ray Winstone, Hayley Atwell, Damian Lewis and Steven Mackintosh, though.  But seriously:  have the filmmakers not seen any film and/or television crime stories in the last thirty fuckin' years?  What do they take the viewing audiences for?

Morons?

Fuckin' hell.

Vegas S01E06-07

This show is beginning to spin off into moral territories that very few broadcast shows like to go.  Broadcast shows are that:  broad.  As in without nuance, as in lowest common denominator.

Creators Nicholas Pileggi and Greg Walker have been devious sons-a-bitches in giving us a McCloud knock-off in this post-Longmire and -Justified procedural telly landscape and sneaking in some moral fucking ambiguity.

Seriously, bitches:  WTF?

Yes, I teared up at the end of the last ep because for all of Savino's (Chiklis) hustle and bluff, he loves his wife.  And was it the previous ep or the one before where that was that unsubtle reveal of why Lamb (Quaid) just won't let his brother cut down a tree on the ranch - he loves his wife, too, the old coot.

Vegas is the shizz.

Last Resort Cancelled

Oh fuck.

The Walking Dead S03E06-07

If this show suffers from too much of a good thing, it's pacing:  ep x, we'll learn this-little-piggy-went-to-market; in ep y, we'll blow some nasty-ass TV CGI up and we'll learn that this-little-piggy-stayed-home; and so on.  It's so fucking measured.

Maybe it's just a part of the whole zombie canon:  seemingly interminable suspension, consistent ignorance/idiocy as to the lethality of the plague, action that is driven not by logic - or a love for life - but by the next ad break or upcoming ep.  What the comic does so well is that - tragic lapses of attention aside - our heroes learn shit.  I hear that's fucking called character development or some shit.

I suspect a lot of my bitching and whining in this post is informed by another motherfucking AMC mid-season break - after next week's ep, it's who-the-fuck-knows how long until we get to the end of this - let's be honest, pedestrian - zombie show.

And bitch and whine as I will, I'll still waste precious bandwidth on this fucking show.  Why?  Because it's diverting a little from the comic.  Although, seriously, I could do without the goddamned grief.

The Hour S02E01 (BBC, 2011-)

The gang's all back.

A bit slow to begin with.  It's been so long - so it seems - since its maiden season that I'd completely forgotten what happened in the previous season.  The ep only really seemed to pick up with the return of crusading investigative journalist Freddie Lyon (Ben Whishaw) after his big O.E.

I should've written this sooner after watching the ep so I can only offer the following thoughts:

• Was news producer Bel Rowley (Romola Garai) such a weak sister last season?
• I kept waiting for new Head of News Randall Brown (The Thick of It's Peter Capaldi) to say colourfully offensive and bawdy dialogue (alas, shit out of luck in this ep);
• And the ep seemed a bit filled up, if you know what I mean - flaccid and unhurried.

Still.  Nice to have a classy sub-Mad Men show to watch until Dick Whitman and friends return in the new year.

The Walking Dead S03E05

Two thoughts watching this ep.

I spent the first half of this ep screaming Ditch the fucking bitch! at the groan-inducing leave/don't-leave bullshit between Andrea and Michonne.  I'm like, Save this shit for Revolution or TRON Uprising, for pete's sake.

Second thought is during the baby-formula-run and Maggie sneaks into a daycare centre, scans the room she's entered, then goes straight into a cupboard.  I mean, FUCKING EXCUSE ME but after however long of surviving in this godforsaken fictional world, wouldn't SECURING THE FUCKING BUILDING be a logical first step in an unfamiliar environment?

FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

Vegas S01E05

Took four eps under the belt - and possibly the appearance of Dewey Crowe - for this series to goddamned sing.  Almost made me want to revisit Casino but I don't think my heart (and/or stomach) could take it again.

It's a bit constrained by its procedural element but Dennis Quaid's stubborn cussedness and Michael Chiklis best-intentioned two-facedness are proving a great hook.

Carrie Ann Moss - who turned up more in this ep - still needs something to do.  Writer dudes?  Hello?

Roll on the rest of season 1.

The Walking Dead S03E01-03

Season 2 was a steaming pile of shit.  It was boring.  It dragged.  It didn't have Frank Darabont at the helm.  I watched the first few eps with a growing sense of dissatisfaction.  I can't remember which ep I pressed 'Stop' part way through.  I jumped to the end of the season, in time for the farm break-out and I was like, Yeah, whatever.

Watching season 3 was motivated largely by the comic - the prison saga, in comic form at least, is fucking awesome - and so, like a dog going back to its vomit, I'm three eps and it... shows promise.

Nothing like the first season.  But it... has potential.  To be entertaining.

Arrow S01E04

This ep wins the prize for most awkwardly written and delivered dialogue so far.

Was there a writers room prize for biggest wordcount?

And was the legal consultant in Tahiti or something?

But like a crack whore, I'm gonna get the next ep.  Either to make sure the slide has begun finally/already or to be there when it gets back on track.