Pete Messum Reviews...

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR EPISODE FIVE! Episode 5 of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD is an episode that backtracks on a few things, particularly on Skye's role and on Centipede, which have only been very lightly hinted at in previous episodes. This story comes right out and explains why Skye joined SHIELD. It's not evil at all, and is for personal reasons, so when you watch the episode a second time round it becomes apparent why she's so keen to be in SHIELD: she wants to find out who she is. This is a very human and generally unpredictable revelation, although its a pity that guest character Myles is so boring compared to her. He literally adds nothing on screen and its almost as if Chloe Bennet is having an argument with a brick wall trying to learn English. There's no heart to his character, nothing human, which makes him seem like an utter over-confident moron. While some characters may not seem so human at first, they have developed and their reasons are at least hinted

The penultimate episode to the 2005 series of Doctor Who sees The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston), Rose (Billie Piper) and Cpt. Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) return to Satellite Five, where no longer are there any news broadcasts but game shows instead to keep the population of Earth entertained as they have no access to the news after The Doctor shut the system down 100 years before in the previous episode “The Long Game”, in which the TARDIS team end up killing the Jagrafess and the Editor. However, as the Controller of Satellite Five says, there are ‘masters’ who are in charge of the games that nobody knows about – and when you lose or get evicted from a game, you will actually die. This is a great premise for the story, and although it is out of date eight years later, as there is no more “The Weakest Link” and “Big Brother” is less popular and still just as awful as it was when it was created. The same goes for the makeover programme that Cpt. Jack enters, although the actors and

So, the series continues this week in a bit of a spy thriller, with Coulson and co. tracking down ex-agent Akela, who is being controlled by a mysterious force. Essentially, this episode is all about trust, as the team must trust Coulson's judgement of Akela, and Akela's lack of trust got her into this mess in the first place. The episode keeps the tension up and continues to add more intriguing themes, such as who was controlling the Englishman and Akela? Somehow I think it has something to do with Centipede from the Pilot episode, but we'll have to wait and see. Also, what is up with Coulson? Akela seemed to notice there was something wrong, but what is wrong exactly? I do hope these questions are answered by the end of the series and aren't plaguing possible future series and Marvel films. I also thought that the episode showed that this series isn't a kid's show, or a family show, with severed hands and...eyes. Overall a very good episode and I look forward

So, Agents of SHIELD continues with its 22-part epic in "The Asset", as Dr Franklin Hall is 'kidnapped' by Ian Quinn to help his research on Gravitonium. This episode begins to utilise the characters to their actual abilities, using Skye's unreliability to keep the tension going when Ian Quinn finds her at the party, Agent Ward's hard-man attitude and past as a plot point and Agent Fitz's technological abilities and general awkwardness to add some humour and character to the episode. Fitz is growing on me as a character, and Simmons isn't as annoying this episode as she was previously, and Agent May's reluctance to fight is slowly beaten by Coulson's manipulation, which makes the audience compare Coulson to Nick Fury in that sense. Skye and Ward finally get to explain their background and Fitz and Simmons' background is losely hinted at, although Agent May still remains a secretive character. The subtle use of an origin story for Gravitron

After a very promising start to the series, the second episode of Agents of SHIELD continues an interesting look into the shady company from The Avengers films. This episode has a little look into Coulson's early career when he meets an old friend in Peru, where the team discover Tesseract technology. However, it seems that Coulson's friends are now their enemies as they try to take the Tesseract weapon from SHIELD. The episode does a really good job of following on from the pilot, and themes are continued, but in a way that doesn't ruin the story at all, and provides more fleshing out for the characters. The arguments show how different the characters are, but Agents Fitz and Simmons aren't as interesting or likeable as Skye, Coulson and Ward, making them the losers if fans take sides. The reveal is almost predictable, but Coulson works it out at the same pace as the audience, so Coulson doesn't come across as too intelligent or stupid but as equal intelligence to

The opening episode of Atlantis was a big disappointment considering it was made by the same people as Merlin, and although Episodes 2 and 3 aren't brilliant, they're still much more watchable. Episode 2 followed Jason's quest for an old man's daughter, which led to him meeting Medusa. The production values for the episode weren't that great though, as the CGI monkey/Gollum things looked pretty awful considering the budget for this series. The story also felt a bit useless, as it only introduced Medusa, and bogged down the series with more story arcs such as Jason's curse. The episode was fairly scary if you're a young child though. Jason is still a bit boring as a character though, and it is Pythagoras who is the most compelling character. 6/10 Episode 3 followed a simpler story with Jason and co. sent to the bulls for 'offending' the Queen's nephew, despite Areadne's best intentions. It is still similar to Merlin though, with Areadne as

SKYFALL is the 23rd Bond film of the franchise and celebrates its 50th Anniversary with Sam Mendes directing a specially-made film for the Anniversary. To cut straight to the point, SKYFALL is brilliant. Although there are plot elements that don't make complete sense, its not a flaw as such. What's here is really good, and these flaws can't be easily avoided if you want to have an action film with an actually interesting plot other than bad guys fighting good guys. Daniel Craig is really good as Bond and manages to capture some interesting aspects of the character, and going back to Skyfall and meeting Kincade is such an unpredictable and fascinating aspect of the film that it holds your attention span for the next half hour of the movie. Judi Dench is great as M, Ben Whishaw is good as Q, Rory Kinnear does a great but underrated performance as Tanner, Albert Finney has a charming presence as Kincade and Ralph Fiennes manages to get an interesting character through Mallory