Pete Messum Reviews...

I count down my top 5 movies of 2015. This video is for critical and entertainment purposes only. All copyright belongs to the rightful owners. No profit is made from the production of this video or any others.

Hmmm. That was good. So, this week's Agents of SHIELD saw the return of Grant Ward, now the new head of Hydra. I can't deny that actor Brett Dalton seems to be loving and savoring every second of screen time, and while he makes for a great villain, I'm pretty bored of the whole Hydra thing. Maybe if the show hadn't handled them so badly last season, I could invest in a former friend turned nemesis now being head of SHIELD's evil counterpart, but for now I'll wait to see where that goes. I'm not sure who said "let's have Baron von Strucker's son in this" but maybe it'll go somewhere interesting... Meanwhile, we had Hunter trying to convince an in-hiding May to join him on a hunt for Ward, which gave us some time to look into May as a character. Nothing particularly earth-shattering was learned, but it actually helped to make her seem more like a three-dimensional character. The main focus of the episode was the team's efforts to...

***SPOILER-FREE*** There has been an awakening...I finally made this review. Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015). Starring: Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, with Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac. Director: JJ Abrams. Plot: 30 years after the defeat of the Empire, the First Order has risen from the ashes. Now facing the Resistance, Kylo Ren must locate a small BB-8 droid before Poe Dameron can get it to Princess Leia... Star Wars: The Force Awakens belongs to Lucasfilm Ltd. and Walt Disney Pictures. Music is by Kevin Macleod and is royalty free. This video is for critical and entertainment purposes only. All copyright belongs to the rightful owners. No profit is made from the production of this video or any others.

I suspect any long-time readers of this blog (if there are any, but if you are one, dear ready - thank you for putting up with my ramblings!) will know that I wasn't fond of Agents of SHIELD: season 2. Despite giving almost every episode a "good" rating, as a whole season, it really didn't work for me. The cast I was just beginning to grow attached to was added to with bland new supporting characters, the small team idea of the first season was scratched, entire characters were re-written and plot lines just hung around loosely. For a show that began with the tagline "not all heroes are super", its fantastic to see that Season 3 goes completely against that by 180 degrees and instead decides to be set-up for a future Inhumans movie (which no doubt will retcon/ignore this show) with Skye now being Daisy Johnson and the inclusion of an increasingly large Inhuman cast. Luke Mitchell, who was a supporting actor last season and lead in The CW's incredibly ...

Doctor Who: Aliens of London / World War Three (2005). By Russell T Davies. Starring Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper. Plot: When an alien spaceship crash lands in the Thames, The Doctor and Rose find themselves trapped in 10 Downing Street with a family of aliens after them...

 So, for 2016 I'm going to be beginning a new review series of weekly videos, ranging from full reviews to editorials on films, audio and television programs. Last week I began this new series with my review of the Doctor Who 2015 Christmas Special, The Husbands of River Song, which you can now watch on YouTube (a link to which can be found on the video post). I'll be honest, the review was a bit of a chore to get recorded, but it was nice to be able to just sit back and chat about the episode without a script or lots of editing to worry about. It's probably not my best review, but I'm pleased with the result. This week, I'm going to be releasing my review of Doctor Who series 1 episodes 4 and 5, Aliens of London and World War Three, the final review in my Ninth Doctor series of reviews that started back in 2013. Given that the marathon reviews with the series didn't quite work, especially with the reviews not being released in chronological order, I doubt...

Well, glad I didn't go and see it at the cinema. So, Sherlock is back for a one-off special two years after the slightly underwhelming but ultimately enjoyable third series. Steven Moffat promised us a one-off Victorian-set episode that acts as a completely standalone episode. Fair enough. So, as the episode starts, why is their a 'so far on Sherlock' previously montage (and not a very good one at that)? Well, I guess it sets up a new continuity with the 'or, alternatively...', but...was it really needed? The Abominable Bride starts off with a flashback to when Dr John Watson and Sherlock Holmes first met, recreating the familiar scene from A Study In Pink in Victorian fashion. There's something slightly off about it though... As the brand new title sequence brings us a new rendition of the theme tune and some clever teases for later in the episode, it would seem that this will be a unique, special episode in Sherlock. As the episode continues, we're gu...