Pete Messum Reviews...

' Inescapable ' might just be the best episode so far in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s sixth season, centring entirely around Fitz and Simmons as they find themselves trapped inside a Chronicom mind prison, and have to face their fears together. Whilst the meta aspects of ' Inescapable ''s trippy, mind-bending dream sequences may seem obvious - Fitz is haunted by his potential for evil, Simmons is haunted by the fears and anxieties she'd locked away in her music box - they do serve to give the episode stakes. The characters' inner demons are given physical form to pursue them through the maze of their own shared dreams, which helps to keep up the pace when things seem to be getting a little too slow. Once everything is all resolved and FitzSimmons are back together as a unit though, so are their demons - in a rather humorous end to the episode. It's probably worth mentioning that Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstringe are both fantastic through...

After the baffling tonal inconsistencies of ' Code Yellow ', Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. attempts to get back on track with ' The Other Thing ' - an episode that feels like it's simply there to set things up for later. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. abandoned its villain-of-the-week format a long time ago, but it still feels somewhat dissatisfying when episodes feel like smaller pieces in a larger puzzle. It's as though the show is being produced for a streaming audience, bingeing the entire season in one go, as opposed to working as week-to-week entertainment. It's also at this point that I really started to feel the length of this season - and we're only five episodes in. I had thought that a shorter, thirteen-episode season would benefit the show, and while it might in the long run, I don't think that the story has gone very far in five episodes. May has been captured by Sarge and his accomplice (whose name escapes me, but she keeps mentioni...

When did Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. become DC's Legends of Tomorrow? ' Code Yellow ' starts off with Deke having reinvented himself in 2019 as the head of a tech/games company, with a girlfriend (played by Executive Producer Maurissa Trancheon) and a revolutionary new system called "The Framework". Sound familiar? Oh, and obviously the episode opens with a cheesy action sequence of Deke fighting some aliens in a corridor and then seducing Daisy in a fake-out dream/game sequence so obvious that for me at least, the episode started on the wrong foot. With this and the previous episode, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seems to be trying to embrace a more humorous approach, with a style of meta-humour similar to that of DC's Legends of Tomorrow. Deke's look towards the camera in the pre-titles sting was a bit too on-the-nose for me, especially given how grounded Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has tried to be for so long. If the show wants to head into a new direc...

The Three Doctors. The terrible Drashigs. The final story with Roger Delgado's Master. The return of the dreaded Daleks. And the departure of beloved companion Jo Grant. Doctor Who's tenth season packs a lot into five serials and twenty-six episodes, and thanks to the new Blu-ray Collection, we can now revisit the stories remastered in HD. The season opens with the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), Jo Grant (Katy Manning) and their U.N.I.T family investigating a mysterious black hole that threatens the entire Universe. Realising the catastrophic threat it poses, the Time Lords send Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor and William Hartnell's First to help out, giving us ' The Three Doctors '. Or, more accurately, the Two-and-a-half Doctors, as Hartnell barely appears in the serial due to bad health. Troughton and Pertwee are a wonderful double-act, and the story's villain Omega is a great antagonist, but despite solid build-up, the story never goes anywhere. The ...

' Spider-Man: Far From Home ' is the twenty-third film in the Marvel Studios Cinematic Universe, the concluding chapter in their third phase of films, the fifth film to feature Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, and the second installment of this third live-action film iteration of the character. In short: ' Far From Home ' is a sequel to ' Spider-Man: Homecoming ' and a direct follow-up to ' Avengers: Endgame ', meaning that if you are one of the (apparently few) people who didn't see ' Endgame ' (and statistically speaking you probably did, as it made a colossal $2.7 billion worldwide), ' Far From Home ' will spoil almost all of the major twists in that film - and so will this review, so be warned. With Planet Earth saved after the Universe-shaking events of ' Avengers: Endgame ', everyone is still trying to adjust to the five years that technically never were. Those "snapped" by Thanos are back living t...

In an era of shared-universe mega-franchises, it's difficult not to distinguish the finished film ' Dracula Untold ' from it's clear cynical, money-grabbing ambitions. Universal once had a success franchise with their Universal Monster movies, including ' Dracula ', ' Frankenstein ', ' Creature from the Black Lagoon ' and more, and in a post-Marvel Studios era, they want to try again - properly this time. Everything is connected, and one day Dracula will team-up with the Wolf-Man and Frankenstein to fight the Mummy. But not today. ' Dracula Untold ' was released in 2014, and was set to start what was later dubbed as the "Dark Universe". Despite making a fair $217 million against its $70 million budget, the franchise was rebooted in 2017 with ' The Mummy ', a $190/345 million flop that turned in $407 million, but not any profit for the studio. Alas, neither started the Dark Universe that Universal had been hoping for,...

With Doctor Who: The Collection - Season 10 set to be released on Blu-ray next month, the BFI screened the newly-remastered edition of ' Planet of the Daleks ' on Saturday, complete with restored picture quality, brand-new CGI effects work and 5.1 surround sound mix by Mark Ayres. Starring Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Katy Manning as Jo Grant, this serial was part of Doctor Who's anniversary season, and saw the return of Dalek creator Terry Nation to pen all six episodes. This serial also acts as a direct follow-up to ' Frontier in Space ', forming what was intended to be a twelve-episode epic, akin to Nation's own ' The Daleks' Master Plan ' in 1965. The story sees Jo Grant helping a wounded Doctor back to the TARDIS. They escape the Ogron Planet, and the TARDIS materialises on Spiridon - a jungle planet home to the invisible Spiridons. As Jo journeys through the jungle to find help, the Doctor encounters the Thals - inhabitants of ...