ScreenScribe

The Politician | Netflix, from Friday ☆☆☆☆ “Glee creators Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan return to high school for a Netflix comedy starring Ben Platt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jessica Lange that fails to deliver any real satirical spark … Messy though it is, The Politician isn’t a hard show to watch.” — The Hollywood […]

Rise | Lightbox, from Wednesday ➢ “Rise is a season-long backstage drama about a high school production of the musical Spring Awakening. That it is inspired by a work of nonfiction – Michael Sokolove’s Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town, and the Magic of Theater – does not […]

9-1-1 | Three, 9.05 Monday ➢ “A series about 911 responders comes with built-in advantages in the drama department. Even so, there’s no missing the exceptional depth of detail, the emotional range and enterprise that undergird standard events—trying, for instance, to breathe life back into a swimmer knocked unconscious—and make them affecting.” — Wall Street […]

The Get Down (Netflix, from today) “Baz Luhrmann, the movie director, has brought to Netflix his first television series, and — like his baroque takes on Romeo and Juliet and The Great Gatsby and his pop-musical rewrite of La Traviata, Moulin Rouge — it is a thing by turns, and even simultaneously, ridiculous and sublime, romantic and […]

On the eve of their latest seasons going to air, Homeland and Glee can be taken home this week on Blu-ray – along with Birdsong, an outstanding BBC drama that’s yet to screen here. “Homeland is captured on the Arri Alexa with Zeiss Ultra Prime and Angenieux Optimo Lenses in high definition. “It has a […]

Glee is the latest HD show to wind up in SD on Four. After three seasons on TV3, the high school musical-drama is switching channels. The good news for fans is season four will screen within a week of its US broadcast; the bad news is MediaWorks doesn’t plan to upgrade Four to HD in […]

Season Finale: Glee (TV3, 7.30, 5.1, F) Graduation is finally here, as McKinley High’s class of 2012 looks to the past and present while contemplating the future. “It turned out to be a solid, at times fantastic, season-closer where some of Glee’s general weaknesses turned out to be strengths,” Time magazine said. But Rolling Stone thought otherwise: “With a […]

Series Premiere: Vera (TV One, 8.30) When a young boy is found murdered in his bath, surrounded by flowers, DCI Vera Stanhope is called in to investigate and soon is on the trail of a serial killer. “Brenda Blethyn played a shambolic middle-aged woman with a perpetually puzzled expression. She also happened to be a Chief Inspector […]

Season Premiere: Supernatural (TV2, 10.35, 5.1) Assuming his new role as God, Castiel sets out to right some of the wrongs in the world; Dean decides to bind Death in order to stop him. According to website 28 Days Later, “Supernatural’s season seven premiere is looking promising as long as the series’ writers know where to focus the tale. […]

Network Premiere: Endeavour (TV One, 8.30) A young Detective Inspector Morse plans to leave the force, only to be pulled back in to work on the case that changed everything. As The Guardian said: “Post-Morse has been pretty much bled dry with Lewis, so now we’re going back to before, and a young detective on his first posting in […]