ScreenScribe

Homeland (SoHo, 8.30 Mondays) “Entering season 6, Homeland faces the challenge of age. More than ever, it needs annual, rejuvenating shots of ripped-from-the-headlines zeitgeist. It’s ironic, then, that the new season’s first two episodes demonstrate the risky business of writing to the future. ‘A new paradigm’ is a thematic buzz phrase, with characters and their society chasing or […]

SoHo’s sensational new drama, Taboo, has some in the British press speculating it may reinvent the BBC as a UK HBO. The eight-part period drama, about a rogue who tries to build a shipping empire in the early 1800s to compete with the East India Company, will screen 8.30 Tuesdays from January 10 on SoHo. Produced […]

“Daddy’s Home features a proficient and enjoyable 1080p transfer. The digitally sourced image reveals spurts of source noise and nighttime blacks occasionally border on crush, but the image is otherwise good to go. “The colour palette looks fine and the black levels in the film are pretty consistent. Whites push a tad toward the hot side, […]

“Homeland returns from its bounce-back fourth season playing the long game, once again almost eerily mirroring headlines while slowly unfolding an espionage plot that, even after three episodes, remains hazy in its contours. … At its best, what Homeland achieves better than most is tapping into not just the apprehensions raised by terrorism — and the […]

Spring heralds a programming renaissance on SoHo, with new seasons of Fargo, Homeland, The Affair, The Knick, American Horror Story and The Leftovers. Arguably the most anticipated comeback is season two of Fargo, which will screen 8.30 Tuesdays from October 13. It’s a prequel to the original, about another so-called “true crime”, this time in […]

TV Preview: Odyssey | TV3, 9.30 Monday If you’re a career soldier smart enough to know an Al Qaeda scam in a single glance at a laptop, and smart enough to quickly download it onto a memory stick before the intel guys get there, and smart enough to work out the intel guys are actually […]

Sons of Anarchy’s sixth season at last is for sale here — eight months after its release in the US, where the seventh and final season has been available since February. Universal Pictures NZ blames the delay on production issues and expects S7 to go on sale here in August/September. The good news is S6 look even […]

TV3 is pulling its under-siege spy drama State of Affairs mid-season but it’s not clear if the show’s lousy ratings will dent the network’s enthusiasm for the like-minded American Odyssey. State of Affairs’ last original episode screens 9.30 tonight. Even though there’s six more to go, TV3 couldn’t justify keeping it on when viewership was […]

Sleepy Hollow at last can be seen here as it should have been broadcast. It’s one of four series that bow here this week on Blu-ray but is the only one to have suffered an SD telecast. The Complete First Season has an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. “Shot digitally with the Red Epic, Sleepy […]

Next month Sky’s SoHo channel will unleash American Horror Story: Freak Show. The series, which will air 9.30 Mondays from October 13, five days after its US premiere, is set in 1952 Florida when a troupe of grotesque misfits help a small town battle a dark entity. Returning for the latest instalment are Jessica Lange, […]