Tag Archives: TV

New article about “Black Sails”

MV5BMjMwMTMwNjA1OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDgzNTEyMTI@._V1_UX477_CR0,0,477,268_AL_It took me a while to like “Black Sails”, the TV show about 18th century pirates that seemed to be made out of every trope I loved as a child.

 

I watched it out of order: season 2, then 3, then 1, then 4. But once I got  hooked on the show’s mixture of fact and fiction, tropes I love and modern sensibilities, I fell for it hard.

 

Recently I had the amazing opportunity to write about some of my “Black Sails” feelings for Vice.com. The article is really only a fraction of what I think about the show, but it’s something I think needs saying. “Black Sails” broke new ground when it came to historic storytelling, especially on TV.

 

‘Black Sails’ Depicts the Untold Story of Queer Pirates >>

Review: The OA

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It’s difficult to categorize The OA as fantasy or science fiction or horror. A series that deals with angels, the science of immortality, and friendly-looking scientists who kidnap people to experiment on them in basements, The OA offers some fresh takes—as well as moments of muddled, cliché philosophical “insights.”

The series’ greatest strength is arguably the aspect that I’ve so far seen discussed least. Brit Marling plays a young woman who disappears for seven years and then returns, able to see where before she was blind, and recounts the story of her abduction to a group of misfits at her small town in the US. Adopted at a young age by a couple in their fifties, who named her Prairie, Marling’s character was abducted after she ran away from her parents and tried to make a living playing her violin in the New York City subway. A well dressed, kind, and friendly academic by the name of Hap (Jason Isaacs) takes her out to dinner after apparently falling in love with the way she plays, then convinces her to accompany him to his house, takes her downstairs to what’s supposed to be his guest bedroom, only for Prairie (blind, at this stage) to discover he’s locked her in a glass box in his basement.

Read the full review on Strange Horizons >>

 

Review of the first season of “Jessica Jones”

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Fashionably late, here’s my review of the first season of “Jessica Jones”! I actually wrote this the week the show came out, but for various reasons it took a while to get it it ready for publication.

Jessica Jones is without doubt the best TV show Marvel has produced to date, and possibly the most original main character they’ve brought to the screen since introducing the world to Tony Stark as Iron Man. The show is not without flaws, but everything about it feels fresh, unusual, exciting. Partly it’s because a show about a female superhero, especially one who drinks whiskey and crushes cockroaches with her bare hands without flinching, is tragically rare amid a sea of morally gray superpowered men. But partly it’s because Jessica Jones genuinely has an engaging yet disturbing story to offer.”

Read the full review at Strange Horizons >>