alex-mott

The choice of Bradley Walsh as a host may raise a few eyebrows but he comes at this as a complete novice, which is exactly what's needed for an audience new to Egyptology. The series is an interesting mix of standard academia with some surprisingly open-minded speculation. The usual archaeological assumptions are repeated regarding the composition of the pyramids and function of the boxes in the Serapeum but, whilst Bradley's sensational theories involving aliens and pyramid power plants are debunked, his correct observations about the disproportionately small head of the Sphinx go unchallenged. His TV friendly sidekick Meredith also shows him physical proof of concept regarding how the Egyptians moved blocks of stone and the larger civil engineering puzzles are explained with easy to follow chalkboard style graphics. Although the mathematical 'coincidences' associated with the Great Pyramid are mentioned I don't remember Bradley actually cracking whatever Egypt's 'cosmic code' really is but the whole thing is well produced, fun with nothing too heavy that could scare away a potential newbie archaeologist. The series also accurately conveys how fascinating and enjoyable it is to simply take a break from the modern technological world and fully immerse yourself in the architecture and mysticism of an ancient civilization. As Bradley says at the end, 'You've got to come here.'

It's easy to jump on the hate bandwagon and enjoy a free kick when someone's already down, but in this case the bandwagon is 100% correct and every extra kick is fully deserved. Star Trek: Section 31 really IS that bad. After a reasonably impressive start, it quickly descends into a confusing rip-off of Ocean's 11 and Guardians of the Galaxy, has nothing to do with Star Trek and features a group of mostly unlikeable characters reading from an immature script that thinks it's funny and engaging when it's not. Despite several clunky exposition scenes, the precise details of the plot were still unclear to me and by the 2/3 third mark I didn't care. What exactly did they stop happening? Why would a group of fundamentally evil people come together to save anything? I honestly don't know but it's difficult to believe that this got the green light and obvious that the very bottom of the barrel of this once beloved sci-fi franchise has now been completely scraped clean.

Please, please STOP.

An apocalyptic virus is ravaging the planet and this one makes people do stupid things which get them killed. The unlikely survivors of this event include a narcissistic musician, a flower power hippy, a hard-nosed businesswoman, a loner survivalist, a lucky code breaker and a mostly mute schoolgirl (who may not be exactly what she seems). Some of this dynamic team are only a couple of IQ points higher than the 'dumbies' (not zombies) they are evading and, somehow, they've also been tasked with protecting and delivering the cure-all vaccine to a community of elitists holed up in a secret government facility (and completing Frode's faecal story arc along the way). Dumbsday has plenty of chuckles, snappy dialogue and also includes some surprisingly clever 2nd level of meaning references to the events of recent years. Another season would definitely be welcome and if TEOTWAWKI ever actually happens, you can forget about the bunkers and gated communities - I want to be out there with Frode's misfit team of bumbling incompetents.