Friday, 3 November 2017

Star Wars Rebels 'Heroes of Mandalore Part 1’ Review



Originally published on Set The Tape

Star Wars Rebels is ending. Season Four marks the final season of what has been one of the best Star Wars stories, and it means that we’re going to be seeing a lot of the four seasons long stories coming to an end, beginning in the very first episode, ‘Heroes of Mandalore’.

Following the return of Sabine Wren (Tiya Sircar) at the end of season three to help rescue Phoenix Squadron and the crew of the Ghost from the forces of the Empire, it was only fair that the Rebellion return the favour and help Sabine and her allies fight back against the oppression of Mandalore. With Sabine’s father in Imperial custody, Sabine mounts a daring rescue mission, accompanied by Ezra (Taylor Gray), Kanan (Freddie Prinze Jr.), Chopper, and Fenn Rau (Kevin McKidd).

Attacking an Imperial facility in the wastes of Mandalore they are joined by some surprising new allies, led by Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff), who fans will remember as the sister to the late Duchess Satine of Mandalore in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It’s great to see Bo-Katan return, not only because her story was left incomplete with the unplanned cancellation of The Clone Wars, but because it adds to the sense of a wider Star Wars universe. Whilst the episode has a great deal of comedy and adventure, with Ezra and Chopper being responsible for a lot of the light hearted elements of the episode, the final moments take such a shocking and dark turn that it’ll surprise many viewers.

We know from past conversations that Sabine worked for the Empire designing weapons, but when one of these weapons is used upon her own family, apparently killing her mother and brother, it’s a shocking moment that I genuinely didn’t see coming. Star Wars has never been afraid to go to some very dark places, but seeing Sabine kneeling in the remains of fellow Mandalorians killed with a device of her own making is genuinely dark, and the scene is crafted in such a way that you can feel the pain pouring out of the character.

With this being the final season, and the only two characters confirmed to survive the events of season four being Hera (Vanessa Marshall) and Chopper, could this be the start of a very dark road for our young Mandalorian hero? With half of this particular story yet to be told we’ll have to wait to see just how thing will play out, and where Sabine ends up at the end of this two-part opener.


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Legends of Tomorrow ‘Freakshow’ Review



Originally published on Set The Tape

Legends of Tomorrow continues to embrace the absurd and play itself out as a comedy series as much as an action show as it pits the heroes of the Waverider against the attractions of of P.T. Barnum’s (Billy Zane) circus in 1870.

With the Legends feeling the pressure to try and get things right following the Time Bureau’s assessment of them doing more harm than good, the team finds a nice and easy level 1 anachronism to try and fix, just to prove that they’re capable. Unfortunately, the Legends soon end up elevating the anachronism to a level 8, showing that even though they can save the day, they’ll do it in spectacularly bad fashion.

Discovering that the legendary showman P.T. Barnum has a sabretooth tiger in his possession the team decide to try out Ray’s (Brandon Routh) new shrinking ray in order to turn the animal into a more manageable size. When it does the exact opposite and the team have a giant sabretooth tiger on their hands Sara (Caity Lotz) travels to 1948 to get Amaya (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) to help them.

With the rush of the previous episode, and the need to reintroduce many characters, choosing to wait until the second week to bring Amaya back was a wise choice, and from a narrative position it makes sense that the team would need her help with a giant sabretooth tiger. Thankfully, the episode also goes a long way to explain why Amaya chose to return to her own time, after seeing a news report of her granddaughter, the modern day Vixen, and realising that she would need to go home in order for her to exist.

Unfortunately, the fact that Amaya didn’t explain any of this to Nate (Nick Zano), and disappeared on his birthday without any warning, kind of makes her seem like a bit of a jerk. I can understand that she had the realisation that she needed to go back in time to ensure that her family would exist, but try not to be such a bitch about it.

Thankfully, Nate’s such a nice guy that by the end of the episode much of this has been put to bed. Nate gets why she did it, even if he doesn’t like it, and he respects that.

The rest of the episode is filled with wonderfully ridiculous moments as Ray, Nate, and Jax (Franz Drameh) manage to turn a quiet night out drinking into a full blown disaster when a drunken Nate reveals his powers to P.T. Barnum and gets the three of them captured to take part in the freakshow. With Ray and Jax unable to actually use their powers without their suit and Stein (Victor Garber) Barnum makes the most of the situation and decides to stick the two of them in a harness and present them as conjoined twins.

Things don’t get any less ridiculous when Stein and Mick (Dominic Purcell) have to rescue them, as Stein imitates one of the clowns, complete with magic tricks, and Mick appears to have a fear of said clowns. The moment when Mick dives at a clown screaming ‘Die clown!’ was a particular highlight of the episode.

With so much already going on in the episode it was impressive that the show was also able to make time to set up more hints about the season’s big bad, Mollus, with more vague hints from the time Bureau, and a small scene at the end of the episode with a mysterious hooded figure calling forth a water elemental that turns out to be Kuasa (Tracy Ifeachor).

For those not in the know, Kuasa is the sister of the modern day Vixen who was killed whilst in possession of a mystical Water Totem, which gave her magical water abilities. It’s nice to see the CW acknowledging the events of their animated DC series on CW Seed, and bringing them into the main live action series’.

The episode was also able to slip in another comic character, having P.T. Barnum’s henchman clearly be B’wana Beast, though never acknowledged by name. The cheeky mention of ‘man of steel’ also brought a smile to my face. With both Victor Garber and Billy Zane in the same episode, it was a little disappointing that the two didn’t get much time together in the same scene, especially after Garbers ridiculous Titanic joke at the start of the episode.

With some fun action sequences, ridiculous comedy, and more set up for the season’s big bad ‘Freakshow’ managed to prove entertaining throughout.


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Ghostbusters: Answer The Call #1 - Comic Review



Originally published on Set The Tape

Kelly Thompson (Writer) – Corin Howell (Artist) – Valentina Pinto (Colourist) – Neil Uyetake (Letterer) – Tom Waltz (Editor) – Ted Adams (Publisher)

Following the events of Ghostbusters 101, the team from the 2016 Ghostbusters Reboot are back in their own universe and are hunting down ghosts in a haunted New York brownstone in the first part of a five issue story.

On a routine house call to dispose of a simple Class 3 spook, Abby, Patty, Erin, and Holtzmann encounter a truly terrifying Class 7 that appears to be feeding on fear. Able to create illusions that prey on their greatest fears, and with designs on turning the world into its own nightmare dimension, our ladies may have finally met their match!

Ghostbusters: Answer The Call manages to capture a lot of the fun and humour of the film, recreating the characters and tone of the latest film in such a way that it felt like a very natural continuation of the film universe, rather than a simple cash-in book.

The comic has Holtzmann as the hyperactive mad scientist, Patty as the straight talking no nonsense member of the team, and Kevin as the adorable idiot. Whilst Erin and Abby don’t get as much of a chance to shine in the first issue as the other characters, having Abby be possessed again, and having the characters make a point of it being her again does add a huge amount of charm to events that don’t feature the character a great deal.

This sense of humour is used throughout the book, such as when Patty points out to a calm Erin that she should be afraid of the little kid ghost because little kid ghosts are always used in horror films, before listing films, as the moment where Holtzmann responds to the ghost being called Doctor Kruger as ‘too on the nose’ and ‘very tacky’.

These kind of moments mean that not only does the book get to poke some fun at horror conventions, but also gets to use them itself without it feeling like a cop-out. Kelly Thompson manages to balance the humour and character development well in this first issue, and is hopefully a sign that this quality will continue for the rest of the series.

Corin Howell’s artwork is gorgeous throughout, and the ghosts look absolutely great, with the choice of colours making them stand out on the page. It’s also easy to tell who each character is straight away as the book manages to capture their looks well, something that’s important for any team book, but especially one based upon real actors likenesses.

Having established a strong foundation for the rest of the series, introducing an interesting antagonist for the team, Ghostbusters: Answer The Call is sure to be an interesting and fun book.


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Thursday, 2 November 2017

Back To The Future #24 - Comic Review



Originally published on Set The Tape

Back To The Future issue 24 carries on where the last issue left off, with Marty McFly and Professor Marcus Irving having just witnessed the arrest of Marty’s uncle Joey in 1972. Having taken part in the burglary of Doc Brown’s mother’s home, Marty blames himself for the arrest of Joey as he and Professor Irving escape in the back of a hippies van.

This blame forms the main thrust for a lot of this issue, with Marty holding himself responsible for his uncle being arrested; which he knows will ultimately lead to his uncle ending up in prison. What’s interesting about this, is the idea that as events unfold for Marty and Professor Irving in the past, we see that they are directly shaping events in their present. Joey only gets caught because he took the fall for Marty, the stolen painting is missing a piece because Professor Irving tore it.

Whilst in the previous comics, and films, whenever a character went back in time they’d invariably alter the timeline by their presence and then have to try and put things back to normal as best they can, here it appears that they were always meant to be part of events. This is a completely different type of time travel scenario, one that Back To The Future hasn’t explored before.

Would Joey have been arrested if Marty wasn’t there with him? Maybe. Would the painting have been ripped if Professor Irving hadn’t done it? Probably not. Yet, somehow, the characters find themselves unable to entertain the idea that maybe they were supposed to interact with these past events.

When Doc Brown from the present arrives in the DeLorean to take his friends back home these questions fall to the backburner as Marty and Irving discover part of a map on the back of their torn section of painting, a map that will lead to the money that Joey and Biff were after. Returning to the future with this missing piece of the painting Marty and Professor Irving are confronted by Biff and Joey.

There are a lot of moments in the Back To The Future films where characters inability to realise that people they know look exactly like people they met in their past is overlooked for the sake of storytelling, but surely Biff and Joey have to pick up on something strange going on when two people who look like guys from their past turn up with a missing item that was last seen in the possession of these other people. Plus, Joey went to jail for Marty, I’m guessing that’s the kind of memory that sticks out pretty strongly.

How these events will play out in the coming issues is anyone’s guess, and whether or not Marty is able to somehow go back again and stop his uncle from going to prison, this is sure to be a memorable conclusion to the story arc.


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Arrow ‘Tribute’ Review



Originally published on Set The Tape

The second episode of this season of Arrow focuses on the most important plot thread left hanging in the final moments of the premier, though one that we’ve all seen the show do before; Oliver (Stephen Amell) facing accusations being the Green Arrow.

This is a story that the show has done before, and done better. There’s very little worry at this point that Oliver will be permanently outed as Star City’s vigilante hero. Having managed to get around this issue in the past, it rather becomes a question of how he’ll get out of it. Whilst I expected that he would get another member of Team Arrow to dress up as Green Arrow whilst he’s making a public appearance, the choice he makes at the end of the episode was genuinely surprising.

Thanks to having William (Jack Moore) in his life, and not wanting his son to end up an orphan, Oliver makes the game changing choice to give up being the Green Arrow, passing the mantle on to Diggle (David Ramsey). This was not something that I saw coming. However, if there is a time for Oliver to give up being the Green Arrow, and passing that title on to another, it feels right that it is now.

Oliver has grown a lot since the beginning of the series, and with a large team around him, his job as the mayor, and a son needing him to come home safe it doesn’t feel massively out of character that he would give up his hero role. Though I doubt this will last forever (I see Oliver taking up the mantle again before the season is done) it will at least lead to some interesting developments for the series.


The choice of Diggle to take over the role of Green Arrow makes a certain amount of sense, he’s Oliver’s oldest friend and ally since his return to Star City five years ago, however, as we learn this episode Diggle was quite seriously injured during the events of the last season finale. With degenerative nerve damage it’s likely that Diggle won’t be able to be the Green Arrow for very long, unless he receives some kind of medical intervention.

Could this be the reason why Oliver will have to become the Green Arrow again before the season is out? Maybe, though it could also be an opportunity for the series to introduce another hero in the role. Personally, with the return of Deathstroke to the series as a friend and ally of Oliver’s I’d quite like to see him in the role. It would certainly lead to some drama.

Elsewhere in the episode we’re treated to the return of Anatoly (David Nykl), who has returned to Star City as an antagonist for Team Arrow following the events of the previous season.

Anatoly makes a great villain for Oliver, thanks in large part for their past relationship. He respects Oliver, and ‘has honour’, meaning that he won’t go to some of the extremes that other villains have; such as targeting Oliver’s family. In return, Oliver is less inclined to simply shoot Anatoly like other villains. This gives the show an interesting new hero/villain dynamic.

Whether or not Anatoly is being honest when he says he didn’t play a part in leaking Oliver’s identity as the Green Arrow, or if he has a connection to Black Siren (Katie Cassidy) remains to be seen; however, as someone that was on Lian Yu in the past, it would not be beyond the realms of possibility that he was the mysterious figure that rescued Black Siren from the islands ruins.


This week also set Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards) and Curtis (Echo Kellum) up as a new tech business duo, something that works really well for the characters. With it appearing that much of Oliver’s time this season being taken up by his new role as a father, giving Felicity something other than her relationship with Oliver to concentrate on is a good thing. With the two characters working so well together in the past, I’m looking forward to seeing more of the two of them.

‘Tribute’ also name drops Bruce Wayne, which is something that should be fun, but feels slightly odd at this point. With Green Arrow having been around for years, and now dozens of other heroes such as the Flash, Vibe, Steel, and Firestorm to name just a few, it seems like it’s too late to introduce Bruce Wayne into this world. If Batman is something that the CW wants to do, hopefully they’ll choose to go with Batman of Earth-38 (the Supergirl universe), as then they can have an older, more experienced Batman.

With some surprise moments and some genuine charm, Arrow was able to retread old ground but remain entertaining. Thanks to a surprise decision from Oliver, we have the promise of new and interesting stories to come.


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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #75 - Comic Review



Originally published on Set The Tape

‘Trial of Krang’ Part Three – The oversized conclusion to the Turtles’ greatest extra-dimensional story arc is here! Both the prosecution and the defense have tricks up their sleeves as testimony gets emotional. Meanwhile, a war rages outside the courtroom as the Malignoid swarm engulfs Planet Neutrino!

The bumper sized 75th issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles celebrates this important milestone with a story steeped in TMNT lore and history, and sets up two exciting new stories to come.

With the evil Krang on trial for this war crimes across two universes, the Turtles have to help protect the planet Neutrion from invading alien forces. This means that we get to see the Turtles, minus Donatello, fighting with glowing energy versions of their weapons and flying around on jetpacks.

The shift from street-level New York (and below street-level on occasion) to an alien planet complete with robots and spaceships creates a very different tone, which helps to have this particular story stand out from a lot of other Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles books. Whilst the alien invasion of Neutrino takes up a large portion of the book, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, and the back half of the issue shifts back to the courtroom drama of Krang’s trial, featuring some familiar faces from previous TMNT stories.

We all know Krang is a villain, that he’s motivated by evil and has done some unforgivable things in the past, but the book manages to make a very real and reasoned argument for the heroes of the book to have to find him not guilty of war crimes. It points out that often those on a winning side of a war perform some very questionable actions, and that they justify these actions by making their foes into monsters.

Yes, Krang is actually a monster, but this argument does appear to sway King Zenter, making him question some of his own actions, which leads to one of the set-up’s for an upcoming story in which the Triceratons invade Earth. This is a surprise development in a story that I thought would have been fairly simple, one in which Krang would be found guilty for obvious reasons; instead, the story manages to surprise and subvert expectations in great ways.

The book also sends the Turtles off on another exciting adventure when they step through an interdimensional portal, an adventure that will play out in the upcoming TMNT/Ghostbusters 2. Where a lot of extra-sized issues tend to add padding or feel overly long, the combination of action and courtroom drama mean that the issue feels well paced and doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.


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Wednesday, 1 November 2017

Gay Drama In Cinema: Key Films To Seek Out



Originally published on Set The Tape

The LGBT+ community has been one that has often been underrepresented in cinema, and a great deal of the depictions that are available are often offensive, insensitive, and inaccurate. Here’s a list of films about the LGBT+ community that are worth taking the time to watch….


Boy Meets Girl (2014)

 Boy Meets Girl follows Ricky, a young transgender woman living in a small American town who wants to become a fashion designer. The film follows Ricky as she develops a relationship with another woman called Francesca, exploring how she’s treated by others and her experiences in love.

Boy Meets Girl not only takes the time to look at love, relationships, and how they develop and change, but how transgender women are treated in the world. The film shines a light on some of the harsh reality of transphobia and hate that face trans people. One of the highlights of the film, however, is the casting of real life trans woman Michelle Hendley in the role of Ricky, a role which would have historically been played by a cis actor.


Philadelphia (1993)

 Ron Nyswaner’s 1993 drama Philadelphia sees Tom Hanks play the role of Andrew Beckett, a member of a law firm who is fired for being a gay man with AIDS. The film follows Beckett as he takes his former employers to court for wrongful dismissal.

Philadelphia was released when the fear of AIDS was hugely prevalent, a time when people would refuse to even be near a gay person for fear of the disease. The film was written for a mainstream audience, and managed to challenge many views on the subject. An inspiring but heartbreaking story, Hanks was well deserving of his Oscar for his performance.


Boys Don’t Cry (1999)

 Boys Don’t Cry tells the tragic true story of Brandon Teena, a trans man who was brutally murdered. The film follows Brandon and his relationship with his girlfriend before his murder.

Despite casting a cisgender actress in the lead role, Boys Don’t Cry tells an important story, one that doesn’t hide away from the terrible events that happened to Brandon. With transgender rights very much in the public eye at the moment, and the murder of trans people on the rise Boys Don’t Cry can still act as a stark eye opening experience.


Bound (1996)

 Bound follows Violet and her girlfriend Corky as they attempt to steal $2 million from Violet’s mafioso ex-boyfriend. Bound was praised for its humour and its depiction of a lesbian relationship when the film was first released, though some members of the LGBT+ community did complain that a film about female lovers was directed by two men.

The Wachowski’s (the film’s directors) have since both come out as trans women and the film has again found itself at the centre of discussions about sexuality and gender politics as initial opinions have been reassessed.


Tangerine (2015)

 Tangerine follows transgender sex worker Sin-Dee and her friend Alexandra tearing through L.A. on Christmas Eve as she searches for her boyfriend/pimp, who has been cheating on her with another woman.

Tangerine tells a story of friendship between two trans women, actually played by two trans women, in a story that is at times laugh out loud funny, and at others tender and heartfelt. Shot entirely on iPhone 5S, the film has a look and a feel that makes it stand out from others.


 Pride (2014)

 Pride tells the true life story of the struggle of the miners during 1984’s miners strike, and a group that raised money in their support, the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners.

Pride follows the group as they travel to a small Welsh mining town, the only one that would accept their donation, as they deliver the money. What follows is a funny and heartwarming story of the two groups coming together to support each other in a time when both were hated.


Moonlight (2016)

Moonlight, based upon the autobiographical play ‘In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue’ by Barry Jenkins, follows Chiron during three stages of his life, exploring his sexuality and identity as he grows up in difficult circumstances.

Taking the time to explore the lives of young gay black people, Moonlight received massive praise for its sensitivity and storytelling, going on to win Best Oscar that year. Beautifully shot and well written, Moonlight explores an important story.


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Stranger Things: The Story So Far



Originally published on Set The Tape

Set in the winter of 1983, the first season of Stranger Things follows the disappearance of a young boy, a girl with mysterious powers, and monsters from another world. The story begins at the Department of Energy laboratory in the small town of Hawkins, where an experiment gone wrong has unleashed a monster. Whilst riding his bike home after playing with his friends Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, 12-year-old Will Buyers encounters the creature and vanishes. Discovering her son is missing, Joyce Buyers appeals to the local police chief Jim Hopper to find her son.

Searching the woods for their friend Mike, Dustin, and Lucas stumble across a young girl in a hospital gown. Bringing the girl back to Mike’s home the three of them find out that the girl, called Eleven, not only recognises a photo of the missing Will, but possesses telekinetic powers.

Meanwhile, Will’s older brother Jonathan is searching for signs of his missing brother when he stumbles across Mike’s older sister Nancy and her friend Barb partying at a friends house. When on her own Barb vanishes in the same way that Will did, only to awaken in a strange dark and decaying version of our world, where she is attacked by the creature.

Whilst searching the Energy lab for signs of Will, Hopper discovers that the security tape he has been shown is fake and begins to suspect a cover-up. Meanwhile, Joyce has begun to make contact with Will using Christmas lights, which Will can turn on and off to send messages to his mother.


Realising that Barb is missing, Nancy searches for her friend, but catches sight of the mysterious creature. At the same time the body of Will is discovered drowned in a quarry. After viewing the body Joyce refuses to believe that her son is dead and continues to use Christmas lights to speak to him. Shortly after a strange tear appears in her wall, where she can see Will on the other side before the creature appears.

Eleven uses a walkie-talkie to contact Mike to prove to the boys that their friend is still alive, spurring them on to continue their search for him. Discovering that Jonathan took photographs of her and Barb the night she vanished Nancy discovers a mysterious figure in one of the photos that matches the description of the creature that Joyce saw chasing Will.

Hopper breaks his way into the local morgue, where he discovers that Will’s body is a fake, one that he suspects was placed in the quarry by the same people hiding evidence at the Energy lab. Breaking into the lab Hopper discovers a strange portal before being knocked out and returned home.

Eleven reveals to the boys that Will is stuck in a parallel world called the Upside Down and agrees to help the three of them find a way to save him. Realising that the government are after Eleven the boys tell Joyce and Hopper everything they know about the mystery. Together, the two of them return to the Energy lab and enter the Upside Down to Search for Will.

When the creature returns to the real world Eleven attacks the monster with her powers to save her friends, vanishing with the creature as she sends it back to the Upside Down. In the other dimension Joyce and Hopper manage to find will and rescue him.

Back in the real world, Will recovers in hospital. However, it appears that his experience in the Upside Down has affected him as he can still see the other world, and has begun vomiting strange slug like creatures.


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The Flash ‘Mixed Signals’ Review



Originally published on Set The Tape

Season four of The Flash continues in its efforts to try and reassure audiences that it has returned to the lighter tone of the first season after being criticised for being too dark in season three (for the record, I had no problem with the shows third season’s tone). We get some genuinely touching character moments, some laugh out loud gags, all mixed with a villain of the week that feels very season one.

The episode picks up a number of the narrative threads left over from last week, and puts to bed most of the remaining issues of Barry (Grant Gustin) suddenly returning from the Speed Force. Barry returns to work at the CCPD (six months and five minutes late), fitting back into his old role like he was never gone, even getting moaned at by Captain Singh (Patrick Sabongui) in a way that shows he’s actually missed having Barry around.

It’s nice to get to see Barry visiting a crime scene again, as it feels like it’s been a long while since we got to see him solving a murder alongside Joe (Jesse L. Martin). The lack of Julian Albert (Tom Felton) working alongside Barry definitely makes the scene feel like one of the older seasons, but as someone who came to really like Julain by the end of season three I hope that we will get to see the character again at some point.


The main villain of the episode, Kilgore (Dominic Burgess) feels a lot like the early season one metahumans, someone with an axe to grind against people who have wronged them in the past and is using their new powers to do so.

Where Kilgore differs from past villains of the week, however, is the fact that he’s not one of the particle accelerator metahumans. How he gained his powers, who the others like him are, and why the Thinker (Neil Sandilands) wants them are sure to be questions that will play out over the course of the season.

The episode also manages to show off a lot of character development as well as setting up this season long mystery, with Barry and Iris (Candice Patton), as well as Cisco (Carlos  Valdes) and Gypsy (Jessica Camacho) getting the chance to have some relationship developments.

With Barry back from the Speed Force and trying to catch up on everything that he’s missed out on, he begins to push Iris too far with his cancellation of plans and cutting her out of the decision making for their wedding. Understandably this frustrates Iris, leading them to couples counselling.

The idea of putting the two of them into couples therapy, with Iris pretending everything is fine and Barry denying the need for counselling, plays to a lot of television tropes and is pretty unoriginal, however, it does lead to one of the best scenes in the episode. Getting to see Iris lash out at Barry for leaving her, for going into the Speed Force and leaving her to pick up the pieces is incredibly shocking.


These are things that we didn’t get to see because it happened between seasons, and the last episode she was happy to have Barry back, but he almost destroyed her life by leaving. Yes, he had to do it to save the city, possibly the world, but he left her shattered and alone, and it’s nice to see the episode acknowledge that this would have had a big effect on her. Whilst this could have been played out for a lot longer, across multiple episodes, it’s good that they’ve addressed it and will be moving on.

Getting to see the developments between Cisco and Gypsy play as a good counterpoint to Barry and Iris, we have a long time couple experiencing troubles whilst we get to see a new couple learn how much they mean to each other, and watch them figuring out their relationship. It’s also fun to learn a little more about Earth-19, such as the fact that they don’t have Christmas, but do have 1-1-1 Day and St Shaquille O’Neal Day, the latter of which had me coughing with laughter.

The show has definitely brought back the humour that fans loved, not just with moments like St Shaquille O’Neal Day, but with the ridiculousness of Barry’s new suit malfunctioning. Seeing him inflate whilst Cisco’s soothing voice talks to him is the kind of silly that works for The Flash, but could never be done on a show like Arrow.

With some great action sequences, such as Barry disassembling a speeding car, and some genuine character moments and ridiculous comedy, The Flash feels like it’s gotten back to its roots in a good way. If the fourth season maintains this kind of tone and quality throughout it may go on to be the best season yet.


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Looking Back At Wolfenstein



Originally published on Set The Tape

The Wolfenstein franchise returns once again with Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, but the Wolfenstein series has a long, and at times bizarre, history. We look back on the weird and the wonderful from this World War II based video game series. Starting with…


Castle Wolfenstein (Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64)

Castle Wolfenstein is a stealth-based action game where players control an American operative during World War Two, who must infiltrate the titular castle in order to steal secret Nazi plans. The game is played in a top down perspective and requires the player to use stealth and cunning to reach their objective.


Beyond Castle Wolfenstein (Atari 8-bit, Apple II, Commodore 64, MS-DOS)

In Beyond Castle Wolfenstein the player once again takes on the role of an American spy, who this time must infiltrate a secret Nazi bunker where Hitler is in meetings with his senior staff. The player must retrieve a bomb, and place it outside the room that Hitler is in.


Wolfenstein 3D (MS-DOS)

The first game in the series to make the jump to first person shooter, Wolfenstein 3D sees the player take on the role of B.J. Blazcowicz for the first time, as he escapes from the Nazi prison Castle Wolfenstein. Wolfenstein 3D is widely considered to having helped birth the first person shooter genre as we know it.


Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny (MS-DOS)

An expansion to Wolfenstein 3D, Wolfenstein: Spear of Destiny once again plays as B.J. Blazkowicz, though this time before the events of the previous game. This time B.J. must retrieve the mythical Spear of Destiny from the Nazis after its theft from Versailles.


Return to Castle Wolfenstein (PS2, Xbox, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS)

A loose reboot of the series, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is the first game in the series to introduce a supernatural element to the franchise. After being captured by Nazis, B.J. and another allied spy, Agent One, are imprisoned in Castle Wolfenstein, which is being used by the SS Paranormal Division to conduct experiments. Escaping from the castle, B.J. discovers that the Nazis are experimenting to resurrect their dead, and must find a way to stop them.


Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (Linux, Mac Universal, Windows, Morph OS)

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory is a standalone multiplayer expansion set within the Wolfenstein universe. Without a storyline or single player campaign the game purely focuses on player vs player combat.


Wolfenstein RPG (Java ME, BREW, iOS)

Wolfenstein RPG is a first person turn-based role-play game that takes on a lighter and more comical tone, replacing Nazis with mutant chickens. Once again playing as B.J. Blazkowicz, the player must escape his captors at Castle Wolfenstein and destroy the Paranormal Division before they can destroy the world.


Wolfenstein (PS3, Xbox 360, Windows)

Another reboot of the franchise, Wolfenstein sees Office of Secret Actions agent B.J. Blazkowicz discovering a piece of an ancient medallion containing supernatural powers. With the Nazis searching for more pieces of the medallion in order to access the Black Sun Dimension in order to gain powers that will give them the upper hand in the war, B.J. must find a way to stop their plans.


 Wolfenstein: The New Order (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Windows)

A sequel to Wolfenstein, with the Nazis using the powers gained from the Black Sun Dimension to shift the war in their favour, B.J. Blazkowicz is sent on a mission to eliminate General Deathshead. When the mission fails B.J. is sent into a coma for 14 years, waking to find the Nazis in control of the world. Joining forces with the resistance B.J. fights to find a way to being down the Nazi regime.


Wolfenstein: The Old Blood (PS4, Xbox One, Windows)

A prequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order, Wolfenstein: The Old Blood is a loose remake of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, which sees B.J. Blazkowicz and Agent One infiltrating Castle Wolfenstein in order to retrieve a top secret folder that contains the location of General Deathshead. The mission goes wrong and Agent One is killed, though B.J. is able to escape. Joining up with a local resistance he must track down a Nazi scientist in order to find the information that will lead him to Deathshead.


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