The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Sebastian, Four Mothers, Restless, and The Most Precious of Cargoes
Latest editorial
Networks Autumn subscription drive comes with a health warning
DENNIS BROE finds little to commend in the staple fare on offer
Broe
JOHN GREEN explores the argument that psychiatry needs to move away from the idea of just seeing and treating the individual
SYLVIA HIKINS applauds a polemic against “cleanfluencers” and considers radical alternatives to current inequalities of housework
RUTH AYLETT admires the blunt honesty with which a woman’s experience is recorded, but detects the unexamined privilege that underlies it
IAN SINCLAIR draws attention to the powerful role that literature plays in foreseeing the way humanity will deal with climate crisis
High quality pulp, rollicking online murders, Abnorman Britain, and high skates drama: reviews of The Get Off, Everyone In The Group Chat Dies, Pagans and First To Fall
DENNIS BROE notes what happens to content when the streaming giants incorporate AI and deregulation into their economic models
THE streamers, supposedly free of network TV restrictions, have initiated what amounts to their own autumn subscription drive with each attempting to outdo the other in big special event series that also brand the company.
There is Apple TV+’s celebration of the wonder of technology within a declining empire in Isaac Asimov’s Sci-Fi-classic Foundation, and Amazon with a fourth and last season of David E Kelly’s Goliath which rightfully and insightfully attacks the greed and murderousness of drug companies while also nicely tilting the spotlight away from Jeff Bezos and Amazon.
Both however fail to match the splendour of the remake of a network TV sitcom The Wonder Years on the terrestrial channel ABC (owned by Disney and part of its “diverse” family strategy), this time with a black family and set in the revolutionary period of 1968.
More from this author
DENNIS BROE points out that Apple is part of the corporate and state surveillance network which the new series Prime Target rails against
DENNIS BROE appreciates the work of TV writer Steven Knight, and his systematic exposure of the debilitating effects of British capitalism
DENNIS BROE picks his highlights
In sordid tactics that ended up backfiring, Kamala Harris’s ‘nomination’ was the least democratic in history, while the party actively suppressed dissident voices online and its lawyers suppressed third-party candidates from the ballot box, says DENNIS BROE