Reviews

Not the usual portrayal of power versus its victims. Hugh Laurie in the role of a jaded but still ambitious 90's rising star in politics is alluring in a slightly seedy way. Set in a post Covid near future government reshuffle , our hero is nearly on his knees in front of the dominatrix PM ,expertly and primly played by Helen McCrory, who is always fascinating to watch. The other protagonists to this political slow burn thriller will probably develop more unpleasant flaws than those they are trying to reveal.

Appealing in its dreamy look at life on the edge of LA movie world. A film set of outer space travel sits in the protagonists head as a dream to replace his current deflated status as a once successful theme score composer , living with loss. Whether he'll sink further into failure or rise up to the stars kept me watching to the end.

The first season was enjoyable with two misfits trying to solve crimes. The crime solving bit was secondary to their obviously dysfunctional characters - which is where the interest lies. Season 2 sees a replacement in the female detective. Why ? Would have been great to rethink the whole series and cut the male detective to a secondary role and bring in the replacement to him and then see how the story developed. As it is I gave up on the second season

Thanks to Connely's skills in rounding characters around their worst common denominators, we have a cast of people with unattractive traits that are irresistible to watch . Bosch's rat face shows little grace under pressure, even with his boss's irritating touchy feely pats and grabs on her pet D.S's, Boshch's girlfriends and exes are all bad choices and clues to this are given early if we just watch them closely. The characters which turn out the best are the ones that make Bosch's hackles rise initially, which goes to show he really is a poor judge of character. This makes him an endearing, rather unattractive guy with a lot of personal failings along with the tattoos - all this portrayed expertly by Titus Welliver in such a cool old-fashioned macho way. Nice charcoal signature shirts too by the way.

Probably because I'm used to British humour on chat shows, I found the overt sincerity of this show rather awkward. I didn't think Alec Baldwin needed to take himself, his guests or the 'glorious profession' of acting so seriousy. To his credit, De Niro appeared to be a teensy bit uncomfortable with the overt hero worship that literally oozed from Baldwin and increased through his attempts to bond over second marriages and fathering in later life. Hopefully the next shows will see Baldwin relax into his new role and have some fun with his guests.

Real nuns aren't usually hot TV material but this show gives us a fascinating insight into just what it takes to opt out of consumerism, sex and social media fixations. Sister Thomas More and Sister Francis lead the show with their alternate sweetness, severity and wry wit - they joined the order over 40 years ago and have seen some spoiled babes in their time.(The convent was a girls' boarding school for as many years). Their mission is to try and pass on some spiritual peace but will their example of grace under pressure be enough to fill the gaps in the very shallow lives of these girls ? - in time for their last week at The Convent of the Sacred Heart. There are some very watchable and even endearing characters in both groups of nuns and girls and a bit of background for each will, I hope, complete what is essentially a very authentic picture of women's life choices.