The Carnivale is trailing along through the United States during the great depression. Along the way they pick up an Oklahoma farm boy. What follows is a chase across country and a great war between Heaven and Hell.

Carnivale spanned two seasons, totalling twenty four episodes. Each episode lasted approximately fifty five minutes. Why HBO ended up cancelling this program is beyond me. They could have easily got another couple of seasons out of the story, and the viewers would have been happier. When a group of people were asked of TV shows that were "gone too soon" Carnivale came up quite a few times.

During its two season run from 2003 to 2005, Carnivale won numerous awards including five Primetime Emmy awards. Whipping up a massive total of 14 awards from various places, surely this should have given HBO the knowledge that they were onto a good show and to keep it running. 

One thing I was concerned about was that I heard the end of season two was left unfinished, no answers were actually received. In my opinion (and that's all it is) we did get an end to the main story from the whole of the first two seasons, but it also left off where a new chapter could have been opened up (and I'm presuming it would have been had the series continued).

Based on the book written by J K Rowling of the same name - The Casual Vacancy

The citizens of a small British town called Pagford fight for a Parish council spot when Barry Fairbrother dies

Director: Jonny Campbell
Aired: February 2015
Runtime: 3 x 60 minute episodes, shown once a week
Written for TV by Sarah Phelps

The Casual Vacancy (TCV) is a modern day tale of small town life. The town is split into two areas - the council estate, with the 'roughians' (convicts, drug users etc) and the 'posh' side of town.

I found that as a TV drama, it was alright. I never had any urge to read the book, it didn't sound like it would be my sort of thing. I made the decision to watch the show, and if I liked it, then I would go back and read the book. I have decided not to read the book. The story as a whole lacked appeal and didn't grab my attention well enough to actually draw me in. I would like to say that the acting was good, or that one particular character made me feel something for this program but there was nothing there.

Cast: Silas Carson, Joe Hurst, Michael Gambon, Rory Kinnear, Abigail Lawrie, Emily Bevan, Rufus Jones, Richard Glover, Monica Dolan, Julia McKenzie, Lolita Chakrabarti, Bryce Sanders, Ria Choony, Keeley Hawes

Eastender's live week, was also titled the 'Week of Revelations' (WoR) with various outcomes to plot lines being revealed, and some newer, future story lines hinted at.

The main reasons for the week of live shows, was to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the very popular British Soap Opera, and to reveal the killer of Lucy Beale.

It was billed as a week of live shows, yet for anyone that was interested in looking it up on the internet, the episodes were not completely live. Each show had 'live inserts', so some of it was pre-recorded as usual and others bits were live. Personally, while watching it, I don't think I could tell which bits were the live or pre-recorded sections, so the producers and editors etc must have done a pretty good job of stitching it all together.

There was also a number of different program's shown before and after the live shows, speaking to the cast etc. The weeks schedule of shows looked a little bit like this:

There were only two mistakes spotted during the live segments of the shows.
One was Jo Joyner, who plays Tanya. Whilst taking to Jane at the Beale house, she called Ian Beale by his real life name Adam.
The second was from Jake Wood, the actor who plays Max. He apparently mumbled the end of a line so badly that viewers were left reeling as to whether he had said 'you' or 'who' while speaking to his daughter Abi about the murder of Lucy. I believe this was on purpose, with the intention of throwing the viewers off the scent as Abi was one of the main suspects.

One of the story lines from the WoR's was the Nick and Dot Cotton story. Having a turbulent relationship for as long as anyone can remember, was it any surprise that everything was going to come to a head at some point. Nobody knew which way it was going to go, and what was going to happen to who. For those who watched it, you now know. I, for one, was extremely happy with the outcome to this story that has been ongoing since I was small.

Himesh Patel, better known as Tamwar Masood, spent the live shows tweeting directly from set. Himesh's aim was to tweet as though from the eyes, mouth, phone of Tamwar. This went on for the entire week of live shows. Anyone watching may have noticed that Tamwar was permanently on his phone, and if you didn't know about this (like me, I had no clue) then it may be a nice surprise. If you want to see Tamwar's tweets, go to Twitter and search for #TamwarTweets (there is also a lot of other information and tweets available on Twitter using the #EELive search).

On another note, a fire broke out on set just hours after the first live show, in Dr Legg's old surgery. The fire was caused by a stray firework and emergency services were called immediately to the scene. No one was hurt and there was no major damage that occurred.

The big question on everybodies lips that night was "Whodunnit?" Who was Lucy Beale's murderer... Eastender's production team and bosses had managed to keep the storyline afloat for around ten months, and left it fairly open as to who was actually guilty. They even went as far as keeping it a secret from the cast. The guilty character only found out thirty minutes before going on air that they were the one.

As you can see from the picture, throughout the plot line they had given us a possible thirteen suspects, all with reason and validation to be the guilty party. Bookkeepers across the country were taking bets on who it was. Abi was favourite at 4/1, with Ben close behind at 5/1. Next up were Ian, Denise and Phil with 12/1, 14/1 and 16/1 retrospectively.

After Thursday nights sixty minute show, they showed a flashback episode later that evening which showed the whole story run through what happened on the night of Lucy's murder. This flashback episode also saw the return of Hetti Bywater to reprise her role as Lucy for the one off special episode.

If you didn't watch the final episodes of this story line, but want to know who killed Lucy, then highlight the next line of text:
                                                                                    BOBBY BEALE


The result was a shocker to most parties involved, although a lot of people had suspected that there was going to be a final twist to the story.

All in all, this was probably the best bit of television that I have ever seen from a soap opera. The story lines were engaging and interesting. They kept the viewers guessing right up until the end. The fact that the cast didn't know if they were guilty made it even better, I felt that enabled them to give a more realistic reaction. I really enjoyed watching this along with my friends from Film Club, between a group of four or five of us we managed to work up a total of 105 comments on one post.

Duration: One Season, Thirteen Episodes
Runtime: 42 minutes per episode
Aired: 2013-2014

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (hereafter referred to as OUaTiW, just to save time) was created by ABC as a spin-off from their widely popular Once Upon A Time. As you may be able to tell from the title, this version was centred around Alice in Wonderland. Featuring many of the characters from the original story, but incorporating new characters from other fairytales and folklore.

Watch in OUATiW as we see Alice, in Victorian England, as a young child discover the mystical land of Wonderland. Going between the two worlds, causes worry for her father and upon her return as an adult, they struggle to believe that she has been to this mythical place. Alice voluntarily chooses to go and spend the remainder of her life at an asylum, refusing to forget or deny that Wonderland was real. After some time in the asylum, Will Scarlett appears and, along with the white rabbit, they break Alice out and she returns to Wonderland.

The Cast
Sophie Lowe as Alice. Sophie has previously appeared in various TV shows and shorts. Her performance in this was surprisingly really good. I wasn't so sure in the first few episodes, but I was rooting for her character by the end of the season.
Michael Socha as Will Scarlett/Knave of Hearts. Michael shot to fame starring in This is England. Will/Knave was my favourite character in this show. I loved his attitude and everything he did. I feel like Socha totally managed to embrace the feeling and persona of his character.
Peter Gadiot as Cyrus/Genie. Gadiot was born in the UK but of Dutch and Mexican descent. I felt that his heritage helped him pull off a pretty convincing performance.
Emma Rigby as Anastasia/The Red Queen. Rigby is better known to me as appearing in UK Teenage Soap Opera, Hollyoaks. As expected, her performance was awful. I should hated The Red Queen, but all I could do was laugh. I don't think that she managed to pull off any emotion at all. Even the crying scenes were emotionless. Also, what on earth is going on with her lips? I couldn't stop staring at them.
Naveen Andrews as Jafar. Naveen first graced my screen when he appeared in Lost. As much as I liked his character in this show, his performance was middle of the road. I couldn't get my head around Jafar, being in OUaTiW as his character was clearly from Aladdin.
John Lithgow as The White Rabbit. Finding out that Lithgow voiced the White Rabbit really shocked me. Normally, I can place Lithgow's voice without even looking to see if it was him, however, I was so immersed into the character that I didn't manage to think much more than "I recognise that voice".

The acting, apart from The Red Queen, was actually pleasant. It kept me entertained from start to finish. In fact, I loved everything about this show. Looking on the internet, it would appear to have been cancelled, yet I was informed today that the point was always for it to be a one season spin off from OUaT. It got panned by everyone I know, so I suppose that would have had an effect on as to whether it would ever be continued.

I am happy to tell everyone that doesn't already know, Michael Socha, stars in OUaT as the very same character. Now I'm going to have to pick that up where I left off.

American Horror Story: The Review


First of all I think its important to say that in my opinion, AHS is one of the best programs running. I enjoyed the first and second season's immensely, but felt so let down by season three. The Coven just didn't excite me the same as the first two seasons.

In order of preference, I would rank the seasons in the following order:

Season one

Season two

Season four

Season three

After the let down that I got from The Coven, and all the hype over season four I was expecting amazing things from Freak Show, yet they never came. It did have its moments, but the whole thing felt a bit forced to me. I didn't feel for any of the characters. The whole season lacked connection and I was so disappointed.