Why aren't you watching the NBC comedy 'The Good Place'? Don't you have friends who care enough to tell you about great shows on TV? Are you some sort of contrarian curmudgeon? In case you're wondering, it stars Ted Danson and Kristen Bell, the later of whom wakes up at the start of the series to find that she has died and is in 'the good place'. It's quickly revealed that there has been a clerical error, that she's there by mistake, and that she is actually a terrible person, and as such begins to cause terrible consequences for the perfect balance there. It's a great setup, but the writers do so much more with the premise than expected. Although ostensibly a sitcom, it borrows from modern box-set trend of having an overarching story and extended character development that you can't just drop down into the middle of (you'll need to start at the beginning), but it never feels leaden with plot. Mixing in a superb cast of supporting ...

What a surprising delight Brigsby Bear was. This 2017 creation of SNL alum Kyle Mooney, while fitting neatly into the quirky/indy mold, pulls at the heart-strings in unexpected ways. Without spoiling too much, it centres around the character of James, who has spent his entire life locked away from the world with nothing but the cheesy TV show 'Brigsby Bear' to keep him company. When he eventually emerges into the real world, all he want's is to see the next episode of his beloved show, and if one doesn't exist, perhaps he'll have to make it himself. This emotion comes from the characters around him, working out how to relate to James as he tries to fit back into the real world. There are some great performances from the whole supporting cast, including Greg Kinnear and Mark Hamill (which will be overshadowed by his role in Star Wars episode 8 this year). Ultimately, the film is something of an ode to the creative drive, and will leave you feeling inspired to follow ...

You should be listening to the 'My Favourite Murder' podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. The format is simple - each episode they each bring a story of real life murder they have researched and tell it to each other, without the other knowing in advance what it will be. The murders could be from any era and any place, whether it was a century ago on another continent, or a month ago down the road. The MFM podcast has grown into a cult hit, that has enabled the hosts to do sell out world tours of a live version of that basic format, and it's not difficult to see why such an enthusiastic community has grown up around it. 'My Favourite Murder' is a great example of the unique way that the contemporary podcast medium works best. Certainly a podcast needs an interesting topic or information to reveal, and just like radio, even with a good subject, it still comes down to personality, personality, personality of the hosts. Yet unlike radio, you ...

It seems all the online commenters are in agreement that the unanimous consensus online is that True Detective season two sucked. But was it really that bad? There has been a lot of great insight in the recaps and reviews I’ve been reading as the series progressed ( Vulture , Salon , The Atlantic , all the good ones), but I wonder if perhaps the disappointment from the second series stemmed in large part because expectations were so high. For example, season one of True Detective was criticised for being almost exclusively male focussed, with no substantial female characters. Season two seemed to take that criticism on board fully, and address it head it, giving us a compelling female protagonist, and variety of other women, with complex motivations, relevant to the plot. Yes, there are still things that could have been better in that respect, (there always are) but that was a huge step forward, and it’s not common for shows to so overtly attempt to address criticism directed at the...

Oh Google, could you do me a little favour please? I know you have a lot on your plate, what with Google Plus and whatever company your probably planning on buying next, but I really think it would be worth your while. You see, I’m a fan of Android, I like that adults are allowed to use it, as opposed to the mollycoddling iOS, but there is an area it falls short on, and that’s music. You’ve been making all the right gestures, but unusually Google, you just don’t seem to be thinking in the right direction. People have ranted before about how poor the standard Android music player is, and clearly you’ve listened. It really is quite pretty now (even if it does still occasionally just stop playing mid song), and functions pretty smoothly and intuitively. The big problem is, which you don’t seem to have noticed, is that I don’t want to just listen to music on my phone, I want to listen to it on my pc too – and that’s where Apple resoundingly trumps you. It might be a lot easier to create ...

HP Lovecraft has been on my 'to read' list for sometime, but it was only recently I picked up the lovely penguin paperback edition of the short story collection 'The Dunwich Horror' while browsing in Waterstones. The book is conducive to being read, and I quickly worked my way through the first story on a bus trip to Wales, the scenery of which perfectly mimicking the tale. It was a pleasure to find a story written in 1928 so enthralling and atmospheric in a distinctly contemporary way, and a delight to realise that the praise heaped on Lovecraft from various horror writers (there's a quote on the cover from Stephen King) is thoroughly justified. The modern sensibility of the horror is no doubt a reflection of the massive influence his stories have had on modern horror and fantasy. It's quite palpable. Lovecraft is clearly writing at a time in the early 20thC when modern science as we understand it was coming to the fore, yet there still lingered a residual ...

I've been having fun with Google plus this last week, while getting my head around the hybrid Facebook/Twitter structure of it. I found a great post by John Tropea on the differences between Google+ and Facebook/Twitter , and he sums up my initial confusion on how sharing with circles works. Essentially, when you post something to a circle, that whole circle won't see it in their stream unless they are all following you back, which is necessarily the case. I agree with John that this isn't very intuitive. So, @Google, here's my simple suggestion to make it a little more intuitive: the little grey circle graphic next to each of your circles could represent what percentage of that circle follow you back - like a little circle graph. So if only half the people in one of your given circles follows you back then, then the circle outline is half red, half green (or some other colours), if 90% follow you back, then 90% of the little circle would look green, while a little 10...