His Dark Materials has returned for a second season. “City of Magpies” was a much stronger start than the first episode of Season One. Lord Asriel has opened a portal to the City in the Sky. His actions have started a massive chain of events. The witches believe that this is the start of the […]
TV Reviews
Pop Culture Maniacs Podcast #6: His Dark Materials
Kieran Freemantle and Jean Henegan discuss the His Dark Materials franchise in the Pop Culture Maniacs podcast
Star Trek: Discovery – People of Earth/Forget Me Not Review
In the interest of time, I will be reviewing Star Trek: Discovery on a biweekly schedule, covering two episodes at a time. If there’s a particularly momentous episode that calls for a single review, I will break the schedule to cover it, but covering two episodes at a time will allow me to link together […]
The Mandalorian – Chapter Ten: The Passenger Review
For all my harping about wanting to see a more complex and serialized story on The Mandalorian, I appreciated this week’s frenetic stand-alone episode. Sure, there are now two major dangling plots in the series (between Moff Gideon still hunting Mando and The Child via a network of bounty hunters – some of whom got […]
We Are Who We Are (Spoiler-Free) Review
It’s rare to find a show that treats modern adolescents with as much care and grace as HBO’s We Are Who We Are. And it’s equally as rare to find a cast of young actors as talented and emotionally connected to their characters as we have in the series. From the minds of Paolo Giordano, […]
The Mandalorian – Chapter Nine: The Marshal Review
Well, that was quite the bait and switch with a classic Star Wars character – only to throw in a literal last second twist. But I’ll get to that later on in the review. Welcome back to our weekly reviews of The Mandalorian! While I didn’t love the first season, I have higher hopes for […]
The Queen’s Gambit (Spoiler-Free) Review
As I heard the rapturous reviews for Netflix’s new limited series The Queen’s Gambit (adapted from the 1983 novel of the same name by Walter Tevis) rolling out this past week, I’ll admit I wasn’t completely sold. A series about a female chess prodigy in the 1960s? Really? I mean, it’s chess. Not exactly a […]
Star Trek: Discovery – That Hope Is You/Far From Home Review
Huh. That’s my general reaction to the two-part third season premiere of Star Trek: Discovery. While some of the show’s problems have been alleviated by the 900+ year time jump to the future, the series still relies too much on style over substance when it matters the most. First the good: Discovery continues to have […]
Lovecraft Country – Full Circle Review
Well, that was a pretty unsatisfying end to the first season of HBO’s Lovecraft Country. And it’s a shame because when the series was working, it was easily the best thing on television this fall. However, the best elements of the season were the character-focused episodes; islands within the confusing and poorly explained mythology that […]
Lovecraft Country – Rewind 1921 Review
Almost a year ago, Watchmen premiered on HBO with a stunning sequence that brought the horrific Tulsa Massacre of 1921 back into the collective American consciousness. This week, HBO once again took us to the tragic events of May 31 through June 1, 1921 with the Lovecraft Country episode “Rewind 1921.” And when two shows […]










