Nixer Doyle

A magnificent series, as wonderfully engaging and entertaining as it is educational. The visuals are stunning, the information shared by host Brian Cox is amazing.

Poorly made. Horribly structured, lots of holes in the narrative, way too much repetition. It is so badly produced that there are even typos in the chyrons, "pronography" being one example that comes to mind. There's zero doubt that Kelly is a child sexual abuser/predator, but content this bad doesn't honour the victims at all.

If you've come to this TV adaptation of the 2014 movie with the expectation that it should be the same, specifically around naivety and sweetness, expectations need to be revised. The different characters in the TV show have, so to speak, different characters. The quaintness of a Viago-like vampire living in Wellington can't be reproduced. And the people who loved the movie should realize that the first flush of joy they felt from seeing the movie just can't happen like that now. In terms of capturing the spirit of the movie, Taika and Jemaine have nailed it.

It's not every day that the word 'sumptuous' comes to mind when searching for an adjective to describe footage of war. And yet, the producers of They Shall Not Grow Old have created just that, a deep, almost saturated landscape. But the greatest achievement lies in seeing people move as we move and look like we look. As real, tragic and brutal as we know the First World War was, it's always been harder to make a true, resonant emotional connection, in much the same way as we view the silent era and the early talkies. But with the jumpy, staccato feeling replaced by natural movement, the colour bringing even more life to the people and places, and above all, the life brought to otherwise two dimensional, grainy eyes, this will be a great historical touchstone.

Were it not for Joe Berlinger's documentary 'companion piece', Conversations With a Killer, I would likely have been surprised at how bad 'Extremely Wicked' is. As a documentarian with his filmmaking partner, the late Bruce Sinofsky, Joe Berlinger has been responsible for some brilliant work, most notably the Paradise Lost series. I'm not sure if my expectations were too high going into Conversations. But as a result of Conversations, my expectations for the follow up movie -- starring a weirdly tanned but otherwise very beige Zac Efron -- were revised downwards. Sadly, they still weren't met. To be honest, I can't think of any good reason to revisit this man's story, regardless of the fake focus shift on to an innocent party. The facts are few, the vibe of the time poor, so as both linear story or attempt at impressionism, it fails. It doesn't honor the victims, it doesn't get to the heart of the soulless killer, it doesn't reflect the efforts of law enforcement and it doesn't even do much for Liz Kendall. The Miami trial is ludicrous and ludicrously cast, with John Malkovich in fine form as Judge John Malkovich, and Sheldon as the DA. What the eff is that about? If this movie tells us anything, it's that Bundy is dead and his story has been done to death.