Tag: television reviews

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People under the age of 55, to the extent that they know who Linda Blair is at all, know her for one thing: her iconic Oscar-nominated dual performance as the 12-year-old child Regan MacNeil and Supreme Master of Evil, Satan, in the legendary 1973 horror film The Exorcist.

People over the age of 55 know Linda Blair for two things: for playing Satan in The Exorcist and for the slew of scandalous made-for-TV movies she was in during the mid-1970s. The most explosive of these was Born Innocent, owing largely to a scene depicting a brutal lesbian rape which many found more horrifying than anything in The Exorcist. (more…)

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A few weeks ago, after I had just completed an essay that touched on the unequal distribution of interest in machines across racial groups (and in which I referred specifically to the demonstrable lack of African interest in engines), I was in the mood to watch a car show. Netflix has many options in that line, and I just happened to choose Tex Mex Motors, a show about a group of mechanics who set up shop on the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas. (more…)

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It’s June, and what was once Bride Month is now Pride Month. So that means it’s time to celebrate, everyone! Mothers and fathers only get one day each every year, but 175ers get 30 days — and surely that must be faaaabulous! (more…)

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See also: “Waco: The Incident that Kickstarted the Right”

Waco: The Aftermath, which follows 2018’s miniseries Waco and was made by the same production team, is a historical-fiction miniseries that examines the cultural impact of the FBI’s calamitous 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian “compound” in Waco, Texas which ended with a raid on April 19, 1993 in which 76 civilians were killed. The miniseries has three plotlines. The first centers on the criminal trial involving Branch Davidian Clive Doyle (John Hoogenakker) and his lawyer Dan Cogdell (Giovanni Ribisi), as well as co-defendants Ruth Riddle (Kali Rocha), Livingstone Fagan (Michael Luwoye), and Paul Fatta (Nicholas Kolev). (more…)

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A little-known horror anthology series from the 1980s is now back on American television. Given how popular H. P. Lovecraft is in dissident Right circles, more of our people should know about this hidden gem. Inspired by the horror comics of the 1950s, it also owes much to the influence of writers such as Poe and Lovecraft.

Tales from the Darkside aired in syndication on late-night cable from 1984 until 1988 — meaning that you had to really search for the show, if it was even available in your area, and you had to stay up late to watch it (often after midnight). (more…)

Artist’s impression of Eleven as a child. Image credit: Wise Snail Art.

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I recently finished watching the very popular Netflix series Stranger Things, and was impressed with the character of Eleven. She is a girl who comes from a difficult background and is gifted with exceptional abilities. I was particularly interested in the contrast between her mindset and that of others who have similar skills, as this is relevant to our situation today.

Eleven was kidnapped at birth by a scientist, Dr. Brenner, who runs a lab in which he studies children with strange powers. (more…)

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Having already published two extensive articles on The Prisoner (see here and here), I didn’t expect to ever write about the series again. But times have changed, and so has The Prisoner. Works of art are living things, and their meaning changes over time. This ultimately has little to do with the artist’s intentions. That The Prisoner had changed was brought home to me one evening when, on a whim, I chose to revisit an episode I had always disliked. (more…)

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HBO Max has begun airing a new series, Velma. This is a prequel spinoff of Scooby Doo, the much-beloved animated series from the 1970s, and told from the perspective of the eponymous character.

According to an old study, American kids grow up watching about a thousand hours of television a year. I confess that I was one of the young addicts who wasted an epic amount of time in front of the idiot box. After school meant cartoons, and so did Saturday mornings. But all told, Scooby Doo was one of the ones that was worth a look. Is it just me, or did it have some influence on The X-Files? (more…)

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The Vice President of the United States: It’s a lousy job, but someone’s got to do it. So why not cut to the chase and get a lousy person?

This was the premise of the comedy series Veep, which ran from 2012-2019 on HBO, chronicling the rise and fall and semi-rise of Selena Meyer, who schemes, rules, dominates, cowers, and obfuscates her way to power. Selena, aided (and generally hindered) by her staff, carries the water for President Hughes, and is almost totally ignored except when he orders her out to show the flag, take the heat, or be his pit bull, although Selena winds up as a Chihuahua more often than not, especially when a last-minute bit of political expediency by the unseen President leaves Selene as the fall guy . . . or gal, less a pit bull than sacrificial lamb. (more…)

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I just binge-watched the new series Peacemaker, a continuation of the character from 2021’s The Suicide Squad. I had heard it described as good, with a few woke moments. What I saw was one of the most anti-white Leftist shows that I had seen in a while. In contradistinction, the show I had seen prior to this was Arcane. The two programs share similar elements: a lesbian relationship between main characters, a white enemy, “badass” females, prominent diversity, interracialism, discussions of clueless privilege, and so on. (more…)

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Roots, the mother of the television miniseries, recently reached its 45th anniversary. It was based on Alex Haley’s book Roots: The Saga of an American Family. The story begins with Kunta Kinte, a young Mandinka tribesman from the Gambia who was captured and put on a slave ship bound for colonial America. It further covers his descendants and their tribulations, ending during the Radical Reconstruction.

All told, the acting is pretty decent for a TV program, featuring several existing and up-and-coming stars. LeVar Burton, who played the younger Kunta Kinte, does the haunted look just about as well as Nicolas Cage. (more…)

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Louis Theroux has made a career as a documentarian by going out into the “bush”—basically, anywhere outside the urban and online bubbles where his kind dwell. There he meets weird and marginal people. He is nice to them in order to get them on film. Then he displays them—like so many Hottentot Venuses—for the amusement of condescending liberal urbanites like himself. (more…)