Continuing my entanglement with the Criminal Element, I parse two very different British TV crime miniseries: Ordeal by Innocence and Bodyguard. The cast of Ordeal by Innocence “A country house, a dead body, a pack of suspects—sounds like Agatha Christie, no? … Continue reading →
The Burrow goes to Weimar for my latest scrape with the Criminal Element, a review of the hit German TV series Babylon Berlin: Despite its utter failure to provide stability for the German people between the wars, the late Weimar … Continue reading →
I haven’t been posting “South Tech Today” and “News from the Future” for a while because that’s now called “the front page of the newspaper.” However, this article in the Washington Post is (a) too absurd for even me to … Continue reading →
The Criminal Element meets Doha 12 in my latest review: Fauda is a vivid, fast-paced Israeli political thriller that features kinetic storytelling, expertly played tension, and highly authentic action sequences. It also finds time to present the human side of … Continue reading →
My latest entanglement with the Criminal Element takes me across the Florida Strait to the land of mojitos: The Las cuatro estaciones (Four Seasons in Havana) detective novels have brought Leonardo Padura fame, a certain amount of financial and political … Continue reading →
My latest run-in with the Criminal Element has me watching a TV show about a bad, bad man: The spectrum of “bad behavior” stretches all the way from kicking puppies to genocide. How despicable can the central character of a … Continue reading →
Another entanglement with the Criminal Element led me to discover Cleverman, a limited-run series on the Sundance Channel: We Homo sapiens have gotten pretty used to being the only humanoid species on Earth. So, what would happen if we somehow … Continue reading →
While running with the Criminal Element, I checked in with The Night Manager. Here’s what I found: If you’ve made your name writing about Cold War espionage, what do you do when the Cold War ends? If you’re John le Carré, … Continue reading →
In another brush with the Criminal Element, I introduce the new Sundance limited-run series The Last Panthers. They really existed, you know. The Pink Panthers. The Panthers were a confederation of Balkan thieves, many with military experience in the Bosnian and … Continue reading →
I’m abetting the Criminal Element again, this time with a consideration of the USA Network series Colony. Alien invasions on the big and small screens have rarely been about aliens. They’re usually metaphors for whatever the scare-of-the-year happens to be: … Continue reading →
