With the fourth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones (GoT) upon us, many of us will once again escape to the mythical land of Westeros. And we’ll do so thanks to a vast array of international locations and…
The heir to an ancient exiled dynasty marries his sister to the leader of a savage warrior society, in return for their support in his effort to regain his father’s throne. The heir is soon killed, while…
A decade and a half after one family firm abandoned its attempt to run a television channel especially for London, another is trying to succeed. Channel One ended in 1998 when, just one day after the third…
BBC One’s swaggering epic The Musketeers has concluded with much skulduggery and winning of honour. A second series has already been confirmed after the show opened spectacularly with a consolidated audience…
Warning: this article contains copious swearing. Let me start with a confession: I swear. Not gratuitously, but once in a while it’s nice to let off steam with a well-placed “damnit” or two, when running…
Louis Theroux knows how to entertain; but the lessons he teaches us have much greater import. The British journalist and broadcaster is back on TV – at least in the UK, for now – with his new series LA…
You’re watching one of those films that I think of as “torture porn”, like Saw or The Collection, in which human captives have their bodies mutilated, dismembered or painfully abused. You’ve paid your…
Oscar Wilde once wrote: “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” But W1A, the BBC’s new let’s-all-laugh-at-ourselves observational comedy, has shown art can be quickly left behind, following…
So: Noel Edmonds – television game show host, helicopter pilot, spiritualist and anti-wind energy campaigner – wants to get his hands on the BBC. The broadcaster, he says, is hopelessly un-business-like…
Under cover of night a man carries what looks to be a dead body into the unknown, before a field is set alight. Later, a pair of mismatched detectives – Marty (Woody Harrelson), an apparently affable family…
Season two of US political thriller House of Cards hit Netflix as a complete 13-part series in February and, depending on which way you chose to watch it in Australia, you’ll have either binged shamelessly…
Never before have we been such compulsive multitaskers, blogging and tweeting using multiple devices and smartphones anywhere and everywhere, from trains to cafes. It seems a little backwards, then, that…
Connoisseurs of TV advertising may recall the commercial for Florette salad. Agricultural gangs conduct menacing stand-offs while chanting the names of their preferred leaf. “Lollo rosso!” one group taunt…
Tonight ABC2 airs I am a Girl. Rebecca Barry’s documentary introduces us to six young women from around the world. They hail from Cambodia, Cameroon, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, the USA and Australia…
Critics of the BBC argue that it distorts the UK’s media market, making it hard for commercial competitors to prosper and meet consumers’ needs. Their view is that viewers would be better served if the…
The Sochi Winter Olympics has seen the return to Australian television screens of sport parodists extraordinaire “Rampaging” Roy Slaven and HG Nelson. Roy and HG’s Russian Revolution presents the familiar…
From iPads to Xboxes, the modern child has a vast array of electronic media to help alleviate boredom, pass the time and play online games. Parents may often wonder about the impact such activities can…
The first episode of mini-series Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond is a very glamorised account of the life of James Bond’s creator, and it is certainly entertaining. But should we lament its deviations…
Maybe the ads ruined it for me. Certainly, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart was thoroughly cross-promoted on Channel Seven. I think Kochie may have even mentioned it once or twice. The ads, though, pointed to…
Darryl Woodford, Queensland University of Technology and Katie Prowd, Queensland University of Technology
The launch of the current series of My Kitchen Rules has undoubtedly been successful, both in terms of television ratings and in capturing a social media audience, clearly winning the battle for the Twitter…