Welcome to Issue #24

This week we have three TV series to review and a not-so-good restaurant experience.

Film & Television

Paper Girls is a science fiction television series following four young girls from 1988, who get caught up in a time-travel conflict whilst on their morning newspaper delivery run. Unknowingly winding up in 2019, they meet future versions of themselves and must work together to save the world. It definitely has Stranger Things vibes although I've read that Paper Girls came first in the form of a 2015 comic book.

The four leads are great and in what is a relatively short series, they manage to create well-rounded, believable characters with both funny and tender moments in among the chaos of everything going on around them. The time travel plot does work, with a solid frenetic opening episode and some more breathing space in the second half for further character development and relationship-building.

However there did come a point around half way through where it became too insane for me not to start to question what I was watching *cough, giant fighting robots, cough*. Despite that hiccup I'm pleased I stuck with it. It's worth noting that Amazon have chosen not to renew for a second season, so there is a bit of an unresolved cliffhanger ending, but if this sounds like your kind of thing, I'd recommend giving it a try.

Rating: 6.5/10

I watched the first season of Love Life around summer of last year. It was one of those shows where you know nothing about, but Netflix recommends and you just go for it. I was pretty quickly hooked, breezing through the 10 episodes in what must have been a couple of days. It follows Darby Carter (played by Anna Kendrick), who we meet as a single 24 year old, navigating the highs and lows of various relationships over the course of the next few years of her life.

Despite realising now that it had fully aired well before I watched the first, I wasn't even aware there was a second season of Love Life. It must have been recently made available on Netflix and so was dutifully recommended for the second time. Following a similar format, we meet Marcus Watkins (played by William Jackson Harper) as a 30-something married man, whose life starts to fall apart when he begins to question his marriage.

For me season two is a step up from season one; the whole figuring out what's important in life post the work-hard, play-hard 20's is something I continue to question. As well as the interactions between Marcus and his various partners simply feeling more genuine, both in moments of head-over-heels romance or the awkwardness of a one night stand. Or maybe it's just that as a 35-year old man it's somewhat more relatable...

All of this is set in the backdrop of Covid (social distancing, masks, etc) as well as some nods towards the explosion of the Black Lives Matter movement with which Marcus is forced to engage through his insensitive employer wanting to appear to be doing the right thing. It's never politicised but adds another layer of depth, which for me served as a reminder of how much is constantly going on around us, let alone trying to figure out who we want to spend the rest of our lives with.

Rating: 7.5/10

I reviewed The Traitors in Issue #19 and soon after the BBC made available The Traitors US version on iplayer. It follows the exact same format as the first, shot in the same Scottish castle, with the same prize tasks each episode, but with an american set of contestants and Alan Cumming replacing Claudia Winkleman as the host. The other notable change is that unlike the British version which had 22 members of the public who all seemed to form authentic lifelong friendships, the US version is a mix of the public and US reality TV stars.

Casting reality stars have their pros and cons; their larger than life personalities means there are a lot more clashes as they have no problem sniping at one other, making bold accusations with no evidence and generally just causing utter chaos. It's fun to watch and great to see the meltdowns, but it does mean the majority of the 'normal' contestants barely get any screen time as they're mostly resigned to passive observers until they're inevitably murdered or banished from the castle.

Alan Cumming treats his role as the host as a performance, taking every opportunity to utilise his Scottish accent for maximum drama all whilst dressing in a different fabulously camp ensemble for every episode. He doesn't root for the contestants like Claudia did and seems to take joy in mocking some of the more annoying reality stars. It's a fun take but inevitably not quite so heartwarming as he doesn't seem invested in the fates of the players.

My gripes with the format remain and the same issues play out here as we get closer to the end game. However it doesn't quite end as per the UK version and the final episode is about as dramatic as you could imagine, so it's well worth a watch.

Rating: 6.5/10

Food

Last weekend we tried a local Italian restaurant that we'd never been to, Pizza Calzone. It has excellent reviews (4.7 rating on Google!) and so we were excited to give it a go.

Sadly it was truly disappointing as neither of us enjoyed our food and the service wasn't great to boot. My pizza was overcooked to the point where the crust was nearly inedible and my partner said her pasta was chewy and lacked flavour.

I don't often do this, but I left a review on both Google and TripAdvisor and the response from the owner was pretty funny.

My review didn't mention the two hour window (we were gone within one), the table we were sat on is literally next to the bar and my partner left probably two thirds of her pasta on the plate. Hmmmmmm!

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Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Adam