Television

Cuckoo 1

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Cuckoo Series 1

Cuckoo is a British-Irish sitcom that began in 2012 on BBC and worldwide on Netflix.

Starring
Greg Davis (as Ken)
his wife Lorna (Helen Baxendale)
daughter Rachel (Tamla Kari)
son Dylan (Tyger Drew-Honey)
and Rachel’s new husband Dale ‘Cuckoo’ Ashbrick (Andy Samberg)

Rachel returns home from her gap year before medical school with a dim-witted husband who has no job and appears to live a hippie life-style.

The real star here is Greg Davis, whose imposing frame (6’8”) works with his sweet relaxed nature to provide most of the comedy.

The first series revolves around him trying to extract a pest from the side of his daughter. But his good nature prevents him from the most outrageous schemes of his  friends and family.

 

Television

ST:D 2.12

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Star Trek Discovery 2.12 Through the Valley of Shadows

A new signal appears over Boreth, a place sacred to Klingons, where a Klingon monastery is located and where monks guard time crystals.

Seriously, how does Pike get those crystals ?
He just walks around and chats with the Klingon then
gets what he wants.

Andrew Todd Review

 

Movies

Shazam

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Shazam! is a superhero movie based on the DC Comics character of the same name.

Directed by David F. Sandberg from a screenplay by Henry Gayden, and a story by Gayden and Darren Lemke, the film stars Asher Angel as Billy Batson, a teenage boy who can transform into an adult superhero, played by Zachary Levi. Mark Strongs play the evil genius.

Widely touted as ‘Big’ combined with a superhero movie. This is light in tone and generally funny until the final act where a traditional good vs evil narrative takes over. Zackary Levi is perfectly cast as a 14 year old boy in an adult body. Mark Strong is just having fun going over the top as the villian.

 

Television

Park & Rec S7

Parks & Recreation Season 7

The seventh and final season of Parks and Recreation aired in the USA from January to February 2015 and consisted of 13 episodes.

This season junks forward two years, giving Lesley’s children time to grow up and skip her pregnancy.

Leslie has a new career as Regional Director of National Park Service. She has had a fallout with former boss Ron Swanson that is resolved later in the season.

Also included is the rise of fictional tech company Gryzzl. This is a bit of now relevant satire as the company is am amalgam of Google and Facebook. It sucks up everyone’s data and sells them crap.

The series follows the careers of the principle characters and eventually concluded with a suitably schmaltzy ending.

Event

Nato 70

NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is an international alliance that consists of 29 member states from North America and Europe.

It was established at the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949. Article Five of the treaty states that if an armed attack occurs against one of the member states, it shall be considered an attack against all members, and other members shall assist the attacked member, with armed forces if necessary.

The member states of NATO are: 

Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States.

Books

Retrograde

Retrograde
(Spaceman Chronicles #3)
by Tom Abrahams (2017)

Clayton Shepard dropped from the sky. Twice.

Now, in the wake of twin cataclysmic blasts of energy from the sun, he is earthbound and far from home.

While his family and friends seek safe harbor in an increasingly dangerous Texas, Clayton is forced underground in Colorado.

He must free himself and finally find a way home in a world quickly slipping farther into the dark ages.

The series concludes with the same problems: short flashbacks and too many characters and plots.

Books

Descent

Descent
(Spaceman Chronicles #2)
by Tom Abrahams (2017)

 

 

Clayton Shepard is lost, cold, alone, and determined to find his way home. But he’s landed on a planet he doesn’t recognize. Earth isn’t the same place he left months earlier.

For the second book, all traces of Science Fiction has disappeared. It’s now a dystopian thriller. And while the story is well told, it’s not lining up very well with how humans behave.

In this break-down of society, all that remains (apparently)  are individuals and the military. What happened to local government, state government ? Any social grouping that would have existed before has suddenly disappeared.

And what happened to basic communications like push-bikes ?

There is considerable plot given to people raiding private houses, but what about shops, malls etc. Have they disappeared  ?

There should be a lot more people around that is depicted in the story. Still, the plot has yet to reach it’s conclusion, so on to the finale…

Television

Park & Rec S6

Parks and Recreation (season 6)

Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones) and Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) move to Michigan to start their family and out of the series.

The main plot of this season is coping with the merger to Eagleton. Diane (Lucy Lawless) and Ron  and get married.

The trip to London was due to Chris Pratt filming Guardians of the Galaxy. He returned to the series in the tenth episode, the series’ 100th episode.