Penny Dreadful
I'd seen the first two seasons of this before and thought they were great but never got around to watching the third season. After buying the three Blu-ray releases, I watched them very quickly and by earlier opinion was confirmed. This is a a brilliant TV show, worn with excellent production values, superb writing and direction, and a fantastic cast. If Gothic fiction is your thing then you should love this. Penny Dreadful: City of Angels
Bizarrely, this doesn't have anything to do with the previous Penny Dreadful series and not much in the way of horror or the supernatural. It is interesting for the reminder of how widespread pro-Nazi sympathies were in the US during the late 1930s and the extent institutionalised antisemitism (something really well explored in the film Gentleman's Agreement).
I hope there is a second season because there are character and narrative arcs which need further development and exploration to be fully fleshed out and not leaving the feeling cheated. Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez
As a New England Patriots fan, I followed the rise and fall of Aaron Hernandez very closely and found this three-part documentary series extremely interesting. It's done in such a way which should appeal to people without much (if any) interest in American football as it concentrates on one player and his short life. No one should feel lost about the workings of the NFL because all aspects of football are pretty well explained, making this more of a character study than a sports documentary. Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich
Like Killer inside, this is a Netflix original documentary series and the four episodes told me a lot about Jeffrey Epstein which I didn't know and I now feel more able to engage in the news about Ghislaine Maxwell and her upcoming trial. It's a tough documentary because of its subject material and one which makes you realise how easy was/is for sexual predators to hide in plain sight. |