Rory Doherty is a writer of criticism, films, and plays based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He's often found watching something he knows he'll dislike but will agree to watch all of it anyway. You can follow his thoughts about all things stories @roryhasopinions.
Playing Niceis a thriller about a malicious, powerful man consumed with violent, repressed urges. This is simple, classic Gothic material, handled without awareness of style or the pleasures of genre fiction.
Hostage lacks a sense of political realism or nuance, even before the miniseries delves into a ludicrous and mostly tension-free kidnapping plot that cuts to the heart of the British leadership.
It took crotchety British director Ridley Scott to create the serene but chilling atmosphere that propelled Alien's slasher-in-space into an enduring franchise. Here are some of the other Brits in space you can't hear screaming.
Chief of War explores the fear of colonialism from a Hawaiian perspective (and language) in a series that is equal parts entertainment and historical preservation.
We look back at 1976's I, Claudius, a series that contains the Platonic ideal of what period dramas once used to sell their epic scope: performances oozing with venom, and sharp, compelling scripts.
Given the history of British explorers venturing into unknown waters and strange lands when they probably shouldn’t have, it’s no surprise that Brits are all over the Star Trek franchise.
Someone as cool, charismatic, and capable as Taron Egerton deserves to be showcasing the heavy, repressed emotions of Dave Gudsen, his dirty cop character in Smoke, in theaters. Instead, it's on Apple TV+.
Credit to Towards Zero, a good murder mystery solution should feel, in retrospect, inevitable, even if we didn’t necessarily see them coming, and the series pulls it off with aplomb.
