This Daredevil season three review no spoilers… unless you consider stuff revealed in trailers to be spoilers. It is based on the first six episodes.

Daredevil has always been the flagship of the Marvel Netflix Universe. By far the most recognisable Marvel superhero on the streaming service, with the longest legacy and most impressive creative pedigree, there’s a reason that they chose Daredevil to set the tone for what now amounts to six different shows and ten seasons and counting of TV. The first season told the dual origin stories of Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk and laid out the rules of the Marvel Hell’s Kitchen. Season two was good fun, but found itself diverted by the need to introduce not just Punisher and Elektra, but expand on the mythology of the Hand to a sufficient degree to set the stage for The Defenders, and it suffered a little (but only a little) for it.

So here we are with Daredevil season three, the fourth season of Marvel TV to feature Matt Murdock, and welcoming the third showrunner in the show’s history (this time it’s Man In The High Castle’s Erik Oleson). Under Oleson, Daredevil is back to the street level roots of season one, with fewer mystical ninjas, precisely zero guest heroes or antiheroes, and an apparent desire to rebuild its key characters from the ground up. Easy enough considering that Daredevil season three begins with its title character presumed dead and its headline villain still doing hard time.

The bad news is that Danny Rand is no longer the least likable hero in Marvel’s Netflix roster. I mean, I guess that’s good news if you’re Danny Rand, and really, it’s a tribute to how much of an improvement Iron Fist season two was. But holy moley, Matt Murdock is just this side of insufferable this season. The difference here is that Matt achieving Miserable Bastard Level: Expert is by design. He earned it. You wouldn’t be a lot of fun if you lost the love of your life as a building fell on you, either. Matt is having a dual crisis of faith, both in his own abilities and mission, and in the man upstairs. As Daredevil is one of the few superheroes whose faith is an important part of his identity, it was only a matter of time before we got here with him, but perhaps setting him up in the basement of a church (and literally opening the first episode with ol’ hornhead in a crucifixion pose) might be a little too obvious for some.

Look, I gave you the bad news first. I never do that in these reviews. But don’t worry, because there is plenty of good news about Daredevil season three. Some of which should be obvious (the return of Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk, the arrival of the villain everyone has been waiting for, the fact that this show operates on a baseline of at least “pretty good” at all times anyway), but there are some really pleasant surprises, notably the addition of two new characters.

The first is the mysterious Sister Maggie (who may be less mysterious to comic book fans, but that doesn’t mean this season is a straight adaptation of the big story you’re thinking of), played by Joanne Whaley. Sister Maggie is here to both nurse Matt back to health and be the audience’s stand-in for when we all get annoyed with him, as she is absolutely not here for any of his shit. Whaley is a lot of fun, with a biting, dry wit that plays beautifully with Cox’s more damaged than usual Matt Murdock, and the pair have a warm, genuine chemistry on screen.

The other is Jay Ali as Ray Nadeem, the FBI agent who ends up as Wilson Fisk’s handler. Nadeem is an original creation of the show, and spends most of his screen time interacting with other non-Marvel characters. This is a huge hill to climb in a Marvel production, one where every character tic and line of dialogue is dissected in the hope that some tenuous comic book connection can be made (ahem…guilty as charged). Ray is, perhaps even more than Karen Page and Foggy Nelson (who both have plenty of their own burdens to carry this season), the ultimate everyman in this world. And because we have no preconceived notions about where he is fated to end up, it’s even easier to get attached to him. Ali delivers a wounded, sympathetic performance, and Ray seems like a character who would be just as compelling had he been created for some non-Marvel crime show.

Daredevil season three is, shall we say, deliberately paced. While I say that about just about every Marvel Netflix season, the difference is that, at least in these first six episodes, there’s nothing I can point specifically at and say ‘they’re filling time again.’ Instead, there are a lot of pieces that have to be put in place, from Matt Murdock’s return and how it affects Karen and Foggy to the plans within plans that Wilson Fisk is developing. It’s a lot, even without the additional villain origin story that gets teased out. This is a big step forward. 

And just in case you start to get impatient, let me assure you, when the show does decide to break the tension with a major action sequence, it does it in spectacular fashion. Remember how the stairwell fight in season two tried to up the ante on that brilliant hallway fight from season one? And remember how it felt kind of self-conscious in its gimmicky desire to one-up the previous season? Well, when the equivalent happens here a few episodes in, it’s nothing short of spectacular, something more akin to the tracking shot from the first season of True Detective than anything we’ve seen in superhero TV or movies. It doesn’t announce its presence or telegraph its intention, and it takes a couple of minutes before you realise just how hard they’re going for it. It’s a tremendous accomplishment, and worth whatever value you place on the countless hours you spend binge-watching Marvel TV shows on Netflix.

And that’s not the only one. You’ve seen hints and teases about the other big villain coming to the show, and that’s another slow burn. It’s no spoiler to say (sorry, folks, once it’s in trailers and marketing materials, it’s not really a spoiler anymore) that Wilson Bethel’s Benjamin Poindexter is the other Daredevil villain fans have been clamouring for since season one. The first six episodes of this season essentially function as his origin story, and his first confrontation with Matt is everything fans could have hoped for. Bethel manages to walk the line between sympathetic and creepy with his performance, even in the occasional moment when the writing falls back on the obvious. But like Alice Eve’s Typhoid Mary over on Iron Fist, he makes a strong first impression, and (assuming he survives the season), there’s a lot of promise for the future.

But at the centre of it all, there is Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin. Desperately missed from season two, the show once again feels at home telling the parallel stories of Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk. Like Matt, Fisk is once again starting from the bottom, imprisoned in a luxury hotel at the whim of a team of FBI agents. To tell you more would be to spoil the fun, but rest assured D’Onofrio is still perhaps the single most inspired piece of casting in Marvel’s Netflix stable, and it’s almost impossible to imagine another actor inhabiting the role. D’Onofrio is currently Marvel’s best villain on the big or small screen, and it’s not even close. Just as he was in season one, he is the most compelling character on the show, even when he isn’t actually on screen.

After the dramatic turn for the better Iron Fist season two took in its final few episodes, I’m now hesitant to make a sweeping pronouncement about any of these shows before I’ve seen the full batch. But all signs point to Daredevil season three as a standout. While it’s a slow starter, it feels like it has purpose, and the impression from about the middle of the third episode onwards is that it’s gathering momentum with virtually every scene. The end of episode six is the closest thing to ‘fan service’ we’re likely to get from this season, and it’s not only a genuine thrill, it feels like the show (and the audience) really earned it. Even without his red costume, Daredevil is still the centre of the Marvel Netflix Universe, and this season seems like it should be a fine reminder of why.

Daredevil season 3 arrives on Netflix on Friday the 19th of October.

This review contains spoilers. Our spoiler-free review is here.

11.2 The Ghost Monument

After The Woman Who Fell To Earth aired last week, fans were left with some lingering questions. Chief among them: what would the new opening look like (assuming the show wasn’t going the way of so many modern TV series and doing away with a proper title sequence altogether), and how long would it be before we got to see the TARDIS? Despite Chris Chibnall’s best efforts to sow seeds of doubt in interviews that the Doctor’s trusty ship may never return, we get satisfying answers to both questions in this week’s episode, The Ghost Monument.

So, what of that opening sequence? Since the show’s revival in 2005, it’s always been fairly clear what we’ve been looking at: starfields and time vortices, maybe with the odd planet thrown in for good measure. These new visuals harken back to the more abstract days of the 1960s and 70s, with an aesthetic that means you’re never quite sure what you’re looking at. It’s unsettling, and deliberately so. Combined with Segun Akinola’s new rendition of the theme tune, the opening becomes a real statement of intent to return to the series’ roots.

It is perhaps fitting, then, that The Ghost Monument bears some similarities with one of Doctor Who‘s earliest stories, 1964’s Marco Polo. Both are visually sumptuous stories (Though Polo sadly no longer exists in the archives) which see the Doctor and their three friends unable to use the TARDIS and having to cross a harsh desert landscape with a small cast of guest characters seeking riches. And although The Ghost Monument runs for just under fifty minutes as opposed to Marco Polo’s seven weeks, the end result is the same: a slower tale which allows for greater characterisation and gives the Sheffield Squad some bonding time.

Because let’s get the biggest negative out of the way first: for the second week running, this episode is not exactly the most complex of Doctor Who stories. Plotwise it’s a fairly straightforward journey from A to B, with a few alien nasties thrown in along the way. It’s also a very predictable tale; the nature of the titular monument, Chekhov’s cigar and the joint first placing could all be seen a mile off.

However, to dismiss The Ghost Monument based on its plot alone would be to ignore much of what makes the episode enjoyable. After all, we get to spend the episode getting to know the Time Team a little better and starting to explore the bonds between them. Easily the most interesting of these – and perhaps not coincidentally the one with the most screen time devoted to it – is Graham and Ryan. With Grace’s death in the previous episode still raw, there’s a very real and natural awkwardness between the two of them, which isn’t like anything we’ve seen in Doctor Who before.

This awkwardness also brings out one of the more interesting character beats in the episode,  when Ryan berates Graham for talking about his feelings and Graham retorts that Ryan doesn’t talk about his enough. This, combined with the scene in which Ryan takes out his anger on some robot guards, would seem to suggest the Doctor Who is taking on the issue of toxic masculinity in young men. The word ‘timely’ has been used in some of the publicity for this series, and it doesn’t get much more timely than this – especially given the numbers of boys and young men who watch the show. It’s to Tosin Cole’s credit that the character remains both believable and sympathetic, and at the moment his is easily the most intriguing character arc on the show.

Though they both get some nice moments, particularly in their interactions with the guest cast, Yas and Graham don’t fare nearly as well as Ryan in their development. Bradley Walsh and Mandip Gill are never less than watchable, but it appears that Graham’s role on the team at this point is to be confused and annoyed by a lot of what he sees, which does become grating after a while. With luck, now that the TARDIS is back and Graham is no longer an accidental traveller, the interjections will become a lot more constructive.

And Yasmin… Was also in the episode. One can only hope there’s some really juicy stuff in the pipeline for Mandip Gill to get her teeth into, because at the moment Yaz seems to have graduated from Generic Companion 101 – she’s sympathetic, supportive and brave, but beyond that there’s disappointingly little we can say about her. Actions speak louder than words, and whilst it was good to hear Yaz mention her family, it’s not character development.

However, in spite of these issues, I found myself grinning my way through much of the story for a number of reasons. Firstly, it looks utterly gorgeous. This episode (along with next week’s) was filmed in South Africa, and director Mark Tonderai milks this for all it’s worth, with sweeping desert sandscapes and stunning vistas. There have been many complaints about the reduction to ten episodes this year (plus the seasonal special, which may not air until 2019 if recent reports are to be believed), but if that’s what it takes for the show to look this good then it’s a welcome change.

While the generic robot guards are just that, the other monsters in the episode proved to be rather more effective. Although it’s clear Chris Chibnall has watched too much Aladdin, these flying carpets are just creepy, and have that classic Doctor Who monster quality of being easy to replicate – I’d like to think there’ll be children running after their siblings with their beach towels in hand after this one.

The roving rugs also allow for the setup of what will almost certainly be series arcs – not only were they created at the behest of the Stenza, but there’s also something in the Doctor’s head about a “timeless child” that will surely prove significant. Given what the crew have said about the lack of serialisation this year it’s likely this won’t be picked up on in any serious way for a good few weeks, but it’s a satisfying breadcrumb.

By way of a series preview, the transmitted version of last week’s episode contained an extended roll-call of guest actors that was at best a bit weird and awkward and at worst bafflingly self-important. But it’s hard to deny the value that Shaun Dooley and Susan Lynch bring to The Ghost Monument, with Dooley clearly having fun as lovable scumbag Epzo, and Lynch turning in a gutsy, earnest performance as Angstrom. Their roles don’t really develop over the course of the story – if it weren’t for the Doctor telling them to finish joint first they’d still be trying to screw each other out of the prize – but they add colour to the episode. Rounding off the guest cast is Art Malik, who is disappointingly under-used but infuses his brief appearances in the episode with a potent mix of charm, menace and apathy. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if he were to return.

Running excitedly through the centre of this madness is Jodie Whittaker, with a madcap physicality not unlike – though a little more restrained than – Matt Smith. Now that we’ve done away with the post-regenerative nonsense of last week, Whittaker’s manic energy is channeled into a more considered performance, brimming with a quiet intensity. Some of her best moments this week are fuelled by righteous indignation, both at Ryan for his shooting spree and at Epzo for being Epzo. And show me a long-term fan who didn’t let out a cheer when she pulled out some Venusian aikido…

Also like Matt Smith’s Doctor, this incarnation’s vulnerabilities seem to be on display more than with most past incarnations. This is largely endearing, such as when she thanks her companions for not going on about the fact things have gone wrong, but is a little jarring near the close of the episode when, seeing that the TARDIS hasn’t arrived yet, the Doctor flat-out gives up.

Part of the reason this is so disconcerting is that we haven’t been given enough information to view this as a defeat – we know the TARDIS appears every 1,000 cycles, but we don’t know when it’s due or for how long. It’s a moment that is designed to emphasise the value of the Doctor’s new friends as they tell her not to give up, but arguably it does so at the Doctor’s expense. Though the show is (rightly) making no fuss about the Doctor’s gender, you have to wonder whether seemingly making this incarnation that bit more vulnerable than the previous ones is a bit of a misstep.

The moment of despair is, of course, designed to set up the triumphant scenes that follow, as the Doctor is finally reunited with the love of her lives. It’s such a joyous occasion, and seeing Jodie Whittaker with the TARDIS really hammers home just how much she’s the Doctor now. When she tells Yaz to “start believing”, I got goosebumps – helped by the swells of Segun Akinola’s score, which with its reliance on strings and brass carries a particular warmth to it.

As for the TARDIS’s latest desktop theme… It may take some getting used to. In some ways it’s reminiscent of the 2005 edition, with the admittedly very pretty crystal struts holding up the structure like some kind of Fortress of Solitude. However, like that version of the TARDIS it’s currently quite dimly lit and incredibly gloomy – bar the console area, which when surrounded by the crystal growths feels quite small and claustrophobic. Also, the Doctor seems to have acquired one of those cheap crystal-etched TARDISes you constantly see advertised on Facebook…

For all its flaws, The Ghost Monument screams ‘confidence’. This is a show heading in a bold new direction with its best foot forward, and it’s not afraid to take risks. Nothing exemplifies that more than the trailer for next week’s episode. It’s going to be a long seven-day wait… 

Read Pete’s review of the previous episode, The Woman Who Fell To Earth, here.

Some Fallout fans are upset that Fallout 76 will apparently seriously alter the history of the beloved Brotherhood of Steel faction.

For those who don’t know, the Brotherhood of Steel is a semi-religious faction that has been a part of the Fallout franchise since the very first game. Their advanced technology and somewhat ambiguous motivations (they’re not outwardly hostile towards humans, but they’re also not that interested in directly helping them) make them a fan favourite coalition that usually offers the best items in the franchise. For years, it’s been suggested that the first recorded history of the Brotherhood occurred in California sometime around the year 2134.

So how is it that The Brotherhood of Steel is featured in Fallout 76; a game that takes place in West Virginia in the year 2102? Fallout fans have been trying to answer that question ever since a scene in a recent gameplay demo of Fallout 76 seemingly confirmed that the Brotherhood is going to be in the game. Even if certain aspects of the Fallout lore are stretched a bit (who’s to say the Brotherhood didn’t actually exist in some form before 2134?) there seems to be no way that the Brotherhood could have made it from California (where they almost certainly began) to West Virginia in that time frame.

Bethesda has previously commented that they’re really not tied to the lore of a game that “somebody wrote 20 years ago,” but that they do plan on offering an explanation as to why the Brotherhood is in Fallout 76. A page on the Fallout wiki suggests that a detachment of soldiers was sent to the world of Fallout 76 to eradicate a creature known as the Scorchbeasts who are spreading a pathogen that turns people into mutants.

Why does any of this matter? Well, it certainly matters to hardcore Fallout fans, but even more casual fans of the franchise see this as an indication that Fallout 76 is very much not a Fallout game. The recent footage of the game that emerged from some press demos was met with a decidedly mixed reaction. That is to say that it looked incredibly rough and left many with serious doubts as to what Bethesda hopes to achieve with this game.

We’ll have to wait and see how Bethesda explains this Brotherhood of Steel timeline problem.

Please don’t use a bad word when you can use a good word, a generation of children were taught on the children’s show Mr. Pickles’ Puppet Time. Premiere cable network Showtime can use any words it wants, and it just mouthed it renewed the Jim Carrey-starring comedy series Kidding for season 2. The series, which debuted on 9th September stateside, is set to wrap up its first season on 11th November.

Carrey stars as fictional children’s entertainer Jeff Piccirillo, a children’s show host highly influenced by the imaginative world of Mister Rogers, whose family life is falling apart after the death of his son. The iconic Mr. Pickles teaches kindness to impressionable youth. His show, like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, airs on PBS.

“Kidding has established itself as one of the most endearing and inventive shows on television,” Showtime Networks programming resident Gary Levine said in a statement (via Variety). “I feel like I have been watching Mr. Pickles my whole life, and I look forward to being entranced by his unique blend of hilarity and heartbreak in season two.”

Kidding, which marked Carrey’s return to TV after leaving Fox’s sketch comedy series In Living Color 24 years ago, reunited Carrey with director and executive producer Michel Gondry, who won an Oscar for co-writing the film Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Gondry directed the pilot and several episodes for the show’s premiere season. The series, created by Dave Holstein, also stars Frank Langella, Catherine Keener, Judy Greer, Cole Allen and Juliet Morris.

Kidding season 2 will consist of ten episodes, but we don’t know exactly they’ll debut yet.

More as we get it.