Westworld (1973)

Delos is the foremost amusement park of the future (1983!).  Featuring three different 'worlds', each themed on a different era of history, Delos allows those who can afford the price ticket to immerse themselves in a perfectly realistic but perfectly safe fantasy where they can become a medieval knight, attend a Roman Bacchanalia, or become an outlaw in the Wild West.

Key to Delos's success are their astonishingly lifelike androids.  The only hint they aren't human is in that their hands aren't quite right, and they're fully available for all your entertainment needs.  Unfortunately, they might be a little more astonishingly lifelike than intended, and the current crop of visitors at this exclusive park may find themselves facing an extremely lethal form of industrial action ...

Written and directed by Michael Crichton, whose later Jurassic Park is basically just the same story with dinosaurs instead of robots, Westworld is a simple but generally fairly engaging science fiction thriller.  It's sometimes a bit clumsy in its narrative beats - in particular there is a jump scare or two that comes across more funny than frightening - but when Crichton just lets the pictures do the talking it can be quite effective.  The scene of the 'slain' robots being cleaned off the nighttime streets is suitably menacing, while Yul Brynner's "Gunslinger" is all menace as he silently stalks the movie's protagonist.

A lot of pre-Star Wars 70s science fiction, whatever good elements it might have, is ponderous and pompous.  Westworld isn't immune to thinking it is cleverer than it actually is, but it's sufficiently fast-paced and engaging that this isn't nearly as irksome as it might have been.  Worth a look if it sounds like it's at all in your wheelhouse.

Cloak & Dagger, Season 1 (2018)

As children, Tandy Bowen and Tyrone Johnson both lost the most important people in their lives on the same night.  For Tandy, it was her father, a brilliant engineer with the Roxxon Corporation; and the man blamed for the disaster that claimed his life.  For Tyrone, it was his brother, gunned down by a corrupt cop who then swept the murder under the carpet.

A decade or so later, the pair are living very different lives.  Formerly disadvantaged Tyrone now attends a prestigious school and lives in a nice neighbourhood; formerly privileged Tandy commits petty crime to survive and sleeps in an abandoned church.  But when they accidentally reconnect, both their lives will be thrown into a degree of turmoil they could never expect.  Corruption, conspiracy and strange otherworldly powers combine to create a trifecta of trouble for the pair.

So yep, it's yet another Marvel Comics-based piece of media, to go with the score of box office-busting movies, Netflix TV shows, animated film and TV offering, computer games ... oh, and comics of course, but let's face it, those are a pretty small part of the overall Marvel picture these days.

In comics-world, Cloak & Dagger debuted in 1982 as sympathetic antagonists to Spider-Man, graduated to their own (short-lived) series, and have been through the usual comics wringer of ret-cons, re-writes and new directions ever since.  I have no idea what they're up to these days.  The TV version relocates them from NYC to New Orleans, and introduces the concept of them being the latest incarnation of an heroic duo that arise every time the  city faces an existential threat.  Probably smartly, Katrina is not referenced as one of the past occasions where this has happened.

So how is it?  Well, the pacing of this first season is a little off, to my mind.  For one thing, it is long on preamble, and then has a rather rapid final act that felt a bit forced.  For another, it is a bit too fond of the "here's a series of interludes which present events that are a parallel of the main plot".  However, the two leads are likeable enough, the supporting cast is good, and I'm hopeful that the second season will build on the show's strengths and shore up its weaknesses.

If you're a fan of the Netflix shows, and want something to fill in the gap now that they're winding down, give Cloak & Dagger a try.

Robot Overlords (2014)

When the robots came, the war lasted only eleven days.  Three years later, humanity lives under strict curfew conditions.  Everyone is permanently tracked with electronic implants and executed if they're found out of their homes.  Most people bear this with bitter resignation but a few collaborate with the robots, acting as their agents and enforcers.  It's never explicitly stated why the invaders need collaborators, but it may be simply because almost none of the robots we see can actually fit through a doorway!

In any case, a group of teenagers stumble across a way to (at least temporarily) knock out their tracking implants.  They use this newfound freedom to ... well, to sneak into boarded up shops and raid them for candy, which is a refreshingly "real" response from a bunch of youngsters who don't have any guns or military training.  No immediate transformation into deadly freedom fighters, here.  It is in fact the collaborators' insistence on punishing even the most minor act of rebellion that will ultimately force these young people to challenge their robot overlords ...

So I've seen this described as "slightly more sweary Doctor Who", and that's a pretty good summation of its tone.  It's clearly intended to be tween/teen friendly, given the focus on its youthful leads, and it hits some of the same narrative beats and British nostalgia spots that Who had a tendency for under Steven Moffat's leadership.  Which ... is not actually a selling point for me.

This might keep its intended young audience tolerably entertained, but it's not likely to hold the attention or interest of a more demanding viewer.

Danger Man, Season 1 (1960)

"Every government has its secret service branch. 
America, CIA; France, Deuxième Bureau; England, MI5. 
NATO also has its own. 
A messy job? Well that's when they usually call on me or someone like me. 
Oh yes, my name is Drake, John Drake."

And so we are introduced to one of NATO's foremost special agents; the ingenious but principled John Drake.  Drake is an American agent (despite the show being British) who is frequently called in to deal with the most challenging or urgent cases of his unnamed employer.

Although Danger Man (AKA Secret Agent in the US) launched in 1960, a full two years before Sean Connery made "Bond, James Bond" a cultural touchstone, its main character has clearly been informed by Ian Fleming's creation ... though mostly in terms of what he isn't.  Drake is not a womaniser - he meets plenty of attractive women, but he doesn't bed them - and while he might have authority to kill, he doesn't like to do it; to the point that in one early episode of the series, he initially refuses an assassination mission.

Drake's assignment also tend to considerably less extravagant than Bond's (movie) missions.  That's partly a factor of time and budget, of course: each episode is only 25 minutes long, and probably cost less than 5% of Dr No's price tag.  But I suspect it is also a deliberate choice of tone, with a grounded, 'realistic' (by TV standards) feel to it.

If you've an interest in Cold War espionage media, this is worth looking up.

The Beguiled (1971)

Mississippi, 1863.  The American Civil War rages across the country, including in the region near the Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies.  While out picking mushrooms, one of the younger students finds an injured Union soldier.  Despite the man being an enemy, she leads him back to the school for medical treatment.

Local Confederacy regulations call for the school's owner, Miss Farnsworth, to alert the authorities to the man's presence.  However, she fears that sending him to the prison camp in his current state would be a swift death sentence, and resolves to wait to tell them until he is well enough to survive.

At least, that's what she tells herself, her students, and the school's limited staff.  The fact that he's a handsome and quite charming young man might also have affected her decision.  It has certainly affected several of the other women at the estate.

For his own part, the soldier recognises that keeping the women happy is the key to staying out of military prison ... and he clearly isn't averse to sampling any additional benefits that might accrue from charming these ladies.

Of course, that's a lot of different women to keep happy all at once, so our Civil War Casanova had best hope he's very good at juggling, or the situation is apt to explode in his face.

The Beguiled is a Southern gothic tale of conflicting agendas and desires.  It's short on likable characters, and the make-up effects look quite dated (of course, it is a nearly 50 year old film), but it is well-acted, and if you're in the mood for watching not especially nice people be not especially nice to each other, with not especially nice consequences, this will certainly meet your needs.

The Outer Limits, Season 1 (1963)

"There is nothing wrong with your television set.
Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission.
If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume.
If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper.
We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. 
We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. 
For the next hour, sit quietly, and we will control all that you see and hear. 
We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits."

This evocative opening narration graces every episode of The Outer Limits, an anthology science fiction show that launched in 1963.  The debt that it owes to The Twilight Zone is thus pretty clear, even before you've seen a single minute of footage, but it would be unfair to dismiss it as "just" a clone of the Zone.  The Outer Limits pursues a much more explicitly science fiction themed agenda, with most of the stories either involving an encounter with some sort of alien creature, or the development of a startling new technology and what that means for humanity.  Each episode also runs longer than most seasons of the earlier show did (though ironically, 1963 was also the one year where The Twilight Zone experimented with 50 minute, rather than 25 minute, episodes).  This extra length is not always a positive, I have to admit: several of the stories here would I think benefit from being shorter, as the pace of the show can sometimes be rather on the slow side.

If you're interested in a TV show that's canted more toward the 'science' end of science fiction, and are willing to accept that its age means it is sometimes naive or out of date in its views, then you should probably give The Outer Limits a look.  Double-check whether you're getting the original or the 1990s relaunch, though - the latter is a somewhat different beast, as best I recall it.

The Goonies (1985)

In 1980s Oregon, a group of working class families face the imminent foreclosure of their homes, which will then be bull-dozed for an expansion to the local country club.  This does not exactly sit well with kids of these families, but what can they do?  It's not like they'll stumble across a treasure map in the attic and find themselves racing against a local crime mob in pursuit of the pirate booty to which it leads, after all.

Well, since this is a Steven Spielberg film, that of course is exactly what happens.

People who were in the target age when this film came out, and who saw it at that time, seem to almost universally love it.  I fit the first criteria, but not the second.  I didn't see it until my late teens, and I didn't really get what the fuss was about.  Re-watching it now ... well, I still don't.  The comedy is not especially funny, the action isn't that exciting, and there's an awful lot of screechy shouting from the young cast.  Which I blame on the script rather than the actors, bit either way it is pretty annoying.

Frankly, there are much better kids' adventure films out there.  I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming Dora film proves to be one of them, actually.

Painkiller Jane, Season 1 (2007)

DEA agent Jane Vasco stumbles across a secret government strike team that hunts "Neuros": people with strange mental or physical powers.  The strike team identifies these genetic aberrations and injects them with a microchip that generates a small electrical charge, neutralising their powers.

The leader of this team is impressed with Jane and resolves to recruit her, whether she wants it or not.  That seems to come to tragic consequences when, on her first mission, Jane plummets 40 stories out of a skyscraper.

But then she wakes up in the morgue ...

Painkiller Jane is a superhero TV show from the time before Iron Man.  Among other things, that means it comes from a time when comic book adaptations were still seem as something of a gamble, rather than just one of Disney's many licenses to print money.  It's conspicuous that no-one wears a costume, and that no mentions the "superhero" word.

It's also a low budget show, as is painfully apparent in a few green screen sequences.  I suspect that the production either ran into budgetary or personal issues too, as several characters seem to suffer abrupt reductions in their significance in the show.

So is it any good?  Well, the cast are quite personable and I did actually quite enjoy it when it first came out, but the past decade has not been kind to it.  The bar for comic book TV has well and truly risen in that time, and left this show far below it.  In particular, the show's efforts to have a longer-term plotline in addition to its "Neuro of the week" challenge are uneven at best.  It's an interesting historical artefact in the evolution of superhero shows, but not a program I would recommend seeking out to watch.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

Tony Stark is world-renowned superhero Iron Man, not to mention an obscenely wealthy technological genius who has recently worked things out with the love of his life.  He should be on top of the world.  And he probably would be, if he wasn't suffering from crippling anxiety attacks and an inability to sleep as a result of nearly getting trapped on the other side of the galaxy (in Avengers).

These problems mean that Tony isn't exactly operating at peak capacity when he finds himself tangling with the international terrorist who calls himself "The Mandarin", despite being a Caucasian who appears to be riffing more on Middle Eastern motifs than those of China.  I'm not sure whether white-washing this role is better or worse than the wince-inducing "yellow peril" stylings of the original comic book villain.  Probably it would have been better just not to pick a character with quite such a loaded background?

In any case, there's more to the Mandarin than meets the eye, and Tony will need every trick in his admittedly very large arsenal of tricks in order to survive when he finds himself in extremis.

Omitting the problematic Mandarin angle, Iron Man 3 is a fine superhero film of the Marvel kind, with a charismatic lead (Robert Downey Jr knocking it out of the park once again), and plenty of spectacle to tide us over between the generally well-executed character beats.  I would have liked more to have been done with the supporting cast, perhaps, but RDJ is so good that it's hard to quibble too much with the film focusing so much on him.