Category: TV Review
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The Architecture of Alienation: Severance and the Marxist Office-Space Nightmare
I’ve just finished season 1 of Severance, the Apple TV+ series and I must say, I’m impressed. The way it slices consciousness into ‘innie’ and ‘outie’ is a clear allegory of Marx’s concept of alienation, but for me (with my obdurate urban gegoraohy schooling) the architecture doesn’t just set the…
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American TV and post-9/11 political imaginaries: 24, The West Wing and The Wire
Everyone my age will remember where they were on 9/11. I distinctly remember the BBC stopping a lunchtime episode of Neighbours for it, so I immediately knew something big was happening. As the day turned into a week, which turned into a month, which turned into a new epoch of…
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The Big Breakfast: the first meal of Cool Britainnia
Yes I know, I’ve perhaps been reading too much of Mark Fisher of late, but I really do think he was on to something. Perhaps it’s because I’m a child of the 90s, maybe because my first ever proper job gave me a front row seat in the ever-accelerating juggernaut…
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The Bear: Gentrification & its discontents
The opening shot of the highly acclaimed TV show ‘The Bear’ sees the main character Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto staring down a caged brown bear in the heart of Chicago’s downtown. The motif, evidently a dream, nightmare or general vision rather than actual events, serves a telling mark not only of…
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Some other posts…
This is a rather self-serving post (so apologies in advance), with a few links to other pieces of work in other more enlightened parts of the internet. I have been concentrating recently on my research into so-called media cities, and how they help, or indeed hinder in the formulation of…
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Visualising Cities: Part 6… JB Cities
Does anyone else think that it’s not a coincidence that Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne have the same initials as James Bond? It’s more than a passing homage, the two nefarious super-secret agent characters, Bauer and Bourne have more than a passing resemblance to a ‘revamped’ James Bond 2.0 type…
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Breaking Bad: A Review
Ever since The Wire and Battlestar Galactica finished, I’ve been looking for an episodic drama that is more than your terrorist-chasing, baddie-bagging, clock-ticking thrill ride. Dexter was OK, House is too convoluted, Lost just got boring and the British dramas simply cannot compete at the moment (although Luther, I here,…
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