From Deutschland 83 to Chernobyl, the East Bloc is back – on TV
From Deutschland 83 to HBO’s Chernobyl, “Ostalgie” — which is what the Germans call nostalgia for communist rule — has become a trend in period and alternate-history fiction.
There are many variations of this. There is “Yugo-nostalgia” in the former Yugoslavia, Soviet nostalgia in Russia, and “Communist chic” in the West.
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Review of The Frankenstein Chronicles, Season 2
A dastardly and murderous plot, the Church is up to something, murder in Victorian London, (mad) science, automata and resurrection. That’s pretty much the theme of season 2 of The Frankenstein Chronicles. An excellent example of the darker side of Victorian storytelling.
It has finally landed on Netflixwith its second (and, as far as I know, final) season.
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Our review of the new #dieselpunk-era Spanish Netflix series High Seas
From the moment the Villenueva sisters Eva (Ivana Baquero) and Carolina (Alejandra Onieva) decide to smuggle a woman who claims to be in mortal danger (Manuela Vellés) aboard their transatlantic journey to Brazil, Alta mar (High Seas) does not relent on surprises. Every one of its eight episodes, currently streaming on Netflix, brings a new twist or turn, usually toward the end in a bid to…
The Umbrella Academy is full of #dieselpunk-y Cold War-era elements
Originally a comic by Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance fame, the books have been turned into the first season of a TV series, mostly covering the story arc known as The Apocalypse Suite.
Years ago, in 1989, all around the world, 43 women gave birth on the same day. This might not sound strange, were it not for the fact that none of them had been pregnant at the start of the day. Seven of…
Our review of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Do you remember the 1990s TV series Sabrina the Teenage Witch? If so, forget everything you’ve seen. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is nothing like its predecessor
And no matter how much Riverdale wants to be a supernatural drama in its third season, it has nothing to do with that either, even though it is a spinoff and the town is mentioned a few times.
CAOS, as the show is known…
The BBC’s television adaption of Len Deighton’s SS-GB (1978) sees Britain under German occupation. Operation Sea Lion has been a success. Winston Churchill is dead. An ailing King George is held prisoner by the Nazis. His wife and daughters have escaped to New Zealand. Neither the Soviets nor the United States have entered the war. A British government-in-exile is struggling to win diplomatic recognition.
The plot focuses on a Scotland Yard detective, Douglas Archer (Sam Riley), who is caught up in a rivalry between his two SS supervisors as well as a British Resistance plot to exploit competition between the Germany Army and the SS. (The title refers to the branch of the Nazi SS that controls Great Britain.)
The series gets off to a slow start. I’m not sure I would have been eager to watch Episode 2 if it wasn’t for the dieselpunk setting, but the story picks up steam after the pilot. Episodes 2 through 4 are well done. Episode 5, the finale, is a bit of a letdown, and I can’t say all the characters’ actions make perfect sense, but on balance the show is perfectly watchable.
Here are some pictures of London under Nazi rule. The reason for the Karl Marx banner is that the Nazis have agreed to exhume the philosopher’s body for reburial in Moscow.
The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell: A homage to classic horror and 1950s housekeeping
The Curious Creations of Christine McConnellChristine is a beautiful retro-style gal, living all alone in a house that wouldn’t look amiss in the latest incarnation of the horror classic The House on Haunted Hill.
She doesn’t live alone, however, sharing her home with a variety of monsters (literally) ranging from Rankle, the mummified cat; Rose, who is assumed to be mostly a raccoon; and Edgar,…
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