sci-fi

The Terminator is still the best

31 August 2024 9:00 am

The Terminator is James Cameron’s first film, made a star of Arnold Schwarzenegger, is celebrating its 40th anniversary – there’s…

Please stop making Alien movies

17 August 2024 9:00 am

In the Alien films, a xenomorph is a monstrous, all-consuming life form that exists only to make more and more…

Why you should never watch sci-fi series on streaming channels

22 June 2024 9:00 am

Jason Dessen, the hero (and, as you’ll discover shortly, anti-hero) of Apple TV’s latest sci-fi caper Dark Matter, is a…

Minority Report is superficial pap – why on earth stage it?

11 May 2024 9:00 am

Minority Report is a plodding bit of sci-fi based on a Steven Spielberg movie made more than two decades ago.…

A tangle of nonsense from the sloppy Caryl Churchill: A Number, at the Old Vic, reviewed

12 February 2022 9:00 am

A Number, by Caryl Churchill, is a sci-fi drama of impenetrable complexity. It’s set in a future society where cloning…

Even worse than the book: Amazon Prime's The Wheel of Time reviewed

11 December 2021 9:00 am

A couple of years ago, in that near-forgotten era when we could travel almost freely, I canvassed social media as…

A blisteringly bonkers first episode: Doctor Who – Flux reviewed

6 November 2021 9:00 am

BBC1 continuity excitedly introduced the first in the new series of Doctor Who as ‘bigger and better than ever’ —…

Absorbing and beautifully designed: Jane Eyre reviewed

5 December 2020 9:00 am

Blackeyed Theatre is another victim of the virus. Its production of Jane Eyrewas midway through a UK tour, and due…

The genius of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue

5 December 2020 9:00 am

I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue has just been voted the greatest radio comedy of all time by Radio Times,…

Would be much better without Bill or Ted: Bill & Ted Face the Music reviewed

26 September 2020 9:00 am

I think I am supposed to say that Bill & Ted Face the Music, the third in a franchise about…

An extraordinary tale: BBC2’s The Countess and the Russian Billionaire reviewed

11 April 2020 9:00 am

There can’t be many programmes that bring to mind quotations from both Henry Kissinger and Boney M., but BBC2’s The…

Too edgy and clever to be wasted on kids: Netflix’s Locke & Key reviewed

7 March 2020 9:00 am

One of my perpetual gnawing terrors is that I’ll recommend a series that looks initially promising but turns out to…

Radio 4's new H.P. Lovecraft adaptation will give you the chills

24 January 2020 10:00 pm

Of all the many things I’ve learned from the radio so far this decade, the most deranging is that the……

Netflix's Messiah is a great concept undermined by implausible politics

24 January 2020 10:00 pm

Sky’s latest bingewatch potboiler Cobra can’t quite make up its mind whether it wants to be an arch, knowing House……

War of the Worlds is as bad as Doctor Who

23 November 2019 9:00 am

Edwardian England deserved everything it got from those killer Martian invaders. Or so I learned from the BBC’s latest adaptation…

The best Terminator film since the first: Terminator Six reviewed

26 October 2019 9:00 am

The first Terminator film, which came out in 1984, was a high-concept sci-fi serial killer thriller. You can just imagine…

Ryan Gosling as K and Sylvia Hoeks as Wallace’s sidekick Luv in Blade Runner 2049

Back to the future

7 October 2017 9:00 am

Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner first came out in cinemas 35 years ago, which I was going to say probably…

Loose ends

23 September 2017 9:00 am

On Sunday night, Holliday Grainger was on two terrestrial channels at the same time playing a possibly smitten sidekick of…

The usual suspects: ‘Doctor Thorne’ brings us a reliable selection of frock-coated and corsetted British thesps

Doctor Thorne is pleasantly undemanding viewing

12 March 2016 9:00 am

Every now and then, a costume drama comes along that’s so daringly unconventional as to make us re-examine our whole…

Heroically unoriginal: Channel 4’s Humans reviewed

20 June 2015 9:00 am

You’d think scientists might have realised by now that creating a race of super-robots is about as wise as opening…

Staying power: Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard in ‘Blade Runner: The Final Cut’

How Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic, Blade Runner, foresaw the way we live today

7 March 2015 9:00 am

How Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, made 33 years ago, foresaw the way we live today, by William Cook

Like Star Trek turned up to 11

Interstellar: like Star Trek – but dumber and more tiring

8 November 2014 9:00 am

Christopher Nolan’s futuristic epic Interstellar isn’t a clever film, or even a dumb film with a clever film trying to…

Russians made the theatre space the most liberating imaginative device ever invented

1 November 2014 9:00 am

You have to hand it to the Russians. They beat us into space, beat us to sexual equality, and a…

Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan and Sam J. Jones as Flash in ‘Flash Gordon’, part of the BFI ‘Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder’ season

Without sci-fi, there would be no cinema

11 October 2014 9:00 am

Without sci-fi, there would be no cinema, writes Peter Hoskin

Inhuman being: Scarlett Johansson as Lucy

Lucy: the shoot-outs, car chases and mysteries of the universe

23 August 2014 9:00 am

Here’s an idea for an article: The Tree of Life (2011) is the most influential film of the past decade.…