The 100: Season 2

The Earth has been ravaged by nuclear war, with the survivors either being mutants ("Grounders") who have adapted to the radiation or genetically-enhanced exiles who have survived in space on an orbiting ark. A hundred delinquents have been sent down from the Ark to see if the ground is survivable, but they have also encountered both the Grounders and a society of survivors living in a massive fallout shelter under Mount Weather, west of the ruins of Washington D.C. The hostility and paranoia of the shelter-dwellers forces both the crew of the Ark and the Grounders into an uneasy alliance.

The first season of The 100 took a while to get going, being mired in tiresome teenage romance and lots of trekking around Canadian woodland for quite a few episodes before it cut loose and turned into a bleak story of survival and moral compromises. The second season of The 100 turns this up to the max and is a much stronger set of episodes from the off.

The second season benefits from a multi-stranded storyline which rotates through sets of characters and locations. The main storyline sees the youngsters from the Ark forced to team up with the survivors of the station's dramatic crash-landing in the Season 1 finale and then attempt to forge a peace with the Grounders so they can rescue their friends (from both factions) who are imprisoned under Mount Weather. This story is rich with drama, with both camps having internal problems and the kids from the Ark - who have spent months surviving on the ground - understandably refusing to relinquish authority to the very people who sent them to their deaths. There is the scope for melodrama, but the show largely skirts it through a relentless pace, stronger worldbuilding (the culture of the Grounders is explored a lot this season) and occasional harsh plot turns that manage to out-shock Game of Thrones.

The main subplot is set inside the Mount Weather shelter and explores what happens to the forty-odd kids taken prisoner at the end of Season 1. This story is also pretty decent, but becomes a little stretched out due to its obvious benefits as a budget-saving measure (since it uses just a few interior sets as opposed to the tons of exterior footage for the Ark/Grounders stuff) and a limited number of characters to explore. Another storyline follows Jaha, the former leader of the Ark, as he - quite randomly - survives the Ark's crash and becomes - even more randomly - a messianic figure who believes he can lead his people to salvation across the desert. This story is the most preposterous, but works because Jaha is played by the hugely enjoyable Isaiah Washington and purely exists because the producers were going to quite blatantly kill the character and then decided to keep him around because they liked the actor. Fortunately it does fulfil a purpose at the end, forming the bridge into the forthcoming third season which will up the stakes even further.

The series works thanks to some enjoyably spirited performances from an enthusiastic cast, a genuinely impressive desire not to wimp out on hard decisions and moral muddles, a plot that spins on a dime and some quite impressive action sequences. That's not to say it isn't perfect. Some storylines feel a bit random and the longer episode run (three more than in the first) feels like it was more accomplished with filler than because more episodes were needed to pack everything in. An episode featuring characters hiding from an escaped gorilla in a desolate zoo is rather pointless, for example. Dialogue also too often based around exposition, and the show does feel like it could do with more humour. More on the plus side of things, the forced romance elements have been dialled way back (and the few romances which do emerge feel a lot more plausible) and the characterisation is very strong. Particularly impressive is how Bellamy, the primary antagonist in the first half of Season 1, evolves into a heroic figure through a natural and believable progression of events.

A few hiccups aside, the season builds up to a genuinely startling finale (apparently based on the idea of what if the good guys were put in a position where they had to carry out a Red Wedding?) that leaves a lot of unanswered questions for the third season, due to air in early 2016.

The second season of The 100 (****) improves on the more variable opening season and soon becomes hugely enjoyable viewing. The season will be released on 13 October on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Breaking Bad: Season 5.5

Endgame. Walter White's identity as the crystal meth-cooking mastermind Heisenberg has been compromised, the law is closing in and his life is crashing down around him. White's only hope is an alliance of convenience with a criminal gang far more dangerous and ruthless than he is. But this move proves to be a mistake, leading to tragedy.

Breaking Bad's first four (and a half) seasons seemed to be based on one central pillar: Walter White's attempts to balance his 'public' life with his secret criminal identity. As the show approaches its finale that pillar is pulled away, leaving the show free and able to choose how it ends on its own terms. Many recent major serialised dramas - from Lost to Battlestar Galactica - have fudged their endings or (like Deadwood) been cancelled before getting there. Among its peers, only The Wire had really achieved the feat of having a satisfying conclusion that was true to everything that came before.

Breaking Bad shoots and scores. This final run of episodes is a triumph. Emotionally powerful, harshly-written and unflinching in following through the promise of earlier episodes. To borrow from another serialised drama, "If you though this was going to have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention." And Bad delivers on that. As the clock counts down, Walter's plans for a happy ending become increasingly as crazy and outlandish as the theories of some fans anxious to see him somehow get away with everything and achieve what he'd set out to do, making enough money for his family to survive after he's gone.

There are few weak spots in this final run of episodes. Jesse gets a little lost in the mix in the first few episodes and the re-introduction of Elliott and Gretchen after an absence of four seasons is a little abrupt, but it does neatly bookend the series and help provide closure. Also, the bad guys now being white supremacist drug dealers feels a little cliched. The few times the show has faltered in following through on its premise is because it has always had a bad guy far worse than Walter hanging around to excuse his excesses (in the eyes of some viewers), and these new villains have you longing for the days of Gus Fring and his considerably better-written and motivated machinations.

Still, this is a minor issue. The central focus is on White as everything comes crashing down around him. Bryan Cranston gives a monumentally awesome performance, matched by Anna Gunn (as Skyler), Dean Norris (as Hank) and Aaron Paul (as Jesse). A huge amount of praise must go to Dean Norris, who has played his character's evolution from gun-toting lawman hick to a PTSD-suffering investigative genius over the course of the series with total conviction.

Vince Gilligan's writing team also have to be praised for coming up with an ending that is true to the series as a whole and delivering on it. The episode Ozymandias may be one of the most gut-wrenching episodes of any TV series ever made, astonishing in its dramatic power and focus. The actual ending that follows sacrifices any ambiguity for neatness and at least one unbelievable moment of cartoon ultraviolence, but the dramatic and emotional stakes are high and the show does enough to earn its ending. It is not a happy ending but it is an ending that stays true to the show and its themes, and that's rare enough in TV these days.

The final season of Breaking Bad (*****) is an unmissable triumph and a worthy conclusion to a remarkable drama series. It is available now as part of the Breaking Bad Complete Collection in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

Fringe: Season 2

More than twenty years ago, Walter Bishop set in motion a series of cataclysmic events by opening a doorway between this world and somewhere else. Those events have manifested as the Pattern, evidence of reality itself becoming malleable and where the rules of science have become less rigid. As Fringe Division continues its attempts to discover the secrets of the Pattern, the consequences of Walter's decision make themselves felt, with possible dire ramification

Fringe's second season picks up moments after the ending of the first season, with Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) transported to another world. In an interesting dramatic choice, the writers do not immediately focus on Olivia's adventures on the other side, instead concentrating on the impact of her absence and unexpected reappearance on the more familiar characters. It's not until several episodes into the season that we get a flashback to the events of the Season 1 finale and learn more about what's going on. In the meantime, with the show wearing it's X-Files inspiration more blatantly than ever (for the first few episodes at least), our team have to face off against a group of shapeshifters from the other side.

The second season of Fringe still unloads a few solid stand-alone stories to the audience (most notably a quarantine drama set in an office block ravaged by an unknown disease), but the focus is much more closely on the serialised elements relating to 'the other side', Walter and Peter's backstory, the experiments run on Olivia when she was a child and how much the megacorporation Massive Dynamic know about what's happening. We get a new recurring bad guy in the form of Thomas Jerome Newton (an amiably villainous performance by Sebastian Roche), whose opposition to the Fringe Division's efforts creates much of the tension for the season.

As with the first season, the cast continues to deliver excellent performances, particularly Kirk Acevedo as FBI Agent Charlie Francis, who is given a meatier role in the opening and closing episodes of the season. The stand-out, of course, remains John Noble as Walter Bishop. His performance in the first season was already remarkable, but over the course of the second season it apotheosises onto the 'Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: The Next Generation' level of sheer dominance. Whether it's playing his traditional befuddled scientist role, lapsing into trauma at the memory of a two-decade old tragedy or temporarily regaining his old memories and becoming cold, arrogant and condescending, Noble plays his part to perfection, winning the audience's sympathy or, for his more morally dubious acts, at least their understanding.

The season reaches a huge emotional and acting peak in Peter, the fifteenth episode of the season and a major 'gamechanger' of an episode. Told mostly in flashback (complete with a retro, 1980s style music and title sequence), it not only explains much of the series's backplot, but it also gives us a look at the man Walter used to be and establishes the motivations of several major characters in the show. This kicks off a run of high quality episodes which mess around with the established formula, including one episode that is a bizarre noir thriller (the result of Walter - on various substances - trying to tell a children's story) and another that is a solo adventure for Peter out in the backwoods of Washington State (and may be a homage to Twin Peaks). The season concludes with a two-part finale which is the most epic thing the show's ever done, featuring multiple castmembers in different roles, impressive visual-effects shots and the successful depiction of portraying a world that is familiar but different. The cliffhanger ending is a bit of a doozy as well.

The season does have a bit of a stinker in Unearthed, easily the weakest episode of the show to date. It was produced as part of Season 1 and held back to the second, putting it out of continuity and also rather out of keeping with the rest of the show: outright ghostly possession seems a stretch too far for the show, which whilst flirting with the paranormal usually manages to provide at least an attempt at a pseudoscientific explanation for events. Luckily, the DVD and Blu-Ray release hides the episode in the 'special features' section, pleasing completists whilst also ensuring it isn't accidentally stumbled over whilst watching the main body of the season.

Overall, the second season of Fringe (*****) takes the excellent cast and premise of the first season and boots it onto another level, with exceptional acting (especially from John 'Criminally Emmyless' Noble) and some clever, coherent storytelling. The season is available now in the UK (DVD, Blu-Ray) and USA (DVD, Blu-Ray).

New ring discovered around Saturn, solves long-standing mystery

For many decades, the mystery of why Saturn's moon Iapetus has a very dark hemisphere and a much brighter one has stumped astronomers and scientists. It has been great fodder for SF authors, inspiring Arthur C. Clarke's ideas in the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey (the conclusion to which happens at Saturn, not Jupiter as in the movie). In the former the explanation is the Monolith (what else?), which is acting as a giant stargate in the surface of Iapetus, whilst in the latter Iapetus itself is revealed to be a vast alien spacecraft in disguise.


Today, it was revealed that scientists have discovered the, sadly somewhat more mundane, reason behind the mystery: Iapetus is orbiting Saturn in the on the inner edge of an absolutely vast 'new ring' of dust discovered orbiting the planet at a distance of 8 million miles. The ring is approximately 20 times thicker than the diameter of Saturn itself. The ring is being 'generated' by the outer moon Phoebe, and like that moon is in retrograde orbit. This is why the impact of the dust fragments on Iapetus is highly marked, as the fragments are hitting Iapetus with tremendous force, even though the fragments are not particularly large.