For Monitor this week, Aaron Yap basks in the grinning goofiness of DUKE’s Angie Tribeca, the best cop show spoof you probably aren’t watching. My tastes in comedy tend to drift towards fare like Louie and Curb Your Enthusiasm, where laughter stems from dark, cringe-making, cankerous worldviews of the human condition. But revisiting The Naked Gun … Read more
Recent TV-to-film flubs such as Ab Fab: The Movie and David Brent: Life on the Road have proved that the transition is not always easy. Aaron Yap rounds up the television shows that have managed to make it to the big screen without stuffing it up. Ricky Gervais should have put David Brent to rest … Read more
In this week’s TV column, Aaron Yap looks at how social media platform Snapchat threatens to usurp traditional viewing habits. As much as it pains me to admit it, I’m a more devoted viewer of Snapchat than of any TV channel out there. Worse, Snapchat often acts as a secondary screen even when I am watching … Read more
Aaron Yap celebrates the superb Cold War spy drama The Americans. The Americans is currently the best spy show on TV. Scratch that. It’s the best show on TV, period. I’m saying this as a dyed-in-the-wool fan of Homeland, a show that its most avid followers have to admit is awfully patchy, even at its … Read more
Aaron Yap watches Louis C.K.’s new online series Horace and Pete, and asks if the off-putting, experimental style is what lies beyond the “peak TV” age. Did Louis C.K. hear us grumbling? Just a few weeks ago when FX chief John Landgraf spoke at the Television Critics Association press tour in California, he addressed the future of … Read more
Aaron Yap digs up gold in Detectorists, the award winning comedy written by The Office’s Mackenzie Crook that went straight-to-DVD in New Zealand. We have several copies to give away, see the end of the piece for more details. The fact that last year Detectorists completely slipped the radars of local TV (broadcast and otherwise) is prime … Read more
Aaron Yap looks at Show Me a Hero, the six part miniseries from the creators of The Wire that examines the 1987 housing crisis in New York – and eerily mirrors our own current property strife. Housing. Land. Property. These might be among the least dramatically engaging subjects I can think of. The last time I went … Read more
For Monitor this week, Aaron Yap looks at Humans, AMC’s new elegant sci fi drama that examines the not-so-distant role of artificial intelligence in our everyday lives. Artificial intelligence has long been one of the most commonly explored subjects of all science fiction. From the spookily prescient writings of Isaac Asimov and H.G Wells to … Read more
Aaron Yap finds an “imaginative supernatural delight” in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, the BBC One mini-series packed with magic, mystery and memorable characters. Finding the alt-history Gothic horrors of Penny Dreadful too relentlessly serious and slow-burning for your tastes? BBC One’s period magical fantasy Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell should make for ideal alternative viewing. … Read more
Aaron Yap celebrates the reckless abandon of Louis C.K.’s Louie, a surreal comedy-drama that consistently transcends the boundaries of both genre and reality. I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of genres operating beyond their foundations. How far can you stretch the boundaries of a genre before it becomes something else? Is a comedy a comedy if … Read more
For Monitor this month, Aaron Yap argues why you should bravely enter the “alluringly sensual and generously gory universe” of Showtime’s Victorian horror Penny Dreadful. It’s a pretty good time for TV horror fans at the moment. If you have a favourite type of monster, it’s likely being catered to. The Walking Dead has zombies, The … Read more
Aaron Yap watches the first three episodes of TV2’s Empire, and dissects how his new guilty pleasure successfully blends legitimate themes with soapy absurdities. If Fox’s Empire confirms one thing, it’s my suspicion that showrunner Lee Daniels should’ve done TV a long time ago. On the big screen, the producer/director has often been slapped with … Read more
Aaron Yap reflects on his own recent hate-watching of Arrow, Under the Dome and Catfish, and attempts to get to the bottom of this bizarre viewing phenomenon. I’m currently watching Arrow and I sort of hate it. It’s the first of the current, intimidatingly large batch of superhero shows I’ve dipped into. An adaptation of a … Read more
Aaron Yap watches the first two seasons of sci-fi series Orphan Black, and hopes for just as many fast-paced, character-driven clone thrills from the lead roles in the third season. When Orphan Black debuted on BBC America in 2013, it seemed to come out of nowhere. A bolt of fresh, femme-powered lightning into a television market … Read more
Aaron Yap welcomes part two of Mad Men season seven, dissecting the first two episodes and predicting towards how the show will wrap its final season. As Mad Men heads towards the end of its extraordinarily consistent eight-year run, the first two episodes of its final season, ‘Severance’ and ‘New Business’, usher in a brand new … Read more
Aaron Yap examines how small town chiller Fortitude manages to distance itself from other mystery/crime series of a similar ilk. // What’s this? A beautifully shot crime drama in the moody Scandi-noir-style of The Killing and The Bridge, but infused with the enigmatic sensibilities of Lost and Twin Peaks? It’s almost like someone made Fortitude for me. Created by … Read more
Aaron Yap dissects Frances McDormand’s cripplingly powerful portrayal of depression, parenthood and marriage in the HBO mini-series Olive Kitteridge. // There are probably few characters as singularly challenging in recent television as the protagonist of Lisa Cholodenko’s Olive Kitteridge. A streamlined, absorbing, richly textured adaptation of Elizabeth Strout’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, this four-hour HBO mini-series hints … Read more
Aaron Yap checks the pulse of In The Flesh‘s peculiarly English zombies. // If there’s still an abundance of forgettable, interchangeable zombie movies around to convince seasoned horror fans that the genre’s practically played out, Dominic Mitchell’s BBC 3 mini-series In the Flesh can be considered the counterargument. For those who appreciate a little ambition … Read more
Monitor is a new bi-weekly column from Aaron Yap. Each edition will see him critically examine a new show or trend in current television. First up is Better Call Saul. // Much has been made about modern mainstream cinema’s over-reliance on mining existing properties for content. More than ever, the studios are operating in a safety bubble, with … Read more