Just finished watching #thegringohunters on #netflix.

We are trying to avoid #USA content. Like reading #theaustralian, once you stop you suddenly discover what a load of propaganda garbage you have been subjected to. You start seeing the world through different eyes.

Back to the show. It is set in #mexico, specifically #tijuana, on the border of the USA. A group of Mexican police have been created by Mexico to help USA #marshals track down American criminals. That is there only job.

We have never watched anything from the South American countries , unlike Asia and Europe it seems to be limited. Also this series is based upon a #washingtonpost article and it seems to be produced by Americans even though everything is, by my limited understanding, Mexican.

Anyway brilliant. It is a story with a point and relates to how these police do their job while handling corruption in the existing
police command. They made it clear it wasn’t police in general just the leaders of the town of #tijuana.
#tvshow #TVReview

https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81645267?s=i&trkid=13747225&shareType=Title&shareUuid=7C064EF3-4CD3-49A4-946C-67C97C247AB3&trg=cp&unifiedEntityIdEncoded=Video%3A81645267&vlang=en

The Boroughs Review

#TheBoroughs #netflix #scifi #scifitv #AlfredMolina #AlfreWoodard #DenisOHare #ClarkePeters #CarlosMiranda #JenaMalone #SethNumrich #AliceKremelberg #GeenaDavis #tv #tvreview

https://popculturemaniacs.com/the-boroughs-review/

Invincible Season 4 is INSANE 😭🔥

Brutal fights. Incredible character work. Nolan’s redemption arc somehow getting even better. And Thragg? Legit terrifying.

This season really reminds you that Invincible is a story about consequences more than superheroes.

#Invincible #InvincibleSeason4 #TVReview #Animation

Full review ↓

http://wornoutspines.com/2026/04/25/invincible-season-4-review/

The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 8: Triple Audible (2026) – Review

Over the past seven episodes of The Boroughs, we’ve come to meet a gang of mature heroes who have shown us that age is only a state of mind and that advancing years shouldn’t mean someone should be written off like a wrecked car when they still have so much more to give. It’s a timely message, but regardless of this, the end will eventually come to us all and it’s certainly come to Netflix’s latest show.
But how does The Boroughs go out after a season of sci-fi hijinks? Is it a spirited affair that goes out while still full of life and vigor, or does it run out of steam and just slowly grind to an exhausted stop?
While I’m not expecting anything like a massive cliffhanger to hint at future seasons, a good, solid ending would probably do everyone a world of good; I mean, all the Stranger Things kids had to worry about was not looking like they were in their twenties in the long stretches between adventures, I’m not sure you’re gonna get five seasons in ten years out of these guys…

The mission to free the alien Mother and end the murderous conspiracy of the Boroughs is well under way. Despite breaking Sam out of the Manor, the gang’s escape is put on pause when Renee gets a call from Wally who demands they all turn back and re-enter the retirement home that’s trying to kill them. It seems that Wally’s burst of conscience has caused him to remove the ailing alien matriarch from her lab and get her to a place where she won’t be poked and prodded by opportunistic, wannabe immortals.
However, after getting Mother to his friends, we discover that Wally’s ultimate plan is also to have Mother poked and prodded, but in the name of good to explore all the vaccines and cures her miracle biology could provide. But the cancer suffering doctor is dismayed to discover from her mental link with Sam that all she wants to do now, is die.
Trapped in the Boroughs, the gang split once more to facilitate the alien’s wishes. Sam, Wally and Claire attempt to get Mother to the peach located in the tunnels located under their very feet while Renee and Paz break back in to the main facility to release Mother’s captive children. But after Judy and Art’s job to stall a desperate Blaine Shaw and his equally worried staff end with the former reporter fatally stabbed by Anneliese Shaw, time becomes a much more intense factor.
Can Sam get Mother to her final resting place? Can those TV set he rigged up ages ago finally do some good? Or will the sheer fear of death that the Shaws feel lead them to ultimately triumph, continue to go on living forever and feeding off the elderly? The Boroughs may be celebrating its 75 year anniversary, but it, and a whole lot more, could end on this very night.

So I have to say that, despite thoroughly enjoying The Burroughs for the lion’s share of its run, “Triple Audible” ends up being something of a weak ending for a season that’s done exemplary work differentiating itself from the tonally and narratively similar Stranger Things. While I wasn’t expecting giant monsters, worlds hanging in the balance and a twinge of excited dread in my belly that believes anything could happen, the finale ends up being predictable and even a fairly bit sloppy in it’s execution. To be fair, if you were even a remotely bit savvy to the influences The Boroughs wore proudly on its sleeve, there was a chance that you also were about two steps ahead of the show as it barrelled along – in fact, the familiarity it brought only added to the fun ambience the show has cultivated. However, it’s ultimately meant that not only do we get a closing episode that’s disappointingly predictable, but it’s also one that trades into some worryingly lazy plotting.
Maybe back in the 80s, we were cool with bad guys managing to get to locations they had no way of reaching just to provide a shock return that isn’t even that shocking, or just having random stuff happen that isn’t explained or set up just to facilitate a neatly happy ending, but for some reason it just doesn’t scan particularly well here. While the show already made it clear that Shaw’s dastardly plot wasn’t born from the mind of a super capable secret society, but a clutch of people just trying to cling onto immortality, the bad guys in this episode are dangerously unprepared. Yes, it all stems from the fact that they’re made so vulnerable precisely because Blaine and Anneliese have overlooked the potential of anyone over retirement age, but even judged by those standards, the Shaws proves to be fairly easy to vanquish. They blunder into obvious traps, keep unnecessary hostages when they should be killing their foes and are strangely unable to physically overpower their elderly enemies when they’re supposed to be charged with alien super-juice and it all feels like the show is drastically cutting corners in order to drag the story to where the writers want it to go without getting caught up too much in the details.

If the episode featured some tighter writing, maybe we wouldn’t notice, or even care that it’s playing fast and loose with movie logic, but when you find yourself openly wondering how a weakened Blaine can get to the mine on foot and fight Sam the same time he got there by van (not even a shortcut through the tunnels would properly account for it), something has gone wrong. Even the attempts at building drama an tension feel a little half-hearted – why would mortally wounding Judy make us scared for her when we already know there’s a character with healing powers in the same room and furthermore, why would the show allow Judy to give a touching farewell speech to Art and just leave Mother to patiently wait for her cue when she could have given her medical attention immediately?
However, that’s not go say that the show, at its roots, is still as charming as ever and while some of the writing let’s the series down in the final lap, there’s still plenty of things that work just fine. For example, I really could have done with more of the double act of Wally fussing and caring for the misshapen Mother as he wheels her to freedom and the reveal that a charred and twisted Hank was actually a fan of Paz’s band is kind of an amusing send off for the ailling henchman. The fact that the Shaws actually profess their love for one another while finally facing death is a nice touch and Mother wanting to finally die surrounded by her children is actually quite poignant too and fits in nicely within the overall message of the show and the moments where Sam is given a vision of his wife as a parting gift guarantees a quivering bottom lip at the very least, but when the final moments of the show end up being almost a shot for shot retread of the twist at the end of Stanger Things’ first season (both Will and Sam are both standing in a bathroom looking at themselves in the mirror when we get the sizable hint that things may not be over), you realise that The Boroughs’ last moments find it stumbling rather than skipping.

Despite a rather flat, predictable, finale, it would genuinely nice if we got to visit The Boroughs at least one more time just to iron out a few questions (who’s actually running the place now) and spend more time with this motley crew while we still can (the cast aren’t exactly spring chickens, you know). But while that Spielbergian vibe is as strong as ever, it’s a shame that the show attempted to stick the landing on legs that were far too wobbly to take the strain. Age is but a number, I’m told – but in this case, the number ends up being a mere three stars out of five…
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The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 7: Time To Go (2026) – Review

This is it. This is the exact kind of episode I was hoping for when I first heard what The Boroughs was going to be about. Now that all the extraterrestrial cards are now on the table the show is free to have all of its characters fully clued up and on the move without the need (mostly) to take the time to spell out all the intricate details of the central conspiracy from multiple points of view. Unbound from such necessities, The Boroughs is now fully prepped to slam a slippered foot fully on the gas and haul off with a frantic rescue attempt.
While the show has been faithfully filling the brief of merging Stanger Things with Cocoon up to this point, “Time To Go” sees everyone pushing the concept to it’s most enjoyable limits as the final pieces of the puzzle drop into place and everyone gets to pitch in and do their thing.

After being turned in by his own daughter who believes that his claims of brain sucking alien monsters are a sympton of a much more serious problem, Sam languishes in the Manor; the part of the Boroughs that supposedly cares for the more infirmed populace. Surrounded by the mentally feeble and emotionally delicate, it truly seens that his battle to avenge the death of his neighbour, Jack, has failed abysmally – but as he weighs up his options, wheels are turning elsewhere that may yet grant him his freedom. For a start, Claire is feeling pretty shitty after betraying her father in his hour of need, but after she turns on the clutch of televisions he rigged up in his home, the resulting field brings the alien out of the transition manager, thus proving that Sam isn’t crazy after all.
Meanwhile, pivoting their escape plan into a rescue plan, Judy, Renee, Art and Paz have cooked up a makeshift plan on the fly to infiltrate the Manor and get Sam out. As Art draws security away from the front desk and Paz slips behind the computer to remote open any necessary doors, Judy and Renee go undercover as residents to get their comrade out. But while all this is going on, Wally is still in the belly of the beast as he tends to the ailing, alien Mother which supplies the Boroughs’ staff with their youth restoring goo. But after coming up with a theory of how to restore her with a blood transfusion from her spider-legged spawn, sinister head honcho Blaine Shaw isn’t willing to wait for the weeks of testing needed to make the procedure safe.
Meanwhile, Sam has found something of an unlikely guiding light in the near-comatose form of the Dutchess, a fellow inmate who explains that the visions of his wife he’s been having are being beamed into his head by Mother as a call for help. Shifting his rage into forgiveness, and changing his aim, Sam is primed to be rescued by his friends while Wally is feeling his allegiance once again start to move.

“Time To Go” is pretty much everything you’d want from a penultimate episode to a show that’s mostly been reading from the Stranger Things operators manual; it’s fast, it’s funny and it deals out the answers to any lingering mysteries quicker than a Mississipi card shark. Everyone is moving in unison, yet still running around like headless chickens and now that the mystery is all but off the table, there’d nothing left but a mad, merry sprint to the end. It’s nice that the elderly characters can keep up too, proving to the Hawkins gang that you don’t need to be suffering puberty to have the cardio needed to foil weird, sci-fi shit. However, while our OAPs (some of whom are pushing 70, remember) keep the energy levels up to an impressive degree, the episode ensures that it takes the time to engage the heart before getting it racing.
Finally getting to properly join the fun is Jena Malone’s Claire, who inadvertently made the Lando Calrissian move of selling out her troubles father to the authorities while having no clue that her father’s claims were bang on the money. However, the scene where she accidently catches the condescending Kayleigh in the field of her dad’s TV weapon proves to be a telling as it is jarring – for a start, it confirms that whomever has been chugging the golden, alien goo has had their DNA fundamentally changed to something that’s worryingly close to Mother. The fact that decades of being fed human brain fluid has also caused the alien matriarch to take on a more human guise probably means that anyone who is in on the Shaws conspiracy is probably a lost cause and after leaving a highly confused Kayleigh to it, Claire races to the Manor to rectify her mistake. Of course, by this time, Geena Davis and Alfre Woodard have formed quite an endearing double act as they sneak, graft and fake their way into the Manor to mount their hastily planned jail break, but while some of the episode’s funniest moments from from this random double act (watching them hurriedly bicker about who gets to ride in a wheelchair is a legitimate joy), the bulk of this episode really is mostly devoted to Sam completing his arc from a grieving husband who is quick to hate, to someone with a bit more empathy.

There’s more than a little of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in watching a defeated Alfred Molina try to assimilate with the shuffling inmates of the Manor and I suppose that makes Deadpool’s Karan Soni’s abusive Tony the Nurse Ratched of this scenario. Anyway, while there, Sam goes on something of a mini quest that takes him right to the core of his anguish by means of a karaoke session that’s equal parts heart rending and heart warming and, of course, it has all to do with Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road. We’ve already established how painful his wife’s favorite song is to hear, so watching him sing it, and even breaking in the middle, is bolstered when the other inmates join in and turn this ode to grief into an emotionally lifting moment. I would say that the moment is fairly wasted on just being used as a diversion to get cigarettes for the bizarre Dutchess (possibly should have been switched for the later bus stop diversion), but it does introduce us to a randomly strange new character in the form of Mary McDonnell’s partly comatose resident who also has a connection with Mother. OK, so it’s a little overly convenient to introduce a brand new character who just so happens to have all the mystical answers our hero needs at exactly that time, but the Dutchess is such a thoroughly odd eccentric, with her whispy grey beehive and her lesbian lover with a resetting memory, it’s tough not to be enthralled by her. And with that, all we have left is the final episode and with Wally deciding to try and bust Mother out even in the wake if discovering Shaw’s penchant for murdering the weak links in his chain.

Once again, for a show that banks so much on being a big, sci-fi mystery, I’m surprised at how much of The Boroughs I’m managing to predict in advance (of course the aliens have a Mother/Queen chaste; of course she’s been using telepathy on Sam; of course he used Thunder Road to beat his grief), but none of this has managed to halt how much fun it’s been watch these fantastic fogies stage their imperfect little jail break. All that’s left now is to wrap things up and with so many things still in play, matters should keep the high energy for this episode – but here’s hoping it doesn’t wither and fade now the end is in sight.
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The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 6: The Grey Rebellion (2026) – Review

While I’ve tried (and failed) to avoid bringing up Stranger Things too much during my travel of The Boroughs, I do have to throw my hands up and concede that, yes, a sizable part of the show’s storytelling owes an incredible amount to the multiple years of happenings that befell the citizens of Hawkins, Indiana. While the cast of zesty pensioners certainly were different to Mike, Eleven and the gang, the narrative paths that had each of them slowly pick apart a sci-fi conspiracy from a completely different angle would have be obvious even to someone who’d never visited the Upside-Down before. I’m not pointing this out as a bad thing – in fact, the whole affair has been giving me fond memories of Stranger Things’ first season which was still relatively small scale. However, with “The Grey Rebellion”, we find that The Boroughs has a couple of surprises in it after all as the villain’s of the piece have an offer to make that’s decidedly un-Hawkins like in its execution.

The jig is up and the attempts of Sam, Judy, Renee, Wally and Art to uncover the extraterrestrial goings on behind the scenes of the titular retirement village crash and burn after being caught red handed by CEO and arch conspirator, Blaine Shaw. Arrested by his goons and delivered to the Manor strapped up with bags on their heads, the group understandably believe they’re about to be executed – but when they find that they’re being addressed by an unrestrained Wally, they learn that a deal is about to be made. The terms are simple; mention none of the alien goings on to anyone and they can go back to their retired lives under the condition that they never leave the Boroughs ever again. However, breathe a word that the Shaws are using alien spider-children to drain cerebrospinal fluid from the residents and channel it into an elixir that stops human aging and they’ll be sent straight to the Manor where they’ll be treated like dementia sufferers for the rest of their lives.
Wally has already agreed as his work examining the alien biology has impressed the powers that be and he’s been asked to join the group and take the fluid that’ll see off his cancer as long as he drinks the concoction daily. This inspires the rest of the group to fold and days later, we find them back experiencing the daily grind, while Wally gets a tour of the inner workings of the place. However, due to their martial issues, Judy and Art find that going back to normal isn’t as easy as they’d hoped; but while Renee and Paz are trying to cook up an escape attempt, notoriously difficult Sam simply climbs the dividing wall and walks the distance to the nearest phone overnight.
Exhausted, her rings his daughter for aid without knowing that Shaw has already planted seeds in her mind that her father is starting to lose his marbles which results in a painful betrayal. But while Sam is destined to rot in the Manor, his comrades decide to scrap escaping and go on a counter attack instead.

At no point has the Dufferesque storytelling negatively affected how much I’ve been enjoying The Boroughs – if anything, it’s made the show reassuringly familiar – but a side effect has been that I’ve found most of it fairly predictable. A lot of the story beats I’ve seen coming from a mile off and I’ve predicted a lot of revelations long before someone is polite enough to verbally confirm it as the episodes have rattled along, but either episode six, we find that a minor change up has suddenly made the show weirdly unpredictable. Simple fact is, the notion that the good guys have already lost three episodes before the end of the season proves to give The Boroughs its own gulp of life-invigorating elixir that finally breaks free of some predictable plotting.
On paper it sounds like it’s the worst decision the show could possibly make as it essentially halts the momentum of the plot just as we’re approaching something of a climactic build. But while other Netflix shows have tried similar tricks and seriously marred the flow of their seasons, The Boroughs uses it as something of a bit of breathing space in order to fully earn some of the decisions our characters ultimately make. Maybe the reasoning works so well is because the slowing of the pace matches the demeanor of the leads and having them gradually regain their spirit and confidence after getting outmaneuvered fits more with the story the show is telling. It also reveals a major flaw in the villain’s thinking that fits a major plot point of the entire show that wouldn’t have worked if the leads were younger.

Simply put, Shaw give the gang a second chance because he needs Wally to help them out with an alien conundrum and they just don’t take the old age usurpers that seriously despite the trouble they’ve caused them. While some may shout accusations of lazy storytelling or a deployment of plot armour at the desicion, it’s actually a telling commentary about how the elderly really are neglected and underestimated; plus, it’s kind of fun to discover that this is one secret conspiracy that’s literally being held together by a wing and a prayer as the Shaws and their conspirators actually have an incredibly narrow vision when it comes to a wonder fluid that essentially grants immortality.
Another thing The Grey Rebellion adds is a greater understanding of the aliens which provide the goo in question. It turns out that what Shaw discovered decades ago was an alien egg that eventually hatched the central creature known as the “mother” and after giving birth to the spider-legged beasties known unsurprisingly as the “kids” we discover that after they harvest the brain fluid from the different rotations of residents and feed it to their mother who looks strangely human(ish). From here she produces the wonder slime that all the staff eagerly drinks, but already Wally is growing frustrated at how the Shaws are wasting something that genuinely could make the world a better place.
Of course, this doesn’t help Sam much, who replies that his daughter’s inadvertent betrayal is partly down to his lack of communication with her. In fact, while a lot of The Boroughs’ mysteries have now been revealed, one that still remains an enigma is the visions of his dead wife he’s been having. Alien telepathy coming from the ailing Mother, perhaps? Do the jigsaw puzzles he’s been seeing mean that she wants him to solve a puzzle and find her? Now that his defiance has stuck him in the Manor, he’s going to have a hard time figuring it out.

A rather strange change in pace manages to give The Boroughs the shift it needs to leap off the Stranger Things writing techniques it’s been relying on and start catching us unawares again – after all, mysteries should be unpredictable, right? But with only two episodes to go, don’t expect that slower speed to last particularly long.
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The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 5: Another Beautiful Day (2026) – Review

Yep, it’s round about that time that all the various threads and arcs that are buzzing about The Boroughs like moths round a bug zapper need to start coming together. I mean, if they don’t come together now, we’re not going to have enough episodes of all the disparate characters coming together to finally figure all this sci-fi shit out. As it stands, we’ve got quite a varied selection of avenues to merge together that encompass aliens that suck brain fluid out from the back of your throat, peach trees that give the elderly a taste of their youth back and members of the Boroughs’ staff who are not only far older than they look, but have far more sinister secrets under their metaphorical hats. One by one, our plucky cast of golden oldies have uncovered these strange, connected conspiracies without having the slightest clue that their peers are also stumbling on otherworldly shocks, but now it’s time for some major communication – and it’s about time too.

After discovering that the alien that’s been feeding on their brain fluid has been gaining entrance to their homes via trap doors located in their ovens, Sam, Judy and a very nervous Wally have given chase after the avenging reporter in their midst pumped a couple of bullets into it. They discover a maze of tunnels that exist under their homes that connects their entire neighbourhood and ultimately leads out towards the dessert and after catching up to the mortally wounded creature, Judy puts it out of its misery. However, while they think that Jack has finally been avenged, Sam realises that this is actually a different alien and the sounds coming from where they’ve come from clues them in to getting a move on.
Meanwhile, chief of Boroughs security, Hank, is desperately trying to plug a leak that’s seen Renee and Paz discover that he actually died in the 70s. Chugging back a revitalising gold liquid, Hank takes both Renee and Paz hostage with the intention of driving them out into the desert and faking their suicides – but even more alarming than this is the discovery that Art has made.
After that revitalising peach wore off with violent, gastric side effects, Art awakens in the hospital with Anneliese Shaw for company. But after Art circumvents her questions, he returns to the mine to collect more miracle fruit only to discover that the tree has withered and died. Even more disconcerting is that Anneliese has followed him and reveals that she and her husband bought this very mine back in the late 19th century before equiring further about the peach. After Art offers up the stone as all that it left of the wonder fruit, Anneliese suddenly swallows it, causing an inhuman transformation to transpire, but it’s at this point, Sam, Judy and Wally arrive via their tunnel, shoot Art’s attacker and flee in his car. Picking up Renee and Paz on the way after they’ve managed to vanquish Hank, it seems that everyone has some serious explaining to do – but they soon find that a very pissed Blaine Shaw is already set his retribution in motion.

As we rattle past the halfway point, we reached that moment in Stranger Things inspired media where everyone finally gets their acts together and has a moment to indulge in some exchange of information. I have to say, even in their production capacity, The Duffer Brothers have gotten their timing down after delivering pretty much the same format five times before back in Hawkins. But with the coming together of the characters, that means the veil gets lifted off a number of the secrets, which leads to that all enticing drip-feed of info. However, without a Dustin to excitedly spell it all out for us (or Steve Harrington), let’s see what we’ve discovered so far…
For a start, those creeping aliens have been sneaking in at night and draining the residents, but it seems that these beasties aren’t even close to being the main threat. Oh, they’re a sizable threat to be sure, but with Paz’s revelation that the Shaws and Hank have a room of them caged up, it could be that the multi-legged crawlers may be just as much victims as they are dangerous. To be fair, the Shaws have mostly been kept by the wayside aside for the odd, isolated scene, but here we get to spend some revealing time with them that confirms that the owners of the Boroughs are indeed dar older than they look and may not be entirely human anyone – if they ever were. We get this from the lips of Alice Kremelberg’s Anneliese who confirms some of our suspicions with a brief history lesson – and then confirms the others by having a full on body horror attack after gulping down Art’s peach stone. While it’s unclear if the Shaws are aliens masquerading as humans, or are humans transformed by whatever it is they’re doing with their reserves of extraterrestrial goo (eating it, bathing in it – anything goes apparently), they’ve definitely cashed in their villain chips, which is further highlighted by Hank going full psycho killer.

Yes, Hank’s murder plan is oddly complex but choosing to stuff Renee and Paz in the trunk of her car, drive them out to the dessert, gas them into further unconsciousness with exhaust fumes and then set them up to look like an elaborate murder suicide – but it’s totally fucking worth it when you realise it’s all in service of an utterly unnecessary (but truly magnificent) nod to Thelma And Louise, much in the say way Alfred Molina came face to face with the idol from Raiders Of The Ark a couple of episodes ago – any chance of mechanical octopus tentacles showing up anytime soon?
Anyway, “Another Beautiful Day” emerges as one of the strongest episodes to date, purely because we were waiting for a lot of these exact  things to occur – even Stranger Things prioritised stretching out the build up a bit too long in order for the pay off to be even more joyous. Plus those little details are still paying off beautifully, such as Judy naming her gun Ethel in honor of her journalistic inspiration, Ethel Payne (first lady of the black press), or the group’s failed attempts to stay hidden at a diner at closing time. But with only three episodes to go, we’ve thankfully still got lost of details still to iron out – obviously it seems that Shaw has the upper hand as he and a small army of goons arrive to forcibly take the gang back to the Boroughs and no doubt indulge in a spot of expositional monologue-ing, but the fact that Anneliese alluded to them needing a new way to replenish themselves means that our heroes may have a few cards left to play – and I’m not talking gin rummy…

We’re well on our way to the finale now, with clearer lines being drawn while the overall mystery is still being cultivated. However, for all the freakish transformations, violent vomiting and alien euthanasia, the real draw is that the gang is now fully together for the first time since that BBQ from the first episode and it’s here that shows like this start to really come alive – if everyone stays alive, that is.
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Media Highlights: The Best of the Best

Since starting my media highlights, I thought there are now so many of them per post I’d look back on the last six months of these round-up posts (Nov-April) and let you know what I think my main highlights have been in all categories. Let’s go for the top 5 in each, as there are way too many for me to pick otherwise!

I haven’t got 6 months of Musical Greetings yet I don’t think, as I started this a bit later.

Top 5 Books of the Last 6 Months (Nov-Apr)

This was hard to narrow down, and I think that there were lots of great reads. I didn’t include short stories in this top 5 selection, as there are WAY too many of those to set against the novels and novellas. They get their own section below.

Top 5 Short Stories/Anthologies of the Last 6 Months (Nov-Apr)

I read some standout single author collections and some great short stories, so narrowing it down was pretty hard. My picks are fairly predictable, but I stand by them.

Top 5 Podcasts/Audiodramas of the Last 6 Months (Nov-Apr)

Top 5 TV Shows of the Last 6 Months (Nov-Apr)

If I included my comfort series, then it would be the same ones every time. I’m excluding the ones I continuously rewatch, like Delicious in Dungeon, The Apothecary Diaries, and Haunted Hotel.

Top 5 Films of the Last 6 Months (Nov-Apr)

This was super hard to narrow down, but I went for the ones that stood out for me in each month. I think that Ghost Stories for Christmas should be given a special mention, but I can’t include the entire series of short films!

See all 6 Media Round-ups

Media Highlights: The Best of the Best

I began my media round-ups in Nov 2025, so I thought I’d do a media highlight post of my Top 5 books, short stories/collections, TV shows, and films from Nov-Apr. Find out what made the ultimate cut!

April 2026 Media Round-Up

Everything I’ve watched, read, and listened to in April! Skim the highlights, or expand the details to see the full lists.

March 2026 Media Round-Up

Everything I’ve read/watched/listened to in the month of March!

February 2026 Media Round-Up

What I read, listened to, and watched in the month of February! Skim the highlights, or expand the details to see the full lists and my thoughts.

January 2026 Media Round-Up

My monthly media round-up for January 2026 – all the books, podcasts, tv shows, and films I’ve been enjoying this month!

December 2025 Media Round-Up

My monthly media round-up for December 2025 – all the books, podcasts, tv shows, and films I read/listened to/watched this month.

November 2025 Media Round-Up

I’m starting a new monthly series where I post a round-up of all the media I’ve watched/read/listened to for the previous month. Here is November’s media round-up!

The Boroughs – Season 1, Episode 4: Forbidden Fruit (2026) – Review

As we reach the midway point of the season, it’s time for another upshift of mystery to keep those stakes steadily rising. We have a marauding alien on the loose that considers cerebrospinal fluid a delicacy; we have a trio of pensioners that are determined to avenge their dead friend but uncovering whatever this conspiracy is; we have clues that tie the owners of the titular retirement village know something is going on and finally, we have the discovery of a strange peach tree whose fruit seems to contain healing properties. The plot, as they say, is thickening.
Obviously, this is par for the course for this sort of thing as the people behind The Boroughs have quite famous previous experience, but while the overall patterns of this show tend to be fairly similar to a certain other show, it’s still an impressive selling point that this plucky group of coffin dodgers can keep up with other monster-busting casts a third of their age.

After being caught at the funeral home after their impromptu autopsy of Jack, Sam takes the rap and is taken to the Manor, while Wally and Judy hid and while they wait to see what happens to their colleague, Sam gets into something of a threatening conversation with Boroughs CEO, Blaine Shaw, where both make the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf into thinly veiled warnings. Released back into the populous, Sam’s determination has merely increased and once he reunites with his partners in crime, they cook up a plan to lure in and take down the creature that’s been literally leeching off them.
Meanwhile Art is reaping the benefits of taking a huge bite of a peach as it finds that not only does it have restorative properties, but his renewed vigour stretches to him losing the grey in his hair as it adds a youthful snap to his step. But before he can share his miraculous discovery, he takes an emotional gutshot when he finds that his wife has kept an item of Jack’s clothing, which fully confirms her feelings about her dead lover. His elation about his youthful transformation all but shattered, he bumps into Blaine’s wife, Anneliese Shaw, who has some rather disturbing advice – but before he can properly think about it, the effects of that space peach wear off with agonising effects.
Somewhat out of the loop is Renee, who us already finding that her relationship with security guard Paz hitting speed bumps already. But while ignorant of fluid sucking aliens or miracle fruit, she has a case of her own when she discovers that head of security, Hank, apparently is actually a prison warden named Milton Hauser who died in the 70s. After looking up his son and questioning for info, Paz discovers something freakish in the restricted areas of the Boroughs.
But as we get back to Sam, Judy and Wally, they find that their well laid plan isn’t quite so well laid as they thought – but after the creature escapes through a trap door located in Sam’s oven, that plot just keeps on thickening.

We’re reaching that point where a huge breakthrough feels like it’s tantalisingly on the horizon as all those little details the denizens of the Boroughs have learnt so far are painting quite the picture. Obviously, we have no idea how it fits together just yet, but as the various threads threaten to intersect at any moment, we’re at that stage where we’re practically yelling at the screen for the slower members of the cast to get up to speed with everybody else. Yes, it’s a case of characters not communicating vastly important pieces of information in order to draw out that all-important tension, but if it worked for nearly ten years in that other Duffer Brothers show, then it’ll sure as hell work here. In fact, while I’m loathe to mention Stranger Things in these review in an attempt to avoid too much comparison, “Forbidden Fruit” really does bring back warm memories of the simpler days of the first season where the cast wasn’t quite so crowed and the scale wasn’t quite so huge.
Just watching these characters go about their own little obsessions and get caught up in amateur monster hunting, or detective work really is its own reward at this point and while I may suggest that the show is starting to plateau a little bit, it’s the solo arc of Art and his wonder fruit means the show gets to fully plough into one of its biggest influences. The second I first heard of the premise of The Boroughs, my brain immediately thought of Ron Howard’s Cocoon, even if the cast’s attitude to extraterrestrials is more Sigourney Weaver than Don Ameche and watching Art take full advantage of his energised state ends up being incredibly sweet.

Not only has the grey in his hair gone, but he’s even able to thwart a robbery in a convenience store due to a punch from his earlier years – but after we get the requisite montage of him enjoying life (he doesn’t smoke younger folk at basketball unfortunately), his comedown is devestating after he discovers exactly how much Jack’s death has hit her. Worse yet, when the effects of the peach wear off, it’s disastrous and it’s made all the worse by the rather unsettling presesence of Anneliese Shaw who seems to be just as unsettling as her husband.
Elsewhere, Renee manages to finally catch up to her peers by launching fully into her own investigation about the origins of brutish security head Hank. While it may also be beneficial to discover just why the producers hired someone who looks noticely similar to 2016 David Harbour, we discover that Hank isn’t just complicit in the conspiracy, he’s actually a sizable part of it considering that he apparently died in the 70s. Furthermore, he seems to have what sounds like a whole bunch of aliens like Scar locked in a special room which Paz manages to uncover before his ass is knocked out.
But while all this means that some sort of narrative crescendo is surely about to occur, still the most beguiling thread is the hunt for an alien that leads to some of that improvisation fans of that other show will surely appreciate. Fashioning a dummy that uses a humidifier to expell Sam’s cerebrospinal fluid into the air (don’t ask), Sam, Judy and Wally hope to lure the creature into a trap marked by dozens of old-school televisions. Hoping the screens will have the same, explosive effects on the creature as it does on it’s blood, the low-tech, high hopes approach to monster mashing prove to be the most endearing connection to Stanger Things yet and the easy banter of the trio meshes well with the tension when the creature actually shows up.

If you’re not trying to cram the entire show into a single sitting, there’s a tendency to feel during shows like this that maybe it’s time everyone got a bit of a move on and start swapping notes. But then, if I’m feeling impatient, it’s only because I’m fully invested in the plot and characters and in eager to find out what the hell is going to happen next. But with Art writhing in agony on a bathroom floor and the gang discovering that aliens have a secret passage in everyone’s ovens (strange choice), we’ve still got a ways to go.
🌟🌟🌟🌟

Watched Return to Silent Hill from Bed Jail™ 🛌🌫️
Confusing, haunting, & one man breathing WAY too loud
2⭐ but I have thoughts
🐾 Luna approved naps
linktr.ee/skylanarissa #SilentHill #Horror #BedJailBroadcast #ChronicIllness #TVReview #MovieReview

http://thecrippledcryptid.com/2026/05/24/%f0%9f%9b%8c%f0%9f%93%a1-bed-jail-broadcast-return-to-silent-hill-2026/