Month: May 2025

The Change (2023)

Where to find it: Channel 4
Length: Twelve 20-minute episodes
Synopsis: Forest-based midlife comedy-drama
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: righteous anger, rural setting, occasionally funny, Ryan, Tony
What I don’t like about it: attempts to build lore in second season

Review:
Linda, menopausal and aggrieved by a poor division of household labour, hops on her motorbike and leaves her husband for a life in the Forest of Dean. Features a number of carthartic and quite funny rants about suburban life, marriage, cancel culture. The characters are a mixed bag, some being broad satirical caricatures while others are surprisingly well-rounded. A solid, easygoing short show.

Content notes (may contain spoilers):

Star Wars: Andor (2022)

Where to find it: Disney+
Length: Twenty four 45-minute episodes
Synopsis: Overcooked political drama and half a billion dollars add up to a wasted day
Recommendation rating: 3/5

What I like about it: cool designs, relatively easy-to-follow plot, great VFX
What I don’t like about it: rigid formula and pacing, terrible representation, poor worldbuilding

Review:
Firstly, I watched Rogue One before this, thinking it would enhance the experience. It didn’t and it’s terrible.

This most-hyped and most expensive Disney+ show is probably the best later Star Wars I’ve seen. The plot feels grounded and the stakes are small enough to make sense through the first season. The (largely British and European) actors are good and the tech concepts are mostly well-realised.

Unfortunately, the whole thing is stretched and squashed with a formula of two episodes of set-up for every one episode of payoff and it becomes painfully obvious after the first three. Its worldbuilding is lazy, with locations amounting to “Space Morocco”, “Space New Zealand” and “Space France”. Because it’s such an investment, it’s shockingly regressive with representation – people of colour die first, gays can’t do more than hold hands (except one easily-deleted kiss) and all are buried, even just the queer-coded ones.

Content notes (may contain spoilers): overlong scene threatening sexual violence, violence and blood, bury your gays trope