Devil in the detail 7 - Daredevil episode 7: Stick

Stick and Stone may break my bones

Welcome to the world of Daredevil, Stick. Of course, we've met Stick before in the live action adaptation world, with the magnificent Terence Stamp starring in the role in the not-so-magnificent Elektra movie. Actually, scratch that. Not-so-magnificent is overselling it. I saw Elektra in a cinema on a free ticket and still wanted my money back. My buddy spent the entire movie telling Jennifer Garner to stop pouting. But I digress. Scott Glenn does a great job of lifting Stick straight off the page - with a dash of his Sucker Punch Yoda added in. You can almost hear his line of "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything" making the journey from that movie to this show. 

Stick is the mentor who helped a young Matt Murdoch to adjust to his blindness, his otherwise heightened senses and his need to kick ass on a semi-regular basis. We meet him in the show's opening, as he hunts down and disposes of a pesky minion, and then meet him again in the wake of Daredevil trying to hustle The Owl for information only to come up against the rough end of a taser. Full of sympathy, Stick asks Daredevil if he's going to lie there all night. Short version: Stick is a dick. To Daredevil, at least. And this is the saccharine TV version. The comics version has a habit of hitting Daredevil on a regular basis. 

"You like ice cream?" "Yes." "Then shut up and eat it."

It's a trip into the past for a good chunk of this episode as Stick shows up at the St Agnes Orphanage to pretty much bully young Matt into training. (And remember, this is the same orphanage as Daisy/Skye came out of in Agents of Shield. That surely isn't going to be entirely unexplored). 

? ecause he got nine years of sight unlike Stick, who was blind since birth. He takes Matt to a partk and gets him to use his senses to learn more about his environment. It's an exploration of origins, but it ends abruptly when the young Matt gives a gift to Stick. No explanation, but Matt is perhaps too good, too kind for the world that Stick lives in. 

Black Sky

In the modern world, Stick wants Daredevil's help in stopping Japanese mobsters who are importing a weapon called Black Sky. The weapon turns out to be a child. Stick tries to kill the child, Daredevil stops him, but later Stick tells him he killed Black Sky anyway. But we never see that happen. Using the old Chekhov maxim of never introducing a gun in the first act if it doesn't later go off, I'm expecting to see Black Sky - or something connected to him - somewhere else down the line. 

No heroes, no villains, just people with different agendas

Over in the continuing adventures of Ben Urich and Karen Page, we don't really get a lot of progress, though quite a lot of cynicism from Ben. That's probably healthy to counterpoint Karen's naivety as they investigate their way into trouble. Some of that trouble finds Karen in this episode, but coming to her rescue is... Foggy? Really? Couldn't Karen get out of trouble herself rather than being rescued by the least likely rescuer in town?

Hey, who is that at the end?

By the end of the show, Stick's reunion has ended bitterly, and he's off for a rendezvous with a mysterious figure we only see from the back. 

Who could this mysterious figure be? Well...

When the cinematography is this spot on to the comics, I think we can take it as read that this is Stone, a fellow member of the group of good ninjas that Stick works for, and with the ability to resist any blow as long as he sees it coming. Guess those scars on the back are because he doesn't have eyes in the back of his head...

Devil in the detail 6 - Daredevil episode 6: Condemned

Now Get Out Of That
So, when we last left off, Daredevil was caught by the cops with nowhere to run. Well, who needs to run when you can just take down the cops. Handy that they were crooked ones sent to kill Russian mobster Vladimir, or Daredevil would have been left in a pretty pickle. As it turns out, some of these cops seem to be more ruthless than the Russians anyway, one shouting "If you find anyone alive, put a bullet in their head" while another honest cop or three gets bumped off to make Daredevil look bad. When the cops are in the Kingpin's pocket, what hope is there for Daredevil to bring him to justice?

It's a Bullseye
Are they just playing with us? Ben Urich works out his web of mob connections using playing cards - the weapon of choice for master assassin Bullseye. And of course the Kingpin gets the King card with a question mark for his identity. Meanwhile, the Kingpin lets loose a deadly sniper to open fire on police to further frame Daredevil. Could that assassin be our overly-cheerful black-and-white-garbed nemesis? Well, there was a playing card in his weapons bag...

That explains the stabbing pain in my side
Foggy the feckless hero to the rescue. Along with Karen, he brings their injured client to the hospital - where they bump into Claire, which is a nice chance for her to strut her stuff without Daredevil in sight - only to discover he has a hole in his side and needs a hospital bed himself. "You've played the hero enough for one day," says a tearful Karen before giving him a sisterly kiss on the forehead. "Hell of a first date, huh?" he asks her, but her reply of "I've actually had worse" is delivered in a way that again hints that yes, she really has. Bad things lie ahead there.

"We're nothing alike."
OK, this bit really didn't work for me. The whole villain telling the hero they're just like one another schtick is pretty old now, and there was no real spin put on it here. It was good to get the direct interaction between Daredevil and Kingpin, though, starting out with the acknowledgement that both are man who put secrets first. The most telling line, however, is "You're a child playing at being a hero." The Kingpin has a plan, Daredevil not so much.

Public Enemy
So the episode ends with video tape running of Daredevil beating up cops, a Russian making a last stand against approaching crooked cops and our hero walking purposefully away. It's not looking good for poor old Matt Murdoch...

Devil in the detail: Daredevil episode 5 - World on Fire

Devil in the detail continues to examine the Netflix Daredevil series episode by episode, picking out moments that might have slipped by in the midst of binge watching. 

No easy task being a hero

It's become clear that not only is Daredevil a show that people indulged in with binge viewing, but it was absolutely designed that way. Episodes are picking up right from where the last one left off, no week in between for the characters to be doing something else. We start here with Claire Temple still recovering from the wounds she suffered in the last episode and... wait... lo and behold, moving in with Matt Murdoch and starting a little romance. She also cautions that he might not be in the best of places himself - warning him that he might be a little too close in style to those he's hunting. Is it any surprise then that the Russians he's tracking are only too willing to believe he's working for Wilson Fisk?

World on Fire

Not just the episode title, but its theme. Matt tells Claire this is how he sees the world, and we get a glimpse of it, a swirling pattern of waves that resolve themselves into Claire's face. Not a gentle view of the world. And by the end of the episode, we see more of Matt's world on fire, with an explosion and blaze ripping through the building occupied by the Russians, knocking Matt over, putting the nearby Foggy and Karen in peril and leaving him surrounded by the police who are ready to arrest him. A world coming tumbling down in flames indeed. 

Episode in-jokes

Be it Claire asking if Matt happens to be a billionaire playboy (like certain other superheroes, Mr Stark), or the Kingpin being told by Vanessa that she was wooed by a man in a white suit and wearing an ascot (who stole his comics look without his approval?), there's plenty of nudges here towards the wider comics world. Though I did get thrown by Fisk talking about a rising tide that raises all boats - thinking of the Agents of Shield hacktivist group. I don't think there was anything to that, but when you're looking for all the nods, it's easy to wonder. And the lawyers' office used to Van Lunt Real Estate? Dig deep for that one and you find Cornelius Van Lunt, a real estate businessman who became Taurus in the supervillain line-up of Zodiac. But that's digging real deep! Also the mention of clones, robot babies and clones of robot babies is totally about Cable. 

Using the camera

It's not treated as a major point - but the cinematography in the early fight scene is quite delicious. As a blind man sings in the back of a taxi, the camera pans 360 degrees around, with Daredevil appearing in the lights of the vehicle. It continues to pan to the point when the criminals emerge from the building and rush out to fight him. The fighting is swift and to the point, including a pistol cartridge ejected from the gun and flung at a villian to take him down. It might not have the startling impact of the corridor fight scene or the car door brutality of previous episodes, but it's beautifully choreographed and looks like it's all in a single take. Impressive stuff. 

Language is important

Karen knows Spanish. Matt knows Spanish but likes to hear Karen speaking in it. Foggy knows Punjabi. The Russians have their dialogue subtitled. The Chinese mobster doesn't have hers subtitled. These elements aren't random, but choices. And Karen's lying when she says she only remembers a bit of Spanish from school. Of that, I'm sure. 

Also... Netflix has now added audio description to the episodes for the blind. Which, y'know, means this series just got the company to do things a different way. Good going, Daredevil. 

PODCAST REVIEW: After The Walking Dead - plus a little tickle of Star Wars

Republished from The Tribune of April 10

AS the credits rolled on this season's finale of "The Walking Dead", nearly 16 million people gasped and shouted "What's next?". That's how many people tuned into the show, the highest-rated finale in its history.
The answer to that is to wait until the show resumes at the end of the year or its spin-off show, "Fear The Walking Dead", airs in the summer - but between now and then, here's a podcast or two to keep you going.

ZombieCast Radio
Zombie lovers desperate to get their fix of discussion about what just happened in the show can quickly spin their browser towards ZombieCase Radio, where devoted lovers of the world of the undead sink their teeth into all things zombie. It's not just about "The Walking Dead" - though in the wake of the finale, their latest podcast is understandably obsessed with breaking down the events of the show. It's a hefty podcast too, routinely clocking in at longer than an hour and this one hitting the two-hour mark. But the time zips by, their points are argued with passion, and they have time to venture into discussions of George Romero's work, the Dead Rising series and... um... the unimaginative nature of Superman's girlfriend's names. These folk know their stuff and are just as on the edge of their seats for the show as all the fans.

Website: zombiecast.net

We're Alive
The perfect pick-me-up for "Walking Dead" deprivation is We're Alive.
This is a podcast radio drama, detailing the start of a zombie apocalypse. Originally pitched as a TV show, producer KC WAyland then reimagined the idea as an audio drama. It launched in 2009 and its final season concluded last summer, with around three episodes a month in the space between, each lasting about 20 minutes. It starts with a student and army reservist being called to gather in the wake of an unspecified incident - but as he heads to the rendezvous, he sees wild people attakcing other drivers along the road. By the time he reaches the base, he and the other soldiers there have gone from a normal mission to simply trying to find a way to survive. The production is top notch, with atmospheric music and juicy sound effects.

Website: www.werealive.com or www.soundcloud.com/werealive

Star Wars Minute
Stepping away from zombies, but firmly into another area of fandom, anticipation is building ahead of the return of the Star Wars movies - and for those wanting to immerse themselves in the buzz, try Star Wars Minute. This is a podcast made by people so deeply in love with the movies that they have taken to analysing them minute by minute. Literally, each episode examines a single minute of movie footage, what happens in that minute, what are the ramifications for other parts of the movie, details of the production behind those moments and so on. It's astonishing how in-depth they get during each podcast - and as everyone looks ahead for information on the new Star Wars movies, no one will be checking the run time of the movies with quite so much enthuiasm as these guys.

Wesite: starwarsminute.com

BONUS: Since this column was published, this little movie trailer was released...

Devil in the detail - Daredevil episode 4: In The Blood

Devil in the detail continues to examine the Netflix Daredevil series episode by episode, picking out moments that might have slipped by in the midst of binge watching. 

The Kingpin: Lover, raconteur, man about town. 

Wilson Fisk, we meet at last. And it turns out you're quite the Romeo. Here is a man that woos art dealer Vanessa, albeit clumsily. He asks her out but she fends him off with a need to stay at work, he walks away but she interrupts by asking is that it? She then tells of how another man offered to buy everything in the gallery. His response of "A woman that can be bought isn't worth having" doesn't seem like a winning chat-up line - that word having lingers ominously - but somehow it works, and soon he and Vanessa are living it up at an Italian restaurant, chatting about fine living and Hell's Kitchen, until a sour-tasting Russian dessert in the form of an interrupting mobster ruins the date, scares off Vanessa and leaves sourpuss Fisk beating the man to death with a car door. A romcom this ain't.

Women aren't faring well so far

Now I hesitate a little to say this as it's only four episodes in but the female characters aren't doing too well in this show so far. We have Karen Page - a damsel in distress in the first episode, and here we have references to a shady past and again needing to be saved, this time by Ben Urich, from getting out of her depth in an investigation. There's Claire Temple, who this episode is beaten and bloodied by Russian mobsters being hunted by Daredevil. And there's Vanessa, who so far is portrayed as nothing more than an object of desire (and perhaps redemption) for the Kingpin. Karen Page is the most developed character of those so far, but there's a way to go yet before she will feel fully-formed. Meanwhile, the violence against Claire Temple this episode edges dangerously close to fridging territory. I hope that future episodes will do more to stop female characters being regarded as victims or trophies.

Speaking of that violence...

Continuing the theme of previous episodes, the violence of the show is shocking - both that perpetrated against Claire and, more pointedly, the way in which the Kingpin wreaks his revenge on the Russian mobster at the end of the show, slamming a car door over and over and over on his head. It works completely on the tone of the show but hey, viewer beware. After three episodes of build-up towards meeting Fisk, this episode neatly undercut the fear others feel for him, before brutally re-establishing that in the closing moments.

Snippets

- Karen's talking-to for Ben Urich has stirred up his journalistic pride. He's on the case and not to be derailed.
- Mr Fisk needs a new suit. He mentions to get "Potter" to make one. That may be Melvin Potter, Marvel's tailor to the underworld, sometimes known as the Gladiator. Yes, he makes costumes for bad guys.

PODCAST REVIEW: Podcasts for book lovers

Originally published in the Weekend section of The Tribune: http://www.tribune242.com/photos/galleries/sets/weekend/

ANN Morgan had a mission: To travel the world through literature.

She had an ambition to read examples of literature from every country in the world – and so she set off, page turning her way around the globe.

She's the focus of a podcast on the UK Guardian's website – www.theguardian.com – a very smoothly produced part of their books section filled with brilliance.

Ann's journey took in such countries as South Sudan – where a writer created a short story especially for her because of the new-born nation's status – and North Korea, which proved a diplomatic challenge.

That particular podcast goes on to take in some of the work that Ann discovered in her journey. It's eye opening, enchanting and a very fine example of the breadth of the work that can be discovered here.

Website: www.guardian.com/books

The Fireside Book Chat

This brilliant little idea for a podcast can prove a little elusive online. The iTunes version of the podcast stubbornly refused to load – and the best place I found to track it down was at the Stitcher website (full of lots of other shows worth hunting down too). The idea of the site is that it is reviews of books suitable for children delivered by children.

The reviews are bite-sized – only three to six minutes each or so – and consist of the host interviewing children about the books they have been reading.

Not only does this give your children ideas for other books they would like to read or to perhaps compare what they thought about a favourite with the reviewer, but it's also a great listen for parents.

Listen to the host and the kind of questions he asks, and the prompts he gives, and he really draws out the youngsters to discuss what they liked about the story, and the key moments that featured.

Children can of course be very honest too, so don't be surprised that no punches are pulled!

Website: www.stitcher.com (then search for Fireside Book Chat)

Books On The Nightstand

As simple a premise as you could ask for, Books On The Nightstand is a review show that aims to offer great book recommendations. The hosts – Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman – are smart and genial, and passionate about literature. They're great at evoking the atmosphere of the books they discuss, and their enthusiasm in contagious – I've already snagged a couple of the books they reviewed.

The hosts both work in the publishing industry and so they also provide a good glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes.

The episodes clock in at about half an hour and the quality of the recording is top notch – it almost sounds like you're sitting and listening to friends chat about books. The range of books they discuss is broad, too, so if you favour one particular genre, you won't feel left out.

While you're on Stitcher for the Fireside Book Chat, you can also find Books On The Nightstand there, though you can also catch them at their own website: www.booksonthenightstand.com

Luke Burrage, of the Science Fiction Book Review

Science Fiction Book Review

Luke Burrage is a voracious reader, as well as – in other avenues a juggler and entertainer. This multi-talented chap is absolutely bursting with energy and enthusiasm. The goal of the website is to review the books he's reading at any given time, all of a science fiction or fantasy bent. He knows exactly what you need to go along with the reviews too, with plenty of links right there on his website page to go buy the book from Amazon or to discuss it on Goodreads. The podcasts are available on iTunes, but do go visit his home page and follow some of the links to some of the other fabulously intriguing things that he's involved in, such as comedy shows and viral videos. He's great at picking up on the trivia surrounding books and their authors, though that can mean he takes a good chunk of the podcast before he really settles down to discuss the book. It's never uninteresting, however, and he's not shy to say what works and what doesn't. The first podcast I listened to of his featured one of the books I dislike the most in the genre – R Scott Bakker's The Darkness That Comes Before, a piece of blithering, overblown nonsense as far as I'm concerned – but Burrage strips the book down to its bare essentials and does a cracking job of detailing what the book is about and what its underlying messages are. This podcast I'll be coming back to quite a bit.

Website: www.sfbrp.com

PODCAST REVIEW: Black Girls Talking, Stuff You Missed, The New Yorker

As printed in the Weekend section of The Tribune on March 6. http://www.tribune242.com/photos/galleries/sets/weekend/

Black Girls Talking

READER, I have failed you.

As a reviewer, I always strive to carry on until the bitter end. After all, the subject of the review might be brilliant in the last ten minutes, right?

Alas, I tried. I tried very hard. But after half an hour of the Black Girls Talking podcast, I could not carry on. There's really only so much one can take of gossip about the latest Twitter row featuring Kardashians, Kanye, Amber... there was a tiger in there too – no, wait, a Tyga?

Black Girls Talking bills itself as four black women discussing pop culture, representation of people of colour and... stuff, really. It feels very much like the kind of gossip you'd hear from friends over a few cocktails, and seems all very genuine. Believe me, I'm all in for the cocktails, but after 30 non-stop minutes of reading out celeb-war tweets, I felt the urge for something stronger.

Website: www.blackgirlstalking.com

Stuff You Missed In History

Now here's a website with an admirable goal. Picking out people or events through history that perhaps might be undiscovered by the listener, hosts Tracy Wilson and Holly Frey pick their way through time to shine a spotlight on the neglected. The two podcasts I tried out were connected, both about major civil rights cases in the US – one focusing on Plessey v Ferguson, the second on Brown v Board. As they say in the podcast, for many people these cases may be regarded as important – but the details remain vague. And so the hosts seek to show the human side of those cases.

The first, Plessey v Ferguson, was a landmark decision upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring segregation under the doctrine of “separate but equal”. The focus of this became a man named Homer Plessey, who was not allowed to sit in the “white” car of a train – but there was no other car to sit in, despite the supposed requirement for equal facilities to be available. The consequences of the ruling are discussed in detail – and the knock-on effects led to the Brown v Board case, which pulled down the laws allowing segregated schools in the US.

The hosts are knowledgeable and pick out major points of the cases – but sometimes, it has to be said, it sounds like they're reading from a script and not really engaging with it. Too many adverts, too, interrupt the flow. Still, that pays their bills.

Website: www.missedinhistory.com

The New Yorker podcasts

Lastly, a publication that needs no introduction – but perhaps you might not know of their regular Fiction podcast. In it, a short story is first discussed by the host and the guest choosing a short story, and then the short story is read and subsequently analysed. It's all very elegant, all very well-produced, as you might expect, and very much the kind of relaxing fare that might serve as background sound while cooking dinner. Fairly short, but very sweet. The most recent episode features Israeli writer Etgar Keret selecting and reading a piece published in the 1980s in the New Yorker, written by Donald Barthelme. There's clearly love and reverence for writing on show, and all the better for that.

Website: www.newyorker.com

Devil in the details: Daredevil episode 3 - Rabbit in a snowstorm

Ben Urich in the new series of Daredevil - complete with Easter eggs on his wall. 

Daredevil episode 3 ups the ante on violence - and has its first procedural episode. SPOILERS below.

Courtroom by day, judgement by night
The third episode of Netflix's Daredevil settles into a procedural format. Here's the courtroom drama that fills half of Matt Murdoch's life, with Daredevil taking to the streets to administer his own brand of justice. The story involves Nelson and Murdoch being hired to defend a contract killer - a case Nelson is keen to take on for the money, but is surprised when his partner agrees. Murdoch has his own reason for taking the case - it's a stepping stone on the way to figuring out who the bad guy is behind things in Hell's Kitchen.

Don't mess with the Kingpin
Three episodes in and we see the Kingpin for the first time. We barely know him but we know he is ruthless and to be feared from what we've seen so far. Here again, we have the contract killer, a mean piece of work himself who in the opening swiftly despatched his target after taking down his bodyguards in a flurry of action (that also told us that Turk Barrett's word as a salesman isn't worth very much, as the gun he sold the assassin jammed at just the wrong moment). When faced with the knowledge that giving away the Kingpin's name will bring down hell on not just him but everyone he knows, he takes the most gruesome of ways out - if you doubted the more adult market for Daredevil, doubt no more after this unfortunate intersection of head and spike. Meanwhile, the senior mobster that new arrival to the series Ben Urich tries to hit up for some information for a newspaper story is saying nothing.  By the time we meet Wilson Fisk in the closing moments of the show, there's a palpable sense of menace.

 “Everybody we know is making twice what we are, writing for blogs, working from home in their underwear.”
Ben Urich is a great journalist, and played here superbly by Vondie Curtis-Hall with a hangdog look and a steady, plodding determination. On his wall, he has old front pages talking about the Battle of New York and the Harlem Terror of a Hulk on the loose. And he works with an idiot who thinks bloggers are getting rich, rich, rich, baby. Although maybe the underwear part is true. Sadly, rights issues mean that he doesn't work at the Daily Bugle, but instead at the New York Bulletin. I kind of wished he was at Marvel's upstart outlet, Front Line, if he couldn't be at the Bugle, but maybe that's in his future. I sure can't see him putting up with that editor for too long. 

The lawyers in action
This is our first real chance to see the legal side of the team in action, and it's pretty darn good. Sure, you have Murdoch using his super-hearing to listen to the jury's heartbeats to find out which way they are leaning with regard to a verdict, and to pick out a juror being blackmailed to remove them from the panel, but you also see how each of the lawyers performs. There's the eager charm of Foggy Nelson, but that's overshadowed by Murdoch's clear-stated charisma and analytic approach. It'll be interesting to see how much courtroom material we get as the series goes on - not too much, I hope, enough to give a different flavour without falling into a rut. 

A matter of faith
Each episode so far has featured faith and religion in some way - be it the confessional in the opening, or the discussion about religion with the Night Nurse character in episode two. Here, we have Matt talking to a priest outside church, or more pointedly not talking, avoiding the chance for a discussion. What does the priest have to tell Matt? And why is Matt drawn back towards faith but left unable to engage? More, I am sure, to come...

PODCAST REVIEW: Behind the song, beneath the surface, beyond the story

Portrait of Billie Holiday in Down Beat magazine. Taken by William P. Gottlieb

Continuing the republication of podcast review columns from The Tribune newspaper - this column appeared in the Weekend edition of February 27: http://www.tribune242.com/photos/galleries/2015/feb/27/02272015-weekend/

Soul Music (BBC)

“That strange fruit is still out there, it's just in a different form.”

So says the cousin of Emmett Till, a teenager lynched and killed in 1955 for whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The story of the 14-year-old's death is just one strand of an episode of the Soul Music podcast on the BBC website, looking at the story behind the song Strange Fruit.

The Soul Music series has many episodes, each looking at the background behind a particular piece of music, but the Billie Holiday episode has many aspects to it – from the horror of lynchings that inspired it, through the story of the Jewish New York schoolteacher who wrote it and who later adopted the children of two people executed for being Soviet spies, to the people today inspired by the song, such as the quiltmaker who quietly stitched and sewed with golden thread the names of everyone killed in lynchings before quietly, defiantly adding: “I stand for these people. If no one else remembers them, or remembers their names, I stand for these people.”

The song plays, and the story unfolds.

Website: www.bbc.co.uk and search for Soul Music

Love + Radio

Walking along the street one day, Ana – in Oakland, California – was catcalled by Jerome in the street. Ana pulled out her microphone and asked him if he could repeat what he said to her, and the latest episode of Love + Radio presents the conversation that followed.

The goal of Love + Radio is to present interviews with unexpected subjects. For example, the site suggests a starting point if you want to work out what kind of things it covers, and it points you to the episode The Wisdom Of Jay Thunderbolt, about a man who runs a strip club from his home.

There seems to be a freshness and an honesty to the approach, an uninhibited freedom in the topics covered and the language used – some explicit.

That honest approach can bring great results – in the catcalling episode, An Old Lion or a Lover's Lute, Jerome gives straightforward answers as to why he does what he does, but the earnest questions continue and reveal a lot about his viewpoint, and the uncertain ground it is built on.

Website: loveandradio.org

Pseudopod

Time for a little escapism, and Pseudopod is a very elegant place to escape to. This is a website devoted to horror stories. There's something old and something new here – stories written by modern writers and sometimes a gem unearthed from the past. Readers are also warned this is not a site for children, as horror stories can most certainly be gruesome. I started off with Lost In The Fog, a story published in 1918 by British novelist John Davys Beresford (whose daughter would later create children's characters The Wombles). It's a story of a man taking the wrong train, getting off at the wrong place and learning of many other, very wrong things taking place there. The readings are professional quality, with not too much of an introduction before you get to the meat of why you're visiting, plus analysis at the end. There are plenty of episodes – Lost In The Fog is episode 420 – so you won't be short of a shiver or two as you draw up the blankets and turn up the volume.

Website: www.pseudopod.org

Devil in the detail - Daredevil episode 2: Cut Man

Daredevil has hit Netflix in one joyous bundle, but rather than the lure of binge watching, I'm taking it slower and picking out some of the key elements episode by episode. 

The past affects the present

From the first episode, I mentioned the old poster on the wall showing the boxing fight between Daredevil's father and Crusher Creel - I thought it was just an Easter egg really, but here we return to it in flashback. Crusher Creel has already appeared in a Marvel series of course - in the present day of Agents of Shield in the second series. The first episode had moments of flashback and they continue here, the lesson to be learned is that doing the right thing has consequences. Matt's father is supposed to throw the fight against Creel, but he doesn't, and he's about to make a run for it when he hears his name being chanted by the fight fans. And for a moment, just that moment, it feels worth it, because his son is hearing people cheer his dad's name. A moment of personal redemption. As he and young Matt say to one another earlier, "It ain't about how you hit the mat, it's how you get up." But that's his last moment. He is gunned down for doing what he felt was right, not what the fixer told him to. Sadly, we never see that fight on screen, leaving us wanting a great action set piece... but keep reading. 

Who do you trust? Why do you trust? 

The opening of the episode has a beaten and bleeding Daredevil in a dumpster. He is taken in by a local nurse, Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), who patches him up, in the process seeing his face. A lot of time is devoted to the two talking, and explaining why she decided to help, which in turn reflects on why Daredevil is helping. Her line of "I found a man who needed help so I helped him" doesn't wash, but the course of events burns through that until she reveals that Daredevil stepped in previously to help people and the criminals ended up in her ER, leaving her wanting to believe in what he is doing. "I know you're afraid," he responds, "You can't give into the fear. If you do, men like this win." Daredevil: Man Without Fear. 

Who do you trust? Why do you trust? Part II

As one two-hander proceeds between Claire and Matt, so does another between Karen Page and Foggy Nelson. Karen is working long hours in the office, avoiding going home after having been attacked there. Foggy doesn't realise this straight away, but it emerges as he takes her out drinking. While Daredevil is elsewhere finding support from the community, Karen is afraid of the community around her, seeing everyone as a threat. Foggy sets about dispelling that, pointing out who's who and each of their stories. Being part of the community helps to take the fear away. At least, for now. 

Not your friendly neighbourhood superhero

It turns out that Daredevil suffered his injuries trying to track down a kidnapped child but it turned out to be a trap to lure him in. To find the real answers, he resorts to torture - with some pointers from his Night Nurse pal as to the places that really hurt - and throws a man off the roof of a building (even if it doesn't kill him. Quite). There's no half measures here. 

The greatest action set piece yet provided by Marvel 

Please, Marvel team, take a bow. I'm sitting here at the end of the show giving a round of applause. The climax of the show is Daredevil going after the mob to rescue the child. That plays out as a brutal, fantastically choreographed fight scene in a hallway, with the camera getting close up to the action, mobsters dashing past it as they rush to take on a tired but determined Daredevil. This is the kind of fight scene you might associate more with Oldboy, or The Raid - close-quarters and intense. There's only a couple of points where they could smuggle in a cut, too, so this was some incredible work to stage such a long and impressive sequence. Bravo, Marvel. Bravo. 

PODCAST REVIEW: Life after Serial

Continuing the republication of this year's podcast reviews - this article was originally published in the Weekend section of The Tribune on January 30. For more, visit http://www.tribune242.com/photos/galleries/sets/weekend/

SERIAL – a podcast exploring a single criminal case – was very much the springboard last week as we took a first look at the world of podcasts. So this week we kick off with the podcast site that Serial emerged from, This American Life.

Www.thisamericanlife.org

If you're into podcasts, you may very well know of This American Life already. It's often the most popular podcast in the US, with about one million people downloading it each week.

It is also a weekly radio show broadcast to about 2.2 million listeners on stations around the country.

Its website is organised brilliantly. They openly say that sometimes it's hard to describe what's going on with the show. They're usually built around a theme, they're often about everyday people, but the site includes a favourites page, handily bookmarked at the top, to give an ideal place to dive in and get a feeling of what it's all about. You can also access it through apps on iPhone or Android. Some of its old stories are even being turned into movies.

It's hard to pigeonhole exactly what they're doing – and that's exactly part of the podcast's charm.

An image from the British Museum's A History of the World in 100 Objects - as well as being available on the BBC website, you can find out more at http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/a_history_of_the_world.aspx

A History of the World in 100 Objects

The BBC teamed up with the British Museum for this, a 100-part radio series, each episode lasting about 15 minutes and picking an object that illuminated something of the history of its time. British Museum director Neil MacGregor is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable host, and the objects run all the way from a Stone Age chopping tool to a modern day credit card. Think of it as an audio tour through a museum as big as the world, all helpfully archived on the BBC website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/

Diners' Debates

Closer to home, a recent addition to the Bahamian thinkscape has been the Diners' Debates, hosted at Mojo's restaurant and featuring some of the smartest minds on the islands. Each debate takes a different subject, experts present the starting points for the debate and discussion ensues in a relaxed and convivial atmosphere. Nicolette Bethel has been recording and streaming the debates – which have covered subjects such as immigration policy and the effects of climate change – and they are available at http://en.1000mikes.com/app/scheduleEntry.xhtml?scheduleEntryId=122578. Worth noting is that it can be hard at times to make out what's being said but then this is a chance to listen in rather than the event being designed for broadcast. Catch a taste of it online, then head along to the next one to sample the real flavour of it all.

UPDATE: The next debate is on the Federal Republic of The Bahamas: Emancipation from Nassau, and will take place on Thursday, April 16, at 7pm. Find out more about the debates on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/events/896388900405578/

Welcome To Night Vale

Last time, I briefly mentioned Night Vale, but outraged fans of the podcast picked a bone or two with me since. I'm still not convinced by Night Vale but that's not because it isn't well made. It's a very polished recording and knows exactly what it's doing. It masquerades as a public service radio station reading out notices for the town of Night Vale. However, the town is one of those poor mid-Western towns plagued by everything that could ever go wrong in B-movies. So among the notices for church fairs and pot lucks are mentions of unfortunate cattle abductions by aliens or warnings of weird goings on in the basement of the local crazy professor. This is the land filled with Men In Black, vaults filled with X Files and the place where you'll find the odd socks lost in the laundry. I still think it's odd for the sake of being odd but the brave of heart can find out more at http://commonplacebooks.com/

Devil in the detail: 5 things about Daredevil episode one

SPOILERS for episode one of Daredevil but not for any further into the series.

Daredevil has landed on Netflix - and in one fell swoop it's put doubts to rest about what a Netflix version of the Marvel universe would look like. 

It's also full of little details to geek at and ponder over, so here's a quick pick of five points worth consideration from the opening episode, Into The Ring. 

The need to confess

The episode opens - after a quick flashback to the moment when a young Matt Murdoch lost his eyesight - inside a confessional. There's an old Punisher comic which this scene reminded me of. In that, the Punisher tells the story of how he came to end up in a confessional and it doesn't end up well for the priest, who turns out to be the man he's hunting. For a moment, I thought that was the way this was going, because the scene is filled with plenty of menace. More than that, listen to the stillness in this scene. That sets the tone for throughout the episode on a lot of occasions. The sound level is important throughout - stillness punctuated by loud, abrasive action, and a sense of Murdoch trying to control his environment whenever possible. See the scene where Murdoch talks to Karen Page after taking her to his apartment for safety, and he talks slowly and quietly, minimising distractions, before asking her the question he needs to pay close attention to her heartbeat over, to see if she's lying.

Everything connects

"The incident". So that's what we're calling what happened to New York in Avengers. Or at least that's what the estate agent trying to rent out a humble property in the heart of Hell's Kitchen calls it to Nelson and Murdoch. And we've had our first crossover with Agents of Shield already! Albeit in the form of an old poster advertising a fight between Daredevil's father and Crusher Creel - the Absorbing Man - who made an appearance in two episodes of SHIELD at the start of the second season. 

Don't mess with the mob
Throughout its laboured first season, Gotham has made much of the build-up towards mob war. But in the meantime, darn it if mob warfare hasn't seemed so civilised. Mobsters and meetings,  Daredevil sets a much more forceful tone inside a single montage sequence, where loose ends are tied up forcefully and determinedly. Some of these loose ends have been characters better drawn in their few moments than others who have had whole arcs set up for them over on Gotham - yes, I am talking about Barbara Gordon - but they are disposed of here in a blink, all to tell us something about the ruthless character of the man behind the scenes, the Kingpin.

Blindness isn't just a gimmick
Many a time in the comics, Daredevil's blindness has been treated as a gimmick. After all, he has powers that more than compensate. Here, it's integral to the character's life and noted by those around him, be it in his phone bleeping out the name of the caller as a ringtone because he can't read the screen, or the slightly gratuitous moment of Karen Page changing her shirt in front of him after a moment of thought passing over her face as she thinks well, it doesn't matter if I turn my back, or that he lives across from a giant billboard with a video advert of Xining Airways playing - I doubt that's the last time we'll hear that name, by the way. There's thought put into how blindness affects Murdoch's life - and it'll be interesting to see how that develops in future episodes.

The bad guys win
Marvel's TV shows have hinted at the aftermath of what happens in the wake of the actions of heroes. "Why do we care? Every time one of these guys punches someone through a building, our margins go up 3%, we should be celebrating," says one crook here, while what Daredevil does achieve here is treated like writing off a bad debt, along with the written off employees that go with it. Over on Agents of SHIELD, the show really became a winner after focusing on the aftermath of the Winter Soldier movie. Are Marvel's movies about the battles, its TV shows about the consequences?

I've only watched episode one so far - frankly, there was such richness to the show that my initial plan of binging through the series has been set aside to watch at a slower pace and savour what's happening. I'll return for more Devil in the detail as the series goes on. 

PODCAST REVIEW: Serial Thriller

Earlier this year, I started an occasional series of podcast reviews, featuring in the Weekend section of The Tribune in The Bahamas. You can find more about the Weekend here: http://www.tribune242.com/photos/galleries/sets/weekend/ 

I'm republishing them here on my blog and inviting readers to make their own recommendations for podcasts I must try - you point, I'll review. This particular review featured on January 23 - and I'll be adding others over the coming days. 

THE fad of the moment ahead of Christmas boiled down to one word: Serial.

Serial is a podcast that completely gripped its listeners as they followed through the episode-by-episode expose of a single true-story crime case. It revealed the story of the murder of a Baltimore teenager and the trial and not-necessarily-safe conviction of her ex-boyfriend for her killing.

The podcast – essentially a radio-style documentary investigation available on serialpodcast.org – captivated many throughout its 12 episodes, but once finished, left more than a few wanting more podcasts yet not really sure what to try. So here we provide a selection of some different podcasts and different styles to try out.

This American Life (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/)

The obvious place to start for those gripped by Serial is This American Life – because this is the site that Serial span out from. Around a million people a week download and listen to This American Life, and the site serves as a good hub for all kinds of different podcast-related material. Each episode has a different theme, but the general guide is true stories about everyday people. That's not always the case, and the success of Serial is bringing a second season in the not-too-distant future.

Call Your Girlfriend (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/callyourgirlfriend)

Everyday doesn't always work, and this podcast didn't work for me. Call Your Girlfriend is essentially a chat between two women who are good friends but separated by a distance and whose topics hopscotch around their main interests. The episode I listened in to bounced around from cultural identity, through slavery reparations, passing by celebrity gossip on what's up with the Kardashians and ending up with movie reviews of romcoms. Listening to good friends talking is a mixed bag, they obviously spark off one another but sometimes they have a shorthand way of talking because they know the other person but don't make things clear for their larger audience. Also, on occasion, I had to resist gnawing off my own ears from some of the language used, such as how they “appresh” (short for appreciate) or talk “posi” (positively) about things. If you want gossipy chat, drop in, but it's certainly not for everyone.

Thrilling Adventure Hour (http://thrillingadventurehour.com/wordpress/comic-books/)

Mimicking the style of rip-roaring 1930s radio plays, the Thrilling Adventure Hour is a live show performed in front of an audience in Hollywood. It's full of far-from-serious tales of derring-do and derring-don't, littered with camp humour and quick-witted sarcasm. They tackle alien invasions and private eye investigations, musical singalongs and spooks and spirits. You'll likely need an iTunes account to be able to download the podcast, but it's free so diving in and giving it a try is as easy as logging on and hitting the download button while you pour a drink of the hard liquor the cast seem such fans of. In a similar kind of vein, there's also Welcome To Nightvale (welcometonightvale.com), though that is a slightly more spoofed, paranoid version of The X-Files, part freak-out, part spaced-out.

Stuff You Should Know (stuffyoushouldknow.com)

Stuff You Should Know revolves around two laconic hosts, Josh and Chuck, talking about... well, stuff you should know. For example, in their episode How Bars Work, they meander through a brief history of booze in front of a live audience who appear to be partaking in quite a lot of the substance in question themselves. The facts they come up with are either brilliantly true or just too good to check, such as how during prohibition in Canada, you could get medical dispensation for alcohol if you got a doctor to sign off on it and at one point one area of Canada was so “unwell” that 10% of the population was deemed in need of a good drink to get by. They also prowl through the creation of various drinks, including the Bahama Mama, and the bizarre way in which many watering holes developed over the years. All in all, they're mellow company as a backdrop to your day.

STEPHEN HUNT