Bria Lou Reviews

  A nice gesture leading to a series of dangerous incidents with a stalker forces Donny (Richard Gadd) to confront a hidden dark trauma. I can never decide if I'm going to review TV shows or not, but when a show like this comes along, it's a really easy decision. The trailer for the show was what originally made me want to watch it - it was really interesting. But there is so much more to the show than what the trailer (or description) tells you. It's so well written and acted, and everything is so authentic and realistic, which is probably helped by the fact that it's based on a true story. Tension is created perfectly - some of the episodes are so harrowing you can't look away from the screen. Each episode is more tense than the next! The characters were great, and written really well, particularly the characters of Donny and Martha (Jessica Gunning). Donny is a great protagonist. You feel sympathy and empathy for him while also being able to be frustrated with hi...

After meeting and spending the night of graduation together, Emma (Ambika Mod) and Dexter (Leo Woodall) go their separate ways. But as the years go by, they are unable to let each other go. I didn't know whether I was going to watch this show or not. I watched the original movie, so I knew exactly what I was getting into, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to get into it again! But after hearing the rave reviews, I wanted to give it a try. And I'm so glad I did because I loved this show! I loved it from the first episode. The actors have great chemistry, which is just one of the reasons the show works as well as it does. It's so nice to watch them together. Even in the scenes where they aren't physically together, it's really interesting to see the way their friendship is kept alive. While I liked the movie version, a TV show is the perfect format for this story. It's really nice to actually see the time it takes for two people to fall in love, and having each ep...

I reviewed the book this film was based on HERE , so I wanted to watch and review the TV show too. News of the show coming out was what made me start reading the book in the first place, so even though I didn't love the book, I was looking forward to seeing how it would be interpreted. Nella (Sinclair Daniel) is tired of being the only Black girl at work, so when Hazel (Ashleigh Murray) starts working at the publishing company with her, she's thrilled. But as Hazel rises quickly within the company, and Nella starts receiving threatening notes, she begins to suspect that the new girl isn't what she seems. Now because the story is mostly the same as the book, I thought I probably wouldn't like it, but surprisingly I liked the show a lot more than the book! The first episode felt a bit rushed. Compared to the book, which had time to slow things down, the show went through a lot of events really quickly without giving things time to breathe. But while there was too much in...

  Like so many other people, I started watching this Netflix show, fell in love with the characters, and binged it. So I thought I might as well review it. When Charlie (Joe Locke) and Nick (Kit Connor) strike up an unlikely friendship, they soon find that they might be more than friends. I loved this show. Instantly. I haven't read the books that it's based on, but now I really want to! First of all, all of the characters, and the actors that portray them, are absolutely perfect. In addition to Charlie and Nick, the other characters include Tao (William Gao), Elle (Yasmin Finney), Tara (Corinna Brown), Darcy (Kizzy Edgell), Isaac (Tobie Donovan) and Nick's mother Sarah, who is played by none other than Olivia Colman. Not only are all of the cast perfect for their characters, but all of the characters are perfect for the show. I would watch a show that focused on any of them and still love it. I also loved the subject matter of the show. We need more sweet, lovely LGBT+ sho...

As soon as this show was announced, I was immediately excited about it. I am a huge fan of the original Sex and the City series and re-watch it as often as I can. So the fact that it was getting a continuation was something that I couldn't wait to watch. There will be a few spoilers in this review. Years after the events of Sex and the City, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) are back, and navigating life, friendships and relationships in their mid-50s. I don't know exactly what I expected this show to be, but what we got was not at all what I expected. And I didn't really like it. For a start. it is clear that the writers felt like they needed to modernise their world, but I feel like they went about this the wrong way. Rather than deciding to gradually move towards the world as we know it today, they decided to just thrust literally everything at these characters and their audience.  And while it is realistic in New York t...

  At the time of writing, this show came out two days ago. It's a 7-episode anthology with episodes lasting between 20 and 30 minutes, which is why I was able to finish it so quickly. This series explores what it means to be human, and the connections that humans share. I'm not totally sold on this series. There were some things that I absolutely loved about it, and other things that I could have done without. If you've read my blog before, you might know that I'm a huge fan of Anthony Mackie. Originally, I had only planned to watch his episode (Episode 2 - Tom), and that's what I did. I then watched the next one (Episode 3 - Peg) because of the connection there, which I won't spoil. But I found myself so intrigued by the descriptions of the other episodes, that I decided to just go for it and watch them all. In order, the episodes star Anne Hathaway (Leah), Anthony Mackie (Tom), Helen Mirren (Peg), Uzo Aduba (Sasha), Constance Wu (Jenny), Nicole Beharie (Nera),...

This show came out in the US before it came out in the UK. The reviews from the US were so positive that I couldn't wait to get the chance to see it. Cassie (Kaley Cuoco) is a flight attendant who wakes up one morning in a foreign country beside the body of a dead man. But with her memory of the previous evening non-existent, can Cassie discover the truth of what happened? My love for this show decreased as time went on.  I loved the first episode. I really took an instant liking to the show, and found that it set itself up really well. I loved the character of Cassie, and I feel like no one could have played the role as well as Kaley Cuoco, who really made this her own. Cassie felt real, and her reactions were realistic.  The story is really interesting - you can see why it was made into a show. It was originally a book (by Chris Bohjalian), but the TV format really works for it. I really enjoyed finding out about Cassie as a character. In fact, there were quite a few times w...

  I've started to make notes on the shows I watch rather than writing these reviews from memory, so hopefully they're a bit more structured! This is a show that I found on Netflix (UK), and I started watching it because I recognised one of the actresses (Olivia Junkeer - far right)  from the Australian Soap Neighbours, which I have watched for years, so I was interested to see her outside of her Neighbours role. Three best friends, Penny (Naomi Higgins), Mia (Olivia Junkeer) and Austin (Wil King) navigate life as twenty-somethings going through the ups and downs of life in Melbourne, Australia. I have mixed feelings about this show. I think the description of the show is better than the show actually is. It felt like these characters are not meant to be taken seriously. They reminded me of the characters in 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' in the way that the audience is in on the joke of them being morally reprehensible, unhinged characters, and that's why w...

I had no interest in watching this show when it first came out. I didn't know what it was about, I had other shows to watch, and it never really appealed to me. However, I was recommended it by a co-worker, who completely raved about it, so I thought I'd see what it was all about. Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) is a Chess prodigy who aspires to be the best player in the world - despite her dark past and harrowing addictions. I went back and forth with this show. There were some episodes I loved, and others that I couldn't get into. But as I really liked the vast majority of the (7) episodes, I'm gonna say that I really enjoyed the overall show. For a start, it does this really interesting thing of making sure that the viewer doesn't need to be interested in Chess, but also forcing the viewer to be interested in Chess. Before this show, I had no interest in Chess, but I actually found myself trying to learn more about it. I found the show really compelling from the fi...

  I don't remember exactly when this came out, but I know that a lot of people binged it in one go because all the episodes were streaming on the Channel 4 streaming service in the UK. I ended up watching one a day for a week, and as glad as I am that I watched it that way, I was completely wrecked by the end of the week! The show follows a group of friends, most of them gay men, living in London through the 1980s, and the effect that the HIV/AIDS crisis had on their lives. I knew this show was going to be a tough watch, but no amount of mental preparation was enough! The main friendship group includes Ritchie Tozer (Olly Alexander), Roscoe Babatunde (Omari Douglas), Jill Baxter (Lydia West), Colin Morris-Jones (Calum Scott Howells) and Ash Mukherjee (Nathaniel Curtis).  These were all incredible characters. They were so well-written, incredibly developed, and amazingly realistic. We felt like we were going through this journey with them because they were so easy to connect to...

I started watching this show just over three weeks ago, and I've just started re-watching it. So I feel like now is the best time to review it - especially because I have no idea when Season 3 is coming out. Having a mum who's a sex therapist hasn't made 16-year-old Otis Milburn's (Asa Butterfield) life easy - especially because he's so socially, and sexually, awkward. But when it is discovered that his mum's career has made him an unlikely sexpert, he teams up with his classmate, Maeve Wiley (Emma Mackey) to provide the students of Moordale with much-needed sex advice.  It would be impossible to get across in words how good this show is, but I'm going to try anyway! Okay, so my initial reason for wanting to watch the show was seeing one of the scenes from Season 2 on YouTube. I didn't really know what the show was about, but that 1 minute clip was completely hilarious, so I thought that I'd watch the first two episodes and see if I liked them. I hav...

I haven't decided whether I will write reviews for long TV-shows - as up until now I have only reviewed limited shows. But whether I continue or not, I finished Girlfriends two weeks ago, and I really wanted to write about it. Girlfriends is about four (technically five) friends - Joan (Tracee Ellis Ross), Maya (Golden Brooks), Toni (Jill Marie Jones), Lynn (Persia White) and William (Reggie Hayes) who navigate the ups and downs of life together. This show first aired from 2000 to 2008, and I didn't catch any of it at the time (due to being about 11 when it finished in 2008), so when it came out on Netflix, I got to watch it all from scratch. I absolutely loved this show! First of all, I feel like I've been severely deprived of Black sitcoms, so I definitely had room for this in my life, and it didn't disappoint.  But I also loved these characters. This is a character-driven show, and these characters are what made the show, and has kept the show, so popular. They were ...

  I had heard so much about this show that I was desperate to watch it by the time I actually got around to it. The show is on Apple TV+, and is short enough that you can watch it within the free trial if you don't want to pay for the service. Assistant District Attorney Andy Barber (Chris Evans) and his wife Laurie's (Michelle Dockery) lives are changed forever when their 14-year-old son Jacob (Jaeden Martell) is accused of murder. I knew that I was going to enjoy this show, due to the subject matter, but I had no idea how much I was going to love it. For a start, the show is 8 episodes long, which means that it takes off with a running start and doesn't stop running until the credits roll on the last episode. We are thrust into the action from the beginning, and the show manages to hold our interest for the entire time. The thing that makes this show work so well is the characters, and the way they are portrayed by the respective actors. Not only are we interested in the ...

  I never usually review TV shows, but I think this is something I'm going to start doing this year - not only because I'd only get to talk about TV shows in a 'Favourites' post, but also because I never get the chance to talk about shows that weren't favourites. So I'm starting with 'A Teacher'. If you want to watch this in the UK, all 10 episodes are on BBC iPlayer Claire Wilson (Kate Mara) is a teacher who has started working at a new school during a time when she is dissatisfied with her marriage. However, everything changes when she meets and bonds with one of her students - 17-year-old Eric (Nick Robinson). But soon, Claire and Eric's relationship changes. And what started as a moment of weakness sets the pair on a path that destroys everything around them. Will either of them ever be able to recover from the pain and damage they've caused? The reason that I started off with this show was because of the simple fact that, as I was watching, ...