Alex Straker graduated with a degree in English and Film in 2010 and has been actively feeding his obsession with cinema ever since. As well as blogging regularly, he writes screenplays, novels and short stories. In 2012 he took part in the prestigious EastEnders: E20 Writer’s School and has also performed on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
This season reaches its conclusion not with a handshake and a peace treaty, but with grief, regret and a high mortality rate.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Sunday, 7 April 2013 at 3:53 pm
As one of the series’ most controversial characters, Merle was initially introduced as a trademark villain so lacking in redeeming features he made the zombies look somewhat charming. Having returned for the series’ third season and once again played by the excellent Michael Rooker, he has recently undergone a compelling metamorphosis. His morality or the seeming lack of it, is the puzzle to be solved by the end of the episode.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Sunday, 31 March 2013 at 6:26 pm
With an impressive degree of character development, numerous unexpected plot twists and a truly compelling central villain, the third season of AMC’s ambitious zombie saga could be its most gratifying to date.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Sunday, 24 March 2013 at 8:23 pm
This week’s instalment could easily be subtitled the ‘Cold War’ episode, so much of it is preoccupied with the revelations, dilemmas and politics that emerge in the build-up to an inevitable battle.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Saturday, 16 March 2013 at 11:15 pm
This week’s standalone instalment of The Walking Dead comes as a welcome relief from the intensity of season three’s central arc, an opportunity to tell a self-contained story that reflects the wider themes of the show.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Sunday, 10 March 2013 at 1:45 pm
History is littered with seminal moments when the fate of many hinged on the crucial decision of one individual. The events of this week’s episode focus on one such decision that will determine the fates of the Woodbury and prison residents.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Monday, 4 March 2013 at 12:15 pm
Thank goodness for this week’s instalment of The Walking Dead. Following last week’s somewhat drowsy series return, this episode teeters on the brink of following in its tracks, before it delivers the second half that you would expect from AMC’s primetime ratings juggernaut.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Saturday, 23 February 2013 at 4:10 pm
In many well-constructed thrillers, the pay-off to the resolutions and revelations of the plot are often enhanced by the sense that the answers were hiding in plain sight all along.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Thursday, 21 February 2013 at 9:39 am
Following a lengthy festive hiatus (after all, even zombies need time to celebrate Christmas and recharge their batteries), AMC’s The Walking Dead finally returns after the jaw-dropping mid-season finale that reunited two of its most iconic, estranged characters in a rather unexpected turn of events.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Saturday, 16 February 2013 at 8:32 pm
Five down, one to go. After weeks of physical and psychological torture, paranoia and mass murder, the fifth episode of Utopia begins with an intense opening and doesn’t let up from there.
By Alex Straker | Arts | Wednesday, 13 February 2013 at 6:24 pm
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