Tag / netflix

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

The Umbrella Academy’s woman problem (S1 spoilers)

In this, the Year of our Lord 2019, there should be no reason to go fridging a woman. And if doing so once might be regarded as a misfortune, to do it twice in service of the same male character just seems like carelessness.

Welcome to The Umbrella Academy: the Netflix / Dark Horse comic book adaptation that hasn’t met a trope it didn’t immediately adopt. With promising diversity in its casting, it could all have gone so much more right. Though, in retrospect, starting with sudden forced births from 43 unsuspecting women – who until that day didn’t even know they were pregnant – should have been a sign of lack of female autonomy to come. Continue reading →

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

BFI / Radio Times TV Festival – The Crown & a TV writing masterclass

A few weekends ago saw my first visit to the BFI & Radio Times TV Festival – and that’s hardly a surprise, because it’s a brand new festival.

It was, in all, a really fun day. We had only two events booked. The first was a panel / Q&A with four editors from the Radio Times – which, I admit, I’ve only bought at Christmas for years now, though I do keep a weather eye on the Facebook page / website and I have now signed up for a subscription out of curiosity – about the experience of writing about television. The other was a panel about Netflix sensation The Crown, with Suzanne Mackie, Philip Martin and the glorious Claire Foy (the last of whom I managed to walk straight past in the ladies without really registering this until  I’d swept past, gone in the cubicle and was mid-pee, at which point my brain kicked in – that’s pre-occupation for you). Continue reading →