Ani Bundel has been blogging professionally since 2010. This is her second major independent site launch. A DC native and Keyboard Khaleesi, she spends all her non-writing time photographing her cats. Regular bylines also found on MSNOW.
Movies
One of our favorite traditions for Downton Abbey was the release of the yearly "Character Posters" that would arrive every season like clockwork, a few weeks before the new season premiered. (Longtime fans may recall the uproar that occurred one year when the image of Lord Grantham and
Apple TV
Apple TV+ is doubling down on its burgeoning line-up of British-written gritty thriller adaptations. The latest addition to the investigations is an adaptation of Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir series. The project, which has been in various stages of development hell since the pandemic, will begin at the end
Netflix
It would be incorrect to claim that Netflix has mismanaged Stranger Things as a franchise. However, the series, which accidentally became a viral hit in 2017 and was the first of the streaming service's flagship franchises, has not been lucky. The relatively unknown Duffer Brothers were not ready
Movies
One of the unspoken laws of the Hollywood A-list is that once you're in, as long as you don't burn bridges, you stay in. It doesn't matter if the initial big-budget film you starred in is a flop. Heck, some actors have entire runs
UKTV/Alibi
UKTV's decision to reboot the Jersey-set British detective series Bergerac turned out to be one of the smartest decisions it made in the 2020s so far, right alongside co-producing The Marlow Murder Club with PBS' Masterpiece. Marlow Murder wound up the most popular series debut in U&
Awards Season
One of the inevitable consequences of the streaming wars and the initial decimation of cable and broadcast networks in service thereof was the reteat of representation during awards season. PBS fans were accustomed to it, since Downton Abbey left the airwaves, public broadcasting has been all but invisible to the
PBS
Watching a sleeper hit become one of the most popular British shows that airs on PBS always feels a bit miraculous, like seeing a full double rainbow or a meteor shooting across the sky. That goes double if the first season of the show wasn't all that great,
HBO & HBO Max
The Gilded Age crossed its mid-point of Season 3 with a triumphant staging of Gladys' wedding to the Duke of Buckingham. Much like The Buccaneers did before it, Gladys' wedding is inspired by (and pulls from) one of the most famous Gilded Age weddings of all time: Consuelo
PBS
When James Norton attempted to pull a Dan Stevens on Downton Abbey and refused to sign on to return for Grantchester Season 4, it was deeply unfortunate timing. Much like Julian Fellowes with Stevens, the Grantchester production team assumed this was a ploy for money, and wrote a Season 3
PBS
Since Great Performances rekindled its relationship with The Public Theater and its long-running Shakespeare in the Park summer festival series in the mid-2010s, the recording of the live show has been the endcap of the PBS series' TV season, arriving in early to mid-May. Those who couldn't
Viaplay
The last five years or so have seen PBS and PBS Passport join the foreign language series fandom as part of public broadcasting's shift to streaming. The Channel 4 series Walter Presents (which brings the best of European programming to the U.K., the same way Masterpiece brings
Netflix
Netflix initially revealed it had commissioned an adaptation of playwright Julia May Jonas' best-selling novel, Vladimir, in March 2025. The book, a "darkly comic thriller," was Jonas's debut novel when it arrived in February 2022, and it shot to the top of multiple bestseller lists