TV: The Sopranos
Is David Chase’s mobster meditation the next box set on your bucket list? Now’s the chance to catch it in full, via Sky Go. An ever-present in “greatest show” conversations, The Sopranos manages to balance crime drama, black comedy and musings on the demise of blue-collar America without ever feeling bloated or pompous, and features some of the best dream sequences this side of David Lynch to boot. In short, get it watched – capisce?
Sky Box Sets
TV: League Of Legends
To save you a Google, League Of Legends is a competitive online action-RPG with more than 27 million subscribers worldwide, and its annual world championships offer the cream of the hack’n’slash crop the chance to totter home with a tidy $1m prize pot. This year, the finals take place at Wembley Arena and BBC3 is screening the quarter-finals, which began on Thursday, online. Watching two teams of teens squint at monitors as their burly avatars bop each other with axes may not sound like the most compelling spectator sport, but histrionic commentary, Superbowl glitz and the sheer magnitude of import placed on each bout give LoL a darts-like compulsive appeal. See for yourself if 27 million gamers can be wrong.
Audio: The Memory Palace
Part of podcasting monolith Radiotopia, this monthly effort from writer and humorist Nate DiMeo highlights interesting tales forgotten by history, from JFK’s search for a black astronaut to the 1869 hoax surrounding the discovery of a petrified “giant” in New York. The stories are tightly told, with no episode lasting longer than 20-or-so minutes.
TV: Scream
In the great scramble to remake every film ever for TV, MTV’s reboot of Wes Craven’s slasher franchise makes more sense than most. Scream taps into the current appetite for 90s nostalgia, and its horror whodunnit angle looks perfect for TV’s serialised model. Whether it’s any good is another matter: US critics have been largely down on its first season. Still, for anyone after some undemanding viewing, it might well fit the bill.
Netflix
TV: Fear Itself
Following in the footsteps of Adam Curtis, Guide chap and Beyond Clueless director Charlie Lyne has made a film exclusively for the iPlayer. A video collage comprised entirely of footage from existing horror films, Fear Itself considers the myriad ways in which cinema has terrified its audience over the years, while also proving rather scary in its own right. Available from Sunday.
