Moderate Fantasy Violence

Episodes

MFV #260 – Harbinger of the Apocalypse Explicit

12th February 2026

This fortnight, Nick and Alastair take a dark-comedy look at both our hellish conspiracy-laden present in Bugonia (18:05, spoilers from 28:32) and the nuclear-ravaged future in Fallout season 2 (35:04, spoilers from 43:17).

Plus bonus chat about cool queer hockey romance Heated Rivalry and another quiet Japanese film: Evil Does Not Exist.

Episodes

MFV #259 – Kill all the fish people! Explicit

29th January 2026

This fortnight, Nick and Alastair cover the latest damp Doctor Who spin-off The War Between The Land And The Sea (15:20) and recent tragic theatrical adaptation Hedda (33:53).

With bonus chat about toilet movie Perfect Days and murder comedy-drama Barry.

Episodes

MFV #258 – The King of Table Tennis Explicit

15th January 2026

For the first regular podcast of 2026, Nick and Alastair take a fully-informed look at Pluribus (17:01), their best show of 2025, and Marty Supreme (37:50), one of this year’s big Oscar contenders.

Plus bonus chat about the latest seasons of The Traitors and Foundation.

MFV #257 – United by betrayal Explicit

2nd January 2026

Just in time for your 2026 return to work (and only one day late due to Nick’s holiday overindulgence schedule), it’s the MFV end of year round-up for 2025!

Featuring the usual reflections and individual top five round-ups for the core podcast areas of both TV (12:18) and film (43:42), and then Nick and Alastair attempt to reach a single unified top three. Will this be the year they finally come to blows?

Plus bonus chat about Studio Ghibli movie Spirited Away and Image comic series Monstress.

Year In Review

2025: A year in film

31st December 2025

Looking back at 2025, there was a lot to enjoy in the cinema this year. There was no radical change compared to what has been released over the last ten years, and there is no sign of where the future might lead, beyond more of the same. That said, this year did manage to serve up a range of high-profile enjoyable movies, which is more than some recent years.

Let’s start with some of the brighter moments from this year. Superman was an excellent summer blockbuster, filled with the right amount of action, humour and heart. Gone are the days of DC making everything dark and gritty in an attempt to replicate the success of The Dark Knight. This film reminded me why superheroes are fun and why they make such good subjects for films. James Gunn found a blend of action and comedy that was a slightly more family-friendly take on his signature style that still felt fresh and not an attempt to copy Marvel’s mix of action with ironic snark.

Marvel came back from their break with three movies this year. Their summer offering, Thunderbolts*, also brought the humour and the fun with a rag-tag group of assassins, spies and villains teaming up to take on an existential threat. Led by the always excellent Florence Pugh, and with a brilliantly silly supporting comedic performance from David Harbour, this was another really fun outing to the cinema and reminded me why Marvel has dominated superhero blockbusters for the better part of 20 years.

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Year In Review

Nick’s Top Ten TV 2025

31st December 2025

Once again, it’s time for me, Nick Bryan, to creak my written TV critic muscles back into action for their one annual outing, after another year of only outpiping my opinions via the spoken word in this podcast (apart from the occasional capsule review in my newsletter).

This is the fourteenth time I’ve done this, and you can re-experience all the previous write-ups below:

As ever, this is entirely my opinion, I’m veering away from the consensus on a few items here. Artistic preference is ultimately subjective and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

This year, it was another competitive one, several list veterans didn’t make it. Even though the heaving mass of peak TV has slowed, there’s still more than enough to fill this chart and keep me guessing.

We start with an unsurprising entry for me…

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Episodes

MFV #256 – A.K.A. The Shirtless Sailor Explicit

20th December 2025

This festive fortnight, Nick and Alastair cover one of the big Christmas movies of this year, the new Benoit Blanc mystery Wake Up Dead Man (15:01), plus the latest season of political comedy-drama series The Diplomat (27:00).

Plus some bonus chat about acclaimed crime miniseries Task and ecological scifi play The Precipice.

Episodes

MFV #255 – The Man With The Infinite Bum Explicit

4th December 2025

This fortnight, Nick and Alastair enter the gothically dark world of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (16:27), and the edgelordishly dark universe of youthful Boys spin-off Gen V’s second season (28:18).

Plus Alastair’s heard new Sprints album All That Is Over, while Nick’s finally finished his long binge of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel.