Sherlock: Season 1

If you thought Robert Downy Jr and Jude Law did a good job of updating the classic Arthur Conan Doyle stories of London’s first great detective, wait until you see what Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman do as Holmes and Waston in this enormously entertaining BBC series. Set in modern day London, the show never so much as winks at its audience in allusion to any Holmes that has ever come before. This Sherlock is a modern man – with his own crime advice website – who helps Scotland Yard solve the seemingly unsolvable. The fact that he sometimes sends them the solution in a text message only adds to the quirky charm of the show. The rapport between Cumberbatch and Freeman is spot on, too, particularly in the timing of their banter as they race to find the bad guy. Even in its infancy (the first season just came out in America on DVD) this series already ranks as a Holmes for the ages.

Compulsion

Rather than marry the man her parents have arranged for her to wed, a young Indian women makes a dirty deal with the family chauffer: If he takes care of the problem, she will sleep with him for a single night. The plan doesn’t go well on any level, but if you think you know what happens next, you will be surprised. There are plenty of plot twists in Compulsion, and every one of them is believable thanks to some terrific performances from Parminder Nagra (Bend it Like Beckham) and Ray Winstone (Beowulf). The ending will shock you.

Yoga

The story, about a group of women signing up for an intensive yoga class in the hope that it will make them more beautiful than they already are, is silly and the acting, for the most part, is awful. So why should you watch this film from director Jae-yeon Yun? Because it will scare the crap out of you. It’s not just the startling visual imagery of the film, although after you watch it you will have a hard time getting to sleep and not dream of having a poisonous black snake crawl in your mouth. The true terror of the film comes from the way the director paces the story to build the tension from the minute the women sign up for the class to the final scenes where one of them gets her wish to be beautiful forever.

V

What starts out to be just another day turns decidedly weird when the skies overhead are suddenly filled with shiny UFOs that, it turns out, are filled with humanoid aliens who come in peace. Or at least that’s what they say in the beginning of this entertaining Sci-Fi television series. It soon becomes clear that not only do the visitors from another world have a hidden agenda, but they also have a hidden army already on the planet, disguised as the very humans they are out to enslave. The special effects are good, but it’s the acting that keeps you coming back to see what will happen next.

Trigun: The Complete Series

Vash the Stampede is wanted everywhere he goes, with a $60 Billion price on his head, dead or alive, for the murder of thousands of people and the destruction of an entire town. Or at least that’s the legend. In fact, Vash is a nerdy guy in a long red duster who just happens to have the worst luck in the world when it comes to trying to make his way in the world: everything he touches is eventually destroyed. The series starts out as a slapstick comedy of errors as Vash travels around the desert planet he’s been stranded on, but as his adventures continue, the story takes a decidedly more serious tone when Vash stars to uncover who he is and what he’s really doing on the planet. The change is gradual, almost seductive, and the way it pulls you into the mystery of Vash is addictive.

Kisses

Anyone renting this Irish tale of two children off for an adventure expecting to see a Disney-esque version of Dublin and its inhabitants will be in for a shock. This dark tale follows a pair of youngsters on the run from their abusive parents who soon discover that the bright lights of the big city may light up the streets of the tourist areas, but they also cause dark shadows to be thrown in the alleys where these kids are forced to try and find a way to survive. Kelly O’Neill and Shane Curry give fantastic performances as the kids.

Slings and Arrows

Few shows have captured the life of a theater company as completely as this Canadian television series. The good news is that even if you’ve never stepped inside a theater to see a play in your life, you’ll still be delighted watching the backstage drama (and comedy) of this imaginary Shakespearean theatre troupe. Paul Gross is fantastic as Geoffrey Tennant, a passionate (and borderline insane) thespian willing to do anything in the name of art, and Stephen Ouimette is his perfect foil playing his mentor, a recently deceased director who haunts the theater.