David Morrissey

CHICAGO – Brutal. That’s the word for the third season of “The Walking Dead.” It’s just brutal. Like the second season of the mega-hit show, the third sagged a bit in the middle (although not as deeply as the neverending Shane-Dale debates of chapter 2) and the finale was a bit disappointing, but the unpredictability of the season kept viewers on their toes and ratings high.

CHICAGO – Thriller fans should seek out the fascinating “Red Riding Trilogy,” a series of films with largely different casts set in different time periods that attempts to pull back the facade of peace to reveal the dark face of evil underneath. The films are not perfect but they work together to create a memorable portrait of corruption that has infected an entire country and taken more than a few victims in its grip.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

CHICAGO – Much ink has been spilled about how HBO is at the forefront of made-for-TV filmmaking in the world, a fact already demonstrated this year by the brilliant biopic “Temple Grandin” and the stellar WWII mini-series, “The Pacific.” Yet Britain’s Channel 4 deserves just as much attention and praise for producing the “Red Riding” trilogy, which has been routinely compared to HBO’s classic series, “The Wire.”

CHICAGO – The last five hours of David Tennant’s spectacular run as the tenth doctor of “Doctor Who” have been collected in a great Blu-ray box set from BBC Home Video titled “Doctor Who: The Complete Specials”. Tennant was recently voted the most popular doctor in the long history of the beloved show. Watching these five hour-long specials makes it clear why.