Image: Fiery
Athbhliain Faoi Mhaise Daoibh / Happy New Year! Below are some reviews of my favourite TV shows, movies, books, and podcasts that I consumed in 2025. Enjoy this Irish New Years saying which was said on the stroke of midnight:
"An donas amach, an sonas isteach, anocht bliain ó anocht agus anocht féin" /
"Misfortune out / happiness in, tonight, a year from tonight and tonight itself".
Image: Steve Wilkie/Apple
I enjoyed a lot of TV shows this year but looking back at my list, Murderbot stands head and shoulders above most others as a fantastically quirky, funny, and touching new sci-fi show.
Having just moved to Liverpool, I really enjoyed seeing all the familiar locations around the city in Liverpool's answer to Love/Hate, This City Is Ours. Drug gang rivalry is a well-worn TV genre at this point, but This City Is Ours manages to refresh the core themes and sprinkle them with a few twists (as well as a Derry Girls connection).
Once you reach a certain age, you become attracted to good murder-mysteries. I don't know what age that is, but it appears that I've reached it and I really enjoyed The Residence, a complex & quirky murder-mystery set in The White House (No, not like that, unfortunately).
Andor as a commentary on fascism comes to a superb end in Season 2. It's so good you almost forget it is based in the Star Wars franchise. Mon Mothma's speech in episode 9 about our post-truth era really hits hard.
The latest season of Foundation continues the tradition of previous seasons as being almost like a show in itself, however lots of long-running arcs get concluded in the excellent season 03. It also delivers possibly one of the best lines of contextual dialogue via Dusk: "Certain dramatic events have transpired"
I was surprised at how beautiful Leonard and Hungry Paul is. Pure innocent joy in TV form (which also has a Derry Girls connection).
As well as being a very good Whoniverse show, The War Between the Land and the Sea is an extremely powerful commentary on our failure to address the climate crisis. The post credit scene in the last episode is a perfect representation of how I feel about the lack of urgency.
Alien:Earth did a great job at capturing the aesthetic of 1979 Alien in a modern TV show.
Death By Lightning for the beards.
Great to see Charlie Cox back in Daredevil: Born Again.
The Bondsman is simple and fun.
Image: Warner Brothers
Sinners delivers. A 1930s period film in the deep south, that's also a vampire movie, that also has the second-best rendition of Rocky Road To Dublin (Lankum's being number 1) and Micheal B. Jordan, twice! What's not to like!
See my previous comments regarding murder mysteries above. Wake Up Dead Man keeps you guessing every step of the way.
Almost 5 films in 1 covering the kid, the father, the mother, the doctor, and the zombies. As with the previous installments of the franchise 28 Years Later succeeds in imprinting you with issues that take longer than the length of the film to come to terms with.
The Lie of the Land: A Game Plan for Ireland in the Climate Crisis by John Gibbons
A must-read for anyone interested in or worried about climate change and climate action in Ireland. John pulls no punches and lays out exactly where Ireland has failed and is falling behind in emissions reduction, and how to fix the situation.
Through his years of experience covering climate, as well as his family background in farming, John cuts through the lobbying nonsense to shine a light on how much Irish government climate policy and societal awareness has been captured and mislead by the agricultural industry. Every other failing sector & industry is dutifully addressed with a prescription of how to get it back on track towards Ireland's climate targets, as well as the frank & urgent reasons why this needs to happen.
"This would all be fine were it not for the fact that it is absolute lunacy" is a quote that manages to convey the gravity of the situation and the motivation with which everyone should read this book.
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Srah Wynn-Williams
A fascinating look behind the curtain at the growth period of Facebook from cool new internet fad to election-swinging advertising mega-machine through the eyes of the head of global policy.
The shocking lack of awareness and care of the Facebook leadership team, witnessed by Sarah Wynn-Williams, will leave you thinking about the scale at which mistakes can have dire & deadly consequences, and cause apparently zero-regret from those at the top, long after you finish the book.
Yet another damning indictment of how American corporate culture eventually descends into patriarchical oppression and patriotic exceptionalism, no matter how cool a company pretends to be.
Power To The People: The Hot Press Years by Michael D. Higgins
A collection of excellent articles written in the 80s and early 90s that are as relevant today as they were then, addressing topics such as privatisation and neoliberalism, social justice, climate change, warmongering, the tethering of the Irish economy to America, among other things.
Each piece is delivered with sharp wit, cutting criticism, unapologetic empathy, and inspiring prose, while being prefaced into context with helpful and poignant summaries, often looking back and hinting at the prescience of the article's thrust, with the benefit of 30 years of hindsight. Highly recommended.
In the run-up to this year's Presidential election in Ireland, The Last Word and Today Fm produced a fantastic podcast series called Think You Know... The Presidents? which devoted an episode to each of the 10 presidents of Ireland.
Found This Week is a curated blog of interesting posts, articles, links and stories in the world of technology, science and life in general.
Each edition is curated by Daryl Feehely every Friday and highlights cool stuff found each week.
The first 104 editions were published on Medium before this site was created, check out the archive here.
I’m a web consultant, contract web developer, technical project manager & photographer originally from Cork, now based in Liverpool. I offer my clients strategy, planning & technical delivery services, remotely & in person. I also offer freelance CTO services to companies in need of technical bootstrapping or reinvention. If you think I can help you in your business, check out my details on http://darylfeehely.com
