PositiveSlate...a loving and breezy set of essays about the shows he admires and the flowering of TV more generally. This territory is so well-trod it’s worn-out, but if James’ essays are not all revelatory, they are—as one would expect—witty, insightful and unpredictable ... James is an old hand, and he writes with the perspective and habits of one, which occasionally makes him seem out of touch and condescending, when it is not making him seem wonderfully free ... Play All is full of riotous turns of phrase, keen observations, and sick burns ... One can occasionally feel James eyeing internet and millennial mores with a stink eye, pooh-poohing political correctness in ways that reveal himself to be an old.
Moira Weigel
PositiveThe GuardianWeigel questions and argues with many of her sources, but in some instances she is not critical enough ... She makes an entirely convincing case that there never was and never will be one static way of dating. But as we approach the present, Weigel is hesitant to leave behind her sources and authoritatively identify our new moment, in which online dating has been almost entirely destigmatised.
