tv reviews
Helen Hawkins

This five-parter by Rebecca Miller is essential viewing for any Martin Scorsese fan – and for anybody who wants to understand the process of movie-making, full stop. Miller has interviewed all the key figures from the director’s life, not just film luminaries but his family, his childhood friends, an ex-wife, the priest who inspired him.

Helen Hawkins

Back in 2003, when Mick Herron was a humble sub-editor, his debut novel was published, the first of what became a four-volume series, the Zoë Boehm thrillers. Inevitably, after the success of his later Slow Horses series, television has snaffled this character up too. Morwenna Banks works on both series as a writer-producer. And it shows.

Adam Sweeting

The problem with making TV dramas about unsolved real-life murder mysteries is that they’re still unsolved, unless the film-makers decide to invent a fictional denouement. This might well trigger an avalanche of legal and ethical objections.

Adam Sweeting

The return of this entertaining political drama is always welcome, though its soap-tinged mix of transatlantic politics and volatile personal relationships is beginning to look a little too genteel for our current age of ever-worsening crises.

Justine Elias

Another day, another shooting: this is Florida, USA, where the "Stand Your Ground" self-defence law allows people to use lethal force when they perceive a threat to their lives. The idea may be shocking to Britons, but such laws have become prevalent in America, even though they may be providing cover for straight-up murder.

Adam Sweeting

Rockin’ vicar the Rev Richard Coles is not only a C of E priest and former member of Bronski Beat and The Communards, but also a purveyor of crime fiction in the shape of his Canon Clement mysteries. The first of these was Murder Before Evensong, and now it has arrived on Acorn TV, where they do a lot of this sort of thing.

Adam Sweeting

They say no good deed goes unpunished, so when New York restaurateur Jake Friedken (Jude Law) allowed his wayward and star-crossed brother Vince (Jason Bateman) back into his life, he might have expected to experience a little turbulence. Instead, he finds himself engulfed in a hair-raising struggle to save his career and even his life.

Helen Hawkins

The latest instalment of the ITV drama department’s attempts at trial by television is another anatomy of a scandal, but with little of the emotive power of Mr Bates vs The Post Office. 

Adam Sweeting

Fifth time around, Slow Horses continues to show the rest of the field a clean pair of heels. Or hooves. The adventures of Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and his peculiar little band of secret service misfits have come to exert a fierce stranglehold on the viewing public. Horses must be perilously close to being officially declared a cult.

Adam Sweeting

Scripted by Belfast-born playwright David Ireland, Coldwater is a smart and addictive thriller, which manages to squeeze some fresh twists out of its murderous narrative. It also benefits hugely from an excellent cast firing on all cylinders, while also reaping the benefits of its Scottish rural locations.