BBC One
This Town, BBC One review - lurid melodrama in Eighties BrummielandMonday, 01 April 2024![]() Industrious screenwriter Steven Knight has brought us (among many other things) Peaky Blinders, SAS: Rogue Heroes and even Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, but This Town may not be remembered as one of his finest hours. Here, we find Knight... Read more... |
The Way, BBC One review - steeltown bluesTuesday, 20 February 2024![]() This three-part drama arrives trailing clouds of big-byline glory. Michael Sheen directed and produced it (as well as making fleeting appearances on screen), James Graham wrote it and documentary-maker Adam Curtis co-produced it.But what is it? Part... Read more... |
Kin, Series 2, BBC One review - when crime dynasties collideMonday, 19 February 2024![]() The end of the first series of Kin found Dublin’s Kinsella crime family ridding themselves of bloodsucking drug baron Eamon Cunningham, but this was not an unalloyed blessing. As this second series opens, the Kinsellas are having to make new... Read more... |
The Tourist, Series 2, BBC One review - an amnesiac Jamie Dornan explores his Irish rootsWednesday, 03 January 2024![]() It was barely a month ago that screenwriters Jack and Harry Williams astounded viewers with Boat Story. Now they’re back with a sequel (or maybe just a continuation) of The Tourist, which debuted a year ago with its mind-bending story of the... Read more... |
Best of 2023: TVMonday, 01 January 2024![]() TV viewers can hardly complain about a lack of choice these days, though they might baulk at funding an ever-lengthening list of subscriptions.There are some who argue, for example, that it’s worth paying for Apple TV+ solely to gain access to the... Read more... |
Murder Is Easy, BBC One review - was this journey really necessary?Thursday, 28 December 2023![]() Well at least they haven’t changed the identity of the killer this time around, but the BBC’s new version of Agatha Christie’s 1939 novel has been modified in other ways. Screenwriter Siân Ejiwunmi-Le Berre and director Meenu Gaur have opted to move... Read more... |
Vigil, Series 2, BBC One review - DCI Silva swaps a submarine for deadly dronesTuesday, 12 December 2023![]() In its first series in 2021, Vigil delivered a claustrophobic though frequently absurd tale of murder and Russian spies aboard a British nuclear submarine. This time around it’s the RAF under the spotlight, though its name has mysteriously been... Read more... |
Kin, BBC One review - in Dublin's not-so-fair cityTuesday, 05 December 2023![]() Folklore tends to depict Dublin as a convivial and picturesque city, with a bar on every corner full of revellers on wild stag weekends, but that’s not what we find in Kin. This is a chilly, menacing Dublin, full of modern but charmless architecture... Read more... |
Boat Story, BBC One review - once upon a time in YorkshireTuesday, 28 November 2023![]() It was as long ago as January last year that the prolific Williams brothers, Jack and Harry, delivered their absorbing Australian Outback thriller The Tourist. Hitherto, product seemed to have been pouring out of them almost hourly, whether it was... Read more... |
Shetland, Series 8, BBC One review - same place but a different programmeThursday, 09 November 2023![]() The question they’re all asking is, can Shetland survive the loss of Douglas Henshall as DI Jimmy Perez? After all, it was Henshall’s shrewd and quietly anguished performance which gave the show much of its allure. And now there’s no Mark Bonnar... Read more... |
Reckoning with the Jimmy Savile legacy - Steve Coogan stars in BBC One's four-part 'factual drama'Monday, 09 October 2023![]() Dramatisations of real-life crime have become all the rage on TV, as screenwriter Neil McKay and producer Jeff Pope are well aware. Their history of morbid collaborations includes See No Evil: The Moors Murders, the saga of serial killers Fred and... Read more... |
Boiling Point, BBC One review - chef drama that's simmering nicelyMonday, 02 October 2023![]() The problem facing any chef series is that its daily dramas are essentially rooted in the same small, sweaty space. It’s like one of the reductions prepared there, all the flavours compressed into an intense spoonful of sauce.As in Disney+’s... Read more... |
