TV drama
The Little Drummer Girl, BBC One, series finale review - Le Carré drama comes to the boil at lastMonday, 03 December 2018
Was The Little Drummer Girl commissioned by algorithm? Those who liked The Night Manager might reasonably have been supposed to enjoy another le Carré adaptation. The two dramas had DNA in common. Both steered away from the Cold War, and told of a... Read more... |
Kidding, Sky Atlantic review - tears of a clownFriday, 30 November 2018
There’s no one right way to grieve. It cuts through everyone differently, whether reverting to childhood traits or out-of-character impulses. The person you lose might mean one thing to you, and something completely different to someone else; it can... Read more... |
Death and Nightingales, BBC Two, review - slow, lyrical, slightly dullThursday, 29 November 2018
And now for something completely different from The Fall. The nerve-shredding drama from Northern Ireland was written by Allan Cubitt and featured, as its resident psychopathic hottie, Jamie Dornan (pictured below). It seems the two couldn’t get... Read more... |
The Last Kingdom, Series 3, Netflix review - idylls of the kingFriday, 23 November 2018
Destiny is all. The first two series of The Last Kingdom debuted on BBC Two, but for series three it has been fully embraced by Netflix. Global domination surely looms, since these latest exploits of Uhtred, the warrior who was born a Saxon but... Read more... |
My Brilliant Friend, Sky Atlantic review - rich revelations of childhoodTuesday, 20 November 2018
This opening episode of My Brilliant Friend was a stunning symphony in grey. For any viewers concerned that HBO’s long-awaited Elena Ferrante adaptation might be tempted to sweeten the visual experience of the writer’s impoverished 1950s Naples... Read more... |
Strangers, Series Finale, ITV review - Eastern promise goes unfulfilledTuesday, 30 October 2018
After seeming to spend an interminable amount of time wandering around in a daze and blundering up blind alleys, Strangers finally gathered its wits and cantered towards the finishing tape with a renewed sense of purpose in the final two episodes.... Read more... |
The Little Drummer Girl, BBC One, review - latest Le Carré just passes auditionMonday, 29 October 2018
When after six novels John Le Carré turned away from the Cold War, he turned towards another simmering post-war conflict, between Israel and Islam. The Little Drummer Girl was published in 1983, and filmed a year later with Diane Keaton and Klaus... Read more... |
There She Goes, BBC Four review - mining disability for family comedy?Wednesday, 17 October 2018
What do you do after playing Doctor Who, the dream dad of the nation, quirky and compassionate, the adult who every child knows will be fun? Does it seem like a good idea to play the beleaguered father of a child with special needs? It must do... Read more... |
Informer, BBC One review - keeping tabs on terrorWednesday, 17 October 2018
Thanks heavens not all police officers spend their time trying to find “hate crime” on Twitter, or not going to the assistance of colleagues in peril. Take Gabe Waters, for instance, the central character in BBC One’s new undercover-policier.Gabe (... Read more... |
Press, BBC One, series finale review - scarcely credible but highly entertainingThursday, 11 October 2018
It’s difficult to tell whether Press (BBC One) came to praise newspapers or to bury them. The slugfest between preachy liberal do-goodery and mucky market-led skulduggery ended in a score draw, with the main protagonists living to fight another day... Read more... |
Wanderlust, BBC One, series finale review - you can't have your cake and eat itWednesday, 10 October 2018
So Wanderlust (BBC One) has ceased wandering and its angsty parade of characters have left a sentence unfinished for the last time. In the end, where were we, compared to where we’ve been? The final episode opened with Joy, like King Alfred, burning... Read more... |
Doctor Who, The Woman Who Fell to Earth, BBC One review - a captivating debut from Jodie WhittakerMonday, 08 October 2018
Re-casting a beloved character always carries a measure of risk. Solo: A Star Wars Story relied on the willingness of fans to buy in to Alden Ehrenreich as a younger incarnation of Harrison Ford: the film bombed (you know, in Star Wars terms, since... Read more... |
