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Timeshift: Flights of Fancy - Pigeons and the British, BBC FourWednesday, 08 February 2017
Pigeons were described in this riveting programme as man’s best feathered friends, as well as an urban pest: the 35,000 of them that used to flock round Trafalgar Square deposited some 390 tons of unharvested guano – bird poo, in simpler words – annually that had to be cleaned up, until bird feeding was banned. Read more... |
Apple Tree Yard, Series Finale, BBC OneTuesday, 07 February 2017
Guilty or not guilty? Dum dum, dum dum. No, it was not just in your imagination. As the axe hovered over the neck of Yvonne Carmichael at the climax of Apple Tree Yard, and the madam forewoman waited to deliver the jury’s verdict, there was an entirely synthetic and deeply irritating pause for dramatic effect. Guilty of the murder or manslaughter of George Selway? Dum dum. Dum dum. Or innocent? Dum dum. Read more... |
The Good Karma Hospital, ITVMonday, 06 February 2017
There's nothing like a tale set in a warm, exotic climate to lure in the viewers in damp and wintry northern Europe. Send the Nonnatus House midwives to South Africa for Christmas! Shoot a ridiculous detective drama in Guadeloupe! Go back to the Raj with Channel 4's Indian Summers! Read more... |
Cheetahs: Growing Up Fast - Natural World, BBC TwoFriday, 03 February 2017
Oh clever title: cheetahs, when fully grown at about 18 months, are the fastest mammal on earth, clocking 70 miles per hour in short bursts. For this documentary, we were in the magnificent country of Zimbabwe, in all seasons, following a cheetah family which uncharacteristically lived in forest as well as river plain. Read more... |
Endeavour, Series 4 Finale, ITVMonday, 30 January 2017
There were signs of a collision as early as the second series. The event loomed larger in the third last year and last night, after an actual car crash, it finally happened: Endeavour became interchangeable with Midsomer Murders. How are the mighty fallen. Read more... |
Francis Bacon: A Brush with Violence, BBC TwoSunday, 29 January 2017
Francis Bacon died in April 1992, aged 82, but heaven knows how he managed to live that long. Read more... |
Who Do You Think You Are? - Ian McKellen, BBC OneThursday, 26 January 2017
Science has yet to determine whether thespians are the product of genetic predetermination. We all know about the Foxes and Redgraves, myriad self-spawning dynasties of actors bred of actors wed to actors, while there are plenty of others who go about their fathers’ and mothers’ business. But we also know that there will never be another McKellen. Read more... |
Case, Channel 4Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Another night, another woman battered/strangled/raped/murdered. On Sunday a pregnant woman was brutally slapped about by her husband in Call the Midwife, while Emily Watson’s character in Apple Tree Yard was the victim of a punishment rape. And so it continues in Case, the latest Nordic noir to make its way here, this time from Iceland. Read more... |
Apple Tree Yard, BBC OneMonday, 23 January 2017
Only the final 60 seconds of this first episode of Apple Tree Yard could have been described as a psychological thriller. We know Dr Yvonne Carmichael is in the dock – the genetic scientist was shown handcuffed in a prison van right at the start – but we don’t know what she is supposed to have done. Read more... |
Homeland, Series 6, Channel 4Monday, 23 January 2017
The big surprise of this new-season opener of Homeland was that black ops specialist Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) didn't die at the end of series 5 after all, despite the fact that we last saw him apparently moribund in his hospital bed, having penned a poignant adieu to sometime paramour Carrie Mathison. But, after surviving a hefty dose of sarin gas, he isn't the man she used to know. Read more... |
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