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We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 23 December 2015

The sclerotic culture of dithering that afflicts the higher-ups at the BBC has been mercilessly exposed in W1A. It turns out that fear of failure was always a managerial thing at the corporation. How else did Dad’s Army have such a bumpy ride to birth? As told in We’re Doomed! The Dad’s Army Story, one of the most enduring sitcoms ever made was very nearly never made.

Fargo, Series 2 Finale, Channel 4

Lisa-Marie Ferla Tuesday, 22 December 2015

It stands to reason that the contents of a prequel can never be entirely surprising. Some details have to be constants, some plot twists left unturned. As soon as it became clear that the second series of Noah Hawley’s Fargo predated the events of the first by some 25 years, we knew that state trooper Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson) would be left standing at the end of it.

The Bridge, Series 3 Finale, BBC Four

Tom Birchenough Sunday, 20 December 2015

Was it just my bewilderment, or were there even more criss-crossing narratives than usual in this third series of The Bridge? As in, unusually expanded levels of human traffic, in various forms of distress, flowing under said structure.

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Queen: From Rags to Rhapsody, BBC Four

Barney Harsent Saturday, 19 December 2015

“Bohemian Rhapsody” is, depending on who you listen to, either a work of unparalleled theatrical daring and creative genius or an unlistenable descent into ludicrously self-indulgent toss. Of course, these are not necessarily contradictory positions... Me? Well, I’m revisiting Queen now that I have an eight-year-old fan living in my house, and it’s been quite the eye-opener, as was BBC Four’s documentary.

Prey, ITV

Matthew Wright Thursday, 17 December 2015

ITV’s Manchester crime series Prey has, like a Premiership football club bought by a billionaire, returned for a new season with the same name but different faces. But these aren’t the shiny young faces of virtue that populate the footballing aristocracy. Prey focuses on compromised officers of the law: righteous protagonists gone to the bad, who lend the plot intriguing shades of grey that match its moral tone with the weather and scenery.

Luther, Series 4, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 16 December 2015

Some things never change. Once more, we join DCI John Luther – though only for a two-part special – as he glues himself to the trail of a serial killer. And once again Luther is played by Idris Elba, a man who can freeze time or make villains throw down their weapons merely by gazing into the camera with an expression of quizzical world-weariness.

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Blood and Gold: The Making of Spain - Reconquest, BBC Four

Marina Vaizey Wednesday, 16 December 2015

The second instalment of this three-part series on the history of Spain (from the BBC in collaboration with the Open University) told a tale that is probably still relatively unfamiliar in the Anglophone world. That’s despite the fact that one of its star turns was the financing by that fervently religious 15th century Iberian power couple, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, of the legendary voyage of Christopher Columbus.

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Blast Off Live - ground control to Major Tim

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 15 December 2015

The caption on Victoria Derbyshire’s morning programme said it all: "Tim Peake Blast Off". Tuesday morning is usually a quiet backwater of daytime TV, but today it hosted the most frenzied focus on space travel in the UK since Helen Sharman flew to the Mir space station in 1991. Nearly a quarter of a century on, British interest has peaked once again as Major Tim Peake became the first Briton to blast off for the international space station.

The Last Kingdom, Series Finale, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Friday, 11 December 2015

Though Alfred the Great was renowned for educational and social reforms as much as for whupping the Danes on the battlefield, I'd never pictured him the way David Dawson has been playing him in The Last Kingdom. Pallid and sickly-looking, and plagued by all-too-human frailties, this Alfred looked more like a weedy consumptive poet than the midfield dynamo of embattled Ninth Century England.

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Secrets of the Mona Lisa, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Thursday, 10 December 2015

There’s a lot of breathless frontloading in television documentaries. The headlines promising shock and awe coming up are posted in the opening edit as a way of hooking in the remote-wielding viewer. Very often as presenters stump around history’s muddy digs or leaf through dusty old tomes, the revelations vouchsafed turn out to be a bit iffy, a bit yeah but no but so what? The hyperventilation is often a precursory guarantee of bathos. You’d be better off reading the book.