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Generation War, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Sunday, 27 April 2014

This German-made drama about World War Two scored huge ratings when it was shown in its homeland last year, but has also prompted scathing criticism. Chiefly, its detractors don't buy the series' portrayal of five photogenic young German friends as largely innocent victims of Nazism. Some are also outraged by the way Poles are shown to be even more anti-semitic than the Nazis, though that didn't occur in this first episode, A Different Time.

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Jamaica Inn, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 23 April 2014

"Oi felt a darrrkness creepin' overrr me," said Mary Yellan's voice-over as we launched into the second night of the BBC's festival of contraband, squalor and smuggling. Mary, ensconced in the stygian titular dwelling on Bodmin Moor with her subhuman uncle and cowering aunt, had been having another of her nightmares about drowning, flailing helplessly as towering green waves crashed over her. "Whateverr innocence oi 'ad left would soon be lorst," Mary lamented.

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Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This, ITV

Veronica Lee Tuesday, 22 April 2014

Comedians offer rich pickings to dramatists – whether they fall into the crying clown category, or the nice bloke on stage and complete arse off it, or the side-splittingly funny performer who is as boring as watching paint dry in real life. So no surprise then that Tommy Cooper (1921-1984) is the latest funny man to get a television biopic, following in the wake of Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd and Hattie Jacques.

Fargo, Channel 4

Adam Sweeting Monday, 21 April 2014

There's always room on top for another TV anti-hero. After Tony Soprano, Breaking Bad's Walter White and Mad Men's fatally flawed Don Draper, here's Martin Freeman as Fargo's Lester Nygaard, a downtrodden failure of a husband as well as a second-rate insurance salesman. It could have been worse - they could have made him a journalist or an estate agent.

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Messiah at the Foundling Hospital, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Sunday, 20 April 2014

The last time the BBC dramatised the creation of a great musical work, it didn’t quite hit the spot. Eroica starred Ian Hart as Beethoven glowering at the heart of a drama which had rather less of a narrative through-line than the symphony it honoured. For Messiah at the Foundling Hospital, the BBC have gone to the other extreme and kept eggs out of the one basket.

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Watermen: A Dirty Business, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 16 April 2014

It’s a misnomer, of course. Water. It’s not even a prissy misnomer as in “when did you last pass water?” It’s more categorical than that: solids rather than liquids are our subject here. This is essentially a show about shit. Shit and all who sail in her.

Only Connect, BBC Four

Veronica Lee Tuesday, 15 April 2014

EM Forster fans will straight away get the reference in the quiz show's title to Howards End. Those of a less literary bent will make another mental link – Connect Four, a game for six-year-olds and up invented in 1974 and still going strong – which shares with its near-namesake the need for abstract reasoning. In fact when I first heard about Only Connect the latter was the connection I made, but it's typical of fans of the BBC show that they could make either.

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Ian Hislop's Olden Days: the Power of the Past in Britain, BBC Two

Matthew Wright Thursday, 10 April 2014

BBC channels One and Two currently present such different sides of Ian Hislop that his appearances should by now be required watching for trainee psychologists. As a founding team captain on Have I Got News For You, his knuckles have left a lasting impression on panellists including Jimmy Savile, Piers Morgan and Neil Hamilton; but switch over to one of his documentaries, which have graced all of the more thoughtful channels, and we find a wryly avuncular character.

Under Offer: Estate Agents on the Job, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Thursday, 10 April 2014

Hang about with estate agents (for the only reason that anyone would) and you notice the men among them often stand with their hands clasped pliantly in front of them, with their shoulders bent slightly inwards. The pose semaphores trustworthiness, humility and the morals of a choirboy. Uriah Heep, ever so ‘umble, would have made a fine addition to the trade.

The Battle for Britain's Breakfast, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 09 April 2014

As Gyles Brandreth pointed out, before the advent of breakfast television in 1983, Britain was a civilised country in which people ate breakfast while browsing through a newspaper. Then the BBC cheekily nipped in with its new Breakfast Time programme, a fortnight ahead of the much-hyped all-star TV-am project, and the nation has been going to hell in a handbasket ever since.