tv
Jockey School, Channel 4Friday, 04 April 2014
Biança Barker's film was broadcast to coincide with the run-up to the Grand National this weekend, although one got no sense of where its subjects fitted into the horse racing world in general. In fact, one got no sense of where they fitted into anything other than a tickbox used by TV producers when looking for the next big idea. Read more... |
Kim Philby: His Most Intimate Betrayal, BBC TwoWednesday, 02 April 2014
History may be written by the winners, but its verdict is surely still out on Kim Philby. The presenter of Kim Philby: His Most Intimate Betrayal, Ben Macintyre, acknowledged that Philby is “the most famous double agent in history”, but though such acclaim will never guarantee any kind of moral endorsement, at least it keeps his seat of notoriety warm. The fascination remains, not least for television. Read more... |
New Worlds, Channel 4Wednesday, 02 April 2014
It's been six years since Peter Flannery's lurid Civil War series The Devil's Whore, which ended shortly after the death of Oliver Cromwell. This sequel, co-written by Flannery and Martine Brant, speeds us forward to 1680, which means Charles II is on the throne and, in between attending bawdy Restoration plays, is hell-bent on tracking down the people who executed his father. Read more... |
Storyville: Which Way Is the Frontline From Here?, BBC FourTuesday, 01 April 2014
The title of Sebastian Junger’s documentary comes from a casual remark made as a group of journalists set off towards conflict in the outskirts of the Libyan town of Misrata: it may sound like a standard question from a battle-hardened war correspondent, but the film that follows shows that Tim Hetherington, whose off-camera voice it is, was anything but that. It was April 11 2011, and that journey would prove fatal for the British photographer and filmmaker. Read more... |
Endeavour, Series 2, ITVSunday, 30 March 2014
The last time the whippersnapper Morse was on our screens he was getting (a) orphaned and (b) shot. This double dose of pain seemed a bit punitive, but then when sorrows come they come not single spies. The second series of Endeavour seems determined to stack up yet more agonies. So far Morse has been knocked out cold, sustained an unsightly gash on the bridge of his nose, and cowers every time he hears a loud bang. Read more... |
Mammon, More4Saturday, 29 March 2014
Well, that was a bit of a brain workout for the first episode - I confess for much of the opening instalment (five more to follow) I didn't have a clue what was going on, who anybody was or how all the characters and a multitude of story strands were connected. Actually, I'm not sure I did entirely understand by the end, but by then the Norwegian thriller set in the nebulous area where politics, finance and journalism collide had drawn me in sufficiently to tune in next week. Read more... |
Believe, Watch / Person of Interest, Series 2, Channel 5Thursday, 27 March 2014
As pedigrees go, beat this - Believe [***] is the brainchild of Alfonso Cuarón, director of the Oscar-plundering Gravity, and JJ Abrams, mastermind of Lost, Fringe and the made-over Star Trek. This debut episode didn't live up to expectations, but it would be rash to write it off too soon. Read more... |
Rev, Series 3, BBC TwoTuesday, 25 March 2014
Perhaps the BBC didn't need to make W1A, its new self-satirising sitcom. In the clerical comedy Rev, the Church of England could be considered a very serviceable metaphor for the Corporation, with its unfathomable layers of bureaucracy, well-meaning but slightly pitiable niceness, a self-image that belongs to a forgotten century, and self-flagellation before other cultures. Though the BBC does have rather more money to spend. Read more... |
The Widower, ITVTuesday, 25 March 2014
It was something of a relief when the police were finally alerted to the sinister motives of Malcolm Webster in last night’s second episode of The Widower. ITV’s three-part dramatisation of the killer’s exploits (he was convicted in 2011 of murdering his first wife and trying to kill his second) raises interesting questions not only concerning how we tell stories about crimes from real-life, but whether we actually tell them at all. Read more... |
Louis Theroux's LA Stories: City of Dogs, BBC Two / Mr Selfridge, Series 2 Finale, ITVMonday, 24 March 2014
In the same week that ITV was rounding up Britain's dangerous dogs, the Beeb aired Louis Theroux's report [****] on the unwanted canines roaming the streets of gang-infested South Los Angeles. LA has six dog pounds (we learned), through which 35,000 ownerless dogs pass annually. A lot of them, even healthy ones, end up being euthanised because it's impossible to find homes for them all. Read more... |
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