tue 24/06/2025

tv

Shetland, Series 6, BBC One review - too many cooks and too many crooks

Adam Sweeting

The population of the Shetland archipelago is only about 23,000 (similar to Broadstairs or Amersham), though judging by the adventures of DI Jimmy Perez, an extraordinarily large percentage of them harbour dark secrets or murderous tendencies.

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Invasion, Apple TV+ review - sci-fi epic or a pile of space junk?

Adam Sweeting

Conceived on a global scale to depict the enormity of an alien menace from outer space, Apple's new series Invasion has grand ambitions, but crash-lands like a pile of space junk. After a few hours of this, waiting for something to happen, you’ll be yearning for a trawl through Netflix or Walter Presents.

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All Creatures Great and Small, Series 2, Channel 5 review - familiar formula continues to satisfy

Adam Sweeting

Channel 5’ s decision to remake James Herriot’s much-loved Yorkshire vet stories was an inspired one, and this second series has effortlessly carried on the mood of gentle observation, nostalgia and slapstick comedy amid scintillating Yorkshire Dales scenery.

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Squid Game, Netflix review - murderous game show hits the ratings jackpot

Adam Sweeting

This Korean-made show suddenly became Netflix’s all-time greatest hit, demonstrating once again the irresistible allure of a game show which ruthlessly massacres its contestants.

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Ridley Road, BBC One review - Jewish community fights Nazi nightmare in 1960s London

David Nice

Neo-Nazis held a Trafalgar Square rally under the banner "Free Britain from Jewish Control" in the year of my birth; I had no idea until I watched Ridley Road. Most of us know about the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, but, until now, next to nothing about the Jewish resistance against fascist Colin Jordan and his gang of thugs, some of them cynically recruited from borstals and children’s homes, 17 years after the end of the Second World War.

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Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy, Sky Arts review – too much and not enough

Harriet Thompson

Born in 1840, Thomas Hardy lived a life of in-betweens. Modern yet traditional, the son of a builder who went on to become a famous novelist, he belonged both to Dorset and London. When he died, his ashes were interred at Westminster Abbey, but his heart was buried separately alongside his first wife in the village of Stinsford in Dorset.

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Schumacher, Netflix review - authorised version of the life of an F1 legend

Adam Sweeting

Michael Schumacher’s skiing accident in December 2013, which left the seven-times Formula One world champion with a severe brain injury, added a shocking postscript to one of the greatest stories in motor racing. Having survived a decades-long driving career which included numerous accidents (including a motorcycle smash in 2009 which was apparently far more serious than the Schumi camp would admit), he was near-fatally stricken on a family Christmas holiday in Méribel.

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The North Water, BBC Two review - a terrible voyage into the great beyond

Adam Sweeting

It’s perhaps unfortunate that The North Water arrives on BBC Two only a few months after The Terror, since it’s impossible to avoid the parallels between them.

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The Blood Pact, All 4 review - a (tax) inspector falls

Sebastian Scotney

In Klem (meaning "clamp"’), we find ourselves in the calm, ordered and ordinary world of Amsterdam-Zuid. There are parents’ evenings to be attended, school plays to be watched. The area’s many pretty parks are just perfect for the early morning jog. Tall green bins stand in neat rows.

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Clickbait, Netflix review - fiendishly cunning thriller keeps everybody guessing

Adam Sweeting

It seems Covid-19 may not be the only plague threatening mankind.

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