wed 20/08/2025

tv

Studio 17: The Lost Reggae Tapes, BBC Four review - a perfectly paced tale of world-shaking basslines and human frailty

joe Muggs

If there was ever a documentary that needed you to have good speakers on your TV setup – or good headphones if you're watching on computer or tablet – this is it.

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The Capture, BBC One, series finale review - nimble drama alive with twists

Jasper Rees

What did we learn at the end of The Capture (BBC One)? A rice jar is a good place to hide USB sticks. It’s possible to withhold the opening credits for 11 whole minutes. A green coat works exceptionally well with light blue eyes and shoulder-length auburn hair.

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Doing Drugs for Fun, Channel 5 review - why the cocaine trade is no laughing matter

Adam Sweeting

Monday night’s first episode of this three-part series was a bit ordinary, as it introduced its cast of British recreational cocaine users and explained why their habit may be ill-advised.

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The Great British Bake Off, Episode 7, Channel 4 review - bakers hampered by pointless celebrities

Adam Sweeting

What’s extraordinary about Bake Off is not just the staggering complexity of the cooking challenges, but the amount of technical shenanigans that go into turning it into a finished programme (actually, spoiler-averse Channel 4 had teasingly left the ending off my preview version of this week’s show, but...

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Catherine the Great, Sky Atlantic review - a glorious role for Helen Mirren only gets better

Tom Birchenough

“I want something Russian…” It’s with such a cry that Helen Mirren, bored by the bizarrely transgressive masked ball that comes at the close of the first episode of Catherine the Great, gets the dancing going: nothing from the imported fashions of Europe will do for her, and the music duly strikes up, a soupily romantic melody on violin, the quintessence, you might think, of mythic "Russianness”.

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The Capture, Episode 5, BBC One review - the man who knew too much

Adam Sweeting

Five episodes ago, BBC One's The Capture set off at a cracking pace with the apparent abduction and murder of barrister Hannah Roberts by army lance-corporal Shaun Emery.

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Snackmasters, Channel 4 review - superchefs take the clone-a-KitKat challenge

Adam Sweeting

The themes of food and cookery have already been boiled until the bottom of the saucepan melted, but TV commissioning editors can’t stop searching for new twists in the formula.

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World on Fire, BBC One review - more melodrama than drama

Adam Sweeting

For his new drama series for BBC One, writer Peter Bowker (The A Word, Monroe etc) has taken as his canvas no less than a panorama of Europe in 1939, just as World War Two is breaking out.

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My Life is Murder, Alibi review - whimsical tales of detection from Down Under

Adam Sweeting

Lucy Lawless achieved cult status in the Nineties fantasy classic Xena: Warrior Princess, and later became a regular in such disparate creations as Battlestar Galactica and Parks and Recreation. In My Life is Murder, she joins the ever-expanding ranks of TV ‘tecs as Melbourne-based investigator Alexa Crowe.

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Saving Lives at Sea, BBC Two review - derring-do on the ocean wave with the RNLI

Adam Sweeting

Learning support officer. Student. Chip shop owner. Mobile caterer. Gym owner. These were the day jobs of some of the volunteers featured in this week’s portfolio of tales on BBC Two from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who would all doubtless deny that they do anything heroic. For the people they rescue, they most certainly do.

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