sun 27/07/2025

tv

Troy: Fall of a City, BBC One review - soapification of the Trojan War

Adam Sweeting

The plan to bring drama back to Saturday nights on BBC One enjoyed mixed success with Hard Sun, but now threatens to slide over a cliff with this trip back to the Homeric era. In the era of Game of Thrones and now Britannia, you can see why somebody fancied having a go at the swords-sandals-and-sorcery of the Trojan War. The question is, how?

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Trauma, ITV, review - surgically imprecise revenge drama

Jasper Rees

When you’re hot, you’re hot.

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Collateral, BBC Two review - a lecture or a drama?

Adam Sweeting

It says something about the state of television that sooner or later every actor has to play a cop or a spy.

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McMafia, Series finale, BBC One review - the last bite is the cruellest

Tom Birchenough

McMafia has taught us to recognise one thing – you might call it the “Norton stride”. As the charismatic Alex Godman, James Norton has been advancing, confidently at screen centre, towards one challenge after another, and they have been coming (mildly put) from all sorts of unexpected quarters. He’s dealt with everything by pressing onwards, ignoring advice from all and sundry.

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Derry Girls, Channel 4 review – bring on series two!

Owen Richards

When first announced, Derry Girls seemed a strange prospect.

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Spiral, Series 6 Finale, BBC Four review - hot fuzz hit new heights

Adam Sweeting

Happily, there’s hope for Spiral junkies – as series six ends, we bring you news that series seven has just gone into production. This is just as well, because these last dozen episodes have been an object lesson in how to make TV drama for the mind and body, nimbly evading cop show genre-pitfalls to bring us carefully-shaded characters operating within a Venn diagram of overlapping grey areas...

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Requiem, BBC One review – everything but the scares

Owen Richards

Despite horror’s omnipresence in cinema, British television has been somewhat deprived of jump scares.

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Gomorrah, Series 3, Sky Atlantic review - there will be blood

Adam Sweeting

No doubt McMafia has its strengths, but it’s like a mug of Horlicks compared to the grappa-with-aviation-fuel blast of Gomorrah (Sky Atlantic). The Naples-set organised crime drama takes no prisoners. It gives no quarter, and expects none.

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Strike Back, Series 6 part 2, Sky 1 review - shoot first, talk later

Adam Sweeting

After a mysterious mid-season break which seemed to catch everyone by surprise, Strike Back’s sixth season belatedly bounces noisily back. So far the story has ricocheted around the Middle East before detouring to Hungary, where our indestructible Section 20 operatives just managed to save “Mac” McAllister (Warren Brown) from being hanged by the fanatical Magyar Ultra extremist group.

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Hits, Hype and Hustle: An Insider's Guide to the Music Business, BBC Four review - how gigs got big

Adam Sweeting

The “insider’s guide to the music business” tag attached to Hits, Hype and Hustle: An Insider's Guide to the Music Business (BBC Four) dangles the carrot of all kinds of clandestine scams being exposed, such as extortionate recording contracts, systematic chart-rigging or Mafia rackets involving cut-out records.

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