tv
Orange Is the New Black, Season 5, Netflix review - counterpoint in a three-day prison riotFriday, 14 July 2017
Rippling outward from the initial story of a seemingly nice WASP woman who finds herself having to adapt in a women's prison, Orange Is the New Black quickly developed into the most multilayered, almost indigestibly rich of American TV dramas. Read more... |
GLOW, Netflix review - not quite comedy or dramaThursday, 13 July 2017
How much plotting went into GLOW? It has been gussied up by the people who brought you the jumbo Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black. Both shows are based on a true story and feature women of all ethnicities bitching and slapping in a contained environment. In Glow there’s less orange, and less black, but even more bitching and slapping. Read more... |
In the Dark, BBC One review - missing girls mystery promises hidden depthsWednesday, 12 July 2017
Detective Inspector Helen Weeks (MyAnna Buring), having finally cornered a skanky drug-dealer/benefit cheat in a blind alley – and stopped an eager PC from Tasering the woman – is punched in the stomach for her pains. How’s that for a hard-hitting start? Read more... |
Grandad, Dementia and Me, BBC One review - no easy solutions to terrifying mental conditionWednesday, 12 July 2017
The title gave us the true-life plot: this was a grandson’s filmed narrative of something that will touch us all, through acquaintance, friend, family and perhaps ourselves falling victim to some form of dementia. It's a word that covers a myriad of conditions, all of them affecting the mind. Read more... |
Broken, BBC One series finale review - Seán Bean's quiet immensityWednesday, 05 July 2017
The Catholic Church hasn’t enjoyed a good press on screen lately. Nuns punished Irishwomen for their pregnancies in Philomena. Priests interfered with altar boys in Spotlight. And in The Young Pope a Vatican fixated on conservatism and casuistry elects a pontiff who sees himself as a rock star. Read more... |
50 Shades of Gay, Channel 4 review - no better place in the world to be gay?Tuesday, 04 July 2017
It’s half a century since homosexuality was partially decriminalised in England and Wales, so who better to cast his gaze over the lie of the land than stately homo Rupert Everett? Read more... |
Melvyn Bragg on TV, BBC Two review – too many talking heads, too little actionSunday, 02 July 2017
Presumably it seemed like a good idea at the time. Read more... |
Sudan: The Last of the Rhinos, BBC Two review - requiem for disappearing wildlifeThursday, 29 June 2017
“The northern white rhinos are just a symbol of what we do to the natural world,” as one of the contributors to this haunting documentary put it. Read more... |
Who Should We Let In? Ian Hislop on the First Great Immigration Row, review – how history repeats itselfFriday, 23 June 2017
Immigration…immigration… immigration… that’s what we need! Not the words of record-breaking, tap-dancing trumpeter Roy Castle, rather it’s the gist of a Times leader from 1853 (admittedly, fairly heavily paraphrased). Read more... |
Chance, Universal review – Hugh Laurie is reborn as a film-noir shrinkWednesday, 21 June 2017
Hugh Laurie, in his new role of forensic neuropsychiatrist Eldon Chance, tells us that he works with those who are “mutilated by life”, and we soon see that Chance himself falls into that category. He’s in the midst of a divorce, he only sees his daughter Nicole at weekends, and his work seems to fill him with a kind of morbid weariness. Read more... |
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