BBC One
The Responder, BBC One review - the loneliness of the long-distance copperTuesday, 25 January 2022
Cops on the box… don’t we just love ‘em? From Jimmy Perez and Ted Hastings to Inspector Reid from Ripper Street and Stella Gibson from The Fall the list is endless, but obviously we need more. The copper seems to have become the battered Everyperson... Read more... |
Rules of the Game, BBC One review - feminist workplace drama topples into farceThursday, 13 January 2022
The BBC have billed this as a “four-part thriller about sexual politics in the modern workplace”, which is slightly misleading because it looks as though it’s taking place in about 1983. The action centres on a sportswear company called Fly Dynamic... Read more... |
The Apprentice, Series 16, BBC One review - will they never learn?Friday, 07 January 2022
“Will they never learn?” people must have been screaming as they watched the opening episode of the 16th series of The Apprentice – I certainly was. After all these years, the hopefuls vying to take Lord Sugar's £250,000 to invest in their business... Read more... |
The Tourist, BBC One review - gripping Outback thriller from the Williams brothersSunday, 02 January 2022
This latest outing from the astonishingly prolific Jack and Harry Williams (The Missing, Baptiste, The Widow, Strangers etc) gives itself a huge leg-up by exploiting the epic lonely spaces of the Australian Outback.The opening sequence of episode... Read more... |
A Very British Scandal, BBC One review - the wild life and times of the Duchess of ArgyllMonday, 27 December 2021
The title might provoke a quick double-take. Wasn’t A Very British Scandal that series about Jeremy Thorpe and Norman Scott, starring Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw?Duh, of course not! That was A Very English Scandal (though both of them are produced by... Read more... |
The Girl Before, BBC One review - high-tech dream home contains many a heartacheMonday, 20 December 2021
Would you be willing to play the guinea pig in a designer-superhome created by a deranged architect? That is one question posed by this four-part drama (adapted by JP Delaney from his own novel), a kind of haunted house mystery underpinned by the... Read more... |
You Don't Know Me, BBC One review - true love meets inner-city crime waveTuesday, 07 December 2021
I sympathised with the prosecuting barrister when she put it to the court that the accused, a man called Hero (Samuel Adewunmi), was “using his closing speech to construct a work of fiction”.This was a crafty meta-joke. You Don’t Know Me itself is a... Read more... |
Showtrial, BBC One review - drama a cut above the restMonday, 15 November 2021
This latest offering from the ubiquitous World Productions (creators of Line of Duty, the farcical but strangely popular Vigil, Bodyguard etc etc) is a whodunnit, a howdunnit and a whydunnit, as it explores the mysterious disappearance and death of... Read more... |
Shetland, Series 6, BBC One review - too many cooks and too many crooksThursday, 04 November 2021
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. BBC... Read more... |
Vigil, BBC One review - murder most wateryMonday, 30 August 2021
Submarines have delivered some memorable on-screen performances, from Run Silent, Run Deep to The Hunt for Red October. On the other hand, we must not overlook the treasurably idiotic BBC series The Deep, which featured a submarine with a “moon pool... Read more... |
Baptiste, Series 2, BBC One review - powerful comeback for the sorrowful French detectiveMonday, 19 July 2021
Baptiste (BBC One) has two powerful weapons in its armoury, in the shape of its stars – Tchéky Karyo as the titular French ‘tec, and Fiona Shaw as the central character in this second series. Both of them are astonishingly persuasive at conveying... Read more... |
Time, BBC One review - grim and gritty study of life behind bars by Jimmy McGovernMonday, 07 June 2021
Jimmy McGovern’s new three-part drama about prison life is about as far as you could travel from Ronnie Barker’s Seventies sitcom Porridge, even if they are both on the same TV channel. Having said that, McGovern’s fictional HM Prison Craigmore... Read more... |
