“If you've been affected by any of the issues in this episode, click here.” I wouldn’t bother. Really. In fact I haven’t put the link in. They are – trust me - just ticking boxes. Some kind of Ofcom diktat. “If you’ve been affected bla bla bla,” it says when you click, “here are the details of organisations that can provide help and support.” It’s a long old list. You’ve probably not got the time, but here goes.
tv reviews
Adam Sweeting
Though our French cousins like to boast of their superiority to the Anglo-Saxons in every sphere of endeavour, the Paris-based police dama Spiral, returning after a three-year absence, suggests that the Cartesian paradise across the Channel is under siege. Already, it’s clear that the ghoulish murder that opened this first episode of series two has triggered an examination of the interplay of police, politicians and judiciary which threatens to uncover hideous secrets in the loftiest eyries of the French establishment.
Jasper Rees
I have a little story concerning correct usage. Several years ago, when BBC Three had yet to overtake Channel 5 and VH1 as perhaps the world’s leading purveyor of documentaries about breasts and suchlike, I received a press release in the post. The young channel’s fresh approach to quality control on screen had percolated through to its publicity department. The release contained a motorway pile-up of typos.
Jasper Rees
Last night the latest segment of the BBC’s new online soap for teens played on computer screens across the land. OK, if we’re splitting hairs, it wasn’t technically last night. The show is streamed every afternoon at ten past five. However, the grand Panjandrum who pulls most of the strings round here advises that frontloading your opening paragraph with last+night this and last+night that will hoik you rapidly up the squash ladder that is Google Search. Which is why last night - around about teatime - I got to thinking about the title. Why The Cut?
Jasper Rees
The Beeb’s bold new experiment continues: to dish out a daily online teen soap in five-minute episodes. Am just about over the cyber-stress of Sunday’s part one. Couple of streaming issues were in play. Basically my laptop took to it like a boa wolfing down a rhino. All ironed out now. I can happily report that part two didn’t even touch the sides.
gerard.gilbert
Design for Life is a new BBC2 series about the philosophy of Philippe Starck, he of the iconic ‘space rocket’ lemon-juicer, in the form of an Apprentice-style reality show. It was also an intriguing insight into the control exercised by producers of such shows - for, unlike The Apprentice et al, the choice of contestants and the nature of the challenges were left to Starck himself. ‘Bloody terrifying’ was how Joe Houlihan, the executive producer, described to me the experience of delegating his powers to somebody who didn’t have the imperatives of television foremost in his mind.
Jasper Rees
Appointment-to-view content. That’s what they’re calling it. Not drama. Not soap. Content. Which you have to make an appointment to view. Although you actually don’t because it’s all on the iPlayer but let's let that pass. Here I am on BBC Switch, 8.10 sharp, for the Beeb’s first online daily soap, The Cut.
Adam Sweeting
Caught in a crossfire between licence-payers and rival media groups, the BBC has reached the frankly surreal conclusion that the answer is to cut down on imported programmes. Luckily Harper's Island (BBC3) has snuck in under the wire.
gerard.gilbert
BBC3 must sometimes feel very strange to its target audience – reflecting back a gallery of skunk-addled obese teenage single-mums not far removed from the nightmares of a Daily Mail reader. There’s no doubting the fruits of its comedy department however, and the likes of Man Stroke Woman, Monkey Dust, The Mighty Boosh, Gavin and Stacey and Being Human are shows that any averagely well-adjusted 16-34-year-old might actually enjoy. The sparky new student sitcom Off the Hook looks set to join that list. But Lunch Monkeys? Sadly, nah.
Adam Sweeting
In July the BBC brought us Freefall, writer/director Dominic Savage's credit crunch drama. It was a crude morality tale of greed and gullibility, just about compensating for its blatantly schematic characters with sheer pace. With The Last Days Of Lehman Brothers (BBC2), writer Craig Warner and director Michael Samuels set themselves an altogether trickier proposition, to dramatise the boardroom power-plays that ended in the collapse of American mega-bank Lehman Brothers on September 12 last year.