TV
Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, Season 4, Prime Video review - final outing for John Krasinski's CIA heroTuesday, 04 July 2023
This fourth season of Prime’s reworking of Tom Clancy’s fictional CIA man is supposedly the last (to avoid any confusion they’ve dubbed it The Final Mission). It maintains its tradition of deluxe production values, globe-hopping locations and the... Read more... |
Hijack, Apple TV+ review - trapped at 40,000 feet with a bunch of armed thugsThursday, 29 June 2023
Probably because it’s a secret fear shared by many a flyer, aircraft hijacking has become its own screen mini-genre. We’ve already had not only Hijack but also Hijacked, not to mention the Wesley Snipes vehicle Passenger 57, Jodie Foster in... Read more... |
Spiral of Lies, Channel 4 review - bodies, fibs and bad karma in BiarritzTuesday, 27 June 2023
Not to be confused with the matchless French policier Spiral, Spiral of Lies (or J’ai Menti in its native tongue) is a twisty tale of murder, guilt and deceit, playing out over a 16-year time period. Camille Lou pulls off the quite impressive feat... Read more... |
Turn of the Tide, Netflix review - cocaine madness comes to the AzoresSaturday, 24 June 2023
When we consider the storied history of Portuguese television, we naturally think of… er… well, perhaps we'll get back to you on that. But in the meantime there’s Turn of the Tide (or Rabo de Peixe to give it its original title), Augusto Fraga’s... Read more... |
The Change, Channel 4 review - beguiling feminist comedy with a stellar castThursday, 22 June 2023
Young women who were riveted by Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones columns in the 1990s are now probably of the age where the menopause is, or has recently been, a bigger concern than landing your own Mr Darcy. Which is why Bridget Christie’s The Change... Read more... |
Best Interests, BBC One review - a family feels the unbearable strain of terminal illnessTuesday, 13 June 2023
This is possibly not ideal viewing for a spell of sunny weather in June, but Jack Thorne’s drama about a family trying to cope with a terminally ill child is as compelling as it’s painful. Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen star as parents Andrew and... Read more... |
Succession Season Four finale, Sky Atlantic review - a glorious bonfire of the vanitiesTuesday, 30 May 2023
Hey-hey! Alright! The standard greeting of Kendall Roy will be much missed, along with all the other regular joys of Succession. It wasn’t always 100% perfect, thank goodness, it was all too human: changeable, moody, ultimately self-serving, just... Read more... |
Steeltown Murders, BBC One review - eloquent true-crime drama about tracking a serial killer 30 years onTuesday, 16 May 2023
The thought of yet another primetime true-crime series might weary the soul, even if it has been created by Ed Whitmore (Manhunt: Martin Clunes heading two cases as DI Colin Sutton), directed by Marc Evans (Hinterland: Wales’s contribution to modern... Read more... |
Hannah Gadsby, Netflix special review - shaggy dog story of marital blissTuesday, 16 May 2023
Hannah Gadsby had a memorable lockdown; it was when the Tasmanian comic got together with producer Jenney Shamash. And it's their courtship that forms the basis for Something Special, the wonderful new show by Gadsby which is now a Netflix special,... Read more... |
Ten Pound Poms, BBC One review - a new life in the Great Southern LandMonday, 15 May 2023
The Ten Pound Pom programme (or to use its official title, the Assisted Passage Migration Scheme) was devised to encourage British emigrants to Australia after World War Two. The idea was that the volunteers could escape from drab, rationing-... Read more... |
Dalgliesh, Series 2, Channel 5 review - more gory cases for PD James's brooding poet-detectiveMonday, 15 May 2023
When young Morse went speeding off in his Jag at the end of the Endeavour finale earlier this year, the road was left open for another, zootier Jag to zoom in, the racing green E-type belonging to DCI Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard. ... Read more... |
Colin from Accounts, BBC Two review - winning mix of great performances, nuanced writing and a cute dogFriday, 05 May 2023
As Australia's greatest comedic export exits the stage, strewing gladioli, a promising contender for that title makes an entrance, trailing a dog on wheels. The dog is the titular Colin from Accounts, for the few who still haven’t tried this... Read more... |
