BBC One
Wolf, BBC One review - a load of old...Wednesday, 02 August 2023
Adapted by Megan Gallagher from one of Mo Hayder’s Jack Caffery novels (the seventh one, apparently), Wolf might be described as Welsh Gothic, spiced up with a splash of gratuitous sadism. Episode two, for instance, is titled merely “Torture”, which... Read more... |
World on Fire, Series 2, BBC One - return of Peter Bowker's panoramic view of World War TwoTuesday, 18 July 2023
Writer Peter Bowker apparently had plans to make six series of World on Fire, but the arrival of Covid after 2019’s first series threw a spanner in the works. Anyway, here’s the second one at last, and it’s a little strange to find that this... 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... |
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... |
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... |
Magpie Murders, BBC One review - zinging TV adaptation of Anthony Horowitz's bestsellerSaturday, 08 April 2023
Finding a fresh twist on the traditional detective mystery is virtually impossible, but Anthony Horowitz has made a bold stab at it with Magpie Murders. This TV adaptation (which appeared on the BritBox streaming platform last year) has been... Read more... |
Great Expectations, BBC One review - modernised, muddied and muddledMonday, 27 March 2023
There’s no point in being upset with the writer Steven Knight for doing what he usually does; even so, many viewers will find what he has done with Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations far too Peaky for their tastes. Knight’s role is described... Read more... |
Happy Valley, Series 3, BBC One review - tension mounts as the Yorkshire crime drama approaches its conclusionMonday, 16 January 2023
In this glittering era of global streaming, the viewer is constantly bombarded with the latest and most sensational TV drama from South Korea, Australia, Denmark, California etcetera. But Huddersfield’s own Sally Wainwright continues to show most of... Read more... |
Tokyo Vice, BBC One review - murder, extortion and corruption in the Japanese capitalThursday, 01 December 2022
There was originally a plan to make Tokyo Vice a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe, but it has ended up as a TV series starring Ansel Elgort. It’s almost certainly the better for it, because the eight episodes of this first season – the way it ends,... Read more... |
Am I Being Unreasonable?, BBC One review - comedy thriller delivers the gagsSaturday, 24 September 2022
In case you're not au fait with Mumsnet, the title of Daisy May Cooper's follow-up creation to the stupendous This Country is a nod to the parenting website's readers' questions corner, where the responses boil down to “Yes, you are” and “No, you're... Read more... |
Crossfire, BBC One review - pacy and nail-biting, the holiday from hellWednesday, 21 September 2022
A sun-baked island resort; Keeley Hawes taking a leisurely dip in an infinity pool as we hear her in voiceover musing on how events happen unchosen, with you in them; then we are up in her room, where she is texting somebody. The sounds of gunshots... Read more... |
The Capture, Series 2 finale, BBC One review - gripping ride to a barnstorming conclusionTuesday, 13 September 2022
[Here be spoilers.] If you have been glued to the second season of The Capture, just ended, does it bother you that its content is borderline science fiction? Probably not. Writer Ben Chanan’s depiction of artificial intelligence may outstrip... Read more... |
