Channel 4
Jasper Rees
Shall we blame The Bridge? The Swedish-Danish cop show opened for business with a scenario of outlandish gruesomeness: two halves of two corpses straddling the border between two countries. How to grab the viewer by the lapels, lesson one: hook them with a crazy, wacky, weird murder scene, so bonkers they’ll just have to hang around to find out what’s what.Witnesses is reading the same playbook. We began with three bodies strewn around a show home, and it was swiftly revealed that these bodies had nothing to do with one another and had been dug up from a variety of cemeteries. Precisely how Read more ...
Jasper Rees
“Say your last words before you leave this life.” Somewhere in the so-called Islamic State, a woman was accused of adultery. Her father joined her accusers, then, as her shrouded body was lowered into a pit, picked up a rock and hurled it at her. We didn’t have to watch her die, but Moona, an Iraqi activist using the internet to spread the truth about IS, did. It’s remarkable that Moona is still alive. IS gunmen turned up at her flat to confiscate her laptop and threaten her family. She now lives in exile in Turkey.Escape from Isis was profoundly harrowing, geopolitically urgent and, Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
New sci-fi series aren't exactly a dime a dozen on British TV, awash as it usually is with serial killers, cops and costume dramas, so the fact that Humans not only exists but is also bold and fresh-looking triggers instant brownie points. It doubtless helps that it's a collaboration between Channel 4 and America's AMC, home of Mad Men and The Walking Dead. It pitches us into a contemporary London which looks superficially unchanged, but has been rendered utterly alien by the new boom in synthetic humans, or "synths".It seems the Smart TV, the Apple Watch and Mr Dyson's latest dust-sucking Read more ...
Marina Vaizey
This was the story of a remarkable man, Henry Cecil, a genius with horses and 10 times Champion Trainer. He was felled by tabloid scandal but rose again to train one of the greatest racehorses in history, Frankel. This wholly absorbing programme was not a tale of everyday folk, but of horse racing, told through its human and equine characters, looking into a rarefied bubble inhabited by some of the richest and most powerful people in the world – and the finest thoroughbreds of the animal variety. You don’t have to follow racing to have heard of Frankel, said to be the finest racehorse Read more ...
Barney Harsent
When TFI Friday first assaulted our screens (nearly) 20 years ago, things were very different. An untucked checked shirt passed for sartorial elegance, magazines sold in big numbers and, within their pages, women were routinely objectified, but ironically and in front of a paper-thin façade of equality.This incongruous disconnect with society's current state – belt tightened, media fragmented and feminism back on the agenda - didn't bode well for the return, which, in order to succeed, would have to rely heavily on writer Danny Baker's unrivalled facility for inventive absurdism and ability Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Lucky old us. We are now living “in a techno-sexual era”. So claimed this documentary about dating apps which radar-guide you to the nearest available groin. If groins are your thing, that is, and they are by no means everyone’s. We heard about a man who wanted to paint a woman green and “spank you like a big fat avocado”. Another woman was considerably aroused by the sight of a man putting his motor into reverse. We met a puppy fetishist who trusses himself up in leather straps and yaps a lot. This is not to be confused with dogging.The Secret World of Tinder wasn’t really about secrecy at Read more ...
Barney Harsent
There’s been much hullabaloo surrounding the new series from Paul Abbott – and with good reason. It’s a decade since we’ve seen any TV from the creator of State of Play and Clocking Off and, given the impact and lasting legacy of Shameless, anticipation has been as high as Frank Gallagher at the business end of a three-day bender.It seemed, on the surface at least, to be a more straightforward police drama than one might have expected, particularly given the attention that has been heaped upon the comedy expected of this comedy drama. In truth, it was never likely to be primarily gag-driven Read more ...
Barney Harsent
Warning! Spoilers ahead, etc… Bearing in mind the high-octane thrills of recent Marvel forays into cinema, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is a surprisingly unshowy show. Some have taken this to be a good thing, though I suspect these people simply don’t like comic book adaptations or superheroes much. Me? I love comic-book characters – preferably covered in spandex and the sweat of battle. I want to see them have a massive scrap and fight personal demons along with extraterrestrial threats and improbably accented supervillains.Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t known for that, but the last episode Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
For somebody who never seems to be short of things to say, journalist and author Caitlin Moran doesn’t half like to repeat herself. Raised by Wolves is, for those of you keeping score at home, her third attempt to tell the story of growing up chubby, eccentric and poor in Wolverhampton. Like last year’s novel How to Build a Girl this one is nominally fictional, but the addition of younger sister Caroline (Caz) as co-writer introduces something new.That something, as Raised by Wolves returned for a full series after 2013’s pilot, was red-haired Aretha (Alexa Davies), cynical, precocious and Read more ...
Tom Birchenough
The Romanians Are Coming was the immigration story from the other side. Bustling along with the wry, sometimes desperate comedy (and themed music) of a Balkan film, its characters said things about themselves that others would hardly get away with. “I’m going to tell you the stories of some of the arseholes like me who came to take your jobs,” said narrator Alex Fechete Petru at the beginning of James Bluemel’s revealing three-parter. It showed both the lives of three hapless characters as they sought work, or just survival, in the UK, and their homes in the desolate location of Baia More Read more ...
Barney Harsent
There’s a tricky balancing act involved when writing a sitcom. Too much "sit" and you’re in danger of losing the laughs, too much "com" and it becomes increasingly difficult to find the space to land a serious dramatic punch. Get one of these things wrong and, like a fat man facing a baby on a see-saw, it looks all wrong and is no fun for anyone. Catastrophe, Channel 4’s new sitcom, written by and starring Sharon Horgan (Pulling, Dead Boss) and US stand-up Rob Delaney (Burning Love), approaches this dilemma with a classic love story: girl meets boy, girl gets pregnant, both try to work out Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Back for its third series [***], Sally Wainwright's saga of Yorkshire folk continues to tread a precarious line between syrupy soapfulness and a family drama with sharp little teeth. Its excellent cast helps to carry it over the worst of the soggy bits, and its best moments have a way of catching you unawares. You'd have to guess that it also scores strongly by not being crammed with serial killers, paedophiles and corrupt cops.It's a sign of the confidence that healthy ratings bring that they dared to open this new season with Alan (Derek Jacobi) and Celia (Anne Reid) sitting at a restaurant Read more ...