TV drama
The Halcyon, Series 1 Finale, ITVTuesday, 21 February 2017
A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now…One of the many ironies of Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon’s massive novel partly set in 1940s London, is that what follows these opening lines (... Read more... |
The Kettering Incident, Sky AtlanticThursday, 16 February 2017
Tasmania, Down Under is like Canvey Island (although somewhat larger): everyone knows where it is but no one wants to go there. The Kettering Incident reveals why: the bleak but beautiful landscape is blasted by Antarctic gales and the natives, with... Read more... |
Unforgotten – Series 2 Finale, ITV / After Brexit: The Battle for Europe, BBC TwoFriday, 10 February 2017
From Jimmy Savile to the Rotherham scandal, child sexual abuse has become a recurring nightmare of our society, and thus is inevitably grist to the TV dramatist’s mill. It has been a crucial component in The Missing, National Treasure and... Read more... |
The Moorside, BBC OneWednesday, 08 February 2017
It takes a certain kind of perversity to make a true-life drama about a missing girl (Shannon Matthews) who wasn’t missing at all – the danger is that drama will be the only thing that’s missing. Neil McKay’s answer to the problem is to take a leaf... Read more... |
Apple Tree Yard, Series Finale, BBC OneTuesday, 07 February 2017
Guilty or not guilty? Dum dum, dum dum. No, it was not just in your imagination. As the axe hovered over the neck of Yvonne Carmichael at the climax of Apple Tree Yard, and the madam forewoman waited to deliver the jury’s verdict, there was an... Read more... |
The Good Karma Hospital, ITVMonday, 06 February 2017
There's nothing like a tale set in a warm, exotic climate to lure in the viewers in damp and wintry northern Europe. Send the Nonnatus House midwives to South Africa for Christmas! Shoot a ridiculous detective drama in Guadeloupe! Go back to the Raj... Read more... |
Endeavour, Series 4 Finale, ITVMonday, 30 January 2017
There were signs of a collision as early as the second series. The event loomed larger in the third last year and last night, after an actual car crash, it finally happened: Endeavour became interchangeable with Midsomer Murders. How are the... Read more... |
Case, Channel 4Wednesday, 25 January 2017
Another night, another woman battered/strangled/raped/murdered. On Sunday a pregnant woman was brutally slapped about by her husband in Call the Midwife, while Emily Watson’s character in Apple Tree Yard was the victim of a punishment rape. And so... Read more... |
Apple Tree Yard, BBC OneMonday, 23 January 2017
Only the final 60 seconds of this first episode of Apple Tree Yard could have been described as a psychological thriller. We know Dr Yvonne Carmichael is in the dock – the genetic scientist was shown handcuffed in a prison van right at the start –... Read more... |
Homeland, Series 6, Channel 4Monday, 23 January 2017
The big surprise of this new-season opener of Homeland was that black ops specialist Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) didn't die at the end of series 5 after all, despite the fact that we last saw him apparently moribund in his hospital bed, having... Read more... |
Taboo, BBC OneSunday, 08 January 2017
The arrival of this oppressively atmospheric 19th-century historical drama is being trailed as the BBC's bold attempt to break the Saturday night stranglehold of soaps and talent shows. No doubt they were encouraged by the success of all those... Read more... |
Unforgotten, Series 2, ITVFriday, 06 January 2017
Historic unsolved murders have become their own mini-genre, with the likes of Cold Case lurking in the small print of the schedules and Silent Witness still going strong in its 20th series. A hit the first time out in 2015, Unforgotten is back with... Read more... |
