TV drama
Maigret's Dead Man, ITVMonday, 26 December 2016
So this is Christmas – and what have they done? Scheduled a detective drama that begins with a family being carved up with an axe. Ho ho ho! While Maigret’s Dead Man was no doubt intended to provide a healthy corrective to the festive feel-goodery... Read more... |
Call the Midwife: 2016 Christmas Special, BBC OneMonday, 26 December 2016
While Miranda Hart's Chummy is no more and Jessica Raine (who played Jenny Lee) has long since departed to perish in Line of Duty and pout crossly in Wolf Hall, Call the Midwife has evolved into a sort of Heartbeat with nuns, featuring antique pop... Read more... |
Grantchester, Christmas Special, ITVSunday, 25 December 2016
Cambridge 1954, and Christmas was coming, which meant carol singing, mince pies and an unnecessarily conceptual nativity play. But murder was also on the menu, and once again handsome, jazz-loving vicar Sidney Chambers (James Norton) was about to... Read more... |
In Plain Sight, ITVThursday, 08 December 2016
Another week, another serial killer on prime time. In Dark Angel we had the grim story of Mary Ann Cotton, the Victorian poisoner who killed her husbands for the insurance. Meanwhile John Christie continues his grim work in Rillington Place. And now... Read more... |
The Missing, Series 2 Finale, BBC OneThursday, 01 December 2016
Anyone hoping for a few laughs and a nice bit of catharsis after enduring the eight unstintingly miserable episodes of The Missing would have got none of the former and hardly any of the latter. Writers Jack and Harry Williams had sprung most of... Read more... |
Close to the Enemy, BBC Two / Paranoid, Series Finale, ITVFriday, 11 November 2016
We last encountered Stephen Poliakoff on TV in 2013's Dancing on the Edge, which provoked mixed reactions (not least on theartsdesk). That was the story of a black jazz band in 1930s London, who played gigs at swanky hotels. Close to the Enemy (★)... Read more... |
Poldark, Series 2 Finale / Planet Earth II, BBC OneMonday, 07 November 2016
So, a rough tally. We’ve had a trial, a near suicide, a punch-up, death by drowning, a near bankruptcy, a tin rush, another punch-up, a baby, a probable rape, a riot, another baby, and another one on the way, possibly a product of that probable rape... Read more... |
Cold Feet, Series Finale, ITVMonday, 24 October 2016
In the end, what makes a good drama series? It’s probably that you want more of it. This is the end of Cold Feet until a next time which has already been promised, and more is certainly what’s wanted. No one was quite sure if a reincarnation of Cold... Read more... |
Ordinary Lies, Series 2, BBC OneWednesday, 19 October 2016
The concept is somewhere between single drama and series: to stay in one place while shifting focus from one character to another. Paul Abbott did it in Clocking Off, telling a different story each week about a group of workers in a Manchester... Read more... |
The Missing, Series 2, BBC OneThursday, 13 October 2016
It seems morbid, and perhaps even in dubious taste, to create a TV drama franchise focusing on the hideous fate of abducted children and the repercussions this has on their family and friends. Still, ratings are their own reward, and the first... Read more... |
Victoria, Series Finale, ITVMonday, 10 October 2016
One down, eight childbirths to go. The young Queen Victoria was delivered of her first child at the climax of this moreish opening series, and the bells of Windsor tolled for joy. ITV, debutant scriptwriter Daisy Goodwin and biographical consultant... Read more... |
Westworld, Sky AtlanticWednesday, 05 October 2016
Michael Crichton's 1973 movie Westworld became a paradigm of fears about technology running amok and turning violently against its human creators. HBO's new series, executive produced by JJ Abrams and written by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, looks as... Read more... |
