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To Walk Invisible, BBC One

Matthew Wright Friday, 30 December 2016

Yorkshire-born screenwriter Sally Wainwright has carved a distinguished niche for herself as chronicler of that brooding, beautiful region’s social and familial dramas.

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If there's one big question hanging over the television industry, it's "how long can the old broadcast networks survive in the new era of subscription and downloading services?" No doubt there will be a variety of answers, with different hybrid arrangements and partnerships springing up to deliver programming across multiple formats.

Bruce Springsteen: In His Own Words, Channel 4

Veronica Lee Friday, 30 December 2016

A 90-minute biographical documentary about Bruce Springsteen, you may think, is for Springsteen fans only.

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The Witness for the Prosecution, BBC One

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 27 December 2016

A year ago to the day the BBC laid on a festive slaughter of Agatha Christie characters. And Then There Were None had the look of a well-dressed abattoir as her victims toppled like ninepins at the hands of an invisible slayer. The scriptwriter Sarah Phelps has returned to the queen of crime for this year’s two-part Christmas murder mystery. The source for The Witness for the Prosecution is a mere 23-page story in which there’s really only house room for one corpse.

West Side Stories: The Making of a Classic, BBC Two

David Benedict Tuesday, 27 December 2016

The last time BBC TV headed over to West Side Story, it landed itself with a contradiction. Christopher Swann’s 1985 fly-on-the-wall documentary The Making of West Side Story – about Leonard Bernstein recording his celebrated score with a cast of opera singers – bagged the prestigious Prix Italia, but the actual material was a wildly unidiomatic misfire. The reverse was true of BBC2’s Boxing Day special West Side Stories – The Making Of A Classic.

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Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio, BBC One

Lisa-Marie Ferla Monday, 26 December 2016

The best thing about a year without Doctor Who? It’s been a year since we last heard people (adults) complain that the show’s increasingly labyrinthine, convoluted plots were too complex for children.

But the best thing about this year’s Christmas special? It was a self-contained, fast-paced hour which perfectly captured the childlike wonder and good fun that has always been at the heart of a show about a time-...

Maigret's Dead Man, ITV

Mark Sanderson Monday, 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 of Call The Midwife on BBC One, it goes too far. We could have done without the details of torture (a candle-flame to naked breasts) and bloody execution. At least it doesn’t show them (the details, not the breasts).

Call the Midwife: 2016 Christmas Special, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Monday, 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 songs and round-the-clock childbirth.

Grantchester, Christmas Special, ITV

Adam Sweeting Sunday, 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 prove himself a more imaginative crime-fighter than his buddy Inspector Geordie Keating (Robson Green).

Alan Bennett’s Diaries, BBC Two

Marina Vaizey Sunday, 25 December 2016

Gather round the fire, friends: no Santa down the chimney this Christmas Eve, but the curiously comforting Alan Bennett, with his sardonic and occasionally optimistic diaries. The latest published instalment has the slightly wry title Keeping On Keeping On; Bennett tells us the original title was to be Banging On Banging On.