tv
Aberfan: The Green Hollow, BBC FourMonday, 24 October 2016
Television is not a medium we much associate with any sense of the "sacred". It grapples with "momentous" frequently enough, in snatches of news tragically reported; it rings in, and out, the history that defines our lives. We may debate, equally, whether the small screen is replacing the big one as the bringer of what was once considered cinema art. 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 textile plant. Jimmy McGovern exported the idea to The Street, where he opened one door at a time to find out what was going on inside. The common denominator of both series was scriptwriter-for-hire Danny Brocklehurst. Read more... |
Paxman on Trump v Clinton: Divided America, BBC OneTuesday, 18 October 2016
Could Jeremy Paxman explain the inexplicable, so that viewers could begin to understand the meaning of the astonishing theatre that is the 2016 American presidential election? We can hardly even grasp the plot, let alone the coming denouement and its repercussions. Read more... |
Tutankhamun, ITVMonday, 17 October 2016
Freshly minted for ITV's Golden Age of Empire slot on Sunday nights, this new four-parter breezily splices together Edwardian derring-do toffery with a patina of Indiana Jones and (not least in the music) a miasma of Lawrence of Arabia. Our story began in 1905 in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, as archaeologist Howard Carter sought to beat a swarm of international treasure-hunters to the holy grail of an undiscovered Pharaoh's tomb. 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 series of The Missing (a collaboration between the BBC and the US network Starz) was a critical and commercial success. Read more... |
Divorce, Sky AtlanticWednesday, 12 October 2016
Divorce opened on Sarah Jessica Parker inspecting the work of time in the mirror. Goodbye Carrie, hello Frances, upstate New Yorker, mother of two and wife to a man who demands equal time in the bathroom. “I was forced to take a shit in this coffee can in the garage,” hollered Robert through the door before barging in to reveal an abysmal moustache. 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 AN Wilson will be feeling parental pride that between them they have given birth to a healthy 10-pound whopper that looks very much like the natural heir to Downton. Read more... |
The Apprentice, Series 12, BBC OneFriday, 07 October 2016
Now back for a twelfth series, The Apprentice has recently burnished its reputation as a career launchpad. Not, of course, for the poor contestants, gurning and strutting their way to the judgement end of Lord Sugar’s finger, but for the pointy one himself. A certain D Trump, who presided over the American version, now has much grander ideas for his presiding. Read more... |
A World Without Down's Syndrome?, BBC TwoThursday, 06 October 2016
We’re all comfortable with the concept of actors presenting documentaries about endangered species. A famous name helps to bring an issue into the light. It was slightly different with A World Without Down’s Syndrome? Sally Phillips, the much-loved comic actress who plays sidekicks to Bridget Jones and Miranda Hart, has a son with Down’s Syndrome. Olly, as the opening sequence amply revealed, is a delightful boy at the heart of a loving family. 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 if it's aiming to explore the ghosts in the machinery, and take us to a Blade Runner-ish place where the boundary between the human and the man-made starts to dissolve. Read more... |
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