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Michael Palin’s Quest for Artemisia, BBC FourTuesday, 29 December 2015
For his latest journey Michael Palin, actor, writer, novelist, comedian, Python, traveller, has gone beyond geography in search of the visual arts with his characteristic enthusiasm, eclectic curiosity, and sense of discovery. Read more... |
Harry Price: Ghost Hunter, ITV / Homeland, Series 5 FinaleMonday, 28 December 2015
Earlier this year, Sky Living showed The Enfield Haunting, a tale of eerie events in a 1970s council house. One of its stars was Timothy Spall, playing a paranormal researcher. Maybe he had a premonition that his son Rafe would carry on the family's supernatural tradition in the leading role of Harry Price: Ghost Hunter (★★★★★). Read more... |
Catherine Tate's Nan, BBC OneMonday, 28 December 2015
Everyone knows a Nan – whether their own grandmother, someone else's, or maybe an elderly woman you see on the bus rudely (but rightly) telling youngsters they shouldn't be sitting when she has to stand. Read more... |
Dickensian, BBC OneSunday, 27 December 2015
There are around 800 pages in a Dickensian doorstopper and it has been said around 800 times that if Dickens were working today he would be a show runner on a soap. Finally it has come to pass. Andrew Davies attempted something similar with his Bleak House, diced up into half-hour gobbets. But Dickensian is nothing less – or maybe that should be nothing more – than EastEnders in top hats and mobcaps. Read more... |
Downton Abbey – The Finale, ITVSaturday, 26 December 2015
On Monday ITV showed BAFTA Celebrates Downton Abbey, in which a massed gathering of cast and crew plus a few celebrity guests toasted Downton's five-year stampede to global acclaim. Its creator Julian Fellowes waddled onstage and told an anecdote about how he'd been accosted by a Downton fan while browsing in a Barnes & Noble bookshop in New York. "Just let Edith be happy!" she wailed at him. Read more... |
We're Doomed! The Dad's Army Story, BBC TwoWednesday, 23 December 2015
The sclerotic culture of dithering that afflicts the higher-ups at the BBC has been mercilessly exposed in W1A. It turns out that fear of failure was always a managerial thing at the corporation. How else did Dad’s Army have such a bumpy ride to birth? As told in We’re Doomed! The Dad’s Army Story, one of the most enduring sitcoms ever made was very nearly never made. Read more... |
Fargo, Series 2 Finale, Channel 4Tuesday, 22 December 2015
It stands to reason that the contents of a prequel can never be entirely surprising. Some details have to be constants, some plot twists left unturned. As soon as it became clear that the second series of Noah Hawley’s Fargo predated the events of the first by some 25 years, we knew that state trooper Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson) would be left standing at the end of it. Read more... |
The Bridge, Series 3 Finale, BBC FourSunday, 20 December 2015
Was it just my bewilderment, or were there even more criss-crossing narratives than usual in this third series of The Bridge? As in, unusually expanded levels of human traffic, in various forms of distress, flowing under said structure. Read more... |
Queen: From Rags to Rhapsody, BBC FourSaturday, 19 December 2015
“Bohemian Rhapsody” is, depending on who you listen to, either a work of unparalleled theatrical daring and creative genius or an unlistenable descent into ludicrously self-indulgent toss. Of course, these are not necessarily contradictory positions... Me? Well, I’m revisiting Queen now that I have an eight-year-old fan living in my house, and it’s been quite the eye-opener, as was BBC Four’s documentary. Read more... |
Prey, ITVThursday, 17 December 2015
ITV’s Manchester crime series Prey has, like a Premiership football club bought by a billionaire, returned for a new season with the same name but different faces. But these aren’t the shiny young faces of virtue that populate the footballing aristocracy. Prey focuses on compromised officers of the law: righteous protagonists gone to the bad, who lend the plot intriguing shades of grey that match its moral tone with the weather and scenery. Read more... |
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