tv
Legends, Sky 1 / The Strain, WatchThursday, 18 September 2014
Let's face it, there are so many big-budget, densely plotted US TV imports around now that it seems a little hackneyed to compare them to buses - but even by those standards, scheduling the two newest ones concurrently seems a little careless. Your choice: Legends, an FBI procedural with a twist from Homeland show-runner Howard Gordon; or Guillermo del Toro's vampire virus horror The Strain. Read more... |
This World: Ireland's Lost Babies, BBC TwoThursday, 18 September 2014
We think we know the story. As recounted in Philomena, in the 1950s and ‘60s the Irish state and Catholic Church colluded in putting children born out of wedlock up for adoption. A small minority was sent to America, causing a lifetime of trauma and longing in both mothers and children. For portraying one such mother who went in search of her son, Judi Dench was nominated for an Oscar, and the woman she played met Pope Francis. Read more... |
Glue, E4Tuesday, 16 September 2014
Jack Thorne's new eight-part drama is set in a fictional but recognisable small English village, Overton, where life is centred on farming and racehorses. A green and pleasant land? Not so much; this is a series with a group of pill-popping, shagging teenagers at its heart – well, it is from the man who wrote Skins. Read more... |
Cilla, ITVTuesday, 16 September 2014
With Cilla Black still fighting fit and eminently telly-worthy at 71, it feels a bit odd to find a three-part dramatisation of her life popping up on ITV. Read more... |
The Village, Series 2 Finale, BBC OneMonday, 15 September 2014
You may have had to search for his name in the closing credits of this final episode of series two of The Village, but all plaudits were due to its composer Adrian Corker, who gave us a great score which majored in atonality. The acting here remained top class, and the landscapes were still unsurpassable (more on which later), but for conveying a sense of unease in the air, it was the music that brought the atmosphere home. Read more... |
British Art at War: Bomberg, Sickert and Nash, BBC FourSunday, 14 September 2014
At the end of this absorbing documentary about the art – and life – of Paul Nash we visited his tombstone in a Buckinghamshire churchyard, accompanying writer and presenter Andrew Graham-Dixon as he laid sunflowers on the grave. He reminded us that Nash saw the sunflower as a symbol for the soul, turning to the sun; indeed one of his last paintings was “Solstice of the Sunflower”. Read more... |
Boardwalk Empire, Series 5, Sky AtlanticSaturday, 13 September 2014
Fans of this dense and rewarding odyssey of Prohibition and American gangsterism are doubtless still reeling from the news that its fifth series will be the last, despite the riotous applause which greeted series four. This unwelcome state of affairs perhaps accounted for the vaguely dissociated and dream-like quality of this season opener, which was as much concerned with filling in some of Nucky Thompson's early history as with driving the plot forward into the 1930s. Read more... |
Tyrant, FoxSaturday, 13 September 2014
Created by Gideon Raff, mastermind of Homeland and its Israeli forerunner Prisoners of War, and produced by Howard Gordon (who worked on Homeland and 24), Tyrant parades its roots on its sleeve. Its mix of action thriller and family drama, all souped up by a stiff dose of combustibly unstable Middle East politics, adds up to a slick entertainment formula, but do such deadly and complex issues deserve to be handled quite so glibly? Read more... |
All Creatures Great and Stuffed, Channel 4Thursday, 11 September 2014
“Changing perceptions” is the byline that Mitsubishi gives to its sponsorship of Channel 4’s documentary slot. Animal-lovers, a constituency that surely makes up a sizable part of evening viewers, will certainly have come away from Matt Rudge’s bizarrely entertaining film All Creatures Great and Stuffed with their perceptions changed. Read more... |
Don't Stop the Music, C4 / The Motorway: Life in the Fast Lane, BBC TwoWednesday, 10 September 2014
The act of learning music, in a choir or an orchestra, rounds out a young person. What are the benefits again? All together now: improved social skills, concentration, discipline, self-esteem, numeracy, behaviour, confidence. Music makes you better. Society at large would benefit from investing in music education. It sort of beggars belief that this argument still has to be made. Read more... |
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