tv
Babylon, Channel 4Monday, 10 February 2014
They're billing this as a "comedy-drama" about the inner workings of the Metropolitan Police, and it comes trailing a cloud of prestigious bylines. It's written by Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, who between them have notched up credits for Smack the Pony, Fresh Meat, Peep Show and The Thick of It, and this 90-minute opener was directed by the sainted Danny Boyle. What would be not to like? Read more... |
Duck Quacks Don't Echo, Sky 1Friday, 07 February 2014
It’s an improbable fact worthy of five minutes’ ironic banter that there are so many panel shows presenting five minutes’ ironic banter on a series of improbable facts. Lee Mack, presenter of Sky 1’s new take on the genre, Duck Quacks Don’t Echo, has been a team captain on BBC One’s Would I Lie to You? for the past six years, so has had the time to get his head round the most improbably amusing facts. Read more... |
Nashville, Series 2, More4Friday, 07 February 2014
Since Nashville and country music are one giant soap opera, it's amazing nobody turned Tennessee's Music City into a TV series before. No matter. Here we are with series two, and it's as deliriously cheesy and melodramatic as ever. Read more... |
Inspector George Gently, Series 6, BBC OneFriday, 07 February 2014
“I like it when you’re a bastard,” George Gently growled at his sidekick, halfway into the first episode of this sixth series set in 1960s Northumberland, reassuring us that the partnership is very much back on when all appeared to be lost the last time around. And what a terrific opener it proved to be. Read more... |
Inside No 9, BBC TwoThursday, 06 February 2014
The League of Gentlemen – performers Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, and co-writer Jeremy Dyson – have been rather busy since they left Royston Vasey behind (temporarily we're told, as the foursome may set up shop for local people again next year). Dyson has recently been script-editing The Wrong Mans, while Gatiss has been busy appearing in Sherlock and Coriolanus, among other things. Read more... |
Royal Cousins at War, BBC TwoThursday, 06 February 2014
World War One overkill - if you'll pardon the expression - is a clear and present danger as the centenary commemorations gather pace, but this investigation of the roles of the interlinked royal families of Europe in the onrush of hostilities was as good a chunk of TV history as I can remember. Informative and detailed but always keeping an eye on the bigger picture, it made me, at any rate, start to think about the road to 1914 in a different light. Read more... |
Mad Dog: Gaddafi's Secret World, BBC FourTuesday, 04 February 2014
Three years ago this month, the first protests against the brutal dictatorship of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi broke out. On October 20 2011, the tyrant was finally caught, and mobile phone footage of his bloody and abused last minutes went viral. His regime, in power since 1969, was no more. For a while, the streets of Tripoli were filled with optimism and hope. All thought peace and change had come. Read more... |
The Bridge, Series 2 Finale, BBC FourSunday, 02 February 2014
The Saga saga is over. An eco-terrorist plot to kill off the top tier of Europe’s environment ministers has been foiled, with nails bitten to the quick. Various Nordic marriages are in tatters, like a boxed set of Strindberg. Justice has been done but the smiles on faces in the Malmö police station at the end of episode nine had been wiped an hour later. We can’t talk about why or the spoiler police will stick us in prison and pay us periodic visits with gifts of designer coffee. Read more... |
Dan Snow's History of the Winter Olympics, BBC TwoThursday, 30 January 2014
The programme blurb says: “Dan Snow looks back at 90 years of the Winter Olympics and shows how the political upheaval of the 20th and 21st centuries has impacted on the Games". Instead we got a mish-mash of archive clips, a potted history of the Games, a nod to some of the politics surrounding them, and a tale of how one chap's derring-do impacted on them. Read more... |
The Good Wife, Series 5, More4Thursday, 30 January 2014
The annual reappearance of The Good Wife is always a cause for celebration. Why they persistently park it in the twilight zone of More4 remains one of the enduring mysteries of our era, since it's one of the best shows on TV, but the only question that need concern us is: will season five be as good as the ones that came before? On the evidence of this opener, yes indeed, so much so that American critics have been hailing it as the best ever, Read more... |
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