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Happy Valley, BBC One

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 30 April 2014

There is no one writing more brilliantly for television at the moment. Sally Wainwright’s star has risen on the back of two hugely popular series that, more or less cheerfully, celebrate women of a certain age.

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Prey, ITV

Adam Sweeting Tuesday, 29 April 2014

"Policeman wrongly accused of murder" is possibly not history's most original story idea, but in Prey, writer (and TV debutant) Chris Lunt has turned it into a platform for a skilfully-controlled thriller that keeps your brow sweaty and your breath coming in short panicky gasps. It's greatly assisted by having John Simm playing the lead role of Manchester-based DS Marcus Farrow, since there's nobody better when you want a bit of earthy-but-sincere, with added soulfulness.

Hinterland, BBC Four / Rev, Series 3 Finale, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 29 April 2014

We have all learned to genuflect at the altar of Nordic noir in recent years – see The Tunnel, the Anglo-French remake of The Bridge, and the American Killing, not to mention the news that Borgen creator Adam Price and Michael House of Cards Dobbs are to collaborate. But the traffic is not entirely one-way.

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Vera, Series 4, ITV

Andy Plaice Sunday, 27 April 2014

She drinks beer, drives a Land Rover and can never remember the names of her sidekick’s wife and daughter: welcome to the offbeat world of Vera Stanhope, deliciously imagined by writer Ann Cleeves and actor Brenda Blethyn. ITV’s Sunday night cop show-by-the sea, Vera, is back with a fourth series which will be welcome news for a loyal few million viewers and for the people who like to sell Northumberland as a tourist attraction.

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Generation War, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Sunday, 27 April 2014

This German-made drama about World War Two scored huge ratings when it was shown in its homeland last year, but has also prompted scathing criticism. Chiefly, its detractors don't buy the series' portrayal of five photogenic young German friends as largely innocent victims of Nazism. Some are also outraged by the way Poles are shown to be even more anti-semitic than the Nazis, though that didn't occur in this first episode, A Different Time.

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Jamaica Inn, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 23 April 2014

"Oi felt a darrrkness creepin' overrr me," said Mary Yellan's voice-over as we launched into the second night of the BBC's festival of contraband, squalor and smuggling. Mary, ensconced in the stygian titular dwelling on Bodmin Moor with her subhuman uncle and cowering aunt, had been having another of her nightmares about drowning, flailing helplessly as towering green waves crashed over her. "Whateverr innocence oi 'ad left would soon be lorst," Mary lamented.

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Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This, ITV

Veronica Lee Tuesday, 22 April 2014

Comedians offer rich pickings to dramatists – whether they fall into the crying clown category, or the nice bloke on stage and complete arse off it, or the side-splittingly funny performer who is as boring as watching paint dry in real life. So no surprise then that Tommy Cooper (1921-1984) is the latest funny man to get a television biopic, following in the wake of Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd and Hattie Jacques.

Fargo, Channel 4

Adam Sweeting Monday, 21 April 2014

There's always room on top for another TV anti-hero. After Tony Soprano, Breaking Bad's Walter White and Mad Men's fatally flawed Don Draper, here's Martin Freeman as Fargo's Lester Nygaard, a downtrodden failure of a husband as well as a second-rate insurance salesman. It could have been worse - they could have made him a journalist or an estate agent.

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Messiah at the Foundling Hospital, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Sunday, 20 April 2014

The last time the BBC dramatised the creation of a great musical work, it didn’t quite hit the spot. Eroica starred Ian Hart as Beethoven glowering at the heart of a drama which had rather less of a narrative through-line than the symphony it honoured. For Messiah at the Foundling Hospital, the BBC have gone to the other extreme and kept eggs out of the one basket.

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Watermen: A Dirty Business, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 16 April 2014

It’s a misnomer, of course. Water. It’s not even a prissy misnomer as in “when did you last pass water?” It’s more categorical than that: solids rather than liquids are our subject here. This is essentially a show about shit. Shit and all who sail in her.