tv
Dogs: Their Secret Lives, Channel 4Tuesday, 15 October 2013
What the Dickens is happening to wildlife television? At the back end of all those Atttenborough films they have a segment in which they explain how they got the miracle money shot of the chorus line of orcas, the war ballet of the giraffes, the Saharan ant colony. Well, forget all that. Television appears to have decreed that, wildlife-wise, pets are the new black. Read more...
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Stephen Fry: Out There, BBC TwoTuesday, 15 October 2013
Respect and dignity, intolerance and hatred: the poles were set far apart in Stephen Fry: Out There. It’s good to have Fry the thoughtful presenter back – it’s been a long time since his The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive – on a subject close to his heart, how gay people are faring in various parts of the world. This first episode took us to Uganda and Los Angeles, while part two on Wednesday drops in on Brazil, Russia and India. Read more... |
Breathless, ITVFriday, 11 October 2013
Period dramas are all the rage, and you can imagine Breathless being plucked with forceps from a steaming cauldron in which bubbled Call the Midwife, The Hour, Mad Men, Heartbeat and inevitably a sprig of Downton, which couldn't hurt. Read more... |
Truckers, BBC OneFriday, 11 October 2013
In some ways Malachi Davies, one of the titular “truckers” in this new BBC comedy drama, brings to mind Frank Gallagher of Shameless. Admittedly Davies, played by Stephen Tompkinson, has a job - but it is a job that is as central to the identity of the character as Gallagher’s avoidance of one ever was. Read more... |
Dan Snow's History of Congo, BBC TwoThursday, 10 October 2013
Congo has been where European adventurers have for generations gone in search of fortune. Probably not making a fortune, historian Dan Snow, an affable, energetic sort, was keen to tell us about this vast country, the size of Western Europe and these days known as the Democratic Republic of Congo, previously Zaire, before that Belgian Congo. Read more... |
The Culture Show: Sylvie Guillem - Force of Nature, BBC TwoThursday, 10 October 2013
The ballerina Sylvie Guillem was always out on a limb, even when she was the classical star at the Royal Ballet in the '90s and early '00s. She was French, she was tall, she was unbelievably flexible, she was staggeringly charismatic, and she had no fear of setting her terms and saying “non” if they didn’t suit. Read more... |
Masters of Sex, Channel 4Wednesday, 09 October 2013
Sexual intercourse was, famously, invented in 1963. Before that, of course, babies were delivered by beak. So Channel 4’s Sex Season marks the golden jubilee for shaggers. Perhaps there should be bunting and pageantry throughout the land. Instead we’ve got the blank-firing Sex Box and, as of last night, Masters of Sex. Read more... |
Sex Box, Channel 4Tuesday, 08 October 2013
Sex in a box, in a nutshell. That was the concept. Not literally in a nutshell, as that might have been difficult. But a big white cuboid thing in a studio. Designed – this is an educated guess - by Ikea, being tacky and easily assembled. Couples enter the box and, with luck, each other, and then come and talk about it, in front of a panel of sexperts. What could possibly, in the United Kingdom of embarrassment and irony, go even slightly wrong? Read more... |
Homeland, Series 3, Channel 4Monday, 07 October 2013
Is this the real Homeland, or a different series with the same name? The original, and fascinating, hook for the show was the question of whether Marine Sergeant Brody had been brainwashed into becoming a fanatical jihadist during his years in captivity. Then came the story of Congressman Brody, a lethal sleeper agent at the very heart of the US administration. Read more... |
The Ottomans: Europe's Muslim Emperors, BBC TwoMonday, 07 October 2013
School kids today could probably tell you a thing or two about mummies in ancient Egypt, Romans and how they built straight roads and aqueducts, and possibly, at a stretch, even a few things about the British Empire. But the Ottoman Empire? Name me a sultan. Read more... |
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