tv
Rex Appeal, BBC FourThursday, 29 September 2011
Dinosaurs. Even just seeing that word takes me back to a letter my seven-year-old self wrote to Blue Peter humbly begging them for “More dinosaws pleez”. Back then, a sighting of these lumbering beasts on TV or at the movies was a rare and thrilling thing. But ever since Jurassic Park (and the fact they can be conjured up with relative CGI ease) we’ve been overrun by the things. Read more... |
Cinema Verite, Sky AtlanticWednesday, 28 September 2011
The 1973 series An American Family is often referred to as television's first reality show, though comparing it to Big Brother or the Kardashians would be like slotting Ingmar Bergman alongside the CBeebies. Its 12 episodes were boiled down from 300-odd hours of observational footage of the Loud family, of Santa Barbara, California, at work, rest and play. Read more... |
This is Jinsy, Sky AtlanticTuesday, 27 September 2011
Excepting the cows, Guernsey’s most famous resident was probably Oliver Reed, who lived there as a tax exile. The barmy This is Jinsy, the creation of Guernsey natives Chris Bran and Justin Chubb, probably isn’t a faithful depiction of the island’s life, but it’s got to be its most notable cultural export. If not that, then its most curious. Read more... |
Fry's Planet Word, BBC TwoMonday, 26 September 2011
Language is, the sages tell us, intrinsic to being human. Or to what humans call “being human”, anyway. And yet, notwithstanding the 70-odd muscles and half a billion brain cells deployed every time we open our mouths, we hardly give the matter a second thought. Read more... |
Educating Essex, Channel 4Friday, 23 September 2011
Education, education, education. Have we ever worried so much about how, and what, and why, and where our children are being taught? We’re so desperate, it seems, for some guidance on the matter that we barely raise an eyebrow about turning their trials and tribulations into fodder for reality television. Never mind the dubious ethics, we might learn something. Read more... |
Fresh Meat, Channel 4Thursday, 22 September 2011
How could you not immediately warm to a new comedy series that has almost as its first line, “Maybe you should tuck your cock away while I make us a nice cup of tea”? Read more... |
The Great British Bake Off, BBC TwoWednesday, 21 September 2011
Baking and competition are two of my favourite things, thus when BBC Two unveiled The Great British Bake Off last year, it seemed my gluttonous, pugnacious prayers had been fulfilled. Amateurs had every possible skill challenged by the good-cop-bad-cop combination of master bakers Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood, leavened (or leadened) by ever-quirky presenters Mel and Sue. (I will avoid all recipe-related puns henceforth, I promise.) Read more... |
Spooks, Series 10, BBC OneMonday, 19 September 2011
Am I being paranoid, or are there spies everywhere these days? A quick squiz at the telly guide recently, and you'd have been forgiven for thinking that everyone in London is either employed in the security services or in making films about them. According to last night's re-opening of the Spooks case-file, anyway, there are plenty around the red-brick side-streets of Hammersmith. Read more... |
Downton Abbey, Series 2, ITV1Monday, 19 September 2011
And now for that difficult second album. Downton Abbey’s stately progress last autumn revived in television audiences a taste thought long dead: for populist drama offering a sepia-tinted vision of the English class system in which the well-to-do are dressed for dinner by bowing/curtsying feudal underlings. With social mobility back roughly where it was a century ago. it could almost have been a snapshot of modern UK plc. Read more... |
Misfits: Vegas Baby!, 4oDThursday, 15 September 2011
Question. How do you kill off a TV character whom, just a few episodes ago, you and your fellow scriptwriters went out of your way to render immortal? How… and why? Read more... |
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