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First Cut: Double Lesson, Channel 4

Josh Spero Friday, 15 July 2011

If I'm being honest, I never saw the charm of Alan Bennett's Talking Heads. Too many quiet disappointments, too much capital-A Acting. They lacked naturalism in presentation and content, whereas Double Lesson, from Channel 4's First Cut series of quirky documentaries and quasi-documentaries, had naturalism to spare last night.

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Torchwood, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Thursday, 14 July 2011

The return of Russell T Davies’s second most famous creation arrives coated with a transatlantic sheen, courtesy of an injection of co-production money from the USA’s Starz cable network (home of Spartacus and Camelot). Happily, this has not obliterated the homegrown roots of the Doctor Who spin-off, since this opener cut fearlessly between portentous action scenes at CIA headquarters and a judicial execution in Kentucky to Cardiff city centre and...

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This World: Italy's Bloodiest Mafia, BBC Two

william Ward Wednesday, 13 July 2011

Programmes about Italian organised crime made by the foreign media are always hampered by the finnicky nature of the beast itself: there is so much background detail that needs to be staked out at the outset that your head is whirling from information overload. Like its mainstream political parties, high-street banks and national daily newspapers, Italy has three, four or five times as many of each as any other European country of similar size.

The Night Watch, BBC Two

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 12 July 2011

Sarah Waters’s highly praised novels have marched from the page to the screen with regimental regularity and no apparent sacrifice in quality. Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith, with their big Victorian brushstrokes, were built for television no less than Dickens is. With The Night Watch, adapted last night, her subject was still the love that dare not speak its name. But two things were different.

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British Masters, BBC Four/ The World's Most Expensive Paintings, BBC One

Fisun Güner Tuesday, 12 July 2011

James Fox: Ludicrous assertions about British Art

Does James Fox fancy himself as the Niall Ferguson of art history? I ask because clearly this latest addition to the growing pantheon of television art historians wants to do for British art what Ferguson sought to do for the British Empire. He wants us to stop apologising, and to admit that we’re simply the best, better than all the rest. And...

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The Killing, Channel 4

Kieron Tyler Friday, 08 July 2011

The leap from BBC Four to Channel 4 is more than the flick of a switch. Migrating from the BBC’s digital channel to its terrestrial broadcast has transformed the Danish noir drama Forbrydelsen. It's now in English. It’s become American. Copenhagen has been banished. The alchemist responsible is US TV network AMC.

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Luther, Series Finale, BBC One

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 06 July 2011

What a strange, shape-shifting thing Luther is. Storylines ebb and flow around Idris Elba's dauntingly huge central character like flotsam and debris borne along on a heaving swell, but the man himself wades imperiously through it all like the Colossus in an old Jason and the Argonauts movie. Gross professional misconduct, subterfuge and blatantly aiding and abetting criminal behaviour are all part of Luther's daily routine.

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Falling Skies, FX

howard Male Tuesday, 05 July 2011

The cast of 'Falling Skies' apparently lost in the Hammersmith tube station underpass

It’s ironic that we TV critics were only allowed one viewing of this new sci-fi series before having to pass judgment, because even those only casually acquainted with the genre will feel they’ve seen the like of this part-Spielberg-conceived space invasion series many times before anyway. In fact, I can imagine the heads of sci-fi geeks exploding Scanners-style as their brains overheat with the effort of trying quickly to reel off all the films referenced by either concept or...

Stolen, BBC One

Jasper Rees Sunday, 03 July 2011

Mainstream television drama has always shone a searching beam into the Stygian murk of society’s ills. But however laudable its campaigning credentials, a drama’s first duty to its audience is to work as drama. Cathy Come Home changed the public perception of homelessness, unemployment acquired a catchphrase in Boys from the Black Stuff, and institutional racism met its match in The Murder of Stephen Lawrence.

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Secrets of the Pop Song, BBC Two

Adam Sweeting Saturday, 02 July 2011

'Don't bore us, get to the chorus': Rufus Wainwright ponders the mysteries of the ballad

This hugely entertaining first instalment of a three-part investigation into what makes pop songs tick took as its theme "The Ballad", perhaps the most bomb-proof of pop's traditional forms. Mind you, the programme's definition of a ballad was pretty loose. For instance, I would say Sting's "Every Breath You Take" is merely medium-paced rather than a ballad. I'd just file Culture Club's "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me" under "Pop Song".