tv
Californication, FiverThursday, 29 July 2010
This award-winning series, created by Tom Kapinos in 2007, is groundbreaking television even by Showtime’s daring standards. Californication is a dark - very dark - comedy drama about Hank Moody (David Duchovny), a bad-boy writer who has lost his literary mojo, but absolutely not his mojo mojo, as it were; it has nudity a-gogo, frequent sex scenes, recreational drug-taking and frank discussion of sexual matters. Read more... |
The Men Who Jump Off Buildings, Channel 4Wednesday, 28 July 2010
There may be many benefits to living at the top of the Erno Goldfinger-designed Trellick Tower in north Kensington – the extensive views across London, perhaps, or the knowledge that one is inhabiting an iconic example of Brutalist architecture. Less obvious is the chance to earn a quick 50 quid for allowing Dan Witchalls to jump off your balcony. Read more... |
Better Off Ted, FXTuesday, 27 July 2010
And first the bad news. The ABC network in the States has already declared Better Off Ted dead, after a paltry two seasons. Which is a pity, since acerbic, mildly surreal satires about the workings of corporate America don’t come along very often. Read more... |
Who Do You Think You Are? - Rupert Everett, BBC OneTuesday, 27 July 2010
Rupert Everett knows who he is: he is English, he’s a toff and he’s a poof, thank you very much. And that’s just about all you need to know to tell you that, as a breed, they’re pretty damned sure of themselves, these English toffs, poofs or not. But he’s also a pretty memorable actor. Yes, really. Let me try to convince you. Read more... |
Sherlock, BBC OneSunday, 25 July 2010
There was a risk that this new take on the indestructible sleuth of Baker Street might be smothered at birth by a dust-storm of pre-publicity, with coverage stretching from the tabloids to Andrew Marr (who really seems to believe he's an arts correspondent, and not just Alfred E Neuman's long-lost twin brother). Read more... |
Amish: World's Squarest Teenagers, Channel 4Sunday, 25 July 2010
Where can or will television’s thirst for tabloid anthropology fetch up? In previous tribal exchanges, wives have been swapped, geeks have gone to babe school, thugs to boot camp, WAGs to townships, Papua New Guineans to the big smoke. Posh girls have lately been parachuted into Peckham. Read more... |
Would I Lie to You? BBC OneFriday, 23 July 2010
The fact that we humans are, technically speaking, bad liars proves that we are instinctively moral creatures (rather than getting our morals from our god or our parents) and that lying is therefore, evolutionarily speaking, probably a bad idea. You can get away with saying you were caught in traffic, rather than admitting you were in the pub, but a polygraph will pick up on changes in blood pressure, pulse and respiration - those indicators of anxiety you’d rather not be feeling - and your... Read more... |
The Hotel Inspector, FiveFriday, 23 July 2010
I stayed in a frightful hotel in Plymouth once. Decrepit rooms, filthy windows, potentially fatal cuisine, sinister staff… By contrast, that same city’s Astor Hotel looked quite pleasant, though not if you were viewing it through the gimlet eyes of Alex Polizzi. Nothing that met her gaze was adequate. The décor was too kitschy and flowery and old-fashioned. The carpets were disgusting, the walls stained and peeling, the lobby too gloomy to contemplate. The establishment’s habit of equipping... Read more... |
Britain by Bike/ Britain Goes Camping, BBC FourWednesday, 21 July 2010
Themed seasons are often the invention of programmers who have run out of ideas; they string together loosely related output under a cleverly non-specific season title when any old dross gathering dust in the cupboard is given an airing. So I read the notes of BBC’s The Call of the Wild season - with its mix of repeats and new material, and the dread phrases “the great British love affair with the countryside”, “nostalgic exploration” and “a light-hearted look at”- with a sinking... Read more... |
The Fairy Jobmother, Channel 4Wednesday, 21 July 2010
No-nonsense Hayley Taylor is to the terminally unemployed what Jo Frost, aka Supernanny, is to the attention-seeking, tantrum-prone pre-schooler – but without the naughty step. In this reality three-parter she attempts to do what whole governments have so far failed to: to get members of the long-term, unskilled unemployed (what some might unkindly term the "Jeremy Kyle generation" – aka the underclass) back into the labour market. This she attempts to do, not by sprinkling magic Fairy... Read more... |
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