tue 28/11/2023

tv

Daisy Jones & The 6, Amazon Prime review - hit rock'n'roll novel doesn't make great TV

Adam Sweeting

Based on the bestselling novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six is the rags-to-riches-to-wreckage story of the titular Seventies rock band, supposedly somewhat based on Fleetwood Mac.

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Liaison, Apple TV+ review - tangly Franglais thriller presses some hot buttons

Adam Sweeting

Vive l’entente cordiale! “Despite Brexit” (as the BBC likes to say), Apple TV+ has successfully bridged the Channel to create this lurid Anglo-French thriller, in which Euro-skulduggery rubs shoulders with bribery, corruption and high treason.

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Fleishman Is in Trouble, Disney+ review - mid-life crises in Manhattan

Helen Hawkins

As films and television series based in New York City tend to do, Fleishman Is in Trouble opens with an aerial shot of Manhattan – except, significantly, this sequence is presented upside down.

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Drive to Survive, Season 5, Netflix review - fly-on-the wall F1 show may need a reboot

Adam Sweeting

The backstage revelations about the politics and personalities that fuel Formula One have made Drive to Survive one of Netflix’s most reliable bestsellers, but on this fifth outing there’s a lurking sense that the novelty is wearing off.

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The Gold, BBC One review - gripping dramatisation of the 1983 Brink's-Mat bullion robbery

Adam Sweeting

The raid on the Brink’s-Mat warehouse at Heathrow in November 1983 has entered the folklore of British crime and criminology. The gang of six armed robbers had expected to find £3m in cash, but instead got away with £26m worth of gold bullion. The story of what happened to the loot, the thieves and their associates remains at least partially swathed in mystery to this day.

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Fauda, Season 4, Netflix review - Israeli terrorism thriller gets darker and dirtier

Adam Sweeting

Bald, barrel-shaped and pugnacious, Doron Kavillio (Lior Raz) could have been conceived as the anti-Bond or the un-Ethan Hunt. But as action heroes go, Doron can mix it with the finest as he tracks down terrorists with his comrades in Israel’s Mista’arvim Special Forces team.

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Women at War, Netflix review - contrasting stories entwine during the chaos of World War One

Adam Sweeting

A sprawling French-made drama set in the early days of the First World War in 1914, Women at War tells the stories of a quartet of female protagonists as they struggle to make sense of the mayhem which suddenly engulfs them.

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Stewart, Sky Documentaries review - touching and insightful portrait of Scottish race ace

Adam Sweeting

“Stupid, dumb and thick” was how Jackie Stewart felt he was characterised at school in Dunbartonshire, and it wasn’t until he was 43 that he was diagnosed as being severely dyslexic. By that time he’d won the Formula One World Championship three times, become a popular sports commentator for ABC television and thrown himself into the role of globe-trotting ambassador for the Ford Motor Company.

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Happy Valley, Series 3, BBC One review - tension mounts as the Yorkshire crime drama approaches its conclusion

Adam Sweeting

In this glittering era of global streaming, the viewer is constantly bombarded with the latest and most sensational TV drama from South Korea, Australia, Denmark, California etcetera. But Huddersfield’s own Sally Wainwright continues to show most of the competition a clean pair of heels.

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Stonehouse, ITV review - history repeats itself as farce

Adam Sweeting

A disclaimer in the opening credits confessed that some scenes in this three-part history of disgraced Labour MP John Stonehouse had been “imagined for dramatic purposes”, but there was no need. The man’s life story fell comfortably into the “you couldn’t make it up” zone, and there wasn’t really much that screenwriter John Preston needed to add.

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