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It’s an indication of how engrossing Critical is that despite my squeamishness with regard to medical matters I’m finding it compulsive viewing. In fact during this week’s episode I found myself delighted to focus on the exposed chest cavity of the patient – mainly because it allowed me to divert my attention away from the … >
With great economy, the second episode of Critical sets about bringing the show’s wide cast of characters to life. It’s not easy task in a programme set in ‘real time’ (or “The Golden Hour” as one of the characters labels it), but it’s an impressive demonstration of the old adage of ‘show not tell’. The … >
The modern era of Doctor Who has rightly been praised for bringing a greater depth to the show, along with a wealth of technology that would itself have seemed the stuff of science-fiction when the show originally began. But it would be wrong not to point out that, actually, some of the ‘new’ things the … >
At the start of Critical’s first episode, an air ambulance helicopter comes in to land on the rooftop helipad of a building called General Hospital. However, any suggestion that this familiar name brings with it the comfortable ‘doctor/nurse romance’ territory of the afternoon soap is promptly expelled as the anonymous patient-of-the-week projectile vomits a spray … >
This most recent (and sadly final) run of Foyle’s War has made excellent and appropriate use of its 1946 setting. Links to the Nuremberg trials in ‘High Castle’ and to the King David Hotel attack in ‘Trespass’ are both of their time. It would have been easy to give us generic crimes in a nostalgic … >
‘Trespass’, the second episode in the new run of Foyle’s War, begins with British soldiers assaulting and arresting a Jewish settler in Palestine. This sets the theme right from the off for a story that involves the Middle East peace process, acts of terrorism, and a controversial ‘fringe’ political figure stirring up anti-immigrant feeling amongst … >
Less than five minutes into ‘Hard Castle’, and what turns out to be the address of the murderer is found on a scrap of paper on the body of a dead Professor. It’s a rather convenient plot device, but having got it out of the way early on it allows Anthony Horowitz to present us … >
The final Grantchester flashes back to the initial post-war encounter between Sidney and Amanda that began their current relationship; and it ends with Sidney and Geordie, two slightly battered heroes, walking through a sunny afternoon into the future. Between those two extremes, the crime of the week recalls the horrors of the War and asks … >
TV detective dramas usually reinvent their world each week, so that other than the detectives themselves there is no connection from one story to another. With its star-crossed lovers and its ‘domestic’ elements, Grantchester has already set itself out as something a little different. This week we’re away from the village itself and instead find … >
Can it really be twenty years since The Vicar of Dibley first appeared on our screens? No no no no no no – yes! Yes, it can, with the first episode having aired in November 1994. Not perhaps the most prolific of shows (20 years on, we’ve only had 20 episodes, the last in 2007) … >