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In the build-up to its airing, everyone seems very quick to try and stick a label on Glue, E4’s new countryside-homicide youth drama. Chances are that when you first heard about the show it was in the vicinity of the sentence ‘it’s the new Skins‘. Jordan Stephens of Rizzle Kicks, who plays high-seeking Rob, called … >
Clara Oswald’s on a first date with Danny Pink. It’s maybe the most important date in all of Time and Space. More important even than 26/06/10. Or maybe it’s not. Or maybe it’s simultaneously significant and inconsequential. Just like how the episode that it’s centred around is all at once a good story told well … >
In trying to apply meaning to what’s just a very good family drama, it’s all too easy to over-analyse and get pretentious when reviewing Doctor Who. Especially when the show takes itself too seriously. But there’s no chance of that this week. Barely have we stepped two minutes outside the TARDIS and into Robin Hood … >
Any of the fuddiest of duddies who say kids’ TV is in a doldrums of creativity and talent should head over to CBBC these days. Aside from a criminal lack of Gordon the Gopher, the channel has been on strong form of late, with a roster of drama and comedy including Wolfblood, Wizards vs Aliens, Harriet’s … >
The Internet collectively praised Peter Capaldi’s portrayal of the Doctor last week – so much so that if you Google his name now your computer makes a little trumpet cheer and ejects a puff of glittery confetti – but the truth is we really don’t know who Twelve is yet. And neither does the Doctor. … >
Sir Roger Moore jokingly admits that he wanted to call this book ‘One Lucky Bastard’, but his publishers tutted, so it’s called Last Man Standing instead. There’s a poignancy to that title. As Moore admits, almost everyone he regales us with tales of is dead. He’s the one lucky bastard left to put pen to … >
It’s the Trigger’s Broom Conundrum: is it still your favourite old broom if its handle and head have been replaced? How much can you change a thing before it’s no longer the thing it was originally was? The dozenth Doctor understands the principle all too well. He is the new broom. Different body, different head, … >
Utopia’s second season shut up shop in deliberately ambiguous fashion, as you probably suspected it would, leaving enough dangling plot threads and questions to cats-cradle into a third season. That’s if the show gets one. Writer Dennis Kelly may have plans for a third and fourth season, but ratings for the show have been disappointing, … >
If recent weeks have taught us anything, Humanity’s big fear isn’t terrorism or nuclear war. It’s getting sick. Ebola is the latest spectre. Before that it was SARS, Swine Flu, Avian Flu. We’re terrified of our demise being delivered by a sneeze. We fear sickness, because we fear a lack of control. We like to … >
Before I jabbed at it on iPlayer out of sheer curiosity I had never heard of CBBC’s Strange Hill High. Nor had anyone else I knew. Which makes sense because we’re adults and are apparently meant to be watching Melvyn Bragg or Pathé newsreels, not the neon sugar fun of shows aired at four in … >