Recent statistics have said that a child is reported missing every 5 minutes. It’s hard to know how to feel when you hear that; the numbers and scale are just too huge to comprehend. What BBC One’s new eight-part drama The Missing tries to do is bring that down to an individual level and focus … >
Intruders has a really solid conceptual foundation, a strong cast and a clear vision from X-Files writer and creator Glen Morgan, but nothing about the first two episodes makes it feel like unmissable television. It’s a little too overwrought, so relentless in its deployment of mythology that it barely takes a second to think about character. It’s hard to … >
Wizards vs Aliens makes a welcome return to CBBC with ‘The Secret Of Room 12’, the first two-part adventure of the show’s third season, penned by co-creator Phil Ford. Our story begins (after a teaser in which sinister forces cause an innocent teacher to make a mess of his shirt) with a report on What … >
Mr. Bates didn’t do it! What a relief. His search for Anna’s button box turns up Lady Mary’s contraceptive device and instruction manual instead, and he assumes that Anna thinks he murdered Mr. Green and has been trying to prevent a pregnancy. Accusations ensue and they finally hash it all out. Everything appears rosy until … >
Well, you might complain about the result, but you can’t criticise Doctor Who for attempting something new. Branching out, even. You’ve got to keep things fresh and green somehow. And while potentially dangerous plant-life is nothing new to Who, (the Krynoids, Meglos, and the genit-alien Vervoids have created a veritable garden centre of horror) the … >
Jean-Luc Godard once said: ‘It’s not where you take things from, it’s where you take them to.’ Recent episodes of Doctor Who have demonstrated a raft of originality but also embraced much from the show’s past – yet whatever has been appropriated from the old days is always successfully synthesised into something fresh. The gothic … >
An aura of doom hangs over Episode 4 of Peaky Blinders. Or rather, over the characters in it. As a one hour-sized middle finger to your peaceful Thursday night, this show is in rude health. It’s rare that drama can so successfully crash into your living room and tell you to fuck off without courting … >
After a slightly lacklustre opener last week that promised more than it delivered, things are escalated on all levels as we see the consequences of the spreading fire. Having established all the necessary elements that the show will explore in the remaining episodes, we see more of what could make the show a stand out … >
We are now very nearly at the end of this season of Doctor Who; a 12-episode run that has split viewers as divisively as a politically-motivated calypso number. It feels like we have hardly gotten to know Peter Capaldi’s Doctor yet, but soon we’ll be at the two-part finale, having hardly gotten past the waspish … >
This week’s Glue is a straightforward, finely-scripted, hour of youth angst: a love triangle (usually the most boring of romanti-sexual shapes) made interesting because of our understanding of the characters. Glue hasn’t always been the fastest moving murder mystery on our screens, but in taking its time it has created characters that are easy to … >