The Returned – that show you were persuading everyone to ‘never mind the subtitles and give a go’ back in the summer of 2013 – has finally clambered out for its long-awaited second season. Full marks if you can remember what happened in the first season’s finale. Even after being eyes-deep in the first run, … >
The finale begins with Judy out on a run and being overtaken by a young man who shouts back “Keep up grandma”. Despite only turning forty, Judy is feeling her age! Meanwhile, at Leo’s house, Pam and Tony are busy wrapping the valuables up in newspaper in preparation for the ‘surprise’ party. It’s obvious that … >
With Unforgotten, ITV aims to fill a Broadchurch sized slot in its autumn schedule. A six-part detective drama, the story starts with DI Cassie Hunt (Nicola Walker – Spooks, Last Tango in Halaifax) and DS Sunil ‘Sunny’ Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar – The Kumars) investigating a set of bones found beneath a cellar. As they try … >
As adultery drama Doctor Foster bows out this week it ironically gives us the best episode so far. Tightly constructed and with real tension, the five-part series ends on a high. Mike Bartlett’s theatrical background is put to more solid use in the confrontation scenes between Gemma (Suranne Jones) and Simon (Bertie Carvel) but especially … >
The opening titles montage for ‘One for Sorrow’ ends with a dead animal stuffed and returned to the approximation of life, as a masked Magpie is placed by the grave of a squirrel. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to cynically claim this as an appropriate metaphor for Lewis, the improbable spin-off where a … >
Doctor Who, in recent years, has been obsessed with prequels: most of them online and most of them very entertaining – although actually prologues. Here, however, we get the real deal: a partner episode to last week’s ghostly opener that deliberately spools back in time to explain how its events came about. This much you’ll … >
What a long emotional journey it’s been, seven years in the lives of nine young people growing up in England in the 1980s. This Is England has been criticized by many as to the accuracy of its portrayal of youth culture amidst this green and pleasant land, with the question “Is this England” having been … >
Episode 3 revolves around the happy occasion of the wedding of Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson. Mrs. Patmore and Anna are horrified over Mrs. Hughes’ choice of her brown “day dress” as her wedding gown. We agree. Mrs. Patmore goes all modern and springs into action, ordering a dress from a catalogue. When it arrives … >
There is a rule stating all reviews of The Go-Between have to quote the opening line: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” BBC One’s recent adaptation of L.P. Hartley’s novel follows form and begins with Jim Broadbent sat on a train, reminiscing about the year 1900, when he was a … >
There’s a lot that’s familiar about ‘Under the Lake’. Apart from the transmission time of course. Remember when Doctor Who was on at teatime? But that’s a conversation for a time, when you (I) don’t have jim-jams on. And it’s nothing to do with this week’s writer, Toby Whithouse. In fact, the later start, with … >