With one right of passage (your first period) covered in the previous episode, we’re onto another: buying decent underwear. Germaine (Helen Monks) hopes the lingerie department will introduce her to a grown-up world of lace and frills. Matriarch Della, a romantic not given to romanticism, is more pragmatic. When you’re a teenager on an estate … >
‘La Couchette’ opens up the second season of Inside No. 9, and here you should stop reading if you haven’t seen the episode. A group of disparate characters have been shoved into a confined space, and they are not exactly ideal bedfellows. There’s a lot packed into what’s deceptively a gossamer-light plot involving a dead … >
The latest episode of Jimmy McGovern’s Banished once again raised some interesting issues, but again failed to capitalise on them by allowing any drama and tension mustered to dissipate almost immediately. Part of the problem is that, as Freeman discovered in this episode, the colony camp is a small canvas on which to paint. In … >
In a nice change of pace to the usual problem of insufficient resources and staff, this week the Critical trauma team has quite the opposite problem when they find themselves with too many doctors. More specifically, Lorraine Rapparport (the marvellous Claire Skinner) is back after her sudden disappearing act in the first episode. It turns … >
It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. It was the death rattle of a discredited Labour government and the birth of something monstrous: five days in 2010 that changed the country – not for the better. Some people voted in the general election but many did not; the old Prime … >
“It’s working, you’re making the team a unit,” says Fiona to Glen at the end of this week’s Critical. It’s probably as reckless a statement as saying, “See you back in Blighty” during a War film, and almost certainly next week the team will be disbanded, or will be fiercely at loggerheads with each other, … >
This first episode of Channel 4’s Raised by Wolves is a triumphantly confident opening to a series. Sure, there was a pilot last year, but that is in no way required viewing to get up to speed: it can be assumed that this episode wouldn’t have been much different even if it was the first … >
A snake in the grass. Now there’s a metaphor. Everyone tries to calm down a breathless Madeline at the open of this episode, but they all appear to be missing the fact that she’s having a whale of a time. After all, they are traipsing through the ruins of an erotic temple: a monument erected … >
A ‘Sale of The Century’ extravaganza throughout the store is the focus of this week’s episode. Pushed by his declaration to give the shareholders a much higher return on their investment, Harry bulk buys products to boost profits. However, the decision does not go down well with the local press, other retailers or the Selfridges … >
No time for verbal innuendo this week: Poldark’s getting straight down to business. Ross Poldark’s Kickstarter copper mine is finally up and running, take that, Margaret Thatcher. What’s that? The Iron Lady won’t be born for another one hundred and forty years? Typical sneaky Westminster tactics. Against the sneers of the bankers, Ross is defiantly … >