So, 350 years after London burned down when a fire began in a bakers, things heat up in the Bake Off tent. The contestants have a (bakers) dozen problems, but a brioche ain’t one. It’s Bread Week, and as Paul sombrely tells us, the Star Baker of Bread Week has always gone on to the … >
I kind of wish the writers of Victoria weren’t so keen to remind us at every turn that the queen and the insufferable Albert (Tom Hughes) are cousins. We get it; they didn’t think it was weird back then. But it’s creepy. So creepy. Historical fact be damned, Vic, don’t marry that dude! He’s your … >
Ross Poldark likes to think of himself as a man of the people. But here’s the 64,000 Shilling question Poldark poses to us this week: can Ross really trust ‘the people’? Well, he can’t trust the viewing people. Half of them are watching Victoria on ITV. And before you start, that’s no bad thing at … >
The opening salvo in the BBC’s landmark Sitcom Season sees Benidorm creator Derren Litten take on Croft and Lloyd’s department store classic Are You Being Served?, with a new episode set just a few years after the original closed its doors. Right from the start, you can tell that this is a revival written very … >
Home from Home is BBC Two’s second offering in its ongoing season of sitcom pilots. Johnny Vegas and Joanna Page buy a rundown holiday home in the Lake District and have a difficult first day with their well-off neighbours Adam James and Emilia Fox. A promising set-up with the possibility of some good class-based humour … >
BBC One’s army drama Our Girl returned to our screens for a second season tonight. With previous lead Lacey Turner now replaced by Ordinary Lies star Michelle Keegan, can the show survive with such a distinct change? In many ways it is exactly the same show, with writer Tony Grounds’ writing reflecting the everyday lives of … >
If there’s one good aspect to Fear the Walking Dead’s perennial inconsistency, it’s that a particular low-point is usually followed up by a rebound of some kind. ‘Do Not Disturb’ isn’t a significant uptick in quality from the disappointing blandness of the risk-free storytelling of ‘Los Muertos’, but it’s packed with enough tangible promise and … >
The first of BBC Four’s three recreations of lost sitcom episodes sees The Fast Show’s Simon Day take on Britain’s favourite bigot Alf Garnett in a performance of Till Death Us Do Part’s 1967 episode ‘A Woman’s Place Is In The Home’. And it being a near word-for-word rendition of the original script is what … >
As expected, the penultimate part of BBC One’s One of Us really kicks things up a gear. Several times before the close of Episode 3 I found myself thinking that this, surely, must be the end: the police arriving at the funeral! Both families taken into custody! Rob’s confession! When it comes, the cliffhanger is … >
Week 2 in the Bake Off tent, and the remaining contestants have to risk it with their biscuits to have a chance of winning the title of Star Baker. Val is currently indestructible, even if her bakes are not, while Tom and Michael are both coming across like the kind of young men who never survive … >