After a bit of blip with the slightly underwhelming Home From Home, BBC Two’s run of sitcom pilots hits back with a vengeance in the form of Our Ex-Wife. A sitcom starring Robert Webb and Victoria Hamilton as divorced parents of two Jack and Hillary, who have built a successful divorce on hate and seeing … >
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 … >