BBC Two’s run of new comedy pilots for its Sitcom Season starts with The Coopers Vs the Rest, a sitcom starring Paterson Joseph and Tanya Franks as Toby and Tess Cooper; the struggling parents to three adopted children. While it’s a solid first bat for a new sitcom, it’s not without its problems. Things pick up … >
I don’t envy our hero in this second episode of ITV’s Victoria, surrounded by unpleasant losers who all want her job, and who think they can exploit her because she’s wee. But if history is anything to go by, she’ll show them. A very exciting development, however, is the installation of gas in the palace – … >
ITV’s gorgeous new series, Victoria, begins when a young woman (Jenna Coleman – and it did take me a few minutes to adjust to the fact that her eyes aren’t normally that colour) wakes up to find herself queen, and does so with the grace and strength one would expect. The moment, it would seem, … >
It’s difficult to know why this new serving of Porridge was ever cooked up. The idea of a wisecracking Cockney criminal detained in a 21st century prison with a twitching Scottish disciplinarian warder keeping an eye on him sounds like a rejected sketch from a piss poor comedy series (like, say, The Kevin Bishop Show): … >
Casualty is 30. It’s a truly impressive achievement whichever way you look at it and of course the show decided to celebrate this milestone in the sort of style you could only expect from the world’s longest running medical-drama. Originally devised by Jeremy Brock and Paul Unwin in 1986, Casualty has evolved significantly over the … >
In 1956, one of the most popular shows in the UK made the jump from radio to television and cemented the situation comedy as one of the small screen’s most enduring genres. Hancock’s Half Hour wasn’t the earliest British sitcom, but it was the first to flourish. From the beginning, writers Ray Galton and Alan … >
It’s not easy to make a new TV crime drama stand out from the crowd. BBC One’s new four-part drama One of Us, from the creators of the channel’s 2014 hit The Missing, unfortunately suffers from being a bit like Broadchurch (the effect of a murder being as important as the crime itself) crossed with Shetland (a bleak stormy … >
Across its first 13 episodes, Fear the Walking Dead has continuously struggled to figure out just what kind of show it wants to be, and what aspects of the vast Walking Dead universe it wishes to explore in greater depth. The conclusion to Season 2A saw the show settle on something of an answer by … >
‘Karma’s been restored,’ says contestant Jane at one point, and it’s difficult to disagree. This week, The Great British Bake Off returns, and an exhausted nation falls hungrily on their screens, clutching their iPlayers to their chests, whispering to themselves ‘we’re alright, aren’t we? It’s all going to be alright.’ In savvy recognition of exactly … >
With this four-disc set, Big Finish brings to a close a sequence of stories beginning with the 2012 release The Adventure of the Perfidious Mariner. Over 13 discs (a single release and three box sets), writer Jonathan Barnes has woven a tale grand in concept yet readily accessible. Newcomers to Big Finish’s Sherlock Holmes range needs only … >