In the second episode of the new season, Call the Midwife doesn’t slow down as new midwife Phyllis Crane (Linda Bassett) is added to the staff at Nonnatus House. And, if you found last week’s tale of child neglect heart-wrenchingly sad, this week’s main story somehow takes the pain and misery up another notch. To say that the experiences … >
This final Early Adventure of the first run uses one of Doctor Who’s most short lived line-ups; that of the First Doctor, Steven and Sara Kingdom. Without getting unduly mired in continuity, it is easy to pinpoint where this story is set as Sara only participated in one story, the twelve-part epic The Daleks’ Master … >
Russell T Davies’ new E4 series Banana explodes into the world with a slice of life that’s sweet and funny – so much so that at least twice, I laughed so loudly that I may have alarmed the neighbours. The episode’s hero is Dean (played by the stunningly brilliant Fisayo Akinade) audaciously sexual – soon … >
Love is a key theme in tonight’s Death in Paradise, both with the central characters in the show and as the motive behind this week’s murder mystery. When the group leader of an historical re-enactment society (Adrian Lukis) is killed from a deadly dose of poisonous herbs he ingested, D.I. Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall) and … >
The opening scene of Cucumber sets out writer Russell T Davies’s stall. Taking Carry On level innuendo up several notches for the Tinder, Omegle and Grindr generation, if you don’t like brazenly suggestive shots of cucumbers, bananas and men in tight jeans, then you’re in the wrong place. As middle-aged Henry (Vincent Franklin) walks around his … >
Hilary Mantel’s pair of bestsellers, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies have been conflated into a new six-part drama for BBC Two. ‘Sumptuous’ is a somewhat overused phrase for these sorts of things, but it’s a fair description of at least this first episode, ‘Three Card Trick’, which introduces us to Thomas Cromwell at … >
The third release in the Early Adventures range slides slightly further down the programme’s timeline to reunite the TARDIS team of Steven and Vicki. Set around the start of the third season, with Vicki name-checking Chumblies from ‘Galaxy 4’, ‘The Bounty of Ceres’ finds them arriving in humanity’s near future. The story begins on board … >
The third episode of Broadchurch’s second season loses a little of its momentum after two rollercoaster weeks of secrets, lies and revelations. However, while its pace and tone falter slightly, it remains an excellent showcase for the talented Olivia Colman. “Claire, if there’s something about you and Lee, something about Sandbrook that you haven’t told … >
This most recent (and sadly final) run of Foyle’s War has made excellent and appropriate use of its 1946 setting. Links to the Nuremberg trials in ‘High Castle’ and to the King David Hotel attack in ‘Trespass’ are both of their time. It would have been easy to give us generic crimes in a nostalgic … >
Last Tango in Halifax is always a dramatic event, but tonight’s episode was subdued on the dramatic highs and lows, and rightly so. Beautifully held at a sensitive, calm, level this dysfunctional family, and its’ many off shoots, pulled together to be there for each other, in their own unique ways. We were left hanging … >