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 … >
Call the Midwife is happy with embracing change, as it has done many times over the years, and this episode is one that sets the tone for things as we move forward into the drama’s fourth season. Jenny Lee is now definitely not featuring at all save for her voiceover, and Cynthia isn’t even in the premiere. … >
Once again, the Musketeers find themselves embroiled in a mess of politics and things that go boom very loudly this week, as they are tasked with recovering the daughter of a former Spanish general in exchange for the secret to a highly powerful gunpowder, which could tip the political scales of Europe very heavily in … >
In the vein of the early Who’s more serious historical adventures, this full-bloodied tale brings the First Doctor, with Ian, Barbara and Vicki, to a dangerous England at the turn of the 15th Century. Only months prior to their arrival, the throne was snatched by Henry Bolingbroke, now crowned Henry IV, and his predecessor Richard … >
Settled in after last week’s dramatic opener, the Saint-Marie police are sent in to investigate the murder of a surfing instructor, who was killed by a gun he did not own, in a locked room from where the killer couldn’t have escaped. Death in Paradise packs in a lot this week, despite its easy pace: … >
Last Tango in Halifax plunged straight in to the lesbian wedding of the year, with a twist on the old clichéd ‘will they/ won’t they’ conundrum. There was no doubt as to whether Caroline and Kate would or wouldn’t, but would Celia get over her self-wallowing and go the wedding or would she stay at … >