Something that seems to connect a lot of Peter Davison era Doctor Who is some reasonably intelligent, grown-up science fiction, a surprising amount of guest stars, and an equally surprising lack of the Doctor himself.
ITV1’s new female-led detective series, starring Suranne Jones and Lesley Sharp as Rachel Bailey and Janet Scott, detective constables in the Manchester Metropolitan police, promises a great deal but – on the evidence of this opening hour, at least – delivers very little.
Now that it’s been firmly established that more people than you might have expected survived the events at the end of Series 1, things are settling into the routine (well, as routine as it ever gets around here) of ensuring that this time round, no-one is safe from a grisly dispatch.
The principal problem with The Shadow Line is its identity crisis. At times, it’s a fascinating noir-ish thriller; at others, it feels like an unwieldy Shakespearian melodrama that has somehow lost its way en route to the RSC and found itself on the telly instead.
If you grew up any-time between the late sixties and the early nineties, the chances are you may remember a curious clutch of kitsch science fiction shows under the stable of the prolific TV and film producer Irwin Allen. No? Well, how about the names Lost In Space, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea and this release, Land Of The Giants?
There was a time when all live-action UK children’s TV shows were faintly disturbing with an oddly melancholic synth score. Or, at least from the success of ITV’s T-Bag, you could draw this conclusion.
It’s odd to see how much both Auton stories have dated in the past few years. Not since they were first screened, but in the last six years, since the return of the series. The reason for this is that both stories try terribly hard to be ultra-modern.
It’s arguable that (controversial claim, this) Doctor Who as we know it didn’t really start until 1970’s ‘Spearhead From Space’, here re-released as a Special Edition along with the following year’s ‘Terror Of The Autons’.
As many of you will know, this is one of the episodes fandom has been awaiting with some internet-beating excitement. The very notion of a Neil Gaiman Doctor Who story seems so perfect that we wonder why it’s taken just so long for this union to happen.
After six scintillating Saturdays’ worth of murder, mayhem and malheur, French crime drama Spiral concludes with a double-bill that untangles the criss-crossing cat’s cradle of storylines and brings the series to a grim but gripping conclusion.