TV
Rosemary's Baby, LifetimeTuesday, 18 November 2014
Polish director Agnieszka Holland is best known for two Holocaust films, both based on remarkable true stories: the 1990 Europa Europa and the 2011 release In Darkness. Here she tackles horror of the supernatural kind. This NBC two-parter is an... Read more... |
Dancing Cheek to Cheek, BBC FourTuesday, 18 November 2014
I am picturing a scene in BBC4’s highly fortified underground headquarters, a conversation between its mastermind-in-chief and a hapless minion. “What do we do well, Stanley?” “History documentaries, boss.” “And what do people, according to... Read more... |
The Fall, BBC Two / Babylon, Channel 4Friday, 14 November 2014
The first series of this creepy Belfast-set crime thriller generated a mixture of critical enthusiasm and revulsion for its voyeuristic scenes of the sadistic murder of women. This season two opener [****] didn't give us any more of the latter, but... Read more... |
Puppy Love, BBC FourFriday, 14 November 2014
Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine are two-thirds of the talented team (Jo Brand was the other) who brought us the excellent Getting On, now probably lost to UK screens after three series but which will appear in an American format next year. Now... Read more... |
Downton Abbey, Series 5 Finale, ITVMonday, 10 November 2014
On and on the stately galleon sails. The fifth wodge of Downton Abbey has been light on utter knuckle-gnawing preposterousness. Plots conjured up at random from thin air have been in slightly shorter supply than usual. The very worst you can say of... Read more... |
The Heart of Country – How Nashville Became Music City USA, BBC FourSaturday, 08 November 2014
It’s supposed to represent everything simple and homely, for a white audience at least, its tales of God, family and heartbreak the stuff of everyday America. For British listeners, more at home with “Parklife’s” dirty pigeons and cups of tea than... Read more... |
Life Story, BBC OneThursday, 06 November 2014
David Attenborough’s characteristically soothing narration again described the unceasing struggle for survival in the animal world. In astonishing films from all over the world, we witnessed an enormous variety of tactics for finding homes that... Read more... |
Broadmoor, ITVThursday, 06 November 2014
Broadmoor is not a prison. It just looks like one, as reiterated by umpteen craning shots which prowled around the Victorian red-brick exterior, assessing its brute institutional heft from every angle. For the first time, and after five years of... Read more... |
Great Continental Railway Journeys, BBC TwoThursday, 06 November 2014
How odd to recall that Michael Portillo was the Thatcherite brat they loved to hate, the man whose 1997 defeat at Enfield Southgate would have caused a Twitter meltdown had the 140-character phenomenon been invented in time. Today's repackaged... Read more... |
The Passing Bells, BBC OneTuesday, 04 November 2014
We seem to have spent most of 2014 examining the social, political, historical, geographical and military ramifications of the First World War. You would have thought, therefore, that the upcoming Remembrance Sunday commemorations could have been... Read more... |
The Missing, BBC OneWednesday, 29 October 2014
Given the long shadow cast by the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, it’s sort of surprising that no drama department has commissioned something like The Missing before. It’s not the same story of course. The child alluded to in the title is a five-... Read more... |
Imagine... The Art That Hitler Hated, BBC OneWednesday, 29 October 2014
Alan Yentob’s culture programme, Imagine, returned for its autumn season with a two-part examination of one of the most potently disturbing episodes in the history of art, let alone culture. Even before the programme’s title, masterpieces by such as... Read more... |
