TV
Inside the Secret World of Incels, BBC One review - involuntary celibacy, violence and despairThursday, 01 August 2019
A sad story of lonely men, Simon Rawles's atmospheric and beautifully shot documentary has no narration, apart from the occasional faint, off-camera question from the interviewer. This makes everything more depressing. We’re alone on a nightmare... Read more... |
The Chef's Brigade, BBC Two review - you're in the army nowWednesday, 31 July 2019
While a spot of home cooking can be a relaxing experience with a nice meal at the end of it, signing up to this culinary campaign with Michelin-starred mega-chef Jason Atherton is like being sent off to join the Foreign Legion. The plan is that... Read more... |
Manifest, Sky 1 review - late arrival causes cosmic upheavalWednesday, 31 July 2019
It’s been nearly a decade since the sixth and final series of Lost, JJ Abrams’s baffling odyssey of time-travelling air crash survivors, but judging by Manifest, its influence still hovers over TV-land. Produced by (among others) film director... Read more... |
Who Do You Think You Are? - Naomie Harris, BBC One review - shocks old and newTuesday, 30 July 2019
This episode of the celebrity genealogy show began with footage of Naomie Harris at Ian Fleming's former home in Jamaica, where she was helping launch Bond 25 (to be released next year), in which she is playing Moneypenny for the third time. It was... Read more... |
Cindy Sherman: #untitled, BBC Four review - portrait of an enigmaMonday, 29 July 2019
Cindy Sherman predicted the selfie, so goes the claim. From our current standpoint, it is all too easy to analyse her many hundreds of photographic self-portraits made since the late 1970s as cultural forebears of the digital medium. What this BBC... Read more... |
Keeping Faith, Series 2, BBC One review - family misfortunesWednesday, 24 July 2019
It was a year ago that BBC One scored a smash hit with the first series of Keeping Faith, but as series two opens 18 months have passed since Faith Howells’s husband Evan (Bradley Freegard) disappeared and triggered a traumatic chain reaction of... Read more... |
I Am Nicola, Channel 4 review - not really love, actuallyWednesday, 24 July 2019
It’s a bold idea by director Dominic Savage, to create three improvised dramas for Channel 4 depicting women confronting different forms of crisis. To make it work he needed brave and powerful performers, and this first one starred Vicky McClure (... Read more... |
The Day We Walked on the Moon, ITV review - it was 50 years ago to the dayWednesday, 17 July 2019
It was on 16 July 1969 that Apollo 11 lifted off from Florida en route for the Moon, and exactly 50 years later, as we nervously anticipate the dawn of commercial flights into space, the event resonates louder than ever. Here, Professor Brian Cox... Read more... |
Inside the Social Network: Facebook's Difficult Year, BBC Two review - how big can it get?Wednesday, 17 July 2019
Not everybody is on Facebook, yet. So far, Mark Zuckerberg’s social media monolith has only managed to scrape together about 2.3 billion users, roughly one-third of the planet. But as this fascinating documentary revealed, Facebook’s plans are huge... Read more... |
8 Days: To the Moon and Back, BBC Two review - intimate peek at life in lunar capsuleThursday, 11 July 2019
The Apollo 11 mission remains the most celebrated journey humanity has ever made. It produced some of our most iconic images, as well as the greatest speech gaffe, and a documentary of epic scale could be made that focused solely on the influence it... Read more... |
Charles I: Downfall of a King, BBC Four review - beheaded monarch upstaged by exotic presenterWednesday, 10 July 2019
“I want to discover how our government could fall apart and the country become bitterly divided in just a few weeks,” historian Lisa Hilton announced at the start of her BBC Four account of the traumatic demise of Charles I. In a mere 50 days in... Read more... |
Cyclists: Scourge of the Streets?, Channel 5 review - can we make the roads a safer place?Wednesday, 10 July 2019
Healthy, efficient and carbon-neutral, cycling ought to be a transport panacea. But in the dash for lycra, perhaps not enough attention has been paid to letting bikes and motor vehicles co-exist peacefully. This deliberately provocative Channel 5... Read more... |
