Netflix
Style, wit and pace: Netflix’s Dept. Q reviewed
Can you imagine how dull a TV detective series set in a realistic Scottish police station would be? Inspector Salma…
Excruciating: Sirens reviewed
You had a narrow escape this week. I was about to urge you to watch Sirens, the latest iteration of…
If you are of a certain age, you’ll really enjoy Tina Fey’s The Four Seasons
The Four Seasons is one of those shows you notice in the ‘Top TV Programmes on Netflix’ section, see it’s…
Better than Hollywood: Netflix’s The Eternaut reviewed
‘Next time you do a review, you’ve got to find something you like. You’ve been far too negative,’ said the…
Our politicians find truth more painful than fiction
Do you remember the great Adolescence debate? It may feel like an age ago, but way back in March Netflix…
Confection of sex, bad history and nonsense: Apple TV+’s Carême reviewed
Antonin Carême was known as the ‘chef of kings and the king of chefs’. His patrons and employers included Talleyrand,…
Keir Starmer must look beyond adolescent politics
An industry poll by the British Film Institute in 2000 to find Britain’s best television programme put Fawlty Towers first…
Netflix’s Adolescence is seriously flawed
Bradley Walsh: Egypt’s Cosmic Code may sound like a pitch by Alan Partridge – but, impressively, the programme itself manages…
I’m warming to Meghan Markle – only joking
You know that urge when you’ve got friends coming for the weekend and you just have to spend the previous…
Not a complete waste of time: Netflix’s La Palma reviewed
Netflix is the television equivalent of pasta and ready-made pesto: a slightly desperate but acceptable enough stand-by when you’ve got…
Irritating but watchable: American Primeval reviewed
American Primeval should really be called Two Incredibly Annoying Women In The Wild West. Yes, the first title is more…
Top tosh: The Diplomat reviewed
The Diplomat bears the same relationship to 21st-century ambassadorial geopolitics as Bridgerton does to the salons and social mores of…
Martin has worn down my defences
Provence My older, adopted sister came to stay. She suffers from peripheral neuropathy secondary to diabetes and is registered disabled.…
Is Coogan’s Dr Strangelove as good as Sellars’s? Of course not
Stanley Kubrick’s surreal movie Dr Strangelove is a response to the fear of nuclear annihilation which obsessed every citizen in…
Easy-on-the-eye tosh: Netflix’s The Perfect Couple reviewed
The Perfect Couple is an exemplar of that genre sometimes cynically known as ‘poverty programming’: dramas that train all of…
About as edgy as Banksy: Joe Rogan’s Netflix special reviewed
My resolution this summer was to see how far into the Olympics I could get without watching an event. It’s…
Am I slightly psychopathic to be so obsessed with gangster TV?
Most of my favourite TV shows seem to involve gangsters in one way or another: The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Top…
How a TikTok dance craze turned into a brainwashing cult
Because you don’t – I hope – use TikTok you will never have heard of the Wilking sisters. But back…
Sordid, ugly and threadbare: Jimmy Carr – Natural Born Killer reviewed
Here’s an offensive joke: ‘Jimmy Carr gets paid to do a Netflix special.’ All right, it’s not original – I…
Grey, gloomy, and utterly joyless: Ripley reviewed
If you’ve spent any time gawping at Netflix over the past half-decade or so, you’ll already know that human culture…
Have we all become slaves to algorithms?
Kyle Chayka sees their constant feeds as flattening our lives, but the spread of Americanisation, which began long before the internet, is the real steamroller
Surprisingly addictive and heartwarming: Netflix’s Beckham reviewed
If you’re not remotely interested in football or celebrity, I recommend Netflix’s four-part documentary series Beckham. Yes, I know it’s…
