TV
Dick Clement on Porridge, Kirk Douglas and having seven projects on the go
Given their track record, you might think that Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais would be spared the struggles that…
Could it be that Jimmy McGovern was getting into the festive spirit? No… Care reviewed
Jimmy McGovern’s one-off drama Care (BBC1, Sunday 9 December) began with a loving grandmother called Mary having a lovely time…
![Jessica Biel as Cora Tannetti. [Photo: BBC / Iron Ocean / Universal Cable Productions LLC]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/12/TV.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
The Sinner is for hormonal teenage girls’ insatiable appetite for the sordid and sick
Don’t watch The Sinner (originally on Netflix; now on BBC4) because, despite your better judgment, you’ll only get addicted after…
Refreshingly understated: BBC1’s Mrs Wilson reviewed
Shortly before her husband’s funeral, the undertaker told the eponymous main character in Mrs Wilson (BBC1, Tuesday) that, ‘We’re here…
No, Narcos, those who’ve had the odd puff and cheeky line aren’t to blame for the drug wars
Narcos is back on Netflix, set in Mexico this time, with a cool, world-weary, manly voiceover swearily lecturing us at…
What does the commonplace cruelty of Red Dead Redemption say about our times?
Every era has its western. For 30 years, from The Big Trail through to The Searchers, John Wayne reigned supreme…
How does David Attenborough know what the monkeys are thinking?
The opening episode of BBC1’s Dynasties — the new Attenborough-fronted series from the Natural History Unit — introduced us to…
Thanks to Making a Murderer, Wisconsin’s bovine incompetence has been exposed
I wonder if Wisconsin has any idea what an international embarrassment it has become? By rights it ought to be…
Bring back Kevin Spacey
The sixth and final season of House of Cards has begun without Kevin Spacey, who played the murderous Democratic American…
Lucky the director of Little Drummer Girl is an ‘auteur’ or you might call the first episode corny
The Little Drummer Girl (BBC1, Sunday) is the new John le Carré adaptation from the production company that brought us…
How did mild-mannered eye doctor Bashar al-Assad end up a mass murderer?
‘How did this mild-mannered eye doctor end up killing hundreds of thousands of people?’ someone wondered about Bashar al-Assad in…
Melania Trump elegantly rises above the media muck
I am not sure that Melania Trump had the introduction of Henry IV Part 2 in mind when she sat…
An enjoyably gossipy whisk through half a century of fierce rivalries and bruised egos
At the beginning of Barneys, Books and Bust Ups: 50 Years of the Booker Prize (BBC4), Kirsty Wark’s voiceover promised…
The new Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker is a delight – but the script isn’t
You won’t be aware of this because the BBC has been keeping it very quiet. But the new Doctor Who…
Impeccably – and intriguingly – unclear: BBC1’s The Cry reviewed
It’s a radical thought I know, but I sometimes wonder what it would be like if a new TV thriller…
Two football books examine where money is taking the modern game
‘Football holds a mirror to ourselves,’ Michael Calvin asserts in State of Play. Modern football is angrier, more brutal, more…
Forget the BBC – only Channel 5 does proper documentaries these days
What a load of utter tripe Bodyguard (BBC1, Sundays) was. Admittedly, I came to it late having missed all the…
Bad news for fans of good TV drama – there’s three more corkers to keep up with
This week was bad news for fans of good television drama series — mainly because there’s now three more of…
All the good non-fiction that was ever on TV was made by middle-aged men
All the good non-fiction things that were ever on TV — from Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation to David Attenborough’s Planet Earth…
Full of bog-standard, if annoyingly effective, emotional manipulation: The Foreign Doctors Are Coming reviewed
Surprising I know, but judging from The Foreign Doctors Are Coming (Channel 4, Tuesday), Britain mightn’t be such a bad…
Did Ed Balls mean to make a documentary on the joys of Trump’s America?
The thing I most regret having failed ever to ask brave, haunted, wise Sean O’Callaghan when I last saw him…
Sacha Baron Cohen isn’t funny – especially when he’s mocking the powerless
Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest series Who Is America? isn’t funny. But then, nor was his terrible 2016 movie The Brothers…
A proper old-fashioned stinker: ITV’s The Bletchley Circle – San Francisco reviewed
After just one episode, The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco (ITV, Wednesday) seems certain to stand out from the crowd. In…
Channel 4 doesn’t do ‘news’ in any meaningful sense of the word – it’s pure propaganda
When President Trump refused to take a question from a CNN reporter at the Chequers press conference last week, I…
The great thing about the World Cup is you don’t even have to watch it to enjoy it
Even though I don’t watch much football I love the World Cup because it’s my passport to total freedom. I…
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