Once upon a time you knew exactly where you stood with the TV channels and drama.  In the 70’s the BBC did costume dramas such as Poldark (complete with shirts), The Onedin Lineand The Duchess of Duke Street; ITV meanwhile did tough crime and action dramas such as The Sweeney, The Professionals and The New Avengers.  Now it’s all changed.  Post Downton, the BBC […]

TV criticism is probably the pinnacle of journalism, nay literature.   Many don’t appreciate how hard wot it is and the effort wot it takes to craft pithy, constructive and relevant reviews.  Ok, regular readers of this blog will know that that statement is a load of tosh.  These TV reviews are irrelevant ramblings of a […]

There’s a new channel in town and it called W.  Or it could be Channel W.  Or the W Channel? It’s part of the UKTV family of channels that was originally formed by BBC Worldwide and Thames TV way back in 1992 when digital TV meant using your finger to change the channel.  It’s now […]

Award season is in full swing and last night we saw the music industry slapping itself (in rhythm) its back at the BRITs. Like the NTAs (see review here) the BRITs weren’t always this arena-filling showcase that it is now. The first occasion when the British music industry decided that huge profits, gold discs, public […]

This week BBC 3 went online.  This is all part of the corporations plan to cut the running cost of the channel from £85m to £30m.  When it was announced last year there was much wailing from critics that BBC 3 was at the heart of creativity in the BBC and removing it from traditional […]

Do you remember the days when history programmes consisted of people talking about history and science programmes simply showed you sciencey stuff?  Well those days are long gone.  If you want to learn anything today you need either; 1) celebrities (such as the Real Marigold Hotel, reviewed here, or Channel 4’s Time Crashers) or 2) […]

We do love to watch a celebrity doing either something extreme (like throwing themselves off a ski jump) or mundane (like baking).  This week the celebs (sort of, more of that later) were out in force.  Sunday saw the return of The Jump.  The great thing about this show is that there is a real […]

Love is in the air (and it’s not even February yet). Dating games have been ratings winners ever since Blind Date hit our screens in 1985 with “Miss Cilla Blaaaacckk”.  Compared to the Americans we were late starters as The Dating Game (the show Blind Date was based on) had been on air since 1965.  […]

Sometimes a programme so derivative comes along you really want to hate it.  The Real Marigold Hotel is just that.  The pitch meeting probably went: “Lets take the plot of a popular film, replace the likes of Dame Judi and Dame Maggie with more affordable and available actors and do it for real.  It will […]

This week Sky continued its bid to compete with the terrestrial channels to be seen as a force in homegrown drama with Lucky Man.  Ok, it’s written by an American and owes a lot to glossy US Dramas but it’s certainly set in the UK (sort of).  It stars James Nesbitt as a divorced, heavy […]

Well it’s award season and the first out of the traps was the NTAs (The National Television Awards or “The Ant & Dec’s” as they are sometimes referred to).  According to the description on the TV guide it was “the biggest night for TV of the year” other than the BAFTAs I guess.  The main […]

Oh Dermot what have you done? Saturday night Light Entertainment formats are notoriously difficult to get right.  For every Gladiators, House Party or Take Away there are a dozen Hole in the Wall, Families at War or I Love my Country.  In recent years the BBC has probably had more hits than misses (not that […]

Tracey Ullman is back.  “Who?” I hear anyone under the age of 30 ask.  Ok, let’s start with a bit of a history lesson.  In the beginning (well, 1981) there was “Three of a Kind”, a sketch show staring the aforementioned Ms Ullman, Lenny Henry who went onto be a Knight of the Realm and […]

The Voice hit our screens on Saturday for its 5thand (on the BBC anyway) final series.  The line up of judges changes more often than the Sugababes did and this series is no exception.  From left to right (depending on where you are stood and if they have swung their seats around) are: The Stalwart: […]

It’s a New Year and BBC2 are trying to create a new you.  Returning series Trust Me I’m a Doctor and new offering What to Buy and Why both want us to have better lives for less money.  Trust Me I’m a Doctor unsurprisingly focused on our health (I would be worried if doctors began […]