The good, the bad and the ugly
TV currently abounds with ‘I thought they were dead’ revival projects: series in which your favourite 1980s movie stars are…
Gross profit
Gratingly edgy soundtrack, stomach-churning gore, torture, witchcraft, sadism and an indigestible title. The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself sounds…
Dog days of the USSR
Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the…
Senior moment
We men all think we’ve still got it, even when we’re well past 50 and young women look straight through…
Why I love a cliché
You’d have to pay me an awful lot more than I get for this column to review Monster: The Jeffrey…
There will be blood
House of the Dragon got off to a pretty uninspirational start, I thought: no major characters brought to a shocking…
Finger-wagging and flawed
‘Diversity is woven into the very soul of the story.’ If those words of praise from a rave review in…
Howard’s way
About ten minutes in to Thirteen Lives, Boy came in and asked me whether it was any good. I said:…
Mob mentality
It’s hard to imagine in the wake of GoodFellas, The Sopranos and Gomorrah but there was a time, not so…
Acid test
Many years ago a man on the end of my cigarette stole my soul. Mr Migarette (for such was his…
The thrilling game
‘The Terminal List is… a dated and drably made eight-part military thriller that offers little intrigue or excitement,’ says the…
This will end badly
I don’t think it’s my imagination: it really is getting harder and harder to find anything worth watching on TV.…
On the offensive
Just how edgy and dangerous is Ricky Gervais? There is no one more edgy and dangerous, we learn from no…
Rotten Apples
Having now watched it to the end, I would say that Slow Horses (Apple TV+) is by far the best…
Come spy with me
How thriller writers must miss the Cold War! Early John le Carré and Len Deighton had it easy when trying…
The age of innocence
Netflix’s share price has collapsed and a major factor, people are saying, is its relentless pushing of agendas. I think…
Weirder and weirder
The only impersonation I can do is my Jimmy Savile impersonation. This is not uncommon among people of my generation:…
In the land of the subtitle
The iron law of TV these days is that if you want to avoid series that are suffocatingly right-on the…
Rapper’s delight
The most disappointing pop performance I’ve ever seen – and in the course of my 15-odd years as a music…
Let’s talk about pecs
Jack Reacher is back on the screen and aficionados of the hugely successful Lee Child airport thrillers in which he…
The great pretender
It’s 1993 and you’re studying at a top agricultural college with a bright future ahead of you, perhaps in farming…
Dog’s breakfast
It has taken me a while to watch Yellowjacketsbecause I found the premise so offputting: in 1996 a plane carrying…
The drugs don’t work
One of my first jobs in journalism was as the arts correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. I’d hop on my…
Around the World In Eighty Days is the worst TV this Christmas
‘In many ways, Phileas Fogg represents everything that’s alarming and peculiar about that old sense of British Empire. Potentially, it’s…
If you watch one thing this Christmas, make it The Witcher
If you only watch one thing on TV this Christmas, make it The Witcher(Netflix). It’s by turns funny, exciting, scary,…
