tv reviews
Adam Sweeting

Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s hit comedy Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) ended its fourth series in January last year, but this belated interactive special suggested there could be new life in it yet.

Adam Sweeting

Adapted by writer-director Derek Cianfrance from Wally Lamb’s 1998 novel, this HBO production (on Sky Atlantic) presents a huge canvas for Mark Ruffalo, who plays the twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey.

Adam Sweeting

Meanwhile back in the Dark Ages, Uhtred (son of Uhtred) is still seeking to reclaim his ancestral seat of Bebbanburg and manoeuvre through the treacherous currents of Saxon politics. The big question was, how would this fourth season manage in the aftermath of the death of King Alfred?

Adam Sweeting

The odd-couple comedy duo is a time-tested concept, and Rob Beckett and Romesh Ranganathan have discovered a chemistry that works. Rob is the giggling excitable one, while Romesh, aided by a sleepy right eye which conveys a sense of harsh judgmentalism, adds a blast of deadpan scepticism.

Adam Sweeting

Christopher Eccleston isn’t the easiest actor to love, because he gives the impression he’ll reach through the screen and grab you by the throat if you don’t appreciate his ferocious thespian intensity, but with the role of Maurice Scott in The A Word (BBC One), he’s found the perfect vehicle for his particular set of skills. Loud, bossy and as subtle as a category 5 hurricane, Maurice is the show’s big-hearted patriarch.

Joseph Walsh

After a season that sought to redefine what Westworld could become, the finale exposed the confused arc, before limping towards an emotionally weak ending.

Markie Robson-Scott

DI John Major (Daniel Mays) has been dead a year, shot in the line of duty, though we’re far from that series in terms of tone. Now he’s back at the London Met, artificially augmented, but not very intelligently. If anything he’s a bit more shit than he was before, as one of those involved in the shooting observes.

Adam Sweeting

Veterans of the first series of Blood will be familiar with writer Sophie Petzal’s fondness for leading the viewer up the garden path and round the mulberry bush as the story develops. Get ready to go through it all again.

Adam Sweeting

“Paul is in Japan to eat,” announced Rebecca Front’s smart-alecky voice-over, introducing this new series for Channel 4, but he was also there to do that very British thing of wallowing in blissful ignorance of foreign customs and traditions. A Very British Travelogue, in fact.

Adam Sweeting

Portmeirion, the Italianate village created by architect Sir Clough Williams-Ellis on the River Dwyryd estuary, might have been designed to provide the perfect surreal setting for the 1967 TV series The Prisoner. But though it resembles an opium dream of doll’s houses and fairytale landscapes, Portmeirion has proved remarkably sturdy, and with