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Downton Abbey Christmas Special, ITV / The Trachtate Middoth, BBC TwoWednesday, 25 December 2013
A year ago it was all so different. Lady Mary gave birth and on his way home from the delivery suite Cousin Matthew steered his vintage soft-top into a tree trunk. There's rather less to report from Downton Abbey (***) this Christmas and the Daily Telegraph is free to devote its Boxing Day front page to something else. No actor has asked to be written out of the series, no one got engaged or even kissed, no one ended up in prison or even tears. Read more... |
Raised by Wolves, Channel 4Tuesday, 24 December 2013
Among all the frank, hilarious bits that peppered Caitlin Moran’s bestselling book How To Be a Woman, it was the early chapters – the ones that dealt with the author’s unconventional upbringing in the suburbs of Wolverhampton – that seemed most ripe for repackaging for television. Whether Raised by Wolves lives up to its promise as a coming-of-age comedy drama for any teenage misfit that ever had an annoying sibling remains to be seen. Read more... |
Fresh Meat, Series 3 Finale, Channel 4Tuesday, 24 December 2013
Many a series has found that its initial dynamism and brilliance cannot be sustained. From Julia Davis’s smart, brutal sitcom Nighty Night to the wildly-plotted sci-fi of Heroes, the second seasons just couldn’t keep up the standard or the pace. Often this failure is down to a consensus reality being pushed too far, the suspension of disbelief which the creators cleverly, carefully built with the audience being shattered. Read more... |
Homeland, Series 3 Finale, Channel 4Monday, 23 December 2013
Homeland's coming home? Well not exactly, but the conclusion to this crazy, mixed-up third series did suddenly feel as if the writers had finally managed to express something that they'd been groping towards for the last three months. Namely, if the show was to stay on the road (series four is in the works), Brody had to go. Read more... |
The 12 Drinks of Christmas, BBC TwoFriday, 20 December 2013
Most people know the basics of making a cocktail. Take two ingredients: one palatable and widely consumed, to make up the body of the concoction; the other, pungent and often bitter, to cause the lips to pucker and the throat to flinch. Read more... |
The Great Train Robbery - a Robber's Tale, BBC OneThursday, 19 December 2013
We've already been casting a revisionary eye over Lord Lucan, the Cold War, the Kennedy assassination and the Profumo affair. Last year Sheridan Smith portrayed Mrs Ronnie Biggs for ITV, but what took them so long to get around to the Great Train Robbery itself? Just hours too long for the real Ronnie Biggs, as it happened. Read more... |
Ripper Street, Series 2 Finale, BBC OneTuesday, 17 December 2013
Though greeted ambivalently when it made its debut at the end of 2012, Ripper Street has looked increasingly like TV's undervalued secret weapon as it has surged purposefully through this second series. Maybe the title was misjudged, suggesting it was just another gruesome and mist-shrouded Victorian murder mystery. Turns out it was much more than that. Read more... |
Borgen, Series 3 Finale, BBC FourSunday, 15 December 2013
It’s been a confusing week for British fans of Borgen. As they prepared to say farewell to Birgitte Nyborg and co, their beloved statsminister’s factual avatar was trending in the global media. If you know your Borgen, Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt’s selfie with a President and a Prime Minister looked more like a brilliant script idea than a pesky news item. Read more... |
Boyzone at 20: No Matter What, ITV1Friday, 13 December 2013
In her role as host of this 20th-anniversary celebration, Dannii Minogue was not afraid to ask the tough questions that fans of Ireland’s greatest - or possibly other greatest - boy band wanted to know. “It’s the elephant in the room,” admitted Keith Duffy (the handsome one, not that you would have been caught dead admitting it in the Nineties, who later went on to appear in Coronation Street) with a nervous laugh. Read more... |
Lucan, ITVThursday, 12 December 2013
The disappearance of Lord “Lucky” Lucan in 1974 remains one of the most teasing enigmas of recent-ish history. Following the collapse of his marriage and a bitter battle with his wife Veronica for custody of their three children, the gambling addict Lucan is presumed to have battered the children’s nanny to death, attacked his wife, then fled the country by boat from Newhaven. Elvis-like sightings of the disgraced peer have poured in from around the world ever since. Read more... |
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