fri 26/09/2025

tv

Perry Mason, Sky Atlantic review - low life and hard times in Depression-era LA

Adam Sweeting

Rather like David Suchet’s Poirot, the world will always think of Raymond Burr as the doughty defence lawyer Perry Mason, whom he played in nine TV series and 26 TV movies between 1957 and 1993. But Burr’s Mason existed before the age of the prequel, which now brings us HBO’s impressively-mounted back story of the battling attorney (showing on Sky Atlantic).

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The Luminaries, BBC One review - one of the most visually arresting dramas of the year

Joseph Walsh

Alarm bells start ringing whenever you discover an author is adapting their own work for a screenplay. In the case of New Zealand novelist Eleanor Catton, the alarm proves to be false. 

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Tutankhamun in Colour, BBC Four review - amazing enhanced images bring fabled Pharaoh to life

Marina Vaizey

Tut in colour, and he is!

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The Woods, Netflix review - missing-person mystery reveals a heart of darkness

Davide Abbatescianni

After the success of the sci-fi crime drama 1983 (2018), another Polish original series has landed at Netflix. The Woods, directed by Leszek Dawid and Bartosz Konopka, is a six-part mystery thriller adapted from Harlan Coben’s novel, set in two main time spans: 1994 and 2019.

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The Salisbury Poisonings, BBC One review - the Cold War comes to Wiltshire

Adam Sweeting

The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal with the nerve agent novichok in 2018 was one of the more bizarre episodes in recent memory, a kind of delayed-action echo of the Cold War.

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A House Through Time, Series Finale, BBC Two review - timely series reaches uneven conclusion

Adam Sweeting

Setting his third series of A House Through Time in Bristol (BBC One) was a stroke of inspired prescience for historian and presenter David Olusoga.

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Hillary, Sky Documentaries review - facing the fire and fury

Tom Baily

“Never get rattled”. For some, it might sound like a trite self-help mantra. For Hillary Rodham Clinton, it was an essential daily memo and a practical self-affirmation. In recent public memory, she is the political figure who has been rattled the most, often with sinister intent.

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What We Do in the Shadows, BBC Two review - the vampires of Staten Island are back

Markie Robson-Scott

The first series of What We Do in the Shadows, Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s mockumentary about vampires in Staten Island (a TV spin-off from their cult New Zealand-located film) was a joy, and although it’s a hard act to follow, it’s delicious to be reacquainted with these timeless Transylvanian transplants and their mission to conquer the Americas. At least, that’s what their master, a crumbling vampire baron, has told them to do.

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Freud, Netflix review - hysteria and horror

David Nice

Anyone expecting, as I was, a reverend and slightly earnest miniseries about Sigmund Freud's early professional years will be in for a surprise, and mostly in a good way.

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Das Boot, Series 2, Sky Atlantic review - multi-layered war drama goes from strength to strength

Adam Sweeting

Das Boot made an impressive debut early last year with its entwined narratives of war by land and sea.

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