Category Archives: TV

New Tricks: London Underground. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tamzin Outhwaite, Dennis Waterman, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Anthony Calf, Barnaby Kay, Nicola Stephenson, Sophie Thompson, Benjamin Whitrow, Stephen Boswell, Adele Anderson, Jarred Christmas, Robin Berry.

The River Fleet, a stretch of water so steeped in London’s history, so pivotal to the narration of the capital of England’s chronicle and past account that so many legends, myths and stories have grown up around it, even more so since it was routed underneath the city of London itself. The river became essentially a place where the dregs, the sewage and the hopefully hidden are secreted and forgotten; such is the history of London Underground.

New Tricks: London Underground. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(482 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Doctor Who, Listen. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Samuel Anderson, Remi Gooding, Robert Goodman, Kiran Shah.

Listen, the biggest secret of them all, the one that is always hidden in plain sight but never quite shows itself; does the Doctor know fear?

It is a question that seems to be skirted round, passed over or answered in such a way that it makes the very action in which The Doctor resolves the problem is one of false bravado. It makes the loyal viewer, the unremitting fan, feel better about themselves because no matter what The Doctor has the answers.

Doctor Who, Listen. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(472 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

New Tricks: Ghosts. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tamzin Outhwaite, Dennis Waterman, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Ann Firbank, Emily Taffe, Louis Mahoney, Julie Graham, Georgine Anderson, Samuel Taylor, Jasper Jacob, Keith Ramsey, Katherine Jakeways, Emma Ballantine, Ruby Thompson, Arthur Shuttleworth, Scott Stevenson, Emma Louise Williams.

New Tricks: Ghosts. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(482 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Robot Of Sherwood. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Colman, Tom Riley, Ben Miller, Roger Ashton, Ian Hallard, Rusty Goffe, Joseph Kennedy, Adam Jones, Sabrina Bartlett, David Benson, David Langham, Tim Baggaley, Richard Elfyn.

We are but stories in the completion of history’s guide book, some will have volumes written about them, some if they are lucky a rip-roaring novel, most a paragraph, for many just a sentence, however as long as we avoid being a footnote in the end then we should be satisfied.

Doctor Who: Robot Of Sherwood. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(543 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Castles In The Sky. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Eddie Izzard, Karl Davies, Laura Frazer, David Hayman, Alex Jennings, Julian Rhind Tutt, Tim McInnerny, Iain McKee, Joe Bone, Stephen Chance, Nick Elliott, Lesley Harcourt, Carl Heap, Celyn Jones, Arron Tulloch.

It is perhaps appropriate that on the week the country remembers the 75th anniversary of Britain’s entry into the Second World War that the B.B.C. should show the story of how Britain was saved in the early days of The Battle of Britain by no small measure of ingenuity, sacrifice and imagination from the fathers of RADAR, Robert Watson Watt and Skip Wilkins.

Castles In The Sky. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(516 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

New Tricks, Deep Swimming. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tamzin Outhwaite, Dennis Waterman, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Anthony Calf, Barnaby Kay, Charlotte Cornwell, Patricia Potter, Clare Higgins, Ian Redford, Kika Markham, Rosie Biggs, Stuart McMilan, Amy Jayne, Laura Patch.

In arguably one of the most relevant episodes of New Tricks since the programme was devised, the UCOS team are charged with looking into the distant past and the events of a man’s death on a protest march in London in the early 1980s.

New Tricks, Deep Swimming. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(445 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Into The Dalek. Television Review, B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Nicholas Briggs, Zawe Ashton, Michael Smiley, Samuel Anderson, Laura Dos Santos, Ben Crompton, Bradley Ford, Michelle Morris, Nigel Betts, Ellis George, Barnaby Edwards.

For anyone who ever wondered what it would be like to be placed within the very heart of the most dangerous creature in existence, then the latest episode of Doctor Who, Into The Dalek almost provided the answer to that fantastic question. Until they find a way to see into the very soul of the Time Lord, seeing inside a Dalek who has discovered the point of existence beyond the blasted horizon by the Denisons of destruction encased in Dalekanium ranks almost as high.

Doctor Who: Into The Dalek. Television Review, B.B.C. full post

(498 words, estimated 2:0 mins reading time)

New Tricks: Tender Loving Care. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Dennis Waterman, Tamzin Outhwaite, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Oliver Cotton, Jon Foster, Laura Rogers, Alex Austin, Max Cavenham, Richard Dillane, Tanmay Dhanania, Lorna Rose Harris, Emmanuel Ighodaro, Sian Thomas, Storme Toolis.

Standing in line to get into a club once you get to a certain age would not be high on everybody’s list of things to do before they get to retirement but for the U.C.O.S. team it’s just another line of enquiry for the team to get into.

New Tricks: Tender Loving Care. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(517 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Deep Breath. Television Review, B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Neve McIntosh, Dan Starkey, Catrin Stewart, Peter Ferdinando, Paul Hickey, Tony Way, Maggie Service, Mark Kempner, Brian Miller, Graham Duff, Ellis George, Peter Hannah, Paul Kasey.

The Doctor is in, he just might not see you just yet.

The thirteenth man to take on the titular role of the long lasting and very popular series of Doctor Who might take some getting used to for some. After nearly a decade of having arguably a more youthful outlook but for many, surely the more than capable, erudite and wonderfully strange Peter Capaldi is a return to what bought success for the programme in its 1970s heyday.

Doctor Who: Deep Breath. Television Review, B.B.C. full post

(661 words, estimated 2:39 mins reading time)

Our World War: War Machine. Television Review.

Cast: Gerard Kearns, Luke Norris, Shaun Dooley, Danny Walters, Chris Reilly, Anna Bolton, John Hollingworth, Niall McNamee, Ryan Kiggell, James Wilson, Kyle Evans, Sholto Morgan.

The final episode in Joe Barton’s utterly compelling and extremely well observed series, Our World War, looked at the final days of the war and the comradeship forged in the newly formed Tank Company but also the grief and feeling of helplessness and desolation in those that were left behind and who to face up to the news from the front lines.

Our World War: War Machine. Television Review. full post

(481 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)