Category Archives: TV

Inspector George Gently: Gently With Honour. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, William Ash, Jemma Redgrave, Oliver Milburn, Oliver Johnstone, Pip Torrens, Daniel Lapaine, Stephen Hamilton, Ford Kiernan, Olwen May, Bradley Gardner, Simon Hubbard, Celyn Jones.

Gently With Honour placed a very big size nine boot against the world of the British Army in the deeply suspicious days of the 1960s and upturned the kind of scandal that still sticks in the throat of all who may have served in the forces during that time but also would have caused a stink so high if the British public had found out what was being done to combat the issue of Communism.

Inspector George Gently: Gently With Honour. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(464 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Inspector George Gently: Blue For Bluebird. Television Review. B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, Lee Boardman, Andrea Lowe, Pixie Lott, Lisa Riley, Isabelle Walters, Jodie Comer, Neil McDermott, Sean Kenney, Amelia Young.

The dying days of the 1960s saw the start of the decline of the family holiday parks as the British remembered them. They were going to have to modernise or become ancient history; they were going to have to compete with the cheap family holidays that were becoming the norm as venues in Spain were becoming tourist traps for the British holidaymaker. What wouldn’t have helped is a murder on the doorstep and the police in the shape of crusty cove George Gently investigating and poking his methodical nose into every nook and cranny.

Inspector George Gently: Blue For Bluebird. Television Review. B.B.C. Television. full post

(439 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Midsomer Murders: The Killing Of Copenhagen. Television Review. I.T.V.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Gwilym Lee, Fiona Dolman, Tamzin Malleson, Ann Eleonora Jørgensen,  Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Richard Cordery, Nicholas Jones, Adrian Lukis, Joanna Scanlan, Poppy Drayton, John Duggan, Marcus Hutton, Jonathan Barnwell, Caroline Goodall, Nicolaj Kopernikus, Thomas Thoroe, Julie Agnete Vang, Anick Wiget, Pete Meads, Marie Askehave, Hannah Blamires, Pamela Betsy Cooper, Susan Fordham, Anthony Farrelly.

Midsomer Murders: The Killing Of Copenhagen. Television Review. I.T.V. full post

(504 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Babylon, Television Review. Channel 4.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Brit Marling, James Nesbitt, James Robinson, Paterson Joseph, Adam Deacon, Jill Halfpenny, Mark Womack, Nicola Walker, Daniel Kaluuya, Nick Blood, Andrew Brooke, Deborah Rosan, Lee Nicholas Harris, Bertie Carvel, Lee Asquith-Coe, Navin Chowdhry, Ella Smith, Jaspal Badwell, Vic Waghorn, Paul Blackwell, Stuart Matthews, Stuart Martin, Jonny Sweet, Elena Hargreaves.

Despite Babylon opening with the type of shot that Channel Four were famous for when they first started out as a broadcaster, the kind of camera angle that would make the late Mary Whitehouse splutter and cough as if somebody had suggested she should drown her sorrows in a five day bender in Majorca, the pastiche of modern policing by Danny Boyle, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain was at least a look through a polarised lens at the way the public see today’s Police Force.

Babylon, Television Review. Channel 4. full post

(511 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

The Musketeers, The Good Soldier. Television Review. B.B.C. Television.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Santiago Cabrera, Luke Pasqualino, Tom Burke, Howard Charles, Peter Capaldi, J.J. Field, Tamla Kari, Alexandra Dowling, Ryan Gage, Hugo Speer, Anna Skellern, Adrian Schiller, Simon Paisley Day, Phoebe Fox, Peter- Hugo Daly, Jim High.

Sunday nights have not been the same since The Musketeers came swashbuckling into the living rooms of audiences up and down the country. The French tale of swords, honour and friendship has perhaps never been more popular and rightly so.

The Musketeers, The Good Soldier. Television Review. B.B.C. Television. full post

(513 words, estimated 2:03 mins reading time)

Inspector George Gently, Gently Between the Lines. Television Review.

 Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Martin Shaw, Lee Ingleby, Lisa McGrillis, Robert Pugh, Ruth Gemmell, Steve Evets, Charlie Richmond, Matt Stokoe, Alan Renwick, Christopher Connel, Finn Burridge, Liam Caffry, Paul Dingwall, Michael Hodgson, Samantha Phyllis Morris, Fiona Boylan, Caroline O’Neil, Don Gallagher, Simon Hubbard, Cheryl Dixon.

It may be hard to define what makes the Inspector George Gently series such compelling television. After all, there is an abundance of police dramas constantly on the go, like a merry go round that just keeps getting fuller and faster as more channels are added and then you go and include the Nordic Noir series, the United States imports which these days are too clean, too clinical and far too science based as if they are an advertisement for a thousand microscopes rather than the actual detective, the dogged gumshoe approach.

Inspector George Gently, Gently Between the Lines. Television Review. full post

(497 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Inside No 9: Sardines. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Timothy West, Anne Reid, Ophelia Lovibond, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Katherine Parkinson, Tom Key, Luke Pasqualino, Anna Chancellor, Marc Wooton, Ben Willbond.

There is something quite wonderfully chilling in having Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton back on television together. Even without their League of Gentlemen co-star Mark Gatiss around, the chemistry, the pleasing abundance of visual darkness and comedy that filters through to make great and worthy programmes is enough to make you weep tears of joy as you become yet again embroiled into their latest world.

Inside No 9: Sardines. Television Review. full post

(442 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Midsomer Murders: The Flying Club. Television Review. I.T.V.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast:  Neil Dudgeon, Gwilym Lee, Tamzin Malleson, Robert Bathurst, Phil Cornwell, Bernard Cribbins, Pete Meads, Jacqueline King, John Duggan, Scarlett Alice Johnson, Lee Nicholas Harris, John W.G. Harley, Susan Fordham, Lucy Phelps, Chris Nighingale, Martyn Mayger, Barrie Martin, June Whitefield, Geoffrey Whitehead, Sara Stewart, Lex Shrapnel, Laila Rouass, Oliver Rix, Francesca Zoulewelle.

For many the past is never too far from their minds. It is what has shaped them into who they are. The past should never be truly be forgotten either as it by that assumption that the mistakes, the often to terrible to contemplate mistakes, come back to haunt you.

Midsomer Murders: The Flying Club. Television Review. I.T.V. full post

(501 words, estimated 2:00 mins reading time)

The Musketeers, Commodities. Television Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Burke, Howard Charles, Santiago Cabrera, Luke Pasqualino, Peter Capaldi, James Callis, Maime McCoy, Tamla Kari, Julian Bastida, Andres Williams, Anna Skellern, Jim High, John Warnaby, Tomas Masopust, Ryan Cage.

Charged with upholding the King’s Law at all times, the morality of their actions can sometimes be too much of a burden to bear at times and never more so for The Musketeers as they are ordered to bring Emile Bonnaire to Paris to explain his actions, his actions which delve into the historic start of modern Empire building in Europe and the price paid by many for the profit of one man in the third episode, Commodities .

The Musketeers, Commodities. Television Review. B.B.C. full post

(577 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Midsomer Murders, Wild Harvest. Television Review, I.T.V.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast Neil Dudgeon, Gwilym Lee, Fiona Dolman, Tazmin Malleson, Arabella Weir, Sharon Small, Clive Wood, Mark Elliott, Lucinda Dryzek, Tyger Drew-Honey, Hayley Mills, Matt Kennard, Catherine Bailey, Lucy Akhurst, Neil McCaul.

Too many cooks can spoil the broth, or at least, make it inedible due to the nature of the toxic substance found lurking within its fatal ingredients. For the residents of Midsomer Wyvern and especially those who work under dictatorial chef Ruth Cameron at Wyvern House, life is about to get a little hotter in the kitchen.

Midsomer Murders, Wild Harvest. Television Review, I.T.V. full post

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