http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/radio-afghanistan-british-forces-broadcasting-servicebrthinking-allowed-radio-4-1816771.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/radio-afghanistan-british-forces-broadcasting-servicebrthinking-allowed-radio-4-1816771.html <p>If memory serves, Family Favourites was a cosy listen, the accompaniment to mum cooking Sunday lunch. All seemed well with the world. Relatively speaking, all was well with the world; the programme lasted from 1945 until 1984, almost all of which was peacetime. Our brave boys may have been stuck out in Cyprus or Germany or some other remnant of Empire, but, barring accidents, they usually it home.</p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/into-the-storm-bbc2brspooks-bbc1brthe-fword-channel-4-1816772.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/into-the-storm-bbc2brspooks-bbc1brthe-fword-channel-4-1816772.html <p>Put a shouty man of a certain age in charge of something important enough for long enough – a nation at war; British domestic security; the F-Word kitchen – and before you know it, he's a national treasure. Or at least that's what seems to have happened to Winston Churchill, Harry out of Spooks, and Gordon Ramsay, who's from that special breed of middle-aged male broadcasters that everyone claims to thoroughly dislike, yet watches religiously (Messrs Clarkson and Cowell being other examples). But more of him later.</p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-brthe-schoolboy-who-sailed-the-world-channel-4brwonderland-bbc2brfearne-and-alesha-dixon-itv2-1815526.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-brthe-schoolboy-who-sailed-the-world-channel-4brwonderland-bbc2brfearne-and-alesha-dixon-itv2-1815526.html ]]> <p>When I was 16, I mainly thought about clothes and, probably, Dawson's Creek. Boys? Maybe. Friends? Probably. Sailing? Er, nope. Which may explain why I've only been on a boat a handful of times in my life, and Michael Perham has already sailed the world. The whole world. He did it aged 16, and became the youngest person ever to do so. The Schoolboy Who Sailed the World told his story. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-the-family-channel-4br-spooks-bbc-1-1814764.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-the-family-channel-4br-spooks-bbc-1-1814764.html <p>"I save the world everyday and keep people safe as they travel across the world," said Sunny, introducing himself in the new series of Channel 4's The Family. Sunny is a security man at Heathrow, but there was a knowing charm about the topspin he gave his job that made you understand why Shay, his wife, might have fallen for him when they met at a family wedding. Unfortunately, "fallen" was the operative word as far as Shay's mother was concerned, an unseen character who loomed over much of this first episode. She felt that Shay could have done much better for herself (something to do with Sikh castes, apparently) and they haven't talked for five and a half years, though even under the unforgiving panopticon of the Channel 4 camera setup (lenses mounted on every wall of the house), not a crack was visible in Sunny and Shay's wonderfully tender relationship. Now they were planning a full-blown Indian wedding to seal the deal, and tensions were rising about whether Shay's mother would relent and come to the party.</p> Reviews Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--black-widow-granny-bbc1-horizon-bbc2-1814129.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--black-widow-granny-bbc1-horizon-bbc2-1814129.html ]]> Reviews Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--the-great-escape-the-reckoning-channel-4-into-the-storm-bbc2-1813582.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--the-great-escape-the-reckoning-channel-4-into-the-storm-bbc2-1813582.html ]]> <p> The challenge confronting viewers of <b>Into the Storm</b>, a dramatised account of Winston Churchill's defeat in the 1945 general election, told as a series of flashbacks to some momentous episodes of the Second World War, was largely the same as the challenge to the actors. It was to avoid getting bogged down in the accuracy, or otherwise, of the looks and voices of the main players. </p> Reviews Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-weekends-television-wonderland-sat-bbc2br-garrows-law-tales-from-the-old-bailey-sun-bbc1-1813070.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-weekends-television-wonderland-sat-bbc2br-garrows-law-tales-from-the-old-bailey-sun-bbc1-1813070.html <p> The softly spoken denizens of the Isle of Skye, their craggy features sculpted by the same timeless deities that have crafted their extraordinary surroundings, are a captivating bunch. </p> Reviews Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/robin-scottelliot-welcome-to-the-parallel-universe-of-club-tv-channels-1813245.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/robin-scottelliot-welcome-to-the-parallel-universe-of-club-tv-channels-1813245.html <p>This will come as news to most of you – something of a first for this column – but one day last week was Didier Drogba day. Not sure which; Monday perhaps. He's a Monday sort of person, accompanied all over the pitch by his own dark cloud and always finding something to trip him up. It was Chelsea TV that commemorated DD-day, which actually makes it sound as though he belongs on page 3 with a speech bubble coming out of his head: Didier thinks the postman should get back to work. Unfortunately, it costs £6 a month to subscribe to Chelsea TV and so, despite a root down the side of the sofa which unearthed Dean Ashton and 17p, the events of the Drog's Day will have to remain unreported here.</p> Reviews Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-event-how-racist-are-you-channel-4brsciences-last-taboo-channel-4-1812614.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-event-how-racist-are-you-channel-4brsciences-last-taboo-channel-4-1812614.html <p>It's been quite a time for the BNP of late, hasn't it? In the aftermath of a first appearance on BBC1's Question Time 10 days ago came the party's remarkable claim that 3,000 people had joined it during or after the broadcast. Presumably they weren't won over by Nick Griffin's nervous laughter or slimy squirming out of denying he had denied the Holocaust. So what was it that drove this unprecedented surge (assuming the claim is true)?</p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/radio-3-requests-radio-3brhow-the-wall-fell-radio-4-1812615.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/radio-3-requests-radio-3brhow-the-wall-fell-radio-4-1812615.html <p>When people talk about the threat to radio from the increasing wealth of material that can be accessed for free online, my thoughts turn to Geoffrey Smith and Fiona Talkington, presenters, respectively, of Jazz Record Requests on Radio 3, and Radio 3 Requests.</p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/dvd-peep-show--ndash-series-6-for-retail--rental-4-dvd-1813041.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/dvd-peep-show--ndash-series-6-for-retail--rental-4-dvd-1813041.html ]]> <p>"Soph wants a pre-birth paternity test; it's not mine. It'd better not be mine. Oh God. Does Dobby really want me? What do you mean you're closing the office? Hmm, £2,000 to go all in with Alan. Seems sensible. Even if he has gone a bit mad. And why's Super Hans brought his snake to our party? Oh God, why? Why?"</p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-the-event-how-racist-are-you-channel-4brwonderland-bbc2brfearne-and-peaches-geldof-itv2-1811494.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-the-event-how-racist-are-you-channel-4brwonderland-bbc2brfearne-and-peaches-geldof-itv2-1811494.html ]]> <p> Jane Elliott calls herself "the Bitch" but, like most people who self-define ("I'm mad, me"), she doesn't really live up to her claims. </p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:58 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-week-in-radio-its-science-but-not-as--we-know-it-1811074.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-week-in-radio-its-science-but-not-as--we-know-it-1811074.html <p>Finding an anniversary that no one else has noticed is about as rare as digging up an Anglo-Saxon hoard these days. Wars are revisited, the dead resurrected and debates rerun inexorably, every time the significant date comes around. But I might just have stumbled across one anniversary that hasn't yet made a set of stamps or a theme week on BBC4. It was exactly 50 years ago that C P Snow gave his seminal lecture "The Two Cultures", in which he argued that there was a growing and dangerous divide between the arts and the sciences. Liberal intellectuals were deserting the sciences in droves. Whereas educated people would be ashamed not to have read Shakespeare, Snow said, they were completely unembarassed not to know the second law of thermodynamics.</p> Reviews Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-natural-world-bbc2br-andrew-marrs-the-making-of-modern-britain-bbc2-1811079.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-natural-world-bbc2br-andrew-marrs-the-making-of-modern-britain-bbc2-1811079.html <p>To Andrew Marr, the history of Britain in the turbulent first half of the 20th century is "dark, funny, and surprising". So, you might add, was Marr's frisky performance in The Making of Modern Britain, bounding around on screen, arms and ears akimbo, giving full vent to an hitherto unseen talent for mimicry (including what must have been first ever televised impression of Joseph Chamberlain). He also focused an unflinching eye on the darker achievements of the Edwardians. </p> Reviews Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--james-mays-toy-stories-bbc2-make-me-white-bbc1-bleach-nip-tuck-the-white-beauty-myth-channel-4-1810374.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--james-mays-toy-stories-bbc2-make-me-white-bbc1-bleach-nip-tuck-the-white-beauty-myth-channel-4-1810374.html <p>No doubt Naomi Wolf would blanch at the sinister scheduling that saw Channel 4's <b>Bleach, Nip, Tuck: the White Beauty Myth</b> clash with BBC 1's <b>Make Me White</b> last night. The Western beauty hegemony is a serious issue, and there's an interesting programme to be made about it, but unfortunately Bleach, Nip, Tuck wasn't it.</p> Reviews Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--life-bbc1-murderland-itv1-race-and-intelligence-sciences-last-taboo-channel-4-1809853.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--life-bbc1-murderland-itv1-race-and-intelligence-sciences-last-taboo-channel-4-1809853.html ]]> <p>Forgive me for revisiting last week's TV before last night's, but I still haven't got Question Time out of my system. What struck me most about the British National Party leader, Nick Griffin, was not the repugnance of his political views, which he tried to disguise, but his physical repugnance, about which he could do nothing.</p> Reviews Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-weekends-television-the-thick-of-it-sat-bbc2brray-mearss-northern-wilderness-sun-bbc2-1809351.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-weekends-television-the-thick-of-it-sat-bbc2brray-mearss-northern-wilderness-sun-bbc2-1809351.html <p> It's an odd and often depressing business writing notes about a comedy show. When the comedy doesn't work you end up with a meagre stack of descriptive redundancies that are only there because you wanted to show willing. </p> Reviews Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/golf/james-corrigan-between-the-19th-hole-and-the-bermuda-triangle-1809479.html http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/golf/james-corrigan-between-the-19th-hole-and-the-bermuda-triangle-1809479.html <p>The things we'll do in the name of research. Once, while reporting on an Irish Open, I selflessly stayed in a hotel bar until 4am in deep conversation with Angel Cabrera.</p> Golf Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/murderland-itv1brmodern-family-sky-1-1808820.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/murderland-itv1brmodern-family-sky-1-1808820.html <p> As one cuddly TV treasure departs, so another returns. In recent days, ITV's drama department has given audiences two reasons to be thankful – not a feeling it inspires very often, it must be said. </p> Reviews Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-plight-of-the-bumblebee-radio-4brken-bruce-radio-2-1808821.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-plight-of-the-bumblebee-radio-4brken-bruce-radio-2-1808821.html <p>Honey bees are in crisis, the boffins warn. If their colonies carry on collapsing we'll all eventually starve. The fate of the human race rests with these shiny little marvels. Typical, the equally beleaguered bumblebees must be thinking. We're in schtuk, too, mate, and who's bothered about us?</p> Reviews Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-the-bigamist-bride-my-five-husbands-channel-4-brfearne-and-paris-hilton-itv2-1807208.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-the-bigamist-bride-my-five-husbands-channel-4-brfearne-and-paris-hilton-itv2-1807208.html <p>Earlier this year, Emily Horne was found guilty of serial bigamy. She married five men without divorcing one. A former glamour model and compulsive liar she was, as our narrator delicately put it, "a tabloid editor's wet dream." She was also released on a suspended sentence and, much to the bemusement of her numerous spouses, allowed to resume life with a new boyfriend. "I love him too much to marry him!" she joked. </p> Reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-defying-gravity-bbc2br-who-made-me-fat-bbc3br-jimmys-food-factory-bbc1-1806800.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-defying-gravity-bbc2br-who-made-me-fat-bbc3br-jimmys-food-factory-bbc1-1806800.html <p>It must have been busy night for British Sugar's press office television recorder last night, with one bit of broadcasting they'll have been very happy with and another that will have them busy working on a rebuttal. The bit they'll be pleased with, surprisingly, came from Jimmy Doherty – hitherto a champion of the unprocessed and free-range – who delivered a singularly toothless report on the chemical processes required to turn sugar beet into sugar as part of Jimmy's Food Factory. The company got a Silver Spoon pack shot out of that one, and then another one (presumably much less welcome) in Who Made Me Fat?, Becca Wilcox's report on why Britain's dieters are playing from the downhill end of a sloping pitch. It's possible, I suppose, that there is a secret agenda in Doherty's series, that by revealing exactly how some of our most familiar foodstuffs are produced viewers might be left a little more suspicious about their claims to nutritional value. But if so, I fear the agenda has been so well hidden that only the already converted will be able to spot it. True, his attempt to home-make a cornflake revealed that they first have to take everything of value out of the kernel, before artificially spraying it back on, but he was distinctly sketchy about just how much sugar and salt is used to make them palatable. And his end of programme summary – "I'm amazed how processing even simple foods requires so much ingenuity.... it's made me look at breakfast in a completely different light" – sounded like the pay-off line from a Kellogg's-sponsored classroom aid, rather than anything that might prod the viewers towards a less synthetic diet.</p> Reviews Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--my-supermodel-baby-bbc1-horizon-bbc2-1806123.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--my-supermodel-baby-bbc1-horizon-bbc2-1806123.html <p>"Another day, another scanner," said Marcus du Sautoy in <b>Horizon's "The Secret You"</b>. He could be forgiven for the faint weariness of tone in his voice. Horizon absolutely loves brain scanners and will rarely let an opportunity pass to slide a presenter into the magnetic doughnut and expose the inner workings of his or her brain. On this occasion, though, Horizon could be forgiven for its compulsion as well, since the subject of Du Sautoy's programme was consciousness, and the brain scanner may be to that conundrum what the telescope was for solar astronomy. Indeed, there were several experiments conducted here that would have been unthinkable or impractical only a few decades ago, using devices that would have appeared almost magical to early theorists of consciousness, like Descartes. He had to make do with a far older piece of equipment – the human brain – one that has proved marvellously effective over the centuries but rather gets in its own way when the issue at hand is thought itself. It's a bit like trying to take a picture of the television camera you're using to take the picture.</p> Reviews Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--life-bbc1-glamours-golden-age-bbc4-murderland-itv1-1805593.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--life-bbc1-glamours-golden-age-bbc4-murderland-itv1-1805593.html <p>As the alarmingly alliterative hairy Hogwarts handyman, Hagrid, Robbie Coltrane did plenty of acting with children, but none of them, and certainly not the wand-wooden Daniel Radcliffe, could ever have held even an enchanted candle to young Bel Powley. She played opposite Coltrane in the opening episode of <b>Murderland</b>, as Carrie, the daughter of a murdered prostitute, and she was terrific.</p> Reviews Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-weekends-television-born-survivors-bear-grylls-and-will-ferrell-sun-channel-4-brthe-armstrong-amp--miller-show-fri-bbc1brthe-south-bank-show-sun-itv1-1805073.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-weekends-television-born-survivors-bear-grylls-and-will-ferrell-sun-channel-4-brthe-armstrong-amp--miller-show-fri-bbc1brthe-south-bank-show-sun-itv1-1805073.html <p>Bear Grylls's most pressing endurance problem these days is how to survive in the cruel, pitiless terrain of the commissioning editor's in-tray. There's only so many times, after all, that you can eat a dead camel's putrid brains or squeeze drinking water from a ruminant's dung before the spectacle begins to lose its savour, even for the most dedicated of armchair explorers. Not to mention that tricky business about telling the truth, which can drain a survival programme of synthetic thrill faster than you can say Gobi desert. Don't underestimate Bear though, who usually knows where to go for a bit of revitalising nourishment. On the evidence of <b>Born Survivors: Bear Grylls and Will Ferrell</b>, he's decided to turn to Hollywood for sustenance, roping in an A-list celebrity to keep extinction at bay.</p> Reviews Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/robin-scottelliot-lawros-new-puppy-injects-some-life-into-an-old-dog-1805133.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/robin-scottelliot-lawros-new-puppy-injects-some-life-into-an-old-dog-1805133.html <p>Between them they are within spitting distance of retirement age, at least as it stands ahead of next year's general election. Television longevity is harder to achieve than was a lasting marriage to Henry VIII, but A Question of Sport and Football Focus have been around since the early 1970s and show no signs of joining Grandstand and Sportsnight in the great archive in the sky, or following in the carefully marshalled footprints of One Man and his Dog and going to Sky.</p> Reviews Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/1989-day-by-day-radio-4brthe-choice-radio-4-1804629.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/1989-day-by-day-radio-4brthe-choice-radio-4-1804629.html <p>There was copious hope for a better world 20 years ago. The Wall came down; freedom was busting out all over the Bloc and Bush père met Gorby to wind down the Cold War. Radio 4 archaeologists have been sifting through the bones in 1989: Day by day. It's done in bite-size chunks just before PM, but they feel like very small bites indeed, more amuse-bouche than a square meal.</p> Reviews Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/joan-does-glamour-itv1brhung-more4-1804631.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/joan-does-glamour-itv1brhung-more4-1804631.html <p>Desperate times, desperate measures and all that .... As the fruit of credit-crunch commissioning continues to take hold of our TVs, the state of the Western world is acknowledged and dissected on screens the size of football pitches across our "broken" nation. And never mind the wars, the economy, the schools and the hospitals – what's really wrong with Britain is that we've all forgotten how to be glamorous. </p> Reviews Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-proof-that-size-is-everything-1803374.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-proof-that-size-is-everything-1803374.html <p> Watching the slew of fresh American imports last night, the message came through loud and clear: the gloss has gone. </p> <p></p> Reviews Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:10 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-prescott-the-northsouth-divide-bbc2br-binside-sport-bbc1-1802725.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television-prescott-the-northsouth-divide-bbc2br-binside-sport-bbc1-1802725.html <p>I don't suppose Sir Thomas Legg has a lot of time to watch television at the moment, but since he's worked out the cost of Gordon Brown's repayment to the last 10p he might also be interested in the Case of the Admiralty House Teacup, a shocking abstraction of government property, which was revealed halfway through Prescott: the North/South Divide. To the protests of Pauline ("Oooh, John! For goodness' sake... they'll think I'm a kleptomaniac!"), the former Deputy Prime Minister trotted into the kitchen of his impressive Thameside penthouse to reveal the gilded souvenir Pauline had carried away with her when they left their grace-and-favour residence. Personally, I'm inclined to let bygones be bygones here, because there's something rather touching about the way that Pauline fills out the stereotype of one kind of aspirational Northern woman: modelling her style on Joan Collins, using her telephone voice when out in public, and showing such candid pleasure in the trappings of class. "Things can only get better," she said gleefully, lifting a glass of champagne to the camera as a Learjet flew the Prescotts down to London on the night of the 1997 election, "...but not much." She spoke too soon, really. Still to come were the mock Tudor boards fitted to their Hull constituency house, for which Mr Prescott claimed £312.</p> Reviews Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--around-the-world-in-80-days-bbc1-the-force-channel-4-1802076.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--around-the-world-in-80-days-bbc1-the-force-channel-4-1802076.html <p>"Unfortunately, it isn't like it is on the TV," someone said, two or three days into the murder investigation featured in <b>The Force</b>. It was quite like it is on the television, though. There was the isolated country lane where the burnt remains were discovered by someone walking their dog. There was the white scene-of-crime tent and the white boiler suits. There were promising clues that led to a dead end and the cliffhanger race to charge the prime suspect before the statutory 96 hours ran out. Anyone who's watched even a little television over the last few years may feel that they are already half way to passing their exam to make DCI, and we know more about murder than any other crime, even if most of what we know is slightly skewed. So in some respects you'd seen everything in Operation Fletcher before.</p> Reviews Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--the-enemy-within-bbc1-daredevils-channel-4-life-bbc1-1801698.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/last-nights-television--the-enemy-within-bbc1-daredevils-channel-4-life-bbc1-1801698.html <p>At the beginning of the BBC's monumental new natural-history series, <b>Life</b>, we were shown some clever bottle-nosed dolphins off the coast of Florida, swimming in perfect circles and raking up the sand with their tails, so as to discombobulate the fish inside the circles, which then jumped out of the ring of disturbed sand straight into the dolphins' mouths. This remarkable spectacle was filmed from the air, and I cannot have been the only viewer so conditioned by modern-day television smart-aleckry that initially, Sir David Attenborough's commentary notwithstanding, I thought the dolphins were manufacturing the BBC2 logo. I had to remind myself that Life is on BBC1.</p> Reviews Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-weekends-television-the-south-bank-show-sun-itv1brgandhi-sat-bbc2brlunch-monkeys-sun-bbc3-1801189.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-weekends-television-the-south-bank-show-sun-itv1brgandhi-sat-bbc2brlunch-monkeys-sun-bbc3-1801189.html <p> Here’s a story no Hollywood executive would ever buy. A once great company, a company that built its empire on an mischievous mouse, falls on hard times. In its day, it has been the market leader in winsomeness, the brand name alone enough to draw audiences to its new films. But then the company begins to lose its nerve. </p> Reviews Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:49 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/robin-scottelliot-exiled-from-the-sofa-while-sven-practises-his-moves-1801396.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/robin-scottelliot-exiled-from-the-sofa-while-sven-practises-his-moves-1801396.html <p>Abandon the cushioned reassurance of the sofa and that last symbol of crumbling manliness, the TV remote, go upstairs and crouch in front of the computer in the "office" jostling for space with a clothes horse sporting a smorgasbord of the good lady's smalls, as Sven would put it. If this is the future of sports broadcasting, it's not very comfortable. Unless you like sitting on hard-backed chairs wearing women's underwear while exploring the web, but that's a whole different ball game and one, traditionally, requiring a Tory MP to get it rolling.</p> Reviews Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/in-treatment-sky-arts-1800777.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/in-treatment-sky-arts-1800777.html <p>For all the awards and nominations it has garnered in the US and the anticipatory water-cooler chat here in the UK, I couldn't muster much genuine excitement at the prospect of In Treatment, the US drama series that has just concluded the first week of a two-month weekday run on Sky Arts. </p> Reviews Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/mixcloudcom-online-1800778.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/mixcloudcom-online-1800778.html ]]> <p>Until the past week I'd managed to get through life without having listened to a podcast – don't ask me how. But that's been well and truly rectified thanks to a new service, Mixcloud, which describes itself as the YouTube of radio and promises to change the face of sound broadcasting. Possibly.</p> Reviews Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100