Here’s to BBC2

It’s nearly Christmas for crying out loud and where exactly is the festive fun? Not on the TV that’s for sure. There has been such a paucity of decent telly so far since this little experiment started that I half expected Radio Times’ selections to include a documentary about Scrabble… Oh, Hang on, there is one! I kid you not, it’s part of Alan Yentob’s Imagine… series and is almost worth tuning in for just to see how they make it run for 65 minutes. If that’s not your cup of cocoa then Five are offering yet another CSI marathon, while over on Auntie we reach the conclusion of

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Tags: BBC4, Christmas-TV, HIGNFY, Imagine, Mock-The-Week, Never-Mind-The-Buzzcocks, Oliver Postgate, Paradox, Radio-Times

Name That Frame 

It is amazing that, after more than forty-three years, the assassination on John Fitzgerald Kennedy can still have such a stong emotional response in so many people. Typically, this amount of time forces a certain detachment between the event and people’s recollections of it but the events of 22nd November 1963 are far removed from what anyone would describe as “typical”. I would suggest that it was not until 11th September 2001 that any event had such world-changing

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Tags: 9/11, BBC4, Dealy-Plaza, Documentary, JFK, Jim-Garrison, Kennedy, Lee-Harvey-Oswald, Storyville

What Happened Next?

Sat down to watch Reichenbach Falls this evening, a recent BBC4 play about a detective and an author.  Got to about 2 minutes from the end and we saw the above.  The gut-wrenching realisation that the EPG and the broadcast have gone out of synch on the Sky box and you’ve missed the end, is not a nice feeling.  I also seem to have missed the repeats.  If anyone knows what happened just after the “One Year Later” subtitle, do let me know?

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Tags: Alec-Newman, BBC4, Ian-Rankin, John-Sessions, Modern Drama, Nina-Sosanya, Reichenbach-Falls, Richard-Willson, Sherlock-Holmes

Dirty, Harry 

I was a little disappointed to hear that season two of Life On Mars is to be the last, a mere 16 episodes doesn’t seem like quite enough to satisfy the palette when it comes to this unusual cop drama. If internet rumours are to be believed there may well be the opportunity to enjoy the US re-make (if “enjoy” is the right word) or even look forward the much suspected sequel/spin-off called Ashes To Ashes (to keep the Bowie theme alive) that will be set in the eighties. All this

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Tags: Ashes-To-Ashes, BBC1, BBC4, Gene-Hunt, John-Simm, Life-On-Mars, Period Drama, Philip-Glenister, Sam-Tyler, The-Sweeney

White Noise

Charlie Brooker is a man with a mission.  Quite what the mission is, I am not quite sure but I heartily recommend joining him on the journey.  If Points Of View is the genial uncle of “TV shows about TV shows” then, tucked away on late night BBC4 you’ll find Screenwipe being the rebellious nephew with rings in his nose, a black, spiky mohican and kicking the neighbour’s cat.  The widely-read, Guardian columnist can be found venting his spleen about whatever televisual treats

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Tags: BBC4, Charlie-Brooker, General, Guardian, Mark-Gatiss, Nigel-Kneale, Points-Of-View, Screenburn, Screenwipe

Retrospective Review #3 of 5

BBC4 have followed up their recent re-makes of the classic sci-fi shows, Quatermass Experiment and A For Andromeda, with a version of Random Quest (based on the John Wyndham story) with isn’t-he-like-his-dad, Samuel West in the lead role. I missed the chance to see both Samuel and Timothy perform together at the local theatre recently in “A Number”, which is a play about human cloning and, judging by his assured performance here, I say that with some regret. Random

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Tags: A-For-Andromeda, BBC4, Quatermass, Random-Quest, Sci Fi, Simon-West