Fazzinchi

Kingdom/House

Well, who could’ve predicted the winding career paths of Messrs Fry and Laurie after they first came to our attention in the early days of Saturday Live, Blackadder and A Bit Of Fry and Laurie? A lot of water has passed under many a bridge since then but we now find each of them in weekly doses in two astonishingly different drama series.  In fact, “drama” is quite a strong word to describe Kingdom.  A classic, British, Sunday night viewing experience in the style of Heartbeat, i.e. it (more…)

Emilia Fox with Problems of Her Own

Fallen Angel was a compelling piece of drama and it took a different and refreshing approach from the traditional concept of the psychopath storytelling focussing on the “why” rather than the “who”.  It was shown over three nights on ITV in 90 minute installments but they were in reverse chronological order.  The first part saw Angela (Emilia Fox) sharing a house with Eddie (played brilliantly by Mark Benton) as a fairly unpleasant duo who were planning to kidnap a child.  Eddie was (more…)

Morris Hits Hides The Bottle

There is something wierd about 24 this season. We have now seen up to 5pm (after kicking off Series Six at 7am) and I’m starting to get the distinct impression that I’ve seen it all before.  Jack is alternating between following the rules and going completely off piste, inside CTU there is much back-stabbing and people being vaguely ridiculous as the lie and cheat to their bosses while trying to save the world, the president is off letting any old Tom, Dick or Unabomber into the (more…)

New Kid On The Block

The tragic death of John Thaw five years ago came just a couple of years after the broadcast of the final episode of Inspector Morse and, in the eyes of the ardent fans of the show, all but signalled the end of that particular chapter of their devotion. However, in not so much a flood of publicity but more of a trickle, it was announced that devoted sidekick Seargeant Lewis was to get a promotion and a series of his own. Lewis is certainly hewn from the same rock as Morse, (more…)

One For The Future 

Another quality drama from ITV came along last week in the guise of Instinct, which starred the really rather good (and worthy of noting for future reference), Anthony Flanagan.  He has already played parts in Cracker, Life On Mars and Vincent but I hope he gets to spread his wings away from gritty crime drama soon.  The main conceit of this tale was that Flanagan’s character, DCI Thomas Flynn, was a bit of a wunderkid who had an uncanny capability to assess information and (more…)

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? (more…)