Sam’s Final Fling

It has the potential to be one of those finales that is talked about for years to come (at least around the hallowed halls of Fazzinchi Towers), like Blake’s 7 or Blackadder or Babylon 5 or The Office (or, for all the wrong reasons, Quantum Leap). Life on Mars will be remembered as a genre-breaking series that looked back at the seventies with a gritty realism and a realisation that it almost was like another planet. In Gene Hunt we had a fantastic character who, despite being a

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Tags: 1973, Finale, Gene-Hunt, John-Simm, Life-On-Mars, Period Drama, Philip-Glenister, Sam-Tyler

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

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Tags: Charles-Dance, Clare-Holman, Emilia-Fox, Fallen-Angel, Mark-Benton, Modern Drama, Period Drama

Where There’s Life

I am so glad that John Simm has found himself a role in the new Doctor Who (playing the mysterious Mr Saxon) because, while he has been fantastic in Life on Mars, it is easy to now forget some of his earlier memorable roles in The Lakes, State of Play and suchlike, so to take on what I assume will be such a different role should be great to see. The impending end of this groundbreaking series and the forthcoming role in one of the most popular shows on TV promises to be great for his

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Tags: BBC1, John-Simm, Life-On-Mars, Period Drama, Trumpton

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

Christmas Review #5 of 12

Marc Warren has clearly been unfeasably busy of late, in addition to his ongoing role in Hustle as the bubbly wide-boy Danny Blue, we’ve seen him appear in a show-stealing lead role as Elton Pope in Doctor Who, as the master assassin, Mr Teatime, in The Hogfather, and here as a rather well known Transylvanian. In another of the BBC’s recent adaptations of classic books and quite a surprising choice given the huge number of incarnations already created, Dracula gave us a fairly

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Tags: BBC1, Doctor Who, Dracula, Hogfather, Hustle, Marc-Warren, Period Drama

Christmas Review #4 of 12

Debuting with a more than respectable 8m viewers and keeping 5m or 6m of them happy throughout its 13-week run, the latest incarnation of Robin Hood was a curious beast.  Trying to capture the newly formed family viewing slot of “Saturday at 7pm on BBC1″ it was roundly panned by critics to begin with but I felt quite comfortable with it all along assured that it would get better as everyone settled down.  By the time the final episode aired last week (the oddly titled “A Clue: No”)

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Tags: BBC1, Castle, Christmas-TV, Jonas-Armstrong, Keith-Allen, Marian, Nottingham, Period Drama, Richard-Armitage, Robin-Hood, Sherriff, Sherwood-Forest