Best of 2023: TV

BEST OF 2023: TV How many streaming services are you willing to pay for?

How many streaming services are you willing to pay for?

TV viewers can hardly complain about a lack of choice these days, though they might baulk at funding an ever-lengthening list of subscriptions.

Malpractice, ITV1 review - she got into a mess on the NHS

★★★★★ MALPRACTICE, ITV1 Niamh Algar shines in powerful and timely medical drama

Niamh Algar shines in powerful and timely medical drama

This skilfully-woven drama about an NHS doctor being battered by professional and personal pressures is undoubtedly timely, and benefits greatly from being written by Grace Ofori-Attah, a former NHS doctor herself. Her inside knowledge lends weight and verisimilitude to scenes depicting admission procedures or the way the treacherous politics of NHS hierarchies work, and perhaps most significantly, how internal investigations are conducted.

Endeavour: The Final Episode, ITV1 review - the final bow for Oxford's finest

The curtain falls on a milestone in TV detection

Endeavour first landed way back in 2012, and suddenly here we are, bidding it a final farewell after the end of its ninth series. Not everybody learned to love Shaun Evans as the pre-John Thaw Inspector Morse, but some of us may even have come to like the new boy better.

Stonehouse, ITV review - history repeats itself as farce

★★ STONEHOUSE, ITV History repeats itself as farce

Dramatisation of the John Stonehouse story feels strangely unnecessary

A disclaimer in the opening credits confessed that some scenes in this three-part history of disgraced Labour MP John Stonehouse had been “imagined for dramatic purposes”, but there was no need. The man’s life story fell comfortably into the “you couldn’t make it up” zone, and there wasn’t really much that screenwriter John Preston needed to add.

Doc Martin Christmas Special, ITV review - Santa comes to Portwenn as the final curtain falls

★★★★ DOC MARTIN CHRISTMAS SPECIAL, ITV Santa comes to Portwenn as the final curtain falls

It's a wrap for the 18-year-old TV institution

In 10 series stretching over the last 18 years, ITV's Doc Martin unobtrusively became an enduringly popular household name, but it finally reached the end of the road with this Christmas one-off. Unless, of course, there’s a prequel, a sequel, an origin story or a transformed internationalised version from Netflix.

Karen Pirie, ITV review - cold case mystery drags itself across the finish line

★★★ KAREN PIRIE, ITV Val McDermid cold case mystery drags itself across the finish line

Val McDermid adaptation is solid but unspectacular

Although plaudits have been rolling in for Lauren Lyle’s smart and sparky portrayal of the titular detective in Karen Pirie (ITV), getting to the end of the third and final episode felt like a long slog.

Van der Valk, Series 2 Finale, ITV review - sleaze, corruption and skulduggery in Amsterdam

★★★ VAN DER VALK, SERIES 2 FINALE, ITV Sleaze, corruption and skulduggery in Amsterdam

Marc Warren grows into the role of the yobbish detective

Despite the jarring effect of having British actors speaking colloquial English while purporting to be Dutch policemen working in Amsterdam, the second series of ITV’s Van der Valk arrived at its third and final episode feeling as if it had reached its comfort zone.

Murder in Provence, ITV review - a little light sleuthing amid fabulous French scenery

★★★ MURDER IN PROVENCE, ITV A little light sleuthing amid fabulous French scenery

Roger Allam and Nancy Carroll make an urbane crime-solving duo

Connoisseurs of the Britbox streaming service may already have caught up with this three-part series, which has evidently been pressed into service on ITV to pad out TV’s annual summer slump. They could have called it Midsomer Murders Goes to the Côte d’Azur, as it details the adventures of Investigating Judge Antoine Verlaque (Roger Allam) and his partner Marine Bonnet, a criminal psychologist played by Nancy Carroll.

DI Ray, ITV review - Parminder Nagra battles killer gangs and cultural stereotypes

★★★ DI RAY, ITV Parminder Nagra battles killer gangs and cultural stereotypes

Cops afflicted by sexism, racism and box-ticking mediocrity

Somehow or other, fictional representations of the police have become an off-the-cuff index of changing times and evolving values. Dixon of Dock Green’s cops were stern father figures who knew right from wrong and considered it their duty to give villains a clip round the ear. The Sweeney weren’t quite so sure about right and wrong but gave everybody a good kicking anyway, while risking a bollocking from the boss for their blatant rule-bending.

Holding, ITV review - Graham Norton’s novel moves seamlessly to the small screen

★★★★ HOLDING, ITV Graham Norton’s novel moves seamlessly to the small screen

A fine Irish cast does justice to a gentle but dark whodunnit set in West Cork

The terrain Holding occupies is well travelled, but this new ITV four-part drama travels over it really well. The landmarks are familiar: a quiet rural community, a cop with an unhealthy lifestyle and a secret sorrow, a feud between rival lovers of the local lothario, a long-buried trauma that’s suddenly unearthed. We could be in any rural location in the primetime drama of the past half-century.