The Accident, Channel 4 review - Sarah Lancashire leads another bleak but gripping drama

★★★★ THE ACCIDENT, CHANNEL 4 Sarah Lancashire leads another bleak but gripping drama

Jack Thorne's latest miniseries depicts the aftermath of a disaster in small-town Wales

I wouldn’t want to live in Jack Thorne’s head. Nor Sarah Lancashire’s, for that matter. The Accident is Thorne’s latest four-part drama, and the final instalment in his grim and gripping trilogy of shows for Channel 4.

The Capture, BBC One, series finale review - nimble drama alive with twists

★★★★ THE CAPTURE, BBC ONE, SERIES FINALE Nimble drama alive with twists

Ben Chanan's paranoid what-if surveillance thriller goes out on another question

What did we learn at the end of The Capture (BBC One)? A rice jar is a good place to hide USB sticks. It’s possible to withhold the opening credits for 11 whole minutes. A green coat works exceptionally well with light blue eyes and shoulder-length auburn hair. And Ben Chanan, who originated the script and directed it himself, is a television dramatist to watch, and watch again.

Catherine the Great, Sky Atlantic review - a glorious role for Helen Mirren only gets better

★★★★★ CATHERINE THE GREAT, SKY ATLANTIC A glorious role for Helen Mirren only gets better

Initial Russian intrigue may confound, but hold out for the emotional heart of a landmark drama

“I want something Russian…” It’s with such a cry that Helen Mirren, bored by the bizarrely transgressive masked ball that comes at the close of the first episode of Catherine the Great, gets the dancing going: nothing from the imported fashions of Europe will do for her, and the music duly strikes up, a soupily romantic melody on violin, the quintessence, you might think, of mythic “Russianness”.

World on Fire, BBC One review - more melodrama than drama

★★★ WORLD ON FIRE, BBC ONE Peter Bowker's WWII saga needs more depth, less breadth

Peter Bowker's World War Two saga needs more depth and less breadth

For his new drama series for BBC One, writer Peter Bowker (The A Word, Monroe etc) has taken as his canvas no less than a panorama of Europe in 1939, just as World War Two is breaking out.

My Life is Murder, Alibi review - whimsical tales of detection from Down Under

★★★ MY LIFE IS MURDER, ALIBI Whimsical tales of detection from Down Under

Lucy Lawless upholds the law as investigator Alexa Crowe

Lucy Lawless achieved cult status in the Nineties fantasy classic Xena: Warrior Princess, and later became a regular in such disparate creations as Battlestar Galactica and Parks and Recreation. In My Life is Murder, she joins the ever-expanding ranks of TV ‘tecs as Melbourne-based investigator Alexa Crowe.

Power, politics and Peaky Blinders - the Shelby family return for Series 5

Steam-punk gangsters invade the corridors of Westminster

This is how Steven Knight pictured Peaky Blinders when he first set about creating it. “I was very keen not to do a traditional British period drama, especially where it comes to depictions of working class people. Where the impulse is to say ‘it’s a shame, it’s a pity, isn’t it awful, wasn’t everything terrible for women’.

I Am Hannah, Channel 4 review - last in trilogy leaves us dangling

★★★ I AM HANNAH, CHANNEL 4 Last in trilogy leaves us dangling

Gemma Chan stars as a woman agonising over mid-life choices

In the final instalment of Dominic Savage’s trilogy of stand-alone dramas for Channel 4, Gemma Chan took the title role of a single woman in her mid-thirties, struggling with awkward choices about motherhood, relationships and settling down.

Euphoria, Sky Atlantic review - teenage nervous breakdown

★★★★ EUPHORIA, SKY ATLANTIC Gen-Z drama pushes the envelope of sex, drugs and emotional turmoil

Gen-Z drama pushes the envelope of sex, drugs and emotional turmoil

Being a teenager used to be fun, allegedly, but for the young cast of HBO’s controversial new hit series Euphoria it looks more like a nightmare ride through a theme park of bad trips.