Game of Thrones, Series 7, Sky Atlantic review – slow, but it's just the beginning
The fate of the Seven Kingdoms is hanging in the balance
If nothing else, Game of Thrones has surely been the greatest boon to the British acting profession since they invented tights and greasepaint. Part of the fun is trying to think of somebody who hasn’t been in it yet.
I Know Who You Are, BBC Four review - preposterous but hypnotic
'I were crap at school': Jodie Whittaker, the new Doctor Who
She made her debut opposite Peter O'Toole, faced down aliens in Peckham, and has Yorkshire vowels as flat as caps
“Jodie is a remarkable young woman. She’s game. She’s a good actress, and she’s willing.” So said Peter O’Toole of the first female Doctor Who.
Orange Is the New Black, Season 5, Netflix review - counterpoint in a three-day prison riot
Jenji Kohan's drama narrows the time span but enriches its characters and storylines
GLOW, Netflix review - not quite comedy or drama
Wrestling show fakes OITNB's moves
How much plotting went into GLOW? It has been gussied up by the people who brought you the jumbo Netflix hit Orange Is the New Black. Both shows are based on a true story and feature women of all ethnicities bitching and slapping in a contained environment. In Glow there’s less orange, and less black, but even more bitching and slapping.
Broken, BBC One series finale review - Seán Bean's quiet immensity
Jimmy McGovern's portrait of the Catholic church in crisis ends in moving redemption
The Catholic Church hasn’t enjoyed a good press on screen lately. Nuns punished Irishwomen for their pregnancies in Philomena. Priests interfered with altar boys in Spotlight. And in The Young Pope a Vatican fixated on conservatism and casuistry elects a pontiff who sees himself as a rock star. Broken was Jimmy McGovern’s agonised absolution for a church in crisis.
Melvyn Bragg on TV, BBC Two review – too many talking heads, too little action
'The Box That Changed the World' makes laborious viewing
Presumably it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Chance, Universal review – Hugh Laurie is reborn as a film-noir shrink
Dr House finds a new home in San Francisco
Hugh Laurie, in his new role of forensic neuropsychiatrist Eldon Chance, tells us that he works with those who are “mutilated by life”, and we soon see that Chance himself falls into that category. He’s in the midst of a divorce, he only sees his daughter Nicole at weekends, and his work seems to fill him with a kind of morbid weariness.
Ripper Street, BBC Two, Series 5 review – apocalypse looms in Victorian Whitechapel
Not so much a police series as a laboratory of lost souls
There has always been an air of incipient doom hovering over Ripper Street, since the show is more of a laboratory of lost souls than a mere detective drama.