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The week in soapland
- Posted at 5:02pm
- 30 June 2009
- by GarethMcLean-RT
Coronation Street
The sort of man who would steal your teeth and come back for your gums, Tony Gordon has been softened by his friendship with Maria. While it's a pity it took murdering her husband to bring them close, let's not dwell on the downsides. Maria certainly isn't. Welcoming into her life the man who once threatened to end it - warning her there was plenty of room in the boneyard beside dead husband Liam and dead baby Paul - Maria is nothing if not forgiving. After all, she needed some flatpack furniture assembled.
With Maria frustrated by waiting for the birth, the pair take a long...
Sorry, I don't watch The Wire…
- Posted at 3:02pm
- 29 June 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
- 35 comments
In a recent issue of RT, Michael Parkinson rejoiced in the brilliance of The Wire. Oh Parky, et tu? It's time I admitted that I haven't watched it, I can't get into it and I'm obviously a Bad Person. Go on, feel free to throw things, I can take it.
My days are dogged by The Wire. As I walk along the street, clouds form themselves into the sentences: "Have you seen The Wire? Brilliant, isn't it?" Dogs in packs approach me to bark in unison: "The Wire? Best television drama EVER." If I were a character in a Disney film, little cartoon bluebirds...
Personal Affairs
- Posted at 4:45pm
- 26 June 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
- 37 comments
Let's not waste any time, let's shoot a poisoned arrow straight through the heart of Personal Affairs, BBC3's supposed comic drama about a clutch of secretaries in a City of London bank. It is inexplicably bad.
By that I mean how did a series so crunchingly awful actually make it to a television screen? Why did something that made me want to rend my garments and tear my hair out by its roots, arrive, fully formed, in my living room, without anyone noticing its desiccated plot and characters?
The quartet of PAs at the heart of Personal Affairs (three of whom are pictured below) are tiresome, sex-obsessed...
Big Brother's Best Bits: week three
- Posted at 11:00am
- 26 June 2009
- by PaulJones-RT
# Noirin, Noirin, Noirin, Noi-ree-ee-een… #
Biggest sex symbol
Everybody loves Noirin! Sree says, "Your inner beauty is platinum. I'm in love with you." Angel says, "I've got really deep feelings for her. It's sexual feelings as well." Marcus says, "She's beautiful, Shania Twain, but not as beautiful as Noirin." Personally, I think she's a bit fat…
Biggest lush
It's hard to understand why Noirin isn't falling for Sree's charms. Most women would swoon if a drunken man dropped his trousers in front of them and started singing Womaniser. Noirin's deadpan response as she turned on her heel and headed...
US TV: Paris, SuBo and Mental
- Posted at 4:00pm
- 25 June 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
- 1 comment
TV critics don't take holidays, we just watch telly in other countries while eating different food, which is how I ended up yelping with disbelief on an American sofa in an American house eating horrible American sweets (sorry, candy) as I gazed at Paris Hilton on Entertainment Tonight, a featherlight nightly primetime, major-channel gossipy magazine programme. A bit like The One Show, only slick, fun and interesting.
ET's producers realised that they needed Hilton's titanic intellectual presence to comment on Susan Boyle's departure from The Priory. (Never mind the convulsions of our parliament over the MPs' expenses scandal, the American media is transfixed by...
Channel 4 adds TV archive to 4oD
- Posted at 5:15pm
- 23 June 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
- 7 comments
You will never go out again. Not even to work. Certainly not to the DVD store. From Friday 3 July, Channel 4 is opening its archives online: initially 4,000 hours of some of the finest British television ever made will be yours for the price of watching it on your computer.
All you've got to do is choose what to watch. It's going to get harder as Channel 4 keeps adding more and more material but Radio Times picks out the greatest, the most controversial and the funniest. All of this, every minute of every episode, will be available from Friday 3 July on www.channel4.com/4od.
Martina Cole's The Take
- Posted at 5:00pm
- 19 June 2009
- by DavidButcher-RT
- 15 comments
Every now and then a performance comes along that jumps up, grabs you by the throat and won't let go. Tom Hardy's 1980s gangster Freddie Jackson in the opening episode of Martina Cole's The Take was like that.
You couldn't take your eyes off him. It was like watching an angry bull-mastiff let loose in a petting zoo: whatever he did next, you knew it wouldn't be pretty. In every scene, Freddie gave off waves of brutal charisma: you try doing that in a spangly suit and grey loafers.
Early on, after being released from prison, he called on the accomplice from his last robbery, who had...
Big Brother's Best Bits: week two
- Posted at 11:15am
- 19 June 2009
- by HelenHackworthy-RT
- 2 comments
A look back at the biggest and best bits from the last seven days of Big Brother.
Biggest cringe factor
There's no doubt, Sree definitely divides the sexes. As a woman, I think he's quite sweet and naive with the ladies; I could barely watch when he 'fessed his love to a clearly uncomfortable Noirin. Men, on the other hand, see him as a cunning, calculating player looking for any excuse to cop a feel. But women are always right, natch…
Best dietary advice
If you want to look like death warmed up, follow Dimitar Berbatov's - I mean, Angel's - top tip and starve...
The week in soapland
- Posted at 11:15am
- 19 June 2009
- by GarethMcLean-RT
Coronation Street
Their eyes met over a greasy carburettor. They bonded over a mutual love of exercise, having been circling each other warily for weeks as Graeme might survey a sausage roll. As Tyrone intervenes in Jack's relationship with Connie, and Sally is distracted by the newly minted Rosie's spending habits, Kevin and Molly can finally resist each other no longer and give in to their desires.
This extramarital liaison raises all manner of quandaries, but the big question is: if the pair do make sweet, sweet love, will Molly remove her rucksack?
Happily, it's not all adultery and betrayal on the cobbles: Jason and Tina get it together,...
Arlene Phillips to leave Strictly Come Dancing?
- Posted at 11:40am
- 18 June 2009
- by LauraPledger-RT
- 82 comments
The hot gossip is that judge Arlene Phillips has been dropped from hit BBC1 series Strictly Come Dancing.
The Sun claims that renowned choreographer Phillips, 66, will be replaced by 30-year-old singer Alesha Dixon - who won the dancing competition in 2007 - in a bid to attract a younger audience to the show.
A BBC spokeswoman refused to confirm the speculation: "We can't confirm anything about the new series of Strictly yet, but we are always looking at ways to maximise viewers' enjoyment of our shows."
Alesha herself told Sky News: "There is always speculation. Two months ago they were reporting that I was...
Andy Murray on Wimbledon - and those remarks about England
- Posted at 3:45pm
- 17 June 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
- 23 comments
Such talent, such strength and such a fantastic chance at Wimbledon - yet still Andy Murray has his detractors. Maybe it's because the Scottish tennis star revealed he was supporting "anyone but England" in the 2006 World Cup.
"I made a joke about the England team, like I do with my friends," he explains in an exclusive interview for the new issue of Radio Times. "And they joke about Scottish football all the time! That's when I realised I couldn't afford to make jokes like that."
If he's decided to avoid that, he's also trying to shed his famous grumpiness and says he's not the...
Parky calls for better British cop shows
- Posted at 1:10pm
- 16 June 2009
- by WilliamGallagher-RT
"The Wire is not about reassurance or redemption," says Michael Parkinson in the new issue of Radio Times. "Journalist David Simon spent time with Baltimore's police department and what he witnessed became two of the best television police series of all time - Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire."
The self-professed cop show fan wants to see British TV get it right: "Now Morse has gone, we need a substantial series based on a cop."
Our current crop of cops don't make the grade. "Will Ashes to Ashes continue with the theme of parallel worlds, or...
Top Gear: your female presenting team
- Posted at 3:15pm
- 15 June 2009
- by PaulJones-RT
- 40 comments
Top Gear fans will be celebrating the return of the series to BBC2 this Sunday. The nation's favourite motoring show is beloved of lads and ladettes alike, yet it features an all-male presenting line-up. So what if Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May were replaced by members of the opposite sex? Who would you put in the driving seats?
In a recent survey on RadioTimes.com, we asked you to name your ultimate female TG trio. 1,793 of you responded. So who did you choose?
To stand in for Clarkson - "The Bossy One" - you picked acid-tongued Weakest...
The week in soapland
- Posted at 6:10pm
- 12 June 2009
- by GarethMcLean-RT
Emmerdale
Though the motto "When you're in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut" is a wise one, it's unlikely to be spied on the Wylde family crest. If it's not Natasha opening her mouth before engaging her brain - gifting the church to the village, inviting all and sundry to Mark's and her vows renewal - it's Maisie and Nathan ill-advisedly making enemies (or worse, friends) of Emmerdale's dodgiest residents.
Never one to miss out on publicly messing up, Mark's misdemeanours get an airing when dead-eyed Faye turns up with her son Ryan. And by her son, I mean, of course, Mark's son. Can't you see...
Big Brother's Best Bits: week one
- Posted at 11:41am
- 12 June 2009
- by PaulJones-RT
Every Friday, we take a look back at the biggest and best bits from the last seven days of Big Brother.
Biggest love-in - Siavash and Cairon
It was (platonic) love at first sight for Siavash and Cairon, who have been hanging out together ever since, praising each other's hair, dress sense and GSOH. They even believe they're mutually telepathic. "You're already one of my best mates," gushed Siavash, just three nights in. Possibly not the words of a man already overburdened with friends.
Biggest mouth - Sophia
She may be small, but motormouth Sophia just can't shut...
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