BLOGS
New Tricks
- Posted at 5:07pm
- 09 July 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
In a recent issue of Radio Times magazine, New Tricks producer Tom Sherry says that the BBC1 series is "very quietly, and without making a lot of fuss…on its way to becoming a national treasure."
He's right - and who could have seen it coming? I've watched New Tricks (which starts a new series, its sixth, on BBC1 on Thursday 16 July) from the beginning and started out by not being keen. It was far too bluff and jokey for me.
But - and here I raise my hands in mute surrender - I've...
Torchwood
- Posted at 4:45pm
- 02 July 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Torchwood star John Barrowman is mightily miffed at the latest series's length and scheduling. In the new RT he claims the show is being "punished" for its increasing success. Torchwood started on BBC3, then went to BBC2 and next week all five episodes of the new series Children of Earth will be shown consecutively, Monday to Friday, at the peak time of 9:00pm on BBC1.
Barrowman's wider point is that this latest series is a mere five, rather than 13, episodes, and it's clear he doesn't like the changed back-to-back format. Of course, he's entitled...
Sorry, I don't watch The Wire…
- Posted at 3:02pm
- 29 June 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
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...
US TV: Paris, SuBo and Mental
- Posted at 4:00pm
- 25 June 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
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...
House
- Posted at 5:15pm
- 28 May 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
It's always galling when a major broadcaster loses interest in one of your favourites so they ditch it completely, give it to a channel you can't get or move it around to the point that you need a team of sniffer dogs and a powerful torch to find it again.
You know what I mean - you stick with a show, you enjoy it and look forward to it. All right, it might be showing signs of weariness, but, hey, we television viewers are nothing if not loyal until the rug is pulled out from under our...
Katie & Peter versus poetry
- Posted at 5:11pm
- 21 May 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
"Aw, did you see Peter Andre in Katie & Peter Stateside? Peter wrote a lovely song for his stepson Harvey, the lyrics were something about Harvey making him a dad before he became a father. Or it could have been a father before he became a dad…"
It was at this point that I could see the thunderstruck expressions starting to take shape on my friends' faces. One close colleague shook her head and said, pityingly, "No, Alison. This has to stop."
She's right, of course, but what can I say, my once mild...
Ashes to Ashes
- Posted at 3:35pm
- 14 May 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Before I begin, let's get one thing straight - series three of Ashes to Ashes is not a done deal. Everything is in place apart from one tiny, crucial detail - it has yet to be recommissioned.
I'd miss Ashes to Ashes if it didn't return, but then, I won't rend any garments if it fails to reappear, because I'm unconvinced the series has much more life left in it.
I'm enjoying bits of series two and have warmed to Detective Inspector Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) now that her shrieking, screamingly annoying series one personality has...
Boy Meets Girl
- Posted at 6:05pm
- 08 May 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
After wanting to hose myself down with disinfectant after watching ITV1's toxic, acrid, thoroughly icky, supposedly erotic thriller Compulsion last week, I needed some balm for my angry soul.
So it's a good job that Boy Meets Girl (Fridays ITV1) has come along. I suppose it could be described as a romantic comedy, though that feels like an unfairly narrow definition. Perhaps it's the title that misleads and makes it sound like a photo-romance in Jackie magazine. There are romantic elements, but they are skewed, off-kilter and not at all sappy; this isn't Richard Curtis....
A fond farewell to Mad Men
- Posted at 5:17pm
- 30 April 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Well, it's nearly over and I am bereft. No more Mad Men. It ends on Tuesday (5 May) - what are we Madettes to do? The final episode is a doozy, so completely wonderful I wanted to wrap it round me like a blanket and never let it go.
Of course, I realise that a fair chunk of you out there, wherever you are, probably haven't even heard of Mad Men, let alone actually watched it. Its viewing figures have been pitiful, despite a huge marketing push from BBC4, and it's ended up...
Compulsion is repulsive viewing
- Posted at 2:45pm
- 27 April 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
The publicity blurb for one-off drama Compulsion (Monday 4 May, ITV1) tells us that it's "loosely based on the Jacobean tragedy The Changeling, written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley in 1622." Which must mean that it's a bit posh and classy, right?
Yeah, right, as The Young People say. It's more like every portly middle-aged man's fantasy. Ray Winstone, whose production company made Compulsion, plays the portly, middle-aged and faithful retainer Flowers, who is chauffeur and general factotum to a wealthy Indian businessman and his family.
Flowers doesn't say much, but he...
CSI: NY
- Posted at 4:40pm
- 23 April 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Since the departure of Gil Grissom, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation has become, more often than not, a dull and turgid thing, which is a shame as it was once the most mighty of all police procedural dramas.
Grissom was the beating heart of CSI, giving blood and life to his small team. Now he's gone, they are quietly dying. I feel for Laurence Fishburne, who admittedly doesn't directly replace Grissom - Grissom's deputy, Catherine Willows, has taken over - but he was brought in to fill a Grissom-sized gap. He can't, through no fault of his...
Damages/Ashes to Ashes
- Posted at 4:15pm
- 16 April 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Something strange and worrying happened to me this week…I missed an episode of Damages, and I didn't care. This would have been unthinkable during the first series, when I hungered for weekly instalments like an anaemic vampire.
But as for series two - meh, so what? I have two big problems with it. The first one is called William Hurt, who kills the pace whenever he appears because he is so obviously acting that you can actually see him do it. With really good actors, like Glenn Close (Damages's terrifying lawyer Patty Hewes),...
New You've Been Framed!
- Posted at 5:30pm
- 02 April 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
I am perfectly serious when I claim that New You've Been Framed! is the most brilliantly subversive show on television, bar none.
Yes, I can see that this is an odd thing to say as you are surely thinking, dear reader, that these are merely by-the-yard, formulaic blooper shows featuring camcorder footage of people falling over at weddings.
You'd be right, it is all of those things - and in your heart of hearts surely you must realise that there are few things on earth funnier than watching people falling over at weddings.
But since he...
Law & Order: UK
- Posted at 4:10pm
- 19 March 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
In the history of television legal dramas, there surely can't ever have been such a witless, hopeless couple as prosecutors James Steel and Alesha Phillips in Law & Order: UK.
Week after week anyone with even the merest nodding acquaintance with British law must be yelping with laughter at the pair's howling incompetence and sheer idiocy.
One of the highlights for me was in the most recent episode (Monday 16 March) when Phillips (Freema Agyeman, out of her depth) told her boss (Ben Daniels), who was sitting moodily on the steps of...
The Mentalist
- Posted at 5:00pm
- 12 March 2009
- by AlisonGraham-RT
If there are any House fans out there who are eagerly awaiting the arrival of series five - you're out of luck, I'm afraid. In the normal course of events, House would have returned roughly about now, but it's been bumped back until at least the autumn.
This isn't good news for House fans, though from being a devotee in the very early days, love between House and me died some time ago when I became increasingly exasperated by its tiresome repetition because the same thing happened every single week.
Anyway, this gap in the...
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