Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2026-03-19T17:45:45.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Is Martin Clunes's new Huw Edwards drama really 'too soon'?
items: Is drama Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards really 'too soon'? I argue it's a stark study of an imbalance of power
items: From Benson to Scarpetta: How women are rewriting the rules of US TV crime drama
items: Star Trek is struggling to find its moment – and it might need to face up to a hard truth
items: Spoilers, sweetie! Why Doctor Who fans need to learn the joy of waiting
items: Why I'm still watching reruns of The Office while the world is on fire
items: Yes, I'm still watching reruns of The Office while the world is on fire - and this is why
items: The end of the shared TV experience? Why streaming's power grab should worry viewers
items: The revolution on the shelf? Why physical media still matters in the age of streaming TV
items: With conspiracy culture now weaponised, can a revival of The X-Files really work today?
items: Goodbye, Rob Grant – the Red Dwarf co-creator who found the laughs in loneliness
items: It’s Scooby-Doo with an 18 certificate: Why the Scream franchise owes a major debt to the classic cartoon
items: ER is coming to Netflix – and it's time we recognised it changed television forever
items: Forget the doof-doofs – The Traitors' cliffhangers may have just outplayed the soaps
items: The Thursday Murder Club review: A safe and cosy whodunnit with touches of pathos
items: The Thursday Murder Club review: A cute whodunnit adaptation with touches of pathos
items: 13 must-watch crime dramas based on books – from Slow Horses to The Day of the Jackal
items: The 10 best page-to-screen adaptations to watch now
items: Star Trek: Section 31 review – Beloved franchise should have stayed on terra firma
items: Call The Midwife's Peter Davison on filming under social distancing - and what to expect from Nonnatus House this Christmas
items: Doctor Who's Jo Martin says her casting as the Fugitive Doctor was "groundbreaking"
items: Why the end of The Fall was a big disappointment
items: BBC Breakfast's Naga Munchetty says team was supportive but "lessons to be learnt" after guideline row
items: Succession's Jesse Armstrong wrote a screenplay about Rupert Murdoch’s family

Is Martin Clunes's new Huw Edwards drama really 'too soon'?
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Martin Clunes stars as the disgraced newsreader in an upcoming production from 5.
encoded: Add Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards to your watchlist Whenever television dramatises a recent scandal, the same response quickly surfaces: it’s “too soon”. But the phrase can sometimes feel like a polite way of saying we’d rather not confront our discomfort just yet. After all, awkward truths become far easier to process once they’ve been safely consigned to the past. Given the personality at the heart of it, Power: the Downfall of Huw Edwards (airing on 24 March on 5) is bound to be the latest drama to find itself at the centre of this debate. Dramatising the fall of the once-trusted newsreader was always likely to provoke such a reaction. For years, Edwards appeared as solid and familiar as the desk he sat behind. Yet waiting doesn’t necessarily make such stories more respectful. Time alone can’t solve the ethical question that defines this case. If anything, facing it now may help keep our gaze on the wrongdoing rather than allowing it to fade from view. Arguably, what matters more is tone rather than timing. The risk with a project such as this is that it exploits a traumatic situation for entertainment or humanises its central figure to the point where it feels like mitigation. Thankfully, the focus here is less on any remorse Edwards may have felt after his disgrace and more on the controlling grip the presenter – played with quiet menace by Martin Clunes – exerted over the 17-year-old boy he groomed. The result is a stark study in the imbalance of power, with vulnerable youngster Ryan (Osian Morgan) depicted as someone caught in the psychological leverage Edwards wielded as a person of influence. At times, the drama captures that manipulation in small but palpably distressing detail: in private exchanges, Edwards repeatedly addresses the teenager as “baby”, a tone grotesquely out of step with the sober image he projected each night to viewers. In other moments, he berates and bullies his prey, steadily eroding Ryan’s self-worth and distancing him from his …

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width: 2913
height: 1942

Is drama Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards really 'too soon'? I argue it's a stark study of an imbalance of power
type: item
date: 2026-03-17T00:01:50.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Channel 5
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
description: Martin Clunes stars as the disgraced newsreader in an upcoming production from 5.
encoded: Whenever television dramatises a recent scandal, the same response quickly surfaces: it’s “too soon”. But the phrase can sometimes feel like a polite way of saying we’d rather not confront our discomfort just yet. After all, awkward truths become far easier to process once they’ve been safely consigned to the past. Given the personality at the heart of it, Power: the Downfall of Huw Edwards (airing on 24 March on 5) is bound to be the latest drama to find itself at the centre of this debate. Dramatising the fall of the once-trusted newsreader was always likely to provoke such a reaction. For years, Edwards appeared as solid and familiar as the desk he sat behind. Yet waiting doesn’t necessarily make such stories more respectful. Time alone can’t solve the ethical question that defines this case. If anything, facing it now may help keep our gaze on the wrongdoing rather than allowing it to fade from view. Arguably, what matters more is tone rather than timing. The risk with a project such as this is that it exploits a traumatic situation for entertainment or humanises its central figure to the point where it feels like mitigation. Thankfully, the focus here is less on any remorse Edwards may have felt after his disgrace and more on the controlling grip the presenter – played with quiet menace by Martin Clunes – exerted over the 17-year-old boy he groomed. The result is a stark study in the imbalance of power, with vulnerable youngster Ryan (Osian Morgan) depicted as someone caught in the psychological leverage Edwards wielded as a person of influence. At times, the drama captures that manipulation in small but palpably distressing detail: in private exchanges, Edwards repeatedly addresses the teenager as “baby”, a tone grotesquely out of step with the sober image he projected each night to viewers. In other moments, he berates and bullies his prey, steadily eroding Ryan’s self-worth and distancing him from his mother, Carys (Sian Reese-Williams), who fears she is los…

From Benson to Scarpetta: How women are rewriting the rules of US TV crime drama
type: item
date: 2026-03-13T13:21:09.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Amazon Prime Video
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: On demand
description: Forget the hard stare and slammed fist – today’s detectives solve crimes by thinking differently.
encoded: When it comes to playing the long game, few people have more patience than fans of Dr Kay Scarpetta. Patricia Cornwell’s forensic pathologist has been solving murders in readers’ imaginations ever since the publication of Postmortem back in 1990. Yet it has taken until 2026 for crime fiction’s most famous medical examiner to finally journey from bookshelves to the screen. Now, at last, she arrives in Scarpetta, with Nicole Kidman snapping on the latex gloves for Prime Video. After 30-odd years of anticipation, the adaptation feels less like a premiere and more like the end of one of television’s longest gestation periods. But Scarpetta’s debut is also oddly well-timed. Because if the current wave of American crime drama proves anything, it’s that the procedural – once the most stubbornly male corner of TV – has quietly become a genre led by women. Every good detective needs evidence, of course, so let’s consult the schedules. There we find the reboot of Matlock, where Kathy Bates plays an underestimated older lawyer who proves far more formidable than the sleek New York firm that hires her initially suspects. Elsewhere, there’s High Potential, in which Kaitlin Olson’s single parent – armed with a sky-high IQ and a low tolerance for policy – becomes an unlikely asset to the LAPD. Over in Elsbeth, Carrie Preston solves crimes largely by being so winningly kooky that suspects forget they’re supposed to be lying to her. And anchoring Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Mariska Hargitay’s Olivia Benson has spent three decades proving that empathy can be just as powerful a weapon as intimidation when tackling especially heinous crimes. What distinguishes these shows isn’t simply that women stand at their centre. It’s that the mysteries unfold differently because they do. Their appeal lies not just in who gets top billing, but in the fresh perspectives their crime-solvers bring to the case. To see how much has changed, it helps to look back at the traditional protagonists…

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height: 853

Star Trek is struggling to find its moment – and it might need to face up to a hard truth
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
description: As the franchise marks its 60th anniversary, its optimistic vision feels out of step with the current political mood.
encoded: Add Star Trek: Starfleet Academy to your watchlist There’s a scene late in the 1991 movie Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country where old warhorses Kirk and Spock wonder whether they’ve outlived their own usefulness. The film itself is a Cold War allegory that sees the once-adversarial Klingons brokering for peace, a situation that leaves the Enterprise crewmates confronting a galaxy that may no longer need them. It’s a sobering moment in a story that serves as a swan song for the original team. But it’s also a question that echoes today, not just for Kirk but for Star Trek itself. The underwhelming performance of latest offshoot Starfleet Academy in early Nielsen ratings, and the fact that no new series is currently in production, suggest a once-dominant sci-fi brand is struggling to capture the public imagination. Streaming fragmentation muddies the numbers, but the cultural temperature feels far cooler than in previous eras. A show that once defined television science fiction now feels strangely peripheral. But this could be more than just franchise fatigue. It may be that Star Trek’s worldview is simply out of step with the political mood. Because historically, the franchise tends to flourish at one particular kind of time: moments when the United States feels confident about the future. Just consider when Star Trek has previously thrived. It arrived amid the optimism of JFK’s “reach for the stars” rhetoric. It soared again with The Next Generation during Reagan’s “Morning in America” resurgence of the late 1980s and the post-Cold War triumphalism of Clinton’s 1990s. In short, Star Trek chimes when America believes the future belongs to it. Contrast that with the periods when it’s struggled. In the 1970s, distrust of institutions runs high after the Watergate scandal – and Star Trek exists mostly in reruns until the films revive it. Once we hit the 2000s and George W Bush’s war on terror, Star Trek again stumbles with the lacklustre Enterprise, which is axed af…

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height: 2000

Spoilers, sweetie! Why Doctor Who fans need to learn the joy of waiting
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
description: Fans are already fretting about casting and Christmas plot details. But the long wait is not a problem that needs solving.
encoded: Add Doctor Who to your watchlist It’s the early hours of Christmas Day 2007 and I’m woken by the sound of paper being torn in my son’s bedroom. Stumbling half-dazed to where he ought to have been sleeping, I’m met instead by the sight of discarded wrapping and an action figure of David Tennant clutched triumphantly in my young child’s hand. So excited was he by the prospect of Doctor Who toys arriving that he couldn’t wait until morning. But he was of primary-school age, so that anticipatory thrill was understandable – if slightly taxing for his dad, who’d been wrestling with Sellotape and gift tags until close to midnight. At the time, I did, admittedly, feel robbed of precious sleep. But looking back, I should have been grateful that the youngest Doctor Who fan in our house had at least managed to contain his excitement until the clock ticked over to the 25th of December. Because in 2026, Doctor Who fandom is in danger of hyping itself into a state of insensibility a full nine months before Christmas. Granted, the most recent episode of the BBC sci-fi series – which saw Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor regenerate into Billie Piper – left audiences with several questions. Chief among them: whether Piper, who was once companion Rose Tyler, is really playing the Doctor at all. Answers will no doubt arrive in December. But already, a faint air of online panic hangs over claims that the script for the upcoming Christmas special exists in several different versions. Theories about surprise regenerations fill speculative “news” articles, while a supposed casting delay is seized upon as proof that the show must somehow be in disarray. It has become a depressingly familiar pattern. The moment there is a gap in information, the vacuum fills with confident declarations that Doctor Who has entered the disaster zone – a conclusion eagerly amplified by sections of the press whose broader mission is to do down the BBC. But dare we consider the possibility that the production team may simply…

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width: 1388
height: 925

Spoilers, sweetie! Why Doctor Who fans need to learn the joy of waiting
type: item
date: 2026-03-12T13:30:00.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: Comment
description: Fans are already fretting about casting and Christmas plot details. But the long wait is not a problem that needs solving.
encoded: It’s the early hours of Christmas Day 2007 and I’m woken by the sound of paper being torn in my son’s bedroom. Stumbling half-dazed to where he ought to have been sleeping, I’m met instead by the sight of discarded wrapping and an action figure of David Tennant clutched triumphantly in my young child’s hand. So excited was he by the prospect of Doctor Who toys arriving that he couldn’t wait until morning. But he was of primary-school age, so that anticipatory thrill was understandable – if slightly taxing for his dad, who’d been wrestling with Sellotape and gift tags until close to midnight. At the time, I did, admittedly, feel robbed of precious sleep. But looking back, I should have been grateful that the youngest Doctor Who fan in our house had at least managed to contain his excitement until the clock ticked over to the 25th of December. Because in 2026, Doctor Who fandom is in danger of hyping itself into a state of insensibility a full nine months before Christmas. Granted, the most recent episode of the BBC sci-fi series – which saw Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor regenerate into Billie Piper – left audiences with several questions. Chief among them: whether Piper, who was once companion Rose Tyler, is really playing the Doctor at all. Answers will no doubt arrive in December. But already, a faint air of online panic hangs over claims that the script for the upcoming Christmas special exists in several different versions. Theories about surprise regenerations fill speculative “news” articles, while a supposed casting delay is seized upon as proof that the show must somehow be in disarray. It has become a depressingly familiar pattern. The moment there is a gap in information, the vacuum fills with confident declarations that Doctor Who has entered the disaster zone – a conclusion eagerly amplified by sections of the press whose broader mission is to do down the BBC. But dare we consider the possibility that the production team may simply want to keep hold of its secrets…

Star Trek is struggling to find its moment – and it might need to face up to a hard truth
type: item
date: 2026-03-11T19:00:49.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Paramount Plus
description: As the franchise marks its 60th anniversary, its optimistic vision feels out of step with the current political mood.
encoded: There’s a scene late in the 1991 movie Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country where old warhorses Kirk and Spock wonder whether they’ve outlived their own usefulness. The film itself is a Cold War allegory that sees the once-adversarial Klingons brokering for peace, a situation that leaves the Enterprise crewmates confronting a galaxy that may no longer need them. It’s a sobering moment in a story that serves as a swan song for the original team. But it’s also a question that echoes today, not just for Kirk but for Star Trek itself. The underwhelming performance of latest offshoot Starfleet Academy in early Nielsen ratings, and the fact that no new series is currently in production, suggest a once-dominant sci-fi brand is struggling to capture the public imagination. Streaming fragmentation muddies the numbers, but the cultural temperature feels far cooler than in previous eras. A show that once defined television science fiction now feels strangely peripheral. But this could be more than just franchise fatigue. It may be that Star Trek’s worldview is simply out of step with the political mood. Because historically, the franchise tends to flourish at one particular kind of time: moments when the United States feels confident about the future. Just consider when Star Trek has previously thrived. It arrived amid the optimism of JFK’s “reach for the stars” rhetoric. It soared again with The Next Generation during Reagan’s “Morning in America” resurgence of the late 1980s and the post-Cold War triumphalism of Clinton’s 1990s. In short, Star Trek chimes when America believes the future belongs to it. Contrast that with the periods when it’s struggled. In the 1970s, distrust of institutions runs high after the Watergate scandal – and Star Trek exists mostly in reruns until the films revive it. Once we hit the 2000s and George W Bush’s war on terror, Trek again stumbles with the lacklustre Enterprise, which is axed after four seasons. There’s a sense here that when the pre…

Why I'm still watching reruns of The Office while the world is on fire
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
description: When the headlines feel unbearable, is turning on a sitcom a cop-out or a way of keeping sane?
encoded: Add The Office US to your watchlist After spending a soul-rending hour the other evening watching the planet lurch towards catastrophe on BBC News, I did the only thing that seemed remotely survivable: I watched Michael Scott burn his foot on a George Foreman grill in The Office. Classic coping strategy. When the world darkens, reach for comedy. Except when I mentioned this in my own office the next day, a colleague pushed back. Wasn’t that the problem? Hadn’t we all spent too long hooked up to a drip feed of television? Wasn’t I just dosing myself with distraction while the house burned down? The instinct, he suggested, shouldn’t be to laugh at Steve Carell. It should be to go outside, hold a placard, and join a march. A sitcom might feel like a salve, but what if it’s also the reason we feel so politically sapped? He had a point. I was thinking I’d been sensibly managing my mood, when perhaps I’d simply been feeding a culture of diversion that leaves us passive. It reminded me of a book I read years ago by Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which he argued that television turns the world into razzmatazz. When everything becomes entertainment, nothing carries any weight. Suddenly, my 25-minute visit to the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company felt less like harmless relief and more like complicity. I’d only wanted a break from a news cycle that amplifies dread with every airstrike. Instead, apparently, I was another strand in the web. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/03/GettyImages-138361947-7eca5e3.jpg" width="3000" height="2001" alt="Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer, B.J. Novak as Ryan Howard, Leslie David Baker as Stanley Hudson, Mindy Kaling as Kelly Kapoor, Steve Carell as Michael Scott, Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, Brian Baumgartner as Kevin Malone and Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly in The Office, stood together outside." title="The Office" /> But then – one mug of tea and a few deep breaths later – perspective retur…

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width: 3000
height: 2000

Yes, I'm still watching reruns of The Office while the world is on fire - and this is why
type: item
date: 2026-03-07T12:10:40.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: When the headlines feel unbearable, is turning on a sitcom a cop-out or a way of keeping sane?
encoded: After spending a soul-rending hour the other evening watching the planet lurch towards catastrophe on BBC News, I did the only thing that seemed remotely survivable: I watched Michael Scott burn his foot on a George Foreman grill in The Office. Classic coping strategy. When the world darkens, reach for comedy. Except when I mentioned this in my own office the next day, a colleague pushed back. Wasn’t that the problem? Hadn’t we all spent too long hooked up to a drip feed of television? Wasn’t I just dosing myself with distraction while the house burned down? The instinct, he suggested, shouldn’t be to laugh at Steve Carell. It should be to go outside, hold a placard, and join a march. A sitcom might feel like a salve, but what if it’s also the reason we feel so politically sapped? He had a point. I was thinking I’d been sensibly managing my mood, when perhaps I’d simply been feeding a culture of diversion that leaves us passive. It reminded me of a book I read years ago by Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which he argued that television turns the world into razzmatazz. When everything becomes entertainment, nothing carries any weight. Suddenly, my 25-minute visit to the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company felt less like harmless relief and more like complicity. I’d only wanted a break from a news cycle that amplifies dread with every airstrike. Instead, apparently, I was another strand in the web. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/03/GettyImages-138361947-7eca5e3.jpg" width="3000" height="2001" alt="Kate Flannery as Meredith Palmer, B.J. Novak as Ryan Howard, Leslie David Baker as Stanley Hudson, Mindy Kaling as Kelly Kapoor, Steve Carell as Michael Scott, Rainn Wilson as Dwight Schrute, Brian Baumgartner as Kevin Malone and Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly in The Office, stood together outside." title="The Office" /> But then – one mug of tea and a few deep breaths later – perspective returned. When I switched away from the i…

The end of the shared TV experience? Why streaming's power grab should worry viewers
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: The fight for Warner Bros Discovery risks television becoming a gated empire of elites.
encoded: The Warner Bros Discovery takeover has been presented to us all as a numbers game, the ever-climbing bids like a Jenga tower made of gold bullion. For those keeping score, it appears as though Paramount has reached the battlements of that tower ahead of rivals Netflix, its triumph having made for a blockbuster business epic with a budget in the billions – $111 billion, to be precise. But this is far from a mere financial story, for the prize pot for the victors is the back catalogue of such touchstones as the sitcom Friends and the Game of Thrones franchise. And the day now appears to be fast approaching when Paramount (already the rights owners of Yellowstone and Star Trek) also gets its clutches on the likes of Joey Tribbiani and Jaime Lannister. Should the regulators give their approval, this is likely to be a major turning point in the landscape of TV, with the potentially winning bid making Paramount one of the most exclusive gated media communities on the planet. TV shows once available to everybody are already now siloed away on streaming services, but this deal will give Paramount control over two substantial players: Paramount+ and HBO Max. In the US, plans are already afoot to combine them into one platform, though HBO Max is set to be rolled out here in the UK as a separate entity. Yes, that’s right, it’s yet another members-only platform for which punters must shell out. There really ought to be a term for this. Subscription creep? Streaming fatigue? On-demand overload? But how did we reach this point where television – once the great democratising force of the 20th century – became such a walled-off domain in the 21st? Those who came of age in the terrestrial-only era can recall a time when TV in Britain at least had a truly cohesive quality. Unlike newspapers (which divided their readers along political lines) or cinema and theatre (where admission was gained only with a ticket), television belonged to everyone. It was common cultural ground – a landsc…

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width: 3000
height: 2000

The revolution on the shelf? Why physical media still matters in the age of streaming TV
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
description: Owning television is more than just nostalgia – it’s a cultural statement in an era of easy access.
encoded: In the world of TV collectables, some items are clearly priceless, others are priced to clear. Keep vintage comic books and action figures in unsullied states, and you could be sitting on a pension plan. VHS copies of your favourite 90s sci-fi shows? Not so valuable, as it turns out. For proof, just visit my neighbourhood in south London, where Star Trek: Deep Space Nine videocassettes in the local charity shop can be yours for just 50p a pop. Oh, the indignity. These faded cultural artefacts, with their cracked plastic cases and sun-bleached sleeves, once retailed at £10.99 each. I know, because I was someone who’d save up to buy them back in an era when storytelling was rationed to two episodes per VHS. Can you imagine the anticipation? How we would fill the time between monthly releases by rewatching what we had repeatedly until we knew the 'stardates' backwards? Those who grew up in the streaming age, where the Star Trek franchise can be found in seconds on Paramount+, will no doubt find this hard to comprehend. But in the 1990s, collecting contemporary television required commitment. Without Wikipedia, we’d piece together timelines using copies of magazines such as TV Zone and Starburst. Blurbs would be memorised, cover art scrutinised, and on the day of release, we’d race to Virgin Megastore, ten-pound notes and loose change hot in our pockets. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/07/GettyImages-475631214-d31f198-e1772617565927.jpg" width="2400" height="1600" alt="Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock (Mr. Spock) and William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk on the bridge of the USS Enterprise on the Star Trek: The Original Series episode Space Seed." title="Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock (Mr. Spock) and William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk on the bridge of the USS Enterprise on the Star Trek: The Original Series episode Space Seed." /> This was a clunky 'rewind and eject' world, one where the only place you’d expect to fin…

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width: 5056
height: 3370

The end of the shared TV experience? Why streaming's power grab should worry viewers
type: item
date: 2026-03-04T16:08:42.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Netflix
subject: Paramount Plus
description: The fight for Warner Bros Discovery risks television becoming a gated empire of elites.
encoded: The Warner Bros Discovery takeover has been presented to us all as a numbers game, the ever-climbing bids like a Jenga tower made of gold bullion. For those keeping score, it appears as though Paramount has reached the battlements of that tower ahead of rivals Netflix, its triumph having made for a blockbuster business epic with a budget in the billions – $111 billion, to be precise. But this is far from a mere financial story, for the prize pot for the victors is the back catalogue of such touchstones as the sitcom Friends and the Game of Thrones franchise. And the day now appears to be fast approaching when Paramount (already the rights owners of Yellowstone and Star Trek) also gets its clutches on the likes of Joey Tribbiani and Jaime Lannister. Should the regulators give their approval, this is likely to be a major turning point in the landscape of TV, with the potentially winning bid making Paramount one of the most exclusive gated media communities on the planet. TV shows once available to everybody are already now siloed away on streaming services, but this deal will give Paramount control over two substantial players: Paramount+ and HBO Max. In the US, plans are already afoot to combine them into one platform, though HBO Max is set to be rolled out here in the UK as a separate entity. Yes, that’s right, it’s yet another members-only platform for which punters must shell out. There really ought to be a term for this. Subscription creep? Streaming fatigue? On-demand overload? But how did we reach this point where television – once the great democratising force of the 20th century – became such a walled-off domain in the 21st? Those who came of age in the terrestrial-only era can recall a time when TV in Britain at least had a truly cohesive quality. Unlike newspapers (which divided their readers along political lines) or cinema and theatre (where admission was gained only with a ticket), television belonged to everyone. It was common cultural ground – a landsc…

The revolution on the shelf? Why physical media still matters in the age of streaming TV
type: item
date: 2026-03-04T10:05:54.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Star Trek (franchise)
description: Owning television is more than just nostalgia – it’s a cultural statement in an era of easy access.
encoded: In the world of TV collectables, some items are clearly priceless, others are priced to clear. Keep vintage comic books and action figures in unsullied states, and you could be sitting on a pension plan. VHS copies of your favourite 90s sci-fi shows? Not so valuable, as it turns out. For proof, just visit my neighbourhood in south London, where Star Trek: Deep Space Nine videocassettes in the local charity shop can be yours for just 50p a pop. Oh, the indignity. These faded cultural artefacts, with their cracked plastic cases and sun-bleached sleeves, once retailed at £10.99 each. I know, because I was someone who’d save up to buy them back in an era when storytelling was rationed to two episodes per VHS. Can you imagine the anticipation? How we would fill the time between monthly releases by rewatching what we had repeatedly until we knew the 'stardates' backwards? Those who grew up in the streaming age, where the Star Trek franchise can be found in seconds on Paramount+, will no doubt find this hard to comprehend. But in the 1990s, collecting contemporary television required commitment. Without Wikipedia, we’d piece together timelines using copies of magazines such as TV Zone and Starburst. Blurbs would be memorised, cover art scrutinised, and on the day of release, we’d race to Virgin Megastore, ten-pound notes and loose change hot in our pockets. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2025/07/GettyImages-475631214-d31f198-e1772617565927.jpg" width="2400" height="1600" alt="Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock (Mr. Spock) and William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk on the bridge of the USS Enterprise on the Star Trek: The Original Series episode Space Seed." title="Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock (Mr. Spock) and William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk on the bridge of the USS Enterprise on the Star Trek: The Original Series episode Space Seed." /> This was a clunky 'rewind and eject' world, one where the only place you’d expect to fin…

With conspiracy culture now weaponised, can a revival of The X-Files really work today?
type: item
date: 2026-03-02T07:00:32.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: What hope is there for Mulder and Scully in our current paranoid culture?
encoded: Nostalgia for the 1990s is currently a potent fuel, and news that plans for a revival of The X-Files are solidifying has excited fans who have elevated FBI agents Mulder and Scully to the realms of the mythic. But glance at any early episode of the hit sci-fi drama about investigations into the otherworldly and it soon becomes clear just how much of a product of its time it is. Aesthetically, it’s undeniable. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) conducts research not on Google, but by whizzing through a blur of microfiche. When her partner Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) frets about being under surveillance, it isn’t CCTV that concerns him, rather a bug on his landline phone. Photos are developed in darkrooms, not uploaded to Instagram. And evidence mounts in manila folders not online forums. But nothing dates the series so much as its slogan: The Truth is Out There. To put that phrase into context, we must cast our minds back to 1993 – the year that the eerie whistle of The X-Files theme tune was heard for the first time. The date 9/11 was still a benign one on the calendar and Donald Trump merely a mega-rich hotelier who’d recently cameoed in the sequel to Home Alone. The political scientist Francis Fukuyama had us believing that we’d reached “the end of history”: liberal democracy had won, the Cold War was consigned to the past. But then came along this weird little out-there conspiracy drama with its catchphrase of unease that flipped this sense of optimism. "The Truth is Out There” suggested that there was a perception gap between our lives of apparent contentment and the real answers that lay beyond our line of sight. What was being hidden from us? Who was keeping it concealed? And could these two investigators in their basement office fill in the missing parts to that occluded picture? As it turned out, the truth in the case of The X-Files was that high-up suits in government had been colluding for malign purposes with aliens – a concept dreamt up by the show’s creator…

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Goodbye, Rob Grant – the Red Dwarf co-creator who found the laughs in loneliness
type: item
date: 2026-02-27T14:00:39.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Comment
description: Paying tribute to the man who brought solace to a generation of sci-fi-loving misfits.
encoded: Nerds had yet to inherit the earth in 1988, so any 10-year-old sci-fi fan in the UK tended to feel isolated. Doctor Who, then scorned and shabby, would be spoken about at low volume in shadowy corners of the playground. Multi-sided dice were rolled only behind closed bedroom doors. Marvel comics hidden within the pages of Smash Hits in the canteen for fear of being ripped away and rubbished. It was a lonely, sequestered life. But not, as we soon discovered, as lonely and sequestered a life as the one about to be led by Dave Lister (Craig Charles), the underdog, uber-slob hero of a then-unknown comedy by the name of Red Dwarf, scripted by Doug Naylor and his now-late writing partner Rob Grant. That first series is now looked upon as a pale, grey, rudimentary version of the show that eventually became BBC Two’s most-watched comedy of the period. But for primary-school-age children, who gravitated towards fantasy rather than football, it was instant catnip. Or, as it ought really to be written, Catnip with a capital C. Its low budget gave it an air of stripped-back bleakness that matched the desolate situation in which Lister found himself. Here was the last human alive charting a course through the blankness of space on this huge mining vessel. And, thanks to a species-ending disaster, all he had for company at that stage was the ship’s senile computer (Norman Lovett), a walking-talking-preening descendant of his pet cat (Danny John-Jules) and a hologram recreation of Arnold Rimmer (Chris Barrie), the dead bunkmate who he’d loathed in life. But the genius of this concept was that it captured so perfectly a sense of loneliness. And, in so doing, made so many of us who were adrift feel less alone. This felt like TV made especially for kids of our age. At the time, Red Dwarf’s forebear The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy seemed out of reach and a little posh. Douglas Adams’s books were read by older siblings. Cousins. Teachers. Its literary humour was off limits; the te…

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With conspiracy culture now weaponised, can a revival of The X-Files really work today?
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
description: What hope is there for Mulder and Scully in our current paranoid culture?
encoded: Add The X-Files to your watchlist Nostalgia for the 1990s is currently a potent fuel, and news that plans for a revival of The X-Files are solidifying has excited fans who have elevated FBI agents Mulder and Scully to the realms of the mythic. But glance at any early episode of the hit sci-fi drama about investigations into the otherworldly and it soon becomes clear just how much of a product of its time it is. Aesthetically, it’s undeniable. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) conducts research not on Google, but by whizzing through a blur of microfiche. When her partner Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) frets about being under surveillance, it isn’t CCTV that concerns him, rather a bug on his landline phone. Photos are developed in darkrooms, not uploaded to Instagram. And evidence mounts in manila folders not online forums. But nothing dates the series so much as its slogan: The Truth is Out There. To put that phrase into context, we must cast our minds back to 1993 – the year that the eerie whistle of The X-Files theme tune was heard for the first time. The date 9/11 was still a benign one on the calendar and Donald Trump merely a mega-rich hotelier who’d recently cameoed in the sequel to Home Alone. The political scientist Francis Fukuyama had us believing that we’d reached “the end of history”: liberal democracy had won, the Cold War was consigned to the past. But then came along this weird little out-there conspiracy drama with its catchphrase of unease that flipped this sense of optimism. “The Truth Is Out There” suggested that there was a perception gap between our lives of apparent contentment and the real answers that lay beyond our line of sight. What was being hidden from us? Who was keeping it concealed? And could these two investigators in their basement office fill in the missing parts to that occluded picture? As it turned out, the truth in the case of The X-Files was that high-up suits in government had been colluding for malign purposes with aliens – a conce…

It’s Scooby-Doo with an 18 certificate: Why the Scream franchise owes a major debt to the classic cartoon
type: item
date: 2026-02-25T14:00:48.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Movies
subject: TV
description: How Hanna-Barbera’s mystery-solving Great Dane became the blueprint for a horror franchise.
encoded: When is a compliment not a compliment? When you say a TV show or a film has "gone a bit Scooby-Doo". This is meant to suggest it's formulaic and faintly embarrassing, which makes what I’m about to write uncomfortable, but I believe Scooby-Doo kids grow up to be Scream-loving adults. Not ironically. Not guiltily. But properly, and with pride. This sounds insulting to both parties, I know. Scooby-Doo! Scream! One features a talking dog; the other a creepy guy who only talks on landlines. But they share a connection that runs deep (deeper than just Matthew Lillard starring as both Stu Macher and Shaggy). Because Scooby-Doo – especially the original 1969 Where Are You! version, before the franchise started shaking things up with guest stars and noisy puppy nephews – is a masterclass in horror-lite and mystery. Yes, it has its repeated idiosyncrasies. They split up. Velma loses her glasses at a pivotal moment. Scooby and Shaggy are chased by the bad guy. Sometimes they dress as French waiters for reasons no one ever questions (how come they can always find a stainless-steel cloche in a crisis?). But beneath that, something subtly educational is going on. Because Scooby-Doo is actually teaching you things. One: everyone's suspicious. Two: the monster is never really a monster. Three: fear can be punctured with a joke about a vertiginous stack of burgers. Four: if you pay attention, things make sense. And five – crucially – nothing beats the moment when the mask comes off. Put it like that and you can suddenly see the through-line to Scream. Ghostface is just the Spooky Space Kook who’s done a film studies degree and found a knife block. That mask removal is the pivotal thing. The moment when chaos becomes order. When the person who was helpful, or at least seemed benign, turns out to be the problem. Benevolence suddenly becoming malevolence. It’s startling but also satisfying. And it carries a reassuring message: that terror, however primal, can be tackled by people with …

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ER is coming to Netflix – and it's time we recognised it changed television forever
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Netflix
description: The classic US hospital drama set the gold standard back in 1994.
encoded: Add ER to your watchlist. We all have an example of a TV show like this, right? The one that holds an outsized importance in our affections? For me, it’s undoubtedly and wholeheartedly ER, the 15 seasons of which are coming to Netflix in the UK on 9 February. It’s a method of accessing the series that would have been inconceivable to the undergraduate version of myself who, back in the mid-1990s, was watching on a 14-inch portable TV with his girlfriend in manky digs. It felt, at the time, like an impossibly sophisticated drama. All that frantic talk of Chem-7s, CBCs, Coags, EKGs being clean or otherwise. No real idea what any of it meant, but it sure seemed as though we were eavesdropping on the way things truly worked at the sharp end of hospital life. And the acts of heroism on display, such as reckless Doug Ross (George Clooney) risking all to rescue a boy trapped in a storm drain as the rain waters rose. It felt filmic, almost mythic. Well, as much as anything can on a tiny, boxy Sony without Nicam Stereo. For the two of us, ER had staying power. We, like the nebbishy and lovable Dr Carter (Noah Wyle) were students when it began. But when it ended, a decade and a half later, we were bringing our second-born son home from hospital. Those real-life births, incidentally, made all-the-more fraught by us having witnessed on TV every late-stage pregnancy complication known to the medical profession. But such awareness mattered not. Each winter, we’ll still watch season one’s Blizzard because nothing says Christmas like a multi-car pile-up in the snow. And every festive season, we’ll tell our now-grown-up kids just how much ER meant to us when we were their age. They’ll smile indulgently for a second or two and then go back to thinking of us as they ordinarily do. As index fingers with a banking app attached. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/01/er-season-6-ec8f04f.jpg" width="3000" height="2000" alt="Anthony Edwards as Dr Mark …

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width: 3000
height: 2001

ER is coming to Netflix – and it's time we recognised it changed television forever
type: item
date: 2026-01-26T21:00:25.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Netflix
description: The classic US hospital drama set the gold standard back in 1994.
encoded: We all have an example of a TV show like this, right? The one that holds an outsized importance in our affections? For me, it’s undoubtedly and wholeheartedly ER, the 15 seasons of which are coming to Netflix in the UK on 9 February. It’s a method of accessing the series that would have been inconceivable to the undergraduate version of myself who, back in the mid-1990s, was watching on a 14-inch portable TV with his girlfriend in manky digs. It felt, at the time, like an impossibly sophisticated drama. All that frantic talk of Chem-7s, CBCs, Coags, EKGs being clean or otherwise. No real idea what any of it meant, but it sure seemed as though we were eavesdropping on the way things truly worked at the sharp end of hospital life. And the acts of heroism on display, such as reckless Doug Ross (George Clooney) risking all to rescue a boy trapped in a storm drain as the rain waters rose. It felt filmic, almost mythic. Well, as much as anything can on a tiny, boxy Sony without Nicam Stereo. For the two of us, ER had staying power. We, like the nebbishy and lovable Dr Carter (Noah Wyle) were students when it began. But when it ended, a decade and a half later, we were bringing our second-born son home from hospital. Those real-life births, incidentally, made all-the-more fraught by us having witnessed on TV every late-stage pregnancy complication known to the medical profession. But such awareness mattered not. Each winter, we’ll still watch season one’s Blizzard because nothing says Christmas like a multi-car pile-up in the snow. And every festive season, we’ll tell our now-grown-up kids just how much ER meant to us when we were their age. They’ll smile indulgently for a second or two and then go back to thinking of us as they ordinarily do. As index fingers with a banking app attached. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/01/er-season-6-ec8f04f.jpg" width="3000" height="2000" alt="Anthony Edwards as Dr Mark Greene, Laura Innes as Dr …

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height: 2001

Forget the doof-doofs – The Traitors' cliffhangers may have just outplayed the soaps
type: item
date: 2026-01-23T14:14:49.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Entertainment
subject: Reality TV
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC One
subject: Comment
description: The Traitors is giving us a whole different slice of melodrama.
encoded: When lists are compiled of seismic TV cliffhangers, it’s to drama that critics ordinarily turn, be it The Walking Dead's Negan with his baseball bat, JR’s bullet to the guts in Dallas or EastEnders' Kat redrawing the Slaters’ family tree with the three words, "Yes, I am!" But if last night’s edition of The Traitors proved anything, it’s that fiction no longer has a stranglehold on unresolved friction. If the job of a cliffhanger is to compel an audience to keep watching, then the fate of the treacherous Rachel ought to be offered up in a masterclass on heightened stakes. Yet, what marks it out as different to acclaimed deferred payoffs from the past is the key ingredient of irrational human behaviour. Real people are unpredictable at the best of times, but put them under pressure at a roundtable where money and safe passage are at risk, and the messiness becomes momentous. Which is not to say that The Traitors is free from editorial manipulation. Each episode is as expertly designed and layered as Claudia’s wardrobe on a windswept Scottish morning. And those tasked with editing each show must have felt a whopping amount of job satisfaction when work was completed on Thursday’s jaw-dropper. But, for viewers, the tension crucially doesn’t feel manufactured. That sense of the Faithful and Traitors having agency over their fates puts events in a state of real flux, something that can’t really be said whenever a line-up of suspects is issued for the latest soap whodunnit. In those instances, the resolutions have usually been predetermined by a storyline team bound by the usual rules of characterisation, foreshadowing and the necessity of scheduling a big reveal to coincide with either a major anniversary or the festive season. And canny soap fans, being well-schooled in such tricks, are sometimes able to outsmart the writers. But in the case of knee-jerk Faithful James, it’s impossible to rely on convention. We can speculate, argue, and maybe take a side, but guaranteein…

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The Thursday Murder Club review: A safe and cosy whodunnit with touches of pathos
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
description: This highly anticipated adaptation of Richard Osman's best-seller is a little broad and cute – but risk has never been part of the business of cosy crime.
encoded: ★★★☆☆ The Thursday Murder Club is in select cinemas and on Netflix from 28 August. Add it to your watchlist In a flash of self-awareness early on in this adaptation of Richard Osman’s best-seller The Thursday Murder Club, pensioner sleuth Joyce (Celia Imrie) is seen remarking to her cohort Elizabeth (Helen Mirren) that it feels like she’s in "one of those Sunday night dramas about two bright-eyed, feisty old lady detectives". But the line also serves as a way of pre-empting any criticism that could be headed in the direction of this cute whodunnit about a band of amateur mystery-solvers living in a plush retirement complex. View oEmbed on the source website For what we have here is a tale that, were it to be deprived of its stellar cast, would fit snugly in the weekend schedules alongside the murderous yet somehow comforting goings-on in the likes of St Mary Mead or Midsomer. Joyce, for instance, is all about the chintz, with pastel-pink living quarters that could have been interior designed by Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter, while fellow club member Ron (Pierce Brosnan) is the cuddliest trade unionist to have ever burned charcoal in a brazier. His best pal is psychiatrist Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), a man so buttoned-up he’s become one with his bowtie and tweed. And chief clue-finder is the redoubtable Elizabeth, an ex-spook as scrubbed and stylish as Jackson Lamb is filthy and slovenly. All these main players probing the untimely death of a property developer are as exemplary as you’d expect, though Brosnan’s (London?) accent does wander more quickly than any resident in an old folks’ home ever could. But as a piece of filmmaking, The Thursday Murder Club is cleanly rather than cinematically directed by Chris Columbus, to the extent that it feels, as Joyce suggests, like its story ought to have been told across several episodes of a series rather than in a single movie. What doesn’t help matters are the names in the supporting cast, many of whom are offering varia…

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The Thursday Murder Club review: A cute whodunnit adaptation with touches of pathos
type: item
date: 2025-08-22T07:01:03.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Movies
subject: Netflix
subject: On demand
subject: Review
subject: Sky/Netflix crime
description: This highly anticipated adaptation of Richard Osman's best-seller is a little broad and safe – but risk has never been part of the business of cosy crime.
encoded: In a flash of self-awareness early on in this adaptation of Richard Osman’s best-seller The Thursday Murder Club, pensioner sleuth Joyce (Celia Imrie) is seen remarking to her cohort Elizabeth (Helen Mirren) that it feels like she’s in "one of those Sunday night dramas about two bright-eyed, feisty old lady detectives". But the line also serves as a way of pre-empting any criticism that could be headed in the direction of this cute whodunnit about a band of amateur mystery-solvers living in a plush retirement complex. For what we have here is a tale that, were it to be deprived of its stellar cast, would fit snugly in the weekend schedules alongside the murderous yet somehow comforting goings-on in the likes of St Mary Mead or Midsomer. Joyce, for instance, is all about the chintz, with pastel-pink living quarters that could have been interior designed by Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter, while fellow club member Ron (Pierce Brosnan) is the cuddliest trade unionist to have ever burned charcoal in a brazier. His best pal is psychiatrist Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley), a man so buttoned-up he’s become one with his bowtie and tweed. And chief clue-finder is the redoubtable Elizabeth, an ex-spook as scrubbed and stylish as Jackson Lamb is filthy and slovenly. All these main players probing the untimely death of a property developer are as exemplary as you’d expect, though Brosnan’s (London?) accent does wander more quickly than any resident in an old folks’ home ever could. But as a piece of filmmaking, The Thursday Murder Club is cleanly rather than cinematically directed by Chris Columbus, to the extent that it feels, as Joyce suggests, like its story ought to have been told across several episodes of a series rather than in a single movie. What doesn’t help matters are the names in the supporting cast, many of whom are offering variations on parts they’ve played previously on TV. So, David Tennant gives us a spin on his cad from Rivals, Jonathan Pryce is essentially a facs…

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height: 1280

13 must-watch crime dramas based on books – from Slow Horses to The Day of the Jackal
type: item
date: 2025-07-11T06:00:42.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: Read the book? Now watch the series.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Magpie Murders – available now on iPlayer Literary editor Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville) receives inspiration from a famous fictional detective. Sequel Moonflower Murders is also available, while filming has just wrapped on the third and final instalment in the trilogy, Marble Hall Murders. Adapted from the novels by Anthony Horowitz Murder Most Puzzling – available now on 5 A crossword-setter (Phyllis Logan) with a secret moves to a supposedly sleepy market town and starts solving murder cases. The police, naturally, take umbrage. Adapted from A Clue for the Puzzle Lady (2000) and its sequels by Parnell Hall. The Marlow Murder Club – available now on U Upmarket Buckinghamshire is the setting for this cozy whodunnit which finds a trio of female sleuths (led by Samantha Bond) taken on as helpers to the official force. Adapted from the 2021 novel (and its sequels) by Robert Thorogood A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – available now on iPlayer/Netflix Student Pip (Emma Myers) isn’t satisfied with the verdict in the case of a missing teen and turns investigator herself. A follow-up is currently in the works. Adapted from the 2019 novel (and its sequels) by Holly Jackson Virdee – available now on BBC iPlayer Bradford detective Harry Virdee (Staz Nair) hunts a killer targeting the Asian community, just as his new wife scandalises his family. Adapted from AA Dhand’s 2018 novel City of Sinners Department Q – available now on Netflix Matthew Goode stars as an arrogant copper who’s assigned a basement office and a stack of cold case files. Think Slow Horses with detectives instead of spies. Adapted from 2007 Danish-language novel The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen Dalgliesh – available now on 5 Poet and police officer Adam Dalgliesh (Bertie Carvel) lays claim to being TV’s most cerebral detective in these elegantly plotted mysteries set in the 1970s. Based on the PD James Adam Dalgliesh novels (1962-2008) The Gold…

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The 10 best page-to-screen adaptations to watch now
type: item
creator: David Brown
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Amateur sleuths, cops and spooks lead our list of the best TV adaptations of novels. Which ones will you add to your watchlist?
encoded: With the news that Mark Gatiss is unconventionally making a novel out of his TV drama Bookish, our RT experts have chosen ten of the best TV shows that started life on the page. We start with the amateur sleuths of "cosy crime" before moving on to cop and spy dramas – and if you like TV with such a literary touch, there's more good news, as many more highly-anticipated adaptations are in the pipeline. For example, there’s Down Cemetery Road from Slow Horses author Mick Herron (on Apple TV+ later this year), the Rev Richard Coles-penned cosy-crime show Murder Before Evensong (due this autumn on 5), Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley cases (BBC1, this autumn), a nuclear-war spy drama called Atomic (coming soon on Sky) — and the small matter of The Night Manager 2, expected on the BBC in 2026…

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Star Trek: Section 31 review – Beloved franchise should have stayed on terra firma
type: item
date: 2025-01-23T05:00:39.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Movies
subject: Sci-fi
subject: Paramount Plus
subject: Review
description: Michelle Yeoh reprises her iconic role as Philippa Georgiou.
encoded: Back when Michelle Yeoh first played Emperor Philippa Georgiou in TV’s Star Trek: Discovery, her schedule wasn’t as packed as it is today. Yet despite the boost to her career following an Academy Award win for 2023’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, she’s still found time to reprise the role of Georgiou in this bombastic feature-length outing, Star Trek: Section 31, which finds the ruthless one-time despot pressganged into joining a secret division of Starfleet on a race-against-time mission. Among the members of this black-ops unit are some recognisable names and races, including a shapeshifting Chameloid called Quasi (Sam Richardson), whose species was introduced back in 1991’s Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. And then there’s Rachel Garrett (Kacey Rohl), who as fans of the Next Generation know, will go on to captain the USS Enterprise-C. But, to be honest, these nods to the wider universe are merely surface dressing, as what we get is a noisy affair in which the optimistic ethos and iconography of Trek are mostly jettisoned in favour of a grungy aesthetic and a bog-standard sci-fi plot about a destructive weapon being put to ill use. Part of the problem is this stripping away of emblems that many associate with the series, from the pristine uniforms to the gleaming interiors of starships. Instead, the vessel on which Georgiou and her crew are travelling is described as "a garbage barge", while a sequence in which Garrett searches through a vat of trash has more a feel of Star Wars than Trek. But perhaps the more pressing issue is the focus on the institution of Section 31 itself. Its origins, for those who aren’t aware, lie in spin-off Deep Space Nine, where it was a very minor player in a series that, at times, explored the compromises the Federation had to make in pursuit of its utopian ideals. Here, however, where we find Section 31 more untethered from Starfleet, it’s difficult not to come away thinking that its existence conflicts with Gene Roddenbe…

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Call The Midwife's Peter Davison on filming under social distancing - and what to expect from Nonnatus House this Christmas
type: item
date: 2020-12-25T09:00:45.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: The former Doctor talks to David Brown about joining the circus for Call The Midwife, working during the pandemic, and wanting to act for as long as he can stand.
encoded: Peter Davison is not a man to let the small matter of quarantine deter him from working. This spring he was hard at it, recording Doctor Who audio adventures from a cupboard that he’s decorated to resemble a TARDIS, complete with roundels he made from cardboard boxes (pictured below). “I put a lot of effort into it because I’m a very sad person,” he says of his “moment of lockdown lunacy”. He admits that he feels most alive when acting and so jumped at the chance to emerge from his police box and run away to the circus for a festive turn as a ringmaster in this year’s seasonal Call the Midwife episode. It was filmed according to social distancing rules after restrictions were initially eased – but, at 69, did he feel as though he was risking his health? “I carry that strange British trait of thinking it’s never going to happen to me,” he reflects. “But I didn’t find it easy. It was very nice to be offered a part, and I was happy to do it, but because everyone on set was treated as though they were exuding billowing clouds of COVID-19, I didn’t get the sense of joyousness that I imagine has been there in the past.” Even those well used to life at Nonnatus House found the filming experience odd. “We’d been away so long I wasn’t sure I could remember how to do it,” admits Linda Bassett, 70, whose alter ego Nurse Phyllis Crane reveals an unexpected passion for circus life when Davison’s troupe visits Poplar. “Rehearsing in masks made it hard to tell what anyone was thinking.” The nation, though, will be relieved that the cast has managed to get the episode in the can, as Call the Midwife has now become a key part of many people’s Christmas viewing. Bassett says fans come up to her to tell her that they love Nurse Crane. “You can only react to that kind of thing with warmth, even though I am a little bit baffled as to why Nurse Crane is loved. But it’s so kind of them.” Davison, on the other hand, ought to be well used to the adoration, as a former lead of both Doctor Wh…

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Doctor Who's Jo Martin says her casting as the Fugitive Doctor was "groundbreaking"
type: item
date: 2020-11-02T15:43:57.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: News
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Exclusive
description: "I was a fan of Doctor Who back in the day and not seeing myself on screen as a child was tough," says the Holby City actress.
encoded: Doctor Who actress Jo Martin has called her casting as a surprise incarnation of the Time Lord "groundbreaking". Speaking to RadioTimes.com, the star also revealed that Black science-fiction fans have reached out to her following her unveiling as ‘the Fugitive Doctor’ in the most recent series of the BBC One drama. "A lot of Black geeks who love sci-fi have sent me pictures of them doing cosplay. They thank me and tell me it’s great that they now have someone to dress up as,” Martin said. “I was a fan of Doctor Who back in the day and not seeing myself on screen as a child was tough. It’s an awful thing to grow up thinking it’s wrong to be Black. So it’s fabulous that there are now characters like this who young kids can look up to." Originally introduced with the character name of Ruth Clayton, Martin was later revealed, in the episode Fugitive of the Judoon, to be a previously unseen incarnation of the Doctor – a twist that series lead Jodie Whittaker called "an extraordinary moment". Now, Martin, who also plays hospital CEO Max Gerry in medical drama Holby City, has revealed her own feelings at being cast on both shows: “What’s really special about these parts is that they’re groundbreaking. No one would expect a Black, middle-aged woman to be Doctor Who, but there we have it. "And on American medical shows, there’s a lot more black representation in terms of status. So for Holby City to have a black female CEO is an amazing thing as well. I feel honoured to be a part of both these shows and to be representing these characters. It’s great for everyone." Doctor Who is to return over the Christmas period with a new festive instalment entitled Revolution of the Daleks, while Holby City is back on Tuesday 10th November with a hard-hitting episode that’ll find Max having to manage her under-pressure workforce during the first spike of the coronavirus pandemic. Check out what else is on with our TV Guide

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Why the end of The Fall was a big disappointment
type: item
date: 2020-08-25T09:50:00.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
description: "This desire to turn what should be standalone serials into long-running series needs to stop," says David Brown
encoded: Warning - the following contains plot spoilers for The Fall's final episode. From the start..! So, they let the bastard get away with it. Paul Spector, the murderer whose killing spree has fuelled The Fall, evaded the clutches of DSI Stella Gibson and remained at large to slaughter again in series two. Maybe we shouldn’t be that surprised: last month, Ben Stephenson – the controller of BBC drama – revealed that we were building “to a gripping cliffhanger” and that the Belfast-based thriller had been recommissioned. But surely the impact of The Fall would have been greater had it been given a proper conclusion and remained a five-parter? This desire to turn what should be standalone serials into long-running series needs to stop. It didn’t used to happen with shows that are now generally regarded as TV classics. There was never a need to make Closer to the Edge of Darkness or The Return of the Singing Detective, so why order another batch of episodes of The Fall? The answer, of course, is ratings (it’s been BBC2’s biggest drama series to launch in eight years), but continuing the story of a sizeable hit isn’t always the right move. Just look at the precedent set by Homeland – a tightly woven conspiracy tale for its opening run, a credulity-straining misfire in its second season. Because, let’s face it, the decision to serve up more episodes of The Fall undermined the coherence of tonight’s finale, almost to the point where the whole thing began to feel like a con. For a start, Paul’s ability to uproot his family and disappear in an instant seemed improbable. Also, Sally Ann’s decision to stay with her husband when she was under the impression that he’d had an affair with the under-aged babysitter seemed implausible – she had the girl’s number on her mobile, so why didn’t she call to get her version of events? OK, so he didn’t confess to murder, but he was still admitting to being a perv. Then there was the deus ex machina device of having one of Paul’s near-miss vict…

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BBC Breakfast's Naga Munchetty says team was supportive but "lessons to be learnt" after guideline row
type: item
date: 2020-07-26T12:00:00.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Current Affairs
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: David Brown talks to Naga Munchetty and BBC Breakfast producer Mark ahead of the BAFTAs.
encoded: This interview is part of our BAFTA 2020 special for more visit The Big Interview hub. For BBC Breakfast presenter Naga Munchetty, the working day begins at 5am — with an analysis of her boss’s wardrobe. “There’s always a quick appraisal of what I’m wearing,” says assistant editor Mark Grannell, to which Munchetty replies, “Yes, but it’s always complimentary! He’s very well dressed. Though he did do double-denim once and that didn’t fly with me…” One other thing with which Munchetty can find fault are the headlines, which will be debated in the hour before the show goes live at six o’clock: “Yes, I do come in and tear apart the headlines. But we disagree agreeably — what we all want is for the news to be accurate but also impactful.” What sets Breakfast apart from the other BBC bulletins is its informality. “We’re not the Today programme on television,” says Grannell. “Depending on what the main news is, we try and inject a bit of light into the shade. The interaction between the presenters is really important.” View oEmbed on the source website But there are risks in having such a relaxed atmosphere, as Munchetty discovered last year when she expressed anger at US president Donald Trump’s choice of words in telling four congresswomen to “go back home”. In September, the BBC decided that she’d breached guidelines, only for a public outcry that then led director-general Tony Hall to reverse the ruling. Her Breakfast colleague Dan Walker told Radio Times that the BBC’s defence of Munchetty should have been more robust — does she agree? “There are lessons to be learnt. The Breakfast team was very supportive at the time and, since then, I’ve had regular conversations with Tony Hall and other BBC bosses. My whole strategy was to just keep my head down because I didn’t want to be the story.” When asked whether it’s made her more circumspect about what she says on air, Munchetty insists that “it’s absolutely business as usual.” On the emotive issue, Grannell adds, “Naga’s …

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Succession's Jesse Armstrong wrote a screenplay about Rupert Murdoch’s family
type: item
date: 2020-07-25T17:00:58.000Z
creator: David Brown
subject: Drama
subject: News
subject: TV
subject: The Big RT Interview
description: David Brown chats to Jesse Armstrong and Brian Cox ahead of the BAFTAs.
encoded: This interview is part of our BAFTA 2020 special for more interviews visit The Big Interview hub. Coronavirus may have halted work on the new series of Succession, but star Brian Cox has devised a neat way to incorporate the pandemic into the season-three plotlines. “Logan could be handed a mask, just look at the person giving it to him and then tell them to f*** off,” he says, down the line from upstate New York (where he rushed off to straight after the RT photoshoot, before lockdown was enforced). “That could be the COVID crisis dealt with for the whole season.” It would be in keeping for the tyrannical media mogul Logan Roy, who leads the cast in this year’s most critically acclaimed, BAFTA-nominated drama (in the international category), as well as earning Jesse Armstrong a nod for best writer: drama. But it could all have been so different for Logan. “At one point, I did think he might expire at the end of the first season or even the first episode,” reveals Armstrong. “Though this all changed before we committed ideas to paper. And once I saw Brian, I realised how big a weight he is at the centre of our solar system. He’s great to write for.” When asked previously about the inspiration for the Roys and their media empire, Waystar Royco, Armstrong has always distanced his creations from comparisons to the real-life Murdochs. But he admits now that those ties are closer than we’ve been led to believe. “They’re fictional creations who’ve come out of a ton of reading and research. I’d written a screenplay about Rupert Murdoch’s family and it never got made. And it got me interested in the similarities between all these guys — Murdoch, Robert Maxwell and Conrad Black — who are passing from their position of predominance as tech takes over. But, also, how cable news and newspapers are still shaping our political climate.” View oEmbed on the source website Two things Armstrong won’t be drawn on, though, are when the cast will be back before the cameras or how COVID-…

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