Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2026-03-21T08:01:03.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Why Firefly's return is exactly what we need right now
items: Is A Woman of Substance's most nauseating scene really that necessary?
items: Invincible has neglected a key character - now season 4 needs to do him justice
items: So, what should we expect from Line of Duty season 7 now? I have some questions
items: Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere made one big mistake – here's how it could have been fixed
items: Is nothing worth watching without a sprinkling of celebrity stardust?
items: Remembering Len Deighton: The Ipcress File author reveals how he wrote a best-seller that imagines what would happen if Hitler won World War II
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: Oscar predictions 2027: 25 films which could compete for best picture next year
items: Jeremy Vine reveals why his game show is a new joy amid the 'death' of the quiz in the modern age
items: Sinners might have missed out on best picture, but make no mistake – the 2026 Oscars were the best yet for horror
items: How Train Dreams winning the 2026 Oscar for best picture could help spread its most vital message
items: Sinners becoming the 2026 best picture winner would prove the Oscars don't need to play it safe
items: The Claudia Winkleman Show review: Was there any doubt we'd be in good hands?
items: How a win for the delicate Sentimental Value would bring something totally fresh to the Oscars' 2026 best picture race
items: From Benson to Scarpetta: How women are rewriting the rules of US TV crime drama
items: How The Secret Agent's overflow of cinematic possibilities proves it deserves best picture at the 2026 Oscars
items: Farewell, Liza Tarbuck – our Saturdays evenings have lost their light
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 One Battle After Another deserves to win the war for best picture at the 2026 Oscars
items: Why Marty Supreme's unlikable characters are still a reason it deserves to win best picture at the 2026 Oscars
items: Why I'm still watching reruns of The Office while the world is on fire
items: Rachel Weisz's Vladimir makes an unforgivable yet common mistake – it cheats the audience
items: Reminders of Him review: A heartfelt but ordinary addition to the Colleen Hoover canon
items: To be or not to be? There's no question the 'emotionally manipulative' Hamnet deserves to win the 2026 Oscar for best picture
items: Watching I Kissed a Boy changed my life and its axing alongside I Kissed a Girl sets an ugly precedent

Why Firefly's return is exactly what we need right now
type: item
date: 2026-03-21T08:00:16.000Z
creator: Matthew Trask
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
description: With the reveal that an animated Firefly revival is on the way, we explore what makes the show so special (and relevant).
encoded: Proving once again that Browncoats never say die, Firefly is coming back. As Mal Reynolds once said, “We’ve done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.” The once unceremoniously cancelled space western, previously revived in the form of a theatrical film, is coming back as an animated series. Having endured for far longer than any cancelled show should, Firefly is about to return to a very different world. It’s a world in desperate need of hope in the face of insurmountable odds, something the crew of the Serenity is all too familiar with. And it’s precisely because of that rag-tag crew of imperfect heroes that makes now the perfect time to bring back Firefly. At its heart, Firefly is the story of a found family. Where most shows cancelled after a short run of episodes are consigned to oblivion on Netflix, Firefly’s eccentric cast of loveable rogues has helped keep its spirit alive for over 20 years. Found families are integral to science fiction. Whether it's the crew of the Millennium Falcon or the Enterprise, different people, from different walks of life finding each other and uniting to take on a common enemy is the heart and soul of many a great space opera. What makes Firefly so special, and important, is the way that the show's main character, Serenity captain Mal Reynolds, rediscovers his revolutionary spirit through his found family. When we first meet Mal, and his partner in crime Zoe, they’re literal losers. The Browncoats, fighting for freedom and independence, lost the war against the Alliance. As Mal says, “War's long done, we’re all just folk now.” At the start of Firefly, he’s rudderless and bereft of that same fighting spirit that powered him through an impossible war. He’s just surviving until the full and complicated crew of the Serenity assembles. That’s what makes the idea of found family so revolutionary. ‘Bless this mess’ has never been more apt. If the Alliance represent a sense of uniformity, the found family of the Serenity, with its me…

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Is A Woman of Substance's most nauseating scene really that necessary?
type: item
date: 2026-03-19T11:28:56.000Z
creator: Morgan Cormack
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: Channel 4
subject: Comment
description: Emma's arc could have easily done without one particularly violent storyline in episode 6.
encoded: *Warning: This article contains spoilers for all episodes of A Woman of Substance – available to watch in full on Channel 4 – and discussion of rape that some readers may find distressing.* From his first appearance in A Woman of Substance, it's clear to see that Gerald Fairley (Harry Cadby) is the kind of character who is so mean-spirited and cruel, he can't help but make your skin itch. We saw how he cast one of the maids aside in those early episodes, engaging her in a sexual relationship and ultimately seeing her as just one of the hired help when it came time to defend her in front of his family. So deep does his disdain for the lower working classes go that it is at the forefront of his entire interaction with Emma (Jessica Reynolds) when he finds out that she's the business owner behind Hamilton Equitable. In the sixth episode of the series, he's on a mission to find the people he owes money to, a matter that is looming like a dark cloud over his head. When he tracks down the address of the firm and finds out that it belongs to Emma, though, he merely discounts it as not being worthy of his time. Referring to her as a "jumped up housemaid" when he's standing in her bricks and mortar store is certainly brazen, but their interaction takes a deeply sinister turn once Emma reminds him of his legally binding contract with her company. Once she tries to usher him out (with it being Christmas Day), Gerald immediately turns to physical tactics, pushing her further into her own store and berating her as a "whore", telling her that Edwin (Ewan Horrocks) is now married. As soon as Gerald moves closer to Emma and touches her hips, I feel as though most women watching would immediately have a pit in their stomach, willing the series not to go in the direction they think it will. But unfortunately for the viewer – and ultimately, for Emma – it does. What ensues is a truly horrifying series of events as Gerald rapes Emma while telling her of how he used to watch her in his …

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Invincible has neglected a key character - now season 4 needs to do him justice
type: item
date: 2026-03-18T19:00:05.000Z
creator: David Opie
subject: Sci-fi
subject: TV
subject: Amazon Prime Video
subject: Comment
description: What exactly has happened to William Clockwell?
encoded: Being a superhero is never easy, but Mark Grayson is having an especially hard time of it lately. Invincible season 4 starts on a downer following the messed up place we left Mark in season 3. Following his battle to the death with Conquest, not to mention all the casualties that happened along the way, Invincible is now completely disillusioned with life as a superhero. And what's worse is that he's starting to see killing as a potential option if it will stop villains from doing more harm. Never mind all the horrors that came with his girlfriend (briefly) dying and everything that went on with his father beforehand. In short, Mark needs a friend. And not just another superhero on the Guardians team, or even his girlfriend, but an actual friend who knows Mark inside out, someone who's been there with him since the start. You know, someone who can be entirely objective about the superhero stuff. If only someone like that was available… Oh wait, there actually is someone who perfectly fits that bill. Anyone else remember William Clockwell? Before Prime Video's adaptation of Invincible began, creator Robert Kirkman promised that “William is an essential part of the Invincible story” (via Metro Weekly). And at first, it seemed like that was definitely going to be the case. In the very first episode, William's sexuality was immediately established without it becoming a topic of discussion. There was no turmoil or big coming out scene, which stands in stark contrast to William's introduction in the comics, two decades prior. The original William doesn't come out to Mark until #80, published back in 2011. Before that, there were a few scenes where Mark and even Atom Eve described things as "so gay" in the derogatory sense that was (unfortunately) popular to say back then. By skipping over all that, the TV series also sidestepped the awkward homophobia, updating this story for modern times. The problem, however, is that William still ends up falling into the gay best frien…

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So, what should we expect from Line of Duty season 7 now? I have some questions
type: item
date: 2026-03-18T11:42:49.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Drama
subject: TV
subject: BBC
subject: Comment
description: AC-12 are back in business – but after that finale, what twists can Jed Mercurio possibly pull off next?
encoded: Anticipation around the forthcoming seventh season of Line of Duty received another jolt this week with the identity of new cast members joining resident trio Ted Hastings, Steve Arnott and Kate Fleming. The BBC has announced that the new run will see the now legendary AC-12 internal anti-corruption police unit disbanded and rebranded the Inspectorate of Police Standards. Amidst the change, Arnott (Martin Compston), Fleming (Vicky McClure) and Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) are assigned a fresh, unprecedentedly sensitive case. Tom Weston-Jones (Warrior, Sanditon) plays Detective Inspector Dominic Gough, a heralded officer who stands accused of abusing his position to act as a sexual predator. The biggest new name on the bill is Robert Carlyle, who will appear as one of Gough’s reports, Detective Constable Shaun Massie, a Specialist Rifle Officer (SRO) and veteran marksman, operating with Tactical Operations Unit 7 (TO-7) to take down Organised Crime Groups. There are also some returning characters, including Mark Bonnar and Owen Teale as the previously shamed police officers Mike Dryden and Philip Osborne – their reappearance hints at the opening of a cold case. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/03/559336-41cd908.jpg" width="2501" height="1667" alt="Martin Compston, Robert Carlyle, Vicky McClure and Adrian Dunbar for Line of Duty. They have their arms round each other, are stood in front of a black curtain and are smiling at the camera." title="Martin Compston, Robert Carlyle, Vicky McClure and Adrian Dunbar for Line of Duty" /> But will Jed Mercurio be able to juggle keeping the storyline fresh while satisfying those fans left unimpressed by the season 6 finale unveiling of ‘H’? No TV writer has been able to keep us on the edge of our seats in the way Mercurio managed through six seasons of a show that began life as a word-of-mouth sizzler on BBC Two, made household names of its leading trio and a selling point of Mercurio’s readin…

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Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere made one big mistake – here's how it could have been fixed
type: item
date: 2026-03-18T09:42:54.000Z
creator: Calum Russell
subject: Documentaries
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Netflix
description: Theroux's study is too superficial for such an urgent issue.
encoded: The rapid rise of internet culture has fundamentally changed every facet of modern life, from how we communicate and how we entertain ourselves to how we learn and work together. Whether this sea change in how we live is for the better or worse is probably best left up to a documentary 20 years from now that will reflect on such a period of upheaval, in which the attention economy has taken over. And attention is seemingly the only thing that the nauseating streamers featured in Louis Theroux’s latest documentary, Inside the Manosphere, care about, as they so willingly race to the depths of morality with all the haste of a pig digging for truffles. They are known as figureheads of the 'Manosphere', an online community that promotes ideas of 'traditional' masculinity, where men adopt a more dominant role in a relationship while women's rights are marginalised. In tandem comes ignorant attitudes that breed sexism, racism and homophobia, spouted for clippable soundbites to shock and attract attention from viewers across the world. Yet despite their hate-filled and often nonsensical ramblings, their largely young and impressionable audience absorbs their grifting as fact, forming a generation of adolescents who are being moulded to their likeness. It’s an urgent and insidious issue which isn’t given the rigorous excavation it deserves by Theroux's cursory exploration that needed to be double, or even triple the length. Admitting that the landscape is a "wild frontier of streamers whose behaviour is reshaping the culture", Theroux does little to truly understand its horizons, admittedly seeming somewhat speechless as to the sheer support such tedious figures seem to attract as he tails them through the streets of Dubai and beyond. Rarely has the celebrated documentarian, who once thrived in his own discomfort, felt so out of place. Almost vibrating with insecurity, the fragile subjects of Inside the Manosphere provide several avenues for Theroux to explore, but he doesn’…

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Is nothing worth watching without a sprinkling of celebrity stardust?
type: item
date: 2026-03-18T08:00:08.000Z
creator: Caroline Frost
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Magazine
description: Not all celebs are born the same, but you would never know it from the schedules.
encoded: Two quick stories: once, in a London hotel, a film publicist came to find me. Bursting with the pride of a tigress with a newborn cub, she shouted down the corridor: "I've got you four minutes with Orlando!" The other took place in a Soho café, when two TV agents pressed me to consider championing their beloved clients' move from magic to cookery. I nearly choked on my macaroon. This was proper "youth hostelling with Chris Eubank" territory, as proffered by Alan Partridge. It turned out, in the world of televisual evolution, monkey tennis is very real. I mention these two incidents to shed some light on twin beliefs that threaten to consume our entire entertainment ecosystem: the first, that any time spent in the company of a famous face, on screen or off, is superior to that spent with what Liz Hurley helpfully calls "civilians"; the second, that celebrities will do anything, from boiling an egg to being taken hostage, if it means staying under the warm spotlight of another TV commission. The result? As pointed out in Ms Shearer's recent letter to RT’s Feedback (thank you!), a schedule that includes Jules and Greg’s Wild Swim, Bear Grylls – Wild Reckoning, Dickinson’s Real Deal, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Hippo Watch with Steve Backshall… all of them on TV on a single random Friday. This week sees the arrival of Celebrity Sabotage, in which a gaggle of familiar faces set out to hoodwink unsuspecting members of the public who think they are taking part in brand-new ITV shows. How did we get here? Add Radio Times as a Preferred Source on Google Keep up to date on what’s worth watching with your favourite entertainment news from Radio Times – see more of our exclusive news and interviews featured prominently in Top Stories when using Google. In 1997, the BBC One series Driving School simply followed learner drivers around Bristol and South Wales. What they hadn’t planned for was one Maureen Rees. By the time the cleaner from Cardiff had passed her test at the sevent…

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Remembering Len Deighton: The Ipcress File author reveals how he wrote a best-seller that imagines what would happen if Hitler won World War II
type: item
date: 2026-03-17T17:13:26.000Z
creator: Len Deighton
subject: Books
subject: Comment
description: In this piece from the RT Archives, novelist Len Deighton opens up about writing SS-GB.
encoded: Today, it was announced that British author Len Deighton has sadly passed away at the age of 97. Deighton was best known for his spy novels including The Ipcress File (1962), which was turned into a Bafta-winning film starring Michael Caine, before being remade as an ITV series in 2022 in which Peaky Blinders’ Joe Cole played the leading role. In this piece from the Radio Times archive, Deighton explains the writing process behind his 1987 novel SS-GB, which imagines a Nazi-occupied Britain. The novel was given the TV treatment by the BBC in 2017 in an adaptation starring Sam Riley and Kate Bosworth. Sometimes the trigger for a book comes all at once. That’s how it was for SS-GB. “No one knows what would have happened after 1940 if we had lost the war,” said my editor. It was about ten o’clock at night and we were sitting drinking (nothing stronger than coffee), talking about the research I’d carried out for my history books Fighter and Blitzkrieg. “To some extent, we do know,” I said. “The German archives reveal the plans for the occupation and the personnel that would have made up the German occupying force. It makes fascinating reading.” “Would it make a book?” asked the other man at our table, my close friend Ray Hawkey. “Perhaps. But what kind of book?” “An ‘alternative world’ story,” said Ray. Ray had been a classmate at the Royal College of Art and had contributed a great deal to the success of my books. Not only did he design the dust jackets (his Ipcress File cover was a game-changer) but all manner of other sensational promotional accessories. For SS-GB he would produce booklets of British Hitler-head postage stamps that have become much sought-after. But I was not immediately attracted to the idea of an “alternative world” story. I had avoided anything in the nature of science fiction or fantasy and, as always, my next three years of writing were already roughly planned. It was the mid 1970s and I’d become a writer almost by accident. For much of my worki…

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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…

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Oscar predictions 2027: 25 films which could compete for best picture next year
type: item
date: 2026-03-16T17:38:16.000Z
creator: Patrick Cremona
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Oscars
description: We might be a year away, but we can already take a good stab at predicting some of the films which might well feature at the next Oscars.
encoded: After what sometimes felt like an endless awards season, last night's Academy Awards ceremony in LA marked the end of this year's cycle, with Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another eventually named as the deserving best picture winner. The film saw off competition from the likes of Ryan Coogler's Sinners to win the main prize, with Anderson also scooping the honours for best director and best adapted screenplay. It was the first time the filmmaker had won Oscar gold despite coming close on numerous previous occasions, but few would have been too surprised if they'd been told this time last year that he would finally get his day in the sun. With that in mind, we're taking an early stab at suggesting who might be in the running this time next year. We've used our expert insight to round up a list of some of the films that might well be in contention when the time comes to hand out golden statuettes in 2027. It should obviously be taken into account that – with the exception of one or two films – most of the titles listed below have not yet been screened, and so we're relying entirely on the names attached and plot synopses to indicate which films might be in the running. It's likely that after some of these premiere they could drop off our predictions list entirely, and it's equally probable that several films will come out of nowhere to emerge as major contenders in the coming months – as was the case this year. But for the time being, read on for a list of films that could be up for best picture in 2027. If nothing else, it certainly points to another exciting year for new releases... 1. The Odyssey View Green Video on the source website It's almost impossible to imagine a world in which Christopher Nolan's follow-up to his Oscar-sweeping 2023 biographical epic Oppenheimer doesn't land a glut of nominations. While winning two best pictures in a row may prove a little too much, the combination of on-screen and off-screen talent, source material and pre-relea…

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Jeremy Vine reveals why his game show is a new joy amid the 'death' of the quiz in the modern age
type: item
date: 2026-03-16T17:01:12.000Z
creator: Jeremy Vine
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: Comment
subject: Magazine
description: Smartphones are killing TV quiz shows – and knowledge itself, writes presenter Jeremy Vine.
encoded: This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. I’d like to tell you about the day I took part in a big charity quiz. The man with the microphone asked the first question: “Which American football player began the practice of taking the knee to protest racial injustice in 2016?” Tricky. I racked my brains. Was it Colin Someone? I threw a beseeching glance across the table. That’s when I saw a younger team member – a smart professional member of Gen Z, and for all I knew an upstanding member of the community – fishing in her handbag. “Right,” she said. “Let’s find out.” And produced her phone. A phone! At a quiz! I was alarmed. Looking up answers to quiz questions is such a no-no it might have resulted in the disqualification of the entire team, not to mention subsequent reputational destruction (I was presenting the long-running quiz show Eggheads at the time). Aghast, I remonstrated. The woman rolled her eyes and reluctantly pushed the phone back into her bag. Then I spotted her neighbour at the table also re-bagging her phone. It dawned on me that this wasn’t a simple case of a single miscreant. This was generational. Luckily for me, I had smuggled one of the Eggheads into the event. The inimitable Kevin Ashman, probably the greatest quizzer in the world at the time, spent a few seconds rubbing his chin before coming up with the answer: Colin Kaepernick. Ah! I know what you’re thinking. What’s the difference between smuggling a phone and an Egghead into a quiz? The answer is that the Egghead is human, and the mobile is machine. The more we lean on smartphones, the dumber we become. Recently, I’ve been thinking about that moment. My father stopped needing to know the layout of London when he bought an A–Z street atlas. For people born after 1990, the idea of knowing something is the same as knowing where to find it. Extend the analogy, and someone with a mobile needs to know nothing at all. For years, TV has given us quizzes – Mastermind, Celebrity Squares and…

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Sinners might have missed out on best picture, but make no mistake – the 2026 Oscars were the best yet for horror
type: item
date: 2026-03-16T12:55:48.000Z
creator: Patrick Cremona
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
description: A raft of major wins – including for Michael B Jordan and Weapons star Amy Madigan – suggest the genre is finally being treated with the respect it deserves.
encoded: Although it undoubtedly enjoyed a great night overall, there will be a few film fans who woke up this morning disappointed that Ryan Coogler's Sinners didn't ultimately take home the top honour at last night's Academy Awards. The critically acclaimed, politically charged vampire flick might have been second favourite in the best picture race for much of this seemingly endless awards season, but talk of a late surge – brought on in part by its win in the best ensemble category at The Actor Awards – had led some to believe it might pull off an impressive upset and pip Paul Thomas Anderson's magnificent One Battle After Another to the hugely coveted gong. Ultimately it wasn't to be: One Battle prevailed, and surely stands as one of the finest best picture winners of recent years. But we shouldn't for one minute let the fact that Sinners missed out on this award dampen what has nonetheless been an exceptionally successful season for the passionately supported movie. View Green Video on the source website Much has been made about the fact that, having been nominated for a record-breaking sixteen Academy Awards – a quite remarkable feat – the film ultimately failed to convert 12 of those into wins. But looking at any of those as "losses" – a word that often does the rounds in Oscars post-mortem discussions – is quite frankly a nonsensical way of looking at things. A film that gets nominated but doesn't win is by no means a loser, and indeed being honoured as one of the best five or ten films in each individual category is a major accomplishment in itself. To be nominated for sixteen of those speaks to the overwhelmingly high esteem in which the film is held, something not undone by the fact that another terrific movie from a beloved director narrowly secured more votes when all is said and done. In the third of his three acceptance speeches of the night, Anderson himself said: "There is no best among them. There is just what the mood might be that day." He went on to refe…

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How Train Dreams winning the 2026 Oscar for best picture could help spread its most vital message
type: item
date: 2026-03-14T17:00:11.000Z
creator: Calum Russell
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Oscars
description: 2026 is a tough time, but Train Dreams is the antidote.
encoded: There is a tranquility in Clint Bentley’s best picture nominee that feels entirely at odds with the clangour of modern America. Set in the early years of the 20th century, the meditative drama tells the tale of a railroad labourer grappling with life’s most existential questions, considering his lowly standing in a world that swells around him. An introspective ballad to the wonder of life’s ephemerality, Train Dreams is the ideal antidote to the desolation of late-stage capitalism. A stirring celebration of what it means to be alive while sharing similarities with the "great frontier" of classic western cinema, this should be the kind of film that the Academy laps up like a savoury hors d'oeuvre. But, this is not a film made for lovers of mythical gunslingers or elaborate heists in windswept dustbowls — this is a different kind of romance — an impassioned ode to God’s lonely souls, trying to find the breadth to flourish in the face of affliction. Based on Denis Johnson’s novella of the same name, Bentley’s film is a similar miniature epic that tails Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), a man who earns his way felling forests and constructing a grand railroad in its place. A pensive introvert, Grainier finds more kinship in the soaring pine trees than in his ragtag co-workers, though glimmers of companionship are offered in the form of like-minded labourers such as William H. Macy’s Arn. His tumultuous, industrious life in the forest contrasts nicely with the haven he has created back home, where his wife Gladys (Felicity Jones) and young daughter thrive. Existing in an almost ethereal paradise that is submerged in the same sun-soaked cinematography of a Terrence Malick landscape, the home effortlessly cohabits with the surrounding environment and the family abide by the self-same chaotic forces of nature. Without warning, their lives are upended by tragedy and their paradise crumbles, leaving Grainier to find meaning in the ash that’s left behind. It’s a devastating ta…

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Sinners becoming the 2026 best picture winner would prove the Oscars don't need to play it safe
type: item
date: 2026-03-14T08:00:39.000Z
creator: Katelyn Mensah
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Oscars
description: Ryan Coogler's Mississippi-set horror has more nominations than any film in history — and is much more than just a vampire story.
encoded: From the moment Sinners hit cinema screens back in April of last year, it was clear that it would be a contender in the Hollywood awards race. There was immediate critical acclaim for everything from storytelling and soundtrack to casting and cinematography, which culminated in 16 Oscar nominations – the most received by a single film in history. But now, as 98th Academy Awards draws near, Sinners has increasingly felt like a worthy winner of the best picture Oscar. Yet another impressive outing from writer/director Ryan Coogler (Black Panther, Fruitvale Station) and star Michael B Jordan (Creed, Without Remorse), Sinners is set in Jim Crow-era Mississippi and follows twin brothers Smoke and Stack (Jordan) as they return to their hometown and open a juke joint, which reunites them with friends and loved ones like their cousin, Sammie 'Preacher Boy' Moore (Miles Caton). But what starts as a night of celebration for the Blues soon descends into destruction as the vampire Remmick (Jack O'Connell) arrives with a trail of blood in his wake. View Green Video on the source website The acclaim for Sinners feels more important than ever in a time when people of colour around the world are facing an exhausting cycle of violence and dehumanising rhetoric. Coogler takes a setting that constantly tells Black and brown communities that their lives are disposable and puts their ancestry and spirituality at the centre, proving they are important and have epic stories to be told. Just look at one the film's most striking scenes, the transcendent juke-joint dance sequence. As Sammie sings I Lied To You, spirits from the past and present are drawn into the joint, which catches the attention of Remmick, who hopes to turn Sammie into a vampire and use his gift of music to reconnect with his ancestors. It's an extraordinary moment, so it's no surprise that it's this very song that Caton will perform at this year's Oscars. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites…

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The Claudia Winkleman Show review: Was there any doubt we'd be in good hands?
type: item
date: 2026-03-13T23:25:29.000Z
creator: Katelyn Mensah
subject: Entertainment
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC One
subject: Comment
subject: Review
description: There's a new Friday night chat show host in town!
encoded: It's only been a matter of days since Claudia Winkleman was last on our TV screens, thanks to Crufts, but tonight marked the first time we truly saw her in her element. Announced late last year, fresh off of The Celebrity Traitors high, the BBC announced that Winkleman would host her very own chat show, made by the same production company behind The Graham Norton Show. It's important to not draw comparisons between the two, because despite the same Friday night slot, Winkleman brings her well-known and much-loved flair to the sofa. The studio is impressive, and offers a very Traitors vibe, thanks to the dark teal colour of the sofas – as was correctly guessed by guest Jennifer Saunders. Though, despite the nod to the reality series, Winkleman carves herself out as a worthy chat show host – not just as the host of The Traitors who also happens to front a chat show. Over the course of her career, Winkleman has always had a level of professionalism, swagger and self-deprecating humour that many of the nation has grown to love, including those in attendance of the recording. From the off, her interactions with the audience gave viewers an idea of what was to come, and throughout the episode, she manages to weave in plenty of audience interaction to accompany the anecdotes of the celebrities. But is the show perhaps too reliant on its audiences participation? While, sure, the celebrities may know the stories they plan to tell ahead of time, too many audience members who just so happen to have a story or relation to the anecdote each episode could make it feel a little too staged. Where Winkleman excels in off-script moments (see: Celia Imrie's flatulence), it'd be a shame to not have more go-with-the-flow moments between her and the celebrities. Tonight's line-up included Jeff Goldblum, Jennifer Saunders, Vanessa Williams and Tom Allen, all of whom had great stories to tell and plenty of charisma to keep the show moving, but it was Winkleman who was able to keep the show…

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How a win for the delicate Sentimental Value would bring something totally fresh to the Oscars' 2026 best picture race
type: item
date: 2026-03-13T17:00:05.000Z
creator: Chezelle Bingham
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Oscars
description: With nine nominations and some of the finest performances of the year, this fine Norwegian family drama is more than worthy of the top prize.
encoded: "But we didn't have the same childhood. I had you.” Spoken by Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas’s Agnes in Sentimental Value, these 10 words are some of the most affecting in any film from 2025. It's a line that encapsulates the reason that the film has been nominated for nine awards in this year’s Oscars race – one that perfectly and poignantly captures the antithetical yet remarkable relationship between sisters. Renate Reinsve’s Nora, brown-eyed and teary, cradles the gentle form of the younger sister she has spent a lifetime loving, attempting to compensate for the affection withheld by their father and wondering why Agnes didn’t end up as fractured as she did. It’s a seismic moment – and one that any viewer of the 133-minute feature would cite as a standout. That scene alone feels worthy of an award. Of all the films nominated for best picture this year, it’s clear that Sentimental Value possesses the most heart – and for that reason, it deserves to win. Following his acclaimed drama The Worst Person in the World (arguably a 2022 best picture snub itself), Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier has returned with an even more assured character study in the form of Sentimental Value, once again centred on a performance by the astonishing Renate Reinsve. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2026/03/SentimentalValue32Renate-ReinsveAnders-DanielsenLiePhotoKasper-Tuxen-Andersen-2dd7ea4-e1772533480422.jpg" width="3230" height="2150" alt="Renate Reinsve as Nora in Sentimental Value, laying down in a bed, with covers pulled over her, smiling." title="SentimentalValue_32_Renate-Reinsve_Anders-Danielsen_Lie_Photo_Kasper-Tuxen-Andersen" /> This time, she’s Nora Borg – a 30-something theatre actress whose adult identity has been painfully marred by her relationship with her estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), an acclaimed film director. When Gustav offers Nora a part in his new film, her historic resentment of him begins to resurface. What soon unf…

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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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How The Secret Agent's overflow of cinematic possibilities proves it deserves best picture at the 2026 Oscars
type: item
date: 2026-03-13T09:30:30.000Z
creator: Patrick Cremona
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Oscars
description: Wagner Moura is quietly staggering in this textured, stylish and profound Brazilian film from Kleber Mendonça Filho.
encoded: The wholehearted embrace of international cinema – once largely consigned to its own separate category – has been one of the most encouraging developments at the Oscars in recent years. Since Parasite’s groundbreaking win back in 2020, almost every best picture line-up has seen at least one film in a language other than English compete for the top prize, and that’s the case again this year, with both Norwegian drama Sentimental Value and Brazilian film The Secret Agent in the mix. The latter of those is, for my money, the best of a pretty stellar crop of nominees in the category. Interestingly, it’s the second film from Brazil in as many years to be up for best picture, following on from Walter Salles's I'm Still Here last time out. And that’s not the only similarity between the pair. Just like that film, The Secret Agent unfolds in the 1970s against the tumultuous backdrop of the country’s military dictatorship, although on this occasion we’re dealing with a work of fiction inspired by the atmosphere of the era rather than the dramatisation of a true story. The fourth narrative feature from writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho, the gripping, stylish, and at times endearingly offbeat film is built around a quietly staggering performance from Wagner Moura, who is quite rightly up for best actor. Moura plays Armando, a university professor with an initially unclear past on the run for reasons that are gradually and deftly unspooled over a luxurious 2 hour 40 minute run-time that never comes close to dragging. In the early scenes, he arrives in the city of Recife and adopts a new identity as Marcelo, seeking to evade his enemies while also reuniting with his young son Fernando, who is living with the parents of his mysteriously dead wife. That’s the starting point for a remarkable, profound film that defies easy categorisation and consistently keeps the audience on its toes, offering up a richer range of delights than any of its competitors in the awards race. From th…

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Farewell, Liza Tarbuck – our Saturdays evenings have lost their light
type: item
creator: David Crawford
subject: App
subject: App features
subject: Radio
subject: audio
subject: BBC Radio 2
subject: Comment
description: After the announcement that Liza Tarbuck is stepping down from her Saturday evening Radio 2 show, we pay tribute to her incomparable style.
encoded: If the murmuration, mohomes, Top Bird Trumpingtons and “Pauline!” mean nothing to you, then you’ve obviously never tuned in to Radio 2 at 6pm on a Saturday evening for two hours of the most joyous, slightly bonkers show on the airwaves. Now, sadly, you will never have that experience, as the host of that gem in the BBC’s crown, the incomparable Liza Tarbuck, has said that after some time off, she will not be returning to the show as she’d “like her weekend back”. This isn’t supposed to be an obituary, but you can bet that for her thousands of ardent listeners – aka the murmuration – a little light went out when they heard that their Saturday evening lodestar was disappearing. Before the news of her departure broke, and while it seemed she was only on a sabbatical, a colleague commented that there would be “uproar” if Radio 2 got rid of Liza. As it is, there will be plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth. For since she took up residence in 2012, up until what would turn out to be her final show on 17 January this year, she grew a devout community of followers all too willing to share their silly family sayings, elderly relatives’ confused malapropisms, tales of stupidity and woe, and most importantly, what they’re cooking for dinner and where they have parked the motorhome (mohome) for the night. The more outrageous of these tales could induce one of the most delightful sounds on the radio, as Liza struggled to hold it together while dissolving into a fit of giggles at the sheer madness of it all. Her approach often followed the Mel Brooks adage, “Stubbing your toe on the sidewalk is a tragedy; falling into an open sewer and dying is comedy,” with the more terrible the listener in the story’s personal anguish, the more guffaws it could elicit. Yet none of it was done with spite or malice; there was a genuine mutual feeling of love for her family of listeners – for beyond the mentions of “dad” and “Pauline!”, it was those who wrote in, took part in the weekly fancy d…

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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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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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Why One Battle After Another deserves to win the war for best picture at the 2026 Oscars
type: item
date: 2026-03-12T17:00:36.000Z
creator: Max Copeman
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Oscars
description: Celebrating a film as politically urgent as the action thriller with Leonardo DiCaprio is an opportunity the Academy must not miss – especially when recognition for 14-time nominee Paul Thomas Anderson is so overdue.
encoded: The so-called “Career Oscar” can be an awkward compliment. There are two types, but both are tinged with embarrassment: honorary Oscars for those who never received a statuette — and competitive awards given to established talent largely due to their unrecognised body of previous work, rather than the film actually nominated that year. Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, Charlie Chaplin, Debbie Reynolds and Peter O'Toole are some of the most egregious examples of the former; Martin Scorsese (The Departed), Paul Newman (The Color of Money), Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman) and Henry Fonda (On Golden Pond) fit into the latter category, where one can hardly say they won for their best work. This year, the Academy can avoid another one of these by handing Paul Thomas Anderson a best picture Oscar. The superlative One Battle After Another presents voters with an unmissable opportunity to invest in their future selves and save face down the line, after years of leaving a generation’s most acclaimed film-maker without a prize from his industry’s leading body. The Californian writer/director has come a long way from the 27-year-old wunderkind who dazzled audiences with his second feature in 1997, the porn-industry drama Boogie Nights. That was the first of his films to receive an Oscar nomination and he has been a consistent fixture on ballots ever since, with eight out of his ten features nominated in any category. Overall, Anderson’s films have had 41 nominations and won three awards, for acting, cinematography and costume design. The man behind There Will Be Blood, The Master, Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza has 14 nominations and zero wins to his own name. View Green Video on the source website Of course, the likes of Sinners and Hamnet should not lose to One Battle because Anderson’s previous films deserved more love in years gone by — that would be the kind of logic that sees the Academy get it wrong so often. Rather, Anderson’s time has come because One Battle is an achieve…

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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…

Farewell, Liza Tarbuck – our Saturdays evenings have lost their light
type: item
date: 2026-03-12T10:41:59.000Z
creator: David Crawford
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: BBC Radio 2
subject: Comment
description: After the announcement that Liza Tarbuck is stepping down from her Saturday evening Radio 2 show, we pay tribute to her incomparable style.
encoded: If the murmuration, mohomes, Top Bird Trumpingtons and “Pauline!” mean nothing to you, then you’ve obviously never tuned in to Radio 2 at 6pm on a Saturday evening for two hours of the most joyous, slightly bonkers show on the airwaves. Now, sadly, you will never have that experience, as the host of that gem in the BBC’s crown, the incomparable Liza Tarbuck, has said that after some time off, she will not be returning to the show as she’d “like her weekend back”. This isn’t supposed to be an obituary, but you can bet that for her thousands of ardent listeners – aka the murmuration – a little light went out when they heard that their Saturday evening lodestar was disappearing. Before the news of her departure broke, and while it seemed she was only on a sabbatical, a colleague commented that there would be “uproar” if Radio 2 got rid of Liza. As it is, there will be plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth. For since she took up residence in 2012, up until what would turn out to be her final show on 17 January this year, she grew a devout community of followers all too willing to share their silly family sayings, elderly relatives’ confused malapropisms, tales of stupidity and woe, and most importantly, what they’re cooking for dinner and where they have parked the motorhome (mohome) for the night. The more outrageous of these tales could induce one of the most delightful sounds on the radio, as Liza struggled to hold it together while dissolving into a fit of giggles at the sheer madness of it all. Her approach often followed the Mel Brooks adage, “Stubbing your toe on the sidewalk is a tragedy; falling into an open sewer and dying is comedy,” with the more terrible the listener in the story’s personal anguish, the more guffaws it could elicit. Yet none of it was done with spite or malice; there was a genuine mutual feeling of love for her family of listeners – for beyond the mentions of “dad” and “Pauline!”, it was those who wrote in, took part in the weekly fancy d…

Why Marty Supreme's unlikable characters are still a reason it deserves to win best picture at the 2026 Oscars
type: item
date: 2026-03-12T08:00:46.000Z
creator: Alex Berry
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Oscars
description: Timothée Chalamet and Josh Safdie's story of a table tennis player in 1950s New York is a rare and unforgettable high-wire act with people you would never want to know.
encoded: Surely destined to succeed at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre this year is Josh Safdie’s electric sports drama Marty Supreme. Yes, the “ping-pong movie” that became a talking point over New Year has rallied its way to nine Academy Award nominations, including best director for Josh Safdie and best actor for Timothée Chalamet, alongside a coveted best picture nod. Standing in its path are formidable contenders, from Ryan Coogler’s record-breaking horror Sinners and Chloé Zhao’s delicate adaptation Hamnet to Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling political epic One Battle after Another. Yet for all the richness of this year’s field, no film feels more deserving than Marty Supreme. Aside from being a gripping tale of the fine line between ambition and obsession, it is a high-wire act built almost entirely on people you would never want to know – and it somehow makes them unforgettable. Loosely inspired by table tennis champion Marty Reisman, Safdie’s first solo feature since his split from brother Benny centres on Marty Mauser (Chalamet), a cocky 1950s New York shoe salesman with two things in inexhaustible supply: ego and ambition. Marty is not a hero in any conventional sense. He is vain, selfish and exhausting. He mistakes self-belief for superiority and treats relationships like stepping stones. In less capable hands than those of Chalamet and Safdie, he would be intolerable. View Green Video on the source website Chalamet delivers a career-best performance, anchoring the film so completely that our grip on Marty never loosens, however far the character drifts from decency. The role demands charm, arrogance and vulnerability, and Chalamet navigates those shifts with astonishing control. For a three-time nominee who has already claimed the Golden Globe and Critics' Choice awards, this feels like the performance that could finally secure him Oscar gold. Equally, Safdie understands that cinema doesn’t need comfort to captivate. Marty’s unlikability isn’t a flaw; it’s the engine.…

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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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Rachel Weisz's Vladimir makes an unforgivable yet common mistake – it cheats the audience
type: item
creator: James Hibbs
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Netflix needs to learn not to make promises it can't – or won't – keep.
encoded: *Warning - contains spoilers for all eight episodes of Vladimir.* Add it to your watchlist At the end of last year, I spoke with the writer Dennis Kelly, known for his series such as Utopia and Pulling. He was promoting his phenomenal BBC drama, Waiting for the Out, when he made the following comment: "My bugbear at the moment is that we are currently mistaking adrenaline for drama. We currently think that adrenaline and drama are the same thing and they f**king are not. "The amount of times you see one of these Netflix-type things – look, I've done this as well, so I'm not slagging it off too much – but someone wakes up and they're in a crime scene or something, and then you flash back, and it's like, what you're saying to the audience is, 'This is boring, right? But don't worry, you're going to see someone die.' You just think, 'F**king hell, that's so lame.'" It's important to note, Kelly wasn't speaking about any one drama or Netflix series in particular. He certainly wasn't speaking about Vladimir, which wouldn't be released for a number of months after we spoke. However, to my mind, he may as well have been. Vladimir, starring Rachel Weisz and Leo Woodall, is a new Netflix erotic thriller based on the novel of the same name, which kicks off with a fascinating sequence. Weisz's character, an unnamed professor, speaks with the audience throughout, and that aspect of the series is present from the off. In the first scene, Weisz's character is seen writing in a cabin. She reveals to us that her students find her out of touch, her daughter finds her "entire personhood useless", and that she worries she "may not be the cause of a spontaneous erection ever again". She then walks through the cabin and we see that sat there, tied to a chair, is Woodall's title character, Vladimir. This is where we first meet him – unconscious, with chains around his waist and his trousers off. Weisz walks out of the cabin as Vladimir wakes and reacts in horror to his situation. "What t…

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Reminders of Him review: A heartfelt but ordinary addition to the Colleen Hoover canon
type: item
date: 2026-03-11T17:01:28.000Z
creator: Chezelle Bingham
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Review
description: A largely run-of-the-mill romantic drama – but not without its charms.
encoded: Colleen Hoover’s third book adaptation probably isn't anything that we weren’t expecting. Directed by Vanessa Caswill, Reminders of Him has all the everyday, hallmark features of the constantly expanding Hooververse – a great cast, a light tug on the heartstrings and enough cheesiness to clog the arteries. Reminders of Him puts the usually blood-soaked Maika Monroe in a role far removed from the laboured-breathing, scream queen territory she’s usually found. This time around, she plays Kenna Rowan, a young woman who has recently been released from prison following an unthinkable, tragic mistake involving her boyfriend Scotty (Rudy Pankow). She returns to town hoping for a chance at redemption and, most importantly, to be reunited with the daughter she barely knows. Though Hoover has previously mentioned she deliberately set the story in an ambiguous location – if the guitar strumming, country-infused soundtrack is anything to go by, we appear to be in a small town somewhere in a southern state. And if that didn’t quite make it clear, there’s also a debut film role for Grammy award-winning country artist and Yellowstone alum Lainey Wilson, who pops up in a handful of welcome scenes as Kenna’s friend Amy to remind us Kenna may in fact have a Heart Like a Truck. The film’s cast is perhaps its greatest saving grace. Monroe is, expectedly, a natural fit for Kenna. With so much tragedy in Kenna’s past, Monroe draws on her horror pedigree to weave threads of tension and sympathy into a performance that without her would likely not have commanded quite as much attention. Monroe has long had a knack for stealing the screen, and here she manages to elevate the occasional early noughties, straight-to-DVD energy of the film with some natural charisma. Meanwhile, Withers offers a spin of the ‘rough-around-the-edges-but-still-a-nice-guy’ archetype in the form of Ledger, the bar owner Kenna finds herself involved with. Previously best known for his leading role in Justin Tipping’s…

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To be or not to be? There's no question the 'emotionally manipulative' Hamnet deserves to win the 2026 Oscar for best picture
type: item
date: 2026-03-11T17:00:19.000Z
creator: Lewis Knight
subject: Movies
subject: Comment
subject: Contains Trailer
subject: Oscars
description: The tragic tale of William Shakespeare's family life is well deserving of its flowers.
encoded: To be or not to be? It probably shouldn’t be a question. Somehow, for many pundits and critics, Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s acclaimed historical fiction novel Hamnet has become something of a villain this Oscars season. It’s a bizarre take when the tragedy has so much to offer. The film tackles a lesser-known element of William Shakespeare’s life: the loss of his son Hamnet. Like O’Farrell’s novel, though, this text primarily centres its experience on Shakespeare’s wife and Hamnet’s mother, here named Agnes. Portrayed with ferocity and heartbreaking nuance by Irish triple-threat Jessie Buckley, Agnes is a spiritual, earthy and misunderstood figure — one who draws the attention of Shakespeare in his youth (a moving Paul Mescal) and before his success as a playwright in London. Primarily set in the pastoral setting of Stratford-Upon-Avon, we see how the Shakespeare clan grows in size following Agnes and Shakespeare’s wedding, with the pair welcoming three children and living an idyllic life as William's career in London begins to take off. View Green Video on the source website However, the true crux of the drama occurs when a malady claims the life of their son Hamnet (the wonderful young talent Jacobi Jupe) and sets them on diverging paths… until Shakespeare’s works come to the rescue. A moving examination of grief and the power of art, Hamnet has signalled another vote of confidence in Zhao from the film industry, after the plaudits and gongs won for her much-celebrated film Nomadland. The prospect of a female and non-white Oscar-winner gaining recognition from the Academy so close to her previous wins should be welcomed – as although ceilings can be shattered, in the film industry they can always quickly grow back, leaving a long wait until the next slice of the pie. Separately, success for Hamnet would be just recognition for one of our finest acting talents in Jessie Buckley, who continues to give emotionally true performances in a singular ran…

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Watching I Kissed a Boy changed my life and its axing alongside I Kissed a Girl sets an ugly precedent
type: item
date: 2026-03-11T15:05:02.000Z
creator: Adam Miller
subject: Entertainment
subject: Reality TV
subject: TV
subject: BBC iPlayer
subject: BBC Three
subject: Comment
description: It proved that queer TV isn’t just important representation - we also make brilliant TV.
encoded: After more than a decade of calling out for more LGBTQ+ representation on Love Island, I Kissed A Boy came along and delivered more than anyone could have anticipated: a queer dating show that felt joyful and genuinely transformative. Hosted by Dannii Minogue, a woman who has proven herself to be one of the staunchest allies imaginable, I Kissed A Boy and I Kissed A Girl were not just game-changing moments in queer television. Even after more than 30 years of living as a gay man, I learned more about my community from one show than I had in my entire lifetime. The axe falling on I Kissed A Boy and I Kissed A Girl sets an ugly precedent: that queer reality television doesn't matter. It says that it doesn't work and that, despite such an overwhelmingly positive response from both queer and straight viewers, there is no space for LGBTQ+ reality television. "We are exceptionally proud of I Kissed a Boy/Girl, the UK's first dating show for the LGBTQ+ community," a spokesperson for the BBC announced. "We would like to thank our fabulous Cupid Dannii Minogue and the entire team at Twofour for bringing the series to screen. Unfortunately, we have to make difficult choices in light of our funding challenges and there are no current plans for the show to return." But even more important than ratings or changing the landscape of queer representation, I Kissed A Boy and I Kissed A Girl have been fundamental in making me feel like I belong. I saw so much of myself in some of the contestants when I had always thought the insecurities I felt were unique to me. In series two, when Adam put himself down and pushed Reuben away before he could be rejected, I recognised that instinct immediately. It’s a pattern so many queer people know: rejecting yourself before someone else can. Even better, Adam’s confidence began to flourish during his time in the Hacienda, he showed a self-love I could have only dreamed of at his age in the same position. Watching the importance of gay friendships…

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