Incomprehensible and epically anti-climatic: Netflix’s Bodies reviewed
Bodies is another of those ‘ingenious’ time-travel apocalypse mash-ups so tricksy and convoluted that by the time the ending comes…
Surprisingly addictive and heartwarming: Netflix’s Beckham reviewed
If you’re not remotely interested in football or celebrity, I recommend Netflix’s four-part documentary series Beckham. Yes, I know it’s…
I watched it so that you didn’t have to: ITV2’s Big Brother reviewed
Big Brother is Nineteen Eighty-Four rewritten by Aldous Huxley. The detail that George Orwell got wrong is that far from…
Arresting visual spectacle and superb fight scenes: Netflix’s One Piece reviewed
What would you say is the most successful comic-book series in history? If you’re thinking Tintin you’re not even close.…
Why I’m addicted to Australian MasterChef
Why is Australian MasterChef so much better than the English version? You’d think, with a population less than a third…
Enthralling: BBC4’s Colosseum reviewed
In the year 2023, the Neo-Roman Empire was at the height of its powers. A potentially restive populace was kept…
Bags of charm and a gripping plot: Netflix’s The Chosen One reviewed
Some years ago, Mark Millar (the creator of Kick-Ass, Kingsman, etc.) hit on yet another brilliant conceit for one of…
A welcome antidote to UK crime drama: Netflix’s Kohrra reviewed
It has been quite some time since I’ve been able to bear watching UK crime drama. All right, I do…
University Challenge deserves Amol Rajan
I wish I could say that Bamber Gascoigne would be turning in his grave at what has happened to University…
Rewriting history
If you don’t subscribe to every last detail of the LGBTQ+ agenda, then basically you are a Nazi. This was…
Ugly, mechanical, soulless: Apple TV+’s Hijack reviewed
Idris Elba would have made a perfect James Bond. Not the James Bond that we knew and loved when he…
Netflix has struck gold: Tour de France: Unchained reviewed
I’m ideologically opposed to bicycles for all the obvious reasons: they don’t have lovely big nostrils which you can blow…
Gratuitously twisty, turny nonsense: Sky Max’s Poker Face reviewed
Imagine if you had the power always to tell whether or not someone was lying. You’d have it made, wouldn’t…
Spooky, classy dystopian sci-fi: Apple TV+’s Silo reviewed
Back once more to our favourite unhappy place: the dystopian future. And yet again it seems that the authorities have…
Purest fantasy but you’ll love it: Tetris reviewed
Tetris is a righteously entertaining movie about the stampede to secure the rights from within the Soviet Union to what…
One of the best things you’ll see on TV this year: Netflix’s War Sailor reviewed
War Sailor (Krigsseileren), a three-part drama on Netflix about the Norwegian merchant navy in the second world war, is one…
Succession works because the writers don’t care about the boring business storylines
I have a theory that many great artists’ strength is a product of their weakness. The flaw of the relentlessly…
What a gloriously easy living Chris Rock makes from his comedy
Chris Rock was paid $20 million for his 70-minute Netflix special, so by my reckoning his riff on whether or…
In defence of the fabrications of reality TV
My new favourite tennis player, just ahead of Novak Djokovic, is Nick Kyrgios. Up until recently I’d barely heard of…
What I love about Netflix’s Kleo is that it’s so damned German
I was almost tempted not to watch Kleo because it sounded like so many things I’d seen before: beautiful ex-Stasi…
Classy but constrained by its video game origins: Sky’s The Last of Us reviewed
The Last of Us is widely being hailed as the best video game adaptation ever. Maybe. But it’s still a…
Heist drama with a novelty spin that isn’t very novel: Netflix’s Kaleidoscope reviewed
Kaleidoscope is a fairly routine eight-part heist drama with a supposed novelty spin: apart from the beginning and the end,…
A Turkish dystopia that eludes western censors: Netflix’s Hot Skull reviewed
A strange new virus has infected half the world but the cure is worse than the disease: authoritarian tyranny, in…
The Recruit might be the worst show on Netflix
The Top Gun series received generous support from the US Navy because it was such an effective recruitment tool. I…
