Fascinating, plausible ideas undermined by Netflix: Ancient Apocalypse reviewed
Graham Hancock’s Ancient Apocalypse has been described by the Guardian as ‘the most dangerous show on Netflix’. What? More dangerous…
Repellent: Paramount+’s Tulsa King reviewed
TV currently abounds with ‘I thought they were dead’ revival projects: series in which your favourite 1980s movie stars are…
Riveting: Netflix’s The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself reviewed
Gratingly edgy soundtrack, stomach-churning gore, torture, witchcraft, sadism and an indigestible title. The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself sounds…
A Soviet version of Martin Parr: Adam Curtis’s Russia 1985-1999 –TraumaZone reviewed
Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone – even the title makes you want to scream – is Adam Curtis’s Metal Machine Music: the…
An enjoyable new Ageing Dad drama: Disney+'s The Old Man reviewed
We men all think we’ve still got it, even when we’re well past 50 and young women look straight through…
The makers of Fauda have another hit on their hands: Sky Atlantic's Munich Games reviewed
You’d have to pay me an awful lot more than I get for this column to review Monster: The Jeffrey…
Shaping up nicely for some truly epic bloodletting: House of the Dragon reviewed
House of the Dragon got off to a pretty uninspirational start, I thought: no major characters brought to a shocking…
Identity politics is in retreat in Hollywood
‘Diversity is woven into the very soul of the story.’ If those words of praise from a rave review in…
Fascinating but flat: Amazon Prime's Thirteen Lives reviewed
About ten minutes in to Thirteen Lives, Boy came in and asked me whether it was any good. I said:…
The making of The Godfather was almost as dramatic as the film: Paramount+'s The Offer reviewed
It’s hard to imagine in the wake of GoodFellas, The Sopranos and Gomorrah but there was a time, not so…
Why we should all be dropping acid
Many years ago a man on the end of my cigarette stole my soul. Mr Migarette (for such was his…
A thrilling, pacy, well-acted drama: Amazon Prime's The Terminal List reviewed
‘The Terminal List is… a dated and drably made eight-part military thriller that offers little intrigue or excitement,’ says the…
The sad decline of my one-time favourites
I don’t think it’s my imagination: it really is getting harder and harder to find anything worth watching on TV.…
Ricky Gervais is an achingly conventional Millennial posing as a naughty maverick
Just how edgy and dangerous is Ricky Gervais? There is no one more edgy and dangerous, we learn from no…
Oddly unconvincing: Apple TV+'s The Essex Serpent reviewed
Having now watched it to the end, I would say that Slow Horses (Apple TV+) is by far the best…
The best TV spy drama since Smiley’s People: Apple TV+'s Slow Horses reviewed
How thriller writers must miss the Cold War! Early John le Carré and Len Deighton had it easy when trying…
If you're tired of Netflix's agendas, turn to BritBox's new Agatha Christie
Netflix’s share price has collapsed and a major factor, people are saying, is its relentless pushing of agendas. I think…
How did he even fool the Duke of Edinburgh? Netflix’s Jimmy Savile – A British Horror Story reviewed
The only impersonation I can do is my Jimmy Savile impersonation. This is not uncommon among people of my generation:…
If you want to avoid intrusive anachronisms on TV, you have to go foreign
The iron law of TV these days is that if you want to avoid series that are suffocatingly right-on the…
Enthralling and unusual – even if you don't care about Kanye: Netflix's Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy reviewed
The most disappointing pop performance I’ve ever seen – and in the course of my 15-odd years as a music…
Amusing and entertaining – though not very taxing: Amazon Prime's Reacher reviewed
Jack Reacher is back on the screen and aficionados of the hugely successful Lee Child airport thrillers in which he…
Horrifying but gripping: Netflix's The Puppet Master: Hunting the Ultimate Conman reviewed
It’s 1993 and you’re studying at a top agricultural college with a bright future ahead of you, perhaps in farming…
A dog’s breakfast but I’m rather enjoying it: Sky Atlantic's Yellowjackets reviewed
It has taken me a while to watch Yellowjacketsbecause I found the premise so offputting: in 1996 a plane carrying…
The drugs don’t work
One of my first jobs in journalism was as the arts correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. I’d hop on my…
Around the World In Eighty Days is the worst TV this Christmas
‘In many ways, Phileas Fogg represents everything that’s alarming and peculiar about that old sense of British Empire. Potentially, it’s…
