Impossibly exciting: Sky Atlantic's ZeroZeroZero reviewed
ZeroZeroZero is the impossibly exciting new drugs series from Roberto Saviano — the author who gave us perhaps my all-time…
You'll wish you were gay: Channel 4's It's a Sin reviewed
To promote his new drama series about Aids in the early 1980s, Russell T. Davies insisted in an interview that…
Like trying to understand some obscure but fashionable meme: WandaVision reviewed
‘What the world needs now is a black and white pastiche of classic 1950s and 1960s sitcoms reviving two Marvel…
Superb but depraved: BBC1’s The Serpent reviewed
The Serpent is the best BBC drama series in ages — god knows how it slipped through the net —…
Netflix's Barbarians taught me those Romans had it coming
Of all the times and places to have been on the wrong side of history, I can’t imagine many worse…
Media Notes
Where are all the journalists? Please could someone just clarify a point of law for me: is theft no longer…
I could have directed it better: Steve McQueen's Small Axe reviewed
Unlike with every other BBC period drama series these days, I didn’t have to sit through Small Axe: Mangrove grumbling…
The Crown's depiction of Thatcher is grotesque
My favourite The Crown blooper so far was the one recently spotted by a Telegraph reader: ‘As Head of the…
Did any of this actually happen? The Crown, season four, reviewed
‘We have to stop it now!’ says Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter), smoking another cigarette, obviously. She’s talking about the…
Has Spitting Image ever been funny?
Thank you, Spitting Image, for the nostalgia trip! Your new series on BritBox has rekindled with almost Proustian fidelity those…
Is AppleTV's Tehran the new Fauda?
If you love Fauda — and of course you do — you’re in for a long wait for season four,…
Sick, puerile, inappropriate and delicious: Amazon Prime's The Boys reviewed
There’s a delicious scene in the new season of Amazon’s superheroes-gone-bad series The Boys. The chief superhero Homelander (Antony Starr)…
The TV we feared they’d never dare make any more: The Singapore Grip reviewed
‘Art is dead,’ declared Mark Steyn recently. He was referring to the new rules — copied from the Baftas —…
A sadistic delight: World’s Toughest Race – Eco-Challenge Fiji reviewed
Few things better capture the crazed cognitive dissonance of our age than this: that while we cower behind masks for…
The joy of an illegal rave
Every time I read that Britain’s anti-coronavirus measures are being jeopardised by a ‘small minority of senseless individuals’ holding illegal…
Ludicrous – and the makers know it: Sky One's Prodigal Son reviewed
‘By the way, my name is Max. I take care of them, which ain’t easy, because their hobby is murder.’…
Lockdown notes
A good war Who could ever have imagined that the greatest act of rebellion in the second decade of the…
The only things left worth watching on the BBC are foreign buy-ins like The Last Wave
Soon, very soon now — even sooner than I imagined, if A Suitable Boy turns out to be as lacklustre…
Why I love French telly
There’s a scene in the French espionage series The Bureau — about the DGSE, France’s equivalent of the CIA or…
Trump shouldn’t wear a mask
Next time Donald Trump poses for a photo call in one of those ridiculous, unnecessary and completely off-brand face masks,…
Pure poison: BBC1’s Talking Heads reviewed
The big mistake people make with Alan Bennett is to conflate him with his fellow Yorkshireman David Hockney. But whereas…
Dystopian notes
Albion is toast Australia: will you take me? You’ve always been high on my list of escape destinations when everything…
Jeffrey Epstein really was a streak of slime
Did Jeffrey Epstein kill himself or was he murdered — and frankly who cares? Actually, having watched the four-part Netflix…
I so wanted to enjoy White Lines but it's spectacularly uninvolving
If I could live my life over again my plan used to be that I’d make my fortune very early,…
Netflix’s Caliphate is all too frighteningly plausible
Sweden is now properly celebrated as the Land that Called Coronavirus Correctly. But in the distant past, those with long…
