Overnite Express

A low-rent The High Life on wheels – that would be the kindest way of describing this utterly dreadful comedy from BBC Scotland. Read more

dinnerladies

Invariably, when the epithet “gentle” is thrown at a television programme, it is meant as a criticism. Unsophisticated, they mean. Without depth. For the masses. No class. Read more

Emmerdale

Standing head and shoulders above its contemporaries, Emmerdale continues to forge a lonely path as it manages to stand alone as the sole soap to juggle quality acting, quality dialogue, identifiable realism and good old fashioned entertainment without diluting the product or insulting its viewers. Read more

Fame Academy

If you adhere to the philosophy that the universe is infinite and, ergo, full of infinite possibilities then you must, by default, be of the opinion that somewhere out there is a world in which Patrick Kielty is actually entertaining, humorous and a good presenter. Read more

Inside the Mind of Paul Gascoine

Following in the footsteps of Rod Hull and Bernard Manning, this little documentary strand has proven to be a worthwhile exercise for the casual viewer. Read more

Sportscene

There are occasions when a sporting event transcends the mere confines of the playing surface within which it is occurring, when it takes on a life of its own and becomes something else entirely. Read more

Designing the Decades

Like its little brother the ’80s, the 1970′s has received a rather rough press. Crap fashion, crap music the critics carp. Well, bollocks to that. The ’70s were bloody brilliant. I know. I was there. Read more

Reborn in the USA

As the song so beautifully stated – let’s get this straight from the start. Under no circumstances can Davina McCall be considered as a suitable host for a television show. Read more

Monk

As a child growing up watching television with a fanatical fervour in the early 1970′s, I came to hate only one thing – Saturday afternoons beyond the football results as this inevitably would mean only one thing – the frickin’ rinky-dink Pink Panther. Read more

Coronation Street

With Soapland’s favourite pantomime villain de jour having committed his foul, dastardly deeds it now remains to be seen whether the writers and actors of Coronation Street have the will and also the ability to maintain this much welcomed (and, to be truthful, desperately needed) rich vein of form. Read more

The Book Group

The golden rule in our house is that you must watch an entire series before even considering condemning it. Sometimes this rule proves to be a blessing; on other occasions a damned curse. And I should have known so much better than to switch back on to The Book Group again. Read more

The League of Gentlemen

Personally, I blame my father and mother. Sins of the parents and all that. Read more

Forever Summer with Nigella

As the bellicose, tub-thumping war of words continues unabated over the scheduling of the main channel’s autumn period dramas, then surely it is only fitting that beautiful, bountious praise be sung out for the wonderful 60 minutes that sees the staggeringly successful (though, arguably, phenomenally over-rated) Nigella following on from Rick Stein on a channel-hopping Thursday evening. Read more

Rick Stein’s Food Heroes

As summer slowly, and seductively, turns to autumn and leaves fall down to splash silently on sun-dappled gardens, it is with apposite changing of the season pleasure that we welcome back the imperiously impressive Rick Stein into our sitting rooms. Read more

EastEnders

If I were to write this review in the style of current EastEnders, then halfway through I’d have completely forgotten what it was that I was originally… bugger me, what was I talking about? Read more

Snoddy

Remember these names – you may be tested later; Firstly, the debit column – and remember folks, this is the abridged version - A Kick Up the Eighties, Laugh? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee, City Lights, Pulp Video, Naked Video, All Along the Watchtower,Caledonian MacBrains and Elaine. Now, to counterbalance that horrendous litany of disastrous failures with the credit column (in its complete entirety); The Vital Spark,Scotch and Wry and… er… actually, that’s it. Read more

Behind Bars

I’ll readily confess that my sole reason for viewing Behind Bars was the salient and not entirely inconsequential fact that I’m currently employed in a prison. Read more

Lenny Henry in Pieces/French & Saunders

It’s Friday night. It’s Good Friday. Common sense would dictate that BBC1 would be pulling out (almost) all the stops to satisfy a larger audience than usual. Yet mere words cannot adequately convey just how truly bad Lenny Henry in Pieces and French & Saunders were; this combination plumbed the depths of mediocrity to a degree never before witnessed on peak time television. This was a savage indictment of the BBC. In the company of three friends I sat mesmerised for just over an hour not laughing once. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. Again and again and again. Read more

Gruth is Uachdar

The greatest tragedy of my television life in the last few years is discovering this show on the last of its run. Read more

Scotland on Film

Seems such a simple equation doesn’t it? Take some black and white archive footage and throw in some old dears to wistfully reminisce on their childhood. Read more

« Previous Page — Next Page »