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Blue Peter

Monday, July 3, 2006 by · Comments Off 

For all the armies of faces that have marched across teatime screens down the decades, very few have ever possessed the secret of contemporary children’s telly. Read more

Family Affairs

Friday, December 30, 2005 by · Comments Off 

It’s rare these days to be present at the very end of a TV programme’s life.

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The Comic Strip Presents… Sex Actually

Wednesday, December 28, 2005 by · Comments Off 

Television revivals are difficult to pull off. Sometimes, if enough thought has gone into it and the wind is blowing in the right direction, a one-time laughing stock can be reborn as a massive ratings hit, heaped with praise and hailed as the saviour of Saturday night television. Other times, you can just end up with The Legacy of Reginald Perrin. Read more

Pete and Dud – The Lost Tapes

Monday, December 26, 2005 by · Comments Off 

Sometimes, giving a little context to repeats of old television shows can be a very useful thing. Read more

Doctor Who

Sunday, December 25, 2005 by · Comments Off 

So “The Christmas Invasion” then. Perhaps the only episode of Doctor Who in the last 20 or so years not designed to stand up to the rigours of the home video (let alone DVD recorder with hard drive) age – and that’s possibly as it should be. Read more

OFI Sunday

Sunday, November 27, 2005 by · Comments Off 

It’s one thing fronting a TV programme that’s been so intensely ill-conceived it doesn’t even have a proper ending. Read more

Little Britain

Thursday, November 17, 2005 by · Comments Off 

You always become the thing you hate. We’ve all had this conversation at some point: You’re talking about a famous band, and some tiresome individual hogs the discussion by insisting that, “They were much better before they became mainstream”. Read more

Hell’s Kitchen USA

Monday, November 7, 2005 by · Comments Off 

In the end, it was the short ribs oso buco with roasted red garnet yams that won it for Michael. So all that talking to a 12-foot billboard of Gordon Ramsay at 3am in the morning finally paid off. Read more

Deal Or No Deal?

Monday, November 7, 2005 by · Comments Off 

Who’s the best when it comes to handling a telephone on television? Read more

Countdown

Monday, October 31, 2005 by · Comments Off 

It had long become the case that you could tell exactly what type of Countdown was on the cards by the precise kind of fanciful countenance struck by Richard Whiteley in the show’s opening seconds. Read more

The West Wing

Friday, October 21, 2005 by · Comments Off 

An ex-alcoholic and a wizened septuagenarian with a heart problem running the most powerful country on earth? Read more

Afterlife

Saturday, October 8, 2005 by · Comments Off 

Broadcasting a drama serial which deals with issues of psychology and paranormal in primetime Saturday night deserves brownie points. Read more

Sunday AM

Sunday, October 2, 2005 by · Comments Off 

We all know Andrew Marr’s an ace political journalist and a pretty fine writer to boot. But why try to persuade us he can be a nifty presenter as well? Read more

Arena: Dylan in the Madhouse

Wednesday, September 28, 2005 by · Comments Off 

“Come gather round, people, and hear what I say, ’bout the time Bob Dylan was in a BBC play, we’d all like to see it but they threw it away, and the tape it is a-missing”. Read more

Zippy and George’s Puppet Legends

Saturday, September 17, 2005 by · Comments Off 

For some reason you just don’t seem to get a decent quality of puppet on the television these days. The kind of fuzzy-felt stars in this rundown simply cannot be matched by the lacklustre ones that appear on the television all too rarely now. Read more

49 Up

Thursday, September 15, 2005 by · Comments Off 

A considerable amount of glitter came out of the TV set during ITV’s birthday celebrations. Read more

Spooks

Tuesday, September 13, 2005 by · Comments Off 

If awards were handed out for prescience, BAFTA would lob the cast and crew of Spooks the keys to their annual gong show and instruct them to switch off the lights just as soon as they were done. Read more

Sunday Past Times

Sunday, September 11, 2005 by · Comments Off 

Remember when television used to look forward to the future? Now it’s all about living in the past. Read more

Election ’87

Monday, September 5, 2005 by · Comments Off 

The BBC’s exit poll from the 1992 General Election always gets slammed as the most inaccurate political prediction TV has ever made. Read more

Arena at 30

Saturday, September 3, 2005 by · Comments Off 

Of all the ways to celebrate your 30th birthday, proffering viewers a couple of scanned pages from Broadcast magazine is perhaps erring a little too much on the wrong side of decency. Read more

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