UK TV

An archive of blog entries about UK TV programmes and production.

UK TV

Review: Ashes to Ashes 1×4

29 February 2008 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

 

How’d that happen? I wasn’t intending to do episode by episode reviews of Ashes to Ashes, but here I am, reviewing it. Probably won’t happen next week, but who knows?

New theory, boys and girls. Forget Life on Mars. This isn’t Life on Mars in the 80s. This isn’t an attempt to look at changes in policing over the last couple of decades as I thought yesterday – or if it is, it’s a bad one. This is an attempt to do an episode by episode pastiche of individual crime shows of the 80s.

Life on Mars only had The Sweeney (and maybe Special Branch) to have a go at, and was all about changes in procedure and attitude. Ashes to Ashes is all about a TV-addicted woman who wants to be in an 80s detective show, probably Moonlighting. 

Help me with this theory since it’s on slightly shaky ground. These are the shows I think Ashes to Ashes has been sending up so far

Episode 1: The A-Team, Miami Vice or at the outside Riptide
Episode 2: Anyone?
Episode 3: Prime Suspect I (which was 1991 admittedly)
Episode 4: Edge of Darkness

I’ve come to this conclusion because last night’s episode was the biggest homage to Edge of Darkness that the world has yet seen.

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Review: iTunes – the Life on Mars download experience

28 February 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

So downloads are all the rage now. Big Finish, which makes those Doctor Who audio plays, has set up a downloads service (they still haven’t got back to me about those missing extras, BTW, so I’m going to assume you don’t get the CD extras with the downloads, making them even less attractive).

The BBC, after doing ever so nicely with its iPlayer, has leapt onto the Apple bandwagon as well by putting various shows onto iTunes, including Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars, Torchwood and more. I’ve had little interest in the iTunes TV service until now – cos it’s mostly been shows that are rubbish or aimed at kids. But with Stu_N suggesting I was wearing rose-tinted glasses in my recall of Life on Mars, I decided to give iTunes a try and download the first series.

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UK TV

Review: Torchwood 2×7 – Dead Man Walking

28 February 2008 Rob Buckley 20 Comments

Firstly, a quick word about the Torchwood reviews. Obviously, it’s all getting a bit tricky now that BBC3 is airing the next episode directly after the current BBC2 episode, and BBC America is a couple of weeks behind BBC2. So my general reviewing policy will be to review on Thursdays the episode of Torchwood that aired on BBC2 on Wednesday night. I’ll also keep the spoilers until after the turn.

I figure that people who can only watch the BBC2 episode will then be able to read the review the next day without having to hunt for it with the search engine; people who watched the BBC3 episode will be able to read the review on the front page as well, but the following week; and Americans, well, it’s probably search engine for you guys, but I’ll hopefully not be spoiling you. That’s probably the most equitable arrangement and it does mean I won’t have to stay up late to watch the BBC3 episode, but can watch it at my leisure.

Dead Man Walking then. I believe last week we left the official verdict at: 

Ahahahahah. I’ve seen next week’s. Ahahahahahahaha.

[Pause]

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And that’s still a pretty robust verdict. All the same, far from the worst episode of Torchwood there’s ever been.

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