TV

Doctor Who - Space Oddity

In four years time Doctor Who will be 50 years old, but still it remains one of the most popular and imagination-grabbing shows on television. While the best of British actors and television writers are lining up to work on it, the series’ first…

Doctor Who - The making of a time lord

TIMELINE Nov 1963 Doctor Who is devised as an educational science fiction show to appeal to viewers of all ages and is given an evening time slot. The screening of the first episode is overshadowed by a power cut in parts of the country and the…

TV - Remote Control: Christmas TV

Christmas is a time when TV goes mad for the long-awaited comeback. Alongside Rab C, Vic ‘n’ Bob and Stanley Baxter in making a welcome return is Alan Davies’ duffle-coated sleuth with Jonathan Creek: The Grinning Man (BBC1, Thu 1 Jan, 9pm ●●●●). And…

TV: Rab C Nesbit: Christmas Special

BBC2, Tue 23 Dec, 9pm With his dishevelled demeanour and manky string vest, Rab C Nesbitt may look exactly the same as he did when we last eyeballed him staggering from our screens in the summer of 1999, but the wise old nutter fae Govan is a…

TV: Christmas Documentaries

There used to be a programme on Channel 4 about the worst jobs in history. These tended to be dodgy careers forged in medieval or Roman times, but the modern day equivalent of leech collector could well be the department store Santa. Chris Diamond has…

Cecil B Demille: American Epic

More4, Thu 25 Dec, 1.55pm; Fri 26 Dec, 1.20pm Martin Scorsese perhaps hits the nail on the head when he admits finding it difficult to watch the movies of a number of his director heroes without experiencing pangs of regret about the political…

TV of the Year

Dexter The Miami serial killer with a heart wins Best New US Drama category with Mad Men, Damages and John Adams just behind. The Fallen An unbearably moving three-hour documentary about the British lives lost fighting the War on Terror, told by…

TV: Also on at Xmas

Doctor Who The Cybermen stalk Victorian London as the Timelord comes face to face with another Doctor. BBC1, Thu 25 Dec, 6pm. The Royal Family Two years after Nana passed away, the couch potatoes are back to have just another regular Christmas.

Beehive

COMEDY The phrase ‘all-female sketch show’ shouldn’t necessarily send a shiver down the spine, but it just does. And before anyone says Smack the Pony I’ll trump you with Tittybangbang. But maybe things are changing. After a good Fringe for female…

Remote Control

There are a few gossipy titbits in showbusiness that are generally read as fact. Madonna and Guy were not quite made for each other. Jordan isn’t the sharpest nailfile in the drawer. And the Jackson family is, well, a bit weird. Wacko you might say.

Paterson Joseph tipped to replace David Tennant as Doctor Who

With David 'Doctor Who' Tennant ready to leave the building, actor Paterson Joseph, who has been hotly tipped to replace him. Joseph, known for his role as Johnson in Channel 4 comedy Peep Show and who appeared in two Doctor Who episodes in 2005…

Remote Control

When reading the brief synopsis of The Fallen (BBC2, Sat 15 Nov, 9.05pm) ••••• your worldview may determine how you approach this documentary: ‘a powerful and poignant film in which families and friends of those who have died fighting in Afghanistan and…

Derren Brown: The Specials

(4DVD) 196min Almost five years ago to the week that Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were threatened with being burnt at the stake, another witch-hunt was conducted for another man merely seeking to thrill us. In October 2003, Derren Brown asked a…

The Devil’s Whore

DRAMA Having coped admirably with the distasteful task of bringing the early political career of Margaret Thatcher to fruition during The Long Walk to Finchley, Andrea Riseborough steps into the shoes of another headstrong historical female. Born…

A History of Scotland

BBC1, Sun 9 Nov, 9pm

Following recent criticism about the lack of native history being taught in Scottish schools and widespread whinging about BBC Scotland spending increasingly less cash on home-grown fare, the corporation has risen to both challenges with this ambitious…

Remote Control

A worrying trend has developed in recent times: folk better known for doing other things have begun reinventing themselves as TV documentary-makers. From Louise Reknapp's psuedo-journalistic investigation into the phenomenon of size zero models to…

Dead Set - Charlie Brooker

In George A Romero’s seminal 1980 horror Dawn of the Dead, a group of mismatched survivors of the zombie apocalypse take shelter in a deserted mall. Famously, the film is Romero’s thinly veiled up-yours to consumerist Western society, to the ‘zombies…

Mum Heroin and Me

DOCUMENTARY A loving mother is driving her daughter into town for a special 21st birthday treat. In between a massage and hairdresser appointment, Hannah asks her mum to make a quick stop. But she’s not popping to the shops for a chocolate bar or a…

Remote Control

In the bad old days of film and television, it was commonplace to see a white actor blacking up to play a part for which it was presumably deemed that no one from within that racial group was capable of taking. Happily, those days have gone, though a…

The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall

DRAMA In January 2004, British photography student Tom Hurndall died after being left in a coma for nine months, the victim of a bullet fired by a member of the Israeli Defence Force. The fact that the killer, Taysir Hayb, was handed an 11-year…

Remote Control

With the USA on the brink of its most epoch-making presidential election since the one four years ago, chances are that Afghan cable networks and Iraqi terrestrial channels will be doing their utmost to ignore the ensuing bunfight between Barack and…

Remote Control

Older viewers may recall Christina Applegate as the slightly slutty teenage airhead from annoying 80s US sitcom Married with Children. And should you have not seen the cinematic likes of Anchorman or Employee of the Month in the intervening years, you…

Autumn Television

Britain is in utter chaos. The dead have returned to life and are attacking the living who, once deceased, then get up and do some more killing. The only people unaware of this horrendous phenomenon are the occupants of the Big Brother household. But…

Merlin

DRAMA It would perhaps be unfair to describe this new BBC1 post-teatime ‘is it ok to let the kids watch?’ show as ‘Robin Hood meets Doctor Who’, but you can see what the schedulers were going for when they plopped this fresh take on the Arthurian…