AE on Telly News (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

Many of you have asked me to check out Cranford (London Live) and while I can recommend this as a gentle diversion for those of advancing years, one's enjoyment is ruined by the fear of French and Saunders leaping into shot at any moment.

[Hatty]

Faking Hitler (Walter Presents) on Channel 4 is very entertaining though the first episode's levity, verging on farce, while making it very watchable downplays the criminality. Perhaps that's a good thing.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The NCIS franchise and spin offs Los, Angeles, New Orleans, Hawaii must be quaking. New rival Death in Paradise Saint Marie, has come up with Death In Paradise Shipton Abbot. For those of you that are worried that it might not be as good as the original, fear not, it is actually identical to the original, only set in Shipton Abbot, and without a cute leggy sidekick who looks like Merlene Otty, so I guess she won't be as good at chasing criminals.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Coastal Defenders (BBC2)

A small shout-out for this unheralded off-peak series. It has to be a small one because despite this being on BBC2 and despite it being "the most dangerous job in Britain" the artsy-fartsy programme makers insist on (a) providing a relentless musical sound track but (b) not providing a diagram to show us what's actually going on. For fear presumably they will lose their audience. Anoraks who like this sort of thing. Yes, they've got our number.

[Mick Harper]

The Billionaires Who Make Our World (Channel 4)

Quite an important matter.
We thought so.
Who are you going to start the series off with?
Jeff Bezos.
Good choice. He's remade the world and no mistake.
We thought so.
How will you start the programme off?
A longish interview with a disaffected New Yorker who, despite working for Amazon for five years and becoming an assistant manager, badmouthed them to hell.
What then?
We thought we would emphasise the difference between this poor African-American from Staten Island and Jeff Bezos.
I suppose the latter being a billionaire, there would be a difference.
We thought so.
But in terms of Bezos's effect on the world, I can't see the connection.
The commissioning department of Channel 4 is composed of left-wing twerps. That's the connection.

[Mick Harper]

Police Procedural Tips

You are a young but thoughtful detective sergeant with a well known police force in the Thames Valley. You are investigating a suspicious death associated with a local orchestra.

1. Watching a performance of said orchestra from backstage, you witness the first violinist in mid-recital suddenly stand up, stagger a few steps, then keel over. You bide your time.
2. The conductor turns to the audience and says, "Is there a doctor in the house?" You bide your time.
3. The chief pathologist for the Thames Valley, with whom you work on a daily basis, happens to be in the audience and makes his way to the stricken violinist. You bide your time.
4. "She's dead," the pathologist announces. You turn and leave the scene with a thoughtful expression.

[Mick Harper]

Has anyone noticed the startling resemblance between the young Morse and Sir Keir Starmer? The dates don't match particularly well but we must remember cryogenics was in its infancy then.

[Grant]

And why haven’t the detectives noticed that their Chief Super is twenty years beyond the then compulsory retirement age?

[Mick Harper]

Oxford PD. They're a law unto themselves. Though still subject to the law: "Never open a series with an episode directed by the lead actor." They're two different things: director of TV drama, director of public prosecutions.

[Mick Harper]

Unforgotten (ITV-1)

This has been going yonks and all I remember about it was that it was a bit gloomy and a bit ploddy (in both senses) and I gave up on it yonks ago. But everyone keeps raving about it so I dutifully watched Episode One of Series Five and found it exceptionally gloomy and exceptional ploddy. With the added bonus there doesn't seem to be anyone you can identify with, they're so uniformly dull (quick CID joke there). Or even root for except, I suppose, Sanjeev Bhaskar on the grounds he used to be a comic and is now an exceptionally gloomy plod.

I wouldn't mind if it was set in Wales or Brendablethynland, but it seems to be Hammersmith. Even the Portobello got a mention. So I'll have to watch Episode Two in case the murderer is anyone I know.

[Mick Harper]

There was a battle of the giants on Newsnight when Mathew Syed (table tennis) squared up to Alastair Campbell (Burnley) over Gary Lineker (Leicester and England) with third man in the ring Victoria (Derbyshire). Every time I hear Campbell in action I am alarmed to think he ran Britain for many years. It is not him being a blowhard I mind (I'm one myself) but his total inability to see the thread. He just allows his own political sympathies (pro-Lineker in this case) to blaze his way through everything and everyone. And of that there is no doubt he is quite talented.

Syed -- who shares Campbell's political predilections down to the last liberal jot and tittle -- is something of an intellectual and was able to throw some light on the situation. Not that I necessarily agreed with him -- we intellectuals rarely agree with one another. It is true the Great British Public do not pay their licence fee to be lectured to on migration policy by the likes of Mr Lineker but they still buy his crisps.

[Mick Harper]

Police Suspect No 1 (Channel 5)

So two men hijack a woman motorist's car at knife point in Norwich. Then they start chasing inquisitive Norfolk farming families with shotguns. When their car gets bogged down in a field they start firing the shotgun into the nearest bungalow forcing the housewife to give them the keys to her Passat. They disappear into the gloaming.

The police response? All in a day's work, so a detective sergeant is put in charge of the case. Respect, East Anglia!

[Wile E. Coyote]

"Better" BBC i player.

This is better than most things on BBC. It's like the Harvey Keitel film, Bad Lieutenant, in that you are jarringly invited into the soul of a dirty corrupt cop but, whereas in the Ferrara film he signals the cop's demons with gambling, porn and booze, our anti-hero in Better, Lou Slack (best cop name in ages!), is a super sensible boring type of copper. In fact she has a nice 3 bed, along with husband and gay son, supported by her criminality. So, like Bad Lieutenant, this is about the cop's personal redemption but in "Better" Lou, rather than spiralling out of control, tries to take advice from a fallen saviour figure, disgraced former cop Vernon Marley. Is Lou past redemption? Would nailing drug baron, hard man and former friend, Col McHugh, constitute redemption, or is the system so corrupt and broken that all actions are now futile?

Memorable ending.

[Mick Harper]

Villages by the Sea -- Lindisfarne (BBC4)

I decided to slum it.